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BROKEN RIBS
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pride rushes through my veins as when I watched him, from the grand-stand of cheering people that November day long ago, scramble out from beneath the pile of some dozen human beings and start out on that record run of his. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty yards (would he slip by them all?) twenty-five . . . thirty . . . almost half way across that field, and fall with a thud finally, tackled squarely around his waist, five yards from the goal posts! With a broken rib, too, we learned later! The tears streamed shamelessly down my cheeks that day as the band swelled and the grand-stand roared with my brother's name. It seemed to me, during Burr's struggle for Elsie's health and happiness, that he was putting up as grim and invincible a fight as in that game of his years ago on the gridiron. He hung on tight to his place in the law firm. Doctors' and nurses' bills were as constant an item in his early married life as food and rent. The DeForrests were not financially fortunate, and Father, in spite of my pleadings, would help only with rent. Burr worked nights and Sundays to make good in that law firm, and denied himself all sorts of customary luxuries—new suits of clothes, socks, ties even.

My brother seldom talked to me intimately after his marriage. I do remember one evening,