A Man for the Ages Part 56

"Poor boy! There seems to be no escape for you!" Bim exclaimed with a sigh. "Do you really and honestly want to marry me? If there's any doubt about it I'll leave the horses with you and swim the creek. You could put them in the barn and swim with me or spend the night in the cabin."

He embraced and kissed her in a way that left no doubt of his wishes.

"It's a cool evening and the creek is very wet," he answered. "I'm going to take this matter in my own hands."

He called to the minister: "Steve, this is the luckiest moment of my life and you are just the man of all others I would have chosen for its most important job. Can you stand right where you are and marry us?"

"You bet I kin, suh," the minister answered. "I've often said I could marry any one half a mile erway if they would only talk as loud as I kin.

I've got the good book right hyah in my pocket, suh. My ol' woman is comin'. She'll be hyah in a minute fer to witness the perceedin's."

Mrs. Nuckles made her appearance on the river bank in a short time.

Then the minister shouted: "We'll begin by readin' the nineteenth chapter of Matthew."

He shouted the chapter and the usual queries, knelt and prayed and p.r.o.nounced them man and wife.

The young man and woman walked to the cabin and put their horses in its barn, where they found an abundance of hay and oats. They rapped at the cabin door but got no response. They lifted its latch and entered.

A table stood in the middle of the room set for two. On its cover of spotless white linen were plates and cups and saucers and a big platter of roasted prairie chickens and a great frosted cake and preserves and jellies and potato salad and a pie and a bottle of currant wine. A clock was ticking on the shelf. There were live embers in the fireplace and wood in the box, and venison hanging in the chimney.

The young soldier looked about him and smiled.

"This is wonderful!" he exclaimed. "To whom are we indebted?"

"You don't think I'd bring you out here on the plains and marry you and not treat you well," Bim laughed. "I warned you that you'd have to take what came and that the hospitality would be simple."

"It's a n.o.ble and benevolent conspiracy that has turned this cabin into a Paradise and brought all this happiness upon me," he said as he kissed her. "I thought it strange that Mr. Nuckles should be on hand at the right moment."

"The creek was a harder thing to manage," she answered with a smile. "I told my messenger to see that the gate of the reservoir was opened at four o'clock. So, you see, you had to marry or swim. Now I've made a clean breast of it. I felt sure something would happen before you got back from Milwaukee. I was plum superst.i.tious about it."

The young man shook with laughter and said: "You are the new woman born of the democracy of the West."

"I began to fear that I should be an old woman before I got to be Mrs.

Needles."

"Whose house is this?" he asked in a moment.

"It is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lukins. Their land near Chicago is now used for a cattle yard and slaughter-house and is paying them a good income. They moved here some time ago. He looks after the reservoir. Mrs.

Lukins is a famous cook as you will see. We can stay here as long as we want to. We shall find everything we need in the well, the chimney, the b.u.t.t'ry and the cellar. And here is the wedding supper all ready for us and I as hungry as a bear."

"In the words of Mrs. Lukins 'it is very copasetic,' and I begin to feel that I have made some progress in the study of Bim Kelso. Come, let's have our supper."

"Not until you have broiled a piece of venison. It will take a lot of food to satisfy me. I'll get the cream and b.u.t.ter out of the well and make a pot of coffee. Hurry up, Harry, I'm starving."

Darkness fell upon the busy lovers and soon the firelight and the glow of many candles filled the homely cabin with flickering shadows and a soft beautiful color.

"Supper is ready," she said, when the venison steak had been deposited on the platter.

"Bim, I love you not as most men love," he said as They stood a moment by the side of the table. "From the bottom of my heart I do respect you for your honor and good faith and when I think of that and of all you have suffered for my sake I bow my head and ask G.o.d to make me worthy of such a helper."

They sat down to this unusual wedding feast and as we leave them the windows of the little cabin fling their light far out upon the level plain; we hear the sound of merry laughter and of the tall gra.s.ses rustling and reeling joyously in the breeze. The moon in mid-heaven and the innumerable host around it seem to know what is pa.s.sing on the edge of the Grand Prairie and to be well pleased. Surely there is nothing that finds a quicker echo in the great heart of the world than human happiness!

CHAPTER XXV

BEING A BRIEF MEMOIR BY THE HONORABLE AND VENERABLE MAN KNOWN IN THESE PAGES AS JOSIAH TRAYLOR, WHO SAW THE GREAT PROCESSION OF EVENTS BETWEEN ANDREW JACKSON AND WOODROW WILSON AND ESPECIALLY THE MAKING AND THE END OF LINCOLN.

Now, as I have done often sitting in the chimney corner at the day's end, I look back at my youth and manhood and tell, with one eye upon the clock, of those years of fulfillment in the progress of our beloved pilgrim. There are four and twenty of them that I shall try to review in as many minutes. At this distance I see only the high places--one looming above another like steps in a stairway.

The years of building and sentiment ended on the fourth of November, 1842, when he and Mary Todd were joined in marriage. Now, like one having taken note of the storm clouds, he strengthens the structure.

Mary tried to teach him fine manners. It was a difficult undertaking.

Often, as might have been expected, she lost her patience. Mary was an excellent girl, but rather kindlesome and pragmatic. Like most of the prairie folk, for instance, Abe Lincoln had been accustomed to reach for the b.u.t.ter with his own knife, and to find rest in att.i.tudes extremely indolent and unbecoming. He enjoyed sprawling on the floor in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves and slippers with a pillow under his head and a book in his hand. He had a liking for ample accommodation not fully satisfied by a bed or a lounge. Mary undertook to turn him into new ways and naturally there was irritation in the house, but I think they got along very well together for all that. Mary grew fond of him and proud of his great talents and was a devoted wife. For years she did the work of the house and bore him children. He milked the cow and took care of the horse when he was at home.

Annabel and I, having just been married, went with him to Was.h.i.+ngton on our wedding-tour in 1847. He was taking his seat in Congress that year.

We were with him there when he met Webster. Lincoln was deeply impressed by the quiet dignity of the great man. We went together to hear Emerson lecture. It was a motley audience--business men, fas.h.i.+onable ladies and gentlemen, statesmen, politicians, women with their knitting, and lion-hunters. The tall, awkward orator ascended the platform, took off his top-coat and drew a ma.n.u.script from his pocket. He had a narrow, sloping forehead, a prominent nose, gray eyes and a skin of singular transparency. His voice was rich and mellow but not strong. Lincoln listened with rapt attention to his talk about Democracy. It was a memorable night. He spoke of it often. Such contact with the great spirits of that time, of which he studiously availed himself in Was.h.i.+ngton, was of great value to the statesman from Illinois. His experiences on the floor were in no way important to him, but since 1914 I have thought often of what he said there, regarding Polk's invasion of Mexico, unauthorized by Congress as it was:

"The Provision of the Const.i.tution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and impoveris.h.i.+ng their people in wars, pretending generally that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions and they proposed to so frame the const.i.tution that no man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon _us_."

The next year he stumped Ma.s.sachusetts for "Zach" Taylor and heard Governor Seward deliver his remarkable speech on Slavery which contained this striking utterance:

"Congress has no power to inhibit any duty commanded by G.o.d on Mount Sinai or by His Son on the Mount of Olives."

On his return home Lincoln confessed that we had soon to deal with that question.

I was in his office when Herndon said:

"I tell you that slavery must be rooted out."

"What makes you think so?" Mr. Lincoln asked.

"I feel it in my bones," was Herndon's answer.

After that he used to speak with respect of "Bill Herndon's bone philosophy."

His term in Congress having ended, he came back to the law in partners.h.i.+p with William H. Herndon--a man of character and sound judgment. Those days Lincoln wore black trousers, coat and stock, a waistcoat of satin and a Wellington high hat. He was wont to carry his papers in his hat.

Mary had wrought a great change in his external appearance.

They used to call him "a dead square lawyer." I remember that once Herndon had drawn up a fict.i.tious plea founded on a shrewd a.s.sumption.

Lincoln carefully examined the papers.

"Is it founded on fact?" he asked.

"No," Herndon answered.