It 's no use trying to make a bad job better ; so the long and short of it was , I thought she loved me ; God knows I loved her ! and I married her before the year was out . '' `` Show us her picture ; I know you 've got one ; all the fellows have , though half of 'em wo n't own up . '' `` I 've only got part of one . I once saved my little girl , and her picture once saved me . '' From an inner pocket Thorn produced a woman 's housewife , carefully untied it , though all its implements were missing but a little thimble , and from one of its compartments took a flattened bullet and the remnants of a picture . `` I gave her that the first Christmas after I found her . She was n't as tidy about her clothes as I liked to see , and I thought if I gave her a handy thing like this , she 'd be willing to sew . But she only made one shirt for me , and then got tired , so I keep it like an old fool , as I am . Yes , that 's the bit of lead that would have done for me , if Mary 's likeness had n't been just where it was . '' `` You 'll like to show her this when you go home , wo n't you ? '' said Dick , as he took up the bullet , while Phil examined the marred picture , and Thorn poised the little thimble on his big finger , with a sigh . `` How can I , when I do n't know where she is , and camp is all the home I 've got ! '' The words broke from him like a sudden groan , when some old wound is rudely touched . Both of the young men started , both laid back the relics they had taken up , and turned their eyes from Thorn 's face , across which swept a look of shame and sorrow , too significant to be misunderstood . Their silence assured him of their sympathy , and , as if that touch of friendliness unlocked his heavy heart , he eased it by a full confession . When he spoke again , it was with the calmness of repressed emotion , a calmness more touching to his mates than the most passionate outbreak , the most pathetic lamentation ; for the coarse camp-phrases seemed to drop from his vocabulary ; more than once his softened voice grew tremulous , and to the words `` my little girl , '' there went a tenderness that proved how dear a place she still retained in that deep heart of his . `` Boys , I 've gone so far ; I may as well finish ; and you 'll see I 'm not without some cause for my stern looks and ways ; you 'll pity me , and from you I 'll take the comfort of it . It 's only the old story , -- I married her , worked for her , lived for her , and kept my little girl like a lady . I should have known that I was too old and sober for a young thing like that , for the life she led before the pinch came just suited her .
She liked to be admired , to dress and dance and make herself pretty for all the world to see ; not to XXXXX house for a quiet man like me .
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