The cut across my forehead healed quickly. Resting from all tasks, my eyes regained their strength without relapse.
I had visitors. Several of the men from college came down each day. I had not known there were so many persons who cared. Braley was among them, once—and he sat and twisted his hat and said nothing. Whether or not his friendship is worth anything to me, I have made a friend of him. Once or twice, since then, he has tried to speak of the trick which he and Sayer attempted, but I have stopped him. There is no need of going over that.
Only, a few days after I went to the hospital, there was a long and flowery retraction published in the college newspaper, inviting all freshmen "of whatever race or creed to enter the editorial competition, with the assurance that the most democratic principles would prevail."
At any rate, when Frank Cohen ran in to see me, on his way home, a few days later, I advised him to re-enter the contest. Frank, with a freshman's capacity for hero worship, leaped to act on my advice.
"And hurry up back to college," he said, with a little catch in his voice. "There are twenty other Jewish underclassmen who want the same sort of counsel from you. You see—they didn't know they had a leader—and they do need one!"
It is not part of the tale, perhaps, but I cannot help intruding the fact that Frank was the first freshman to be elected to the editorial board of the college paper—and that, in his senior year, he became its managing editor.
My aunt came, too. I had been secretly expecting her—hoping, perhaps, for no especial reason, that she would come.
She wept a little at the sight of my healing scar. It was a long while since I had seen her, and it shocked me—she looked so worn. She clung to my hand for several minutes before she would speak.