His
two years and more of attendance at a Northern school had widened
and deepened his manhood as well as increased his knowledge, and
the charge of the school at Red Wing had completed the work there
begun. His self-consciousness had diminished, and it no longer
required the spur of intense excitement to make him forget his
affliction. His last injuries had made him even more helpless, when
separated from his rolling-chair, but his life had been too full
to enable him to dwell upon his weakness so constantly as formerly.
In Nimbus there was a change even more apparent. Gray hairs,
a bowed form, a furrowed face, and that sort of furtive wildness
which characterizes the man long hunted by his enemies, had taken
the place of his former unfearing, bull-fronted ruggedness. His
spirit was broken. He no longer looked to the future with abounding
hope, careless of its dangers.
"Yer's growed away from me, Bre'er 'Liab," he said at length, when
they had held each other's hands and looked into each other's faces
for a long time. "Yer wouldn't know how ter take a holt o' Nimbus
ter hev him tote yer roun', now. Yer's growed away from him--clean
away," he added sadly.
"You, too, have changed, Brother Nimbus," said Eliab soothingly.
"Yes, I'se changed, ob co'se; but not as you hez, Bre'er 'Liab. Dis
h'yer ole shell hez changed. Nimbus couldn't tote yer roun' like
he used.
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