LITMIR.BIZ

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the bones with which you often astonish us," said Kelso. "How are the lungs, Doctor?"

      "They're all right. These long rides in the open are making a new man of me. Another year in the city would have used me up."

      "Mr. Traylor, you stand up as proud and firm as a big pine," Kelso remarked. "I believe you're a Yankee."

      "So do I," said Samson. "If you took all the Yankee out o' me I'd have an empty skin."

      Then Abe began to show the stranger his peculiar art in these words:

      "Stephen Nuckles used to say: 'God's grace embraces the isles o' the sea an' the uttermost parts o' the earth. It takes in the Esquimaux an' the Hottentots. Some go so fur as to say that it takes in the Yankees but I don't go so fur.'"

      Samson joined in the good-natured laughter that followed.

      "If you deal with some Yankees you take your life in your hands," he said. "They can serve God or Mammon and I guess they have given the Devil some of his best ideas. He seems to be getting a lot of Yankee notions lately."

      "There was a powerful prejudice in Kentucky against the Yankees," Abe went on. "Down there they used to tell about a Yankee who sold his hogs and was driving them to town. On the way he decided that he had sold them too cheap. He left them with his drover in the road and went on to town and told the buyer that he would need help to bring 'em in.

      "'How's that?' the buyer asked.

      "'Why they git away an' go to runnin' through the woods an' fields an' we can't keep up with 'em.'

      "'I don't think I want 'em,' says the buyer. 'A speedy hog hasn't much pork to carry. I'll give ye twenty bits to let me off.'"

      "I guess that Yankee had one more hog than he'd counted," said Samson.

      "It reminds me of a man in Pope County who raised the biggest hog in Illinois," Abe went on. "It was a famous animal and people from far and near came to see him. One day a man came an' asked to see the hog.

      "'We're chargin' two bits for the privilege now,' said the owner.

      "The man paid the money and got into his wagon.

      "'Don't you want to see him?' the farmer asked.

      "'No,' said the stranger. 'I've seen the biggest hog in Illinois an' I don't care to look at a smaller one.'"

      "Whatever prejudice you may find here will soon vanish," said Kelso, turning to the newcomer. "I have great respect for the sturdy sons of New England. I believe it was Theodore Parker who said that the pine was the symbol of their character. He was right. Its roots are deep in the soil; it towers above the forest; it has the strength of tall masts and the substance of the builder in its body, music in its waving branches and turpentine in its veins. I thought of this when I saw Webster and heard him speak at Plymouth."

      "What kind of a looking man is he?" Abe asked.

      "A big erect, splendid figure of a man. He walked like a ram at the head of his flock. As he began speaking I thought of that flash of Homer's in the Odyssey:

      "'When his great voice went forth out of his breast and his words fell like the winter snows—not then would any mortal contend with Ulysses.'"

      Abe who since his story had sat with a sad face looking into the fire now leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and shook his head with interest while his gray eyes took on a look of animation. The diary speaks often of the "veil of sadness" on his face.

      "He is a very great man," Abe exclaimed.

      "Have you learned that last noble flight of his in the reply to Hayne as you promised?" Kelso asked.

      "I have," said Abe, "and the other day when I was tramping back from Bowlin Green's I came across a drove of cattle and stopped and gave it to them. They all let go of the grass and stood looking. By an' by the bull thought he'd stood it as long as he could an' bellered back at me."

      "Good! Now stand up and let us see how you imitate the great chief of the Whig clan," said Kelso.

      The lank and awkward youth rose and began to speak the lines in a high pitched voice that trembled with excitement. It lowered and steadied and rang out like noble music on a well played trumpet as the channel of his spirit filled with the mighty current of the orator's passion. Then, indeed, the words fell from his lips "like the winter snows."

      "They shook our hearts as the wind shakes the branches of a tree," Samson writes in his diary. "The lean, bony body of the boy was transfigured and as I looked at his face in the firelight I thought it was handsome.

      "Not a word was spoken for a minute after he sat down. I had got my first look at Lincoln. I had seen his soul. I think it was then I began to realize that a man was being made among us 'more precious than fine gold; even a man more precious than the golden wedge of Ophir.'"

      The Doctor gazed in silence at the boy. Kelso sat with both hands in his pockets and his chin upon his breast looking solemnly into the fire.

      "Thank you, Abe," he said in a low voice. "Something unusual has happened and I'm just a little scared."

      "Why?" Abe asked.

      "For fear somebody will spoil it with another hog story. I'm a little afraid of anything I can say. I would venture this, that the man Webster is a prophet. In his Plymouth address he hears receding into never returning distance the clank of chains and all the horrid din of slavery. It will come true."

      "Do you think so?" Abe asked.

      "Surely—there are so many of us who hate it. These Yankees hate it and they and their children are scattering all over the midlands. Their spirit will guide the West. The love of Liberty is the salt of their blood and the marrow of their bones. Liberty means freedom for all. Wait until these babies, coming out here by the wagon load, have grown to manhood. Slavery will have to reckon with them."

      "I hate it too," said Abe. "Down the Mississippi I have seen men and women sold like oxen. If I live I'm going to hit that thing on the head some day."

      "Do you still want to be a lawyer?" Kelso asked.

      "Yes, but sometimes I think I'd make a better blacksmith," said Abe.

      "I believe you'd do better with the hammer of argument."

      "If I had the education likely I would. I'm trying to make up my mind what's best for me."

      "No, you're trying to decide what is best for your friends and your country and for the reign of law and justice and liberty."

      "But I think every man acts from selfish motives," Abe insisted.

      Dr. Allen demurred as follows:

      "The other night you happened to remember that you had overcharged Mrs. Peters for a jug of molasses and after you had closed the store you walked three miles to return the money which belonged to her. Why did you do it?"

      "For a selfish motive," said Abe. "I believe honesty is the best policy."

      "Then you took that long walk just to advertise your honesty—to induce people to call you 'Honest Abe' as they have begun to do?"

      "I wouldn't want to put it that way," said Abe.

      "But that's the only way out," the Doctor insisted, "and we knowing ones would have to call you 'Sordid Abe.'"

      "There's a hidden Abe and you haven't got acquainted with him yet," Kelso interposed. "We have all caught a glimpse of him to-night. He's the Abe that loves honor and justice and humanity and their great temple of freedom that is growing up here in the new world. He loves them better than fame or fortune or life itself. I think it must have been that Abe whose voice sounded like a trumpet just now and who sent you off to Mrs. Peters with the money. You haven't the chance to know him that we have. Some day you two will get acquainted."

      "I don't know how to plead to that indictment," Abe answered. "It looks so serious I shall have to take counsel."

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