He was a tall,
slightly bent, white-haired man, apparently once a man of physical
strength and dominance of character and with the outer markings of a
gentleman, but now seemingly a mere shadow of the forceful man of his
prime. As a matter of fact, Joe Ellison had barely escaped that
greatest of prison scourges, tuberculosis.
The roses were given over to his care. For a few brief years during
the height of his prosperity he had owned a small place in New Jersey
and during that period had seemingly been the country gentleman.
Flowers had been his hobby; so that now he could have had no work
which would have more suited him than this guardianship of the roses.
For himself he desired no better thing than to spend what remained of
his life in this sunlit privacy and communion with growing things.
He gripped Larry's hand when they were first alone in the little
cottage. "Thanks, Larry; I'll not forget this," he said. He said
little else. He did not refer to his prison life, or what had gone
before it. He had never asked Larry, even while in prison together,
about Larry's previous activities and associates; and he asked no
questions now. Apparently it was the desire of this silent man to have
the bones of his own past remain buried, and to leave undisturbed the
graves of others' mistakes.
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