“We were almost back to the jail with our second load, and I was just beginning to think we might pull this off, when Uncle Wiggens wandered into the street.'Who there?' he called out, his words slurred.Emma ducked behind a tree, but I didn't move fast enough. 'Is that you, Dit?'I nodded. Something was strange about him.'What you doing out so late at night?' he asked.'Nothing.' I figured out what was strange. 'Where's your leg?' I asked. His leg ended at the knee and he was hopping along on one leg and his cane.'Left it at home,' said Uncle Wiggens. 'Always do when I'm sleepwalking. My daughter warned me about drinking a whole bottle of whiskey in one sitting. But I was never one to let a woman tell me what to do.''Yeah. Me neither.''Well,' said Uncle Wiggens, 'I'd best get on home before I wake up.''Yeah.''Being without my leg and all.''That would be embarrassing.''Sure would. Sure would.' Uncle Wiggens mumbled to himself as he wandered off. 'General Lee always said, if you ain't got all your supplies, don't ride into battle. Course he meant bullets, but he wouldn't have liked us going off without our legs neither. Course most of us have our legs buttoned on, but...”

“Uncle Wiggens ain't really my uncle, everyone just calls him that. He's over eighty and fought in the War Between the States. He only has one leg and one hero, General Robert E. Lee. Uncle Wiggens manages to work Lee's name into pretty much any old conversation. You might say, 'My, it's cold today,' and he'd reply, 'You think this is cold? General Lee said it didn't even qualify as chill till your breath froze on your nose and made a little icicle.' He had about five different stories of how he lost his leg, every one of them entertaining. That night I was listening to the version that involved him running five Yankees into a bear's den.”

“Then the Union forces burned the University of Alabama.' Uncle Wiggens opened and closed his fists, wriggling his fingers. I think they were supposed to be the flames, licking at the buildings. 'The Yankees didn't want you to have no education. If it hadn't been for General Lee, that's Robert E. Lee, mind you, none of you would be here today!”

“Uncle," she said. "Let me explain what will happen the instant one of your men makes a move toward me. Let's say, for instance, one of your archers lets an arrow fly. You've not come to many of my practices, Uncle. You haven't seen me dodge arrows; but your archers have. If one or your archers releases an arrow, I'll drop to the floor. The arrow will doubtless hit one of your guards. The sword and the dagger of that guard will be in my hands before anyone in the room has time to realize what's happened. A fight will break out with the guards; but only seven or eight of them can surround me at once, Uncle, and seven or eight is nothing to me. As I kill the guards I'll take their daggers and begin throwing them into the hearts of your archers, who of course will have no sighting on me once the brawl with the guards has broken out. I'll get out of the room alive, Uncle, but most of the rest of you will be dead. Of course, this is only what will happen if I wait for one of your men to make a move. I could move first. I could attack a guard, steal his dagger, and hurl it into your chest this instant.”

“You okay now ?" he asked."Okay."He tightened his arms and lifted me off my feet. "Mercy?" he growled into my ear. I wrapped my legs around his waist. " Yeah" , I said. "Me too.”

“...the words of young Ted Kennedy, Jr., who lost his leg to cancer. "People are taught we should look perfect," he said. "I wondered who would ever go out with a kid with one leg.”

“I have this friend, Jake," Mr. Mitchell says, sitting on the edge of his desk. "One day, I needed a favor. It wasn't a big favor, but I called him and told him I needed something. Know what he said?" We shake our heads."He said, 'Sure.' Before he eve knew what i was going to ask him. You know why?"We shake our heads again. "Because he trusted me not to ask him to do something he couldn't or wouldn't want to do. He knew that whatever i asked for, he would help me simply because he was my friend and I needed help. That's true friendship.”