Spring came early to the forests and prairies of southern Indiana. In March the maples began to burn, and the tops of the timber to change, and to take on new hues in the high sun and lengthening days. The birds were on the wing, and the banks of the streams were beginning to look like gardens, as indeed Nature's gardens they were.
The woodland ponds were full of turtles or terrapins, and these began to travel about in the warm spring air.
There was a great fireplace in Crawford's school, and, as fuel cost nothing, it was, as we have said, well fed with logs, and was kept almost continually glowing.
It was one of the cruel sports of the boys, at the noonings and recesses of the school, to put coals of fire on the backs of wandering terrapins, and to joke at the struggles of the poor creatures to get to their homes in the ponds.
Abraham Lincoln from a boy had a tender heart, a horror of cruelty and of everything that would cause any creature pain. He was merciful to every one but the unmerciful, and charitable to every one but the uncharitable, and kind to everyone but the unkind. But his nature made war at once on any one who sought to injure another, and he was especially severe on any one who was so mean and cowardly as to disregard the natural rights of a dumb animal or reptile. He had in this respect the sensitiveness of a Burns. All great natures, as biography everywhere attests, have fine instincts—this chivalrous sympathy for the brute creation.
Lincoln's nature was that of a champion for the right. He was a born knight, and, strangely enough, his first battles in life were in defense of the turtles or terrapins. He was a boy of powerful strength, and he used it roughly to maintain his cause. He is said to have once exclaimed that the turtles were his brothers.
The early days of spring in the old forests are full of life. The Sun seems to be calling forth his children. The ponds become margined with green, and new creatures everywhere stir the earth and the waters. Life and matter become, as it were, a new creation, and one can believe anything when he sees how many forms life and matter can assume under the mellowing rays of the sun. The clod becomes a flower; the egg a reptile, fish, or bird. The cunning woodchuck, that looks out of his hole on the awakening earth and blue sky, seems almost to have a sense of the miracle that has been wrought. The boy who throws a stone at him, to drive him back into the earth, seems less sensible of nature than he. It is a pleasing sight to see the little creature, as he stands on his haunches, wondering, and the brain of a young Webster would naturally seek to let such a groundling have all his right of birth.
One day, when the blue spring skies were beginning to glow, Abraham went out to play with his companions. It was one of his favorite amusements to declaim from a stump. He would sometimes in this way recite long selections from the school Reader and Speaker.
He had written a composition at school on the defense of the rights of dumb animals, and there was one piece in the school Reader in which he must have found a sympathetic chord, and which was probably one of those that he loved to recite. It was written by the sad poet Cowper, and began thus:
As Abraham and his companions were playing in the warm sun, one said:
"Make a speech for us, Abe. Hip, hurrah! You've only to nibble a pen to make poetry, and only to mount a stump to be a speaker. Now, Abe, speak for the cause of the people, or anybody's cause. Give it to us strong, and we will do the cheering."
Abraham mounted a stump in the school-grounds, on which he had often declaimed before. He felt something stirring within him, half-fledged wings of his soul, that waited a cause. He would imitate the few preachers and speakers that he had heard—even an old Kentucky preacher named Elkins, whom his own mother had loved, and whose teachings the good woman had followed in her short and melancholy life.
He began his speech, throwing up his long arms, and lifting at proper periods his coon-skin cap. The scholars cheered as he waxed earnest. In the midst of the speech a turtle came creeping into the grounds.
"Hello!" said one of the boys, "here's another turtle come to school! He, too, has seen the need of learning."
The terrapin crawled along awkwardly toward the house, his head protruding from his shell, and his tail moving to and fro.
At this point young Abraham grew loud and dramatic. The boys raised a shout, and the girls waved their hoods.
In the midst of the enthusiasm, one of the boys seized the turtle by the tail and slung it around his head, as an evidence of his delight at the ardor of the speaker.
"Throw it at him," said one of the scholars. "Johnson once threw a turtle at him, when he was preachin' to his sister, and it set him to runnin' on like a minister."
Abraham was accustomed to preach to the young members of his family. He would do the preaching, and his sister the weeping; and he sometimes became so much affected by his own discourses that he would weep with her, and they would have a very "moving service," as such a scene was called.
The boy swung the turtle over his head again, and at last let go of it in the air, so as to project it toward Abraham.
The poor reptile fell crushed at the foot of the stump and writhed in pain.
Abraham ceased to speak. He looked down on the pitiful sight of suffering, and his heart yearned over the helpless creature, and then his brain became fired, and his eyes flashed with rage.
"Who did that?" he exclaimed. "Brute! coward! wretch!" He looked down again, and saw the reptile trying to move away with its broken shell. His anger turned to pity. He began to expostulate against all such heartlessness to the animal world as the scene exhibited before him. The poor turtle again tried to move away, his head just protruding, looking for some way out of the world that would deny him his right to the sunshine and the streams. The young orator saw it all; his lip curled bitterly, and his words burned. He awakened such a sympathy for the reptile, and such a feeling of resentment against the hand which had ruined this little life, that the offender shrank away from the scene, calling out defiantly:
"Come away, and let him talk. He's only chicken-hearted."
The scholars knew that there was no cowardice in the heart of Lincoln. They felt the force of the scene. The boys and girls of Andrew Crawford's school never forgot the pleas that Abraham used to make for the animals and reptiles of the woods and streams.
Nearly every youth exhibits his leading trait or characteristic in his school-days.
"The tenor of our whole lives," said an English poet, "is what we make it in the first five years after we become our masters"; and a wiser than he has said, "The thing that has been is, and God requireth the past." Columbus on the quays of Genoa; Zinzendorf forming among his little companions the order of the "Grain of Mustard-Seed"; the poets who "lisped in numbers"; the boy statesmanship of Cromwell; and the early aspiration of nearly every great leader of mankind—all showed the current of the life-stream, and it is the current alone that knows and prophesies the future. When Abraham Lincoln fell, the world uncovered its head. Thrones were sorrowful, and humanity wept. Yet his earliest rostrum was a stump, and his cause the natural rights of the voiceless inhabitants of the woods and streams. The heart that throbbed for humanity, and that won the heart of the world, found its first utterance in defense of the principles of the birds'-nest commandment. It was a beginning of self-education worthy of the thought of a Pestalozzi. It was a prophecy.
As the young advocate of the rights and feelings of the dumb creation was ending his fiery discourse, the buttonless Tunker, himself a disciple of Pestalozzi, came into the school-grounds and read the meaning of the scene. Jasper saw the soul of things, and turned always from the outward expressions of life to the inward motive. He read the true character of the boy in buckskin breeches, human heart, and fluent tongue. He sat down on the log step of the school-house in silence, and Mr. Crawford presently came out with a quill pen behind his ear, and sat down beside him.
"That boy has been teaching what you and I ought first to teach," said Jasper.
"What is that?" asked Mr. Crawford.
"The heart! What is head-learning worth, if the heart is left uneducated? As Pestalozzi used to say, The soul is the true end of all education. Religion itself is a failure, without right character."
"But you wouldn't teach morals as a science, would you?"
"I would train the heart to feel, and the soul to love to be just and do right, and make obedience to the moral sense the habit of life. This can best be done at the school age, and I tell you that this is the highest education. A boy who can spell all the words in the spelling-book, and bound all the countries in the world, and repeat all the dates of history, and yet who could have the heart to crush a turtle, has not been properly educated."
"Then your view is that the end of education is to make a young person do right?"
"No, my good friend, pardon me if I speak plain. The end of education is not to make young people do right, but to train the young heart to love to do right; to make right doing the nature and habit of life."
"How would you begin?"
"As that boy has begun. He has made every heart on the ground feel for that broken-shelled turtle. That boy will one day become a leader among men. He has a heart. The head may make friends, but only the heart can hold them. It is the heart-power that serves and rules. The best thing that can be said of any one is, 'He is true-hearted.' I like that boy. He is true-hearted. His first client a turtle, it may not be his last. Train him well. He will honor you some day."
The boys took the turtle to the pond and left him on the bank. Jasper watched them. He then turned to the backwoods teacher, and said:
"That, sir, is the result of right education. First teach character; second, life; third, books. Let education begin in the heart, and everybody made to feel that right makes might."
Aunt Olive Eastman had made herself a relative to every one living between the two Pigeon Creeks. She had formed this large acquaintance with the pioneers by attending the camp-meetings of the Methodists and the four-days' meetings of the Baptists in southern Indiana, and the school-house meetings everywhere. She was a widow, was full of rude energy and benevolence, had a sharp tongue, a kindly heart, and a measure of good sense. But she was "far from perfect," as she used to very humbly acknowledge in the many pioneer meetings that she attended.
"I make mistakes sometimes," she used to say, "and it is because I am a fallible creatur'."
She was an always busy woman, and the text of her life was "Work," and her practice was in harmony with her teaching.
"Work, work, my friends and brethren," she once said in the log school-house meeting. "Work while the day is passin'. We's all children of the clay. To-day we're here smart as pepper-grass, and to-morrer we're gone like the cucumbers of the ground. Up, and be doin'—up, and be doin'!"
One morning Jasper the Tunker appeared in the clearing before her cabin. She stood in the door as he appeared, shading her eyes with one hand and holding a birch broom in the other. The sunset was flooding the swollen creek in the distance, and shimmering in the tops of the ancient trees. Jasper turned to the door.
"This is a lovely morning," said he. "The heavens are blue above us. I hope that you are well."
"The top of the morning to you! You are a stranger that I met the other day, I suppose. I've been hopin' you'd come along and see me. Where do you hail from, anyway? Come in and tell me all about it."
"I am a German," said Jasper, entering. "I came from Germany to Pennsylvania, and went from there to Ohio, and now I am here, as you see."
"How far are you goin'? Or are you just goin' to stop with us here? Southern Injiany is a goodly country. 'Tis all land around here, for millions of miles, and free as the air. Perhaps you'll stop with us."
"I am going to Rock Island, on the Mississippi River, across the prairie of the Illinois."
"Who are you now, may it please you? What's your callin'? Tell me all about it, now. I want to know."
"I am one of the Brethren, as I said. I preach and teach and cobble. I came here now to ask you if you had any shoe-making for me to do."
"One of the Tunkers—a Tunker, one o' them. Don't belong to no sect, nor nothin', but just preaches to everybody as though everybody was alike, and wanders about everywhere, as if you owned the whole world, like the air. I've seen several Tunkers in my day. They are becomin' thick in these woods. Well, I believe such as you mean well—let's be charitable; we haven't long to live in this troublesome world. I'm fryin' doughnuts; am just waitin' for the fat to heat. Hope you didn't think that I was wastin' time, standin' there at the door? I'll give you some doughnuts as soon as the fat is hot—fresh ones and good ones, too. I make good doughnuts, just such as Martha used to make in Jerusalem. I've fried doughnuts for a hundred ministers in my day, and they all say that my doughnuts are good, whatever they may think of me. Come in. I'm proper glad to see ye."
Jasper sat down in the kitchen of the cabin. The room was large, and had a delightful atmosphere of order and neatness. Over the fire swung an immense iron crane, and on the crane were pot-hooks of various sizes, and on one of these hung a kettle of bubbling fat.
The table was spread with a large dish of dough, a board called a kneading-board, a rolling-pin, and a large sheet of dough which had been rolled into its present form by the rolling-pin, which utensil was white with flour.
"I knew you were comin'," said Aunt Olive. "I dropped my rollin'-pin this mornin'; it's a sure sign. You said that you are goin' to Rock Island. The Injuns live there, don't they? What are ye goin' there for?"
"Black Hawk has invited me. He has promised to let me have an Indian guide, or runner, who can speak English and interpret. I'm going to teach among the tribes, the Lord willing, and I want a guide and an interpreter."
"Black Hawk? He was born down in Kaskaskia, the old Jesuit town, 'way back almost a century ago, wasn't he? Or was it in the Sac village? He was a Pottawattomie, I'm told, and then I've heard he wasn't. Now he's chief of the Sacs and Foxes. I saw him once at a camp-meetin'. His face is black as that pot and these hooks and trummels. How he did skeer me! Do you dare to trust him? Like enough he'll kill ye, some day. I don't trust no Injuns. Where did you stay last night?"
"At Mr. Lincoln's."
"Tom Linken's. Pretty poor accommodations you must have had. They're awful poor folks. Mrs. Linken is a nice woman, but Tom he is shiftless, and he's bringin' up that great tall boy Abe to be lazy, too. That boy is good to his mother, but he all runs to books and larnin', just as some turnips all run to tops. You've seen 'em so, haven't ye?"
"But the boy has got character, and character is everything in this world."
"Did you notice anything peculiarsome about him? His cousin, Dennis Hanks, says there's something peculiarsome about him. I never did."
"My good woman, do you believe in gifts?"
"No, I believe in works. I believe in people whose two fists are full of works. Mine are, like the Marthas of old."
Aunt Olive rolled up her sleeves, and began to cut the thin layer of dough with a knife into long strips, which she twisted.
"I'm goin' to make some twisted doughnuts," she said, "seein' you're a preacher and a teacher."
"I think that young lad Lincoln has some inborn gift, and that he will become a leader among men. It is he who is willing to serve that rules, and they who deny themselves the most receive the most from Heaven and men. He has sympathetic wisdom. I can see it. There is something peculiar about him. He is true."
"Oh, don't you talk that way. He's lazy, and he hain't got any calculation, 'n' he'll never amount to shucks, nor nothin'. He's like his father, his head in the air. Somethin' don't come of nothin' in this world; corn don't grow unless you plant it; and when you add nothin' to nothin' it just makes nothin'.
"Well, preacher, you've told me who you are, and now I'll tell ye who I am. But first, let me say, I'll have a pair of shoes. I have my own last. I'll get it for you, and then you can be peggin' away, so as not to lose any time. It is wicked to waste time. 'Work' is my motto. That's what time is made for."
Aunt Olive got her last. The fat was hot by this time—"all sizzlin'," as she said.
"There, preacher, this is the last, and there is the board on which my husband used to sew shoes, wax and all. Now I will go to fryin' my doughnuts, and you and I can be workin' away at the same time, and I'll tell ye who I am. Work away—work away!
"I'm a widder. You married? A widower? Well, that ain't nothin' to me. Work away—work away!
"I came from old Hingham, near Boston. You've heard of Boston? That was before I was married. Our family came to Ohio first, then we heard that there was better land in Injiany, and we moved on down the Ohio River and came here. There was only one other family in these parts at that time. That was folks by the name of Eastman. They had a likely smart boy by the name of Polk—Polk Eastman. He grew up and became lonesome. I grew up and became lonesome, and so we concluded that we'd make a home together—here it is—and try to cheer each other. Listenin', be ye? Yes? Well, my doughnuts are fryin' splendid. Work away—work away!
"A curious time we had of it when we went to get married. There was a minister named Penney, who preached in a log church up in Kentuck, and we started one spring mornin', something like this, to get him to marry us. We had but one horse for the journey. I rode on a kind of a second saddle behind Polk, and we started off as happy as prairie plovers. A blue sky was over the timber, and the bushes were all alive with birds, and there were little flowers runnin' everywhere among the new grass and the moss. It seemed as though all the world was for us, and that the Lord was good. I've seen lots of trouble since then. My heart has grown heavy with sorrow. It was then as light as air. Work away!
"Well, the minister Penney lived across the Kentuck, and when we came to the river opposite his place the water was so deep that we couldn't ford it. There had been spring freshets. It was an evenin' in April. There was a large moon, and the weather was mild and beautiful. We could see the pine-knots burnin' in Parson Penney's cabin, so that we knew that he was there, but didn't see him.
"'What are we to do now?' Polk said he. 'We'll have to go home again,' banterin'-like."
"'Holler,' said I. 'Blow the horn!' We had taken a horn along with us. He gave a piercin' blast, and I shouted out, 'Elder Penney! Elder Penney!'
"The door of the cabin over the river opened, and the elder came out and stood there, mysterious-like, in the light of the fire.
"'Who be ye?' he called. 'Hallo! What is wanted?'
"'We're comin' to be married!' shouted Polk. 'Comin' to be married—married! How shall we get across the river?'
"'The ford's too deep. Can't be done. Who be ye?' shouted the elder.
"'I'm Polk Eastman—Polk Eastman!' shouted Polk.
"'I'm Olive Pratt—Olive Pratt—Olive!' shouted I.
"'Well, you just stay where you be, and I'll marry you there.'
"So he began shouting at the top of his voice:
"'Do you, Olive Pratt, take that there man, over there on the horse, to be your husband? Hey?'
"I shouted back, 'Yes, sir!'
"'Do you, Polk Eastman, take that there woman, over there on the horse, to be your wife?'
"Polk shouted back, 'Yes, elder, that is what I came for!'
"'Then,' shouted the minister, 'join your right hands.'
"Polk put up his hand over his shoulder, and I took it; and the horse, seein' his advantage, went to nibblin' young sprouts. The elder then shouted:
"'I pronounce you husband and wife. You can go home now, and I'll make a record of it, and my wife shall witness it. Good luck to you! Let us pray.'
"Polk hitched up the reins and the horse stood still. How solemn it seemed! The woods were still and shady. You could hear the water rushing in the timber. The full moon hung in the clear sky over the river, and seemed to lay on the water like a sparkling boat. I was happy then. On our journey home we were chased by a bear. I don't think that the bear would have hurt us, but the scent of him frightened the horse and made him run like a deer.
"Well, we portaged a stream at midnight, just as the moon was going down. We made our curtilage here, and here we lived happy until husband died of a fever. I'm a middlin' good woman. I go to all the meetin's round, and wake 'em up. I've got a powerful tongue, and there isn't a lazy bone in my whole body. Work away—work away! That's the way to get along in the world. Peg away!"
While Aunt Olive had been relating this odd story, John Hanks, a cousin of the Lincolns, had come quietly to the door, and entered and sat down beside the Tunker. He had come to Indiana from Kentucky when Abraham was fourteen years of age, and he made his home with the Lincolns for four years, when he went to Illinois, and was enthused by the wonders of prairie farming. It was Uncle John who gave to Abraham Lincoln the name of rail-splitter. He loved the boy Lincoln, and led his heart away to the rich prairies of Illinois a few years after the present scenes.
"He and I," he once said of Abraham, "worked barefooted, grubbed, plowed, mowed, and cradled together. When we returned from the field, he would snatch a piece of corn-bread, sit down on a chair, with his feet elevated, and read. He read constantly."
This man had heard Aunt Olive—Indiana, or "Injiany," he called her—relate her marriage experiences many times. He was not interested in the old story, but he took a keen delight in observing the curiosity and surprise that such a novel tale awakened in the mind of the Tunker.
"This is very extraordinary," said the Tunker, "very extraordinary. We do not have in Germany any stories like that. I hardly know what my people would say to such a story as that. This is a very extraordinary country—very extraordinary."
"I can tell you a wedding story worth two o' that," said Uncle John Hanks. "Why, that ain't nowhere to it.—Now, Aunt Injiany, you wait, and set still. I'm goin' to tell the elder about the 'Two Turkey-Calls.'"
The Tunker only said, "This is all very extraordinary." Uncle John crossed his legs and bent forward his long whiskers, stretched out one arm, and was about to begin, when Aunt Olive said:
"You wait, John Hanks—you wait. I'm goin' to tell the elder that there story myself."
John Hanks never disputed with Aunt Olive.
"Well, tell it," said he, and the backwoods woman began:
"'Tis a master-place to get married out here. There's a great many more men than women in the timber, and the men get lonesome-like, and no man is a whole man without a wife. Men ought not to live alone anywhere. They can not out here. Well, well, the timber is full of wild turkeys, especially in the fall of the year, but they are hard to shoot. The best way to get a shot at a turkey is by a turkey-call. You never heard one, did you? You are not to blame for bein' ignorant. It is like this—"
Aunt Indiana put her hands to her mouth like a shell, and blew a low, mysterious whistle.
"Well, there came a young settler from Kentucky and took up a claim on Pigeon Creek; and there came a widow from Ohio and took a claim about three miles this side of him, and neither had seen the other. Well, well, one shiny autumn mornin' each of them took in to their heads to go out turkey-huntin', and curiously enough each started along the creek toward each other. The girl's name was Nancy, and the man's name was Albert. Nancy started down the creek, and Albert up the creek, and each had a right good rifle.
"Nancy stood still as soon as she found a hollow place in the timber, put up her hand—so—and made a turkey-call—so—and listened.
"Albert heard the call in the hollow timber, though he was almost a mile away, and he put up his hands—so—and answered—so.
"'A turkey,' said Nancy, said she. 'I wish I had a turkey to cook.'
"'A turkey,' said Albert, said he. 'I wish I had some one at home to cook a turkey.'
"Then each stole along slowly toward the other, through the hollow timber.
"It was just a lovely mornin'. Jays were callin', and nuts were fallin', and the trees were all yellow and red, and the air put life into you, and made you feel as though you would live forever.
"Well, they both of them stopped again, Nancy and Albert. Nancy she called—so—and Albert—so.
"'A turkey, sure,' said Nancy.
"'A turkey, sure,' said Albert.
"Then each went forward a little, and stopped and called again.
"They were so near each other now that each began to hide behind the thicket, so that neither might scare the turkey.
"Well, each was scootin' along with head bowed—so—gun in hand—so—one wishin' for a husband and one for a wife, and each for a good fat turkey, when what should each hear but a voice in a tree! It was a very solemn voice, and it said:
"'Quit!'
"Each thought there was a scared turkey somewhere, and each became more stealthy and cautious, and there was a long silence.
"At last Nancy she called again—so—and Albert he answered her—so—and each thought there was a turkey within shootin' distance, and each crept along a little nearer each other.
"At last Nancy saw the bushes stir a few rods in front of her, and raised her gun into position, still hiding in the tangle. Albert discovered a movement in front of him, and he took the same position.
"Nancy was sure she could see something dark before her, and that it must be the turkey in the tangle. She put her finger on the lock of the gun, when a voice in the air said:
"'Quit!'
"'It's a turkey in the tops of the timber,' thought she, 'and he is watchin' me, and warnin' the other turkey.'
"Albert, too, was preparin' to shoot in the tangle when the command from the tree-top came. Each thought it would be well to reconnoiter a little, so as to get a better shot.
"Nancy kneeled down on the moss among the red-berry bushes, and peeked cautiously through an openin' in the tangle. What was that?
"A hat? Yes, it was a hat!
"Albert he peeked through another openin', and his heart sunk like a stone within him. What was that? A bonnet? Yes, it was a bonnet!
"Was ever such a thing as that seen before in the timber? Bears had been seen, and catamounts, and prairie wolves, but a bonnet! He drew back his gun. Just then there came another command from the tree-top:
"'Quit!'
"Now, would you believe it? Well, two guns were discharged at that turkey in the tree, and it came tumblin' down, a twenty-pounder, dead as a stone.
"Nancy run toward it. Albert run towards it.
"'It's yourn,' said Nancy.
"'It's yourn,' said Albert.
"Each looked at the other.
"Nancy looked real pink and pretty, and Albert he looked real noble and handsome-like.
"'I'm thinkin',' said Albert, 'it kind o' belongs to both of us.'
"'So I think, too,' said Nancy, said she. 'Come over to my cabin and I'll cook it for ye. I'm an honest girl, I am.'
"The two went along as chipper as two squirrels. The creek looked really pretty to 'em, and the prairie was all a-glitter with frost, and the sky was all pleasant-like, and you know the rest. There, now. They're livin' there yet. Just like poetry—wasn't it, now?"
"Very extraordinary," said the Tunker, "very! I never read a novel like that. Very extraordinary!"
A tall, lank, wiry boy came up to the door.
"Abe, I do declare!" said Aunt Olive. "Come in. I'm makin' doughnuts, and you sha'n't have one of them. I make Scriptur' doughnuts, and the Scriptur' says if a man spends his time porin' over books, of which there is no end, neither shall he eat, or somethin' like that—now don't it, elder?—But seein' it's you, Abe, and you are a pretty good boy, after all, when people are in trouble, and sick and such, I'll make you an elephant. There ain't any elephants in Injiany."
Aunt Olive cut a piece of doughnut dough in the shape of a picture-book elephant and tossed it into the fat. It swelled up to enormous proportions, and when she scooped it out with a ladle it was, for a doughnut, an elephant indeed.
"Now, Abe, there's your elephant.—And, elder, here's a whole pan full of twisted doughnuts. You said that you were goin' to meet Black Hawk. Where does he live? Tell us all about him."
"I will do so, my good woman," said Jasper. "I want you to be interested in my Indian missions. When I come this way again, I shall be likely to bring with me an Indian guide, an uncommon boy, I am told. You shall hear my story."
Aunt Indiana, Jasper, John Hanks, and young Abraham Lincoln sat between the dying logs in the great fireplace and the open door. The company was after a little time increased for Thomas Lincoln came slowly into the clearing, and saying, "How-dy?" and "The top of the day to ye all," sat down in the sunshine on the log step; and soon after came Dennis Hanks and dropped down on a puncheon.
"I think that you are misled," said Jasper, "when you say that Black Hawk was born at Kaskaskia. If I remember rightly, he said to me: 'I was born in this Sac village. Here I spent my youth; my fathers' graves are here, and the graves of my children, and here where I was born I wish to die.' Rock Island, as the northern islands, rapids, and bluffs of the Mississippi are called, is a very beautiful place. Black Hawk clings to the spot as to his life. 'I love to look down,' he said, 'upon the big rivers, shady groves, and green prairies from the graves of my fathers,' and I do not wonder at this feeling. His blood is the same and his rights are the same as any other king, and he loves Nature and has a heart.
"It is my calling to teach and preach among the Indians and new towns of Illinois. This call came to me in Pennsylvania. God willed it, and I had no will but to obey. I heard the Voice within, just as I heard it in Germany on the Rhine. There it said, 'Go to America.' In Pennsylvania it said, 'Go to the Illinois.'
"I went. I have walked all the way, teaching and preaching in the log school-houses. I sowed the good seed, and left the harvest to the heavens. Why should I be anxious in regard to the result? I walk by faith, and I know what the result will be in God's good time, without seeking for it. Why should I stop to number the people? I know.
"I wanted an Indian guide and interpreter, and the inward Voice told me to go to Black Hawk and secure one from the chief himself. So I went to the bluffs of the Mississippi, and told Black Hawk all my heart, and he let me preach in his lodges, and I made some strong winter shoes for him, and tried to teach the children by signs. So I was fed by the ravens of the air. He had no interpreter or runner such as he would trust to go with me; but he told me if I would return in the May moon, he would provide me one. He said that it would be a boy by the name of Waubeno, whose father was a noble warrior and had had a strange and mysterious history. The boy was then traveling with an old uncle by the name of Main-Pogue. These names sound strange to German ears: Waubeno and Main-Pogue! I promised to return in May. I am on my way.
"If I get the boy Waubeno—and the Voice within tells me that I will—I intend to travel a circuit, round and round, round and round, teaching and preaching. I can see my circuit now in my mind. This is the map of it: From Rock Island to Fort Dearborn (Chicago); from Fort Dearborn to the Ohio, which will bring me here again; and from the Ohio to the Mississippi, and back to Rock Island, and so round and round, round and round. Do you see?"
The homely travels of Thomas Lincoln and the limited geography of Andrew Crawford had not prepared Jasper's audience to see even this small circuit very distinctly. Thomas Lincoln, like the dwellers in the Scandinavian valleys, doubtless believed that there "are people beyond the mountains, also" but he knew little of the world outside of Kentucky and Illinois. Mrs. Eastman was quite intelligent in regard to New England and the Middle States, but the West to her mind was simply land—"oceans of it," as she expressed herself—"where every one was at liberty to choose without infringin' upon anybody."
"Don't you ever stop to build up churches?" said Mrs. Eastman to Jasper.
"No."
"You just baptize 'em, and let 'em run. That's what I can't understand. I can't get at it. What are you really doin'? Now, say?"
"I am the Voice in the wilderness, preparing the way."
"No family name?"
"No. What have I to do with a name?"
"No money?"
"Only what I earn."
"That's queerer yet. Well, you are just the man to preach to the uninhabited places of the earth. Tell us more about Black Hawk. I want to hear of him, although we all are wastin' a pile of time when we all ought to be to work. Tell us about Black Hawk, and then we'll all up and be doin'. My fire is goin' out now."
"He's a revengeful critter, that Black Hawk," said Thomas Lincoln, "and you had better be pretty wary of him. You don't know Indians. He's a flint full of fire, so people say that come to the smithy. You look out."
"He has had his wrongs," said Jasper, "and he has been led by his animal nature to try to avenge them. Had he listened to the higher teachings of the soul, it might have been different. We should teach him."
"What was it that set him against white folks?" asked Mrs. Eastman.
"He told me the whole story," said Jasper, "and it made my heart bleed for him. He's a child of Nature, and has a great soul, but it needs a teacher. The Indians need teachers. I am sent to teach in the wilderness, and to be fed by the birds of the air. I am sent from over the sea. But listen to the tale of Black Hawk. You complain of your wrongs, don't you? Why should not he?
"Years ago Black Hawk had an old friend whom he dearly loved, for the friendships of Indians are ardent and noble. That friend had a boy, and Black Hawk loved this boy and adopted him as his own, and became as a father to him, and taught him to hunt and to go to war. When Black Hawk joined the British he wished to take this boy with him to Canada; but his own father said that he needed him to care for him in his old age, to fish and to hunt for him. He said, moreover, that he did not like his boy to fight against the Americans, who had always treated him kindly. So Black Hawk left the boy with his old father.
"On his return to Rock River and the bluffs of the Mississippi, after the war on the lakes, and as he was approaching his own town in the sunset, he chanced to notice a column of white smoke curling from a hollow in one of the bluffs. He stepped aside to see what was there. As he looked over the bluff he saw a fire, and an aged Indian sitting alone on a prayer-mat before it, as though humbling himself before the Great Spirit. He went down to the place and found that the man was his old friend.
"'How came you here?' asked Black Hawk. But, although the old Indian's lip moved, he received no answer.
"'What has happened?' asked Black Hawk.
"There was a pitiful look in the old man's eyes, but this was his only reply. The old Indian seemed scarcely alive. Black Hawk brought some water to him. It revived him. His consciousness and memory seemed to return. He looked up. With staring eyes he said, suddenly:
"'Thou art Black Hawk! O Black Hawk, Black Hawk, my old friend, he is gone!'
"'Who has gone?'
"'The life of my heart is gone, he whom you used to love. Gone, like a maple-leaf. Gone! Listen, O Black Hawk, listen.
"'After you went away to fight for the British, I came down the river at the request of the pale-faces to winter there. When I arrived I found that the white people had built a fort there. I went to the fort with my son to tell the people that we were friendly."
"'The white war-chief received me kindly, and told us that we might hunt on this side of the Mississippi, and that he would protect us. So we made our camp there. We lived happy, and we loved to talk of you, O Black Hawk!
"'We were there two moons, when my boy went to hunt one day, unsuspicious of any danger. We thought the white man spoke true. Night came, and he did not return. I could not sleep that night. In the morning I sent out the old woman to the near lodges to give an alarm, and say that my boy must be sought.
"'There was a band formed to hunt for him. Snow was on the ground, and they found his tracks—my boy's tracks. They followed them, and saw that he had been pursuing a deer to the river. They came upon the deer, which he had killed and left hanging on the branch of a tree. It was as he had left it.
"'But here they found the tracks of the white man. The pale-faces had been there, and had taken our boy prisoner. They followed the tracks and they found him. O Black Hawk! he was dead—my boy! The white men had murdered him for killing the deer near the fort; and the land was ours. His face was all shot to pieces. His body was stabbed through and through, and they had torn the hair from his head. They had tied his hands behind him before they murdered him. Black Hawk, my heart is dead. What do the hawks in the sky say?'
"The old Indian fell into a stupor, from which he soon expired. Black Hawk watched over his body during the night, and the next day he buried it upon the bluff. It was at that grave that Black Hawk listened to the hawks in the sky, and vowed vengeance against the white people forever, and summoned his warriors for slaughter."
"He's a hard Indian," said Thomas Lincoln. "Don't you trust Black Hawk. You don't know him."
"Hard? Yes, but did not your brother Mordecai make the same vow and follow the same course after the murder of your father by the Indians? A slayer of man is a slayer of man whoever and wherever he may be. May the gospel bring the day when the shedding of human blood will cease! But the times are still evil. The world waits still for the manifestation of the sons of God; as of old it waits. I have given all I am to the teaching of the gospel of peace. The Indians need it; you need it, all of you. You do the same things that the savages do."
"Just hear him!" said Aunt Indiana.—"Who are you preachin' to, elder? Callin' us savages! I'm an exhorter myself, I'd like to have you know. I could exhort you. Savages? We know Indians here better than you do. You wait."
"Let me tell you a story now," said Thomas Lincoln.
"Of course you will," said Aunt Indiana. "Thomas Lincoln never heard a story told without telling another one to match it; and Abe, here, is just like him. The thing that has been, is, as the Scriptur' says."
"Well," said Thomas Lincoln, "I hain't no faith at all, elder, in Injuns. I once knew of a woman in Kentuck, in my father's day, who knew enough for 'em, and the way that she cleared 'em out showed an amazin' amount of spirit. Women was women in Daniel Boone's time, in old Kentuck. The Injuns found 'em up and doin', and they learned to sidle away pretty rapid-like when they met a sun-bonnet.
"Well, as I was sayin', this was in my father's time. The Injuns were prowlin' about pretty plenty then, and one day one of 'em came, all feathers and paint, and whoops and prancin's, to a house owned by a Mr. Daviess, and found that the man of the house was gone.
"But the wimmin-folks were at home—Mrs. Daviess and the children. Well, the Injun came on like a champion, swingin' his tommyhawk and liftin' his heels high. The only weapon that the good woman had was a bottle of whisky.
"Well, whisky is a good weapon sometimes—there's many a man that has found it a slow gunpowder. Well, this woman, as I was sayin', had her wits about her. What do you think that she did?
"Well, she just brought out the whisky-bottle, and held it up before him—so. It made his eyes sparkle, you may be sure of that!
"'Fire-water,' said she, 'mighty temptin'.
"'Ugh!' said the Indian, all humps and antics and eyes.
"Ugh! Did you ever hear an Injun say that—'Ugh?'
"'Have some?' said she.
"Have some? Of course he did.
"She got a glass and put it on the table, and then she uncorked the bottle and handed it to him to pour out the whisky. He lost his wits at once.
"He set down his gun to pour out a dram, all giddy, when Mrs. Daviess seized the shooter and lifted it up quick as a flash and pointed to his head.
"'Set that down, or I'll fire! Set that bottle down!'
"The poor Injun's jaw dropped. He set down the bottle, looked wild, and begged for his life.
"'Set still,' said she; and he looked at the whisky-bottle and then slunk all up in a heap and remained silent as a dead man until Mr. Daviess came home, when he was allowed to crawl away into the forest. He gave one parting look at the bottle, but he never wanted to see a white woman again, I'll be bound."
"You ridicule the Indian for his love of whisky," said the Tunker, "but who taught him to love it? Woe unto the world because of offenses."
"Hello!" said John Hanks, starting up. "Here comes Johnnie Kongapod again, from the Illinois. I like to see any one from Illinois, even if he is an Indian. I'm goin' there myself some day. I've a great opinion of that there prairie country—hain't you, elder?"
"Yes, it is a garden of wild flowers that seems as wide as the sky. It can all be turned into green, and it will be some day."
Aunt Indiana greeted the Indian civilly, and the Tunker held out his hand to him.
"Elder," said Aunt Indiana, "I must tell you one of my own experiences, now that Johnnie Kongapod has come—the one that they bantered me about over to the smithy. Johnnie and I are old friends. I used to be a kind of travelin' preacher myself; I am now—I go to camp-meetin's, and I always do my duty.
"Well, a few years ago, durin' the Injun troubles, there was goin' to be a camp-meetin' on the Illinois side, and I wanted to go. Now, Johnnie Kongapod is a good Injun, and I arranged with him that he should go with me.
"You didn't know that I wore a wig, did ye, elder? No? Well, most people don't. I have had to wear a wig ever since I had the scarlet fever, when I was a girl. I'm kind o' ashamed to tell of it, I've so much nateral pride, but have to speak of it when I tell this story.
"Johnnie Kongapod never saw a wig before I showed him mine, and I never showed it to him until I had to.
"Well, he came over from Illinois, and we started off together to the camp-meetin'. It was a lovely time on the prairies. The grass was all ripe and wavin', and the creeks were all alive with ducks, and there were prairie chickens everywhere. I felt very brisk and chipper.
"We had two smart horses, and we cantered along. I sang hymns, and sort o' preached to Johnnie, when all at once we saw a shadow on the prairie like a cloud, and who should come ridin' up but three Injuns! I was terribly frightened. I could see that they were hostile Injuns—Sacs, from Black Hawk. One of them swung his tommyhawk in the air, and made signs that he was goin' to scalp me. Johnnie began to beg for me, and I thought that my last hour had come.
"The Injun wheeled his pony, rode away, then turned and came dashin' towards me, with tommyhawk lifted.
"'Me scalp!' said he, as he dashed by me. Then he turned his horse and came plungin' towards me again.
"Elder, what do you think I did? I snatched off my bonnet and threw it upon the ground. Then I grabbed my wig, held it up in the air, and when the Injun came rushin' by I held it out to him.
"'There it is,' said I.
"Well—would you believe it?—that Injun gave one glance at it, and put spurs to his horse, and he never stopped runnin' till he was out of sight. The two other Injuns took one look at my wig as I held it out in my hand.
"'Scalped herself!' said one.
"'Took her head off!' said the other. 'She conjur's!'
"They spurred their horses and flew over the prairie like the wind. And—and—must I say it?—Johnnie Kongapod—he ran too; and so I put on my wig, picked up my sun-bonnet, and turned and came home again.
"There are some doughnuts, Johnnie Kongapod, if you did desert me.
"Elder, this is a strange country. And don't you believe any stories about honest Injuns that the law condemns, and that go home to see their families overnight and return again; you will travel a long way, elder, before you find any people of that kind, Injuns or white folks. I know. I haven't lived fifty years in this troublesome world for nothin'. People who live up in the air, as you do, elder, have to come down. I'm sorry. You mean well!"
Johnnie Kongapod arose, lifted his brown arm silently, and, bending his earnest face on Jasper, said:
"That story is true. You will know. Time tells the truth. Wait!"
"Return in the morning to be shot!" said Aunt Olive. "Injuns don't do that way here. When I started for Injiany I was told of a mother-in-law who was so good that all her daughters' husbands asked her to come and live with them. They said she moved to Injiany. Now, I have traveled about this State to all the camp-meetin's, and I never found her anywhere. Stands to reason that no such story as that is true. You'll have to travel a long way, elder, before you find any people of that kind in these parts."
Whom was Jasper to believe—the confident Indian or the pioneers?
Examination-day is an important time in country schools, and it excited more interest seventy years ago than now. Andrew Crawford was always ambitious that this day should do credit to his faithful work, and his pupils caught his inspiration.
There were great preparations for the examination at Crawford's this spring. The appearance of the German school-master in the place who could read Latin was an event. Years after, when the pure gold of fame was no longer a glimmering vision or a current of fate, but a wonderful fact, Abraham Lincoln wrote of such visits as Jasper's in the settlement a curious sentence in an odd hand in an autobiography, which we reproduce here: