WHEREIN ABE MAKES SUNDRY WISE REMARKS TO THE BOY HARRY AND ANNOUNCES HIS
PURPOSE TO BE A CANDIDATE FOR THE LEGISLATURE AT KELSO'S DINNER PARTY.
Harry Needles met Bim Kelso on the road next day, when he was going down
to see if there was any mail. She was on her pony. He was in his new suit
of clothes--a butternut background striped into large checks.
"You look like a walking checkerboard," said she, stopping her pony.
"This--this is my new suit," Harry answered, looking down at it.
"It's a tiresome suit," said she impaciently. "I've been playing checkers
on it since I caught sight o' you, and I've got a man crowned in the king
row."
"I thought you'd like it," he answered, quite seriously, and with a look
of disappointment. "Say, I've got that razor and I've shaved three times
already."
He took the razor from his pocket and drew it from its case and proudly
held it up before her.
"Don't tell anybody," he warned her. "They'd laugh at me. They wouldn't
know how I feel."
"I won't say anything," she answered. "I reckon I ought to tell you that
I don't love you--not so much as I did anyway--not near so much. I only
love you just a wee little bit now."
It is curious that she should have said just that. Her former confession
had only been conveyed by the look in her eyes at sundry times and by
unpremeditated acts in the hour of his peril.
Harry's face fell.
"Do you--love--some other man?" he asked.
"Yes--a regular man--mustache, six feet tall and everything. I just tell
you he's purty!"
"Is it that rich feller from St. Louis?" he asked.
She nodded and then whispered: "Don't you tell."
The boy's lips trembled when he answered. "I won't tell. But I don't see
how you can do it."
"Why?"
"He drinks and he keeps slaves and beats them with a bull whip. He isn't
respectable."
"That's a lie," she answered quickly. "I don't care what you say."
Bim touched her pony with the whip and rode away.
Harry staggered for a moment as he went on. His eyes filled with tears.
It seemed to him that the world had been ruined. On his way to the
village he tried and convicted it of being no fit place for a boy to live
in. Down by the tavern he met Abe, who stopped him.
"Howdy, Harry!" said Abe. "You look kind o' sick. Come into the store and
sit down. I want to talk to you."
Harry followed the big man into Offut's store, flattered by his
attention. There had been something very grateful in the sound of Abe's
voice and the feel of his hand. The store was empty.
"You and I mustn't let ourselves be worried by little matters," said Abe,
as they sat down together by the fire. "Things that seem to you to be as
big as a mountain now will look like a mole hill in six months. You and I
have got things to do, partner. We mustn't let ourselves be fooled. I was
once in a boat with old Cap'n Chase on the Illinois River. We had got
into the rapids. It was a narrow channel in dangerous water. They had to
keep her headed just so or we'd have gone on the rocks. Suddenly a boy
dropped his apple overboard and began to holler. He wanted to have the
boat stopped. For a minute that boy thought his apple was the biggest
thing in the world. We're all a good deal like him. We keep dropping our
apples and calling for the boat to stop. Soon we find out that there are
many apples in the world as good as that one. You have all come to a
stretch of bad water up at your house. The folks have been sick. They're
a little lonesome and discouraged. Don't you make it any harder by crying
over a lost apple. Ye know it's possible that the apple will float along
down into the still water where you can pick it up by and by. The
important thing is to keep going ahead."
This bit of fatherly counsel was a help to the boy.
"I've got a book here that I want you to read," Abe went on. "It is the
_Life of Henry Clay_. Take it home and read it carefully and then bring
it back and tell me what you think of it. You may be a Henry Clay
yourself by and by. The world has something big in it for every one if he
can only find it. We're all searching--some for gold and some for fame. I
pray God every day that He will help me to find my work--the thing I can
do better than anything else--and when it is found help me to do it. I
expect it will be a hard and dangerous search and that I shall make
mistakes. I expect to drop some apples on my way. They'll look like gold
to me, but I'm not going to lose sight of the main purpose."
When Harry got home he found Sarah sewing by the fireside, with Joe and
Betsey playing by the bed. Samson had gone to the woods to split rails.
"Any mail?" Sarah asked.
"No mail," he answered.
Sarah went to the window and stood for some minutes looking out at the
plain. Its sere grasses, protruding out of the snow, hissed and bent in
the wind. In its cheerless winter colors it was a dreary thing to see.
"How I long for home!" she exclaimed, as she resumed her sewing by the
fire.
Little Joe came and stood by her knee and gave her his oft repeated
blessing:
"God help us and make His face to shine upon us."
She kissed him and said: "Dear comforter! It shines upon me every time
I hear you say those words."
The little lad had observed the effect of the blessing on his mother in
her moments of depression and many times his parroting had been the word
in season. Now he returned to his play again, satisfied.
"Would you mind if I called you mother?" Harry asked.
"I shall be glad to have you do it if it gives you any comfort, Harry,"
she answered.
She observed that there were tears in his eyes.
"We are all very fond of you," she said, as she bent to her task.
Then the boy told her the history of his morning--the talk with Bim, with
the razor omitted from it; how he had met Abe and all that Abe had said
to him as they sat together in the store.
"Well, Harry, if she's such a fool, you're lucky to have found it out so
soon," said Sarah. "She does little but ride the pony and play around
with a gun. I don't believe she ever spun a hank o' yarn in her life.
She'll get her teeth cut by and by. Abe is right We're always dropping
our apples and feeling very bad about it, until we find out that there
are lots of apples just as good. I'm that way myself. I guess I've made
it harder for Samson crying over lost apples. I'm going to try to stop
it."
Then fell a moment of silence. Soon she said:
"There's a bitter wind blowing and there's no great hurry about the
rails, I guess. You sit here by the fire and read your book this
forenoon. Maybe it will help you to find your work."
So it happened that the events of Harry's morning found their place in
the diary which Sarah and Samson kept. Long afterward Harry added the
sentences about the razor.
That evening Harry read aloud from the _Life of Henry Clay_, while Sarah
and Samson sat listening by the fireside. It was the first of many
evenings which they spent in a like fashion that winter. When the book
was finished they read, on Abe's recommendation, Weem's _Life of
Washington_.
Every other Sunday they went down to the schoolhouse to hear John Cameron
preach. He was a working man, noted for good common sense, who talked
simply and often effectively of the temptations of the frontier, notably
those of drinking, gaming and swearing. One evening they went to a debate
in the tavern on the issues of the day, in which Abe won the praise of
all for an able presentation of the claim of Internal Improvements.
During that evening Alexander Ferguson declared that he would not cut his
hair until Henry Clay became president, the news of which resolution led
to a like insanity in others and an age of unexampled hairiness on that
part of the border.
For Samson and Sarah the most notable social event of the winter was a
chicken dinner at which they and Mr. and Mrs. James Rutledge and Ann and
Abe Lincoln and Dr. Allen were the guests of the Kelsos. That night Harry
stayed at home with the children.
Kelso was in his best mood.
"Come," he said, when dinner was ready. "Life is more than friendship. It
is partly meat."
"And mostly Kelso," said Dr. Allen.
"Ah, Doctor! Long life has made you as smooth as an old shilling and
nimbler than a sixpence," Kelso declared. "And, speaking of life,
Aristotle said that the learned and the unlearned were as the living and
the dead."
"It is true," Abe interposed. "I say it, in spite of the fact that it
slays me."
"You? No! You are alive to your finger tips," Kelso answered.
"But I have mastered only eight books," said Abe.
"And one--the book of common sense, and that has wised you," Kelso
went on. "Since I came to this country I have learned to beware of the
one-book man. There are more living men in America than in any land I
have seen. The man who reads one good book thoughtfully is alive and
often my master in wit or wisdom. Reading is the gate and thought is
the pathway of real life."
"I think that most of the men I know have read the Bible," said Abe.
"A wonderful and a saving fact! It is a sure foundation to build your
life upon."
Kelso paused to pour whisky from a jug at his side for those who would
take it.
"Let us drink to our friend Abe and his new ambition," he proposed.
"What is it?" Samson asked.
"I am going to try for a seat in the Legislature," said Abe. "I reckon
it's rather bold. Old Samuel Legg was a good deal of a nuisance down in
Hardin County. He was always talking about going to Lexington, but never
went.
"'You'll never get thar without startin',' said his neighbor.
"'But I'm powerful skeered fer fear I'd never git back,' said Samuel.
'There's a big passel o' folks that gits killed in the city.'
"'You always was a selfish cuss. You ought to think o' yer neighbors,'
said the other man.
"So I've concluded that if I don't start I'll never get there, and if
I die on the way it will be a good thing for my neighbors," Abe added.
The toast was drunk, and by some in water, after which Abe said:
"If you have the patience to listen to it, I'd like to read my
declaration to the voters of Sangamon County."
Samson's diary briefly describes this appeal as follows:
* * * * *
"He said that he wanted to win the confidence and esteem of his fellow
citizens. This he hoped to accomplish by doing something which would make
him worthy of it. He had been thinking of the county. A railroad would do
more for it than anything else, but a railroad would be too costly. The
improvement of the Sangamon River was the next best thing. Its channel
could be straightened and cleared of driftwood and made navigable for
small vessels under thirty tons' burden. He favored a usury law and said,
in view of the talk he had just heard, he was going to favor the
improvement and building of schools, so that every one could learn how to
read, at least, and learn for himself what is in the Bible and other
great books. It was a modest statement and we all liked it."
* * * * *
"Whatever happens to the Sangamon, one statement in that platform
couldn't be improved," said Kelso.
"What is that?" Abe asked.
"It's the one that says you wish to win the regard of your fellows by
serving them."
"It's a lot better than saying that he wishes to serve Abe," said Dr.
Allen, a remark which referred to a former conversation with Abe, in
which Kelso had had a part.
"You can trust Abe to take the right turn at every fork in the road,"
Kelso went on. "If you stick to that, my boy, and continue to study,
you'll get there and away beyond any goal you may now see. A passion
for service is more than half the battle. Since the other night at the
tavern I've been thinking about Abe and the life we live here. I've
concluded that we're all very lucky, if we are a bit lonesome."
"I'd like to know about that," said Sarah. "I'm a little in need of
encouragement."
"Well, you may have observed that Abe has a good memory," he continued.
"While I try to be modest about it, my own memory is a fairly faithful
servant. It is due to the fact that since I left the university I have
lived, mostly, in lonely places. It is a great thing to be where the
register of your mind is not overburdened by the flow of facts. Abe's
candidacy is the only thing that has happened here since Samson's
raising, except the arrival and departure of Eliphalet Biggs. Our
memories are not weakened by overwork. They have time for big
undertakings--like Burns and Shakespeare and Blackstone."
"I've noticed that facts get kind o' slippery when they come in a bunch,
as they did on our journey," said Samson. "Seems so they wore each other
smooth and got hard to hold."
"Ransom Prigg used to say it was easy enough to ketch eels, but it was
powerful hard to hold 'em," Abe remarked. "He caught three eels in a trap
one day and the trap busted and let 'em loose in the boat. He kept
grabbin' and tusslin' around the boat till the last eel got away. 'I
never had such a slippery time in all the days o' my life,' said Rans.
'One eel is a dinner, but three eels is jest a lot o' slippin' an'
disapp'intment.'"
"That's exactly the point I make," said Kelso. "A man with too many eels
in the boat will have none for dinner. The city man is at a great
disadvantage. Events slip away from him and leave nothing. His intellect
gets the habit of letting go. It loses its power to seize and hold. His
impressions are like footprints on a beach. They are washed away by the
next tide."
There was much talk at the fireside after dinner, all of which doubtless
had an effect on the fortunes of the good people who sat around it, and
the historian must sort the straws, and with some regret, for bigger
things are drawing near in the current. Samson and Sarah had been telling
of their adventures on the long road.
"We are all movers," said Kelso. "We can not stay where we are for a
single day--not if we are alive. Most of us never reach that eminence
from which we discover the littleness of ourselves and our troubles and
achievements and the immensities of power and wisdom by which we are
surrounded."
At least one of that company was to remember the words in days of
adversity and triumph. Soon after that dinner the memories of the little
community began to register an unusual procession of thrilling facts.
Early in April an Indian scare spread from the capital to the remotest
corners of the state. Black Hawk, with many warriors, had crossed the
Mississippi and was moving toward the Rock River country. Governor
Reynolds called for volunteers to check the invasion.
Abe, whose address to the voters had been printed in the _Sangamon
Journal_, joined a volunteer company and soon became its captain. On the
tenth of April he and Harry Needles left for Richland to go into
training. Samson was eager to go, but could not leave his family.
Bim Kelso rode out into the fields where Harry was at work the day before
he went away.
"This is a great surprise," said Harry. "I don't see you any more except
at a distance."
"I don't see you either."
"I didn't think you wanted to see me."
"You're easily discouraged," she said, looking down with a serious face.
"You made me feel as if I didn't want to live any longer."
"I reckon I'm mean. I made myself feel a million times worse. It's awful
to be such a human as I am. Some days I'm plum scared o' myself."
"I'm going away," the boy said, in a rather mournful tone.
"I hate to have you go. I just love to know you're here, if I don't see
you. Only I wish you was older and knew more."
"Maybe I know more'n you think I do," he answered.
"But you don't know anything about my troubles," said she, with a sigh.
"I don't get the chance."
There was half a moment of silence. She ended it by saying:
"Ann and I are going to the spelling school to-night."
"Can I go with you?"
"Could you stand it to be talked to and scolded by a couple of girls till
you didn't care what happened to you?"
"Yes; I've got to be awful careless."
"We'll be all dressed up and ready at quarter of eight. Come to the
tavern. I'm going to have supper with Ann. She is just terribly happy.
John McNeil has told her that he loves her. It's a secret. Don't you
tell."
"I won't. Does she love him?"
"Devotedly; but she wouldn't let him know it--not yet."
"No?"
"Course not. She pretends she's in love with somebody else. It's the best
way. I reckon he'll be plum anxious before she owns up. But she truly
loves him. She'd die for him."
"Girls are awful curious--nobody can tell what they mean," said Harry.
"Sometimes they don't know what they mean themselves. Often I say
something or do something and wonder and wonder what it means."
She was looking off at the distant plain as she spoke.
"Sometimes I'm surprised to find out how much it means," she added. "I
reckon every girl is a kind of a puzzle and some are very easy and some
would give ye the headache."
"Or the heartache."
"Did you ever ride a horse sitting backwards--when
you're going one way and looking another and
you don't know what's coming?" she asked.
"What's behind you is before you and the faster you go the more danger
you're in?" Harry laughed.
"Isn't that the way we have to travel in this world whether we're going
to love or to mill?" the girl asked, with a sigh. "We can not tell what
is ahead. We see only what is behind us. It is very sad."
Barry looked at Bim. He saw the tragic truth of the words and suddenly
her face was like them. Unconsciously in the midst of her playful talk
this thing had fallen. He did not know quite what to make of it.
"I feel sad when I think of Abe," said Harry. "He don't know what is
ahead of him, I guess. I heard Mrs. Traylor say that he was in love with
Ann."
"I reckon he is, but he don't know how to show it. You might as well ask
me to play on a flute. He's never told her. He just walks beside her to a
party and talks about politics and poetry and tells funny stories. I
reckon he's mighty good, but he don't know how to love a girl. Ann is
afraid he'll step on her, he's so tall and awkward and wanderin'. Did you
ever see an elephant talking with a cricket?"
"Not as I remember," said Harry.
"I never did myself, but if I did, I'm sure they'd both look very tired.
It would be still harder for an elephant to be engaged to a cricket. I
don't reckon the elephant's love would fit the cricket or that they'd
ever be able to agree on what they'd talk about. It's some that way with
Abe and Ann. She is small and spry; he is slow and high. She'd need a
ladder to get up to his face, and I just tell you it ain't purty when ye
get there. She ain't got a chance to love him."
"I love him," said Harry. "I think he's a wonderful man. I'd fight for
him till I died. John McNeil is nothing but a grasshopper compared to
him."
"That's about what my father says," Bim answered. "I love Abe, too, and
so does Ann, but it ain't the hope to die, marryin' love. It's like a
man's love for a man or a woman's love for a woman. John McNeil is
handsome--he's just plum handsome, and smart, too. He's bought a big farm
and is going into the grocery business. Mr. Rutledge says he'll be a rich
man."
"I wouldn't wonder. Is he going to the spelling school?"
"No, he went off to Richland to-day with my father to join the company.
They're going to fight the Injuns, too."
Harry stood smoothing the new coat of Colonel with his hand, while Bim
was thinking how she would best express what was on her mind. She did not
try to say it, but there was something in the look of her eyes which the
boy remembered.
He was near telling her that he loved her, but he looked down at his
muddy boots and soiled overalls. They were like dirt thrown on a flame.
How could one speak of a sweet and noble passion in such attire? Clean
clothes and white linen for that! The shell sounded for dinner. Bim
started for the road at a gallop, waving her hand. He unhitched his team
and followed it slowly across the black furrows toward the barn.
He did not go to the spelling school. Abe came at seven and said that he
and Harry would have to walk to Springfield that night and get their
equipment and take the stage in the morning. Abe said if they started
right away they could get to the Globe tavern by midnight. In the hurry
and excitement Harry forgot the spelling school. To Bim it was a tragic
thing. Before he went to bed that night he wrote a letter to her.