For twenty years John Kinzie was the only white man not connected with the garrison and trading-post who lived in northern Illinois. He was a witness of the Indian massacre of the troops in 1812, when he himself was driven from his home by the lake.

He saw another and different scene in August, 1821—a scene worthy of a poet or painter—the Great Treaty, in which the Indian chiefs gave up most of their empire east of the Mississippi. There came to this decisive convocation the plumes of the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawattamies. General Cass was there, and the old Indian agents. The chiefs brought with them their great warriors, their wives and children. There the prairie Indians made their last stand but one against the march of emigration to the Mississippi.

Me-te-nay, the young orator of the Pottawattamies, was there, to make a poetic appeal for his race. But the counsels of the white chiefs were too persuasive and powerful. A treaty was concluded, which virtually gave up the Indian empire east of the Mississippi.

Then the chiefs and the warriors departed, their red plumes disappearing over the prairie in the sunset light. Before them rolled the Mississippi. Behind them lay the blue seas of the lakes. It was a sorrowful procession that slowly faded away. Some twelve years after, in August, 1835, another treaty was concluded with the remaining tribes, and there occurred the last dance of the Pottawattamies on the grounds where the city of Chicago now stands.

Five thousand Indians were present, and nearly one thousand joined in the dance. The latter assembled at the council-house, on the place where now is the northeast corner of North Water and Rush Streets, and where the Lake House stands. Their faces were painted in black and vermilion; their hair was gathered in scalp-locks on the tops of their heads, and was decorated with Indian plumes. They were led by drums and rattles. They marched in a dancing movement along the river, and stopped before each house to perform the grotesque figures of their ancient traditions.

They seemed to be aware that this was their last gathering on the lake. The thought fired them. Says one who saw them:

"Their eyes were wild and bloodshot. Their muscles stood out in great, hard knots, as if wrought to a tension that must burst them. Their tomahawks and clubs were thrown and brandished in every direction."

The dance was carried on in a procession through the peaceful streets, and was concluded at Fort Dearborn in presence of the officers and soldiers of the garrison. It was the last great Indian gathering on the lake.

A new civilization began in the vast empire of the inland seas with the signing of the Treaty of Chicago and these concluding rites. Around the home of pastoral John Kinzie were to gather the new emigrations of the nations of the world, and the Queen City of the Lakes was to rise, and Progress to make the seat of her empire here. Never in the history of mankind did a city leap into life like this, which is now setting on her brow the crown of the Columbus domes.

On the arrival of Jasper and Waubeno at Fort Dearborn, an incident occurred which affords a picture of the vanished days of the prairie chiefs and kings. There came riding up to the trading-houses a middle-aged chief named Shaubena.

This chief may be said to have been the guardian spirit of the infant city of Chicago. He hovered around her for her good for a half-century, and was faithful to her interests from the first to the end of his long life. If ever an Indian merited a statue or an imperishable memorial in a great city, it is Shaubena.

He was born about the year 1775, on the Kankakee River. His home was on a prairie island, as a growth of timber surrounded by a prairie used to be called. It was near the head-waters of Big Indian Creek, now in De Kalb County. This grove, or prairie island, still bears his name.

Here were his corn-fields, his sugar-camps, his lodges, and his happy people. In his youth he had been employed by two Ottawa priests, or prophets, to instruct the people in the principles of their religion, and so he had traveled extensively in the land of the lakes, and spoke English well. The old Methodist circuit-riders used to visit him on his prairie island, and his family was brought under their influence and accepted their faith. When, in 1812, Indian runners from Tecumseh visited the tribal towns of the Illinois River to tell the warriors that war had been declared between the United States and England, and to counsel them to unite with the English, Shaubena endeavored to restrain his people from such a course, and to prevent a union of the tribes against the American settlers. When he found that the Indians were marching against Chicago, he followed them on his pony.

He arrived too late. A scene of blood met his eyes. Along the lake, where the blue waves rolled in the sun, lay forty-two dead bodies, the remains of white soldiers, women, and children. These bodies lay on the prairie for four years, until the rebuilding of Fort Dearborn in 1816, with the exception of the mutilated remains of Captain Wells, which Black Partridge buried.

John Kinzie and his family had been saved, largely by the influence of Shaubena. Black Partridge summoned his warriors to protect the house. Shaubena rushed up to the porch-steps and set his rifle across the doorway. The rooms were occupied by Mrs. Kinzie, her children, and Mrs. Helm. A party of excited Indians rushed upon the place and forced their way into the house, to kill the women. The intended massacre was delayed by the friendly Indians.

In the mean time a half-breed girl, who had been employed by good John Kinzie, and who was devoted to his family, had stolen across the prairie to Sauganash, or Billy Caldwell, the friendly chief. This warrior seized his canoe and came paddling down the waters, plumed with eagle-feathers, with a rifle in his hand. He rose up in his canoe, in the dark, as he came to the shore.

"Who are you?" asked Black Partridge.

"I am Sauganash."

"Then save your white friends. You only can save them."

The chief came to the house.

"Go!" he said to the Indians. "I am Sauganash!"

John Kinzie was not only ever after grateful to Sauganash and the half-breed girl for what they had done to save him and his family, but he saw that he had found a faithful heart in Shaubena. So when, to-day, Shaubena came riding up to his door from his prairie island on his little pony, he said, heartily:

"Shaubena, thou art welcome!"

Jasper and Waubeno joined John Kinzie and the prairie chief.

"Thou, too art welcome," said John Kinzie. "Whence do you come?"

Jasper told again his simple story: how that he was a Tunker, traveling to preach to every one, and to hold schools among the Indians; how that he had been to Black Hawk for an interpreter and guide, and how Black Hawk had sent out Waubeno as his companion.

Jasper and Waubeno built a cabin of logs, bark, and bushes, in view of the lake, a little distance above the fort. They spent several days on the rude structure.

"There are many Indian children who come to the trading-post," said Jasper, "and I may be able to begin here my first Indian school. You will do all you can for me, will you not, Waubeno?"

"Parable, listen! You love my people, and I will do all that this arm, this heart, and this head can do for you. Whatever may happen, I will be true to you. If it costs my life, I will be true to you! You may have my life. Do you not believe Waubeno?"

"Yes, I believe you, Waubeno. You hold honor dearer than life. You say that I love your people. You know that I would do right by your people, to my own harm. Then why will you not make to me the promise I sought from you on the prairie?"

"I have not seen you tried. We know not any one until he is tried. My father was tried. He was true. I would talk with the boy that was laughed at for defending the turtle. He was tried. He did right because it was right. We will know each other better by and by. But Waubeno will always be true to you while you are true to Waubeno."

The school opened in the new cabin about the time that the troops were withdrawn from the fort and the place left in the charge of the Indian agent. Waubeno was the teacher, and Jasper his only pupil. After a time Jasper secured a few pupils from the post-trading Indians. But these remained but for a short time. They did not like the confinement of instruction.

One day a striking event occurred. The Indian agent came to visit the school. He was interested in the Indian boys, and especially in the progress of Waubeno, who was quick to learn. Before leaving, he said:

"I have a medal in my hand. It was given to me by the general of Michigan. On one side of it is the Father of his Country—see him with his sword—Washington, the immortal Washington."

He held up the medal and paused.

"On the other side is an Indian chief. He is burying his hatchet. I was given the medal as a reward, and I will give it at the end of three weeks to the boy in this school who best learns his lessons. Jasper shall decide who it shall be."

"I am glad you have said that," said Jasper. "That is the education of good-will. I am glad."

The Indian boys studied well, but Waubeno excelled them all. At the end of three weeks the Indian agent again appeared, and Jasper hoped to gain the heart of Waubeno by the award of the medal.

"To whom shall I give the medal?" asked the agent, at the end of the visit.

Jasper looked at his boy.

"It has been won by Waubeno," said Jasper. "I would be unjust not to say that all have been faithful, but Waubeno has been the most faithful of all."

Waubeno sat like a statue. He did not lift his eyes.

"Waubeno," said the agent, "you have heard what your teacher has said. The medal is yours. Here it is. You have reason to be proud of it. Waubeno, arise."

Waubeno arose. The agent held out the medal to him.

"Will you let me look at the medal?" said the boy.

The medal was handed to him. He examined it. He did not smile, or show any emotion. His look was indifferent and stoical. What was passing in his mind?

"The Indian chief is burying his hatchet, in the picture on this side of the medal," he said, slowly.

"Yes," said the Indian agent, "he is a good chief."

"The picture on this side represents Washington, you say?"

"Yes—Washington, the Father of his Country."

"He has a sword by his side, general, has he not? See."

"Yes, Waubeno, he has a sword by his side."

"He is a good chief, too?"

"Yes, Waubeno."

"Then why does he not bury his sword? I do not want the medal. What is good for the red chief should be as good for the white chief. I would be unlike my father to take a mean thing like that."

He stood like a statue, with curled lip and a fiery eye. The agent looked queerly at Jasper. He had nothing more to say. He took back the medal and went away. When he had gone, Waubeno said to Jasper:

"Pardon, brother; he is not the man—my promise to my father holds. They teach well, but they do not do well: it is the doing that speaks to the heart. The chief that buried his hatchet is a plumb fool, else the white chief would do so too. I have spoken!"

He sat down in silence and looked out upon the lake, on which the waves were breaking into foam in the purple distances. His face had an injured look, and his eyes glowed.

He arose at last and raised his hand, and said:

"I will pay them all some day!—"

Then he turned to Jasper and marked his disappointed face, and added:

"I will be true to you. Waubeno will be true to you."



CHAPTER XII.

THE WHITE INDIAN OF CHICAGO.

One morning, as Jasper threw aside the curtain of skins that answered for a door to his cabin, a strange sight met his eyes. In the clearing between the cabin and the lake stood the tall form of an Indian. It was the most noble and beautiful form that he had ever seen, and the Indian's face and hands were white.

Jasper stood silent. The white Indian bent his eyes upon him, and the two looked in surprise at each other.

The Indian's eyes were dark, and like the eyes of the native races; but his nose was Roman, and his skin English, with a slight brown tinge. His hair was long and curly, and tinged with brown.

"Waubeno," said Jasper, "who is that?"

Waubeno came to the entrance of the cabin, and said:

"The white Indian. They bring good. Speak to him. It is a good sign."

"They?" said Jasper. "I never knew that there were white Indians, Waubeno. Where do they live? Where do they come from?"

"From the Great River. They come and go, and come and go, and they are unlike other Indians. They know things that other Indians do not know. They have a book that talks to them. It came from heaven."

Jasper stepped out on to the clearing, and Waubeno followed him. The white Indian awaited their approach.

"Welcome, stranger," said Jasper. "Where are you journeying from?"

"From the Great River (Mississippi) to the land of the lakes. They are coming, coming, my brothers from over the sea, as the prophet said. I have not seen you here before. I am glad that you have come."

"Where do you live?" asked Jasper.

"My tribe is few, and they wander. They wander till the brothers come. We are not like other people here, though all the tribes treat us well and give us food and shelter. We are wanderers. We have lived in the country many years, and we have often visited Kaskaskia. You will hear of us there. When the French came, we thought they were brothers. Then the English came, and we felt that they were brothers. The white people are our brothers."

"Come in," said Jasper, "and breakfast with us. You are strange to me. I never heard of you. You seem like a visitant from another world. Tell me, my brother, how came you to be white?"

"I beg your pardon, stranger, but I ask you the same question, How came you to be white? The same Power that made your face like the cloud and the snow, made mine the same. There is kindred blood in our veins, but I know not how it is—we do not know. Our ancestors had a book that told us of God, but it was lost when the French raised the cross at Kaskaskia. We had a legend of the cross, and of armies marching under the cross, and when the bell began to ring over the praise house there, we found that we, too, had ancient tales of the bell. More I can not tell. All the tribes welcome us, and we belong to all the tribes, and we have wandered for years and years. Our fathers wandered."

"This is all very strange," said Jasper. "Tell us more."

"I expected your coming," said the white Indian. "I was not surprised to see you here. I expected you. I knew it. There are more white brothers to come—many. Let me tell you about it all.

"We had a prophet once. He said that we came from over the sea, and that we would never return, but that we must wander and wander, and that one day our white brothers would come from over the sea to us. They are coming; their white wagons are crossing the plains. Every day they are coming. I love to see them come and pass. The prophet spoke true.

"The French say that we came from a far-away land called Wales. The French say that a voyager, whose name was Modoc, set sail for the West eight hundred years ago, and was never heard of again in his own land; that his ships drifted West, and brought our fathers here. That is what the French say. I do not know, but I think that you and I are brothers. I feel it in my heart. You have treated me like a brother, and I kiss you in my heart. I love the English. They are my friends. I am going to Malden. There will be more white faces here when I come again."

He took breakfast in the cabin, and went away. Jasper hardly comprehended the visit. He sought the Indian agent, and described to him the appearance of the wandering stranger, and related the story that the man had told.

"There are white crows, white blackbirds, white squirrels, and white Indians," said the agent, "strange as it may seem. I know nothing about the origin of any of them—only that they do exist. Ever since the French and Indians came to the lakes white Indians have been seen. So have white crows and blackbirds. The French claim that these white Indians are of Welsh origin, and are the descendants of a body of mariners who were driven to our shores in the twelfth century by some accident of navigation or of weather. If so, the Welsh are the second discoverers of America, following the Northmen. But I put no faith in these traditions. I only know that from time to time a white-faced Indian is seen in the Mississippi Valley. There are many tales and traditions of them. It is simply a mystery that will never be solved."

"But what am I to think of the white Indian's story?"

"Simply that he had been taught by the French romancers, and that he believed it himself. Black faces have strangely appeared among white peoples, and Nature alone, could she speak, could explain her laws in these cases. The Indians have various traditions of the white Indian's appearance in the regions about Chicago; they regard him as a medicine-man, or a prophet, or a kind of good ghost. It is thought to be good fortune to meet him."

"Why does he come here?" said Jasper.

"To see the white people. He believes that the white people are his kindred, and that they are coming, 'coming,' and one day that they will flock here in multitudes. The French have told him this. He is a mythical character. Somehow he has white blood in his veins. I can not tell how. The Welsh tradition may be true, but it is hardly probable."

Years passed. The white Indian appeared again. The fort had become a town. The Indian races were disappearing. He saw the white wagons crossing the prairies, and the reluctant Pottawattomies making their way toward the Great River and the lands of the sunset. He went away, solitary as when he came, and was never seen again.

Who may have been these mysterious persons whose white faces for generations haunted the lakes and the plains? They appeared at Kaskaskia, their canoes glided mysteriously along the Mississippi, and they were often seen at the hunting-camps of the North. They sought the French and the English as soon as these races began to make settlements, and they seemed to be strangely familiar with English tones, sounds, and words.

Jasper loved to look out from his cabin on the blue lake, and to dream of the old scenes of the Prussian war, of Koerner, Von Weber, of Pestalozzi, and his friend Froebel, and contrast them with the rude new life around him. The past was there, but the future was here, and here was his work for the future. It is not what a man has that makes him happy, but what he is; not his present state, but the horizon of the future around him that imparts glow to life, and Jasper was at peace with himself in the sense of doing his duty. Heaven to him was bright with the smile of God, and he longed no more for the rose-gardens of Marienthal or the castles of the Rhine.

The appearance of the white Indian filled the mind of Waubeno with pride and hope.

"We will be happy now," he said. "You will be happy now; nothing happens to them who see the white Indian; all goes well. I know that you are good within, else he would not come; only they whose beings within are good see the white Indian, and he brings bright suns and moons and calumets of peace, and so the days go on forever. I now know that you speak true. And Waubeno has seen him; he will do well; he has seen the white crow among the black crows, and he will do well. Happy moons await Waubeno."

The lake was glorious in these midsummer days. The prairie roses hung from the old trees in the groves, and the air rang with the joyful notes of the lark and plover. Indians came to the fort and went away. Pottawattomies encamped near the place and visited the agency, and white traders occasionally appeared here from Malden and Fort Wayne.

But these were uneventful days of Fort Dearborn. The stories of Mrs. John Kinzie are among the most interesting memories of these days of general silence and monotony. The old Kinzie house was situated where is now the junction of Pine and North Water Streets. The grounds sloped toward the banks of the river. It had a broad piazza looking south, and before it lay a green lawn shaded by Lombardy poplars and a cottonwood tree. Across the river rose Fort Dearborn, amid groves of locust trees, the national flag blooming, as it were, above it.

The cottonwood tree in the yard was planted by John Kinzie, and lived until Chicago became a great city, in Long John Wentworth's day.

The old residents of Chicago will ever recall the beauty of the outlook from the south piazza. At the dull period of the agency, only an Indian canoe, perhaps from Mackinaw, disturbed the peace of the river.

It was on this piazza that on a June morning was heard the chorus of Moore's Canadian Boat Song on the Chicago River, and here General Lewis Cass presently appeared. The great men of the New West often gathered here after that. Here the best stories of the lake used to be told by voyagers, and Mark Beaubien, we may well suppose, often played his violin.

The scene of the lake and river from the place was changed by moonlight into romance.

Amid such scenes the old Chief Shaubena related the legends of the tribes, and Mrs. Kinzie the thrilling episodes of the massacre of 1812. Jasper, we may imagine, joined the company, with the beautiful spiritual tales of the Rhine, and Waubeno added his delightful wonder-tale of the white Indian, whose feet brought good fortune. No one then dreamed that John Kinzie's home stood for two millions of people who would come there before the century should close, or that the cool cottonwood tree would throw its shade over some of the grandest scenes in the march of the world.



CHAPTER XIII.

LAFAYETTE AT KASKASKIA—THE STATELY MINUET.

Jasper made the best use of the story-telling method of influence in his school in the little cabin on the lake near Chicago River. He sought to impart moral ideas by the old Roman fables and German folk-lore stories. He often told the tale of the poor girl who went out for a few drops of water for her dying mother, in the water famine, and how her dipper was changed into silver, gold, and diamonds, as she shared the water with the sufferers on her return. But neither AEsop nor fairy lore so influenced the Indian boys as his story of the Indiana boy who defended the turtles and pitied the turtle with the broken shell.

"I would like to meet him," said Waubeno, one day when the story had been told. "What is his name, Parable? What do you call him by?"

"Lincoln," said Jasper, "Abraham Lincoln."

"Where does he live, Parable?"

"On Pigeon Creek, in Indiana."

"Is the place far away?"

"Yes, very far away by water, and a hard journey by land. Pigeon Creek is far away, near the Ohio River; south, Waubeno—far away to the south."

"Will you ever go there again?"

"Yes—I hope to go there again, and to take you along with me," said Jasper. "I have planned to go down the Illinois in the spring, in a canoe, to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi to the Ohio, and visit Kaskaskia, and thence along the Ohio to the Wabash, and to the home where the boy lives who defended the turtles. It will be a long journey, and I expect to stop at many places, and preach and teach and form schools. I want you to go with me and guide my canoe. All these rivers are beautiful in summer. They are shaded by trees, and run through prairies of flowers. The waters are calm, and the skies are bright, and the birds sing continually. O Waubeno, this is a beautiful world to those who use it rightly—a beautiful, beautiful world!"

"Me will go," said Waubeno. "Me would see that boy. I want to see a story boy, as you say."

The attempt to establish an Indian school on the Chicago was not wholly successful. The pupils did not remain long enough to receive the intended influence. They came from encampments that were never stable. The Indian village was there one season, and gone the next. The Indians who came in canoes to the agency soon went away again. Jasper, in the spring of 1825, resolved to carry out the journey that he had described to Waubeno, and with the first warm winds he and the Indian boy set out for Kaskaskia by the way of the Illinois to the Mississippi, and by the Mississippi to the Kaskaskia.

It was a long journey. Jasper stopped often at the Indian encampments and the new settlements. Waubeno was a faithful friend, and he came to love him for true-heartedness, sympathy, and native worth of soul. He often tried to teach him by stories, but as often as he said, "Now, Waubeno, we will talk," he would say, "Tell me the one with broken shell"—meaning the story. There was some meaning behind this story of the turtle with the broken shell that had completely won the heart of Waubeno. The boy Abraham Lincoln was his hero. Again and again, after he had listened to the simple narrative, he asked:

"Is the story boy alive?"

"Yes, Waubeno."

"And we will meet him?"

"Yes."

"That is good. I feel for him here," and he would lay his hand on his heart. "I love the story boy."

They traveled slowly. After a long journey down the Illinois, the Mississippi rolled before them in the full tides of early spring. They passed St. Louis, and one late April evening found them before the once royal town of Kaskaskia.

The bell was ringing as they landed, the bell that had been cast in fair Rochelle, and that was the first bell to ring between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Most of the black-robed missionaries were gone, as had the high-born French officers, with their horses, sabers, and banner-plumes, who once sought treasure and fame in this grand town of the Mississippi Valley. The Bourbon lilies had fallen from old Fort Chartres a generation ago, and the British cross had come down, and to-day all the houses, new and old, were decked with the stars and stripes. It was not a holiday. What did it mean?

Jasper and Waubeno entered the old French town, and gazed at the brick buildings, the antique roofs, the high dormer windows, and the faded houses of by-gone priest and nun. The tavern was covered with flags, French and American, as were the grand house of William Morrison and the beautiful Edgar mansion. The house once occupied by the French commandant was wrapped in the national colors. It had been the first State House of Illinois. A hundred years before—just one hundred years—Kaskaskia Commons had received its grand name from his most Christian Majesty Louis XV, and it then seemed likely to become the capital of the French mid-continent empire in the New World. The Jesuits flocked here, zealous for the conversion of the Indian races. Here came men of rank and military glory, and Fort Chartres rose near it, grand and powerful as if to awe the world. But there was a foe in the fort of the French heart, and the boundless empire faded, and the old French town went to the American pioneer, and the fort became a ruin, like Louisburg at Cape Breton.

As Jasper and Waubeno passed along the broad streets they noticed that the town was filled with country people, and that there were Indians among them.

One of these Indians approached Waubeno, and said:

"She—yonder—see—Mary Panisciowa—daughter of the Great Chief—Mary Panisciowa."

Waubeno followed with his eye the daughter of the Chief of the Six Nations. He went forward with the crowd and came to the house that she was making her home, and asked to meet her. Jasper had followed him.

They turned aside from the street, which was full of excited people—excited Jasper knew not why. The door of the house where Mary Panisciowa was visiting stood open, and they were asked to enter.

She looked a queen, yet she had the graces of the English and French people. She was a most accomplished woman. She spoke both English and French readily, her education having been conducted by an American agent to whom she had been commended by her father.

"This is good news," she said.

"What?" said Jasper. "Good news comes from God. Yet all events are news from heaven. The people seem greatly exercised. What has happened?"

"Lafayette, the great Lafayette—have you not heard?—the marquis—he is on his way to Kaskaskia, and that is why I am here. My father fought under him, and the general sent him a letter thanking him for his services in the American cause. It was written forty years ago. I have brought it. I hope to meet him. Would you like to see it?—a letter from the great Lafayette."

Mary Panisciowa took from her bosom a faded letter, and said:

"My father fought for the new people, and I have taken up their religion and customs. I suppose that you have done the same," she said to Waubeno.

"No; that can not be, for me."

"Why? I supposed that you were a Christian, as you travel with the Tunker."

"Mary Panisciowa knows how my father died. I am his son. I swore to be true to his name. The Tunker says that I must forswear myself to become a Christian. That I shall never do. I respect the teachings of your new religion, and I love the Tunker and shall always be true to him, but I shall be true to the memory of my father. Mary Panisciowa, think how he died, and of the men who killed him. They claimed to be Christians. Think of that! I am not a Christian. Mary Panisciowa, there is a spot that burns in my heart. I do not dissemble. I do not deceive. But that fire will burn there till I have kept my vow, and I shall do it."

"Waubeno," said the woman, "listen to better counsels. Revenge only spreads the fires of evil. Forgiveness quenches them.—That is a noble letter," she said to Jasper.

"Yes, a noble letter, and the marquis is an apostle of human liberty, a friend of all men everywhere. What brings him here?"

"The old French and new English families. His visit is unexpected. The people can not receive him as they ought to, but he is to dine at the tavern, and there are to be two grand receptions at the great houses, one at Mr. Edgar's. I wish I could see him and show him this letter. I shall try. But they have not invited me. They are proud people, and they will not invite me; but I shall try to see him. It would be the happiest hour of my life if I could take the hand of the great Lafayette."

Mary Panisciowa was thrilled with her desire to meet General Lafayette.

Cannons boomed, drums and fifes played, and all the people hurried toward the landing. The marquis came in the steamer Natchez from St. Louis. When Mary Panisciowa heard the old bell ringing she knew that the marquis was coming, and she hid the faded old letter in her bosom and wept. She sent a messenger to the tavern, who asked Lafayette if he would meet the daughter of Panisciowa, and receive a message from her.

Just at night she looked out of the door, and saw an officer in uniform and a party of her own people coming toward the house. The officer appeared before the door, touched his head and bowed, and said:

"Mary Panisciowa, I am told."

"My father was Panisciowa."

"He fought under General Lafayette?"

"Yes, he fought under Lafayette, and I have a letter from the general here, written to him more than forty years ago. Will you read it?"

The officer took the letter, read it, and said:

"You should meet the general."

"You are very kind, sir. I want to meet him; but how? There is to be a reception at the Morrisons, but I am not invited. The Governor is to be there. But they would not invite me."

"Come to the reception at the Morrisons. I will be responsible. The marquis will welcome you. He is a gentleman. To say that a man is a gentleman, is to cover all right conduct. Bring your letter, and he will receive you. I will speak to Governor Coles about you. You will come?"

"May my friend Waubeno come with me? I am the daughter of a chief, and he is the son of a warrior. It would be befitting that we should come together. I wish that he might see the great Lafayette."

"As you like," said the officer, hurrying away with uncovered head.

Mary Panisciowa prepared to go to the grand reception. Early in the evening she and Waubeno, followed by Jasper, came up to the Morrison mansion, where a kind of court reception was to be held.

The streets were full of people. The houses were everywhere illuminated, and people were hurrying to and fro, or listening to the music in the hall.

Lafayette was now nearly threescore and ten years of age, the beloved hero of France and America, and the leader of human liberty in all lands. He had left Havre on July 12th, 1824, and had arrived in New York on the 15th of August. He was accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, and his private secretary, M. Levasseur. His passage through the country had been a triumphal procession, under continuous arches of flags, evergreens, and flowers, bearing the words, "Welcome, Lafayette." Forty years had passed since he was last in America. The thirteen States had become twenty-four. He had visited Joseph Bonaparte, the grave of Washington, and the battle-field of Yorktown. His reception in the South had been an outpouring of hearts. And now he had turned aside from the great Mississippi to see Kaskaskia, the romantic town of the vanished French empire of the Mississippi.

Mary and Waubeno waited outside of the door. The Indian woman listened for a time to the gay music, and watched the bright uniforms as they passed to and fro under the glittering astrals. At last an American officer came down the steps, lifted his hat, and said to the two Indians and to Jasper:

"Follow me."

Lafayette had already received the public men of the place. Airy music arose, and the officials and their wives and guests were going through the form of the old court minuet.

The music of Mozart's Don Giovanni minuet has been heard in a thousand halls of state and at the festivals of many lands. We may imagine the charm that such music had here, in this oaken room of the forest and prairie. At the head of the plumed ladies and men in glittering uniforms stood the Marquis of France, whom the world delighted to honor, and led the stately obeisances to the picturesque movement of the music under the flags and astrals. A remnant of the old romantic French families were there, soldiers of the Revolution, the leaders of the new order of American life, Governor Coles and his officers, and rich traders of St. Louis. As the music swayed these stately forms backward and forward with the fascinating poetry of motion that can hardly be called a dance, the two Indian faces caught the spirit of the scene. Waubeno had never heard the music of the minuet before, and the strains entranced him as they rose and fell.



After the minuet, Lafayette and Governor Coles received the towns-people, and among the first to be presented to the marquis was Mary Panisciowa.

She bowed modestly, and told him her simple tale. The marquis listened at first with courtly interest, then with profound emotion. She drew from her bosom the letter that he had written to her father, the chief. His own writing brought before him the scenes of almost a half-century gone, the struggle for liberty in the new land to which he had given his young soul. He remembered the old chief, and the forest scenes of those heroic years; Washington, and the generals he had loved, most of whom were gone, arose again. His heart filled with emotion, and he said:

"Nothing in my visit here has affected me so much as this. I thank you for seeking me. I welcome you with all my heart. Let me spend as much time as I may in your company. Your father was a hero, and your presence fills my heart with no common pleasure and delight. Stay with me."

The marquis welcomed Waubeno cordially, and expressed his pleasure at meeting him here. At the romantic festival no people were more warmly met than the chief's daughter and her escort.

"The French have always been true to the Indians," said Waubeno, on leaving the general, "and the Indians have been as true to the French."

"Never did rulers have better subjects," said the general.

"Never did subjects have better rulers," said Waubeno, almost repeating the scene of Dick Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, by virtue of his wonderful cat, to King Henry.

The Indians withdrew amid the gay strains of national music, the stately minuet haunting Waubeno and ringing in his ears.

He tried to hum the rhythms of the beautiful air of the courts. Jasper saw how the music had affected him, and that he was happy and susceptible, and said:

"Waubeno, you have met a man to-night who would forget his own position and pleasure to do honor to the Indian girl."

"Yes, I am sure of that."

"You are your best self to-night—in your best mood; the music has awakened your better soul. You remember your promise?"

"Yes, but, Brother Jasper—"

"What, Waubeno?"

"Lafayette is a Frenchman, and—a gentleman. The Indians and French do not spill each other's blood. Why?"



CHAPTER XIV.

WAUBENO AND YOUNG LINCOLN.

One leafy afternoon in May, Jasper and Waubeno came to Aunt Olive's, at Pigeon Creek. Southern Indiana is a glory of sunshine and flowers at this season of the year, and their journey had been a very pleasant one.

They had met emigrants on the Ohio, and had seen the white sail of the prairie schooner in all of the forest ways.

"The world seems moving to the west," said Jasper, "as in the white Indian's dream. There is need of my work more and more. Every child that I can teach to read will make better this new empire that is being sifted out of the lands. Every school that I can found is likely to become a college, and I am glad to be a wanderer in the wilderness for the sake of my fellow-men."

In the open door, under the leafing vines, stood Aunt Indiana, in cap, wig, and spectacles. She arched her elbow over all to shade her eyes.

"The old Tunker, as I live, come again, and brought his Indian boy with him!" said she. "Well, you are welcome to Pigeon Creek. You left a sight of good thoughts here when you were here before. You're a good pitcher, if you are a little cracked, with the handle all one side. Come in, and welcome. Take a chair and sit down—

''Tis a long time since I see you. How does your wife and children do?'

as the poet sings."

"I am well, and am glad to be toiling for the bread that does not fail in the wilderness. How are the people of Pigeon Creek—how are my good friends the Lincolns?"

"The Linkens? Well, Tom Linken makes out to hold together after a fashion—all dreams and expectations. 'The thing that hath been is,' the Scriptur' says, and Thomas Linken is—just as he always was, and always will be to the end of the chapter. He's got to the p'int after which there is no more to be told, long ago. The life of such as he repeats itself over and over, like a buzzin' spinnin'-wheel. And Miss Linken, she is as patient as ever; 'tis her mission just to be patient with old Tom."

"And Abraham?"

"That boy Abe—the one that we prophesied about! Well, elder, I do hate to say, 'cause it makes you out to be no prophet, and you mean well, goin' about tryin' to get a little larnin' into the skulls of the people in this new country; but that boy promises pretty slim, though I ain't nothin' to say agin' him. In the first place, he's grown up to be a giant, all legs and ears, mouth and eyes. Why, he is the tallest young man in this part of Indiana!

"Then, his head's off. He goes about readin' books, just as he did when you were here last—this book, and that book, and the other book; and then he all runs to talk, which some folks takes for wisdom. He tells stories that makes everybody laugh, and he seems very chipper and happy, but they do say that he has melancholy spells, and is all down in the mouth at times. But he's good-hearted, and speaks the truth, and helps poor folks, and there's many a wuss one than Abraham Linken now. They didn't invite him to the great weddin' of the Grigsbys, cos he's so homely, and hadn't anythin' to wear but leather breeches, and they only come down a little below his knees. Queer-lookin' he'd 'a' been to a weddin'!

"He felt orful bad at not bein' invited, and made some poetry about 'em. When I feel poetic I talk prose, and give people as good as they send. I don't write no poetry.

"You are welcome to stay here, elder. You needn't go to the Linkens'. I have a prophet's chamber in my house—though you ain't a prophet—and you can always sleep there, and your Indian boy can lay down in the kitchen; and I can cook, elder—now you know that—and I won't ask ye to cobble; your time is too valuable for that."

Jasper, who was not greatly influenced by Aunt Indiana's unfavorable views of her poor neighbor, went to see Thomas Lincoln. Waubeno went with him. Here the young Indian met with a hearty greeting from both Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln.

"I am glad that you have come again," said poor Mrs. Lincoln to Jasper. "You comforted me and encouraged me when you were here last. I want to talk with you. Abe has all grown up, and wants to make a new start in life; and I wish to see him started right. There's so much in gettin' started right; a right start is all the way, sometimes. We don't travel twice over the same years. I want you to talk with him. You have seen this world, and we haven't, but you kind o' brought the world to us when you were here last. Elder, you don't know how much good you are doin'."

"Where is Abraham?" asked Jasper.

"He's gone to the store for the evenin'. He's been keepin' store for Jones, in Gentryville, and he spends his evenin's there. There ain't many places to go to around here, and Abe he's turned the store into a kind of debatin' club. He speaks pieces there. There's goin' to be a debate there to-night. He's great on debatin'. I do hope you'll go. The subject of the debate to-night is, 'Which has the greater cause for complaint, the negro or the Indian?'"

"I'm goin' over to the store to-night myself, elder," said Thomas Lincoln. "You must go along with me and hear Abraham talk, and then come back and spend the night here. The old woman has been hopin' that you would come. It pleased her mightily, what you said good about Abraham when you was here last. She sets her eyes by Abraham, and he does by her. Abraham and I don't get along none too well. The fact is, he all runs to books, and is kind o' queer. He takes after his mother's folks—they all had houses in the air, and lived in 'em. Abe might make somethin'; there's somethin' in him, if larnin' don't spile him. I have to warn him against larnin' all the time, but it all goes agin the grain, and I declare sometimes I do get all out of patience, and clean discouraged. Why, elder, he even takes a book out when he goes to shuck corn, and he composes poetry on the wooden shovel, and planes it out with my plane, and wears the shovel all up. There, now, look there!—could you stand it?"

Thomas Lincoln took up a large wooden fire-shovel, and held it before the eyes of the Tunker. On the great bowl of the shovel were penned some lines in coal.

"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."



"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 passed, 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.

When he woke, Jasper said to him:

"Abraham, I wish you to know this Indian boy. I think there is a native nobility in him. Do you remember Johnnie Kongapod's story, at which the people all used to laugh?"

"Yes, elder."

"Abraham Lincoln, I can believe that story was true. I have faith in men. You do. Your faith will make you great."



CHAPTER XV.

THE DEBATING SCHOOL.

There were some queer people in every town and community of the new West, and these were usually active at the winter debating school. These schools of the people for the discussion of life, politics, literature, were, on the whole, excellent influences; they developed what was original in the thought and character of a place, and stimulated reading and study. If a man was a theorist, he could here find a voice for his opinions; and if he were a genius, he could here uncage his gifts and find recognition. Nearly all of the early clergymen, lawyers, congressmen, and leaders of the people of early Indiana and Illinois were somehow developed and educated in these so-called debating schools.

Among the odd people sure to be found in such rural assemblies were the man with visionary schemes for railroads, canals, and internal improvements, the sanguine inventor, the noisy free-thinker, the benevolent Tunker, the man who could preach without notes by "direct inspiration," the man who thought that the world was about to come to an end, and the patriot who pictured the American eagle as a bird of fate and divinity. The early pioneer preacher learned to talk in public in the debating school. The young lawyer here made his first pleas.

The frequent debates in Jones's store led to the formation of a debating school in Gentryville and Pigeon Creek. In this society young Abraham Lincoln was the leader, and his cousin Dennis Hanks and his uncle John were prominent disputants. The story-telling blacksmith furnished much of the humor, and Josiah Crawford, or "Blue-Nose Crawford," as he was called, was regarded as the man of hard sense on such occasions as require a Solomon, or a Daniel, or a Portia, and he was very proud to be so regarded.

There was a revival of interest in the cause of temperance in the country at this time, and the noble conduct of Abraham Lincoln, in carrying to his cousin Dennis's the poor drunkard whom he had found in the highway on the chilly night after the debate at Jones's store, may have led to a plan for a great debate on the subject of the pledge, which was appointed to take place in the log school-house at Pigeon Creek. The plan was no more than spoken of at the store than it began to excite general attention.

"We must debate this subject of the temperance pledge," said Thomas Lincoln, "and get the public sense. New times are at hand. On general principles, I'm a temperance man; and if nobody drank once, then nobody would drink twice, and the world would all go dry. But there's the corn-huskin's, and the hoe-down, and the mowin' times, and the hog-killin's, and the barn-raisin's. It is only natural that men should wet their whistles at such times as these. In the old Scriptur' times people who wanted to get great spiritual power abstained from strong drink; but you can't expect no such people as those down here at Pigeon Creek."

"But Abe is a temperancer, and I want the debate to come off in good shape, so that all you uns can hear what he has to say."

It was decided by the leading debaters that the subject for the debate should be, "Ought temperance people to sign the temperance pledge?" and that Abraham Lincoln should sustain the affirmative view of the question.

The success of young Lincoln as a debater had greatly troubled Aunt Indiana.

"It's all like the rattlin' of a pea-pod in the blasts o' ortum," she said. "It don't signify anything. He just rains words upon ye, and makes ye laugh, and the first thing ye know he's got ye. Beware—beware! his words are just like stool-pigeons, what brings you down to get shot. It's amazin' what a curi'us gift of talk that boy has!"

When she heard of the plan of the debate, and the part assigned to young Lincoln, she said:

"'Twill be a great night for Abe, unless I hinder it. I'm agin the temperance pledge. Stands to reason that a man's no right to sign away his liberty. And I'm agin Abe Linkern, because he's too smart for anythin', and lives up in the air like a kite; and outthinks other people, because he sits round readin' and turkey-dreamin' when he ought to be at work. I shall work agin him."

And she did. She first consulted upon the subject with Josiah Crawford—"the Esquire," as she called him—and he promised to give the negative of the question all the weight of his ability.

There was a young man in Gentryville named John Short, who thought that he had had a call to preach, and who often came to Aunt Indiana for theological instruction.

"Don't run round the fields readin' books, like Abraham Linkern," she warned him. "He'll never amount to a hill o' beans. The true way to become a preacher is to go into the desk, and open the Bible, and put yer fingers on the first passage that you come to, and then open yer mouth, and the Lord will fill it. I do not believe in edicated ministers. They trust in chariots and horses. Go right from the plow to the pulpit, and the heavens will help ye."

John Short thought Aunt Indiana's advice sound, and he resolved to follow it. He once made an appointment to preach after this unprepared manner in the school-house. He could not read very well. He had once read at school, "And he smote the Hittite that he died" "And he smote the Hi-ti-ti-ty, that he did," and he opened the Bible at random for a Scripture lesson on this trying occasion. His eye fell upon the hard chapters in Chronicles beginning "Adam, Sheth, Enoch." He succeeded very well in the reading until he came to the generations of Japheth and the sons of Gomer, which were mountains too difficult to pass. He lifted his eyes and said, "And so it goes on to the end of the chapter, without regard to particulars."

"That chapter was given me to try me," he said, as a kind of commentary, "and, my friends, I have been equal to it. And now you shall hear me preach, and after that we'll take up a contribution for the new meetin'-house."

The sermon was a short one, and began amid much mental confusion. "A certain man," he began, "went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves; and the thieves sprang up and choked him; and he said, 'Who is my neighbor?' You all know who your neighbors are, O my friends." Here followed a long pause. He added:

"Always be good to your neighbors. And now we will pass around the contribution-box, and after that we'll all talk."

This beginning of his work as a speaker did not look promising, but he had conducted "a meetin'," and that fact made John Short a shining light in Aunt Indiana's eyes. To this young man the good woman went for a champion of her ideas in the great debate.

But, notwithstanding her theory, she proceeded to instruct him as to what he should say on the occasion.

"Say to 'em, John, that he who comes to ye with a temperance pledge insults yer character. It is like askin' ye to promise not to become a jackass; and what would ye think of a man who would ask ye to sign a paper like that? or to sign the Ten Commandments? or to promise that ye'd never lie any more? It's one's duty to maintain one's dignity of character, and, John, I want ye to open yer mouth in defense of the rights of liberty on the occasion; and do yer duty, and bring down the Philistine with a pebble-stun, and 'twill be a glorious night for Pigeon Creek."

The views of Aunt Olive Eastman on preaching without preparation and on temperance were common at this time in Indiana and Illinois. By not understanding a special direction of our Lord to his disciples as to what they should do in times of persecution, many of the pioneer exhorters used to speak from the text on which their eyes first rested on opening the Bible. They seemed to think that this mental field needed no planting or culture—no training like Paul's in the desert of Arabia, and that the pulpit stood outside of the universal law. The moral education of the pledge of Father Matthew was just beginning to excite attention. Strange as it may seem, the thoughts and plans of the Irish apostle of temperance and founder of the Order of St. Vincent de Paul seemed to have come to Abraham Lincoln in his early days much as original inspiration. His first public speech was on this subject. It was made in Springfield, Illinois, in 1842, and advocated the plan which Father Matthew was then originating in Ireland, the education of the public conscience by the moral force of the temperance pledge.

It was a lengthening autumn evening when the debate took place in the school-house in the timber. The full moon rose like a disk of gold as the sun sank in clouds of crimson fire, and the light of the day became a mellowed splendor during half of the night. The corn-fields in the clearings rose like armies, bearing food on every hand. Flocks of birds darkened the sunset air, and little animals of the woods ran to and fro amid the crisp and fallen leaves. The air was vital with the coolness that brings the frost and causes the trees to unclasp their countless shells, barks, and burrs, and let the ripe nuts fall.

The school-room filled with earnest faces early in the evening. The people came over from Gentryville, among them Mr. Gentry himself and Mr. Jones the store-keeper. Women brought tallow dips for lights, and curious candlesticks and snuffers.

Aunt Indiana and Josiah Crawford came together, an imposing-looking couple, who brought with them the air of special sense and wisdom. Aunt Indiana wore a bonnet of enormous proportions, which distinguished her from the other women, who wore hoods. She brought in her hand a brass candlestick, which the children somehow associated with the ancient Scripture figures, and which looked as though it might have belonged to the temples of old. She was tall and stately, and the low room was too short for her soaring bonnet, but she bent her head, and sat down near Josiah Crawford, and set the candle in the shining candlestick, and cast a glance of conscious superiority over the motley company.

The moderator rapped for order and stated the question for debate, and made some inspiring remarks about "parliamentary" rules. John Short opened the debate with a plea for independence of character, and self-respect and personal liberty.

"What would you think," he asked, "of a man who would come to you in the night and ask you to sign a paper not to lie any more? What? You would think that he thought you had been lying. Would you sign that paper? No! You would call out the dogs of retribution, and take down your father's sword, and you would uplift your foot into the indignant air, and protect your family name and honor. Who would be called a liar, in a cowardly way like that? And who would be called a drunkard, by being asked to sign the paper of a tee-totaler? Who?"

Here John Short paused. He presently said:

"Hoo?"—which sounded in the breathless silence like the inquiries of an owl. But his ideas had all taken wings again and left him, as on the occasion when he attempted to preach without notes or preparation.

Aunt Indiana looked distressed. She leaned over toward Josiah Crawford, and said:

"Say somethin'."

But Josiah hesitated. Then, to the great amusement of all, Aunt Indiana rose to the ceiling, bent her generously bonneted head, stretched forth her arm, and said:

"He is quite right—quite right, Josiah. Is he not, Josiah?"

"Quite right," said Josiah.

"People do not talk about what is continuous—what goes right along. Am I not right, Josiah?"

"Quite right! quite right!"

"If a man tells me he is honest, he is not honest. If he tells me that he is pure, he isn't pure. If he were honest or pure he says nothing about it. Am I not right, Josiah?"

"Quite right! quite right!"

"Nobody tells about his stomach unless it is out of order; and no one puts cotton into keyholes unless he himself is peeking through keyholes. Am I not right, Josiah?"

"Quite right! quite right!"

"And no one asks ye to sign a temperance pledge unless he's been a drunkard himself, or thinks ye are one, or likely to be. Ain't I right, Josiah?"

"Quite right!"

"The best way to support temperance is to live temperately and say nothin' about it. There, now! If I had held my peace, the stones would have cried out. Olive Eastman has spoken, and Josiah says that I am right, and I'm agin the temperance pledge, and there's nothin' more to be said about it."

Aunt Indiana sat down amid much applause. Then Jasper rose, and showed that intemperance was a great evil, and that public sentiment should be educated against it.

"This education should begin in childhood," he said, "in habits of self-respect and self-restraint. The child should be first instructed to say "No" to himself."

He proceeded to argue for the temperance pledge from his point of view.

"The world is educated by pledges," he said. "The patriot is kept in his line of march by the pledge; the business man makes a pledge when he signs a note; and the Christian takes pledges when he joins the Church. We should be willing to take any pledge that will make life better. If eating meat cause my brother to stumble and offend, then I will not eat meat. I will sacrifice myself always to that which will help the world and honor God. I am sorry to differ from the good woman who has spoken, but I am for the use of the pledge. I never drank strong drink, and this hand shall sign any pledge that will help a poor tempted brother by my example."

Tall Abraham Lincoln arose.

"There! he's goin' to speak—I knew he'd been preparin'," whispered Aunt Indiana to Josiah Crawford. "Wonder what he'll have to say. You'll have to answer him. He's just a regular Philistine, and goes stalkin' through the land, and turns people's heads; and he's just Tom Linkern's son, who is shiftless and poor, and I'm goin' agin him."

The tall young man stood silent. The people were silent. Aunt Indiana gave her puncheon seat a push to break the force of that silence, and whispered to Josiah:

"There! they are all ears. I told ye 'twould be so. You must answer him."

Young Lincoln spoke slowly, and after this manner:

"My friends: When you pledge yourself to enforce a principle, you identify yourself with that principle, and give it power."

There was a silence. Then the people filled the little room with applause. He continued most impressively in the words of grand oration:[A]

[Footnote A: We use here some of the exact sentences which young Lincoln employed on a similar occasion at Springfield.]

"The universal sense of mankind on any subject is an argument, or at least an influence, not easily overcome. The success of the argument in favor of the existence of an over-ruling Providence mainly depends upon that sense; and men ought not, in justice, to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving it up slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites.

"If it be true that those who have suffered by intemperance personally and have reformed are the most powerful and efficient instruments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it does not follow that those who have not suffered have no part left them to perform. Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total and final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems to me not now an open question. Three fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues; and, I believe, all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts.

"But it is said by some, that men will think and act for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or anything else because his neighbors do; and that moral influence is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us examine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain this position most stiffly, what compensation he will accept to go to church some Sunday and sit during the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head? Not a trifle, I'll venture. And why not? There would be nothing irreligious in it, nothing immoral, nothing uncomfortable—then why not? Is it not because there would be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then, it is the influence of fashion. And what is the influence of fashion but the influence that other people's actions have on our own actions—the strong inclination each of us feels to do as we see all our neighbors do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing or class of things. It is just as strong on one subject as another. Let us make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance pledge as for husbands to wear their wives' bonnets to church, and instances will be just as rare in the one case as in the other."

The people saw the moral point clearly. They felt the force of what the young orator had said. No one was willing to follow him.

"Have you anything to say, Mr. Crawford?" said the moderator.

Josiah merely shook his head.

"He don't care to put on his wife's bonnet agin public opinion," said the blacksmith.



CHAPTER XVI.

THE SCHOOL THAT MADE LINCOLN PRESIDENT.

While teaching and preaching in Decatur, Jasper heard of the new village of Salem, Illinois, on the Sangamon. He thought that the little town might offer him a chance to exert a new influence, and he resolved to visit it, and to preach and to teach there for a time should the people receive him kindly.

The village was a small one, consisting of a community store, a school-house, a tavern, and a few houses; and Jasper knew of only one friend there at the time, a certain Mr. Duncan, who lived some two miles from the main street and the store.

One afternoon, after a long journey over prairie land, Jasper came to Mrs. Duncan's door, and was met cordially by the good woman, and invited by her to make his home there for a time.

The family gathered around the story-telling missionary after supper, and listened to his tales of the Rhine, all of which had some soul-lesson in his view, and enabled him to preach by parables. No stories better served this peculiar mission than Baron Fouque's, and this night he related Thiodolf, the Icelander.

There came a rap at the door.

"Who can that be?" said Mrs. Duncan in alarm.

She opened the door, and a tall, dark-faced young man stood before her.

"Why, Abe," said Mrs. Duncan, "what has brought you here at this late hour? I hope that nothing has happened!"

"That bill of yours. You paid me two dollars and six cents, did you not? It was not right."

"Isn't it? Well, I paid you all that you asked me, like an honest woman, so I am not to blame for any mistake. How much more do you want? If it isn't too much I'll pay it, for I think that you mean well."

"More! That isn't it, Mrs. Duncan; you paid me six cents too much—you overpaid me. It was my fault."

"Your fault!—and honest Abe Lincoln, you have walked two miles out of your way to pay me that six cents! Why didn't you wait until to-morrow?"

"I couldn't."

"Why, what is going to happen?"

"I can't sleep with a thing like that on my conscience. Now I feel light and free again."

"Come in, if it is late. We've got company—a Tunker—teaches, preaches, and works. May be you have met him before. He's been traveling down in Indiana and middle Illinois."

Abraham came in, and Jasper rose to receive him.

"Lincoln," said the wandering school-master, "it does my heart good to see you. I see that you have grown in body and in soul. What brought you here? I have been telling stories for hours. Sit down, and tell us about what has happened to you since we met last."

The tall young man sat down.

"He's clark down to Orfutt's store now," said Mrs. Duncan, "and his word is as good as gold, and his weights are as true as the scales of the Judgment Day. Why, one day he made a wrong weight of half a pound, and as soon as he found it out he shut up the shop and went shivering through the village with that half-pound of tea as though the powers of the air were after him. He's schooled his conscience so that he couldn't be dishonest if he were to try. I do believe a dishonorable act would wither him and drive him crazy."

"Character, which is the habit of obedience to the universal law of right, is the highest school of life," said Jasper. "That is what I try to teach everywhere. But Abraham has heard me say that before. Where have you been since I saw you last? Tell me, what has been your school of life?"

"I have been to New Orleans in a flat-boat. I went for Mr. Orfutt, who now keeps the store in this place. When I came back he gave me a place in his store here. I have been here ever since."

"What did you see in New Orleans?"

"Slavery—men sold in the market like cattle. Jasper, it made me long to have power—to control men and congresses and armies. If I only had the power, I would strike that institution hard. I said that to John Hanks, and he thought that slavery wasn't in any danger from anything that I would be likely to do. It don't look so, does it, elder? I have one vote, and I shall always cast that against wrong as long as I live. That is my right to do.

"Elder, listen. I want to tell you what I saw there one day, in a slave-pen. I saw a handsome young girl, with white blood in her, brought forward by a slave-driver and handled and struck with a whip like a horse. I had heard of such things before, but it did not seem possible that they could be true. Then I saw the same girl sold at auction, and purchased by a man who carried the face of a brute. When she saw who had purchased her, she wrung her hands and cried, but she was helpless and hopeless; and I turned my face toward the sky and vowed to give my soul against a system like that. I'm a Free-Soiler in my heart, and I have faith that right is might, and that the right in this matter will one day prevail."

Jasper remained with Mrs. Duncan for some days, and then formed a small school in the neighborhood, on the road to the town of Springfield, Illinois.

While teaching here he could not but notice the growth of Orfutt's clerk in the confidence of all the people. In all the games, he was chosen umpire or referee; in most cases of dispute he was consulted, and his judgment was followed. Long before he became a lawyer, people were accustomed to say, in a matter of casuistry:

"Take the case to Lincoln. He will give an opinion that will be fair."

Amid this growing reputation for character, a test happened which showed how far this moral education and discipline had gone.

A certain Henry McHenry, a popular man, had planned a horse-race, and applied to young Lincoln to go upon the racing stand as judge.

"The people have confidence in you," he said to Lincoln.

"I must not, and I will not do it," said Lincoln. "This custom of racing is wrong."

The man showed him that he was under a certain obligation to act as judge on this occasion.

"I will do it," he said; "but be it known to all that I will never appear at a horse-race again; and were I to become a lawyer, I would never accept a case into which I could not take an honest conscience, no matter what the inducements might be."

There was a school-master in New Salem who knew more than the honest clerk had been able to learn. This man, whose name was Graham, could teach grammar.

Abraham went to him one day, and said:

"I have a notion to study grammar."

"If you ever expect to enter public life, you should do so," said Mr. Graham. "Why not begin now and recite to me?"

"Where shall I secure a book?" asked the student of this hard college of the wood.

"There is a man named Vaner, who lives six miles from here, who has a grammar that I think he will be willing to sell."

"If it be possible, I will secure it," said Lincoln.

He made a long walk and purchased the book, and so made a grammar-school, a class of one, of his leisure moments in Orfutt's store.

While he thus was studying grammar, the men whom he thirty or more years afterward made Cabinet ministers, generals, and diplomats were enjoying the easy experiences of schools, military academies, and colleges. Not one of them ever dreamed of such an experience of soul-building and mind-building as this; and some of them, had they met him then, would have felt that they could not have invited him to their homes. Orfutt's store and that one grammar were not the elms of Yale, or the campus of Harvard, or the great libraries or bowery streets of English Oxford or Cambridge. Yet here grew and developed a soul which was to tower above the age, and hold hands with the master spirits not only of the time but the ages.

Years passed, and one day that sad-faced boy, who was always seeking to make others cheerful amid the clouds of his own gloom, stood before a grim council of war. He had determined to call into the field of arms five hundred thousand men.

"If you do that thing," said a leader of the council, "you can not expect to be elected again President of the United States."

The dark form rose to the height of a giant and poured forth his soul, and he said:

"It is not necessary for me to be re-elected President of the United States, but it is necessary for the soldiers at the front to be re-enforced by five hundred thousand men, and I shall call for them; and if I go down under the act, I will go down like the Cumberland, with my colors flying."

It required a high school of experience to train a soul to an utterance like that; and that fateful declaration began in those moral syllables that defended the rights of the animals of the woods, that said "No" to a horse-race, that refused from the first to accept an unjust case at law, and that from the first declared that right is might.



CHAPTER XVII.

THOMAS LINCOLN MOVES.

Jasper taught school for a time in Boonesville, Indiana, and preached in the new settlements along the Wabash. While at Boonesville, he chanced to meet young Lincoln at the court house, under circumstances that filled his heart with pity.

It was at a trial for murder that greatly excited the people. The lawyer for the defense was John Breckinridge, a man of great reputation and ability.

Jasper saw young Lincoln among the people who had come to hear the great lawyer's plea, and said to him:

"You have traveled a long distance to be here to-day."

"Yes," said the tall young man. "There is nothing that leads one to seek information of the most intelligent people like a debating society. We, who used to meet to discuss questions at Jones's store, have formed a debating society, and I want to learn all I can of law for the sake of justice, and I owed it to myself and the society not to let this great occasion pass. I have walked fifteen miles to be here to-day. Did you know that father was thinking of moving to Illinois?"

"No. Will you go with him?"

"Yes, I shall go with him and see him well settled, and then I shall strike out for myself in the world. Father hasn't the faculty that mother has, you know. I can do some things better than he, and it is the duty of one member of the family to make up when he can for what another member lacks. We all have our own gifts, and should share them with others. I can split rails faster than father can, and do better work at house-building than he, and I am going with him and do for him the best I can at the start. I shall seek first for a roof for him, and then a place for myself."

The great lawyer arrived. The doors of the court-house were open, and the people filled the court-room.

The plea was a masterly one, eloquent and dramatic, and it thrilled the young soul of Lincoln. Full of the subject, the young debater sought Mr. Breckinridge after the court adjourned, and extended his long arm and hand to him.

The orator was a proud man of an aristocratic family, and thought it the proper thing to maintain his dignity on all occasions. He looked at the boy haughtily, and refused to take his hand.

"I thank you," said Lincoln. "I wish to express my gratitude."

"Sir!"

With a contemptuous look Breckinridge passed by, and the slight filled the heart of the young man with disappointment and mortification. The two met again in Washington in 1862. The backwoods boy whose hand the orator had refused to take had become President of the United States. He extended his hand, and it was accepted.

"Sir," said the President, "that plea of yours in Boonesville, Indiana, was one of the best that I ever heard."

"In Boonesville, Indiana?"

How like a dream to the haughty lawyer the recollection must have been! Such things as this hurt Lincoln to the quick. He was so low-spirited at times in his early manhood that he did not dare to carry with him a pocket-knife, lest he should be overcome in some dark and evil moment to end his own life. There were times when his tendencies were so alarming that he had to be watched by his friends. But these dark periods were followed by a great flow of spirits and the buoyancy of hope.

In the spring of 1830, Jasper and Waubeno came to Gentryville, and there met James Gentry, the leading man of the place.

"Are the Linkens still living in Spencer County?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mr. Gentry, "but it has been a hard winter here, and they are about to move. The milk sickness has been here again and has carried off the cattle, and the people have become discouraged, and look upon the place as unhealthy. I have bought Thomas Linken's property. The man was here this morning. You will find him getting ready to go away from Indiana for good and all."

"Where is he going?" asked Jasper.

"Off to Illinois."

"So I thought," said Jasper. "I must go to see him. How is that bright boy of his?"

"Abe?"

"Yes. I like that boy. I am drawn toward him. There is something about him that doesn't belong to many people—a spiritual graft that won't bear any common fruit. I can see it with my spiritual eye, in the open vision, as it were. You don't understand those things—I see you don't. I must see him. There are not many like him in soul, if he is ungainly in body. I believe that he is born to some higher destiny than other men. I see that you do not understand me. Time will make it plain."

"I'm a trader, and no prophet, and I don't know much about such matters as these. But Abe Linken, he's grown up now, and up it is, more than six feet tall. He's a giant, a great, ungainly, awkward, clever, honest fellow, full of jokes and stories, though down at times, and he wouldn't do a wrong thing if it were for his right hand, and couldn't do an unkind one. He comes up to the store here often and tells stories, and sometimes stays until almost midnight, just as he used to do at Jones's. Everybody likes him here, and we shall all miss him when he goes away."

Jasper and Waubeno left the little Indiana town, and went toward the cabin of the Lincolns. On the way Jasper turned aside to pay a short visit to Aunt Olive.

The busy woman saw the preacher from her door, and came out to welcome him.

"I knew it was you," was her salutation, "and I am right glad that you have come. It has been distressin' times in these parts. Folks have died, and cattle have died, and we're all poor enough now, ye may depend. Where are ye goin'?"

"To see the Lincolns."

"Sho'! goin' to see them again. Well, ye're none too soon. They're gettin' ready to move to Illinois. Thomas Linken's always movin.' Moved four times or more already, and I 'magine he'll just keep movin' till he moves into his grave, and stops for good. He just lives up in the air, that man does. He always is imaginin' that it rains gold in the next State or county, but it never rains anythin' but rain where he is; and if it rained puddin' and sugar-cane, his dish would be bottom upward, sure. Elder, what does make ye take such an interest in that there family?"

"Mrs. Lincoln is a very good woman, an uncommon one; and Abraham—"

"Yes, elder, I knew ye were goin' to say somethin' good of Abraham. Yer heart is just set on that boy. I could see it when ye were here. I remember all that ye prophesied about him. I ain't forgot it. Well, I am a very plain-spoken woman. Ye ain't much of a prophet, in my opinion. He hain't got anywhere yet—now, has he? He's just a great, tall, black, jokin' boy; awful lazy, always readin' and talkin'; tellin' stories and makin' people laugh, with his own mind as blue as my indigo-bag behind it all. That is just what he is, elder, and he'll never amount to anythin' in this world or any other. It's all just as I told ye it would be. There, now, elder, that's as true as preachin', and the plain facts of the case. You wait and see. Time tells the truth."

"His opportunity is yet to come; and when it does, he will have the heart and mind to fill it," said Jasper. "A soul that is true to what is best in life, becomes a power among men at last—it is spiritual gravitation. 'Tis current leads the river. You do not see."

"No, I do not understand any such things as those; but when you've been over to see the Linkens, you come back here, and I'll make ye some more doughnuts. Come back, won't ye, and bring yer Indian boy? I'm a plain woman, and live all alone, and I do love to hear ye talk. It gives me somethin' to think about after ye're gone; and there ain't many preachers that visit these parts."

Jasper moved on under the great trees, and came to the simple Lincoln cabin.

"You have come back, elder," said Thomas Lincoln. "Travelin' with your Indian boy? I'm glad to see you, though we are very poor now. We're goin' to move away—we and some other families. We're all off to Illinois. You've traveled over that kentry, preacher?"

"Yes, I've been there."

"Well, what do you think of the kentry?"

"It is a wonderful country, Mr. Lincoln. It can produce grain enough to feed the world. The earth grows gold. It will some day uplift cities—it will be rich and happy. I like the prairie country well."

"There! let me tell my wife.—Mother, here's the preacher. What do you think he says about the prairie kentry? Says the earth grows gold."

Poor Mrs. Lincoln looked sad and doubtful. She had heard such things before. But she welcomed Jasper heartily, and the three, with Waubeno, sat down to a meal of plain Indian pudding and milk, and talked of the sorrowful winter that had passed and the prospects of a better life amid the flowery prairies of Illinois.

A little dog played around them while they were thus eating and talking.

"It is not our dog," said Mrs. Lincoln, "but he has taken a great liking to Abraham. The boy is away now, but he will be back by sundown. The dog belongs to one of the family, and is always restless when Abraham has gone away. Abraham wants to take him along with us, but it seems to me that we've got enough mouths to feed without him. We are all so poor! and I don't see what good he would do. But if Abraham says so, he will have to go."

"How is Abraham?" asked Jasper.

"Oh, he is well, and as good to me as ever, and he studies hard, just as he used to do."

"And is as lazy as ever," said Thomas Lincoln. "At the lazy folks' fair he'd take the premium."

"You shouldn't say that," said Mrs. Lincoln. "Just think how good he was to everybody during the sickness! He never thought of himself, but just worked night and day. His own mother died of the same sickness years ago, and he's had a feelin' heart for the sufferers in this calamity. I tell you, elder, that he's good to everybody, and if he does not take hold to work in the way that father does, his head and heart are never idle. I am sorry that he and father do not see more alike. The boy is goin' to do well in the world. He begins right."

When Abraham returned, there was one heart that was indeed glad to see him. It was the little dog. The animal bounded heels over head as soon as he heard the boy's step, and almost leaped upon his tall shoulder as he met him.

"Humph!" said Mr. Lincoln.

"Animals know who are good to them," said Mrs. Lincoln. "Abraham, here is the preacher."

How tall, and dark, and droll, and yet how sad, the boy looked! He was full grown now, uncouth and ungainly. Who but Jasper would have seen behind the features of that young, sinewy backwoodsman the soul of the leader and liberator?

It was a busy time with the Lincolns. Their goods were loaded upon a rude and very heavy ox-wagon, and the oxen were given into the charge of young Abraham to drive.

The young man's voice might have been heard a mile as he swung his whip and called out to the oxen on starting. They passed by the grave under the great trees where his poor mother's body lay and left it there, never to be visited again. There were some thirteen persons in the emigrant party.

Emigrant wagons were passing toward Illinois, the "prairie country," as it was called, over all the roads of Indiana. The "schooners," as these wagons were called, were everywhere to be seen on the great prairie sea. It was the time of the great emigration. Jasper had never dreamed of a life like this before. He looked into one prairie wagon, whose young driver had gone for water. He turned to Waubeno, and said:

"What do you think I saw?"

"Guns to destroy the Indians; trinkets and trifles to cheat us out of our lands; whisky for tent-making."

"No, Waubeno. There was an old grandmother there, a sick woman, and a little coffin. This is a sad world sometimes. I pity everybody, and I would that all men were brothers. Go, look into the wagon, Waubeno."

The Indian went, and soon returned.

"Do you pity them, Waubeno?"

"Yes; but—"

"What, Waubeno?"

"I pity the Indian mother too. Your people drove her from her corn-fields at Rock Island, and she left the graves of her children behind her."

There was a shadow of sadness in the hearts of the Lincoln family as they turned away forever from the grave of Nancy Lincoln under the trees. The poor woman who rested there in the spot soon to be obliterated, little thought on her dying bed that the little boy she was leaving to poverty and adventure would be one day ranked with great men of the ages—with Servius Tullius, Pericles, Cincinnatus, Cromwell, Hampden, Washington, and Bolivar; that he would sit in the seat of a long line of illustrious Presidents, call a million men to arms, or that his rude family features would find a place among the grand statues of every liberated country on earth.

Poor Nancy Hanks! Every one who knew her had felt the warmth of her kindness and marked her sadness. She was an intellectual woman, was deeply religious, and is believed to have been a very emotional character in the old Methodist camp-meetings. Her family, the Hankses, were among the best singers and loudest shouters at the camp-meetings, and she was in sympathy with them.

Her heart lived on in Abraham. When she fell sick of the epidemic fever, Abraham, then a boy of ten years of age, waited upon her and nursed her. There was no doctor within twenty-five miles. She was so slender, and had been so ill-sustained that the fever-fires did their work in a week. Finding her end near, she called Abraham and his little sister to her, and said:

"Be good to one another."

Her face looked into Abraham's for the last time.

"Live," she said, "as I have taught you. Love your kindred, and worship God."

She faded away, and her husband made her coffin with a whip-saw out of green wood, and on a changing October day they laid her away under the trees. They were leaving her grave now, the humblest of all places then, but a shrine to-day, for her son's character has glorified it.

He must have always remembered the hymns that she used to sing. Some of them were curious compositions. In the better class of them were; "Am I a soldier of the cross," "Alas! and did my Saviour bleed," and "How tedious and tasteless the hour." The camp-meeting melodies were simple, mere movements, like the negro songs.

Abraham swung his whip lustily over the oxen's heads on that long spring journey, and directed the way. The wheels of the cart were great rollers, and they creaked along. Here and there the roads were muddy, but the sky was blue above, and the buds were swelling, and the birds were singing, and the little dog that belonged to the party kept close to his heels, and the poor people journeyed on under the giant timber, and out of it at times along the ocean-like prairies of the Illinois. The world was before them—an expanse of forest and prairie that in fifty years were to be changed by the axe and plowshare into prosperous farms and homesteads, and settled by the restless nations of the world.

The journey was long. There were spells of wintry weather, for the spring advanced by degrees even here. Streams overflowing their banks lay across their way, and these had to be forded.

One morning the party came to a stream covered with thin ice. The oxen and horses hesitated, but were forced into the cold water. After a dreary effort the hardy pilgrims passed over and mounted the western bank. A sharp cry was heard on the opposite side.

"You have left the dog, Abe," said one. "Good riddance to him! I am glad that we are quit of him at last."

The dog's pitiable cry rang out on the crisp, cool air. He was barking to Abraham, and the teamster's heart recognized that the animal's call was to him.

"See him run, and howl!" said another. "Whip up, Abe, and we will soon be out of sight."

Young Lincoln looked behind. The little animal would go down to the water, and try to swim across, but the broken ice drove him back. Then he set up a cry, as much as to say:

"Abe, Abe, you will not leave me!"

"Drive on," said one of the men. "He'll take care of himself. He'd no business to lag behind. What do we want of the dog, anyway?"

The animal cried more and more piteously and lustily.

"Whoa!" said Lincoln.

"What are you going to do, Abe?"

"To do as I would be done by. I can't stand that."

Lincoln plunged into the frozen water and waded across. The dog, overjoyed, leaped into his arms. Lincoln returned, having borne the little dog in his arms across the stream. He was cold and dripping, and was censured for causing a needless delay. But he had a happy face and heart.