ork ye can gie
him that he'll be able tae do. A' richt--that's splendid, and it's
what maun be done. But never let him know you're thinking at a' that
his leg's gone. Mak' him feel like ithers. We maun no' be reminding
the laddies a' the time that they're different noo frae ither folk.
That's the hard thing.

Gi'en a man's had sic a misfortune. We know--it's been proved a
thousand times ower--that a man can rise above sic trouble. But he
canno do it if he's thinking of it a' the time. The men that have
overcome the handicaps of blindness and deformity are those who gie no
thought at all to what ails them--who go aboot as if they were as well
and as strong as ever they've been.

It's a hard thing not to be heeding such things.

But it's easier than what these laddies have had to do, and what they
must go on doing a' the rest of their lives. They'll not be able to
forget their troubles very long; there'll be plenty to remind them.
But let's not gae aboot the streets wi' our een like a pair of looking
glasses in which every puir laddie sees himsel' reflected.

It's like the case of the lad that's been sair wounded aboot the head;
that's had his face sae mangled and torn that he'd be a repulsive
sicht were it not for the way that he became sae. If he'd been
courting a lassie before he was hurt wadna the thought of how she'd be
feeling aboot him be amang his wairst troubles while he lay in
hospital? I've talked wi' such, and I know.

Noo, it's a hard thing to see the face one loves changed and altered
and made hideous. But it's no sae hard as to have tha face! Who wull
say it is? And we maun be carefu' wi' such boys as that, tae. They're
verra sensitive; all those that have been hurt are sensitive. It's
easy to wound their feelings. And it should be easy for all of us to
enter into a conspiracy amang ourselves to hide the shock of surprise
we canna help feeling, whiles, and do nothing that can make a lad-die
wha's fresh frae the hospital grow bitter over the thocht that he's
nae like ither men the noo.

Yon's a bit o' a sermon I've been preaching, I'm afraid. But, oh,
could ye ha' seen the laddies as I ha' seen them, in the hospitals,
and afterward, when they were waiting tae gae hame! They wad ask me
sae often did I think their ain folk could stand seeing them sae
changed.

"Wull it be sae hard for them, Harry?" they've said the me, over and
over again. "Whiles I've thocht it would ha' been better had I stayed
oot