In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 25

"What does that read, elder?--I can't tell. I ain't got no larnin' to spare. What does it read, elder?"

Jasper scanned the writing on the surface of the back of the shovel. The writing was clear and plain. Mrs. Lincoln came and looked over his shoulder.

"Writ it himself, likely as not," said she. "Abe writes poetry; he can't help it sometimes--it's a gift. Read it, elder."

Jasper read slowly:

"'Time! what an empty vapor 'tis!

And days, how swift they are!

Swift as an arrow speed our lives, Swift as the shooting star.

The present moment--'"

"He didn't finish it, did he, elder? I think it is real pooty--don't you?"

Mrs. Lincoln turned her broad, earnest face toward the Tunker.

"Real pooty, ain't it?"

"Yes," said Jasper. "He'll be likely to do some great work in life, and leave it unfinished. It comes to me so."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A QUEER PLACE TO WRITE POETRY.]

"Don't say so, elder. His father don't praise him much, but he's real good to me, and I hope no evil will ever happen to him. I set lots of store by Abe. I don't know any difference between him and my own son.

His poor, dead mother, that lies out there all alone under the trees, knows that I have done by him as if he were my own. You know, the guardian angels of children see the face of the Father, and I kind o'

think that she is his guardian; and if she is, now, I hain't anything to reflect upon."

"Only you're spilin' him--that's all," said Mr. Lincoln. "Some women are so good that they are not good for anything, and between me and Sarah and his poor, dead mother, Abraham has never had the discipline that he ought to have had. But Andrew Crawford, the schoolmaster, and Josiah Crawford, the farmer, did their duty by him. Come, elder, let us go up to Jones's store, and talk politics a while. Jones, he's a Jackson man.

He sets great store by Abe, and thinks, like you and Sarah, that the boy will make somethin' some day. Well, I hope he will--can't tell."

Mr. Jones's store was the popular resort of Gentryville. Says one of the old pioneers, Dougherty: "Lincoln drove a team, and sold goods for Jones. Jones told me that Lincoln read all of his books, and I remember the History of the United States as one. Jones afterward said to me that Lincoln would make a great man one of these days--had said so long before to other people, and so as far back as 1828 and 1829."

The store was full of men and boys when Thomas Lincoln and Jasper and Waubeno arrived. Dennis Hanks was there, and the Grigsbys. Josiah Crawford, who had made Abraham pull fodder for three days for allowing a book that he had lent him to get wet one rainy night, was seated on a barrel. His nose was very long, and he had a high forehead, and wide look across the forehead. He looked very wise and thought himself a Solomon.

The men and boys all seemed to be glad to see the Tunker, and they greeted Waubeno kindly, though curiously, and plied him with civil questions about Black Hawk.

There was to be a debate that evening, and Mr. Jones called the men to order, and each one mounted a barrel and lit his pipe--or all except Abraham and Waubeno, who did not smoke, but who stood near each other, almost side by side.

"Abraham," said Thomas Lincoln, "you'll have to argue the p'int for the Indian well to-night, or--there he is!"--pointing to Waubeno--"he'll answer ye."

The debate went slowly at first, then grew exciting. When Abraham Lincoln's turn came to speak, all the store grew still. The subject of the debate was, as Thomas Lincoln had said: "Which has the greater cause for complaint, the Indian or the negro?"

Abraham Lincoln claimed the Indian was more wronged than the negro, and his homely face glowed as with a strange fire as he pictured the red man's wrongs. He towered above the men like a giant, and moved his arms as though they possessed some invisible power.

Waubeno fixed his eyes on him, and felt the force and thrust of his every word.

"If I were a negro," said Lincoln, "I would hope that some redeemer and deliverer would arise, like Moses of old. But if I were an Indian, what would I have to hope for, if I fell under the avarice of the white man?

Let the past answer that."

"Let the heavens answer that," said Waubeno, "or let their gates be ever closed."

Thomas Lincoln started.

"Waubeno, you have come from Black Hawk. He slays men, and we know him.

An Indian killed my father."

"An Indian killed your father--and what did you do?"

"My brother Mordecai avenged his death, and caused many Indians to bite the dust."

"White brother," said Waubeno, "a white man killed my father. What ought _I_ to do?"

The men held their pipes in silence.

"My father was an innocent man," said the pioneer.

"My father was an honorable warrior," said Waubeno, "and defended his own rights--rights as dear to him as your father's, or yours, or mine.

What ought _I_ to do?" He turned to young Lincoln. "What would _you_ do?"

"I hold that in all things right is might, and I defend the right of an Indian as I would the rights of a white man, but I never would shed any man's blood for avarice or malice. Waubeno, I would defend you in a cause of right against the world. I would rather have the approval of Heaven than the praise of all mankind."

"Brother," said Waubeno, "I believe that you speak true, but I do not know. If I only knew that you spoke true, I would not do as Mordecai did. I would forgive the white man."

The candles smoked, and the men talked long into the night. At last Thomas Lincoln and Jasper and Waubeno went home, where Mrs. Lincoln was awaiting them. They expected Abraham to follow them. They sat up that night late, and talked about the prairie country, and the prospects of the emigrants to Illinois.

"Now you had better go to rest," said Sarah Lincoln. "I will sit up until Abe comes. I do not see why he is so late to-night, when the Tunker is here, too, and the Indian boy."

"He's with the Grigsbys, I guess," said Mr. Lincoln.

The two men went to their beds, and Waubeno laid down on a mat on the floor. Hour after hour pa.s.sed, and Mrs. Lincoln went again and again to the door and listened, but Abraham did not return. It was midnight when she laid down, but even then it was to listen, and not to sleep.

In the morning Abraham returned. His eyes were sunken and his cheeks were white.

"Get me some coffee, mother," he said. "I have not slept a wink to-night."

"Why, where have you been, Abraham?"

"Watchin'--watchin' with a frozen drunken man. I found him on the road, and carried him to Dennis's on my back. He seemed to be dead, but I rubbed him all night long, and he breathed again."

"Why did you not get some one to help you?"

"The boys all left me. They said that old Holmes was not worth revivin', even if he had any life left in him; that it would be better for himself and everybody if he were left to perish."

"Holmes! Did you carry that man on your back, Abraham?"

"Yes. I could not leave him by the road. He is a human being, and I did by him as I would have him do by me if I lost my moral senses. They told me to leave him to his fate, but I couldn't, mother. I couldn't."

Waubeno gazed on the young giant as he drank his coffee, and sank into a deep slumber on a mat in the room. He watched him as he slept.