A Man for the Ages: A Story of the Builders of Democracy

IN WHICH THE CHARACTER OF BIM KELSO FLASHES OUT IN A STRANGE ADVENTURE THAT BEGINS THE WEAVING OF A LONG THREAD OF ROMANCE.

The shell of the cabin was finished that day. Its puncheon floor was in place but its upper floor was to be laid when the boards were ready. Its two doors were yet to be made and hung, its five windows to be fitted and made fast, its walls to be chinked with clay mortar. Samson and Harry stayed that evening after the rest were gone, smoothing the puncheon floor. They made a few nails at the forge after supper and went over to Abe's store about nine. Two of the Clary's Grove Gang who had tarried in the village sat in the gloom of its little veranda apparently asleep. Dr. Allen, Jack Kelso, Alexander Ferguson and Martin Waddell were sitting by its fireside while Abe sat on the counter with his legs hanging off.

"He's a tough oak stick of a man," Kelso was saying.

"Here he is now," said Dr. Allen. "That lad you cuffed had to stop at my office for repairs."

"I told you once to use a crowbar if you wanted to hit anybody, but never to use your hands," said Abe.

"Well there wasn't any time to lose and there was no crowbar handy," said Samson.

"That reminds me of a general who made the boys of his regiment promise to let him do all the swearin'," Abe began. "One day a sergeant got into trouble with a mule team. It was raining hard and the off mule balked. Wouldn't draw a pound. The sergeant got wet to the skin and swore a song of fourteen verses that was heard by half the regiment. The general called him up for discipline.

"'Young man, I thought it was understood that I was to do all the swearin',' he said.

"'So it was,' said the sergeant, 'but that swearin' had to be done right away. You couldn't 'a' got there in time to do it if I'd 'a' sent for ye.'"

"I'm sorry we had to have trouble," Samson remarked, after the outburst of appreciation that followed Abe's story. "It's the only spot on the day. I'll never forget the kindness of the people of New Salem."

"The raising bee is a most significant thing," said Kelso. "Democracy tends to universal friendship—each works for the crowd and the crowd for each and there are no favorites. Every community is like the thousand friends of Thebes. Most of its units stand together for the common good—for justice, law and honor. The schools are spinning strands of democracy out of all this European wool. Railroads are to pick them up and weave them into one great fabric. By and by we shall see the ten million friends of America standing together as did the thousand friends of Thebes."

"It's a great thought," said Abe.

"No man can estimate the size of that mighty phalanx of friendship all trained in one school," Kelso went on. "Two years ago the Encyclopedia Britannica figured that the population of the United States in 1905 would be 168,000,000 people, and in 1966, 672,000,000. Wealth, power, science, literature, all follow in the train of light and numbers. The causes which moved the sceptre of civilization from the Euphrates to Western Europe will carry it from the latter to the New World."

"They say that electricity and the development of the steam engine is going to make all men think alike," said Abe. "If that's so Democracy and Liberty will spread over the earth."

"The seed of Universal Brotherhood is falling far and wide and you can not kill it," Kelso continued. "Last year Mazzini said: 'There is only one sun in heaven for the whole earth, only one law for all who people it. We are here to found fraternally the unity of the human race so that, sometime, it may present but one fold and one Shepherd."

Then Lincoln spoke again: "I reckon we are near the greatest years in history. It is a privilege to be alive."

"And young," Dr. Allen added.

"Young! What a God's blessed thing is that!" said Kelso and then he quoted from Coleridge:

"Abe, have ye learned the Cotter's Saturday Night?"

"Not yet. It's a heavy hog to hold but I'll get a grip on an ear and a hind leg and lift it out o' the pen before long. You see."

"Don't fail to do that. It will be a help and joy to ye."

"Old Kirkham is a hard master," said Abe. "I hear his bell ringing every time I get a minute's leisure. I'm nigh through with him. Now I want to study rhetoric."

"Only schoolmasters study rhetoric," Kelso declared. "A real poet or a real orator is born with all the rhetoric he needs. We should get our rhetoric as we get our oxygen—unconsciously—by reading the masters. Rhetoric is a steed for a light load under the saddle but he's too warm blooded for the harness. He was for the day of the plumed knight—not for these times. No man of sense would use a prancing horse on a plow or a stone boat. A good plow horse is a beautiful thing. The play of his muscles, the power of his stride are poetry to me but when he tries to put on style he is ridiculous. That suggests what rhetoric is apt to do to the untrained intellect. If you've anything to say or write head straight across, the field and keep your eye on the furrow. Then comes the sowing and how beautiful is the sower striding across the field in his suit of blue jeans, with that wonderful gesture, so graceful, so imperious! Put him in a beaver hat and broadcloth and polished calfskin and a frilled shirt and you couldn't think of anything more ridiculous!"

In the last diary of Samson Henry Traylor is this entry:

At a quarter of ten the Doctor rose and said:

"We're keeping Abe from his sleep and wearing the night away with philosophy. I'm going home."

"I came over to see if you could find a man to help me to-morrow," Samson said to Abe. "Harry is going over to do the chinking alone. I want a man to help me on the whipsaw while I cut some boards for the upper flooring."

"I'll help you myself," Abe proposed. "I reckon I'll close the store to-morrow unless Jack will tend it."

"You can count on me," said Jack. "I'm short of sleep anyhow and a day of rest will do me good."

Abe went with his friends to the door beyond which the two boys from Clary's Grove sat as if sound asleep. It is probable, however, that they had heard what Samson had said to Abe.

"Well, I didn't know these wild turkeys were roosting here," Abe laughed. He roused them from their slumbers and said: "Boys, you're trying to saw the day off a little too short. It's got to run till you get to Clary's Grove. Better take those horses home and feed 'em."

The boys got up and yawned and stretched themselves and mounted their horses which had been tied to a bar and rode away in the darkness.

Next morning Abe and Samson set out for the woods soon after daylight.

"I like that boy Harry," said Abe. "I reckon he's got good stuff in him. The way he landed on Bap McNoll was a caution. I like to see a feller come right up to the scratch, without an invitation just in the nick o' time, as he did."

"Did you see him jump in?" Samson asked.

"I saw everything some way. I saw you when ye loosened the ear o' John Callyhan. That tickled me. But the way I felt yesterday—honest, it seemed as if I could handle 'em all. That boy Harry is a likely young colt—strong and limber and well put together and broad between the eyes."

"An' gentle as a kitten," Samson added. "There never was a better face on a boy or a better heart behind it. We like him."

"Yes, sir. He's a well topped young tree—straight and sound and good timber. Looks as if that little girl o' Jack's was terribly took up with him. I don't wonder. There are not many boys like Harry around here."

"What kind of a girl is she?" Samson asked.

"Awful shy since the arrow hit her. She don't know what it means yet. She'll get used to that I reckon. She's a good girl and smart as a steel trap. Her father takes her out on the plains with him shooting. She can handle a gun as well as anybody and ride a horse as if she had growed to his back. Every body likes Bim but she has her own way of behaving and sometimes it's awful new-fashioned."

Harry Needles went whistling up the road toward the new house with sickle, hoe and trowel. As he passed the Kelso cabin he whistled the tune of Sweet Nightingale. It had haunted his mind since he had heard it in the woods. He whistled as loudly as ever he could and looked at the windows. Before he had passed Bim's face looked out at him with a smile and her hand flickered back of the panes and he waved his to her. His heart beat fast as he hurried along.

"I'm not so very young," he said to himself. "I wish I hadn't put on these old clothes. Mrs. Traylor is an awful nice woman but she's determined to make me look like a plow horse. I don't see why she couldn't let me wear decent clothes."

Sarah had enjoyed mothering the boy. His health had returned. His cheeks were ruddy, his dark eyes clear and bright, his tall form erect and sturdy. Moreover the affectionate care his new friends had given him and his interest in the girl filled his heart with the happiness which is the rain of youth and without which it becomes an arid desert.

He had helped Alexander Ferguson with the making of the fireplace and knew how to mix the mortar. He worked with a will for his heart was in the new home. It was a fine September morning. The warm sunlight had set the meadow cocks a crowing. The far reaches of the great, grassy plain were dimmed with haze. It was a vast, flowery wilderness, waving and murmuring in the breeze like an ocean. How long those acres, sown by the winds of heaven, had waited for the plowman now arrived!

Harry felt the beauty of the scene but saw and enjoyed more the face of Bim Kelso as he worked and planned his own house—no cabin but a mansion like that of Judge Harper in the village near his old home. He had filled every crevice in the rear wall and was working on the front when he heard the thunder of running horses and saw those figures, dim in a cloud of dust, flying up the road again. He thought of the threat of Bap McNoll. It occurred to him that he would be in a bad way alone with those ruffians if they were coming for revenge. He stepped into the door of the house and stood a moment debating what he would best do. He thought of running toward the grove, which was a few rods from the rear door of the house, and hiding there. He couldn't bear to run. Bim and all the rest of them would hear of it. So with the sickle in his right hand he stood waiting inside the house and hoping they wouldn't stop. They rode up to the door and dismounted quietly and hobbled their horses. There were five of them who crowded into the cabin with McNoll in the lead.

"Now, you young rooster, you're goin' to git what's comin' to you," he growled.

The boy faced them bravely and warned them away with his sickle. They were prepared for such emergencies. One of them drew a bag of bird shot from his pocket and hurled it at Harry's head. It hit him full in the face and he staggered against the wall stunned by the blow. They rushed upon the boy and disarmed and bore him to the floor. For a little time he knew not what was passing. When he came to, his hands and feet were tied and the men stood near, cursing and laughing, while their leader, McNoll, was draining a bottle. Suddenly he heard a voice trembling with excitement and wet with tears saying:

"You go 'way from here or I'll kill you dead. So help me God I'll kill you. If one o' you touches him he's goin' to die."

He saw Bim Kelso at the window with her gun leveled at the head of McNoll. Her face was red with anger. Her eyes glowed. As he looked a tear welled from one of them and trailed down the scarlet surface of her cheek. McNoll turned without a word and walked sulkily out of the back door. The others crowded after him. They ran as soon as they had got out of the door. She left the window. In a moment the young men were galloping away.

Bim came into the house sobbing with emotion but with her head erect. She stood her gun in a corner and knelt by the helpless boy. He was crying also. Her hair fell upon his face as she looked at the spot of deep scarlet color made by the shot bag. She kissed it and held her cheek against his and whispered: "Don't cry. It's all over now. I'm going to cut these ropes."

It was as if she had known and loved him always. She was like a young mother with her first child. Tendeny she wiped his tears away with her blond, silken hair. She cut his bonds and he rose and stood before her. Her face changed like magic.

"Oh what a fool I've been!" she exclaimed.

"Why so?" he asked.

"I cried and I kissed you and we never have been introduced to each other."

She covered her eyes with her hair and with bent head went out of the door.

"I'll never forget that kiss as long as I live," said the boy as he followed her. "I'll never forget your help or your crying either."

"How I must have looked!" she went on, walking toward her pony that was hitched to a near tree.

"You were beautiful!" he exclaimed.

"Go away from me—I won't speak to you," she said. "Go back to your work. I'll stay here and keep watch."

The boy returned to his task pointing up the inside walls but his mind and heart were out in the sunlight talking with Bim. Once he looked out of the door and saw her leaning against the neck of the pony, her face hidden in his mane. When the sun was low she came to the door and said:

"You had better stop now and go home."

She looked down at the ground and added:

"Please, please, don't tell on me."

"Of course not," he answered. "But I hope you won't be afraid of me any more."

She looked up at him with a little smile. "Do you think I'm afraid of you?" she asked as if it were too absurd to be thought of. She unhitched and mounted her pony but did not go.

"I do wish you could raise a mustache," she said, looking wistfully into his face.

Involuntarily his hand went to his lip.

"I could try," he said.

"I can't bear to see you look so terribly young; you get worse and worse every time I see you," she scolded plaintively. "I want you to be a regular man right quick."

He wondered what he ought to say and presently stammered: "I—I—intend to. I guess I'm more of a man than anybody would think to look at me."

"You're too young to ever fall in love I reckon."

"No I'm not," he answered with decision.

"Have you got a razor?" she asked.

"No."

"I reckon it would be a powerful help. You put soap on your lip and mow it off with a razor. My father says it makes the grass grow."

There was a moment of silence during which she brushed the mane of her pony. Then she asked timidly: "Do you play on the flute?"

"No, why?"

"I think it would break my heart. My Uncle Henry plays all day and it makes him look crazy. Do you like yellow hair?"

"Yes, if it looks like yours."

"If you don't mind I'll put a mustache on you just—just to look at every time I think of you."

"When I think of you I put violets in your hair," he said.

He took a step toward her as he spoke and as he did so she started her pony. A little way off she checked him and said:

"I'm sorry. There are no violets now."

She rode away slowly waving her hand and singing with the joy of a bird in the springtime:

He stood looking and listening. The song came to him as clear and sweet as the notes of a vesper bell wandering in miles of silence.

When it had ceased he felt his lip and said: "How slow the time passes! I'm going to get some shaving soap and a razor."

That evening when Harry was helping Samson with the horses he said:

"I'm going to tell you a secret. I wish you wouldn't say anything about it."

Samson stood pulling the hair out of his card and looking very stern as he listened while Harry told of the assault upon him and how Bim had arrived and driven the rowdies away with her gun but he said not a word of her demonstration of tender sympathy. To him that had clothed the whole adventure with a kind of sanctity so that he could not bear to have it talked about.

Samson's eyes glowed with anger. They searched the face of the boy. His voice was deep and solemn when he said:

"This is a serious matter. Why do you wish to keep it a secret?"

The boy blushed. For a moment he knew not what to say. Then he spoke: "It ain't me so much—it's her," he managed to say. "She wouldn't want it to be talked about and I don't either."

Samson began to understand. "She's quite a girl I guess," he said thoughtfully. "She must have the nerve of a man—I declare she must."

"Yes-sir-ee! They'd 'a' got hurt if they hadn't gone away, that's sure," said Harry.

"We'll look out for them after this," Samson rejoined. "The first time I meet that man McNoll he'll have to settle with me and he'll pay cash on the nail."

Bim having heard of Harry's part in Abe's fight and of the fact that he was to be working alone all day at the new house had ridden out through the woods to the open prairie and hunted in sight of the new cabin that afternoon. Unwilling to confess her extreme interest in the boy she had said not a word of her brave act. It was not shame; it was partly a kind of rebellion against the tyranny of youthful ardor; it was partly the fear of ridicule.

So it happened that the adventure of Harry Needles made scarcely a ripple on the sensitive surface of the village life. It will be seen, however, that it had started strong undercurrents likely, in time, to make themselves felt.

The house and barn were finished whereupon Samson and Harry drove to Springfield—a muddy, crude and growing village with thick woods on its north side—and bought furniture. Their wagon was loaded and they were ready to start for home. They were walking on the main street when Harry touched Samson's arm and whispered:

"There's McNoll and Callyhan."

The pair were walking a few steps ahead of Samson and Harry. In a second Samson's big hand was on McNoll's shoulder.

"This is Mr. McNoll, I believe," said Samson.

The other turned with a scared look.

"What do ye want o' me?" he demanded.

Samson threw him to the ground with a jerk so strong and violent that it rent the sleeve from his shoulder. McNoll's companion who had felt the weight of Samson's hand and had had enough of it turned and ran.

"What do ye want o' me?" McNoll asked again as he struggled to free himself.

"What do I want o' you—you puny little coward," said Samson, as he lifted the bully to his feet and gave him a toss and swung him in the air and continued to address him. "I'm just goin' to muss you up proper. If you don't say you're sorry and mean it I'll put a tow string on your neck and give you to some one that wants a dog."

"I'm sorry," said McNoll. "Honest I am! I was drunk when I done it."

Samson released his prisoner. A number in the crowd which had gathered around them clapped their hands and shouted, "Hurrah for the stranger!"

A constable took Samson's hand and said: "You deserve a vote of thanks. That man and his friends have made me more trouble than all the rest of the drinking men put together."

"And I am making trouble for myself," said Samson. "I have made myself ashamed. I am no fighting man, I was never in such a muss on a public street before and with God's help it will never happen again."

"Where do you live?" the officer asked.

"In New Salem."

"I wish it was here. We need men like you. What part of the East do you hail from?"

"Vermont," Samson answered. "I've just bought land and built a cabin a little west of the village. Came here for a load of furniture."

"I'm a Maine man and a Whig and opposed to slavery and my name is Erastus Wright," said the constable.

"I am a Whig and against slavery," Samson volunteered.

"I could tell that by the look of you," said the constable. "Some day we must sit down together and talk things over."

Samson wrote in his diary:

Sarah enjoyed fixing up the cabin. Jack Kelso had given her some deer and buffalo skins to lay on the floors. The upper room, reached by a stick ladder, had its two beds, one of which Harry occupied. The children slept below in a trundle bed that was pushed under the larger one when it was made up in the morning.

"Some time I'm going to put in a windletrap and get rid o' that stick ladder," Samson had said.

Sarah had all the arts of the New England home maker. Under her hand the cabin, in color, atmosphere and general neatness, would have delighted a higher taste than was to be found on the prairies, save in the brain of Kelso who really had some acquaintance with beauty. To be sure the bed was in one corner, spread with its upper cover knit of gray yarn harmonizing in color with the bark of the log walls. A handsome dark brown buffalo robe lay beside it. The rifle and powder horn were hung above the mantel. The fireplace had its crane of wrought iron.

Every one in the little village came to the house warming.

"There is nothing in America so beautiful as 'this here kind o' thing' when the firelight shines upon it," said Kelso who often indulged in the vernacular of the real ladder climbers.

"Well, of course, it isn't like Boston or New York," Sarah answered.

"Thank God!" Kelso exclaimed. "New York hurts my feelings, so many of its buildings are of grand design and small proportions. Mrs. Traylor, you are lucky to have this beautiful island in an ocean of music. There is music in the look and sound of these meadows—bird music, wind music, the level music of Felician David's Desert. Perhaps you don't know about that and really it doesn't matter. Traylor, tune up your fiddle."

Samson began to play, stopping often to give the hand of welcome to a guest. The people of New Salem were in their best clothes. The women wore dresses of new calico—save Mrs. Dr. Allen, who wore a black silk dress which had come with her from her late home in Lexington. Bim Kelso came in a dress of red muslin trimmed with white lace. Ann Rutledge also wore a red dress and came with Abe. The latter was rather grotesque in his new linsey trousers, of a better length than the former pair, but still too short.

"It isn't fair to blame the trousers or the tailor," he had said when he had tried them on. "My legs are so long that the imagination of the tailor is sure to fall short if the cloth don't. Next time I'll have 'em made to measure with a ten-foot pole instead of a yardstick. If they're too long I can roll 'em up and let out a link or two when they shrink. Ever since I was a boy I have been troubled with shrinking pants."

Abe wore a blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons, the tails of which were so short as to be well above the danger of pressure when he sat down. His cowhide shoes had been well blackened; the blue yarn of his socks showed above them. "These darned socks of mine are rather proud and conceited," he used to say. "They like to show off."

He wore a shirt of white, unbleached cotton, a starched collar and black tie.

In speaking of his collar to Samson, he said that he felt like a wild horse in a box stall.

Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, was there—a smooth-faced man with a large head, sandy hair and a small mustache, who spoke by note, as it were. Kelso called him the great articulator and said that he walked in the valley of the shadow of Lindley Murray. He seemed to keep a watchful eye on his words, as if they were a lot of schoolboys not to be trusted. They came out with a kind of self-conscious rectitude.

The children's games had begun and the little house rang with their songs and laughter, while their elders sat by the fire and along the walls talking. Ann Rutledge and Bim Kelso and Harry Needles and John McNeil played with them. In one of the dances all joined in singing the verses:

When a victim was caught in the flying scrimmage at the end of a passage in the game of Prisoners, he or she was brought before a blindfolded judge:

"Heavy, heavy hangs over your head," said the Constable.

"Fine or superfine?" the judge inquired.

"Fine," said the Constable, which meant that the victim was a boy. Then the sentence was pronounced and generally it was this:

"Go bow to the wittiest, kneel to the prettiest and kiss the one that you love best."

Harry was the first prisoner. He went straight to Bim Kelso and bowed and knelt, and when he had risen she turned and ran like a scared deer around the chairs and the crowd of onlookers, some assisting and some checking her flight, before the nimble youth. Hard pressed, she ran out of the open door, with a merry laugh, and just beyond the steps Harry caught and kissed her, and her cheeks had the color of roses when he led her back.

John McNeil kissed Ann Rutledge that evening and was most attentive to her, and the women were saying that the two had fallen in love with each other.

"See how she looks at him," one of them whispered.

"Well, it's just the way he looks at her," the other answered.

At the first pause in the merriment Kelso stood on a chair, and then silence fell upon the little company.

"My good neighbors," he began, "we are here to rejoice that new friends have come to us and that a new home is born in our midst. We bid them welcome. They are big boned, big hearted folks. No man has grown large who has not at one time or another had his feet in the soil and felt its magic power going up into his blood and bone and sinew. Here is a wonderful soil and the inspiration of wide horizons; here are broad and fertile fields. Where the corn grows high you can grow statesmen. It may be that out of one of these little cabins a man will come to carry the torch of Liberty and Justice so high that its light will shine into every dark place. So let no one despise the cabin—humble as it is. Samson and Sarah Traylor, I welcome and congratulate you. Whatever may come, you can find no better friends than these, and of this you may be sure, no child of the prairies will ever go about with a hand organ and a monkey. Our friend, Honest Abe, is one of the few rich men in this neighborhood. Among his assets are Kirkham's Grammar, The Pilgrim's Progress, the Lives of Washington and Henry Clay, Hamlet's Soliloquy, Othello's Speech to the Senate, Marc Antony's address and a part of Webster's reply to Hayne. A man came along the other day and sold him a barrel of rubbish for two bits. In it he found a volume of Blackstone's Commentaries. Old Blackstone challenged him to a wrestle and Abe has grappled with him. I reckon he'll take his measure as easily as he took Jack Armstrong's. Lately he has got possession of a noble asset. It is the Cotter's Saturday Night, by Robert Burns. I propose to ask him to let us share his enjoyment of this treasure."

Abe, who had been sitting with his legs doubled beneath him on a buffalo skin, between Joe and Betsey Traylor, rose and said:

"Mr. Kelso's remarks, especially the part which applied to me, remind me of the story of the prosperous grocer of Joliet. One Saturday night he and his boys were busy selling sausage. Suddenly in came a man with whom he had quarreled and laid two dead cats on the counter.

"'There,' said he, 'this makes seven to-day. I'll call Monday and get my money.'

"We were doing a good business here making fun. It seems a pity to ruin it and throw suspicion on the quality of the goods by throwing a cat on the counter. I'll only throw one cat. It is entitled:

This raised a storm of merriment, after which he recited the poem of Burns, with keen appreciation of its quality. Samson repeatedly writes of his gift for interpretation, especially of the comic, and now and then lays particular stress on his power of mimicry.

John Cameron sang The Sword of Bunker Hill and Forty Years Ago, Tom. Samson played while the older people danced until midnight. Then, after noisy farewells, men, women and children started in the moonlit road toward the village. Ann Rutledge had Abe on one arm and John McNeil on the other.

WHICH DESCRIBES THE LONELY LIFE IN A PRAIRIE CABIN AND STIRRING ADVENTURE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD ABOUT THE TIME IT BEGAN OPERATIONS.

When Samson paid Mr. Gollaher, a "detector" came with the latter to look at the money before it was accepted. There were many counterfeits and bills good only at a certain discount of face value, going about those days and the detector was in great request. Directly after moving in, Samson dug a well and lined it with a hollow log. He bought tools and another team and then he and Harry began their fall plowing. Day after day for weeks they paced with their turning furrows until a hundred acres, stretching half a mile to the west and well to the north of the house, were black with them. Fever and ague descended upon the little home in the early winter.

In a letter to her brother, dated January 4th, 1832, Sarah writes:

It had been a cold winter and not easy to keep comfortable in the little house. In the worst weather Samson used to get up at night to keep the fire going. Late in January a wind from the southeast melted the snow and warmed the air of the midlands so that, for a week or so, it seemed as if spring were come. One night of this week Sambo awoke the family with his barking. A strong wind was rushing across the plains and roaring over the cabin and wailing in its chimney. Suddenly there was a rap on its door. When Samson opened it he saw in the moonlight a young colored man and woman standing near the door-step.

"Is dis Mistah Traylor?" the young man asked.

"It is," said Samson. "What can I do for you?"

"Mas'r, de good Lord done fotched us here to ask you fo' help," said the negro. "We be nigh wone out with cold an' hungah, suh, 'deed we be."

Samson asked them in and put wood on the fire, and Sarah got up and made some hot tea and brought food from the cupboard and gave it to the strangers, who sat shivering in the firelight. They were a good-looking pair, the young woman being almost white. They were man and wife. The latter stopped eating and moaned and shook with emotion as her husband told their story. Their master had died the year before and they had been brought to St. Louis to be sold in the slave market. There they had escaped by night and gone to the house of an old friend of their former owner who lived north of the city on the river shore. He had taken pity on them and brought them across the Mississippi and started them on the north road with a letter to Elijah Lovejoy of Alton and a supply of food. Since then they had been hiding days in the swamps and thickets and had traveled by night. Mr. Lovejoy had sent them to Erastus Wright of Springfield, and Mr. Wright had given them the name of Samson Traylor and the location of his cabin. From there they were bound for the house of John Peasley, in Hopedale, Tazewell County.

Lovejoy had asked them to keep the letter with which they had begun their travels. Under its signature he had written: "I know the writer and know that the above was written with his own hand. His word can be relied upon. To all who follow or respect the example of Jesus Christ I commend this man and woman."

The letter stated that their late master had often expressed his purpose of leaving them their freedom when he should pass away. He had left no will and since his death the two had fallen into the hands of his nephew, a despotic, violent young drunkard of the name of Biggs, who had ruled his servants with club and bull whip and who in a temper had killed a young negro a few months before. The fugitives said that they would rather die than go back to him.

Samson was so moved by their story that he hitched up his horses and put some hay in the wagon box and made off with the fugitives up the road to the north in the night. When daylight came he covered them with the hay. About eight o'clock he came to a frame house and barn, the latter being of unusual size for that time and country. Above the door of the barn was a board which bore the stenciled legend: "John Peasley, Orwell Farm."

As Samson drew near the house he observed a man working on the roof of a woodshed. Something familiar in his look held the eye of the New Salem man. In half a moment he recognized the face of Henry Brimstead. It was now a cheerful face. Brimstead came down the ladder and they shook hands.

"Good land o' Goshen! How did you get here?" Samson asked. Brimstead answered:

"Through the help of a feller that looks like you an' the grit of a pair o' hosses. Come down this road early in September on my way to the land o' plenty. Found Peasley here. Couldn't help it. Saw his name on the barn. Used to go to school with him in Orwell. He offered to sell me some land with a house on it an' trust me for his pay. I liked the looks o' the country and so I didn't go no further. I was goin' to write you a letter, but I hain't got around to it yet. Ain't forgot what you done for us, I can tell ye that."

"Well, this looks better than the sand plains—a lot better—and you look better than that flea farmer back in York State. How are the children?"

"Fat an' happy an' well dressed. Mrs. Peasley has been a mother to 'em an' her sister is goin' to be a wife to me." He came close to Samson and added in a confidential tone: "Say, if I was any happier I'd be scairt. I'm like I was when I got over the toothache—so scairt for fear it would come back I was kind o' miserable."

Mr. Peasley came out of the door. He was a big, full bearded, jovial man.

"I've got a small load o' hay for you," said Samson.

"I was expecting it, though I supposed 'twould be walkin'—in the dark o' the night," Peasley answered. "Drive in on the barn floor."

When Samson had driven into the barn its doors were closed and the negroes were called from their place of hiding. Samson writes: