A Man for the Ages Part 22

"And then there's the fever an' ague," Samson added.

"Sometimes I feel sorry I told 'em about it because they'll think it worse than it is. But we've got to tell the truth if it kills us."

"Yes: we've got to tell the truth," Samson rejoined. "There'll be a railroad coming through here one of these days and then we can all get back and forth easy. If it comes it's going to make us rich. Abe says he expects it within three or four years."

Sarah had a hot supper ready for him. As he stood warming himself by the fire she put her arms around him and gave him a little hug.

"You poor tired man!" she said. "How patient and how good you are!"

There was a kind of apology for this moment of weakness in her look and manner. Her face seemed to say: "It's silly but I can't help it."

"I've been happy all the time for I knew you was waiting for me," Samson remarked. "I feel rich every time I think of you and the children. Say, look here."

He untied the bundle and put the dress and finery in her lap.

"Well, I want to know!" she exclaimed, as she held it up to the candlelight. "That must have cost a pretty penny."

"I don't care what it cost--it ain't half good enough--not half," said Samson.

As he sat down to his supper he said:

"I saw that miserable slaver, Biggs, get off the boat with his big bay mare. There was a darky following him with another horse."

"Good land!" said Sarah. "I hope he isn't coming here. Mrs. Onstot told me to-day that Bim Kelso has been getting letters from him."

"She's such an odd little critter and she's got a mind of her own--anybody could see that," Samson reflected. "She ought to be looked after purty careful. Her parents are so taken up with shooting and fis.h.i.+ng and books they kind o' forget the girl. I wish you'd go down there to-morrow and see what's up. Jack is away you know."

"I will," said Sarah.

It was nearly two o'clock when Samson, having fed and watered his horses, got into bed. Yet he was up before daylight, next morning, and singing a hymn of praise as he kindled the fire and filled the tea kettle and lighted his candle lantern and went out to do his ch.o.r.es while Sarah, partly reconciled to her new disappointment, dressed and began the work of another day. So they and Abe and Harry and others like them, each under the urge of his own ambition, spent their great strength in the building and defense of the republic and grew prematurely old. Their work began and ended in darkness and often their days were doubled by the burdens of the night. So in the reckoning of their time each year was more than one.

Sarah went down to the village in the afternoon of the next day. When Samson came in from the fields to his supper she said:

"Mr. Biggs is stopping at the tavern. He brought a new silk dress and some beautiful linen to Mrs. Kelso. He tells her that Bim has made a new man of him. Claims he has quit drinking and gone to work. He looks like a lord--silver spurs and velvet riding coat and ruffled s.h.i.+rt and silk waistcoat. A colored servant rode into the village with him on a beautiful brown horse, carrying big saddle-bags. Bim and her mother are terribly excited. He wants them to move to St. Louis and live on his big plantation in a house next to his--rent free."

Samson knew that Biggs was the type of man who weds Virtue for her dowry.

"A man's judgment is needed there," said he. "It's a pity Jack is gone.

Biggs will take that girl away with him sure as shooting if we don't look out."

"Oh, I don't believe he'd do that," said Sarah. "I hope he has turned over a new leaf and become a gentleman."

"We'll see," said Samson.

They saw and without much delay the background of his pretensions, for one day within the week he and Bim, the latter mounted on the beautiful brown horse, rode away and did not return. Soon a letter came from Bim to her mother, mailed at Beardstown. It told of their marriage in that place and said that they would be starting for St. Louis in a few hours on _The Star of the North_. She begged the forgiveness of her parents and declared that she was very happy.

"Too bad! Isn't it?" said Sarah when Mrs. Waddell, who had come out with her husband one evening to bring this news, had finished the story.

"Yes, it kind o' spyles the place," said Samson. "Bim was a wonderful girl--spite of all her foolishness--like the birds that sing among the flowers on the prairie--kind o'--yes, sir--she was. I'm afraid for Jack Kelso-'fraid it'll bust his fiddle if it don't break his heart. His wife is alone now. We must ask her to come and stay with us."

"The Allens have taken her in," said Mrs. Waddell.

"That's good," said Sarah. "I'll go down there to-morrow and offer to do anything we can."

When Mr. and Mrs. Waddell had gone Sarah said:

"I can't help thinking of poor Harry. He was terribly in love with her."

"Well, he'll have to get over it--that's all," said Samson. "He's young and the wound will heal."

It was well for Harry that he was out of the way of all this, and entered upon adventures which absorbed his thought. As to what was pa.s.sing with him we have conclusive evidence in two letters, one from Colonel Zachary Taylor in which he says:

"Harry Needles is also recommended for the most intrepid conduct as a scout and for securing information of great value. Compelled to abandon his wounded horse he swam a river under fire and under the observation of three of our officers, through whose help he got back to his command, bringing a bullet in his thigh."

With no knowledge of military service and a company of untrained men, Abe had no chance to win laurels in the campaign. His command did not get in touch with the enemy. He had his hands full maintaining a decent regard for discipline among the raw frontiersmen of his company.

He saved the life of an innocent old Indian, with a pa.s.sport from General Ca.s.s, who had fallen into their hands and whom, in their excitement and l.u.s.t for action, they desired to hang. This was the only incident of his term of service which gave him the least satisfaction.

Early in the campaign Harry had been sent with a message to headquarters, where he won the regard of Colonel Taylor and was ordered to the front with a company of scouts. No member of the command had been so daring.

He had the recklessness of youth and its wayward indifferences to peril.

William Boone, a son of Daniel, used to speak of "the luck of that daredevil farmer boy."

One day in pa.s.sing mounted through a thick woods on the river, near the enemy, he suddenly discovered Indians all around him. They sprang out of the bushes ahead and one of them opened fire. He turned and spurred his horse and saw the painted warriors on every side. He rode through them under a hot fire. His horse fell wounded near the river sh.o.r.e and Harry took to the water and swam beneath it as far as he could. When he came up for breath bullets began splas.h.i.+ng and whizzing around him. It was then that he got his wound. He dove and reached the swift current which greatly aided his efforts. Some white men in a boat about three hundred yards away witnessed his escape and said that the bullets "tore the river surface into rags" around him as he came up. Courage and his skill as a diver and swimmer saved his life. Far below, the boat, in which were a number of his fellow Scouts overtook him and helped him back to camp.

So it happened that a boy won a reputation in the "Black Hawk War" which was not lavish in its bestowal of honors.

When the dissatisfied volunteers were mustered out late in May, Kelso and McNeil, being sick with a stubborn fever, were declared unfit for service and sent back to New Salem as soon as they were able to ride. Abe and Harry joined Captain Iles' Company of Independent Rangers and a month or so later Abe re-enlisted to serve with Captain Early, Harry being under a surgeon's care. The latter's wound was not serious and on July third he too joined Early's command.

This company was chiefly occupied in the moving of supplies and the burying of a few men who had been killed in small engagements with the enemy. It was a band of rough-looking fellows in the costume of the frontier farm and workshop--ragged, dirty and unshorn. The company was disbanded July tenth at Whitewater, Wisconsin, where, that night, the horses of Harry and Abe were stolen. From that point they started on their long homeward tramp with a wounded sense of decency and justice.

They felt that the Indians had been wronged: that the greed of land grabbers had brutally violated their rights. This feeling had been deepened by the ma.s.sacre of the red women and children at Bad Ax.

A number of mounted men went with them and gave them a ride now and then.

Some of the travelers had little to eat on the journey. Both Abe and Harry suffered from hunger and sore feet before they reached Peoria where they bought a canoe and in the morning of a bright day started down the Illinois River.

They had a long day of comfort in its current with a good store of bread and b.u.t.ter and cold meat and pie. The prospect of being fifty miles nearer home before nightfall lightened their hearts and they laughed freely while Abe told of his adventures in the campaign. To him it was all a wild comedy with tragic scenes dragged into it and woefully out of place. Indeed he thought it no more like war than a pig sticking and that was the kind of thing he hated. At noon they put ash.o.r.e and sat on a gra.s.sy bank in the shade of a great oak, to escape the withering sunlight of that day late in July, while they ate their luncheon.

"I reckon that the Black Hawk peril was largely manufactured," said Abe as they sat in the cool shade. "If they had been let alone I don't believe the Indians would have done any harm. It reminds me a little of the story of a rich man down in Lexington who put a cast iron buck in his dooryard. Next morning all the dogs in the neighborhood got together and looked him over from a distance. He had invaded their territory and they reckoned that he was theirs. They saw a chance for war. One o' their number volunteered to go and scare up the buck. So he raised the hair on his back and sneaked up from behind and when he was about forty feet away made h.e.l.l bent for the buck's heels. The buck didn't move and the dog nearly broke his neck on that pair o' cast iron legs. He went limping back to his comrades.

"'What's the trouble?' they asked.

"'It's nary buck,' said the dog.

"'What is it then?'

"'Darned if I know. It kicks like a mule an' smells like a gate post.'

"'Come on, you fellers. It looks to me like a good time to go home,' said a wise old dog. 'I've learned that ye can't always believe yerself.'

"It's a good thing for a man or a government to learn," Abe went on as they resumed their journey. "I've learned not to believe everything I hear, The first command I gave, one o' the company hollered 'Go to h--l.'

Every one before me laughed. It was a chance to get mad. I didn't for I knew what it meant. I just looked sober and said: "'Well, boys, I haven't far to go and I reckon we'll all get there if we don't quit fooling an'