Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/350

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FROM THE LIFE


to pay for a "suitable memorial" of the tragedy; and the list of subscribers, as published in the morning paper, began magnificently with the names of William D. Bradford and McPhee Harris. It was Bradford, as president of the Wickson Memorial Committee, who formally handed over the completed monument to the Mayor at its unveiling; and he stood, proudly modest, on the wooden platform, before the transfixed figure of Wickson turned to bronze, while the Mayor felicitated himself and the city upon "the possession in our midst of a citizen whose public spirit puts him always in the forefront of every public movement to—to beautify, to—to elevate—to raise the tone of our public life both by his private benefactions and his activity as a citizen of the public life of our city."

Wickson's white-haired mother, a little deaf, on the back row of the platform seats, heard the burst of applause, thought the Mayor was speaking of her son, and wiped a flattered tear from her cheek.

The bronze face of her son, above them all, remained exaltedly impassive. Arnett had done him from his early photographs, before worry and illness had hardened the lines of his face. He stood on his granite pedestal, sacrificially erect, with one arm doubled across the small of his back to grasp the other at the elbow in a characteristic attitude that made him look as if he were waiting to

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