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Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946

"Ramsey Milholland"

"
She had always felt so superior to him, she shuddered as she thought of
it. His quiet had been so much better than her talk. His intelligence
was proven now, when it came to the great test, to be of a stronger sort
than hers. He was wise and good and gentle--and a fighting man! "We know
what they've done to this country and what they mean to do to ours. So
we're going to attend to them." She read this over, and she knew that
Ramsey, wise and gentle and good, would fight like an unchained devil,
and that he and his comrades would indeed and indeed do what they "came
for."
"It wasn't you," he said. She nodded gently, agreeing, and knew what it
was that sent him. Yet Ramsey had his own secret there, and did not tell
it. Sometimes there rose, faint in his memory, a whimsical picture, yet
one that had always meant much to him. He would see an old man sitting
with a little boy upon a rustic bench under a walnut tree to watch the
"Decoration Day Parade" go by--and Ramsey would see a shoot of sunshine
that had somehow got through the walnut tree and made a bedazzlement of
glinting fine lines over a spot about the size of a saucer, upon the old
man's thick white hair.


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