Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1920-04-03

want you to take my Croix de
Guerre. When I go nowhere"
Even when speech returned TO the
Individual he was man Of curt re-
sponSes and stinging monosyllabeS-
problem t. the surg cons, a problem
to the nurses and (if the expression in
his eyes meant anything), an over
whelming problem to himself. 1t ap-
peared that, after all. 1t wasn't simply
women that he hated-it was the uni
verse
His military book implied that he
had no parents, no close relations, no
friends TO notify, no fixed abode. He
received no visitors. no letters, no
packages freighted with magical de-
light. But TO those who pitied him in
all his loneliness he was utterly con-
temptuous; he even went so far as to
flip sidelong TO the floor religious
post card rendered him by a devOut
and sentimental pasSerby. and he did
ii in her presence, sunashamed. Ii ter,
when smiling orderly picked up that
post card and tucked 1t under his pill
low he was no less cOntemptuous in
permitting it to remain. But the one
stupendous fact which, more than all
else combined. made him an object of
bewildered curiosity was this-that OF
the scores and scores of men with
head-wOunds who were reborn at Neu-
lily that spring and summer, he was
the only one who had never asked for
a mirror.
This. OF itself. wouldn't have been
astonishing as long as he delayed In
the preliminary stages of recovery, for
now and then a man with head-w0unds
proves to be representative but in
the second stage it was remarkable
and IN the third stage it was unique.
The staff held Ii to be extraordinary
from social as well as from path
illogical viewpoint, that a man so ter
ribIy disfigured should have No inter
est-nOt even a morbid nterest-in
his own appearance. And it wasn't
that the individual was simply indif-
ferent to the mirror on the contrary,
his aversion 10 It was active and ener-
getic; he flinched. and motioned II
frantically away as though the mere
conception of seeing himself as others
saw him was too repellant. and too
unthlnkable 10 endure.
There came a day in April when
photograph was requested of him.
Surely he knew where there was a
likeness of himself. didn't he7 His
old passport photograph, which had
mysteriously disappeared, or
The Individual glanced up from his
present task; the wound In mis- arm
was still annoying and he was ali
sorbed in learning to write with his
left hand.
WHAT tor?" ne muttered.
"Why," said the nurse, cheerfully,
"for a model To help the surgeons.
They'll take your picture for guide
and make you look almost exactly the
way you did before"
The Individual from America sat up
straight, so that the nurse YVES startled
by his animation. which was without
a parallel in his local history.
What" he said.
Certainly :" The nurse spoke IN
the tone one uses to an ailing child.
you've known that, haven't you?"
The Individuals voice was queerly
unmanageable and strained. You
mean to say they're going to make me
look the way Could they do that?
Could they9 Even now?'
"Why. Of course she assured him.
"You never told me that" he said
passionatelv why didn't you? WHY
couldn't you have told me. And here
I've been He put his hands 10
hts banda=ed face and emed 20
shrink within himself. Then al. q, once