I felt my kindred with every one of them. They
had more steel in their nerves and more iron in their blood than
other men. Not a man cared a straw for his life, so he saved from
wrong and bondage the lives of them that should come after him.
That day's work raised hope in every man's heart through the land.
Said I not well that it was the most glorious of my life?
I have but little more to say. I have said more than I meant to,
more perhaps than was wise to say of my own glory. But the thought
of those brave days of old makes one too talkative.
I must tell you, however, how I at last came here. Judah Loring
brought me home safe; he was a very honest fellow, and seeing the
initials scratched on my butt-end, and 'Lexington' underneath, he
went there on purpose to find to whom I belonged.
My friend William claimed me, and I was again placed behind the old
clock in the little parlor. His mother looked very calm, and almost
happy, but not as she once did; she sighed heavily when William
brought me home. William's wound in his arm healed after a while,
but his arm was disabled. By great self-denial and exertion, his
mother had got him into college, and he was to be a schoolmaster.
The sight of me was painful to this good woman, and she gave me to
uncle John who kept me safely and, on the whole, honorably till his
son placed me here.
There is one disgrace I have met with which, in good faith, however
unwillingly, I ought to mention.
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