New England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Short stories
In this pleasant, weedy corner is a little white stone, not so long
erected. "I shall arise in thine image," runs the inscription; and
reading it, you shall remember that the dust within belonged to a
little hunchback, who played the fiddle divinely, and had beseeching
eyes. With that cry he escaped from the marred conditions of the clay.
Here, too (for this is a sort of bachelor nook), is the grave of a man
whom we unconsciously thrust into a permanent masquerade. Years and
years ago he broke into a house,--an unknown felony in our quiet
limits,--and was incontinently shot. The burglar lost his arm, and went
about at first under a cloud of disgrace and horror, which became, with
healing of the public conscience, a veil of sympathy. After his brief
imprisonment indoors, during the healing of the mutilated stump, he
came forth among us again, a man sadder and wiser in that he had
learned how slow and sure may be the road to wealth. He had sown his
wild oats in one night's foolish work, and now he settled down to doing
such odd jobs as he might with one hand. We got accustomed to his loss.
Those of us who were children when it happened never really discovered
that it was disgrace at all; we called it misfortune, and no one said
us nay. Then one day it occurred to us that he must have been shot "in
the war," and so, all unwittingly to himself, the silent man became a
hero. We accepted him. He was part of our poetic time, and when he
died, we held him still in remembrance among those who fell worthily.
When Decoration Day was first observed in Tiverton, one of us thought
of him, and dropped some apple blossoms on his grave; and so it had its
posy like the rest, although it bore no flag. It was the doctor who set
us right there. "I wouldn't do that," he said, withholding the hand of
one unthinking child; and she took back her flag. But she left the
blossoms, and, being fond of precedent, we still do the same; unless we
stop to think, we know not why. You may say there is here some perfidy
to the republic and the honored dead, or at least some laxity of
morals. We are lax, indeed, but possibly that is why we are so kind. We
are not willing to "hurt folks' feelings" even when they have migrated
to another star; and a flower more or less from the overplus given to
men who made the greater choice will do no harm, tossed to one whose
soul may be sitting, like Lazarus, at their riches' gate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account