With me on the ground
On this bank where the primroses grow.
We will hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sings in the valleys below,
As she sings in the valleys below."
He roused himself and thought that he saw her form receding in the darkness.
Fortunately, the spring's work was finished and there was not much to be done next day. Samson went to "Colonel" Lukins' cabin and arranged with him and his wife to come and stay with Sarah and made other preparations for the journey to the north. Soon after nightfall they put their guests on a small load of hay, so that they could quickly cover themselves if necessary, and set out for Peasley's farm. As they rode along Samson had a frank talk with Harry.
"I think you ought to get over being in love with Bim," he said.
"I've told myself that a dozen times, but it don't do any good," said the boy.
"She's another man's wife and you have no right to love her."
"She's another man's slave, and I can't stand the thought of it," Harry answered. "If she was happy I could mind my business and get over thinking of her, by and by, maybe, but now she needs a friend, if she ever did, and I intend to do what I can for her."
"Of course, we'll all do what we can for her," said Samson. "But you must get over being in love with a married woman."
"If a man's sister were in such trouble, I think he'd have the right to help her, and she's more than a sister to me."
"I'll stand with you on the sister platform," said Samson.
In the middle of the night they stopped by a stream of water to feed the horses and take a bite of luncheon. The roads were heavy from recent rains and daylight came before they could make their destination. At sunrise they stopped to give their horses a moment to rest. In the distance they could see Brimstead's house and the harrowed fields around it. The women were lying covered by the hay; the man was sitting up and looking back down the road.
"They're coming," he exclaimed, suddenly, as he got under the hay.
Samson and Harry could see horsemen following at a gallop half a mile or so down the road. It looked like trouble, for at that hour men were not likely to be abroad in the saddle and riding fast on any usual errand. Our friends hurried their team and got to Brimstead's door ahead of the horsemen. A grove of trees screened the wagon from the view of the latter for a moment. Henry Brimstead stood in the open door.
"Take these slaves into the house and get them out of sight as quick as you can," said Samson. "There's going to be a quarrel here in a minute."
The slaves slid off the load and ran into the house.
This was all accomplished in a few seconds. The team started on toward Peasley's farm as if nothing had happened, with Harry and Samson standing on the load. In a moment they saw, to their astonishment, Biggs and a colored servant coming at a slow trot. Were the slaves they carried the property of Biggs?
"Stop that wagon," the latter shouted.
Samson kept on, turning out a little to let them pass.
"Stop or we'll shoot your horses," Biggs demanded.
"They'll have to pass close to the load," Harry whispered. "I'll jump on behind Biggs as he goes by."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Harry sprang off the load, catching Biggs's shoulders and landing squarely on the rump of his horse. It was a rough minute that followed. The horse leaped and reared and Biggs lost his seat, and he and Harry rolled to the ground and into a fence corner, while the horse ran up the road, with the pistols in their holsters on his back. They rose and fought until Harry, being quicker and stronger, got the best of it. The slaver was severely punished. The negro's horse, frightened by the first move in the fracas, had turned and run back down the road.
Biggs swore bitterly at the two Yankees.
"I'll have you dirty suckers arrested if there's any law in this state," he declared, as he stood leaning against the fence, with an eye badly swollen and blood streaming from his nose.
"I suppose you can do it," said Samson. "But first let's see if we can find your horse. I think I saw him turn in at the house above."
Samson drove the team, while Biggs and Harry walked up the road in silence. The negro followed in the saddle. Peasley had caught Biggs's horse and was standing at the roadside.
"I want to find a Justice of the Peace," said Biggs.
"There's one at the next house above. I'll send my boy for him," Peasley answered.
The Justice arrived in a few minutes and Biggs lodged a complaint founded on the allegation that his slaves were concealed in the hay on Samson's wagon. The hay was removed and no slaves were discovered.
"I suppose they left my niggers at the house below," said Biggs as he mounted his horse and, with his companion, started at a gallop in the direction of Brimstead's. Samson remained with Peasley and the Justice.
"You had better go down and see what happens," he said to Harry. "We'll follow you in a few minutes."
So Harry walked down to Brimstead's.
He found the square house in a condition of panic. Biggs and his helper had discovered the mulatto and his wife hiding in the barn. The negroes and the children were crying. Mrs. Brimstead met Harry outside the door.
"What are we to do?" she asked, tearfully.
"Just keep cool," said Harry. "Father Traylor and Mr. Peasley will be here soon."
Biggs and his companion came out of the door with Brimstead.
"We will take the niggers to the river and put them on a boat," Biggs was saying.
His face and shirt and bosom were smeared with blood. He asked Mrs. Brimstead for a basin of water and a towel. The good woman took him to the washstand and supplied his needs.
In a few moments Samson and Peasley arrived, with the latter's team hitched to a Conestoga wagon.
"Well, you've found them, have you?" Peasley asked.
"They were here, as I thought," said Biggs.
"Well, the Justice says we must surrender the negroes and take them to the nearest landing for you. We've come to do it."
"It's better treatment than I expected," Biggs answered.
"You'll find that we have a good deal of respect for the law," said Peasley.
Biggs and his friend went to the barn for their horses. The others conferred a moment with the two slaves and Mrs. Brimstead. Then the latter went out into the garden lot to a woman in a sunbonnet who was working with a hoe some fifteen rods from the house. Mrs. Brimstead seemed to be conveying a message to the woman by signs. Evidently the latter was deaf and dumb.
"That is the third slave," Brimstead whispered. "I don't believe they'll discover her."
Soon Peasley and Samson got into the wagon with the negroes and drove away, followed by the two horsemen.
In a little village on the river they stopped at a low frame house. A woman came to the door.
"Is Freeman Collar here?" Peasley demanded.
"He is back in the garden," the woman answered.
"Please ask him to come here."
In a moment Collar came around the house with a hoe on his shoulder. He was a slim, sandy bearded, long-haired man of medium height, with keen gray eyes.
"Good morning, Mr. Constable," said Peasley. "This is Eliphalet Biggs of St. Louis, and here is a warrant for his arrest."
He passed a paper to the officer.
"For my arrest!" Biggs exclaimed. "What is the charge?"
"That you hired a number of men to burn the house of Samson Henry Traylor, near the village of New Salem, in Sangamon County, and, by violence, to compel him to leave said county; that, on the 29th of August, said men—the same being eight in number—attempted to carry out your design and, being captured and overpowered, all confessed their guilt and your connection with it, their sworn confessions being now in the possession of one Stephen Nuckles, a minister of this county. I do not need to remind you that it is a grave offense and likely to lead to your confinement for a term of years."
"Well, by G—," Biggs shouted, in anger. "You suckers will have some traveling to do before you arrest me."
He struck the spurs in his horse and galloped away, followed by his servant. Samson roared with laughter.
"Now, Collar, get on your horse and hurry 'em along, but don't ketch up with 'em if you can help it," said Peasley. "We've got them on the run now. They'll take to the woods an' be darn careful to keep out of sight."
When the Constable had gone, Peasley said to Samson: "We'll drop these slaves at Nate Haskell's door. He'll take care of 'em until dark and start 'em on the north road. Late in the evening I'll pick 'em up an' get 'em out o' this part o' the country."
Meanwhile Brimstead and Harry had stood for a moment in the dooryard of the former, watching the party on its way up the road. Brimstead blew out his breath and said in a low tone:
"Say, I'll tell ye, I ain't had so much excitement since Samson Traylor rode into Flea Valley. The women need a chance to wash their faces and slick up a little. Le's you and me go back to the creek and go in swimmin' an' look the farm over."
"What become of the third nigger?" Harry asked.
"She went out in the field in a sunbonnet an' went to work with a hoe and they didn't discover her," said Brimstead.
"It must have been a nigger that didn't belong to him," Harry declared.
"I guess it was one that the others picked up on the road."
They set out across the sown fields, while Brimstead, in his most divulging mood, confided many secrets to the young man. Suddenly he asked:
"Say, did you take partic'lar notice o' that yaller nigger?"
"I didn't see much of him."
"Well, I'll tell ye, he was about as handsome a feller as you'd see in a day's travel—straight as an arrow and about six feet tall and well spoken and clean faced. He told me that another master had taught him to read and write and cipher. He's read the Bible through, and many of the poems of Scott and Byron and Burns. Don't it rile ye up to think of a man like that bein' bought and sold and pounded around like a steer? It ain't decent."
"It's king work; it isn't democracy," Harry answered. "We've got to put an end to it."
"Say, who's that?" Brimstead asked, as he pointed to a pair of horsemen hurrying down the distant road.
"It's Biggs and his servant," Harry answered.
"Whew! They ain't lettin' the grass grow under their feet. They'll kill them horses."
"Biggs is a born killer. I'd like to give him one more licking."
In a moment they saw another horseman a quarter of a mile behind the others and riding fast.
"Ha, ha! That explains their haste," said Brimstead. "It's ol' Free Collar on his sorrel mare. Say, I'll tell ye," Brimstead came close to Harry and added in a low tone: "If Biggs tries any fightin' business with Collar he'll git killed sure. That man loves excitement. He don't take no nonsense at all, and he can put a bullet into a gimlet hole at ten rods."
They had their swim in the creek and got back to the house at dinner time. Samson had returned and, as they sat down at the table, he told what had happened at the Constable's house and learned of the passing of Biggs and his friend in the road, followed by Collar on his sorrel mare.
"We must hurry back, but we will have to give the horses a rest," said Samson.
"And the young people a chance to play checkers?" said Mrs. Brimstead.
"I have no heart for play," said Annabel, with a sigh.
"The excitement and the sight o' those poor slaves have taken all the fun out of her," the woman remarked.
Then Harry asked: "What have you done with the third slave?"
"She's been up-stairs, getting washed and dressed," said Mrs. Brimstead.
As she spoke, the stairway door opened and Bim entered the room—in a silk gown and slippers. Sorrow had put its mark upon her face, but had not extinguished her beauty. All rose from the table. Harry walked toward her. She advanced to meet him. Face to face, they stopped and looked into each other's eyes. The moment long desired, the moment endeared and sublimated by the dreams of both, the moment toward which their thoughts had been wont to hasten, after the cares of the day, like brooks coming down from the mountains, had arrived suddenly. She was in a way prepared for it. She had taken thought of what she would do and say. He had not. Still it made no difference. This little point of time had been so filled with the power which had flowed into it out of their souls there was no foretelling what they would do when it touched them. Scarcely a second of that moment was wasted in hesitation, as a matter of fact. Quickly they fell into each other's embrace, and the depth of their feeling we may guess when we read in the diary of the rugged and rather stoical Samson that no witness of the scene spoke or moved "until I turned my back upon it for shame of my tears."
Soon Bim came and kissed Samson's cheek and said:
"I am not going to make trouble. I couldn't help this. I heard what he said to you last night. It made me happy in spite of all my troubles. I love him but above all I shall try to keep his heart as clean and noble as it has always been. I really meant to be very strong and upright. It is all over now. Forgive us. We are going to be as respectable as—as we can."
Samson pressed her hand and said:
"You came with the slaves and I guess you heard our talk in the wagon."
"Yes, I came with the slaves, and was as black as either of them. We had all suffered. I should have come alone, but they had been good and faithful to me. I could not bear to leave them to endure the violence of that man. We left together one night when he was in a drunken stupor. We took a boat to Alton and caught The Star of the North to Beardstown—they traveling as my servants. There I hired a team and wagon. It brought us to the grove near your house."
"Why did you disguise yourself before you came in?"
"I longed to see Harry, but I did not want him to see me. I did not know that he would care to see me," she answered. "I longed to see all of you."
"Isn't that like Bim?" Samson asked.
"I am no longer the fool I was," she answered. "It was not just a romantic notion. I wanted to share the lot of a runaway slave for a few days and know what it means. That mulatto—Roger Wentworth—and his wife are as good as I am, but I have seen them kicked and beaten like dogs. I know slavery now and all the days of my life I am going to fight against it. Now I am ready to go to my father's house—like the Prodigal Son coming back after his folly."
"But you will have some dinner first," said Mrs. Brimstead.
"No, I can not wait—I will walk. It is not far to Hopedale."
"Percy is at the door now with his buggy," said Brimstead.
Bim kissed Samson's cheek and embraced Annabel and her mother and hurried out of the house. Harry carried her bag to the buggy and helped her in.
"Harry, I want you to fall in love with this pretty girl," she said. "Don't you dare think of me any more or come near me. If you do, I'll shoo you away. Go on, Percy."
She waved her hand as the buggy went up the road.
"It's the same old Bim," Harry said to himself, as he stood watching her. "But I think she's lovelier than she ever was."
The next day Samson wrote in his diary:
"Bim was handsomer, but different. She had a woman's beauty. I noticed her loose clothes and that gentle look in her face that used to come to Sarah's when her time was about half over. I am glad she got away before she was further along."
CHAPTER XV
WHEREIN HARRY AND ABE RIDE UP TO SPRINGDALE AND VISIT KELSO'S AND LEARN OF THE CURIOUS LONESOMENESS OF ELIPHALET BIGGS.
Illinois was growing. In June score of prairie schooners, loaded with old and young, rattled over the plains from the East. There were many Yankees from Ohio, New York and New England in this long caravan. There were almost as many Irish, who had set out for this land of golden promise as soon as they had been able to save money for a team and wagon, after reaching the new world. There were some Germans and Scandinavians in the dust clouds of the National Road. Steamers on the Illinois River scattered their living freight along its shores. These were largely from Kentucky, southern Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The call of the rich and kindly lands had traveled far and streams of life were making toward them, to flow with increasing speed and volume for many years.
People in Sangamon County had begun to learn of the thriving village of Chicago in the North. Abe said that Illinois would be the Empire State of the West; that a new era of rapid development and great prosperity was near. Rumors of railroad and canal projects and river improvements were on every tongue. Samson and Sarah took new heart of the prospect and decided to try another year in New Salem, although an Irishman had made a good offer for their farm. Land was in great request and there were many transfers of title. Abe had more surveying to do than he was able to accomplish that summer. Harry was with him for some weeks. He could earn two dollars a day with Abe, whereas Samson was able to hire a helper for half that sum. Harry made a confident of his friend, and when they were working at the northern end of the county they borrowed a pair of horses and rode up to Kelso's house and spent a Sunday there.
Bim met them down the road a mile or so from Hopedale. She, too, was on the back of a horse. She recognized them before they were in hailing distance and waved her hand and hurried toward them with a happy face.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"To see you and your father and mother," said Harry.
A sad look came into her eyes.
"If I had a stone I would throw it at you," she said.
"Why?" Harry asked.
"Because I have to get used to being miserable, and just as I begin to be resigned to it, you come along and make me happy, and I have it all to do over again."
The young man stopped his horse.
"I hadn't thought of that," he said, with a sad face. "It isn't fair to you, is it? It's rather—selfish."
"Why don't you go to Brimstead's," Bim suggested. "A beautiful girl over there is in love with you. Honestly, Harry, there isn't a sweeter girl in all the world."
"I ought not to go there, either," said the young man.
"Why?"
"Because I mustn't let her think that I care for her. I'll go over to Peasley's and wait for Abe there."
"Look here," said the latter. "You both remind me of a man in a Kentucky village who couldn't bear to hear a rooster crow. It kept him awake nights, for the roosters did a lot o' crowing down there. He moved from one place to another, trying to find a cockless town. He couldn't. There was no such place in Kentucky. He thought of taking to the woods, but he hated loneliness more than he hated roosters. So he did a sensible thing. He started a chicken farm and got used to it. He found that a little crowing was too much, and that a lot of it was just what he needed. You two have got to get used to each other. What you need is more crowing. If you saw each other every day you wouldn't look so wonderful as when you don't."
"I reckon that's a good idea," said Bim. "Come on, Harry, let's get used to crowing. We'll start in to-day to fall out of love with each other. We must be very cold and distant and haughty and say every mean thing we can think of."
So it happened that Harry went on with Bim and Abe to the little house in Hopedale. Jack Kelso sat reading in the shade of a tree by his door-step.
"I hope you feel as good as you look," Abe called, as they rode up.
"I've been feeling like a fly in a drum," Jack answered. "I've just heard a sermon by Peter Cartwright."
"What do you think of him?"
"He is saturated in the statistics of vice. His Satan is too busy; his hell is too big, too hot and too durable. He is a kind of human onion designed to make women weep."
Abe answered with a laugh:
"It is said that General Jackson went into his church one Sunday and that a deacon notified Mr. Cartwright of the presence of the great man. They say that the stern preacher exclaimed in a clearly audible tone: General Jackson! What does God care for General Jackson? If he don't repent, God will damn him as quick as he would damn a Guinea nigger.'"
"He's just that thumping, downright kind of a man," Kelso remarked. "How are you getting on with the books?"
"I have Chitty on Contracts strapped to the pommel," said Abe. "I did my stint coming over, but I had to walk and lead the pony."
"Every book you read gets a baptism of Democracy," said Kelso. "An idle aristocracy of the shelves loafing in fine coats and immaculate linen is not for the wise man. Your book has to roll up its sleeves and go to work and know the touch of the sweaty hand. Swift used to say that some men treat books as they do Lords—learn their titles and then brag of having been in their company. There are no Lords and Ladies among your books. They are just men and women made for human service."
"I don't read long at once," Abe remarked. "I scratch into a book, like a hen on a barn floor, until my crop is full, and then I digest what I have taken."
Harry and Bim had put out the horses. Now the girl came and sat on her father's knee. Harry sat down by the side of Abe on the grass in the oak's shadow.
"It is a joy to have the little girl back again," said Kelso, as he touched her hair with his hand. "It is still as yellow as a corn tassel. I wonder it isn't gray."
"Her eyes look as bright as ever to-day," said Harry.
"No compliments, please. I want you to be downright mean," Bim protested.
Kelso looked up with a smile: "My boy, it was Leonardo da Vinci who said that a man could have neither a greater nor a less dominion than that over himself."
"What a cruel-looking villain he is!" Bim exclaimed, with a smile. "I wouldn't dare say what I think of him."
"If you keep picking on me I'll cut loose and express my opinion of you," he retorted.
"Your opinions have ceased to be important," she answered, with a look of indifference.
"I think this is a clear case of assault and flattery," said Kelso.
"It pains me to look at you," Bim went on.
"Wait until I learn to play the flute and the snare drum," Harry threatened.
"I'm glad that New Salem is so far away," she sighed.
"I'll go and look at the new moon through a knot hole," he laughed.
"My dears, no more of this piping," said Kelso. "Bim must tell us what she has learned of the great evil of slavery. It is most important that Abe should hear it."
Bim told of revolting scenes she had witnessed in St. Louis and New Orleans—of flogging and buying and selling and herding. It was a painful story, the like of which had been traveling over the prairies of Illinois for years. Some had accepted these reports; many, among whom were the most judicious men, had thought they detected in them the note of gross exaggeration. Here, at last, was a witness whose word it was impossible for those who knew her to doubt. Abe put many questions and looked very grave when the testimony was all in.
"If you have any doubt," said Bim, "I ask you to look at that mark on my arm. It was made by the whip of Mr. Eliphalet Biggs."
The young men looked with amazement at a scar some three or four inches long on her forearm.
"If he would do that to his wife, what treatment could you expect for his niggers?" Bim asked. "There are many Biggses in the South."
"What so vile as a cheap, rococo aristocracy—growing up in idleness, too noble to be restrained, with every brutal passion broad blown as flush as May?" Kelso growled.
"Nothing is long sacred in the view of any aristocracy—not even God," Abe answered. "They make a child's plaything of Him and soon cast Him aside."
"But I hold that if our young men are to be trained to tyranny in a lot of little nigger kingdoms, our Democracy will die."
Abe made no answer. He was always slow to commit himself.
"The North is partly to blame for what has come," said Samson. "I guess our Yankee captains brought over most of the niggers and sold them to the planters of the South."
"There was a demand for them, or those Yankee pirates wouldn't have brought the niggers," Harry answered. "Both seller and buyer were committing a crime."
"They established a great wrong and now the South is pushing to extend and give it the sanction of law," said Abe. "There is the point of irritation and danger."
"I hear that in the next Legislature an effort will be made to endorse slavery," said Kelso. "It would be like endorsing Nero and Caligula."
"It is a dangerous subject," Abe answered. "Whatever happens, I shall not fail to express my opinion of slavery if I go back."
"The time is coming when you will take the bull by the horns," said Kelso. "There's no fence that will keep him at home."
"I hope that isn't true," Abe answered.
Soon Mrs. Kelso called Bim to set the table. She and Harry brought it out under the tree, where, in the cool shade, they had a merry dinner.
When the dishes were put away Percy Brimstead arrived with his sister Annabel in their buggy. Bim went out to meet them and came into the dooryard with her arm around Annabel's waist.
"Did any one ever see a lovelier girl than this?" Bim asked, as they stood up before the dinner party.
"Her cheeks are like wild roses, her eyes like the dew on them when the sun is rising," said Kelso.
"But look at her mouth and the teeth in it the next time she smiles," Bim went on.
"Aye, they are well wrought," her father answered.
"If you don't stop, I shall run," Annabel protested.
"I haven't said a word, but I want you to know that I am deeply impressed," said Harry. "No girl has a right to be as handsome as you are and come and look into the face of a young man who has resolved to look at the new moon through a knot bole."
"Well, who would have thought it!" Bim exclaimed. "Such a wonderful compliment, and from Harry Needles!"
"Of course he didn't mean it," said Annabel, whose cheeks were now very red.
"Of course I mean it," Harry declared. "That's why I keep away from your house. I am bound to stay single."
"Did you ever see a fairy going to mill on a butterfly's back?" Bim asked, looking at Harry.
"Not as I remember," he answered.
"If you had, you wouldn't expect us to believe it," Bim asserted.
"There was a soldier in Colonel Taylor's regiment who always ran when the enemy was in sight," Abe began. "When he was brought up for discipline, he said 'My heart is as brave as Julius Cæsar's but my legs can't be trusted.' I know Harry's legs are all right, but I don't believe his heart can be trusted in a battle of this kind."
"I've heard all about his brave adventures in the war," said Bim. "He'll find that girls are worse than Indians."
"If they're as well armed as you two, I guess you're right," said Samson.
Abe rose and said: "The day is passing. I'll start on with Parsons and the pony and read my stint afoot. You come along in a few minutes. By the time you overtake me I'll be ready to get into the saddle."
Half an hour or so after Abe had gone, Harry's horse, which had been whinnying for his mate, bounded out of the stable and went galloping down the road, having slipped his halter.
"He will not stop until he overtakes the other horse," said Harry.
"You can ride with us," Annabel suggested.
So the young man brought his saddle and bridle and put it under the seat of the buggy and got in with Annabel and her small brother.
"Don't let us go too far," said Bim, as she stood by the side of the buggy. "You haven't offered to shake hands."
"It was a deliberate slight—just to please you," Harry answered, as they shook hands.
"You are behaving terribly well," Bim exclaimed, merrily. "Now, Annabel, here is your chance to convert him."
She laughed and shook her hand, as they rode away, and went into the house and sat down and for a time was like one whose heart is broken.
"Oh, the troubles of the young!" her mother exclaimed, as she kissed her.
"They are ever the wonder of the old!" said Kelso, who stood near.
"I love him! I love him!" the girl moaned.
"I don't wonder," her father answered. "He is a big, brave, clean lad, and handsome as a Greek god. He will love you all the better for your self-restraint. It makes me proud of you, my daughter—proud of you! Be of good cheer. The day of your emancipation may not be long delayed."
Some two miles down the road Harry found Abe standing between the horses, holding the runaway by his forelock. The latter was saddled and bridled, while the buggy went on ahead.
"That is a wonderful girl," said Harry, as he and Abe were riding along together. "She is very modest and gentle hearted."
"And as pleasant to look at as the flowery meadows," Abe answered.
"I have promised to stop there a few minutes on our way back."
"It is possible Bim could get a divorce," said Abe, looking down thoughtfully at the mane of his horse. "I'll ask Stuart what he thinks about it when I see him again."
"I hope you'll see him soon."
"As soon as I can get to Springfield."
Brimstead and Abe had a talk together, while Harry went into the house.
"Say, there's a good many kinds o' trouble," said the former, in a low tone, "but one o' the worst is skunks. Say, I'll tell ye, there's a feller lives over in the woods a few miles from here that had a skunk in a pen. His name is Hinge. Somebody had been stealin' his grain, so the other night he hitched that skunk right under the barn door. The thief came and the skunk punished him tolerable severe. The next day Free Collar, the famous Constable, was comin' up the road from Sangamon County and met that man Biggs on a horse. Say—"
Brimstead looked about him and stepped close to Abe and added in a tone of extreme confidence: "Biggs had left a streak behind him a mile long. Its home was Biggs. It had settled down and gone into business on him and was doin' well and gettin' a reputation. Collar coughed and backed away. For four days he had been chasin' that man to arrest him. Biggs had been hid in the woods near Hinge's cabin an' had stole grain for his horses.
"'Here I am,' said Biggs. 'You can have me. I'm lonesome.'
"'You'll be lonesomer 'fore I go near ye,' says Collar.
"'I thought you wanted to arrest me,' says Biggs.
"'Say, man, I'd 'a' been glad to see you go to prison for a year or two, but now I'm plum sorry for ye,' says Collar. 'A constable who wouldn't run if he smelt you comin' would be a durn fool.'
"They started in opposite directions. In half a minute the Constable hollered to Biggs:
"'Say, they've got a railroad train on a track over in Ohio, but they can't make it run. I wouldn't wonder if you could help 'em.'"
Brimstead added in a half whisper:
"Biggs went on, but the poor devil is livin' a God lonesome life. He can't sleep in a buildin' an' his food'll have to be throwed to him. It's a new way to defeat justice."
Abe's laughter was like the neigh of a horse. It brought Harry out of the house. He mounted his pony and, as they rode away, Abe told him of the fate of Biggs.
"I don't believe he'll take another Illinois girl away with him," Abe laughed.
"Talk about the chains of bondage! He's buried in 'em," Harry exclaimed.
In a moment he said: "That lovely girl gave me a necktie and a pair of gloves that she has knit with her own hands. I'll never forget the way she did it and the look of her. It rather touched my heart."
"She's as innocent as a child," said Abe. "It's hard on a girl like that to have to live in this new country. Her father and mother have promised to let her come for a visit with Ann. I'll go up next Saturday and take her down to New Salem with me."
This kindly plan of Abe's—so full of pleasant possibilities—fell into hopeless ruin next day, when a letter came from Dr. Allen, telling him that Ann was far gone with a dangerous fever. Both Abe and Harry dropped their work and went home. Ann was too sick to see her lover.
The little village was very quiet those hot summer days. The sorrow of the pretty maiden had touched the hearts of the simple kindly folk who lived there. They would have helped her bear it—if that had been possible—as readily as they would have helped at a raising. For a year or more there had been a tender note in their voices when they spoke of Ann. They had learned with great gladness of her engagement to marry Abe. The whole community were as one family with its favorite daughter about to be crowned with good fortune greater than she knew. Now that she was stricken down, their feeling was more than sympathy. The love of justice, the desire to see a great wrong righted, in a measure, was in their hearts when they sought news of the little sufferer at the tavern.
There was no shouting in the street, no story-telling in the dooryards, no jesting in the stores and houses, no merry parties, gladdened by the notes of the violin, in the days and nights of Ann's long illness.
Samson writes in his diary that Abe went about like a man in a dream, with no heart for work or study. He spent much time at the Doctor's office, feeling for some straw of hope.
One day late in August, as he stood talking with Samson Traylor in the street, Dr. Allen called him from his door-step. Abe turned very pale as he obeyed the summons.
"I've just come from her bedside," said Dr. Allen. "She wants to see you. I've talked it over with her parents, and we've decided to let you and her have a little visit together. You must be prepared for a great change in Ann. There's not much left of the poor girl. A breath would blow her away. But she wants to see you. It may be better than medicine. Who knows?"
The two men went across to the tavern. Mrs. Rutledge and Abe tiptoed up the stairway. The latter entered the room of the sick girl. The woman closed the door. Ann Rutledge was alone with her lover. There were none who knew what happened in that solemn hour save the two—one of whom was on the edge of eternity, and the other was never to speak of it. The only record of that hour is to be found in the face and spirit of a great man.
Years later Samson wrote in a letter.
"I saw Abe when he came out of the tavern that day. He was not the Abe we had all known. He was different. There were new lines in his face. It was sorrowful. His steps were slow. He had passed out of his young manhood. When I spoke to him, he answered with that gentle dignity now so familiar to all who know him. From that hour he was Abraham Lincoln."
Ann passed away before the month ended and became, like many of her kind, an imperishable memory. In her presence the spirit of the young man had received such a baptism that henceforward, taking thought of her, he was to love purity and all cleanness, and no Mary who came to his feet with tears and ointment was ever to be turned away.
CHAPTER XVI
WHEREIN YOUNG MR. LINCOLN SAFELY PASSES TWO GREAT DANGER POINTS AND TURNS INTO THE HIGHWAY OF HIS MANHOOD.
For days thereafter the people of New Salem were sorely troubled. Abe Lincoln, the ready helper in time of need, the wise counselor, the friend of all—"old and young, dogs and horses," as Samson was wont to say—the pride and hope of the little cabin village, was breaking down under his grief. He seemed to care no more for work or study or friendship. He wandered out in the woods and upon the prairies alone. Many feared that he would lose his reason.
There was a wise and merry-hearted man who lived a mile or so from the village. His name was Bowlin Green. Every one on Salem Hill and in the country round about it laid claim to the friendship of this remarkable man. Those days when one of middle age had established himself in the affections of a community, its members had a way of adopting him. So Mr. Green had been adopted into many families from Beardstown to Springfield. He was everybody's "Uncle Bowlin." He had a most unusual circumference and the strength to carry it. He was indeed a man of extended boundaries, embracing noble gifts, the best of which was good nature. His jests, his loud laughter and his quaking circumference were the three outstanding factors in his popularity. The loss of either would have been a misfortune to himself and neighbors. His ruddy cheeks and curling locks and kindly dark eyes and large head were details of importance. Under all were a heart with the love of men, a mind of unusual understanding and a hand skilled in all the arts of the Kentucky pioneer. He could grill a venison steak and roast a grouse and broil a chicken in a way which had filled the countryside with fond recollections of his hospitality; he could kindle a fire with a bow and string, a pine stick and some shavings; he could make anything from a splint broom to a rocking horse with his jack-knife. Abe Lincoln was one of the many men who knew and loved him.
On a warm, bright afternoon early in September, Bowlin Green was going around the pasture to put his fence in repair, when he came upon young Mr. Lincoln. The latter sat in the shade of a tree on the hillside. He looked "terribly peaked," as Uncle Bowlin, has said in a letter.
"Why, Abe, where have you been?" he asked. "The whole village is scared. Samson Traylor was here last night lookin' for ye."
"I'm like a deer that's been hurt," said the young man. "I took to the woods. Wanted to be alone. You see, I had a lot of thinking to do—the kind of thinking that every man must do for himself. I've got the brush cleared away, at last, so I can see through. I had made up my mind to go down to your house for the night and was trying to decide whether I have energy enough to do it."
"Come on; it's only a short step," urged the big-hearted Bowlin. "The wife and babies are over to Beardstown. We'll have the whole place to ourselves. The feather beds are ladder high. I've got a haunch of venison buried in the hide and some prairie chickens that I killed yesterday, and, besides, I'm lonesome."
"What I feel the need of, just now, is a week or two of sleep," said Mr. Lincoln, as he rose and started down the long hill with his friend.
Some time later Bowlin Green gave Samson this brief account of what happened in and about the cabin:
"He wouldn't eat anything. He wanted to go down to the river for a dip, and I went with him. When we got back, I induced him to take off his clothes and get into bed. He was fast asleep in ten minutes. When night came I went up the ladder to bed. He was still asleep when I came down in the morning. I went out and did my chores. Then I cut two venison steaks, each about the size o' my hand, and a half moon of bacon. I pounded the venison to pulp with a little salt and bacon mixed in. I put it on the broiler and over a bed o' hickory coals. I got the coffee into the pot and up next to the fire and some potatoes in the ashes. I basted a bird with bacon strips and put it into the roaster and set it back o' the broiling bed. Then I made some biscuits and put 'em into the oven. I tell you, in a little while the smell o' that fireplace would have 'woke the dead—honest! Abe began to stir. In a minute I heard him call:
"'Say, Uncle Bowlin, I'm goin' to get up an' eat you out o' house and home. I'm hungry and I feel like a new man. What time is it?'
"'It'll be nine o'clock by the time you're washed and dressed,' I says.
"'Well, I declare,' says he, 'I've had about sixteen hours o' solid sleep. The world looks better to me this morning.'
"He hurried into his clothes and we sat down at the table with the steak and the chicken and some wild grape jelly and baked potatoes, with new butter and toffee and cream and hot biscuit and clover honey, and say, we both et till we was ashamed of it.
"At the table I told him a story and got a little laugh out of him. He stayed with me three weeks, choring around the place and taking it easy. He read all the books I had, until you and Doc Allen came with the law books. Then he pitched into them. I think he has changed a good deal since Ann died. He talks a lot about God and the hereafter."
In October young Mr. Lincoln returned to his surveying, and in the last month of the year to Vandalia for an extra session of the Legislature, where he took a stand against the convention system of nominating candidates for public office. Samson went to Vandalia for a visit with him and to see the place before the session ended. The next year, in a letter to his brother, he says:
"Vandalia is a small, crude village. It has a strong flavor of whisky, profanity and tobacco. The night after I got there I went to a banquet with Abe Lincoln. Heard a lot about the dam nigger-loving Yankees who were trying to ruin the state and country with abolition. There were some stories like those we used to hear in the lumber camp, and no end of powerful talk, in which the names of God and the Savior were roughly handled. A few of the statesmen got drunk, and after the dinner was over two of them jumped on the table and danced down the whole length of it, shattering plates and cups and saucers and glasses. Nobody seemed to be able to stop them. I hear that they had to pay several hundred dollars for the damage done. You will be apt to think that there is too much liberty here in the West, and perhaps that is so, but the fact is these men are not half so bad as they seem to be. Lincoln tells me that they are honest almost to a man and sincerely devoted to the public good as they see it. I asked Abe Lincoln, who all his life has associated with rough tongued, drinking men, how he had managed to hold his own course and keep his talk and habits so clean.
"'Why, the fact is,' said he, 'I have associated with the people who lived around me only part of the time, but I have never stopped associating with myself and with Washington and Clay and Webster and Shakespeare and Burns and DeFoe and Scott and Blackstone and Parsons. On the whole, I've been in pretty good company.'
"He has not yet accomplished much in the Legislature. I don't think that he will until some big issue comes along. 'I'm not much of a hand at hunting squirrels,' he said to me the other day. 'Wait till I see a bear.' The people of Vandalia and Springfield have never seen him yet. They don't know him as I do. But they all respect him—just for his good fellowship, honesty and decency. I guess that every fellow with a foul mouth hates himself for it and envies the man who isn't like him. They begin to see his skill as a politician, which has shown itself in the passage of a bill removing the capitol to Springfield. Abe Lincoln was the man who put it through. But he has not yet uncovered his best talents. Mark my word, some day Lincoln will be a big man.
"The death of his sweetheart has aged and sobered him. When we are together he often sits looking down with a sad face. For a while not a word out of him. Suddenly he will begin saying things, the effect of which will go with me to my grave, although I can not call back the words and place them as he did. He is what I would call a great Captain of words. Seems as if I heard the band playing while they march by me as well dressed and stepping as proud and regular as The Boston Guards. In some great battle between Right and Wrong you will hear from him. I hope it may be the battle between Slavery and Freedom, although at present he thinks they must avoid coming to a clinch. In my opinion, it can not be done. I expect to live to see the fight and to take part in it."
Late in the session of 1836-1837 the prophetic truth of these words began to reveal itself. A bill was being put through the Legislature denouncing the growth of abolition sentiment and its activity in organized societies and upholding the right of property in slaves.
Suddenly Lincoln had come to a fork in the road. Popularity, the urge of many friends, the counsel of Wealth and Power, and Public Opinion, the call of good politics pointed in one direction and the crowd went that way. It was a stampede. Lincoln stood alone at the corner. The crowd beckoned, but in vain. One man came back and joined him. It was Dan Stone, who was not a candidate for re-election. His political career was ended. There were three words on the sign-board pointing toward the perilous and lonely road that Lincoln proposed to follow. They were the words Justice and Human Rights. Lincoln and Dan Stone took that road in a protest, declaring that they "believed the institution of slavery was founded upon injustice and bad policy." Lincoln had followed his conscience, instead of the crowd. At twenty-eight years of age he had safely passed the great danger point in his career. The declaration at Decatur, the speeches against Douglas, the miracle of turning 4,000,000 beasts into 4,000,000 men, the sublime utterance at Gettysburg, the wise parables, the second inaugural, the innumerable acts of mercy, all of which lifted him into undying fame, were now possible. Henceforth he was to go forward with the growing approval of his own spirit and the favor of God.
BOOK THREE
CHAPTER XVII
WHEREIN YOUNG MR. LINCOLN BETRAYS IGNORANCE OF TWO HIGHLY IMPORTANT SUBJECTS, IN CONSEQUENCE OF WHICH HE BEGINS TO SUFFER SERIOUS EMBARRASSMENT.
There were two subjects of which Mr. Lincoln had little understanding. They were women and finance. Up to this time his tall, awkward, ill clad figure had been a source of amusement to those unacquainted with his admirable spirit. Until they had rightly appraised the value of his friendship, women had been wont to regard him with a riant curiosity. He had been aware of this, and for years had avoided women, save those of old acquaintance. When he lived at the tavern in the village often he had gone without a meal rather than expose himself to the eyes of strange women. The reason for this was well understood by those who knew him. The young man was an exceedingly sensitive human being. No doubt he had suffered more than any one knew from ill concealed ridicule, but he had been able to bear it with composure in his callow youth. Later nothing roused his anger like an attempt to ridicule him. No man who came in his way in after life was so quickly and completely floored as one George Forquer, who, in a moment of folly, had attempted to make light of him.
Two women he had regarded with great tenderness—his foster mother, the second wife of Thomas Lincoln, and Ann Rutledge. Others had been to him, mostly, delightful but inscrutable beings. The company of women and of dollars had been equally unfamiliar to him. He had said more than once in his young manhood that he felt embarrassed in the presence of either, and knew not quite how to behave himself—an exaggeration in which there was no small amount of truth.
In 1836 the middle frontier had entered upon a singular phase of its development. Emigrants from the East and South and from overseas had been pouring into it. The summer before the lake and river steamers had been crowded with them, and their wagons had come in long processions out of the East Chicago had begun its phenomenal growth. A frenzied speculation in town lots had been under way in that community since the autumn of '35. It was spreading through the state. Imaginary cities were laid out or the lonely prairies and all the corner lots sold to eager buyers and paid for with promises. Fortunes of imaginary wealth were created by sales of future greatness. Millions of conversational, promissory dollars, based upon the gold at the foot of the rainbow, were changing hands day by day. The Legislature, with an empty treasury behind it, voted twelve millions for river improvements and imaginary railroads and canals, for which neither surveys nor estimates had been made, to serve the dream-built cities of the speculator. If Mr. Lincoln had had more experience in the getting and use of dollars and more acquaintance with the shrinking timidity of large sums, he would have tried to dissipate these illusions of grandeur. But he went with the crowd, every member of which had a like inexperience.
In the midst of the session Samson Traylor arrived in Vandalia on his visit to Mr. Lincoln.
"I have sold my farm," said Samson to his old friend the evening of his arrival.
"Did you get a good price?" Mr. Lincoln asked.
"All that my conscience would allow me to take," said Samson. "The man offered me three dollars an acre in cash and ten dollars in notes. We compromised on seven dollars, all cash."
"It's a mistake to sell now. The river is going to be deepened and improved for navigation."
"I've made up my mind that it can't be done, unless you can invent a way to run a steamboat on moist ground," said Samson. "You might as well try to make a great man out of 'Colonel Lukins.' It hasn't the water-shed. To dig a deep channel for the Sangamon would be like sending 'Colonel Lukins' to Harvard. We're going too fast. We have little to sell yet but land. The people are coming to us in great numbers, but most of them are poor. We must give them time to settle down and create something and increase the wealth of the state. Then we shall have a solid base to build upon; then we shall have the confidence of the capital we require for improvements. Now I fear that we are building on the sands."
"Don't you think that our bonds would sell in the East?"
"No; because we have only used our lungs in all these plans of ours. No one has carefully considered the cost. For all we know, it may cost more than the entire wealth of the state to put through the improvements already planned. The eastern capitalists will want to know about costs and security. Undoubtedly Illinois is sure to be a great state. But we're all looking at the day of greatness through a telescope. It seems to be very near. It isn't. It's at least ten years in the future."
Young Mr. Lincoln looked very grave for a moment. Then he laughed and said: "I don't know but we're all a lot of fools. I begin to suspect myself. The subject of finance is new to me. I don't know much about it, but I'm sure if I were to say what you have said, in the House of Representatives, they would throw me out-of-doors."
"Just at present the House is a kind of insane asylum," said Samson. "You'll have to stick to the procession now. The road is so crowded that nobody can turn around. The folly of the state is so unanimous no one will be more to blame than another when the crash comes. You have meant well, anyhow."
"You make me feel young and inexperienced."
"You are generally wise, Abe, but there's one thing you don't know—that's the use of capital. For two years Sarah and I have been studying the subject of finance."
"I've seen too little of you in the last year or so," said the young statesman. "What are you going to do now that you have sold out?"
"I was thinking of going up to Tazewell County."
"Why don't you go to the growing and prosperous town of Springfield," Mr. Lincoln asked. "The capitol will be there, and so will I. It is going to be a big city. Men who are to make history will live in Springfield. You must come and help. The state will need a man of your good sense. It would be a great comfort to me to have you and Sarah and Harry and the children near me. I shall need your friendship, your wisdom and your sympathy. I shall want to sit often by your fireside. You'll find a good school there for the children. If you'll think of it seriously, I'll try to get you into the public service."
"We need you plenty," Samson answered. "We kind o' think o' you as one o' the family. I'll talk it over with Sarah and see. Never mind the job. If I keep you behavin' yourself, it'll be job enough. Anyway, I guess we can manage to get along. Sarah's uncle in Boston died last month and left her a little money. If we can get what we have well invested, all I shall need will be a few acres and a few tools and some friends to swap stories with."
"I've had a talk with Stuart and have some good news for Harry and Bim," said young Mr. Lincoln. "Stuart thinks she can get a divorce under the law of 1827. I suppose they are still interested in each other."
"He's like most of the Yankees. Once he gets set, it's hard to change him. The Kelsos have moved to Chicago, and I don't know how Bim stands. If Harry knows, he hasn't said a word to us about it."
"I'm interested in that little romance," said the legislator. "It's our duty to do what we can to secure the happiness of these young lovers. We mustn't neglect that in the pressure of other things. They and their friends are dear to me. Tell Harry to come over here. I want to talk with him."
This dialogue was about the last incident in the visit of Samson Traylor.
Late in the historic session of that spring, wherein the Whigs adopted the convention system of nominations and many plans were made for the expenditure of visionary millions, young Mr. Lincoln received a letter from his friend, Mrs. Bennet Able of New Salem, which conveyed a shock to his nerves. Before, he had gone to the session, Mrs. Able had said to him lightly:
"Abe, I'll ask my sister Mary to come up here for a visit if you'll agree to marry her."
"All right," the young man had answered playfully. He remembered Mary. When he had left Kentucky, years before, Mary—a slender, sweet-faced girl—had been one of those who bade him good-by.
The letter had said among other things: "Mary has come, and now we expect you to keep your word."
No knight of old had a keener sense of chivalry than the young statesman of Salem Hill. It was almost as Quixotic as the excesses at which Cervantes aimed his ridicule. An appalling fear took possession of him—a fear that Mrs. Able and the girl had taken him seriously. It worried him.
About this time Harry Needles arrived in Vandalia. The Legislature had adjourned for a week-end. It was a warm, bright Saturday, early in March. The two friends went out for a stroll in the woods.
"Have you seen Mrs. Able's sister, Mary Owens?" Abe Lincoln asked.
"I've seen her often."
"What kind of a girl is she?"
"A good kind, but-heavy."
"Fat?"
"Massive and most of her front teeth gone." Lincoln looked thoughtful.
"You look as if she had stepped on your foot," Harry remarked.
"The fact is I'm engaged to her in a kind of a way."
"Of course that's a joke."
"You're right; it's a joke, but I'm afraid she and her sister have taken it seriously. A man must be careful of the heart of a young woman. After all, it isn't a thing to play with. As usual, when I try to talk with women, I make a fool of myself."
"It would be easier to make a whistle out of a pig's tail than a fool out of you," said Harry. "I have joked like that with Annabel and other girls, but they knew that it was only fun."
"Still true to your old love?"
"As firm as a nail driven in oak," said Harry. "I seem to be built that way. I shall never care much for any other girl."
"Do you hear from Bim?"
"Once in a while I get a long, playful letter from her, full of things that only Bim could write."
"Stuart says she can get a divorce. We know the facts pretty well. If you say so, we'll prepare the papers and you can take them up to Chicago and get them signed and attested. Stuart tells me that we can serve them by advertising."
"Good!" Harry exclaimed. "Get the papers ready as soon as you can and send them up to me. When they come I'll mount that new pony of mine and start for Chicago. If she won't have me, let her take a better man."
"In my opinion Bim will want you," said the legislator. "I'll be coming home in a few days and will bring the papers with me. The session is about over. If the rich men refuse to back our plans, there's going to be a crowd of busted statesmen in Illinois, and I'll be one of 'em."
"Shall you spend the summer in New Salem?"
"I don't know yet what I shall do. First I must tackle the delicate task of getting disengaged from Mary."
"I shouldn't think it would take long," said Harry, with a smile.
"I can tell better after a preliminary survey."
"No doubt Mrs. Able would like to have you marry her sister. She knows that you have a promising future ahead of you. But don't allow her to look serious over that little joke."
Abe Lincoln laughed and said: "Mary would be like the man who traded horses unsight and unseem and drew a saw horse."
Harry returned to New Salem. After the session, young Mr. Lincoln went to Springfield and did not reach New Salem until the first week of May. When he arrived there, Mrs. Able met the stage from which he alighted and asked him to come to supper at her house that evening. Not a word was said of Mary in the excitement, about all the folk of the village having assembled to meet and cheer the triumphant Captain of Internal Improvements. Abe Lincoln went to supper and met Mary, who had a cheerful heart and good manners, and a schooled and active intellect, as well as the defects which Harry had mentioned. She and the young statesman had a pleasant visit together, recalling scenes and events which both remembered from beyond the barrier of a dozen years. On the whole, he was agreeably impressed. The neighbors came in after supper. Mrs. Able kept the comedy moving along by a playful reference to the pseudo engagement of the young people. Mr. Lincoln laughed with the others and said that it reminded him a little of the boy who decided to be president and only needed the consent of the United States.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH MR. LINCOLN, SAMSON AND HARRY TAKE A LONG RIDE TOGETHER AND THE LATTER VISIT THE FLOURISHING LITTLE CITY OF CHICAGO.
Mr. Lincoln had brought the papers which Harry was to take to Bim, and made haste to deliver them. The boy was eager to be off on his mission. The fields were sown. The new buyer was coming to take possession in two weeks. Samson and Harry had finished their work in New Salem.
"Wait till to-morrow and maybe I'll go with ye," said Samson. "I'm anxious to see the country clear up to the lake and take a look at that little mushroom city of Chicago."
"And buy a few corner lots?" Abe Lincoln asked, with a smile.
"No; I'll wait till next year. They'll be cheaper then. I believe in Chicago. It's placed right—on the waterway to the north and east, with good country on three sides and transportation on the other. It can go into partnership with Steam Power right away and begin to do business. Your grain and pork can go straight from there to Albany and New York and Boston and Baltimore without being rehandled. When railroads come—if they ever do—Steam Power will be shoving grain and meat and passengers into Chicago from every point of the compass."
Abe Lincoln turned to Sarah and said: "This is a growing country. You ought to see the cities springing up there in the Legislature. I was looking with great satisfaction at the crop when Samson came along one day and fell on it. He was like a frost in midsummer."
"The seed was sown too early," Samson rejoined. "You and I may live to see all the dreams of Vandalia come true."
"And all the nightmares, too," said the young statesman.
"Yes, we're going to wake up and find a cold morning and not much to eat in the house and the wolf at the door, but we'll live through it."
Then the young statesman proposed: "If you are going with Harry, I'll go along and see what they've done on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Some contractors who worked on the Erie Canal will start from Chicago Monday to look the ground over and bid on the construction of the southern end of it. I want to talk with them when they come along down the line."
"I guess a few days in the saddle would do you good," said Samson.
"I reckon it would. I've been cloyed on house air and oratory and future greatness. The prairie wind and your pessimism will straighten me up."
Harry rode to the village that afternoon to get "Colonel" and Mrs. Lukins to come out to the farm and stay with Sarah while he and Samson were away. Harry found the "Colonel" sitting comfortably in a chair by the door of his cabin, roaring with laughter. He had not lived up to his title and was still generally known as "Bony" Lukins.
"What are you roaring at?" Harry demanded.
The "Colonel" was dumb with joy for a moment. Then, with an effort, he straightened his face and managed to say: "Laughin' just 'cause I'm alive." The words were followed by a kind of spiritual explosion followed by a silent ague of merriment. It would seem that his brain had discovered in the human comedy some subtle and persuasive jest which had gone over the heads of the crowd. Yet Harry seemed to catch it, for he, too, began to laugh with the fortunate "Colonel."
"You see," said the latter, as, with great difficulty, he restrained himself for half a moment, "this is my busy day."
Again he roared and shook in a fit of ungovernable mirth. In the midst of it Mrs. Lukins arrived.
"Don't pay no 'tention to him," she said. "The 'Colonel' is wearin' himself out restin'. He's kep' his head bobbin' all day like a woodpecker's. Jest laughs till he's sick every time he an' ol' John gits together. It's plum ridic'lous."
The "Colonel" turned serious long enough to give him time to explain in a quivering, joyous tone: "0l' John, he just sets beside me and says the gol' darndest funniest things!"
He could get no further. His last words were blown out in a gale of laughter. Mrs. Lukins had sat down with her knitting.
"Ol' John Barleycorn will leave to-night, an' to-morrow the 'Colonel' will be the soberest critter in Illinois—kind o' lonesome like an' blubberin' to himself," she explained. The faithful soul added in a whisper of confidence: "He's a good man. There don't nobody know how deep an' kind o' coralapus like he is."
She now paused as if to count stitches. For a long time the word "coralapus" had been a prized possession of Mrs. Lukins. Like her feathered bonnet, it was used only on special occasions by way of putting her best foot forward. It was indeed a family ornament of the same general character as her husband's title. Just how she came by it nobody could tell, but of its general significance, as it fell from her lips; there could be no doubt whatever in any but the most obtuse intellect. For her it had a large and noble, although a rather indefinite meaning, entirely favorable to the person or the object to which it was applied. There was one other word in her lexicon which was in the nature of a jewel to be used only on special occasions. It was the word "copasetic." The best society of Salem Hill understood perfectly that it signalized an unusual depth of meaning.
In half a moment she added: "He's got some grand idees. If they was ever drawed out an' spread on the ground so that folks could see them, I reckon they'd be surprised."
"I'm sorry to find him in this condition," said Harry. "We wanted you and him to come out and help Mrs. Traylor to look after the place while we are gone to Chicago."
"You needn't worry about Ol' John," said she.
"He'll git lonesome an' toddle off when the 'Colonel' goes to bed an' won't come 'round ag'in till snow flies. That man will be just as steady as an ox all the summer an' fall—not a laugh out o' him—you see."
"Can you be there at six in the morning?"
"We'll be there—sure as sunrise—an' ready to go to work."
They were on hand at the hour appointed, the "Colonel" having acquired, meanwhile, his wonted look of solemnity.
Josiah, now a sturdy boy of thirteen, stood in the dooryard, holding the two saddle ponies from Nebraska which Samson had bought of a drover. Betsey, a handsome young miss almost fifteen years old, stood beside him. Sambo, a sober old dog with gray hairs in his head, sat near, looking at the horses. Sarah, whose face had begun to show the wear of years full of loneliness and hard work, was packing the saddle-bags, now nearly filled, with extra socks and shirts and doughnuts and bread and butter. As the travelers were saying good-by, Mrs. Lukins handed a package to Samson.
"I heard Philemon Morris readin' 'bout Chicago in the paper," said she. "I want you to take that money an' buy me some land thar—jest as much as ye kin. There's two hundred an' fifty dollars in the foot o' that ol' sock, and most of it shiny gold."
"I wouldn't risk my savings that way," Samson advised. "It's too much like gambling. You couldn't afford to lose your money."
"You do as I tell ye," the "Colonel's" wife insisted. "I alwus obey your orders. Now I want you to take one from me."
"All right," the man answered. "If I see anything that looks good to me, I'll buy it if I can."
As the two men were riding toward the village, Samson said: "Kind o' makes my heart ache to leave home even for a little while these days. We've had six long, lonesome years on that farm. Not one of our friends have been out to see us. Sarah was right. Movin' west is a good deal like dyin' and goin' to another world. It's a pity we didn't settle further north, but we were tired of travel when we got here. We didn't know which way to turn and felt as if we'd gone far enough. When we settle down again, it'll be where we can take some comfort and see lots o' folks every day."
"Have you decided where to go?" Harry asked.
"I think we shall go with Abe to Springfield."
"That's good. Next year I hope to be admitted to the bar, and I'd like to settle in Springfield."
For nearly two years Abe Lincoln had been passing the law books that he had read to Harry before they went back to John T. Stuart.
The gray horses, Colonel and Pete, stood by the fence in the pasture lot and whinnied as the men passed.
"They know us all right," said Samson. "I guess they feel slighted, but they've had their last journey. They're about worn out. We'll give 'em a vacation this summer. I wouldn't sell 'em. They're a part o' the family. You can lay yer hand on either one and say that no better boss was ever wrapped in a surcingle."
They met Abe Lincoln at the tavern, where he was waiting on a big horse which he had borrowed for the trip from James Rutledge. Without delay, the three men set out on the north road in perfect weather. From the hill's edge they could look over a wooded plain running far to the east.
"It's a beautiful place to live up here, but on this side you need a ladder to get to it. The little village is going to die—too much altitude. It's a horse killer. No team can draw anything but its breath going up that hill. It's all right for a generation of walkers, but the time has come when we must go faster than a walk and carry bigger burdens than a basket or a bundle. Every one will be moving—mostly to Petersburg."