"This letter was forwarded from Vandalia the week I went out on the circuit and remained unopened in our office until my return six weeks later.—A. Lincoln."
The day of his return he went to Sarah and Samson with the letter.
"I'll get a good horse and start for Chicago to-morrow morning," said Samson. "They have had a double blow. Did you read that Harry had been killed?"
"Harry killed!" Mr. Lincoln exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that Harry has been killed?"
"The Chicago Democrat says so but we don't believe it," said Samson. "Here's the article copied into The Sangamon Journal. Read it and then I'll tell you why I don't think it's so."
Abe Lincoln read the article.
"You see it was dated in Tampa, November the fifth," said Samson. "Before we had read that article we had received a letter from Harry dated November the seventh. In the letter he says he is all right and I calculate that he ought to know as much about it as any one."
"Thank God! Then it's a mistake," said Lincoln. "We can't afford to lose Harry. I feel rather poor with Jack Kelso gone. It will comfort me to do what I can for his wife and daughter. I'll give you every dollar I can spare to take to them."
A moment of sorrowful silence followed.
"I'll never forget the kindly soul of Jack or his wit or his sayings, many of which are in my notebook," said Lincoln as he sat looking sadly into the fire.
They talked much of the great but humble man who had so loved honor and beauty and whose life had ended in the unholy turmoil of the new city.
"The country is in great trouble," was a remark of Abe Lincoln inspired by the reflections of the hour. "We tried to allay it in the special session of July. Our efforts have done no good. The ail is too deep seated. We must first minister to a mind diseased and pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow. You were right about it, Samson. We have been dreaming. Some one must invent a new system. Wildcat money will do no good. These big financial problems are beyond my knowledge. I don't know how to think in those terms. Next session I propose to make a clean breast of it. We're all wrong but I fear that not all of us will be brave enough to say so."
Samson hired horses for the journey and set out early next morning with his son, Josiah, bound for the new city. The boy had begged to go and both Samson and Sarah thought it would be good for him to take a better look at Illinois than his geography afforded.
"Joe is a good boy," his mother said as she embraced him. He was, indeed, a gentle-hearted, willing-handed, brown-eyed youth who had been a great help to his father. Every winter morning he and Betsey had done the chores and ridden on the back of Colonel to Mentor Graham's school where they had made excellent progress.
Joe and his father set out on a cold clear morning in February. They got to Brimstead's in time for dinner.
"How d'y do?" Samson shouted as Henry came to the door.
"Better!" the latter answered. He put his hand on, Samson's pommel and said in a confidential toner "El Dorado was one of the wickedest cities in history. It was like Tyre and Babylon. It robbed me. Look at that pile of stakes."
Samson saw a long cord of stakes along the road in the edge of the meadow.
"They are the teeth of my city," said Brimstead in a low voice. "I've drawed 'em out. They ain't goin' to bite me no more."
"They are the towers and steeples of El Dorado," Samson laughed. "Have any of the notes been paid?"
"Not one and I can't get a word from my broker about the men who drew the notes—who they are or where they are."
"I'm going to Chicago and if you wish I'll try to find him and see what he says."
"That's just what I wish," said Brimstead. "His name is Lionel Davis. His address is 14 South Water Street. He put the opium in our pipes here in Tazewell County. It was his favorite county. He spent two days with us here. I sold him all the land I had on the river shore and he gave me his note for it."
"If you'll let me take the note I'll see what can be done to get the money," Samson answered.
"Say, I'll tell ye," Brimstead went on. "It's for five thousand dollars and I don't suppose it's worth the paper it was wrote on. You take it and if you find it's no good you lose it just as careful as you can. I don't want to see it again. Come into the house. The woman is making a johnny-cake and fryin' some sausage."
They had a happy half-hour at the table, Mrs. Brimstead being in better spirits since her husband had got back to his farming. Annabel, her form filling with the grace and charm of womanhood, was there and more comely than ever.
They had been speaking of Jack Kelso's death.
"I heard him say once that when he saw a beautiful young face it reminded him of noble singing and the odor of growing corn," said Samson.
"I'd rather see the face," Joe remarked, whereupon they all laughed and the boy blushed to the roots of his blond hair.
"He's become a man of good judgment," said Brimstead.
Annabel's sister Jane who had clung to the wagon in No Santa Claus Land was a bright-eyed, merry-hearted girl of twelve. The boy Robert was a shy, good-looking lad a little younger than Josiah.
"Well, what's the news?" Samson asked.
"Nothin' has happened since we saw you but the fall of El Dorado," Brimstead answered.
"There was the robbery of the mail stage last summer a few miles north of here," said Mrs. Brimstead. "Every smitch of the mail was stolen. I guess that's the reason we haven't had no letter from Vermont in a year."
"Maybe that's why we haven't heard from home," Samson echoed.
"Why don't you leave Joe here while you're gone to Chicago?" Annabel asked.
"It would help his education to rassle around with Robert an' the girls," said Brimstead.
"Would you like to stay?" Samson asked.
"I wouldn't mind," said Josiah who, on the lonely prairie, had had few companions of his own age. So it happened that Samson went on alone. As he was leaving, Brimstead came close to his side and whispered:
"Don't you ever let a city move into you and settle down an' make itself to home. If you do you want to keep your eye on its leading citizens."
"Nobody can tell what'll happen when he's dreamin'," Samson remarked with a laugh as he rode away, waving his hand to the boy Josiah who stood looking up the road with a growing sense of loneliness.
Near the sycamore woods Samson came upon a gray-haired man lying by the roadside with a horse tethered near him. The stranger was sick with a fever. Samson got down from his horse.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"The will of God," the stranger feebly answered. "I prayed for help and you have come. I am Peter Cartwright, the preacher. I was so sick and weak I had to get off my horse and lie down. If you had not come I think that I should have died here."
Samson gave him some of the medicine for chills and fever which he always carried in his pocket, and water from his canteen. The sun shone warm but the ground was damp and cold and there was a chilly breeze. He wrapped the stricken man in his coat and sat down beside him and rubbed his aching head.
"Is there any house where I could find help and shelter for you?" he asked presently.
"No, but I feel better—glory to God!" said the preacher. "If you can help me to the back of my horse I will try to ride on with you. There is to be a quarterly meeting ten miles up the road to-night. With the help of God I must get there and tell the people of His goodness and mercy to the children of men. Nothing shall keep me from my duty. I may save a dozen souls from hell—who knows?"
Samson was astonished at the iron will and holy zeal of this lion-hearted, strong-armed, fighting preacher of the prairies of whom he had heard much. He looked at the rugged head covered with thick, bushy, gray hair, at the deep-lined face, smooth-shaven, save for a lock in front of each ear, with its keen, dark eyes and large, firm mouth and jaw. Samson lifted the preacher and set him on the back of his horse.
"God blessed you with great strength," said the latter. "Are you a Christian?"
"I am."
They rode on in silence. Presently Samson observed that the preacher was actually asleep and snoring in the saddle. They proceeded for an hour or more in this manner. When the horses were wallowing through a swale the preacher awoke.
"Glory be to God!" he shouted. "I am better. I shall be able to preach to-night. A little farther on is the cabin of Brother Cawkins. He has been terribly pecked up by a stiff-necked, rebellious wife. We'll stop there for a cup of tea and if she raises a rumpus you'll see me take her by the horns."
Mrs. Cawkins was a lean, sallow, stern-eyed woman of some forty years with a face like bitter herbs; her husband a mild mannered, shiftless man who, encouraged by Mr. Cartwright, had taken to riding through the upper counties as a preacher—a course of conduct of which his wife heartily disapproved. Solicited by her husband she sullenly made tea for the travelers. When it had been drunk the two preachers knelt in a corner of the room and Mr. Cartwright began to pray in a loud voice. Mrs. Cawkins shoved the table about and tipped over the chairs and dropped the rolling-pin as a counter demonstration. The famous circuit rider, being in no way put out by this, she dashed a dipper of cold water on the head of her husband. The praying stopped. Mr. Cartwright rose from his knees and commanded her to desist. On her declaration that she would not he laid hold of the woman and forced her out of the door and closed and bolted it and resumed his praying.
Having recorded this remarkable incident in his diary Samson writes:
"Many of these ignorant people in the lonely, prairie cabins are like children. Cartwright leads them on like a father and sometimes with the strong hand. If any of them deserve a spanking they get it. He and others like him have helped to keep the cabin people clean and going up hill instead of down. They have established schools and missions and scattered good books and comforted sorrows and kindled good desire in the hearts of the humble."
As they were leaving Mr. Cawkins told them that the plague had broken out in the settlement on Honey Creek, where the quarterly meeting was to be held, and that the people had been rapidly "dyin' off." Samson knew from this that the smallpox—a dreaded and terrible scourge of pioneer days had come again.
"It's dangerous to go there," said Cawkins.
"Where is sorrow there is my proper place," Cartwright answered. "Those people need comfort and the help of God."
"But are you not afraid of the plague?" Samson asked.
"I fear only the wrath of my Master."
"I got a letter from a lady there," Cawkins went on. "As nigh as I can make out they need a minister. I can read print handy but writin' bothers me. You read it, brother."
Mr. Cartwright took the letter and read as follows:
"Dear Sir: Mr. Barman gave me your name. We need a minister to comfort the sick and help bury the dead. It is a good deal to ask of you but if you feel like taking the chance of coming here I am sure you could do a lot of good. We have doctors enough and it seems a pity that the church should fail these people when they need it most. The ministers in Chicago seem to be too busy to come. One of them came out for a funeral and unfortunately took the disease. If you have the courage to come you would win the gratitude of many people. For a month I have been taking care of the sick and up to now no harm has come to me.
"'A man's heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps,'" said Cartwright. "For three days I have felt that He was leading me."
"I begin to think that He has been leading me," Samson declared. "Bim Kelso is the person I seek."
"I would have gone but my wife took on so I couldn't get away," said Cawkins.
"I'll come back some day soon and you and I will pry the Devil out of her with the crowbar of God's truth and mercy," Cartwright assured him as he and Samson took the road to the north.
On their way to the Honey Creek settlement the lion-hearted minister told of swimming through flooded rivers, getting lost on the plains and suffering for food and water, of lying down to rest at night in wet clothes with no shelter but the woods, of hand to hand fights with rowdies who endeavored to sell drink or create a disturbance at his meetings. Such was the zeal for righteousness woven by many hands into the fabric of the West. A little before sundown they reached the settlement.
Samson asked a man in the road if he knew where they could find the nurse Bim Kelso.
"Do ye mean that angel o' God in a white dress that takes keer o' the sick?" the man asked.
"I guess that would be Bim," said Samson.
"She's over in yon' house," the other answered, pointing with his pipe to a cabin some twenty rods beyond them. "Thar's two children sick thar an' the mammy dead an' buried in the ground."
"Is the plague getting worse?" Cartwright asked.
"No, I reckon it's better. Nobody has come down since the day before yestiddy. Thar's the doctor comin'. He kin tell ye."
A bearded man of middle age was approaching them in the saddle.
"Gentlemen, you must not stop in this neighborhood," he warned them. "There's an epidemic of smallpox here. We are trying to control it and every one must help."
"I am Peter Cartwright, the preacher sent of God to comfort the sick and bury the dead," said Samson's companion.
"We welcome you, but if you stop here you will have to stay until the epidemic is over."
"That I am prepared to do."
"Then I shall take you where you can find entertainment, such as it is."
"First, this man wishes to speak to Miss Kelso, the nurse," said Cartwright. "He is a friend of hers."
"You can see her but only at a distance," the Doctor answered. "I must keep you at least twenty feet away from her. Come with me."
They proceeded to the stricken house. The Doctor entered and presently Bim came out. Her eyes filled with tears and for a moment she could not speak. She wore a white dress and cap and was pale and weary. "But still as I looked at her I thought of the saying of her father that her form and face reminded him of the singing of birds in the springtime, she looked so sweet and graceful," Samson writes in his diary.
"Why didn't you let me know of your troubles?" he asked.
"Early last summer I wrote a long letter to you," she answered.
"It didn't reach me. One day in June the stage was robbed of its mail down in Tazewell County. Your letter was probably on that stage."
"Harry's death was the last blow. I came out here to get away from my troubles—perhaps to die. I didn't care."
"Harry is not dead," said Samson.
Her right hand touched her forehead; her lips fell apart; her eyes took on a look of tragic earnestness.
"Not dead!" she whispered.
"He is alive and well."
Bim staggered toward him and fell to her knees and lay crouched upon the ground, in the dusky twilight, shaking and choked with sobs, and with tears streaming from her eyes but she was almost as silent as the shadow of the coming night. She looked like one searching in the dust for something very precious. The strong heart of Samson was touched by the sorrowful look of her so that he could not speak.
Soon he was able to say in a low, trembling voice:
"In every letter he tells of his love for you. That article in the paper was a cruel mistake."
After a little silence Bim rose from the ground. She stood, for a moment, wiping her eyes. Her form straightened and was presently erect. Her soul resented the injustice she had suffered. There was a wonderful and touching dignity in her voice and manner when she asked: "Why didn't he write to me?"
"He must have written to you."
Sadly, calmly, thoughtfully, she spoke as she stood looking off at the fading glow in the west:
"It is terrible how things can work together to break the heart and will of a woman. Write to Harry and tell him that he must not come to see me again. I have promised to marry another man."
"I hope it isn't Davis," said Samson.
"It is Davis."
"I don't like him. I don't think he's honest."
"But he has been wonderfully kind to us. Without his help we couldn't have lived. We couldn't even have given my father a decent burial. I suppose he has his faults. I no longer look for perfection in human beings."
"Has he been out here to see you?"
"And he won't come. That man knows how to keep out of danger. I don't believe you'll marry him."
"Why?"
"Because I intend to be a father to you and pay all your debts," said Samson.
The Doctor called from the door of the cabin.
Bim said: "God bless you and Harry!" as she turned away to take up her task again.
That night both of them began, as they say, to put two and two together. While he rode on in the growing dusk the keen intellect of Samson saw a convincing sequence of circumstances—the theft of the mail sack, the false account of Harry's death, the failure of his letters to reach their destination, and the fact that Bim had accepted money from Davis in time of need. A strong suspicion of foul play grew upon him and he began to consider what he could do in the matter.
Having forded a creek he caught the glow of a light in the darkness a little way up the road. It was the lighted window of a cabin, before whose door he stopped his horse and hallooed.
"I am a belated and hungry traveler on my way to Chicago," he said to the man who presently greeted him from the open doorway.
"Have you come through Honey Creek settlement?" the latter asked.
"Left there about an hour ago."
"Sorry, mister, but I can't let you come into the house. If you'll move off a few feet I'll lay some grub on the choppin' block an' up the road about a half-mile you'll find a barn with some hay in it where you and your horse can spend the night under cover."
Samson moved away and soon the man brought a package of food and laid it on the block and ran back to the door.
"I'll lay a piece of silver on the block," Samson called.
"Not a darned cent," the man answered. "I hate like p'ison to turn a feller away in the night, but we're awful skeered here with children in the house. Good-by. You can't miss the barn. It's close ag'in' the road."
Samson ate his luncheon in the darkness, as he rode, and presently came upon the barn and unsaddled and hitched and fed his horse in one end of it—the beast having drunk his fill at the creek they had lately forded—and lay down to rest, for the night, with the saddle blanket beneath him and his coat for a cover. A wind from the north began to wail and whistle through the cracks in the barn and over its roof bringing cold weather. Samson's feet and legs had been wet in the crossing so that he found it difficult to keep warm. He crept to the side of his horse, which had lain down, and found a degree of comfort in the heat of the animal. But it was a bad night, at best, with only a moment, now and then, of a sort of one-eyed sleep in it.
"I've had many a long, hard night but this is the worst of them," Samson thought.
There's many a bad night in the history of the pioneers, its shadows falling on lonely, ill-marked roads cut by rivers, creeks and marshes and strung through unnumbered miles of wild country. Samson was up and off at daylight in a bitter wind and six inches of snow. It was a kind of work he would not have undertaken upon any call less commanding than that of friendship. He reached Chicago at noon having had nothing to eat that day. There was no such eager, noisy crowd in the streets as he had seen before. The fever of speculation had passed. Some of the stores were closed; he counted a score of half-built structures getting weather-stained inside and out. But there were many people on the main thoroughfares, among whom were Europeans who had arrived the autumn before. They were changing but the marks of the yoke were still upon them. In Chicago were the vitals of the West and they were very much alive in spite of the panic.
Samson bought some new clothes and had a bath and a good dinner at the City Hotel. Then he went to the office of Mr. Lionel Davis. There to his surprise he met his old acquaintance, Eli Fredenberg, who greeted him with great warmth and told of having settled in Chicago.
A well-dressed young man came out of an inner office and informed Eli that Mr. Davis could not see him that day.
"I'd like to see Mr. Davis," said Samson as Eli went away.
"I'm Mr. Davis's secretary," the young man politely informed him.
"What's a secretary?" Samson asked.
"It's a man who helps another with his work."
"I don't need any help myself—thank you," said Samson. "You tell him that I've got some money that belongs to him and that I'm ready to deliver it."
The young man disappeared through the door of the private office and soon returned and conducted Samson into the presence of Mr. Davis who sat at a handsome desk, smoking, in a room with fine old mahogany furnishings brought up from New Orleans. The two men recognized each other.
"Well, sir, what is it about?" the young speculator demanded.
"The daughter of my old friend, Jack Kelso, owes you some money and I want to pay it," said Samson.
"Oh, that is a matter between Miss Kelso and me." Mr. Davis spoke politely and with a smile.
"Not exactly—since I knew about it," Samson answered.
"I refuse to discuss her affairs with you," Davis declared.
"I suppose you mistrust me," said Samson. "Well, I've offered to pay you and I'm going to make it plain to them that they don't have to worry any more about the money you loaned them."
"Very well, I bid you good morning."
"Don't be in a hurry," Samson answered. "I have a note of five thousand dollars against you. It is endorsed to me by Henry Brimstead and I want to collect it."
"I refuse to pay it," Davis promptly answered.
"Then I shall have to put it in the hands of a lawyer," said Samson.
"Put it where you like but don't consume any more of my time."
"But you'll have to hear me say that I don't think you're honest."
"I have heard you," Davis answered calmly.
Samson withdrew and went to the home of Mrs. Kelso. He found her with Bim's boy in her lap—a handsome little lad, then a bit over two years old,—at the house on La Salle Street. The good woman gave Samson an account of the year filled with tearful praise of the part Mr. Davis had played in it. Samson told of the failure of Bim's letter to reach him and of his offer to return the money which Davis had paid for their relief.
"I don't like the man and I don't want you to be under obligation to him," said Samson. "The story of Harry's death was false and I think that he is responsible for it. He wanted her to marry him right away after that—of course. And she went to the plague settlement to avoid marriage. I know her better than you do. She has read him right. Her soul has looked into his soul and it keeps her away from him."
But Mrs. Kelso could believe no evil of her benefactor, nor would she promise to cease depending on his bounty.
Samson was a little disheartened by the visit. He Went to see John Wentworth, the editor of The Democrat, of whose extreme length Mr. Lincoln had humorously spoken in his presence. The young New Englander was seven feet tall. He welcomed the broad-shouldered man from Sangamon County and began at once to question him about Honest Abe and "Steve" Douglas and O.H. Browning and E.D. Baker and all the able men of the middle counties. Then he wanted to know of the condition of the people since the collapse of the land boom. The farmer's humorous comment and sane views delighted the young editor. At the first opportunity Samson came to the business of his call—the mischievous lie regarding Harry's death which had appeared in The Democrat. Mr. Wentworth went to the proof room and found the manuscript of the article.
"We kept it because we didn't know and do not now know the writer," said Wentworth.
Samson told of the evil it had wrought and conveyed his suspicions to the editor.
"Davis is rather unscrupulous," said Wentworth. "We know a lot about him in this office."
Samson looked at the article and presently said: "Here is a note that he gave to a friend of mine. It looks to me as if the note and the article were written by the same hand."
Mr. Wentworth compared the two and said: "You are right. The same person wrote them. But it was not Davis."
When Samson left the office of The Democrat he had accomplished little save the confirmation of his suspicions. There was nothing he could do about it.
He went to Eli Fredenberg. Eli, having sold out at the height of the boom in Springfield, had been back to Germany to visit his friends.
"I haf money—plendy money," said Eli. "In de ol' country I vas rich. I thought maybe I stay dere an' make myself happy. It vas one big job. Mein frients dey hate me becos I haf succeed so much. De odders hate me becos de butcher haf mein fadder been. Dey laugh at my good close. Nobody likes me not. I come avay. Dey don't blame you here becos you vos born."
"What has Davis done to you?" Samson asked, recalling where he had met Eli that morning.
Eli explained that he had borrowed money from Davis to tide him over the hard times and was paying twelve per cent. for it.
"Dis morning I get dot letter from his secretary," he said as he passed a letter to Samson.
It was a demand for payment in the handwriting of the Brimstead note and had some effect on this little history. It conveyed definite knowledge of the authorship of a malicious falsehood. It aroused the anger and sympathy of Samson Traylor. In the conditions then prevailing Eli was unable to get the money. He was in danger of losing his business. Samson spent a day investigating the affairs of the merchant. His banker and others spoke well of him. He was said to be a man of character and credit embarrassed by the unexpected scarcity of good money. So it came about that, before he left the new city, Samson bought a fourth interest in the business of Eli Fredenberg. The lots he owned were then worth less than when he had bought them, but his faith in the future of Chicago had not abated.
He wrote a long letter to Bim recounting the history of his visit and frankly stating the suspicions to which he had been led. He set out on the west road at daylight toward the Riviere des Plaines, having wisely decided to avoid passing the plague settlement. Better weather had come. In the sunlight of a clear sky he fared away over the vast prairies, feeling that it was a long road ahead and a most unpromising visit behind him.
WHEREIN A REMARKABLE SCHOOL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE BEGINS ITS SESSIONS IN THE REAR OF JOSHUA SPEED'S STORE. ALSO AT SAMSON'S FIRESIDE HONEST ABE TALKS OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE LAW AND THE RIGHT OF REVOLUTION, AND LATER BRINGS A SUIT AGAINST LIONEL DAVIS.
The boy Joe had had a golden week at the home of the Brimsteads. The fair Annabel knowing not the power that lay in her beauty had captured his young heart scarcely fifteen years of age. He had no interest in her younger sister, Jane. But Annabel with her long skirts and full form and glowing eyes and gentle dignity had stirred him to the depths. When he left he carried a soul heavy with regret and great resolutions. Not that he had mentioned the matter to her or to any one. It was a thing too sacred for speech. To God in his prayers he spoke of it but to no other.
He asked to be made and to be thought worthy. He would have had the whole world stopped and put to sleep for a term until he was delivered from the bondage of his tender youth. That being impossible it was for him a sad but not a hopeless world. Indeed he rejoiced in his sadness. Annabel was four years older than he. If he could make her to know the depth of his passion perhaps she would wait for him. He sought for self-expression in The Household Book of Poetry—a sorrowful and pious volume. He could find no ladder of rhyme with an adequate reach. He endeavored to build one. He wrote melancholy verses and letters, confessing his passion, to Annabel, which she did not encourage but which she always kept and valued for their ingenuous and noble ardor. Some of these Anacreontics are among the treasures inherited by her descendants. They were a matter of slight importance, one would say, but they mark the beginning of a great career. Immediately after his return to the new home in Springfield the boy Josiah set out to make himself honored of his ideal. In the effort he made himself honored of many. His eager brain had soon taken the footing of manhood.
A remarkable school of political science had begun its sessions in that little western village. The world had never seen the like of it. Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, E.D. Baker, O.H. Browning, Jesse B. Thomas, and Josiah Lamborn—a most unusual array of talent as subsequent history has proved—were wont to gather around the fireplace in the rear of Joshua Speed's store, evenings, to discuss the issues of the time. Samson and his son Joe came often to hear the talk. Douglas looked like a dwarf among those long geared men. He was slight and short, being only about five feet tall, but he had a big, round head covered with thick, straight, dark hair, a bull-dog look and a voice like thunder. The first steamboat had crossed the Atlantic the year before and The Future of Transportation was one of the first themes discussed by this remarkable group of men. Douglas and Lincoln were in a heated argument over the admission of slavery to the territories the first night that Samson and Joe sat down with them.
"We didn't like that little rooster of a man, he had such a high and mighty way with him and so frankly opposed the principles we believe in. He was an out and out pro-slavery man. He would have every state free to regulate its domestic institutions, in its own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. Lincoln held that it amounted to saying 'that if one man chose to enslave another no third party shall be allowed to object.'"
In the course of the argument Douglas alleged that the Whigs were the aristocrats of the country.
"That reminds me of a night when I was speaking at Havana," said Honest Abe. "A man with a ruffled shirt and a massive gold watch chain got up and charged that the Whigs were aristocrats. Douglas in his broadcloth and fine linen reminds me of that man. I'm going to answer Douglas as I answered him. Most of the Whigs I know are my kind of folks. I was a poor boy working on a flat boat at eight dollars a month and had only one pair of breeches and they were buckskin. If you know the nature of buckskin, you know that when it is wet and dried by the sun it will shrink and my breeches kept shrinking and deserting the sock area of my legs until several inches of them were bare above my shoes. Whilst I was growing longer they were growing shorter and so much tighter that they left a blue streak around my legs which can be seen to this day. If you call that aristocracy I know of one Whig that is an aristocrat."
"But look at the New England type of Whig exemplified by the imperious and majestic Webster," said Douglas.
"Webster was another poor lad," Lincoln answered. "His father's home was a log cabin in a lonely land until about the time Daniel was born when the family moved to a small frame house. His is the majesty of a great intellect."
There was much talk of this sort until Mr. Lincoln excused himself to walk home with his two friends who had just returned from the North, being eager to learn of Samson's visit. The latter gave him a full account of it and asked him to undertake the collection of Brimstead's note.
"I'll get after that fellow right away," said Lincoln.
"I'm glad to get a chance at one of those men who have been skinning the farmers. I suppose he has other creditors in Tazewell County?"
"I presume there are many of them."
"I'll find out about that," said Lincoln.
They sat down by the fireside in Samson's house.
"Joe has decided that he wants to be a lawyer," said Samson.
"Well, Joe, we'll all do what we can to keep you from being a shot-gun lawyer," Abe Lincoln began. "I've got a good first lesson for you. I found it in a letter which Rufus Choate had written to Judge Davis. In it he says that we rightly have great respect for the decisions of the majority, but that the law is something vastly greater and more sacred than the verdict of any majority. 'It is a thing,' says he, 'which has stood the test of long experience—a body of digested rules and processes bequeathed to us by all the ages of the past. The inspired wisdom of the primeval east, the robust genius of Athens and Rome, the keener modern sense of righteousness are in it. The law comes down to us one mighty and continuous stream of wisdom and experience accumulated, ancestral, widening and deepening and washing itself clearer as it runs on, the agent of civilization, the builder of a thousand cities. To have lived through ages of unceasing trial with the passions, interests, and affairs of men, to have lived through the drums and tramplings of conquest, through revolution and reform and all the changing cycles of opinion, to have attended the progress of the race and gathered unto itself the approbation of civilized humanity is to have proved that it carries in it some spark of immortal life.'"
The face of Lincoln changed as he recited the lines of the learned and distinguished lawyer of Massachusetts.
"His face glowed like a lighted lantern when he began to say those eloquent words," Samson writes in his diary. "He wrote them down so that Josiah could commit them to memory."
"That is a wonderful statement," Samson remarked.
Abe answered: "It suggests to me that the voice of the people in any one generation may or may not be inspired, but that the voice of the best men of all ages, expressing their sense of justice and of right, in the law, is and must be the voice of God. The spirit and body of its decrees are as indestructible as the throne of Heaven. You can overthrow them but until their power is reestablished as surely it will be, you will live in savagery."
"You do not deny the right of revolution."
"No, but I can see no excuse for it in America. It has remained for us to add to the body of the law the idea that men are created free and equal. The lack of that saving principle in the codes of the world has been the great cause of injustice and oppression. The voice of revolution here would be like that of Iago in the play and worse. It would be like the unscrupulous lawyer, anxious for a fee, who says to a client, living happily with his wife: 'I know she is handsome and virtuous and intelligent and loving but she has her faults. There are lovelier women. I could easily get a divorce for you.' We would quickly throw such a man out of the door. A man's country is like his wife. If she is virtuous and well-disposed he should permit no meddling, odious person to come between them, or to suggest to him that he put poison into her tea. Least of all should he look for perfection in her, knowing that it is not to be found in this world of ours."
Honest Abe rose and walked up and down the room in silence for a moment. Then he added:
"Choate phrased it well when he said 'We should beware of awaking the tremendous divinities of change from their long sleep. Let us think of that when we consider what we shall do with the evils that afflict us.'"
The boy Joe has been deeply interested in this talk.
"If you'll lend me a book I'd like to begin studying," he said.
"There's time enough for that," said Lincoln. "First I want you to understand what the law is and what the lawyer should be. You wouldn't want to be a pettifogger. Choate is the right model. He has a dignity suited to the greatness of his chosen master. They say that before a Justice of the Peace in a room no bigger than a shoemaker's shop his work is done with the same dignity and care that he would show in the supreme court of Massachusetts. A newspaper says that in a dog case at Beverly he treated the dog as if he were a lion and the crabbed old squire with the consideration due a chief justice."
"He knows how to handle the English language," Samson observed.
"He got that by reading. He is the best read man at the American bar and the best Bible student. There's a lot of work ahead of you, Joe, before you are a lawyer and when you're admitted success comes only of the capacity for work. Brougham wrote the peroration of his speech in defense of Queen Caroline nineteen times."
"I want to be a great orator," the boy exclaimed with engaging frankness.
"Then you must remember that character is the biggest part of it," Honest Abe declared. "Great thoughts come out of a great character and only out of that. They will come even if you have little learning and none of the graces which attract the eye. But you must have a character that is ever speaking even when your lips are silent. It must show in your life and fill the spaces between your words. It will help you to choose and charge them with the love of great things that carry conviction.
"I remember when I was a boy over in Gentryville a shaggy, plain-dressed man rode up to the door one day. He had a cheerful, kindly face. His character began to speak to us before he opened his mouth to ask for a drink of water.
"'I don't know who you are,' my father said. 'But I'd like it awful well if you'd light an' talk to us.' He did and we didn't know till he had gone that he was the Governor of the state. A good character shines like a candle on a dark night. You can't mistake it. A firefly can't hold his light long enough to compete with it.
"Webster said in the Knapp trial: 'There is no evil that we can not either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded.'
"A great truth like that makes wonderful music on the lips of a sincere man. An orator must be a lover and discoverer of such unwritten laws."
It was nearing midnight when they heard footsteps on the board walk in front of the house. In a moment Harry Needles entered in cavalry uniform with fine top boots and silver spurs, erect as a young Indian brave and bronzed by tropic suns.
"Hello!" he said as he took off his belt and clanking saber. "I hang up my sword. I have had enough of war."
He had ridden across country from the boat landing and arriving so late had left his horse at a livery stable.
"I'm lucky to find you and Abe and Joe all up and waiting for me," he said as he shook their hands "How is mother?"
"I'm well," Sarah called from the top of the stairway. "I'll be down in a minute."
For an hour or more they sat by the fireside while Harry told of his adventures in the great swamps of Southern Florida.
"I've done my share of the fighting," he said at length. "I'm going north to-morrow to find Bim and her mother."
"I shall want you to serve a complaint on one Lionel Davis," said Mr. Lincoln.
"I have one of my own to serve on him," Harry answered. "But I hope that our case can be settled out of court."
"I think that I'll go with you as far as Tazewell County and draw the papers there," said Lincoln.
When the latter had left for his lodgings and Joe and his mother had gone to bed, Samson told Harry the details of his visit to Chicago.
"She may have taken the disease and died with it before now," said the young man. "I'll be on my way to Honey Creek in the morning. If she's sick I'll take care of her. I'm not going to worry about Davis. But when I get there I wouldn't wonder if he'd have to worry a little about me."
WHEREIN ABE LINCOLN REVEALS HIS METHOD OF CONDUCTING A LAWSUIT IN THE CASE OF HENRY BRIMSTEAD ET AL., VS. LIONEL DAVIS.
They found many of Davis's notes in Tazewell County. Abe Lincoln's complaint represented seven clients and a sum exceeding twenty thousand dollars.
"Now, Harry, you don't like Davis and I can't blame you for it," said Honest Abe before they parted. "Don't spoil our case by trying to take it out of his hide. First we've got to take it out of his pocket. When I get through there may not be any hide on him worth speaking of, but if there is you can have it and welcome."
With the papers in his pocket Harry went on to the Honey Creek settlement. There he found that the plague had spent itself and that Bim had gone to a detention camp outside the city of Chicago. He rode on to the camp but was not permitted to see her, the regulations having become very strict. In the city he went to the store of Eli Fredenberg. The merchant received him with enthusiasm. Chicago had begun to recover from the panic. Trade was lively. Eli wanted Harry to go to work in the store until he was prepared for the law.
"You must stay here until you haf got a wife already," said the thoughtful Eli. "It is bat for you and Bim to be not marrit so much."
The young man favored both the commercial and the sentimental suggestions of Eli. He had long felt the lure of that promising little city on the lake shore.
"I wish you'd take this complaint and serve it on Davis," he said. "I don't want to see him if I can help it. If you don't mind, you can tell him that I've come to life and am here in the city and that if he kills me again he'd better do it while I'm looking. It would be more decent."
Eli was delighted with a task which promised a degree of discomfort to the man who had endeavored to ruin him. Harry spent the afternoon with Mrs. Kelso and Bim's baby boy. The good woman was much excited by the arrival of the young soldier.
"We have had a terrible year," she said. "We couldn't have lived through it without the help of a friend. Bim went away to take care of the sick in the smallpox neighborhood. She was rather discouraged. Our friend, Mr. Davis, is in love with her. She promised to marry him. It seemed to be the only way out of our troubles. But she will not even write to him now. I think that she is very unhappy."
"I shall not try to increase her troubles, but I shall prevent her from marrying Davis if I can," said Harry.
"Why?"
"Because I think he is dishonest."
"He has convinced me that all the reports are wrong," Mrs. Kelso declared. "I think that he is one of the kindest and best of men."
"I shall not argue with you as to the character of my rival," Harry answered. "The facts will be on record one of these days and then you can form your own judgment. I hope you won't mind my coming here to see you and the baby now and then."
"You are always welcome. But Mr. Davis comes often and feeling as you do it might be unpleasant for you to meet him."
"It would. I'll keep away until the air clears," said Harry.
He wrote a very tender letter to Bim that day. He told her that he had come to Chicago to live so that he might be near her and ready to help her if she needed help. "The same old love is in my heart that made me want you for my wife long ago, that has filled my letters and sustained me in many an hour of peril," he wrote. "If you really think that you must marry Davis, I ask you at least to wait for the developments of a suit which Abe Lincoln is bringing in behalf of many citizens of Tazewell County. It is likely that we shall know more than we do now before that case ends. I saw your beautiful little boy. He looks so much like you that I long to steal him and keep him with me."
In a few days he received this brief reply: