In The Boyhood of Lincoln / A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk

With such a "wizard" as Jasper in the settlement, who would certainly attend the examination, it is no wonder that this special event excited the greatest interest in all the cabins between the two Pigeon Creeks of southern Indiana.

"May we decorate the school-house?" asked a girl of Mr. Crawford, before the appointed day. "May we decorate the school-house out of the woods?"

"I am chiefly desirous that you should decorate your minds out of the spelling-book," said Mr. Crawford; "but it is a commendable thing to have an eye to beauty, and to desire to present a good appearance. Yes, you may decorate the house out of the woods."

The timber was green in places with a vine called creeping Jenney, and laurels whose leaves were almost as green and waxy as those of the Southern magnolia. The creeping Jenney could be entwined with the laurel-leaves in such a way as to form long festoons. The boys and girls spent the mornings and recesses for several days in gathering Jenney, and in twining the vines with the laurel and making decorative festoons.

They hung these festoons about the wooden walls of the low building and over the door. Out of the tufts of boxberry leaves and plums they made the word "Welcome," which they hung over the door. They covered the rude chimney with pine-boughs, and in so doing filled the room with a resinous odor. They also covered the roof with boughs of evergreen.

The spelling-book was not neglected in the preparations of the eventful week. There was to be a spelling-match on the day, and, although it was already felt that Abraham Lincoln would easily win, there was hard study on the part of all.

One afternoon, after school, in the midst of these heroic preparations, a party of the scholars were passing along the path in the timber. A dispute arose between two boys in regard to the spelling of a word.

"I spelled it just as Crawford did," said one.

"No, you didn't. Crawford spelled it with a i."

"He spelled it with a y, and that is just the way I spelled it."

"He didn't, now, I know! I heard Crawford spell it himself."

"He did!"

"Do you mean to tell me that I lie?"

"You do—it don't need telling."

"I won't be called a liar by anybody. I'll make you ache for that!"

"We'll see about that. You may ache yourself before this thing is settled. I've got fists as well as you, and I will not take such words as that from anybody. Come on!"

The two backwoods knights rushed toward each other with a wounded sense of honor in their hearts and with uplifted arms.

Suddenly a form like a giant passed between them. It took one boy under one of its arms and the other under the other, and strode down the timber.

"He called me a liar," said one of the boys. "I won't stand that from any man."

"He sassed me," said the other, "and I won't stand any sassin', not while my fists are alive."

"You wouldn't be called a liar," said the first.

"Nor take any sassin'," said the second.

The tall form in blue-jean shirt and leather breeches strode on, with the two boys under its arms.

"I beg!" at last said one of the boys.

"I beg!" said the other.

"Then I'll let you go, and we'll all be friends again!"

"Yes, Abraham, I'll give in, if he will."

"I will. Let me go."

The tall form dropped the two boys, and soon all was peace in the April-like air.

"Abraham Lincoln will never allow any quarrels in our school," said another boy. "Where he is there has to be peace. It wouldn't be fair for him to use his strength so, only he's always right; and when strength is right it is all for the best."

The boy had a rather clear perception of the true principles of human government. A will to do right and the power to enforce it, make nations great as well as character powerful.

The eventful day came, with blue-birds in the glimmering timber, and a blue sky over all. People came from a distance to attend the examination, and were surprised to find the school-house changed into a green bower.

The afternoon session had been assigned to receiving company, and the pupils awaited the guests with trembling expectation. It was a warm day, and the oiled paper that served for panes of glass in the windows had been pushed aside to admit the air and make an outlook, and the door had been left open. The first to arrive was Jasper. The school saw him coming; but he looked so kindly, benevolent, and patriarchal, that the boys and girls did not stand greatly in awe of him. They seemed to feel instinctively that he was their friend and was with them. But a different feeling came over them when 'Squire Gentry, of Gentryville, came cantering on a horse that looked like a war-charger. 'Squire Gentry was a great man in those parts, and filled a continental space in their young minds. The faces of all the scholars were turned silently and deferently to their books when the 'Squire banged with his whip-handle on the door. Aunt Olive was next seen coming down the timber. She was dressed in a manner to cause solicitude and trepidation. She wore knit mits, had a lofty poke bonnet, and a "checkered" gown gay enough for a valance, and, although it was yet very early spring, she carried a parasol over her head. There was deep interest in the books as her form also darkened the festooned door.

Then the pupils breathed freer. But only for a moment. Sarah Lincoln, Abraham's sister, looked out of the window, and beheld a sight which she was not slow to communicate.

"Abe," she whispered, "look there!"

"Blue-nose Crawford," whispered the tall boy, "as I live!"

In a few moments the school was all eyes and mouths. Blue-nose Crawford bore the reputation of being a very hard taskmaster, and of holding to the view that severe discipline was one of the virtues that wisdom ought to visit upon the youth. He once lent to Abraham Lincoln Weems's "Life of Washington." The boy read it with absorbing interest, but there came a driving storm, and the rain ran in the night through the walls of the log-cabin and wet and warped the cover of the book. Blue-nose Crawford charged young Lincoln seventy-five cents for the damage done to the book. "Abe," as he was called, worked three days, at twenty-five cents a day, pulling fodder, to pay the fine. He said, long after this hard incident, that he did his work well, and that, although his feelings were injured, he did not leave so much as a strip of fodder in the field.

"The class in reading may take their places," said Andrew Crawford.

It was a tall class, and it was provided with leather-covered English Readers. One of the best readers in the class was a Miss Roby, a girl of some fifteen years of age, whom young Lincoln greatly liked, and whom he had once helped at a spelling match, by putting his finger on his eye (i) when she had spelled defied with a y. This girl read a selection with real pathos.

"That gal reads well," said Blue-nose Crawford, or Josiah Crawford, as he should be called. "She ought to keep school. We're goin' to need teachers in Indiana. People are comin' fast."

Miss Roby colored. She had indeed won a triumph of which every pupil of Spencer County might be proud.

"Now, Nathaniel, let's hear you read. You're a strappin' feller, and you ought not to be outread by a gal."

Nathaniel raised his book so as to hide his face, like one near-sighted. He spread his legs apart, and stood like a drum-major awaiting a word of command.

"You may read Section V in poetry," said Mr. Crawford, the teacher. "Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk. Speak up loud, and mind your pauses."

He did.

"I am monarch of all I survey," he began, in a tone of vocal thunder. Then he made a pause, a very long one. Josiah Crawford turned around in great surprise; and Aunt Olive planted the chair in which she had been sitting at a different angle, so that she could scrutinize the reader.

The monarch of all he surveyed, which in the case of the boy was only one page of the English Reader, was diligently spelling out the next line, which he proceeded to pronounce like one long word with surprising velocity:

"My-right-there-is-none-to-dispute."

There was another pause.

"Hold down your book," said the master.

"Yes, hold down your book," said Josiah Crawford. "What do ye cover yer face for? There's nuthin' to be ashamed of. Now try again."

Nathaniel lowered the book and revealed the singular struggle that was going on in his mind. He had to spell out the words to himself, and in doing so his face was full of the most distressing grimaces. He unconsciously lifted his eyebrows, squinted his eyes, and drew his mouth hither and thither.

The last line came to a sudden conclusion, and was followed by a very long pause.

"Go on," said Andrew Crawford, the master.

"Yes, go on," said Josiah. "At the rate you're goin' now you won't get through by candle-light."

Nathaniel lifted his eyebrows and uttered a curiously exciting—

"O"—

"That boy'll have a fit," said Aunt Olive. "Don't let him read any more, for massy sake!"

"O—What's that word, master? S-o-l-i-t-u-d-e, so-li-tu-de. O—So-li-tu-de."

"O Solitude, where are the charms?" read Mr. Andrew Crawford,

Nathaniel followed the master like a race-horse. He went on smoothly until he came to "this horrible place," when his face assumed a startled expression, like one who had met with an apparition. He began to spell out horrible, "h-o-r-, hor—there's your hor, hor; r-i-b-, there's your rib, horrib—"

"Don't let that boy read any more," said Aunt Olive.

Nathaniel dropped his book by his side, and cast a far-away glance into the timber.

"I guess I ain't much of a reader," he remarked, dryly.

"Stop, sir!" said the master.

Poor Nathaniel! Once, in attempting to read a Bible story, he read, "And he smote the Hittite that he died"—"And he smote him Hi-ti-ti-ty, that he did" with great emphasis and brief self-congratulation.

In wonderful contrast to Nathaniel's efforts was the reading in concert by the whole class. Here was shown fine preparation for a forest school. The reading of verses, in which "sound corresponded to the signification," was smoothly, musically, and admirably done, and we give some of these curious exercises here:

Felling trees in a wood.

Sounds of a bow-string.

The pheasant.

Scylla and Charybdis.

Boisterous and gentle sounds.

Laborious and impetuous motion.

Regular and slow movement.

Motion slow and difficult.

A rock torn from the brow of a mountain.

Extent and violence of the waves.

Pensive numbers.

Battle.

Sound imitating reluctance.

A spelling exercise followed, in which the pupils spelled for places, or for the head. Abraham Lincoln stood at the head of the class. He was regarded as the best speller in Spencer County. He is noted to have soon exhausted all that the three teachers whom he found there could teach him. Once, in after years, when he was asked how he came to know so much, he answered, "By a willingness to learn of every one who could teach me anything."

"Abraham," said Master Crawford, "you have maintained your place at the head of the class during the winter. You may take your place now at the foot of the class, and try again."

The spelling for turns, or for the head, followed the method of the old Webster's "Speller," that was once so popular in country schools:

All went correctly and smoothly, to the delight and satisfaction of Josiah Crawford and Aunt Olive, until the word drachm was reached, when all the class failed except Abraham Lincoln, who easily passed up to the head again.

The writing-books, or copy-books, were next shown to the visitors. The writing had been done on puncheon-desks with home made ink. Abraham Lincoln's copy-book showed the same characteristic hand that signed the Emancipation Proclamation. In one corner of a certain page he had written an odd bit of verse in which one may read a common experience in the struggles of life after what is better and higher. Emerson said, "A high aim is curative." Poor backwoods Abe seemed to have the same impression, but he did not write it down in an Emersonian way, but in this odd rhyme:

The exercises ended with a grand dialogue translated from Fénelon between Dionysius, Pythias, and Damon, in which fidelity in friendship was commended. After this, each of the visitors, Aunt Olive included, was asked to make a "few remarks." Aunt Olive's remarks were "few," but to the point:

"Children, you have read well, and spelled well, and are good arithmetickers, but you ain't sot still. There!"

Josiah Crawford thought the progress of the school had been excellent, but that more of the rod had been needed.

(Where had all the green bushes gone in the clearing, but to purposes of discipline?)

Then good Brother Jasper was asked to speak. The "wizard" who could speak Latin arose. The pupils could see his great heart under his face. It shone through. His fine German culture did not lead him away from the solid merits of the forest school.

"There are purposes in life that we can not see," he began, "but the secret comes to those who listen to the beating of the human heart, and at the doors of heaven. Spirits whisper, as it were. The soul, a great right intention, is here; and there is a conscience here which is power; and here, for aught we can say, may be some young Servius Tullius of this wide republic."

Servius Tullius? Would any one but he have dreamed that the citizens of Rome would one day delight to honor an ungainly pupil of that forest school?

One day there came to Washington a present to the Liberator of the American Republic. It looked as follows, and bore the following inscription:

It is said that the modest President shrank from receiving such a compliment as that. It was too much. He hid away the stone in a storeroom of the capital, in the basement of the White House. It now constitutes a part of his monument, being one of the most impressive relics in the Memorial Hall of that structure. It is twenty-four hundred years old, and it traveled across the world to the prairies of Illinois, a tribute from the first advocate of the rights of the people to the latest defender of all that is sacred to the human soul.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PARABLE PREACHES IN THE WILDERNESS.

The house in which young Abraham Lincoln attended church was simple and curious, as were the old forest Baptist preachers who conducted the services there. It was called simply the "meeting-house." It stood in the timber, whose columns and aisles opened around it like a vast cathedral, where the rocks were altars and the birds were choirs. It was built of rude logs, and had hard benches, but the plain people had done more skillful work on this forest sanctuary than on the school-house. The log meeting-house stood near the log school-house, and both revealed the heart of the people who built them. It was the Prussian school-master, trained in the moral education of Pestalozzi, that made the German army victorious over France in the late war. And it was the New England school-master that built the great West, and made Plymouth Rock the crown-stone of our own nation. The world owes to humble Pestalozzi what it never could have secured from a Napoleon. It is right ideas that march to the conquest, that lift mankind, and live.

It had been announced in the school-house that Jasper the Parable would preach in the log church on Sunday. The school-master called the wandering teacher "Jasper the Parable," but the visitor became commonly known as the "Old Tunker" in the community. The news flew for miles that "an old Tunker" was to preach. No event had awakened a greater interest since Elder Elkins, from Kentucky, had come to the settlement to preach Nancy Lincoln's funeral sermon under the great trees. On that occasion all the people gathered from the forest homes of the vast region. Every one now was eager to visit the same place in the beautiful spring weather, and to "hear what the old Tunker would have to say."

Among the preachers who used to speak in the log meeting-house and in Thomas Lincoln's cabin were one Jeremiah Cash, and John Richardson, and young Lamar. The two latter preachers lived some ten miles distant from the church; but ten miles was not regarded as a long Sabbath-day journey in those days in Indiana. When the log meeting-house was found too small to hold the people, such preachers would exhort under the trees. There used to be held religious meetings in the cabins, after the manner of the present English cottage prayer-meetings. These used to be appointed to take place at "early candle-lighting," and many of the women who attended used to bring tallow dips with them, and were looked upon as the "wise virgins" who took oil in their lamps.

It was a lovely Sunday in April. The warm sunlight filled the air and bird-songs the trees. The notes of the lark, the sparrow, and the prairie plover were bells—

as one of the old hymns used to run. The buds on the trees were swelling. There was an odor of walnut and "sassafrax" in the tides of the sunny air. Cowslips and violets margined the streams, and the sky over all was serene and blue, and bright with the promise of the summer days.

The people began to gather about the meeting-house at an early hour. The women came first, in corn-field bonnets which were scoop-shaped and flaring in front, and that ran out like horns behind. On these funnel-shaped, cornucopia-like head-gears there might now and then be seen the vanity of a ribbon. The girls carried their shoes in their hands until they came in sight of the meeting-house, when they would sit down on some mossy plat under an old tree, "bein' careful of the snakes," and put them on. All wore linsey-woolsey dresses, of which four or five yards of cloth were an ample pattern for a single garment, as they had no use for any superfluous polonaises in those times.

Long before the time for the service the log meeting-house was full of women, and the yard full of men and horses. Some of the people had come from twenty miles away. Those who came from the longest distances were the first to arrive—as is usual, for in all matters in life promptness is proportioned to exertion.

When the Parable came, Thomas Lincoln met him.

"You can't preach here," said he. "Half the people couldn't hear you. You have a small voice. You don't holler and pound like the rest of 'em, I take it. Suppose you preach out under the trees, where all the people can hear ye. It looks mighty pleasant there. With our old sing-song preachers it don't make so much difference. We could hear one of them if you were to shut him up in jail. But with you it is different. You have been brought up different among those big churches over there. What do you say, preacher?"

"I would rather preach under the trees. I love the trees. They are the meeting-house of God."

"Say, preacher, would you mind goin' over and preachin' at Nancy's grave? Elder Elkins preached there, and the other travelin' ministers. Seems kind o' holy over there. Nancy was a good woman, and all the people liked her. She was Abraham's mother. The trees around her grave are beautiful."

"I would like to preach there, by that lonely grave in the wilderness."

"The Tunker will preach at Nancy's grave," said Thomas Lincoln in a loud voice. He led the way to the great cathedral of giant trees, which were clouded with swelling buds and old moss, and a long procession of people followed him there.

Among them was Aunt Olive, with a corn-field bonnet of immense proportions, and her hymn-book. She was a lively worshiper. At all the meetings she sang, and at the Methodist meetings she shouted; and after all religious occasions she "tarried behind," to discuss the sermon with the minister. She usually led the singing. Her favorite hymns were, "Am I a soldier of the Cross," "Come, thou Fount of every blessing," and "My Bible leads to glory." The last hymn and tune suited her emotional nature, and she would pitch it upon a high key, and make the woods ring with the curious musical exhortation of the chorus:

At the early candle-meetings at Thomas Lincoln's cabin and other cabins, she sang hymns of a more persuasive character. These were oddly appropriate to the hard-working, weary, yet hopeful community. One of these began thus:

The music was weird and in a minor key. It was sung often with a peculiar motion of the body, a forward-and-backward movement, with clasped hands and closed eyes. Another of the pioneer hymns began:

The full glory of a spring day in Indiana shone over the vast forests, as the Tunker rose to speak under the great trees. It was like an Easter, and, indeed, the hymn sung at the opening of the service was much like an Easter hymn. It related how—

The individuality of the last line seemed especially comforting to many of the toiling people, and caused Aunt Olive to uplift her voice in a great shout.

"Come with me," said Jasper; "come with me this morning, and we will walk beside the Sea of Galilee together. Galilee! I love to think of Galilee—far, far away. The words spoken on the shores of Galilee, and on the mountains over-looking Galilee, are the hope of the world. They are the final words of our all-loving Father to his children. Times may change, but these words will never be exceeded or superseded; nothing can ever go beyond these teachings of the brotherhood of man, and the way that the heart may find God, and become conscious of the presence of God, and know its immortality, and the everlasting truth. What did the great Teacher say on Galilee?"

The Parable began to repeat from memory the Sermon on the Mount and the Galilean teachings. The birds came and sang in the trees during the long recitations, and the people sank down on the grass. Once or twice Aunt Olive's corn-field bonnet rose up, and out of it came a shout of "Glory!" One enthusiastic brother shouted, at one point of the quotations: "That's right, elder; pitch into 'em, and give it 'em—they need it. We're all sinners here; a good field to improve upon! Go on!"

It was past high noon when Jasper finished his quotations from the Gospels. He then paused, and said:

"Do you want to know who I am, and why I am here, and what has sent me forth among the speckled birds of the forest? I will tell you. A true life has no secrets—it needs none; it is open to all like the revelations of the skies, and the sea, and the heart of Nature—what is concealed in the heart is what should not be.

"I had a teacher. He is living now—an old, broken man—a name that will sound strange to your ears. He gave up his life to teach the orphans made by the war. He studied with them, learned with them, ate with them; he saw with their eyes and felt with their hearts. He taught after the school of Nature; as Nature teaches the child within, so he taught, using outward objects.

"He once said to me:

"'For thirty years my life has been a struggle against poverty. For thirty years I have had to forego many of the barest necessities of life, and have had to shun the society of my fellow-men for want of decent clothes. Many and many times I have gone without a dinner, and eaten in bitterness a dry crust of bread on the road, at a time when even the poorest were seated around a table. All this I have suffered, and am suffering still to-day, and with no other object than to realize my plan for helping the poor.'

"When I heard him say that, I loved him. It made me ashamed of my selfish life. Then I heard the Dunkards preach, and tell of America over the sea. I began to study the words of the Teacher of Galilee. I, too, longed to teach. My wife died, and my two children. Then I said: 'I will live for the soul. That is all that has any lasting worth. I will give up everything for the good of others, and go over the sea, and teach the children of the forest.' I am now on my way to see Black Hawk, who has promised to send out with me an interpreter and guide. I have given up my will, my property, and my name, and I am happy. Good-by, my friends. I have nothing, and am happy."

At this point Aunt Olive's corn-field bonnet rose up, and her voice rang out on the air:

Galilee! There was one merry, fun-making boy in that sacred place, to whom, according to tradition, that word had a charm. He used to love to mimic the old backwoods preachers, and he became very skeptical in matters of Christian faith and doctrine, but he never forgot the teachings of the Teacher of Galilee. In the terrible duties that fell to his lot the principles of the Galilean teachings came home to his heart, and he came to know in experience what he had not accepted from the mouths of men. He is said to have said, just before his death, which bowed the nation: "When the cares of state are over, I want to go to Galilee," or words of like meaning. The legend is so beautiful that we could wish it to be true.

CHAPTER IX.

AUNT INDIANA'S PROPHECIES.

Jasper heard the local stories at the smithy and at Aunt Indiana's with intense interest. To him they furnished a study of the character of the people. They were not like stories of beautiful spiritual meaning that he had been accustomed to hear at Marienthal, at Weimar, and on the Rhine. The tales of Richter, Haupt, Hoffman, and Baron Fouqué could never have been created here. These new settlements called for the incident or joke that represented a practical fact, and not the soul-growth of imagination. The one question of education was, "Can you cipher to the rule of three?" and of religion, "Have you found the Lord?" The favorite tales were of Indians, bears, and ghosts, and the rough hardships that overcome life. Jasper heard these tales with a sympathetic heart.

The true German story is a parable, a word with a soul. Jasper loved them, for the tales of a people are the heart of a people, and express the progress of culture and opinion.

One day, as Jasper was cobbling at Aunt Olive's, he sought to teach her a lesson of contentment by a German household story. Johnnie Kongapod had come in, and the woman was complaining of her hard and restricted life.

"Aunt Indiana," said Jasper, "do you have fairies here?"

"Never have seen any. We don't spin air here in America."

"We have fairies in Germany. All the children there pass through fairy-land. There once came a fairy to an old couple who were complaining, like you."

"Like me? I'm the contentedest woman in these parts. 'Tis no harm to wish for what you haven't got."

"There came a fairy to them, and said:

"'You may have three wishes. Wish.'

"The old couple thought:

"'We must be very wise,' said the woman, 'and not make any mistake, since we can only wish three times. I wish I had a pudding.'

"Immediately there came a pudding upon the table. The poor woman was greatly surprised.

"'There, you see what you have done by your foolish wishing!' said the man.

"'One of our opportunities has gone,' said the woman. 'We have but two chances left. We must be wiser.'

"They sat and looked into the fire. The fairy had disappeared from the hearth, and there were only embers and ashes there.

"The man grew angry that his wife had lost one of their opportunities.

"'Nothin' but a pudding!' said he. 'I wish that that miserable pudding were hung to your nose!'

"The pudding leaped from the table and hung at the end of the old woman's nose.

"'There!' said she, 'now you see what you have done by your foolish wishing.'

"The old man sighed. 'We have but one wish left. We must now be the wisest people in all the world.'

"They watched the dying embers, and thought. As they did so, the pudding grew heavy at the end of the old woman's nose. At last she could endure it no longer.

"'Oh!' she said, 'how I wish that pudding was off again!'

"The pudding disappeared, and the fairy was gone."

"'Tain't true," said Aunt Indiana.

"Yes," said Jasper, "what is true to life is true. Stories are the alphabet of life."

Johnnie Kongapod had listened to the tale with delight. Aunt Indiana knew that no fairy would ever appear on her hearth, but Johnnie was not so sure.

"I've seen 'em," said he.

"You—what? What have you seen? I'd like to know," said Aunt Indiana.

"Fairies—"

"Where?"

"When I've been asleep."

"There never was any fairies in my dreams," said Aunt Indiana.

No, there were not. The German Tunker and the prairie Indian might see fairies, but the hard-working Yankee pioneer had no faculties for creative fancy. Her fairy was the plow that breaks the ground, or the axe that fells the timber. Yet the German soul-tale seemed to haunt her, and she at last said:

"I wish that we had more such stories as that. It is pleasant talk. Abe Lincoln tells such things out of the Pilgrim's Progress. He's all imagination, just like you and the Indians. People who don't have much to do run to such things. I suppose that he has read that Pilgrim's Progress over a dozen times."

"I have observed that the boy had ideals," said Jasper.

"What's them?" said Aunt Indiana.

"People build life out of ideals," said Jasper. "A cathedral is an ideal before it is a form. So is a house, a glass—everything. He has the creative imagination."

"Yes—that's what I said: always going around with a book in his hand, as though he was walking on the air."

"His step-mother says that he's one of the best of boys. He does everything that he can for her, and he has never given her an unkind word. He loves his step-mother like an own mother, and he forgets himself for others. These are good signs."

"Signs—signs! Stop your cobblin', elder, and let me prophesy! That boy just takes after his father, and he will never amount to anything in this world or any other. His mother what is dead was a good woman—an awful good woman; but she was sort o' visionary. They say that she used to see things at camp-meetin's, and lose her strength, and have far-away visions. She might have seen fairies. But she was an awful good woman—good to everybody, and everybody loved her; and we were all sorry when she died, and we all love her grave yet. It is queer, but we all seem to love her grave. A sermon goes better when it is preached there under the great trees. Some folks had rather hear a sermon preached there than at the meetin'-house. Some people leave a kind o' influence; Miss Linken did. The boy means well—his heart is all right, like his poor dead mother's was—but he hasn't got any head on 'im, like as I have. He hasn't got any calculation. And now, elder, I'm goin' to say it, though I'm sorry to: he'll never amount to shucks! There, now! Josiah Crawford says so, too."

"There is one very strong point about Abraham," said Jasper. "He has a keen sense of what is right, and he is always governed by it. He has faith that right is might. Didn't you ever notice it?"

"Yes, I'll do him justice. I never knew him to do a thing that he thought wrong—never. He couldn't. He takes after his mother's folks, and they say that there is Quaker blood in the Linkens."

"But, my good woman, a fool would be wise if he always did right, wouldn't he? There is no higher wisdom than to always do right. And a boy that has a heart to feel for every one, and a conscience that is true to a sense of right, and that loves learning more than anything else, and studies continually, is likely to find a place in the world.

"Now, I am going to prophesy. This country is going to need men to lead them, and Abraham Lincoln will one day become a leader among men. He leads now. His heart leads; his mind leads. I can see it. The world here is going to need men of knowledge, and it will select the man of the most learning who has the most heart, the most sympathy with the people. It will select him. I have a spiritual eye, and I can see."

"A leader of the people—Abe Lincoln! You have said it now. I would as soon think of Johnnie Kongapod! A leader of the people! Are you daft? When the prairies leap into corn-fields and the settlements into banks of gold, and men can travel a mile a minute, and clodhoppers become merchants and Congressers, and as rich as Spanish grandees, then Abraham Lincoln may become a leader of the people, but not till then! No, elder, you are no Samuel, that has come down here among the sons of Jesse to find a shepherd-boy for a king. You ain't no Samuel, and he ain't no shepherd-boy. He all runs to books and legs, and I tell you he ain't got no calculation. Now, I've prophesied and you've prophesied."

"Time tells the truth about all things," said Jasper. "We shall meet, if I make my circuits, and we will talk of our prophecies in other years, should Providence permit. My soul has set its mark on that boy: wait, and we will see if the voice within me speaks true. It has always spoken true until now."

At the close of this prophetic dialogue the subject of it appeared at the door. He was a tall boy, with a dark face, homely, ungainly, awkward. He wore a raccoon-skin cap, a linsey-woolsey shirt, and leather breeches, and was barefooted, although the weather was yet cool. He did not look like one who would ever cause the thrones of the world to lean and listen, or who would find in the Emperor of all the Russias the heart of a brother.

"Abe," said Aunt Indiana, "the Tunker here has been speakin' well of you, though you don't deserve it. He just says as how you are goin' to be somebody, and make somethin' in the world. I hope you will, though you're a shaky tree to hang hopes on. I ain't got nothin' ag'in ye. He says that you'll become a leader among men. What do you think o' that, Abe? Don't stand there gawkin'. Come in and sit down."

"It helps one to have some one believe in him," said the tall boy. "One tries to fulfill the good prophecies made about him. I wish I was good.—Thank ye, elder, for your good opinion. I wonder if I will ever make anything? I sometimes think I will. I look over toward mother's grave there, and think I will; but you can't tell. Crawford the schoolmaster he thinks good of me, but the other Crawford—Josiah—he's ag'in me. But if we do right, we'll all come out right."

"Yes, my boy," said Jasper, "have faith that right is might. This is what the Voice and the Being within tells me to preach and to teach. Let us have faith that right is might, and do our duty, and the Spirit of God will give us a new nature, and make us new creatures, and the rebirth of the spiritual life into the eternal kingdom."

The prairie winds breathed through the trees. A robin came and sang in the timber.

The four sat thoughtful—the Tunker, the Indian, the pioneer woman, and the merry, sad-faced boy. It was a commonplace scene in the Indiana timber, and that one lonely grave is all that is left to recall such scenes to-day—the grave of the pioneer mother.

CHAPTER X.

THE INDIAN RUNNER.

The young May moon was hanging over the Mississippi on the evening when Jasper came to the village of the Sacs and Foxes. This royal town, the head residence of the two tribes, and the ancient burying-ground of the Indian race, was very beautifully situated at the junction of the Rock River with the Mississippi. The Father of Waters, which is in many places turbid and uninteresting, here becomes a clear and impetuous stream, flowing over beds of rock and gravel, amid high and wooded shores. The rapids—the water-ponies of the Indians—here come leaping down, surging and foaming, and are checked by monumental islands. The land rises from the river in slopes, like terraces, crowned with hills and patriarchal trees. From these hills the sight is glorious. On one hand rolls the mighty river, and on the other stretch vast prairies, flower-carpeted, sun-flooded, a sea of vegetation, the home of the prairie plover and countless nesters of the bright, warm air. It is a park, whose extent is bounded by hundreds of miles.

Water-swept and beautiful lies Rock Island, where on a parapet of rock was built Fort Armstrong in the days of the later Indian troubles.

The royal town and burying-ground was a place of remarkable fertility. The grape-vine tangled the near woods, the wild honeysuckle perfumed the air, and wild plums blossomed white in May and purpled with fruit in summer. If ever an Indian race loved a town, it was this. The Indian mind is poetic. Nature is the book of poetry to his instinct, and here Nature was poetic in all her moods.

The Indians venerated the graves of their ancestors. Here they kept the graves beautiful, and often carried food to them and left it for the dead.

The chant at these graves was tender, and shows that the human heart everywhere is the same. It was like this: