LINCOLN 
 
 AND 
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE 
 
 An Idyllic Epos of the Early North-West. 
 SOUVENIR 
 
 of Abraham Lincoln's Birth-Day, 1912 
 
 BY 
 DENTON J. SNIDER 
 
 ST. LOUIS 
 
 SIGMA PUBLISHING CO. 
 210 PINE ST.
 
 4-5 7. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 BOOK FIRST. 
 
 New Salem 5 
 
 BOOK SECOND. 
 
 Doctor and Squire 14 
 
 BOOK THIRD. 
 
 Wainwright and Blacksmith .... 38 
 
 BOOK FOURTH. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 61 
 
 BOOK FIFTH. 
 
 Ann Rutledge 82 
 
 BOOK SIXTH. 
 
 The People 103 
 
 (3)
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 BOOK SEVENTH. 
 
 Lincoln and Ann Rutledge . s . . 130 
 
 BOOK EIGHTH. 
 
 Vandalia . . f . . . . .' ~. . 152 
 
 BOOK NINTH. 
 
 The Letters . . . Z > T 4 ^ . 176 
 
 BOOK TENTH. 
 
 Back from the Capital ....... 195 
 
 BOOK ELEVENTH. 
 
 Under the Mulberry 222 
 
 BOOK TWELFTH. 
 
 The Double Debate ....... 239 
 
 BOOK THIRTEENTH, 
 
 The Passing of Ann Rutledge ... 282 
 
 BOOK FOURTEENTH. 
 
 The New Life 299 
 
 BOOK FIFTEENTH. 
 
 The New Migration 308 
 
 BOOK SIXTEENTH. 
 
 Resurgam . . . , ? . , .... 320 
 
 Historic Intimations 336 
 
 (4)
 
 Lincoln and Ann Rutledge, 
 
 I0oh Jfirat. 
 
 New Salem. 
 
 List to the clang of the bell with its clamorous 
 trills from the belfry, 
 
 Rollicking round the little red schoolhouse 
 perched on the hillock, 
 
 Calling together the town to the resonant 
 clack of its clapper, 
 
 Tinkling far over the valley its silvery un- 
 dulations, 
 
 Till it drops to a warble in tune with the 
 Sangamon's ripple, 
 
 And in a whisper of music it dies on the dis- 
 tant prairie. 
 
 (5)
 
 6 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK I. 
 
 Hark ! how it breathes its last breath in melo- 
 dious carols concentric, 
 
 Weaving with wavelets of sound the tremu- 
 lous heart of the hearer, 
 
 Who in harmonious throbs for a moment 
 floats over the border 
 
 Till he is rapt to the rhythm of spheres in 
 chorus majestic, 
 
 Feeling afar the cosmical echo of ancient 
 creation, 
 
 When the sun and the moon and the stars 
 were singing together. 
 
 Now the tongue of the bell has lisped its mel- 
 lifluous message, 
 
 And has enwreathed in its tenderest rounds 
 the listening farm-house 
 
 To the first milestone from town at the pray- 
 erful calm of the noon- tide ; 
 
 Even the ox of the field knows it well, and 
 looks up from his grazing, 
 
 While the dog in response will utter a howl 
 from the barnyard, 
 
 And the big chanticleer will perch on the top 
 of his dunghill, 
 
 Strutting amid his polygamous household and 
 crowing defiance.
 
 NEW SALEM. 7 
 
 Meantime the farmer Has quitted his labor of 
 cradling the harvest, 
 
 And the raking and sheaving and shocking 
 the sheaves of the grainfield; 
 
 Soon he has saddled old sorrel and starts on 
 a jog to the village 
 
 Where he will meet all his neighbors and lis- 
 ten to Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Telling the manful task of the time in drollery 
 storied, 
 
 How the migration of peoples has swept from 
 the East to the Westland, 
 
 Bringing the dawn of a world which is new 
 in the line of the ages, 
 
 Piloting over the prairies the passage of civ- 
 ilisation. 
 
 Gathered already in arguing groups are the 
 chiefs of the township, 
 
 Through their talk oft buzzes the name of 
 President Jackson, 
 
 Now the well-head of words for every tongue 
 in the Nation, 
 
 Who had the power of doing the deed attuned 
 to the folk-soul, 
 
 Also of writing his name on the land in lum- 
 inous letters, 
 
 Which would always relume in the flame of 
 party discussion.
 
 g LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK I. 
 
 Stout Ebenezer, the Squire, well rounded in 
 
 brain and in body, 
 Eight decider of lawsuits, the voice of the 
 
 village's justice, 
 Strides up the knoll to the well-sweep and 
 
 dips out a drink of fresh water, 
 With the new gourd which hung at the well 
 
 in front of the schoolhouse. 
 Worthy ambition was his : to be the commun- 
 ity* s builder, 
 And overseer self-appointed in charge of the 
 
 general welfare; 
 With him are talking in shirt sleeves two 
 
 workmen of handicraft clever, 
 Gray-haired William the wainwright, and 
 
 big-thewed Peter the blacksmith, 
 Both of them integral men of the town's best 
 
 communal spirit. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto was present, snapping satir- 
 ical flashes 
 
 Openly at the whole world which slyly includ- 
 ed himself, too, 
 
 Chiefly, however, at Lincoln he fired his bat- 
 tery scornful. 
 
 He was the one only man in the town who 
 had studied at college, 
 
 Crumbs of his lore he strewed in his talk, for 
 instance, the names of the muscles.
 
 NEW SALEM. 9 
 
 Grave James Butledge failed not, erst the 
 community 's founder, 
 
 Aged but lofty in mien and retaining his chi- 
 valrous manner, 
 
 Father of blooming Ann, the rarest rose of 
 the village ; 
 
 And she also had come to see and to hear 
 with her parent 
 
 Just this orator Lincoln, whose words had a 
 heart in their cadence, 
 
 While his tenderest tones would tremble in 
 tune with her glances. 
 
 Soon the tillers had flocked from their toil 
 
 on each side of the country, 
 Blent with their spirit and speech still lay 
 
 the great fight with the Indian, 
 And their perils upon the frontier when the] 
 
 land was first settled, 
 "When the savage 's tomahawk spared not even 
 
 the suckling. 
 Every man in the crowd had his valorous 
 
 venture to tell of, 
 How he waylaid and slew in his trap the 
 
 treacherous red-skin, 
 Or had driven him headlong over the wroth 
 
 Mississippi. 
 Living and throbbing in rage still rose the 
 
 strife of the races,
 
 10 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK I. 
 
 Which enkindled the border in furious blazes 
 of warfare 
 
 For the lands of the Northwest, aye for the 
 continent total. 
 
 And that struggle each borderer bore in his 
 bosom down deepest, 
 
 Long in a line transmitted from father and 
 grandfather also, 
 
 E'en from the grandfather's father descend- 
 ed the heritage hostile, 
 
 Bringing the ancestor's feud from the shore 
 of the distant Atlantic.' 
 
 So the people assembled, still wrought up with 
 
 memories warlike, 
 And they had their own hero now present, 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, 
 Who had fought against Black Hawk, the 
 
 reddest of all the red devils, 
 Who had headed the volunteers valiant of 
 
 Sangamon County 
 Up to the foe 's front line, but never got sight 
 
 of an Indian. 
 Him all the people had chosen as Captain in 
 
 stress of their struggle, 
 Thrice he enlisted to fight and stayed till the 
 
 danger was over.
 
 NEW SALEM. H 
 
 True pioneer, he was stamped with the traits 
 
 of his fathers before him, 
 Who had faced the frontier of their country 
 
 for five generations, 
 Ever in movement along with the stride of 
 
 their race to the westward. 
 Abraham Lincoln 's grandfather also was Ab- 
 raham Lincoln, 
 Who had been slain by an Indian's bullet 
 
 shot from an ambush ; 
 Still that bullet would throb at times in the 
 
 brain of the grandson, 
 Making him feel the vengeance of race e'en 
 
 when he resisted, 
 For the two sides, to avenge and forgive, 
 
 lurked deep in his nature. 
 All the folk were flocking around him, whose 
 
 soul he well represented, 
 Getting ready to vote for themselves in vot- 
 ing for Lincoln, 
 For he had lived just their life, and gone 
 
 through their fiery trial. 
 Soldiers were there who bragged of the deeds 
 
 of their valorous captain, 
 And repeated the stories he told in the lull 
 
 of the campaign ; 
 Thus were tripping the tongues of a hundred 
 
 that day in New Salem, 
 All were electioneering and fighting anew 
 
 the old battles.
 
 12 LINCOLN AND 'ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 Look ! a character weaves of a sudden around 
 
 through the masses, 
 That was Jack Kelso, good fellow general, 
 
 yet good for nothing, 
 Never once missing his chance at a verse or 
 
 his turn at the bottle, 
 Long since known to the town as its poet, 
 
 and laureled its rhymesmith, 
 Needful vocation as well as that of the doc- 
 tor or blacksmith, 
 Though he must work for nothing and add his 
 
 own board to the bargain, 
 Poesy being its own sweet reward on the San- 
 
 gamon sluggish. 
 
 But forget not the man, the living conduit of 
 
 knowledge 
 For the young and the old of the village, the 
 
 schoolmaster Graham; 
 To whose name the true title had slid down 
 
 the ages from Homer 
 Mentor of yore, the appearance divine of the 
 
 Goddess of Wisdom. 
 To the youth who was longing to learn of the 
 
 deeds of the fathers. 
 Mentor Graham, the master, all named him 
 
 by right of his office, 
 Frontier pedagogue, bearing the torch of the 
 
 past to the future
 
 XEW SALEM. 13 
 
 Eight on the line of division between them, 
 
 the zone of their mingling; 
 Charactered was he in word and in deed by 
 
 his life on the border, 
 "With a gleam of prophecy in him, which 
 
 shone resurrection, 
 Nor were wanting some far-back flashes of 
 
 sage superstition, 
 Which believed still the fact of the Fates and 
 
 retributive Furies. 
 Though he knew no Greek, some scraps he 
 
 had picked up of Latin 
 From an old grammar he learned once by 
 
 heart, and from an old law book ; 
 But as he sauntered one day deep -sorrowed 
 
 around in a graveyard, 
 From a tombstone he took and treasured the 
 
 word most real of his soul's faith 
 That was the word he chose for the motto in- 
 scribed on the school-bell 
 When it rose perched on the belfry to riyg 
 
 overhead to the town-folk 
 Hoary device with letters antique in the old 
 
 Eoman language, 
 Word invoking a weird meditation in all who 
 
 might see it, 
 
 Mystical name of a world that seems going 
 yet coming EESUEGAM.
 
 100k 
 
 Doctor and Squire. 
 
 1 ' What is the matter I This town has already 
 
 slowed up to a standstill; 
 Climbing its hill-side it stops why, even it 
 
 starts to go backward 
 Sick is the place, I say, with a mortal malady 
 
 dying." 
 
 Wroth was the mood of the Doctor, whisking 
 
 his tongue like a skalpel, 
 Loving with words to draw blood on the 
 
 world, as if lancing a patient- 
 Doctor Palmetto, lettered leech of the San- 
 
 gamon Valley, 
 Quick to spy the disease and delighting to 
 
 dwell on the symptoms, 
 
 (14)
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 15 
 
 Be the seat of disorder in man or the State 
 
 or the Nation. 
 But just now he was feeling the pulse of ailing 
 
 New Salem, 
 Little town of the border, once eager to be 
 
 the great city, 
 Dreaming to rival old Borne in its swell of 
 
 an empire's ambition, 
 But with a droop in its hope now unable to 
 
 take a step further ; 
 
 Still the Doctor's fast breath kept winnow- 
 ing words like a wind-mill, 
 Which could never be stayed till the whiz of 
 
 its wheel was expended; 
 Thus he pumped up the past in speeches of 
 
 sore reminiscence : 
 
 " Three years ago I reached here what a 
 
 life on this hill- top ! 
 Hous.es sprang up over night, the mechanic 
 
 and merchant 
 Hurried hitherward after the throng of the 
 
 onstreaming people; 
 In the wake of their wains which sailed one 
 
 after the other 
 Over the prairie's green ocean, I floated 
 
 prospecting my future, 
 Which uplifted itself a colossus just where 
 
 I stand now,
 
 16 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK It. 
 
 Bidding me halt on this spot and tie down 
 
 my fate to this hillock. 
 That was soon after I quitted with honors 
 
 my Medical College, 
 .With a diploma which scoffing me looks from 
 
 its frame in my office; 
 Maledict be the day I strode up yon slope to 
 
 your village ! ' ' 
 
 Swiftly the storm-stressed Doctor, through 
 the tense strain of his feeling, 
 
 Gave a spank with the flat of his hand to the 
 innocent pine-box 
 
 "Which he sat on to argue in front of the store 
 with the town-folk. 
 
 Yet he told not all he kept hidden the point 
 of his story, 
 
 Deftly enwreathing it round with excuses and 
 far-fancied reasons 
 
 "Why he suddenly stopped one day at New 
 Salem and hung out his shingle. 
 
 Business he won and its prize and still he 
 proclaimed himself loser ; 
 
 Everybody suspected the cause, though keep- 
 ing it ,silent, 
 
 Lest if, but breathed, it might swell up the 
 wind to a prairial cyclone.
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 17 
 
 To him stood talking the Squire of the town, 
 Ebenezer, well-rounded 
 
 "With five decades of dinners of hominy, corn- 
 pone, and turkey. 
 
 Days of youth he had seen in Kentucky, that 
 lucky Kentucky 
 
 Eloquent ever through lips of her men and 
 looks of her women. 
 
 Now he was judge of the township, the even 
 dispenser of justice 
 
 Unto the people, who never disputed his law 
 or his judgment. 
 
 Weighing his words in the scales of his of- 
 fice, the Squire responded: 
 
 "Nay, I cannot agree with you there, if you 
 
 please, my good Doctor ; 
 You have given one side of the case, you being 
 
 the plaintiff. 
 Hear now the other which Justice demands 
 
 should not be forgotten, 
 Let me, though I be judge, state the side of 
 
 the voiceless defendant." 
 But the Doctor could hardly be stayed in his 
 
 argument's flood-tide, 
 He uprose from the store-box and stressed 
 
 his speech with his gestures :
 
 18 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 ".Well I remember the day I arrived the 
 town and the country 
 
 Had assembled and perched on the bluff 
 overlooking the river; 
 
 Up the full channel came puffing in labor tri- 
 umphant a steamboat 
 
 Named the Talisman, which in the folds of 
 its vaporous magic 
 
 Played before every eye on the hilltop the 
 phantom colossal 
 
 Of a great city here destined to rise on this 
 river. 
 
 Lofty a Capitol grew in the clouds with its 
 dome and its columns, 
 
 First embracing the town and the county 
 within its small circuit, 
 
 Which kept widening, widening, till the whole 
 State it had rounded, 
 
 Then beyond and beyond, when at last it en- 
 circled the Nation, 
 
 While the Sangamon swelled to the roar of 
 the huge Mississippi, 
 
 Bearing aloft on its bosom a spectral fleet 
 to the Ocean. 
 
 Such was that Talisman, Father of Lies, in 
 
 the form of a steamboat, 
 Foaming up stream and dancing delusion be- 
 fore all the people. 
 
 Lincoln was pilot, plying its paddle against 
 the high waters,
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 19 
 
 Him too magnified bravely that magical Tal- 
 isman's witch-work 
 
 Throwing his shadow up to the Capitol build- 
 ed in cloudland, 
 
 Till he rose to be pilot supreme of the storm- 
 girt welkin, 
 
 High overarching us all to the bound of the 
 farthest horizon. 
 
 That was a specter at which the whole peo- 
 ple ran mad with delusion, 
 
 Riotous fantasy suddenly routed and captived 
 man's reason, 
 
 And some still feel the spell of that ghost 
 in our sinking New Salem." 
 
 Then the Doctor would snort a contemptuous 
 sniff through the nostrils, 
 
 Jealous, twice jealous he was of the tall 
 young man of the people, 
 
 For between them rivalry rose for the vil- 
 lage's honors 
 
 All of which focused to fire in the glance of 
 a beautiful maiden. 
 
 Forceful shot the retort of the Squire, the 
 
 just Ebenezer, 
 Passionate friend of the townsmen's hero, 
 
 Abraham Lincoln:
 
 20 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 "Aye, that pilot we soon are intending to 
 start for Vandalia 
 
 Capital now of the State, and yet but a step 
 in the ascent 
 
 That he may rise with the years to the stat- 
 ure which we have dreamed him. 
 
 Candidate he has been named for making the 
 laws of the people ; 
 
 Soon the election comes off and you must 
 vote for him, Doctor." 
 
 But disdain gave a twitch to the lips of Doc- 
 tor Palmetto, 
 
 Aristocratic disdain for Lincoln, the popular 
 fabler, 
 
 Who already was famed for his art in spin- 
 ning a story, 
 
 And for the wit of his ways in winning the 
 love of the people. 
 
 But another's love he had won, and that was 
 the trouble 
 
 That was the point of the poison which stung 
 in the soul of the Doctor. 
 
 Still he continued his travail of chewing the 
 cud of his wormwood, 
 
 In his own pain he somehow could take a 
 malevolent pleasure, 
 
 Willing to show all his torture of heart by 
 jealousy's demon,
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 21 
 
 Making himself unhappy today by memories 
 bitter. 
 
 So he spoke up again, while circling the glo- 
 bular Squire there 
 
 On the pine-box reclining at peace with him- 
 self and the world, too: 
 
 " Never since then has a steamboat been seen 
 here never ! 
 
 Rapidly that one had to retreat when the wa- 
 ters receded. 
 
 With it has vanished the air-built Capitol 
 lofty of cloudland, 
 
 Which then seemed on the point of dropping 
 to earth at New Salem. 
 
 Do you know the sight of that boat was my 
 future undoing? 
 
 'Twas the illusion which charmed me to stay 
 in this dolorous village." 
 
 Here he took off his hat and thrust it, re- 
 peating his statement, 
 
 Down on the pine-box till it was broken to 
 creases not to be smoothed out, 
 
 While the face of the Squire had put on a 
 quizzical silence, 
 
 As if secretly doubting, in spite of the em- 
 phasis double,
 
 22 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 For Ebenezer often had heard of a contrary 
 story. 
 
 Then replacing his hat, the upstrung Doc- 
 tor continued: 
 
 ' ' I had just come from a bit of a town by the 
 Michigan lakeside, 
 
 Eager to win the topmost prize in life's lot- 
 tery regnant, 
 
 And I chose for my fate New Salem instead 
 of Chicago!'* 
 
 Whereat he toned down his nerves in a taci- 
 turn stride round the store-box, 
 
 For there throbbed in his heart the true mo- 
 tive for his selection, 
 
 Which he would never let out, although it 
 were couched on his tongue-tip. 
 
 Soon he returned to his words, still ensconc- 
 ing his thoughts in his bosom : 
 
 "Both towns then were the same in size with 
 
 similar outlook, 
 But see their difference now in grappling 
 
 scythed Time by the forelock, 
 And in outspeeding the slash of his weapon, 
 
 the doom of the mortal ! 
 But that Talisman lured me to choosing the 
 
 dwarf instead of the giant,
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 23 
 
 Dazzling my fantasy into a cataract golden of 
 
 fortune 
 Which fell pouring its treasure out of the 
 
 future down on my pathway. 
 Hope herself I dreamed I saw perched on 
 
 the top of this hillock, 
 Giving me many a courteous smile as if she 
 
 would woo me : 
 But the prize of my life I have lost, e'en if 
 
 I go elsewhere, 
 Never I can it recover that upspring of 
 
 heart I once felt here." 
 
 So the Doctor complained, diagnosing the 
 
 case of New Salem, 
 Fallen out with himself and the world, he 
 
 told his own ailment, 
 All the pain of his town and his time in tone 
 
 he reflected, 
 While a personal tinge would color each word 
 
 of his censure, 
 And underneath disappointment outspoken 
 
 lay something unspoken; 
 Blaming the Talisman blameless, he only 
 
 could blame what himself was. 
 From the hot-blooded South he had come 
 
 where thrives the Palmetto 
 Stamping itself on the State of his birth as 
 
 a seal with its symbol;
 
 24 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 Bitterly he was the hater of President An- 
 drew Jackson, 
 
 In the Jacksonian town of good democratic 
 New Salem, 
 
 Valiant, vociferous hater,.armed to the teeth 
 for a word-war, 
 
 Hence the citizens laughingly labeled him 
 Doctor Palmetto, 
 
 Loyal son of the State defying Old Hickory's 
 power. 
 
 Won all the lore of his medical calling, his 
 way he turned westward, 
 
 Flinging his future into the flow of the peo- 
 ple's migration 
 
 To the wide "West in the North, where dawned 
 the new Nation. 
 
 He was the one only man in the township who 
 could read Latin, 
 
 Which in odd bits of old Virgil he pompously 
 mouthed to the rustics, 
 
 Oft in response to Jack Kelso, the town's 
 Shakespearean spouter, 
 
 When he declaimed to the crowd at the cor- 
 ner the bad dream of Gloster. 
 
 But again the just Squire made ready to an- 
 swer the Doctor, 
 
 Balancing nicely the right on the edge of his 
 tongiie as a knife-blade,
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 25 
 
 Telling him not to impute his own fault to 
 
 the fault of the village, 
 And to see in himself the malady which he 
 
 complained of. 
 
 But the Doctor upsprang as soon as the sen- 
 tence was spoken, 
 Cutting the air with forefinger pointed in 
 
 throes of excitement, 
 Quite foreclosing the lips of the Squire with 
 
 passionate outburst, 
 For he felt Ebenezer's sly thrust to the seat 
 
 of his temper. 
 Thus at his country he hurled in a breath 
 
 his thunderbolt final : 
 
 "I believe not only this town is going to 
 
 pieces, 
 Aye this Nation is breaking up into the units 
 
 that made it, 
 Those original States first joined will dissolve 
 
 next this Union." 
 
 Such was his thrust at the Squire who had 
 pricked down into his heart's sore, 
 
 Which, unconfessed, turned all of his words 
 to a poignant confession. 
 
 So with his woes he flooded the world from 
 his perch at New Salem,
 
 26 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 Spreading them over the land to the White- 
 house in Washington City, 
 
 Reading himself disappointed into the fate 
 of his country. 
 
 Scarce outspoken had been the vibrant tones 
 of the Doctor, 
 
 When a neighboring farmer drove up to the 
 store with his wagon, 
 
 Catching on time the last fleet words of the 
 passionate speaker. 
 
 One of the wheels was untired and broken, 
 another was shaky ; 
 
 While the old wain-bed crazily lopped and the 
 harness was cranky. 
 
 Excellent man was this farmer, yet bearing 
 the stamp of the border, 
 
 Born pioneer and bred, and so were his fath- 
 ers before him. 
 
 Long they had stood on the line dividing the 
 red and the white man; 
 
 Where that line would advance, the True- 
 bloods also advanced there, 
 
 Taking unbidden their place to the fore of 
 the marching frontiersmen. 
 
 Uncle George he was called, in full George 
 Washington Trueblood. 
 
 Telling his little misfortune, he snapped the 
 thread of discussion :
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 27 
 
 "I was bringing to town some truck, some 
 
 potatoes and pumpkins, 
 Suddenly down went my wagon, and tossed 
 
 me into a puddle, 
 Now I am rolling around on three wheels, and 
 
 instead of the fourth one 
 See this pole of a hickory sapling which holds 
 
 up the axle. 
 It was Lincoln who came to me helping me 
 
 out of my trouble ; 
 Somehow the tire quit the wheel, refusing to 
 
 bind it together, 
 One of the feloes slipped off from the spokes 
 
 and left a big gap there, 
 So that no rim ran round to fasten the rest 
 
 of the feloes ; 
 Then I picked up the pieces and brought them 
 
 along in my wain-bed. 
 But that Lincoln I like whose knack is to come 
 
 at the right time, 
 Helpful he sprang to my aid from under the 
 
 mulberry shade-tree 
 
 Where on his bench he was sitting and talk- 
 ing to lovely Ann Rutledge, 
 Who then shot down the path to the Lady 
 
 Eulalia Lovelace. 
 Soon my load of eatable truck we piled by 
 
 the roadside, 
 Hiding it under a cover of leaves and of 
 
 brambles we gathered;
 
 28 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 It I hope still to market to you, if the hogs 
 do not get it. 
 
 But this wagon I have to restore to a run- 
 ning condition, 
 
 And I now scheme to make stronger than 
 ever my wheel from its fragments. ' ' 
 
 So the brave man would mend each rent in 
 
 the garment of living, 
 And at the same time thriftily show the mind 
 
 of the farmer. 
 
 See the Doctor turn cloudy with streaks of 
 
 rubicund lightning 
 
 Flashing over his face at the praises of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. 
 Deeper still stirred him the news of that 
 
 couple conversing together 
 Under the mulberry tree, the resort of the 
 
 village's lovers. 
 But he kept his hot heartburn unworded in 
 
 spite of its torture, 
 Though a venomous sarcasm coiled on his 
 
 lips for a moment, 
 Still he suppressed it in pride and feelingly 
 
 spoke to the farmer:
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 29 
 
 "Bad is your luck today in this turn of the 
 
 wheel, Uncle Georgie, 
 "Wheel of misfortune is yours and the world's 
 
 and ever keeps whirling 
 But it is common common to you and to 
 
 me and to all of us present," 
 Sighed sympathetic the Doctor for others, 
 
 yet for himself, too; 
 
 " Also my cart the truth I confess you has 
 gone all to pieces, 
 
 And to the town itself has been lost not only 
 its tire-ring 
 
 But the hub and the spoke and the feloe of 
 wood are now floating 
 
 Floating, methinks, each part by itself down 
 the Sangamon's stream-bed 
 
 Into the mad Mississippi away to the limit- 
 less Ocean 
 
 Aye, much else around me I see that is going 
 to pieces/' 
 
 But right then the firm voice of the judge, 
 just Squire Ebenezer, 
 
 Who was calmly surveying the injured mem- 
 ber before him 
 
 Could be heard with gravity's mien deliver- 
 ing judgment:
 
 30 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK 11. 
 
 " Easily all these parts can again be made 
 
 whole and yet better 
 By the wainwright William just yonder, with 
 
 help of his blacksmith ; 
 Doctors they are of sick wheels, even able to 
 
 doctor the Doctor." 
 
 But George Washington Trueblood well 
 
 worthy his name and his namesake 
 Pondered not only his wagon, but also he 
 
 thought of his country ; 
 For as he came he caught the bodeful retort 
 
 of Palmetto, 
 Patriotic he answered the sneer of the cynical 
 
 critic : 
 
 "Do you know, as I trundled along, I thought 
 
 of our Nation 
 Holding together the States like a wheel by 
 
 the tire of the Union, 
 And I remembered your State which struck 
 
 at the bond that has bound us ; 
 Some years ago that was, but still is working 
 
 the ferment. ' ' 
 
 Fiery flushed the Doctor, his sensitive spot 
 had been tingled
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. ^ 
 
 By the sudden sharp prick of a tongue like 
 the point of a needle, 
 
 For he was born underneath the shade of the 
 fan-leafed Palmetto, 
 
 And its image seemed still to be blooming 
 within his hot bosom 
 
 As if planted amid the warm fens of the Caro- 
 line sea-coast. 
 
 But Ebenezer the Squire, bright bringer of 
 
 peace and of justice, 
 Saw wrath rising between the two speakers, 
 
 the Northern and Southern, 
 And foreboding a war already between the 
 
 two sections, 
 Sprang right into the middle with words of 
 
 mild mediation, 
 Yet the strong lines of his visage gave them 
 
 the force of a judgment : 
 
 "Come now, let us go down to the shop of 
 
 William the wainwright 
 Who can adjust so nicely the hub and the 
 
 spoke and the feloe, 
 That they all turn together as one whenever 
 
 the wheel whirls. 
 There we shall watch too the tire fresh-forged 
 
 and new-banded of iron
 
 32 
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 Iron which grapples the rotating members 
 
 in grip adamantine, 
 Bringing obedience unto the law like the roll 
 
 of the planets. 
 Lincoln I think will be there, the big sledge 
 
 he oft wields for the blacksmith, 
 Circling his ponderous stroke on the anvil 
 
 with swing of his arm's length, 
 As did once the old Titan, whose fable I read 
 
 in my Plutarch. 
 Possibly too a speech he will make us, and 
 
 tell a new story, 
 Or a romance he may spin of adventure in 
 
 war against Black Hawk- 
 Candidate popular soon to be sent to the next 
 
 Legislature." 
 
 But the Doctor failed not to spray out some 
 
 jets of his gall-tongue, 
 Antipathetic he was to the people 's own hero, 
 
 tall Lincoln, 
 Who overtowered him far in stature as well 
 
 as in temper, 
 Smaller the talent he owned, although his 
 
 learning was greater. 
 Rumor too whispered around in the village 
 
 that he was jealous, 
 And was looking at men and the world 
 
 through love disappointed.
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 33 
 
 * ' Only two days ago I was called to prescribe 
 for James Butledge," 
 
 So the Doctor began, intoning his utterance 
 blandly, 
 
 "Who had been shaking with chills of bene- 
 ficent Sangamon's ague; 
 
 There I noticed fair Ann, his daughter, the 
 village 's flower, 
 
 But not so blooming as when I beheld her 
 the day I arrived here, 
 
 Nor so buoyant as when she engirdled the 
 sword around Lincoln, 
 
 Loftiest, lankest Captain of words in the war 
 against Black Hawk. 
 
 Absent-minded she seemed, with warring 
 lines in her visage, 
 
 Spare of her eyes and stinted of smiles was 
 the mien of the maiden, 
 
 She who once was so lively and lovely in cour- 
 teous presence. 
 
 It is said her betrothed, for a year now gone 
 on a journey, 
 
 Never has written her where he may be or 
 what he is doing. ' ' 
 
 Then the Doctor uprose from the pine-box 
 and peered through the doorway : 
 
 "Look at this store paralytic, once leaping 
 with life in its business, 
 
 Store of Abner the absent, 'tis sick of con- 
 sumptive New Salem;
 
 34 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK 11. 
 
 Many declare he has quit, forgetful of prom- 
 ise, or jealous, 
 
 It is added that she has been shining her 
 favor on Lincoln 
 
 From the moment she clasped to his waist 
 that sword-belt ancestral 
 
 He too with many an artful device is thrum- 
 ming her heart-strings ; 
 
 She is not happy, I doubt she be healthy, filled 
 with some soul-strife. 
 
 Introverted was often her look as if in a 
 struggle, 
 
 Watching with sympathy double both sides 
 of herself in a battle. " 
 
 So the shrewd Doctor tongued on in his bent, 
 forecasting diseases, 
 
 Giving a glimpse of himself as he dwelt on 
 the troubles of others, 
 
 Quite unable to quell into silence the fury pro- 
 phetic. 
 
 Then they all looked down to the road of the 
 
 Sangamon bottom, 
 Seeing a line of white-covered wagons one 
 
 after the other, 
 As they threaded the flats and bended the 
 
 bridge of the river.
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 35 
 
 "See yonder," the Doctor broke in, "the 
 
 great stream of migration 
 Surges ahead to the broad Mississippi and 
 
 possibly farther, 
 Turning aside from our place with a scoff, 
 
 not deigning to tarry 
 Where no hope can be seen on the hill-top, 
 
 bidding them hither." 
 
 While the last word of the Doctor was pulsing 
 its tune on the air-waves, 
 
 Suddenly sounded the clang of the bell from 
 the knoll of the school-house, 
 
 In a kind of response, dingdonging the speech 
 of the speaker, 
 
 With a call to each child of the town to pre- 
 pare for the future, 
 
 And to each man of the town to keep himself 
 young with new knowledge. 
 
 When the Squire had heard the last echo 
 whispering silence, 
 
 Breathing its ghost tintinnabular into the 
 sigh of the breezes, 
 
 He peered over the valley afar and reflective- 
 ly added : 
 
 "Think! in their skull-pans uncombed those 
 people are bearing the New World, 
 
 Going forward to some young settlement, then 
 again forward,
 
 36 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK II. 
 
 Ever creating afresh their free institutional 
 order, 
 
 Somehow driven by impulse to girdle the 
 earth with migration 
 
 From the far-off aforetime, bridging the past 
 to the present 
 
 In a long-linked chain made of towns whose 
 soul is their communal freedom. 
 
 Thus I came from Kentucky, my father thus 
 came from Virginia; 
 
 Still I remember the passage over the rough 
 Alleghenies, 
 
 And again I may start" here he stopped the 
 push of his discourse, 
 
 Lest he might seem to relapse to the queru- 
 lous mood of the Doctor. 
 
 Then with a jolly round guffaw to which his 
 abdomen laughed echoes, 
 
 Up he sprang from the store-box, shaking 
 with life's satisfaction, 
 
 As he lipped in good- will strong words which 
 meant a decision: 
 
 " 'Tis enough ! let us haste to the shop of Wil- 
 liam the wainwright 
 
 Who has a turn for splicing what's parted in 
 man or in matter, 
 
 And can feel in each stroke of his work the 
 beat of the world's soul. 
 
 Noble artisan is he, hating disease and divi- 
 sion,
 
 DOCTOR AND SQUIRE. 37 
 
 Be it shown in the wheel of a wagon or mind 
 
 of a mortal." 
 Snapping his words the Doctor muttered an 
 
 answer disdainful: 
 
 "I do not like him at all that mad-eyed me- 
 chanic and dreamer 
 Calling his shop in conceit philosophy's home 
 
 at New Salem ; 
 Leave me alone here nor can I abide the 
 
 demagogue Lincoln, 
 Leader you praise him misleader I damn 
 
 him with all his flattering fables, 
 Tattered clown to the tatterdemalions, their 
 
 sycophant silly."
 
 100k 
 
 Wainwright and Blacksmith. 
 
 Leisurely down the street from the store 
 
 strolled Squire Ebenezer, 
 Quite untuned at hearing his friends 
 
 besmirched by the Doctor 
 Aye his two best friends and the two best 
 
 men of the village 
 So he mused to himself about Lincoln and 
 
 William the wainwright. 
 
 Following close at his side the sun-tanned 
 
 tiller was driving 
 His laborious team whose muscular bodies 
 
 slow- stepping 
 Ever were ready to play out a hearty full 
 
 pull at each mud-hole. 
 
 (38)
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 39 
 
 On the rickety rim of his wayward wagon 
 
 now balanced 
 Farmer George Washington Trueblood 
 
 turned and addressed his companion: 
 "Yes, our Doctor is making his days all 
 
 curdle to clabber 
 From the sweet milk which Time, the old 
 
 cow, lets drip from her udder. 
 On his lips and his looks he dolefully wears 
 
 a sour stomach, 
 Life is a little too much for him here in our 
 
 little New Salem, 
 It were better he should before night set out 
 
 for Chicago. 
 Talent is his, but more highly esteemed by 
 
 himself than by others ; 
 Learning he has too, and shows it, as when 
 
 to us boors he talks Latin, 
 But if I dare diagnose the Doctor himself 
 
 diagnosing, 
 
 In his heart turns acid a droplet of love dis- 
 appointed ; 
 Best of the medicines which he can take is to 
 
 flee to Chicago." 
 
 Slowly weighing his words Ebenezer gave 
 
 his decision: 
 ' Champion fault-finder always the Doctor 
 
 has been he was born so
 
 40 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 Childhood's balsamy breath, methinks, he 
 
 drew discontented, 
 Eeared in the shadow disdainfully cast by 
 
 the haughty Palmetto 
 The dissatisfied tree and blaming the rest of 
 
 the forest. 
 Then his profession is lure to hunt out the 
 
 malady hidden 
 Till he loves the pursuit of disease and loves 
 
 the disease too ; 
 Keen espial of ill turns character, yea his 
 
 religion." 
 
 Thus one side of the case the Squire had 
 
 rightfully set forth, 
 But on the other side also he spoke a fair 
 
 word, as his wont was 
 Since he could not help pleading for plaintiff 
 
 as well as defendant : 
 ''Still I confess the critical speech of the 
 
 Doctor is true too, 
 As the medicine always is bitter, e'en if it 
 
 cure you; 
 No puffing Talisman ever will creep up again 
 
 through the channel 
 Flushed by yon Sangamon streamlet, so 
 
 shrunk is it now to our vision; 
 That fair dream has flitted far-off with the 
 
 treacherous steamboat,
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 41 
 
 And the canal is not going to flow this way 
 by our doorsteps. 
 
 How the great city we saw is downf alien even 
 from cloudland! 
 
 And our air-built Capitol's dome with its col- 
 umns of marble 
 
 Seems to be sportively waltzing away from 
 us on the horizon, 
 
 Circling around northeast as if ready to 
 settle at Springfield, 
 
 While we now have to sweat to keep anchored 
 to earth our few cabins." 
 
 Then the Squire secretively muffled his voice 
 
 for a moment 
 As if unwilling to hear the words he was 
 
 going to utter: 
 "List, I feel in New Salem herself the sly 
 
 throb of an impulse 
 Growing the wings of migration once more 
 
 for a flight to the westward; 
 Still not dead are we yet, though unwell as 
 
 the Doctor declares us 
 Only a Sangamon ague" the Squire was 
 
 suddenly silent, 
 For he heard two strokes of the resonant clap 
 
 of the school-bell 
 Calling the time of the day from its belfry 
 
 to gather the children,
 
 42 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 While his bosom beat loud in response to its 
 
 musical air-waves, 
 Which then echoed his deed in helping the 
 
 folk of the future 
 That they possess their ancestral estate of 
 
 man-building knowledge. 
 But the farmer, mindless of mishap, broke 
 
 out in a rapture, 
 As there fell on his ear the sounds from the 
 
 shop of the wainwright : 
 
 "How all roads of this country are lining 
 
 just into one center! 
 That is the magnet now turning to hope each 
 
 lift of the footstep. 
 Here is the shop of the wainwright, whose 
 
 heart seems the heart of this village; 
 As I look over the land, the highways are 
 
 forming a network 
 Like the outspreading spokes of a hub that 
 
 hub is this workshop, 
 Where is the home of the wheel, the racer 
 
 and bearer of burdens. 
 What an upspring I take in leaving the look 
 
 of the Doctor! 
 Somehow I feel as if I am passing from 
 
 ailing to healing. 
 
 Tell me, why is it I enter a presence renew- 
 ing, whole-making?
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 43 
 
 And a welcome within me I hear to the weal 
 of this workshop ? 
 
 Now I can draw a fresh thought that is sent 
 from the soul of all being, 
 
 And I feel all misfortune, suffering, death to 
 be part in my wholeness." 
 
 Even a breath in sign of relief he suggest- 
 ively puffed forth. 
 
 Then replied Ebenezer, the cool, to the out- 
 burst rhapsodic: 
 
 "Yes, the people throng hither from over 
 the bound of the township, 
 
 Prom the circumference streaming along each 
 road to the center, 
 
 Loving the workshop, loving the workman, 
 old William the wainwright, 
 
 For the excellent handicraft which is the 
 pride of his spirit, 
 
 Eager to gaze at the musical strokes of the 
 whirl of his fore-arm, 
 
 As he tunes into form with his tools the re- 
 fractory oakwood, 
 
 Quite as if singing a strain of the secret of 
 Nature by motion, 
 
 Which seems able to utter such thoughts far 
 better than words can. ' '
 
 44 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 Both of the visitors gazed at that picture of 
 
 new revelation, 
 And they hearkened elate the harmonious hit 
 
 of the hammer, 
 Which kept time in the heart along with the 
 
 bulge of the biceps. 
 
 But the Squire looked up at a log in the wall 
 
 of the workshop : 
 "Do you know," he musingly spoke, "it was 
 
 I who cut down these timbers, 
 Rolling them up to the site of this shop by 
 
 the help of the handspike! 
 Thus the first seven log-cabins were built with 
 
 floors made of puncheons, 
 Then we dammed up the river in summer, 
 
 erecting the gristmill. 
 That was the birth of the infant New Salem 
 
 scant five years old now 
 But in a day it seemed born and full-grown, 
 
 as if planted from heaven ; 
 Leaped up the shop and the store with the 
 
 round red school-house as center, 
 And the best bell I could find in St. Louis I 
 
 bought for its belfry, 
 Sweetly calling each child of the village to 
 
 come to its lesson. 
 That the first duty I deemed, the schooling of 
 
 all of our children.
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 45 
 
 Soon the increase of people ran up with the 
 
 coming of babies, 
 So we have young George Washingtons 
 
 growing along with you old ones, 
 Jeffersons many come bouncing to light 
 
 among us Virginians, 
 Several Andrew Jacksons have lately arrived 
 
 to abide here, 
 Lustily feeling at home in good democratic 
 
 New Salem. 
 So we still keep alive our great men reborn 
 
 on the border. 
 See! This log I remember the adze slid 
 
 from it and cut me. ' ' 
 
 There the Squire hit a beam with his cane 
 
 as they stood at the doorway, 
 And he showed proudly the scar once 
 
 stamped as a seal on his body. 
 Then he spoke out more freely, delighting to 
 
 hear his own accents : 
 "Do you know, Uncle George, I would like 
 
 to do all of it over 
 Build another community, also set it to run- 
 
 t ning, 
 Till it would march of itself on the road I 
 
 had made to the future; 
 Some such passion lurks in me, again it may 
 
 rise to the surface."
 
 46 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK III. 
 
 As the twain trod over the sill, they were 
 
 smit with a wonder; 
 Silent they stood in a spell that bound for a 
 
 minute their footing, 
 And untongued them totally, viewing with 
 
 vision voiceless 
 Sunrise in an old man whose face overflowed 
 
 with his radiance, 
 Plowed in luminous furrows and sown with 
 
 the light of his soul-world. 
 Raying a wreath of gray hair which bristled 
 
 with sunbeams his forehead 
 He would shake out his heart in the shock of 
 
 each laboring hand-stroke 
 While his eye scintillant of soul would shoot 
 
 forth its sparkles, 
 Flamed with the cosmical thought of creation 
 
 unwordable ever; 
 Radiant every act was of love, of love the 
 
 All-maker. 
 
 He was so sunk in his work that he hardly 
 
 looked up at the comers: 
 This was William the wainwright, making 
 
 the wheel of a wagon. 
 Into the hub the stiff spokes had already 
 
 been cunningly fitted, 
 Each jagged out by itself and thrust in 
 
 another direction
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITff. 47 
 
 Off from the rest of its mates, repellent it 
 seemed of its kindred, 
 
 All in a flight from themselves and the center 
 from which they had started, 
 
 Somehow striving to shun in a scorn society's 
 order, 
 
 Fiercely refusing to join in the task of co- 
 operation. 
 
 Each individual spoke of the hub shot defi- 
 antly outwards 
 
 Seeking the rim of all space, but finding the 
 zero eternal. 
 
 Mark now the wainwright becoming a look 
 
 of affection enfeatured, 
 As he joins them around in a circle with mal- 
 let and wimble, 
 Fitting the feloes into a ring which clasps 
 
 them together, 
 Shaping to one all the parts which hated 
 
 before, and divided. 
 How he loved his vocation as godlike and 
 
 wrought in its spirit ! 
 By his labor he lived, still more his labor he 
 
 lived for. 
 Food it brought to his body, food it gave to 
 
 his soul too; 
 Making the wheel of a wagon, the world he 
 
 seemed to be making.
 
 48 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 In his workshop he was himself the Creator 's 
 own image, 
 
 And the whole universe saw he rise rounded 
 to strokes of the Builder, 
 
 Aye the big round of the universe whirling' 
 attuned to the wain- wheel 
 
 While it would whelm all space to its sweep 
 both inward and outward, 
 
 Cycling the aeons of future and past to the 
 tap of its timebeat. 
 
 For the wainwright also was maker in small 
 of creation, 
 
 Which he renewed in each piece of his handi- 
 work however little, 
 
 For he felt God in the draw of his saw and 
 the hit of his hammer, 
 
 Felt the pulsation of Love divine which uni- 
 fies all things. 
 
 Silent in awe the visitors stood as if present 
 
 at worship, 
 Till the Squire at last spoke up in words 
 
 sympathetic : 
 "You appear not to notice us, thrilled with 
 
 the rapture of labor, 
 As if praying you might be by work to the 
 
 worker supernal, 
 And you venerate what you are doing just in 
 
 the doing,
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 49 
 
 Making yourself in your deed the reverent 
 
 bearer of Godhood. 
 Into the heart of your wheel your prayerful 
 
 eye is now gleaming, 
 Lifted to peer in its glances behind the drawn 
 
 veil of all Nature. ' ' 
 
 Slowly, almost unwillingly, "William looked 
 
 up from his labor, 
 Though his hand still held the keen tool in 
 
 the grip of its cunning, 
 As if delaying to break the sweet bond of 
 
 some hidden communion; 
 But his speech was gentle, though tenderly 
 
 trembling with age- throbs : 
 ''Yes I try to live out in my life the blessed 
 
 old adage, 
 Hymning it oft in a tune to my soul : to labor 
 
 is prayer. 
 All my deeds are chanting aloud their orisons 
 
 holy, 
 If you can hear their intimate song in the 
 
 strokes of the workman. 
 Maker I am through the Maker Himself ful- 
 filling His promise, 
 God the first Laborer is, Creator of all things 
 
 each moment; 
 For with each moment the whole is being 
 
 renewed in His workshop.
 
 50 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK III. 
 
 Doing my own little task I pattern me after 
 the Master, 
 
 Making this wheel to-day I share in the act of 
 creation, 
 
 Realizing a model divine which I bear in my 
 bosom, 
 
 Through the toil of my hand I utter my fer- 
 vent petition." 
 
 Pointing his look at a flower that eyed him 
 
 with blooms at his window, 
 Like so many sweet glances of love for his 
 
 age's renewal, 
 And then rolling his vision skyward, spake 
 
 William the wainwright: 
 "See this cowslip it is a wheel and a per- 
 fect wheel-maker 
 Bounding and ever repeating its hub and its 
 
 spoke and its feloe, 
 And even painting its parts in a green and a 
 
 white and a golden, 
 So it applauds me with glances of hope and 
 
 woos me to work well, 
 Often recalling a flowery love which from 
 
 me once vanished. 
 Is not the earth too a wheel, revolving around 
 
 on its axis, 
 As it rolls on its sky-made road encircling 
 
 the sun with its girdle!
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 5^ 
 
 Even the cosmieal wheel I have glimpsed in 
 
 a moment supernal, 
 Eimmed with the galaxy starry and bowling 
 
 the universe Godward." 
 So his spirit took voice in a rapture of lofty 
 
 communion 
 With some inner experience not understood 
 
 by the others. 
 
 But to the glow of the wainwright responded 
 
 the cool Ebenezer: 
 "Let us come back to our earth here, speckled 
 
 with little New Salem, 
 Which cannot use your big wheels of the 
 
 globe or the sun or the cosmos. 
 Be it yours to connect us with neighboring 
 
 towns and their peoples 
 By your handicraft subtle here shown in this 
 
 rotary wood-work, 
 Which will bear us around on the earth till 
 
 we mount to the firmament stellar, 
 Since the Sangamon sullen has failed us, yea 
 
 the canal too." 
 
 Thus was William's fair dreamland drenched 
 with the prose of the present. 
 
 But unquenched in his ecstacy spake he, fore- 
 casting the future :
 
 52 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 "Listen! a greater than mine is soon coming 
 
 far greater, far stronger 
 Tis a wheel I still mean I see it now roll on 
 
 the prairie, 
 Not made of wood like this one of mine so 
 
 light and so slender, 
 Bearing a burden more heavy and circling 
 
 its axle more swiftly, 
 Eoaring it runs, fire-breathing its nostrils, 
 
 the dragon of fable 
 Is to be harnessed for work, aye saddled and 
 
 reined for the rider. 
 This is my lot and my hope and my prayer : 
 
 I shall be transcended." 
 
 Look, the last feloe is fitted, the rim now 
 
 beveled and rounded ; 
 Soon the wheel is released from its block, 
 
 and caressed by the master, 
 Whose delight is perfection within the small 
 
 bounds of his wheelcraft, 
 Feeling the flawless All can be put in the 
 
 small of the smallest. 
 Eolling his wheel roundabout and revealing 
 
 its rotary virtue 
 He admired its blameless behavior as well as 
 
 its shape without blemish; 
 Playful he teased it as if it might be his 
 
 dearest companion.
 
 WAINWRIOHT AND BLACKSMITH. 53 
 
 Then to his action was suited the word of 
 
 William the wainwright: 
 "Now we must trundle it over the alley to 
 
 Peter the blacksmith, 
 Practical Peter, my half for completing my 
 
 work and my soul too, 
 Who will hoop it with iron around this rim 
 
 of the feloes, 
 That they be held to their place and their 
 
 task in their circular union, 
 Made to withstand the stress and the strain 
 
 of all coming disruption. 
 He will iron the hub too with bands and rivet 
 
 them tightly, 
 That the center may yield not, whatever the 
 
 thrust of its lading, 
 And disrupt not, however mighty the quake 
 
 of collision 
 Peter can do it, my counterpart, making me 
 
 whole in my wheelcraft. 
 
 There we may see too the man of the future, 
 
 young Abraham Lincoln, 
 Whom we purpose to send by our votes to 
 
 Vandalia law-making. 
 Not unlike to wheel-making is, to my mind, 
 
 the vocation, 
 As it builds to a harmony whole man's doings 
 
 discordant,
 
 54 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 Trying to legislate for him the make of the 
 
 cosmical order, 
 For on the Law the universe stamps itself as 
 
 the first model." 
 
 So they all started to rolling the wheel to 
 
 the shop of the blacksmith, 
 Peter, whose labor was love but whose love 
 
 was very laborious, 
 When of a sudden the farmer woke up with a 
 
 lapsed reminiscence : 
 
 "What! Abe Lincoln! I saw him this morn- 
 ing under the shade-tree 
 As my vehicle broke with its load and 
 
 splashed in a mud-hole. 
 There he sat with Ann Rutledge upon a 
 
 looped settle of grapevines 
 Which he once bent to embraces and wound 
 
 in a seat for two persons; 
 For what purpose it was I wondered until I 
 
 had seen them ; 
 Happy he looked in reading some verses, to 
 
 judge by the jingle ; 
 They did not see me, so occupied were they 
 
 with rhymes and themselves too, 
 Till the crack of my axle crashed into their 
 
 happiest moment, 
 Dragging them down to the world which was 
 
 clashing and swashing about them.
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 55 
 
 Ann sprang up with a blush and sped off to 
 
 the four-pillared mansion, 
 Home of that gracious soul, the Lady Eulalia 
 
 Lovelace, 
 Ready to reconcile troubles of heart for wife 
 
 and for maiden, 
 Ever the healer of wounded hope for all of 
 
 the towns-folk. 
 Lincoln had meanwhile skipped to my wagon, 
 
 he took off his hat too, 
 How he stammered his words, not so fluent 
 
 they ran as his wont was : 
 
 'Here Uncle George, is your newspaper which 
 
 you receive from St. Louis, 
 Old French town on the river, unsainted in 
 
 spite of its saintship, 
 Name of a royal crusader far back in the 
 
 time medieval, 
 Marching to capture his heathenish foe, he 
 
 himself was the capture 
 Sometimes I muse if that city will share in 
 
 the fate of its patron.' 
 
 Never before did Lincoln so wander when- 
 ever I heard him, 
 
 Jolt so his words through his windpipe which 
 seemed a corduroy roadbed;
 
 56 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 Still he kept forcing his tones on the air 
 though flushed all his forehead: 
 
 'You are aware I am Postmaster now of this 
 town of New Salem, 
 
 Mail I came to deliver, Miss Eutledge ex- 
 pected a letter, 
 
 But it did not arrive, I had then to see her 
 and tell her.' " 
 
 Here the old farmer knowingly winked and 
 
 nudged Ebenezer 
 In the broad-belted midriff, then he went on 
 
 with his prattle : 
 ' * Ended this story so happily, what a relief to 
 
 our Lincoln 
 Pumping his lungs for a word which rose 
 
 from sources unwilling ! 
 See now! the flow of his speech jets up like 
 
 a fountain Artesian: 
 'Look at this hat here,' said he, unwrinkling 
 
 the stress of his visage 
 'Veteran 'tis of many campaigns, an office 
 
 it has too 
 For its long service in warfare of wear our 
 
 Postoffice 'tis now 
 
 Letters three and newspapers two, but un- 
 wrapped, for I read them 
 With each subscriber's consent that is 
 
 yours,' and he reached me my paper
 
 WAINWRIOHT AND BLACKSMITH. 57 
 
 Which I skim with delight for its praise of 
 
 my President Jackson. 
 Then he clapped on his long lank hair his 
 
 rickety head-gear 
 With its contents, yet one wee letter I 
 
 glimpsed in his hurry ; 
 No address was on it outside, but a heart 
 
 drawn in red-ink, 
 Deftly he tucked it in under the rest, as if 
 
 trying to hide it ; 
 At his big bony fingers crooking so nimbly I 
 
 wondered. 
 I was going to quiz him but swiftly a word he 
 
 now thrust in 
 Just before me, and whirled round my mind 
 
 on myself in a moment, 
 Saying right at the point of my trouble where 
 
 I was straitened : 
 
 'Dear Uncle George, I see you have struck a 
 small snag of misfortune, 
 
 Come, let me prop up your axle here sunk till 
 you get to the wainwright 
 
 Who can refit your wheel and make it run 
 better than ever. 
 
 Mender he is by nature, not only of broken- 
 down wagons 
 
 But of spirits sore-breached in the battle so 
 stressful, distressful,
 
 58 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 Which life kindles in all who are born in this 
 
 world's separation, 
 Which the man wins by the help of his 
 
 friends, but helping himself too.' 
 
 Thus bespoke me in sympathy's tones the 
 
 soft-hearted Lincoln 
 Watchful of mishap befallen us mortals and 
 
 ready to stem it, 
 Beaching us aid at the pinch unforeseen, as 
 
 a Providence human. 
 So he said, so he did; then turning aside he 
 
 addressed me: 
 
 ' Now I am off, but later to-day I hope I may 
 see you, 
 
 When from my hat I have emptied these 
 pieces of mail to their owners, 
 
 And have got back my tongue for telling the 
 people a story. 
 
 Let me confess you my mind has been plan- 
 ning a speech of some moment, 
 
 This afternoon I am going to give it at Peter 
 the blacksmith's.' 
 
 Off he sped through the meadow, unwilling to 
 drop me a fable,
 
 WAINWRIGHT AND BLACKSMITH. 59 
 
 Though I asked him to fit to my case some 
 
 beast out of Esop. 
 Always had been so chatty his wont, that a 
 
 moment I pondered." 
 
 Thus the farmer 's frank tongue kept flushing 
 
 in gossipy freedom, 
 While the wheel went bowling along to the 
 
 shop of the blacksmith 
 Man of big brawn, most muscular arm of the 
 
 village, but peaceful, 
 Yet in support of the Law ever ready to smite 
 
 the wrong-doer, 
 Or the public disturber, if Squire Ebenezer 
 
 should call him 
 Never quite able to wash from his forehead 
 
 the grime of his workshop, 
 Which would cling to the roots of his hair 
 
 through soft soap and water; 
 Still the massed might of his fortress rose 
 
 up the tower of labor, 
 And unless he had ironed the wheel, it could 
 
 never have run long 
 Crushed to earth in its wood-made members 
 
 with burden of carriage ; 
 Aye the communal wheel he helped iron with 
 
 character massive.
 
 60 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK III. 
 
 Peter the real, symmetrical half of William 
 the ideal 
 
 Friend of the dreamful wainwright, but too 
 his complement solid, 
 
 Making him workable who in his thought was 
 the talent transcendent, 
 
 Fusing terrestrial Will with Intellect dwell- 
 ing in Heaven. 
 
 William had kept in his heart and trans- 
 figured an image departed 
 
 Yet eternally present within him and 
 glimpsed in his labor, 
 
 Furnishing ever the fountain of Life with 
 Love the renewer. 
 
 That was the spirit the people could see in 
 the stroke of the workman, 
 
 And could hear in an undertone tender of 
 voice from his soul-world, 
 
 When he would speak of the pain and the 
 gain of all living and dying, 
 
 E'en sympathetic with Death for the sake of 
 Life's reconstruction, 
 
 Loving the loss of the loved in the blessed 
 return of the spirit 
 
 Spirit absent in Time, but becoming Eter- 
 nity's presence 
 
 For without Death, he would say there never 
 can be Resurrection.
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Laughter in unison greeted the three ap- 
 proaching the smithy, 
 
 From a roundabout rout of men encircling 
 a speaker 
 
 "Who overtopped them all by the length and 
 the strength of his stature, 
 
 Needing no platform to lift him above the 
 yeomen around him, 
 
 Who would waken the clouds from their slum 
 berous dream in the welkin 
 
 With an echo of joy as he popped out the 
 point of his story. 
 
 That was candidate Lincoln electioneering 
 the people 
 
 If perchance they would send him as law- 
 maker down to Vandalia, 
 
 (61)
 
 62 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV. 
 
 Whence he might start on the trail that leads 
 from the State to the Nation, 
 
 For at the end of that lane he could glimpse 
 in the distance the White House, 
 
 As every lad of the land could, declaiming 
 the speeches of Webster. 
 
 But when the orator saw the sage wain- 
 
 wright slip up and listen 
 With Ebenezer the hard-headed Squire and 
 
 Trueblood the farmer, 
 Aye, George Washington Trueblood, the 
 
 rough-palmed plowman of prairies, 
 Who with his practical sense united a love 
 
 of the fable, 
 There was a change in his look attuning the 
 
 words of his discourse; 
 (These he deftly directed to tap a fresh note 
 
 on the eardrums 
 Which the new hearers were stretching to 
 
 throb in response to the speaker, 
 Who then opened a fountain sonorous that 
 
 welled from his soul's source, 
 As he started to image his world like his 
 
 favorite Esop 
 Him who imparted the word to the things 
 
 that Nature left wordless:
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 63 
 
 "Once on a time the horse was pulling a 
 
 well-loaded wagon 
 When from behind of a sudden the wheel 
 
 in a fit began groaning: 
 'Oh my hard lot! this burden to bear I am 
 
 able no longer! 
 Splinters soon I shall be, crushed under the 
 
 weight of oppression!' 
 Then it broke and it fell with a crash and 
 
 a splash in the mudhole 
 Where it lay in its ruin bespattered and 
 
 mired," murmured Lincoln, 
 Touched to a sigh by his own fellow-feeling 
 
 with words of his picture. 
 
 Then he suddenly stopped and wistfully 
 
 gazed for a moment, 
 Over the heads of the crowd in the distance : 
 
 at whom was he gazing? 
 Look! he is balking right at the pivotal pull 
 
 of his discourse, 
 All of his glances seem kindled to love in 
 
 a revery wordless; 
 But he recovered : * * the horse looked around 
 
 and neighed back reproaches : 
 'Weakling wooden and worthless, shrilling 
 
 the shriek of a coward! 
 Not to bravely upbear what I painfully pull 
 
 with my labor!
 
 64 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLED&EBOOK IV. 
 
 Still I am glad of this happy mishap for I 
 
 can rest now, 
 Yea, I shall prance to yon pasture and crop 
 
 to my fill its lush grasses!' 
 So the horse in good luck was taunting his 
 
 neighbor unlucky, 
 When the load was lifted and plumped on 
 
 his back without mercy. 
 See him in turn fall down by the side of 
 
 the wheel in the mudhole, 
 For the burden has broken him too with its 
 
 ponderous treasure, 
 "Which is now strewn in the stress of the 
 
 owner along the wet wayside, 
 Pumpkins, potatoes, and apples, fine food 
 
 for the swine and for man too." 
 "That is the fact, it all happened to me," 
 
 broke in Uncle Georgie. 
 " Abraham, let yourself out, and spin me 
 
 here into a fable." 
 
 Lincoln swerved not to reply but gleamed 
 as if probing the center, 
 
 That he might bring to the surface the in- 
 nermost sense of his story: 
 
 "That old wheel of the ages lies shattered, 
 e'en should it be mended, 
 
 To the thrust of the time no longer it shows 
 itself equal;
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ($5 
 
 And that horse too is fallen beneath the 
 
 fresh pull of our epoch, 
 Wagon and wheel and horse must win a new 
 
 soul with its body, 
 Spirits, methinks I can see them, awaiting 
 
 a grand transformation, 
 Aged, decrepit in shape, but in throes of a 
 
 youthful renewal j 
 
 Even unreasoning things must have too a 
 
 regeneration. ' ' 
 
 Here the fabulist halted, stemming the soar 
 
 of his fancy, 
 Glaring a glance inquisitive into the face of 
 
 the farmer 
 Whom he had helped from the mud at the 
 
 mulberry tree in the morning; 
 Nor did he falter to peer far down in the 
 
 eyes of the wainwright, 
 Whose approval he caught in the radiant 
 
 sport of their sparkles, 
 Which illumined the path of his soul to its 
 
 nethermost fountain. 
 
 Then a fresh coin the fabulist fused in the 
 mint of his fable, 
 
 Giving a visible form to his fantasy's farth- 
 est outreach:
 
 QQ LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV, 
 
 "Yes, a new horse must be reared to race 
 
 on our Western prairie, 
 Steed with the speed of the storm, he never 
 
 gets tired or lazy; 
 And a new wheel must be forged for his 
 
 wagon far swifter and stronger 
 Than the old one was ever, and whirling 
 
 along a new road-bed. 
 All of them are to be formed of the fiercest 
 
 material metallic 
 All the wheel and its pathway of rails and 
 
 the horse, too, of iron ; 
 They have started already to fleeting along 
 
 the Atlantic, 
 But they now must be turned to the home 
 
 which Nature foreplanned them, 
 To our new world's domain, the newest in 
 
 time and in spirit." 
 
 Strangely the orator fluent now lapsed at 
 
 a word to a stammer; 
 Once more over the heads of the people he 
 
 peered in the distance, 
 But when he noted one hearer to turn for 
 
 a look in the same way, 
 Quickly he picked up the thought he had 
 
 dropped, and mended his discourse, 
 Though they all unwittingly wondered just 
 
 why he had wandered:
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. $7 
 
 "Now to the practical point I come of my 
 fabling fantastic: 
 
 Give me your suffrages that I may go to 
 Vandalia this winter, 
 
 Helping to forge to the deed my airy witch- 
 work of dreamland, 
 
 And to harness the new-born horse of the 
 age to his wagcn 
 
 That I too may become for my folk a wise 
 wainwright," 
 
 Loudly upstormed the applause, but louder 
 the cheer of sage William 
 
 Bang over all of the voices together in waves 
 sympathetic, 
 
 Seeing his favorite wheel endowed with a 
 new incarnation, 
 
 For of that work he often had dreamed in 
 rapture prophetic. 
 
 Made to his mind the civilized world must 
 be wheeled in its progress, 
 
 Barbary only is wheelless, such is the bar- 
 barous Indian. 
 
 Feeling the worth of the moment, the speaker 
 
 now pointed his discourse 
 That it might prick to the brain of his hearers 
 
 and prod them to action:
 
 68 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV. 
 
 "Thus, only thus, can we ever be one with 
 
 the rest of our country, 
 And our country in turn be united in bonds 
 
 adamantine ; 
 We shall become a part of the life of the 
 
 globe in its wholeness, 
 Live to ourselves in a corner we cannot, we 
 
 have to associate, 
 Long has that been the dearest ambition of 
 
 little New Salem. 
 It would feel the full heart of the world in 
 
 its own petty pulse-beat, 
 And would share in the purposeful plan of 
 
 the ages, divinely aspiring". 
 
 So the tall Lincoln spake to one man and 
 
 grew taller than ever, 
 That one man whom he saw to the soul was 
 
 William the wainwright. 
 Slowly he took off his eyes and turned them 
 
 to glancing elsewhither, 
 Down to the rivulet shallow and stagnant 
 
 which stank in its stream-bed, 
 Pensively musing, "Once I believed in the 
 
 Sangamon yonder, 
 And I piloted hitherward up the full stream 
 
 the first steamboat, 
 While I floated above on a billowy river far 
 
 larger
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (JQ 
 
 Kiver of Hope that fell like a waterfall golden 
 
 from cloudland; 
 But the treacherous boat in a panic retreated 
 
 forever, 
 And the high vision of Hope fled after it, 
 
 shunning the valley. 
 No more delusion, friends; instead of the 
 
 lie of a shadow 
 Now the substance itself of our striving we 
 
 grip by our ballot, 
 Capturing with it the horse and the wheel 
 
 and the highway of iron. 
 I would the hammer be, forging again the 
 
 refractory metal, 
 
 If you will send me to sledge in the work- 
 shop of law at Vandalia." 
 
 Scarce had the word left the throb of his 
 lips when the shout of the blacksmith 
 
 Shot to the ear of the speaker, hallooing a 
 summons to labor, 
 
 That he might prove by his deed just what 
 he had said to the people : 
 
 "Come now, Abraham, sledge me this tire 
 
 whose hoop I am rounding 
 For the new wheel which hither was rolled 
 
 by William the wainwright
 
 70 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV. 
 
 Eestless until lie beholds the work of his 
 
 handicraft finished, 
 That it may rival the starlit wheel of the 
 
 dome of the heavens. 
 Then you can make a new speech on your 
 
 sledging, a better than this one, 
 And a fresh fable you surely can forge from 
 
 the blast of my bellows, 
 Or an old tale you can pick from the bounti- 
 ful pouch of your noddle. 
 Come, you are the best sledger that ever here 
 
 wielded my hammer, 
 Striking the brawniest blow to subdue the 
 
 rebellious metal, 
 Making it yield to the law and welding both 
 
 sides into union.'* 
 
 Soon then Peter the blacksmith was plying 
 
 the pole of his bellows, 
 Playing it up and down in the clutch of his 
 
 fist and his forearm; 
 And the shop grew grim to a choke with the 
 
 grime of the charcoal 
 Through whose cloud-wreaths spitefully 
 
 snapped the sputtering sparkles, 
 Like the scintillas of lightning along the 
 
 dark seams of the sky-rack, 
 Over whose black-browed crags leap thunders 
 
 pursuing the flashes.
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 71 
 
 See now, the iron is hot to a hiss at the line 
 
 of division; 
 Peter the smith with a twitch of the tongs 
 
 took the tire from the blazes, 
 Whirling it down by a dexterous turn to the 
 
 top of the anvil, 
 Which kept clinking and clanking afar with 
 
 its dangerous cling-clang, 
 As the tire he smote white hot in the glow 
 
 of its fusion, 
 Shrilling its scream in response to the stroke 
 
 of his one-handed hammer. 
 Mightily bulged at each blow the muscular 
 
 brace of his biceps, 
 While the thews of his neck would swell up 
 
 to battle responsive, 
 And from his forehead the runnels of soot 
 
 would stream down his cheek-bones, 
 Till they would drop from his chin and the 
 
 tip of his nose too, 
 Like the Sangamon's channel o'erflowing its 
 
 banks in the springtide, 
 And on its surface eddying all of the ooze 
 
 of the upland. 
 
 Still intoned he a song attuned to the ring 
 
 of the iron, 
 Or would whistle bravouras piercing the 
 
 clang of the anvil,
 
 72 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV. 
 
 Which to the sound of the tire would shriek 
 with the wail of the tempest, 
 
 Hit by the hammer of Peter the smith at the 
 point of their contact, 
 
 As he welded their severing parts to har- 
 monious wholeness, 
 
 While in the swing of his voice he re-echoed 
 the music of labor, 
 
 Crooning some long-gone ballad of love and 
 piping the chorus. 
 
 But still mightier blows must be struck at 
 
 the tick of the crisis 
 Rightly to round out the tire to its circle 
 
 of iron unbroken. 
 Up steps Lincoln, clutching the sledge in 
 
 the grip of his knuckles 
 When he had carefully hung up his hat on 
 
 the peg of a tie-beam 
 Post-office hat, it was famed for holding the 
 
 mail of the township. 
 Wide was the sweep of his arms as he swung 
 
 his implement massive ; 
 Clutching the handle with both of his fists, 
 
 in rotation concentric 
 Over his head through the air he whizzed the 
 
 ponderous hammer, 
 Till it smote down on the tire and welded the 
 
 line of disjunction,
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 73 
 
 Bounding the ring of the wheel to a musical 
 cycle completed, 
 
 Cunningly winding its melody into the song 
 of the smithy, 
 
 With a far-away echo like to a spheral con- 
 cordance. 
 
 Next the iron enringing the rim was clamped 
 on the feloes, 
 
 Bending them slowly together into a union 
 forever. 
 
 Nor was the hub forgotten, it too was band- 
 ed with iron 
 
 Lest in a strain it might split by the stress 
 of the spokes at the center. 
 
 Hark ! in the midst of the notes of the smithy 
 
 and piercing the smoke-cloud 
 Tolled the time-telling call of the school-bell 
 
 rung from the belfry, 
 Waving its way to the workshop in throbbing 
 
 circles concordant, 
 With whose ring and refrain it mingled its 
 
 musical cadence. 
 
 Lincoln harkened the strokes of the bell as 
 they gave him the time-beat 
 
 From above somewhere, with resonance ton- 
 ing the darkness,
 
 74 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK IV. 
 
 To whose dulcet vibrations accordant he 
 sledged with his hammer, 
 
 Stressing all of the school-bell's measures 
 with accent Titanic. 
 
 Thus the orchestra played in that workshop 
 of Peter the blacksmith 
 
 On its instruments chimed to the stroke of 
 the strong-boned musicians, 
 
 Far attuning the town to the resonant key- 
 note of labor, 
 
 Hovering over the Sangamon valley in wavy 
 caresses. 
 
 All had noticed how carefully Lincoln had 
 
 lifted his head-gear, 
 Precious post-office hat like a jewelled crown 
 
 of a monarch, 
 High straw-hat with a tetering brim and a 
 
 dent in its top-knot, 
 Hanging it high on a peg where none but 
 
 himself could get at it. 
 Strangely forethoughtful he seemed in that 
 
 act and in eyeing oft thither, 
 For he had given out all of the mail that day 
 
 to its owners 
 In the political round of the town that he 
 
 made in the morning. 
 Yet of that broad-brimmed bee-hive of straw, 
 
 why so tenderly watchful ?
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 75 
 
 Eight in the whirl of his sledge he would 
 train on the hat a sharp eye-shot. 
 
 Some rare mystery hides there of which he 
 is veiling the secret, 
 
 Dual the man is, a half on his work, but a 
 half has strayed elsewhere. 
 
 But now the labor is done and the hammer 
 is put in its corner, 
 
 Firmly united the parts, the whole wheel will 
 run on the prairie, 
 
 Doing its share of the work of the world 
 without going to pieces. 
 
 All applauded the workmanship deft of Peter 
 the blacksmith, 
 
 All applauded the powerful deed of the can- 
 didate sledging. 
 
 In it they felt the forecast of something 
 that lay in his future ; 
 
 What it might be they knew not, but wished 
 to be tuned to his spirit. 
 
 So they called for a speech from their spokes- 
 man a fact or a fable 
 
 Drawn from the Black Hawk War, with 
 fringes of fun and of fancy, 
 
 Whose light play would bring to them all a 
 tickle in common, 
 
 But might likewise ensconce the deepest 
 thought of the era.
 
 76 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV. 
 
 Then the wainwright slid from the crowd 
 with a look of approval, 
 
 Quickly he stepped on a stool, as if to re- 
 spond to the speaker, 
 
 But he reached to the peg and took down the 
 hat which hung high there, 
 
 Courteously handing it over with compliment 
 heaped on the owner, 
 
 Who had hurried at once to the spot on see- 
 ing the danger. 
 
 But just look at the luck! for out of the hat 
 
 flew a letter 
 Like a dove white-winged it fluttered around 
 
 in the coal-smoke; 
 Down it fell in the floorless dust much-trod 
 
 of the smithy. 
 
 Not a trace of writ was upon it, no name, no 
 
 postmark 
 Yet a heart with its blood-tint was drawn on 
 
 the cover in red-ink. 
 Lincoln jumped at a leap ten feet to the spot 
 
 when he saw it, 
 Picked it up with a blush and tucked it into 
 
 his bosom.
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 77 
 
 All were shouting with guffaws, "Abraham, 
 
 read us that letter, 
 Never could it have come by mail, it is one 
 
 of your own make; 
 Tell us who is the girl, and whether she goes 
 
 to Vandalia. 
 Now instead of the speech, just give us the 
 
 nub of the letter. 
 "We shall not vote for you, Abe, unless you 
 
 read us that letter." 
 Then they yelled the refrain in chorus : ' ' the 
 
 letter! the letter !" 
 
 See the tall candidate plucking his hat from 
 
 the hand of the wainwright, 
 Who had soulfully glimpsed from afar a 
 
 glint of his meaning; 
 More profusely rolled watery drops on the 
 
 slant of his forehead 
 Than even when he was whirling the sledge 
 
 for Peter the blacksmith. 
 Strange ! the wan of his cheek had suddenly 
 
 flushed to a ruby 
 While his eyes sped their sparks on the 
 
 ground but not on the people, 
 And his lips had a smile, as if merrily tasting 
 
 a gallnut. 
 All his body grew stiff, on stilts he seemed 
 
 to be stalking,
 
 73 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDaEBOOE IV, 
 
 As he strode out the shop in long strides e 'en 
 while he was saying : 
 
 1 'Friends, good day to you elsewhere busi- 
 ness I have now to see to." 
 
 So young Lincoln bore off in his breast the 
 
 embarrassing secret. 
 Outside next to his heart lay the letter, with 
 
 symbol ensanguined, 
 While the crowd much wondered about that 
 
 mysterious missive, 
 Guessing whom it was meant for and what 
 
 was its purport 
 Why should Lincoln so blaze up in feature, 
 
 and hurry to hide it I 
 
 Only one man there present had seen it be- 
 fore on the outside, 
 
 Uncle George Trueblood, who now spake out 
 his limited knowledge: 
 
 "Well I remember that heart with its red 
 on the white of the letter, 
 
 When the postmaster took off his hat to hand 
 me my paper, 
 
 Near the mulberry tree where Lincoln had 
 sat with Miss Eutledge; 
 
 Strange it seemed then, but I somehow for- 
 got to ask him about it. ' '
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 
 
 So this riddle with others is left for the fu- 
 ture to settle, 
 
 Which, untying one knot, will tie up another 
 and greater. 
 
 Meanwhile Lincoln had sped out of sight of 
 
 the shop of the wainwright, 
 When a wag in his humor gave voice to the 
 
 common suspicion: 
 ''Let me dare it foresay that Lincoln again 
 
 has a business 
 Which will charm him awhile underneath the 
 
 mulberry shade-tree." 
 Others kept citing the past with its crop of 
 
 rumors fantastic, 
 Nor was forgotten the gossip which gushed 
 
 from the Talisman's visit, 
 When the whole town had a rollicking dance 
 
 on board of the steamboat. 
 
 Still in the practical matter before them there 
 
 was an agreement: 
 All resolved on the spot to vote for Abraham 
 
 Lincoln, 
 Even if he ran off to get rid of reading the 
 
 letter, 
 And of relieving the people's suspense by 
 
 confessing the picture.
 
 80 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK IV. 
 
 Not the new wheel nor the horse nor the won- 
 derful railway of iron, 
 
 Had been able to stir up the talk of the folk 
 of New Salem 
 
 Like the wafture so weird of the sign of the 
 red-heart presageful, 
 
 And of Lincoln's attempt to hide it at once 
 in his bosom, 
 
 When he had fled, the company melted away 
 
 from its center, 
 William the wainwright and Squire Ebenezer 
 
 and Trueblood the farmer, 
 Each on a line leading homeward dreamily 
 
 drifted asunder, 
 With the citizens who had hearkened the 
 
 speech, and still marveled 
 Not alone at the sayings, but at the silences 
 
 also 
 More mysterious were the deep silences than 
 
 the deep sayings 
 Which had oracled Lincoln's whole conduct 
 
 and left him a riddle. 
 
 Still was heard from the shop of the black- 
 smith the clangor of iron, 
 
 With his joyous shrill whistle which fifed to 
 the drum of his labor,
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 3^ 
 
 Whistle which tuned all the puff of his bel- 
 lows and clink of his hammer, 
 
 As he pounded and rounded the metal in time 
 with his music, 
 
 Puckering up to a point his muscular lips for 
 an air-hole 
 
 Through whose vent he would drive out his 
 breath with the might of the windstorm, 
 
 Mid the spirt of the sparkles which shot in 
 the smoke of the worksnop, 
 
 Like the links of the lightning which rattles 
 its chain down the welkin, 
 
 Making his stithy the home of a Titan's huge 
 harmony happy. 
 
 Then on the hill-top would chime the sym- 
 
 phonious note of the school-bell, 
 Blent with keen cadences welling up out of 
 
 the shop of the blacksmith, 
 Tenderly wreathing in concord of sounds 
 
 each house of New Salem, 
 Sounds undulating together in love far over 
 
 the landscape, 
 Till they lisped out their mutual sighs to a 
 
 swoon in the distance.
 
 Ann Rutledge. 
 
 Just when Lincoln had sharpened his speech 
 
 to the point of his fable, 
 Trumpeting far the miraculous change of the 
 
 wheel into iron, 
 In the roll of his voice upturning the folds 
 
 of the future, 
 Over the square he glanced and glimpsed the 
 
 form of a maiden 
 "Whose light trip he well knew, for he often 
 
 in rapture Had watched it, 
 As it seemed lifting on wings the gracious 
 
 turn of her body, 
 While she sped up the street away from the 
 
 house of her father, 
 Thrilling the air with an ecstasy born of her 
 
 beautiful motion, 
 (82)
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. g3 
 
 Causing the orator just for a moment to stam- 
 mer forgetful 
 
 Till he had picked up the stitch he had 
 dropped in knitting the sentence, 
 
 So he soon healed in his hearers the ominous 
 breach of attention. 
 
 That was Ann Butledge, the flower of all the 
 
 village's maidhood, 
 Since the hope of her heart was blooming 
 
 from every feature, 
 And was shedding its magical spell on the 
 
 eye of each gazer; 
 Not untinged by a sorrow, which tingled a 
 
 chord in the bosom, 
 Trembled her look sympathetic with others, 
 
 yet with herself too. 
 
 She was going to ply at a quilting her dex- 
 terous needle, 
 And perchance to gossip a little about the 
 
 last wedding, 
 But still more she would take off her mind 
 
 from the struggle within her, 
 Which she no longer could leave in its stress 
 
 altogether unspoken. 
 
 Balm she knew would be ready to drop with 
 the word of a woman
 
 g4 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK V. 
 
 Who a solacer was in the throes of the con- 
 flict of mortals, 
 
 Pouring the weal of her sympathy into the 
 woe of the stricken. 
 
 Also that woman was famed as the Lady, the 
 neighborhood's Lady, 
 
 Crowned with the title by all the Lady Eu- 
 lalia Lovelace 
 
 Widow she was of an officer highly esteemed 
 in the army, 
 
 Who in the bloom of his youthful promise had 
 fallen in battle, 
 
 Gallantly fighting the foes of his country 
 along the wild border, 
 
 Only a year or two after he quitted his home 
 in Virginia, 
 
 Whither she wished to return, awaiting her 
 father's arrival, 
 
 For she still longed, like an exile, for the old 
 manor ancestral 
 
 By the seaboard, with its hoar line of heri- 
 tage English. 
 
 Now she dwelt with her two young sons at 
 the edge of the village 
 
 Where stood her mansion spacious, garland- 
 ed round with a garden; 
 
 Propped was the roof of the porch in front 
 with massive Greek columns,
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. 85 
 
 While it Heartily faced to the world with the 
 gracious look of a giver, 
 
 Famed the best house on the road, of gener- 
 ous structure colonial, 
 
 Always ready to give to the stranger a cour- 
 teous welcome. 
 
 Thither the maiden was pensively tracing the 
 
 line of her footsteps, 
 And was turning a corner not far from the 
 
 shop of the wainwright, 
 When she heard the applause of a crowd mid 
 
 gushes of laughter, 
 While the tall form of a man addressing them 
 
 rose on her vision 
 With a loud thump of the heart to see the 
 
 success of the speaker, 
 Who beheld her in turn and balked at the pith 
 
 of his story, 
 
 Just for a moment upset by the sudden sur- 
 prise of her eye-shot. 
 
 But she shied from the spot and tripped more 
 
 rapidly onward, 
 Hardly she glanced at the store as she passed 
 
 it, of Abner the Absent, 
 Though it waked in her soul the tremulous 
 
 thrill of a discord,
 
 36 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK V. 
 
 Which in a pain she would flee from, although 
 it would ever go with her 
 
 For the owner was still her betrothed, in 
 spite of his strange disappearance. 
 
 Soon she had come to the round red school- 
 house perched on its hillock, 
 
 Where was centered the mind of the town 
 the head of its shoulders 
 
 There she felt a relief as she thought of her 
 happier school-days 
 
 Which she and Lincoln had spent in their 
 studies, growing together 
 
 Into a union of soul no blow of Fate could dis- 
 sever. 
 
 There her memory stopped her a minute to 
 
 look at the belfry 
 Which like a hat was set on the conical head 
 
 of the schoolhonse, 
 When it suddenly started in tones well known 
 
 to address her 
 Tones of the bell which so often had joyously 
 
 throbbed to her heart-beats, 
 Bidding the young to their lesson, and calling 
 
 the people together, 
 Whispering also to her a sweet hope mid the 
 
 lines of her school-book.
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. gy 
 
 Tenderly mused she the time when she went 
 
 to the sapient master, 
 Mentor Graham, the faithful, hard hitter in 
 
 word and in action, 
 Till each pupil had learned how to read and 
 
 to write and to figure; 
 Yet the teacher selected the best for higher 
 
 instruction, 
 
 Which he gave to the boy and the girl of tal- 
 ent transcendent. 
 Well his brusque tongue was liked, in spite of 
 
 one little suspicion 
 That the deep folds of his brain secreted a 
 
 doctrine forbidden. 
 
 Hardly to think it she dared, but the circular 
 
 walls of the schoolhouse 
 Had enclosed her whole heart, and brought 
 
 it to beat from that center 
 Where she the counterpart found of life's 
 
 most intimate kinship 
 Subtly ingrown with herself, ere she knew it 
 
 in each aspiration, 
 Though already her hand she had promised 
 
 in troth to another. 
 That was the perilous edge to which Time had 
 
 been leading the maiden, 
 The remediless strife between two duties, to 
 
 love and to promise,
 
 QQ LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK V. 
 
 \J\J 
 
 .Was now cleaving her bosom atwain in their 
 mutual warfare, 
 
 Which to avoid she hurried away with her 
 eyes insphered in their tearballs. 
 
 Hardly would she confess to herself the love 
 that had sprouted 
 
 And was daily ensnaring her life in its intri- 
 cate network; 
 
 She, the promised, loves him who never has 
 promised though hopeful ; 
 
 He, the unpromised, loves her who has given 
 away her first promise. 
 
 Conscience kept slashing her soul both ways, 
 in duty divided, 
 
 As she recalled a hot sermon on Hell by Cart- 
 right, the preacher ; 
 
 For the sense of the sinful lay charactered 
 deepest within her, 
 
 And would rend her atwain in the throes of 
 her tragedy's conflict. 
 
 Pensive, forebodeful she flew on her path to 
 
 the end of the village, 
 As if to run from her fantasies which like 
 
 dragons pursued her, 
 Quitting the bell-tongued schoolhouse tipped 
 
 with the clang of its belfry, 
 Which now fell from above like a knell on the 
 
 ear of the maiden.
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. 39 
 
 But how can she esecape from the mightiest 
 
 power within her ? 
 Running away from her giant, into his arms 
 
 she has fallen, 
 Fleeing out of her soul-world, the more she 
 
 has to stay in it. 
 
 Soon she has glided beneath the mulberry 
 
 tree by the wayside, 
 One by one now dropping its leaves in the 
 
 lap of their mother, 
 The proliferous Earth who entombs in her 
 
 womb her dead children 
 That she may bear them anew to life in a glad 
 
 resurrection, 
 After ripe autumn's decline and the death of" 
 
 gray winter, 
 Ever fulfilling her motherly part in the round 
 
 of creation. 
 Under that tree was the rustic seat of cut 
 
 twigs and of grapevines 
 Deftly intwined together to many a turn and 
 
 contortion 
 
 By the hand of Lincoln who made it the favor- 
 ite place of his trysting, 
 Lonely for one and large, for two it was fitted 
 
 so neatly 
 As it lay on the way to the Lady Eulalia 
 
 Lovelace.
 
 90 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK 7. 
 
 Now in spite of an inner forbiddance, Ann 
 went and reclined there, 
 
 Giving herself to memories golden which 
 washed out her struggle 
 
 Till of a sudden she looked at the ring en- 
 circling her finger, 
 
 With a quick jerk of her breath as if she were 
 gasping in wrestle. 
 
 That was the symbol of shadowy promise to 
 one who was absent 
 
 Twinned with a love unbetrothed, but impas- 
 sioned, for one who is present. 
 
 Duty again is flaying her heart with double 
 reproaches, 
 
 Secretly hoping for what she may dare not 
 openly pray for, 
 
 How can she banish the throb of her heart 
 forbidden by conscience! 
 
 So her token of love is evoking her fates to 
 
 their duel, 
 Still she declares to herself the word of her 
 
 promise unbroken, 
 Though underneath it there runs a feeling of 
 
 lorn resignation. 
 Up she springs from the spot which seems 
 
 to be clamping her down there, 
 "While the sight of the ring keeps tugging her 
 
 back from her heart 's push.
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 Two are the presences here which fiercely are 
 
 clashing within her; 
 From their combat she flees, and yet she must 
 
 take it along too. 
 
 But she dares not look back at the tree with 
 
 its tussle of demons 
 Till she steps on the door-sill of Lady Eulalia 
 
 Lovelace, 
 Who was already awaiting her skill in the 
 
 work of the quilting. 
 Ann soon darted the end of a thread through 
 
 the eye of her needle 
 And began running in mazes the tortuous 
 
 lines of her stitches 
 Pricking the many meandering plans to the 
 
 thrust of her thimble 
 Wreathing in graceful curves the finger and 
 
 hand with the forearm, 
 As she sewed into harmony all of the mani- 
 fold patches 
 Which were a variance vast in shape and in 
 
 size and color. 
 
 Both were well in their work and tuned to the 
 time of their stitches, 
 
 Lady Eulalia bettered the moments with mer- 
 ciful chit-chat :
 
 92 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGE.BOOK V. 
 
 "Not unlike to our life is this quilt whose 
 
 shreds we are patching ! 
 My next neighbor, the prosperous farmer, fell 
 
 out with his helpmeet 
 Tearing to pieces the family, scattering also 
 
 the children, 
 Kent to rags was the household, even the 
 
 clothes needed mending, 
 When I went down to their home, and sewed 
 
 all the fragments together. 
 Easy to darn was the dress, but to patch up 
 
 the breach of the spirit, 
 Was a task far deeper ; methinks no mortal is 
 
 able 
 Quite to point out the spot where the shifting 
 
 wound of the soul bleeds, 
 For the soul is the world ever-present in 
 
 mind and in body. 
 More discolored and ragged that family 
 
 seemed in its temper 
 Than these obstinate pieces, which have to be 
 
 suited toegther 
 Into a concord of tints which pairs with the 
 
 harmony inner, 
 Smoothing and soothing the struggle of life 
 
 in a rainbow of solace. 
 Just see here in this draggled handful of 
 
 shreds of all colors, 
 Bed and yellow, blue and green what a sport 
 
 of the spectrum !
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. 93 
 
 Now 'tis a bright strip, now 'tis a shaded, yet 
 
 both must be wedded. 
 So I am driven to picture the manifold hues 
 
 of all marriage, 
 Not omitting my own in the buoyant pride 
 
 of my girlhood 
 When I quitted for love my father's centur- 
 
 ied homestead." 
 
 Thus the Lady Eulalia made of herself the 
 confession, 
 
 For she too had been taught by the years 
 some lessons in living, 
 
 Which she imparted expecting the like in re- 
 turn from the maiden, 
 
 Who still kept her deep heartthrobs unsaid 
 in the plies of her bosom. 
 
 But once more a sweet tongue the kind lady 
 put into the silence : 
 
 * ' So the moments and moods of our days are 
 a crazy quilt total, 
 
 Where the cloud and the sunshine go irides- 
 cently dancing 
 
 Over the spaces of life, ever twinned as in- 
 separate partners, 
 
 Painting on Time as it rolls the shifts of the 
 soul's panorama, 
 
 Till in our own little self whirl the turns of 
 omnipotent selfhood."
 
 94 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK V. 
 
 Carefully balancing words thus spake to the 
 
 maiden the lady, 
 Who had dimly forefelt already the dawn of 
 
 the struggle, 
 Seeking to stem in advance the rush and the 
 
 crush of upheaval. 
 Only a soulful look Ann Eutledge repaid to 
 
 the speaker, 
 But she said not a word of the storm of the 
 
 thought she was thinking, 
 Though the Lady Eulalia glimpsed, keen- 
 sighted, the message 
 Which had been sent from within, and 
 
 prompted the turn of her question: 
 
 ' ' Tell me, dear girl, what hear you these days 
 from the one who is absent? 
 
 When will he come and bring us the hour of 
 happy espousals?'* 
 
 Undertoned with a sigh then welled up the 
 voice of the maiden: 
 
 "It is strange; from Abner no letter for 
 
 months I have gotten, 
 Nor has he sent any sign, not even the print 
 
 of a paper. 
 I have written again and again to his home in 
 
 New York State,
 
 ANN RUT LEDGE. 95 
 
 Not a word returns, from his folks I have 
 begged for an answer, 
 
 All in vain but he may be ill or something 
 the matter." 
 
 Then she laid down her needle, and spake out 
 her thoughts more bravely : 
 
 "Aid I have sought of our Postmaster Lin- 
 coln, to all so obliging, 
 
 And a note of inquiry he sent to the town's 
 chief official, 
 
 But no response has come thence, so still in a 
 hope I am waiting." 
 
 Here she paused in the flow of her speech as 
 
 if thinking elsewhither, 
 Even she lay down her needle upon the red 
 
 spot of her quilting, 
 Lincoln's name seemed prompting a mood 
 
 perceptibly tenser, 
 While the word was picked up and skillfully 
 
 turned by the lady : 
 "How that youth keeps growing, perchance 
 
 no longer in stature, 
 Yet in the people's esteem which sees him 
 
 waxing the hero ! 
 Candidate is he just now, but speedily will be 
 
 elected ; 
 
 Yesterday heard I till here the crowd ap- 
 plauding the speaker,
 
 96 LINCOLN AXD ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK V. 
 
 Whom I somehow foreshadow afar as the 
 
 man of the future. 
 I remember him first when he daringly boated 
 
 the milldam; 
 Then you know when he went to the war, for 
 
 I saw you engird him 
 "With the sword of your ancestors, sword of 
 
 the Butledges fame-wreathed, 
 Which, as your father once said, again you 
 
 may have to belt round him 
 Words which often have caused me to roam 
 
 in fantasy's fame-hall 
 Whirling me weirdly aback to my home by the 
 
 sea-side Atlantic 
 Where I heard for a moment a clash my 
 
 mad premonition." 
 
 In a far-away revery was seeming the maiden 
 
 to wander, 
 Though she took up her needle again and 
 
 threaded it deftly. 
 Then she sewed in her trance but knew not 
 
 what she was sewing, 
 Till she awoke at the call of the Lady Eulalia 
 
 Lovelace : 
 
 'Ann, just look at what you are doing! You 
 take the wrong pieces,
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. 97 
 
 They are no longer inwrought to a pattern 
 
 around the one center, 
 But are flying away from each other in every 
 
 direction ; 
 Where should have been that shadowy patch 
 
 you have put a bright red one, 
 Strip of shot silk, which glistens and races 
 
 in ripples of color 
 Crazy my quilt will be surely with all its 
 
 fantastic caprices.'* 
 
 Smiling the Lady Eulalia patted the cheek 
 of Ann Butledge: 
 
 " Child, me thinks you are piecing the parts 
 of yourself in this cover, 
 
 Shreds reflecting the mood of your mind you 
 have sewed to a mirror, 
 
 Which is a gossipy tattler, telling some stor- 
 ies about you. 
 
 Come, let us rip out this last insertion, which 
 is not happy; 
 
 Here behold the right strip to be put in the 
 place of the other, 
 
 For the mad strife of hues it allays to the 
 calm of its presence. 
 
 Peace is the boon of the household, peace in 
 the act and the object, 
 
 Peace I would fain patch up in the quarrel- 
 some tints of my bed-quilt."
 
 98 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK V. 
 
 Ann took her scissors and snipped each well- 
 stitched seam of her sewing, 
 
 Till the piece was loosed from its place and 
 unthreaded completely; 
 
 But the point of the blade seemed thrust to 
 shearing her heart-strings, 
 
 And at each cut of the pitiless edge she felt 
 a slight shiver. 
 
 When the new strip she had hastily sewed in 
 the place of the other, 
 
 And had threaded her needle afresh for re- 
 newing her labor, 
 
 Scarce could she throw her first stitch she 
 stopped in the whirl of the second, 
 
 Tips of her fingers and thumb refused to 
 close on the needle, 
 
 Arm revolted from flexing its muscles back- 
 ward and forward, 
 
 So oppressed she felt with her burden of in- 
 ner convulsion 
 
 Which upseethed to the surface out of an un- 
 derworld troubled. 
 
 Turning her hand she glimpsed the glistening 
 
 ring of betrothal, 
 Silent she gazed at the blood-grained ruby 
 
 set in the center, 
 Suddenly dropping her needle and thread she 
 
 sighed out her soul thus :
 
 ANN RUTLEDGE. 99 
 
 "Aunt Eulalia, this is now all I can do for 
 
 the quilting ; 
 Not very sound is my body today, nor even 
 
 my temper, 
 But tomorrow perchance I shall come when I 
 
 hope to do better. 
 Just at present I have to go home and recover 
 
 my balance, 
 Also my household task to fulfill in helping 
 
 my mother." 
 
 Though she had given no sound of the rage of 
 the tempest within her, 
 
 Lady Eulalia noticed a change, but left it un- 
 spoken, 
 
 Thinking it wiser to let the dark clouds fleet 
 out of her soul-world, 
 
 Or in secret to rain down their contents re- 
 lieving the heart-break. 
 
 Ann had also her happier task at home in 
 weaving a garment ; 
 
 But on this work of her loom her lips were 
 sealed to a silence. 
 
 Lightly she tripped down the way, though 
 throb fought throb in her bosom, 
 
 Meanwhile resolving to shun the mulberry's 
 shadow persuasive, 
 
 Lest she might hearken too long its witching 
 temptations to dreamland.
 
 100 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK- V. 
 
 But behold as she passed, on the seat sat 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Under the tree with a gratified look of seem- 
 ing expectance ; 
 But Ann Eutledge, summoning all of her 
 
 might of resistance, 
 Merely saluted "Good evening," yet with a 
 
 smile of approval, 
 For she well knew what he came for, aye, she 
 
 in secret applauded. 
 Then she added on going, "Home I must 
 
 haste to a task there." 
 What that task might be she breathed not a 
 
 syllable faintly, 
 Though the thought of it lifted each footstep 
 
 in joy from the highway. 
 
 Soon she had passed by the well-sweep in 
 
 front of the round red schoolhouse, 
 Over the public square and into the door of 
 
 her father. 
 Slyly she slid out of sight till she came all 
 
 alone to her work-room, 
 Where the sound of her loom gave instant 
 
 relief to her struggle, 
 For she was weaving a garment in which 
 
 seemed woven her brain-throbs, 
 As she played out the thread of the shuttle 
 
 to shifts of the treadle.
 
 AN'N RUTLEDGE. 1Q1 
 
 So the pair were parted that day, though 
 
 joined in their heart-beats, 
 Each had felt the tense stretch of the other's 
 
 innermost conflict, 
 Each was bearing a secret within, uncon- 
 
 fessed to the other. 
 Lincoln had written the letter stained with 
 
 the figure of crimson, 
 But to deliver it then, he failed in the fetch 
 
 of his courage. 
 Ann in her turn had in mind a new handsel 
 
 she was preparing, 
 But about it she kept her tongue tied in the 
 
 presence of Lincoln. 
 
 Thus both hid from each other in silence their 
 mutual tokens, 
 
 Hid from each other in silence alike their mu- 
 tual love-sighs, 
 
 Though their tale-telling eyes had tattled of 
 each to the other. 
 
 Lincoln, so baffled, at first felt embittered, 
 even rejected, 
 
 For a moment he tasted the wormwood of 
 love disappointed; 
 
 But from his own reproaches he soon is de- 
 fending the maiden 
 
 All to himself, and praising her just for her 
 deed of refusal:
 
 102 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDQE.BOOK V. 
 
 1 1 Then she was strong I admire her the more 
 when she quit me though wishing ; 
 
 Stronger than I was in this that I ought not, 
 I know, to have come here. 
 
 She has taught me a lesson a living example 
 of duty.' > 
 
 Quickly he rose and started away with good 
 resolutions 
 
 To be dutiful also, and drive out his bosom 
 the love-fiend, 
 
 Who had sneaked in upon him, a demon en- 
 snaring his conscience; 
 
 But from this poignant attack on himself he 
 soon will recover, 
 
 Oneness of Love overmasters twoness of du- 
 bious Duty. 
 
 Happily hymned the maiden her heart to the 
 
 tune of her hand-stroke, 
 Love of her work with the work of her love 
 
 was merrily married 
 As she thought of the man for whom the new 
 
 vesture was woven, 
 Even she dreamed she was making a fabric to 
 
 last him a life-time, 
 Which he might wear in his heart unforgotten 
 
 for all of his future.
 
 I00h 
 
 The People. 
 
 Listen again to the bell on the top of the 
 little red schoolhouse, 
 
 Rollicking resonant roundels over the val- 
 ley and woodland, 
 
 With its hemisphere musical layered above 
 and about it, 
 
 In the windless calm of the evening intoning 
 its far-away echoes, 
 
 Till they drop to a tingle that taps on the ear 
 of the farmer 
 
 Who in response at once sets out for the hill 
 of New Salem, 
 
 Where the people now gather to hear the can- 
 didate Lincoln, 
 
 And to vote him the lawmaker new to be sent 
 to Vandalia. 
 
 (103)
 
 104 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 So he will start his career from the town and 
 
 the State to the Nation, 
 On the way up to the top where perches now 
 
 President Jackson. 
 For the humblest can mount to the highest 
 
 position in office, 
 Such is the quest of the world, which is 
 
 marching this road to its future. 
 Each bright boy of the village has heard the 
 
 prophecy splendid, 
 "You will get to be President, such is your 
 
 wonderful talent," 
 Ever unsealing within him the sources of 
 
 high aspiration ; 
 This prediction was bruited to Lincoln and 
 
 thousands of others. 
 
 So on the hillock was hiving the swarm of 
 
 the busy-tongued people, 
 Who had winged to the spot from the farthest 
 
 rim of the township, 
 Loving the buzz of their talk sweet-tipped 
 
 with anecdote's honey, 
 Waiting, however, to taste of the humor of 
 
 Lincoln's last story, 
 Which would make their glad diaphragms 
 
 dance in a chorus of laughter, 
 And would paint in bright tints all the clouds 
 
 of the turbulent welkin.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 105 
 
 But behold of a sudden a change in the mood 
 of the Many ! 
 
 All are sorrowed to see the lachrymal look 
 of Jack Kelso 
 
 As he shuffled among them with downcast 
 eye penitential, 
 
 Every man in low voice was asking his neigh- 
 bor: "What can be the matter?" 
 
 Still they saluted him cheerily, but how 
 changed from his grinning ! 
 
 Soberly streaked is tHe flood of his face for 
 the first in a life-time ! 
 
 In the foray with Black Hawk he followed 
 
 the soldiers and Lincoln, 
 As the reciter of ballads of which his brain 
 
 was the storehouse; 
 Chiefly of Shakespeare's lines he became the 
 
 mighty intoner, 
 Voicing the reverberation of thunderous 
 
 words from his fog-horn ; 
 Then would Doctor Palmetto bemock him in 
 
 verses of Latin 
 
 From the old classical measures sung by Ver- 
 gil and Horace, 
 Which not a soul understood when the laugh 
 
 of the crowd was the loudest. 
 But how otherwise now have become Jack's 
 
 word and his action !
 
 106 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK 71. 
 
 Thin in his face, demure in his look, and his 
 
 figure stoops humbled! 
 That is Jack Kelso, not as he once was, but 
 
 as he now is ; 
 Once defiant of fate and of duty and even of 
 
 conscience, 
 Living the life untasked, and pursuing the 
 
 wayward Muses. 
 
 Merrily rose the cry of the crowd, at his pres- 
 ence delighted: 
 "Come, Jack, thunder us mightily Antony's 
 
 speech over Caesar. 
 Swell up your voice and make it as big as the 
 
 words of Will Shakespeare." 
 But not a line will he cite or grandly declaim 
 
 as his wont was ; 
 "Nay," he responded, reproving the crowd, 
 
 "No more of his verses! 
 That unhallowed bard of Avon ! I spurn him 
 
 forever ! 
 I permit not one of his lines to slip from my 
 
 tongue- tip, 
 My abhorrence of what I once loved I confess 
 
 with a sorrow, 
 Deeply repentant I feel of all of my former 
 
 devotion."
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Then Jack Kelso repeated with unction a 
 
 verse of the Bible, 
 Giving a lurid recital of fiery woes of In- 
 
 ferno ; 
 Also he chanted in fervor ecstatic old hymns 
 
 of the backwoods. 
 Wonderful transformation! His favorite 
 
 grog he renounced too, 
 Even his fiddle he broke into slivers as some- 
 
 thing Satanic, 
 Lest with its strains it might lead him away 
 
 into paths of temptation, 
 Playing the music of dancers of jigs and of 
 
 reels and of hornpipes. 
 But to hard toil he could not be broken by any 
 
 conversion ; 
 Still his love was to laze on a log in the sun- 
 
 shine recumbent, 
 Fishing away his happiest days in the San- 
 
 gamon's ripples. 
 
 What was the power which wrought such a 
 
 change in the sinner Jack Kelso f 
 Through all the cabins along the wild border 
 
 and over the prairies 
 Had resounded a voice like the call of the 
 
 trumpet from Heaven, 
 That of old Peter Cartright, the Methodist 
 
 preacher Titanic
 
 108 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDaE.BOOE VI. 
 
 Preaching the gospel of peace and bidding 
 
 prepare for last Judgment. 
 Yet a good fighter he went with his people 
 
 against the red Indian, 
 Who was the Canaanite doomed from on high 
 
 to be landless and lifeless. 
 So in the Black Hawk war he too as a soldier 
 
 enlisted, 
 And he prayed as he shot at the foes of the 
 
 God-chosen people, 
 Heathenish red-skinned foes, usurping the 
 
 land of white Christians. 
 
 Only last month a religious revival had 
 
 stormed through New Salem, 
 Stirring all of the underworld's depths of 
 
 seething emotion 
 Which had been layered down in the soul with 
 
 the lapse of the ages. 
 But it was tapped by the tongue of Cartright 
 
 and burst to the surface, 
 Overwhelming each man in a tide from the 
 
 ocean within him, 
 Crushing to earth the smit sinner beneath 
 
 the words adamantine 
 Till he would gasp and groan and shout in 
 
 agony hellish, 
 For the revenge in his heart which sprang 
 
 of his life in the backwoods.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 109 
 
 That was his sin revenge which he felt as 
 
 his devil and master, 
 Which remained in his heart long after the 
 
 Indian departed, 
 And transmitted the feud to the borderer 
 
 wreaking his grudges. 
 
 Aye, the preacher himself partook of the sin 
 of his people, 
 
 And his mighty damnation was also his secret 
 confession, 
 
 For he too was aware of the guilt of revenge 
 in his bosom. 
 
 That was the source of his power in depicting 
 the blazes of Hell-fire; 
 
 Torturing victims of wrath, he tortured him- 
 self as a victim; 
 
 There lay his worth he would punish him- 
 self with the lashes of conscience, 
 
 Voicing the penalty due to the world for the 
 same kind of sinning. 
 
 Such was the preacher 's luminous gift in 
 
 lighting Inferno 
 Over the prairie, along the border, in every 
 
 hamlet, 
 "Wreaking return of the deed in the heart of 
 
 the vengeful transgressor.
 
 HO LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. BOOK VI. 
 
 All the town had been sulphured and 
 scourged through that fiery furnace 
 
 By the revivalist just on this spot of the little 
 red schoolhouse, 
 
 Which in his furious words would seem to be 
 blazing in brimstone. 
 
 Women would wail, and men would moan, mid 
 curses Satanic ; 
 
 Some fell down in a fit, turned stark and chill 
 in the body 
 
 Through the mighty downpour of the preach- 
 er's fulmined perdition; 
 
 Others more balanced, secretly vowed to be 
 good in the future, 
 
 Not quite willing to wear their repentance in 
 view of the public. 
 
 Even the gentle Ann Rutledge was touched 
 with a twinge of her conscience 
 
 Maidenly innocence deeply responsive to ter- 
 ror religious, 
 
 Bearing back home a cleft soul now aware of 
 its innermost conflict, 
 
 When she had listened to Cartright's furious 
 discourse on passion, 
 
 Which he had kindled from Jezebel 's deed as 
 told in the Scriptures.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 But another still source of her soul was 
 
 stirred by the preacher 
 Tenderly talking now: "God is Love, but 
 
 Love unfulfilled here, 
 God is Love undying, but realized only by 
 
 dying, 
 Love of Duty is manly, but Duty of Love is 
 
 Godlike." 
 All this sank in the soul of young Ann, the 
 
 innocent maiden, 
 Where the criss-cross of Life had planted al- 
 
 ready the future 
 Sensitive soul to the least little prick of 
 
 priestly monition. 
 
 Somehow Lincoln kept out of that flood of fer- 
 vor volcanic, 
 
 Too tender-hearted to hearken the torture of 
 saint or of sinner, 
 
 Or refusing to hate the All-hater, even the 
 Devil. 
 
 Now Jack Kelso was one of those caught in 
 
 the cyclone religious 
 Which oft swept the frontier and bore all in 
 
 its path up to Heaven
 
 X12 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 "With a mysterious might irresistible, deemed 
 
 superhuman. 
 All his poetry was burnt out of him like a dry 
 
 prairie, 
 Not a verse could he sing any more, the psalm 
 
 song excepted, 
 Which he led at the church edifying to all of 
 
 the people. 
 Even his friend, kind Lincoln, he shunned, 
 
 who would plague him for verses, 
 Who, unregenerate still, might tempt him by 
 
 funning to laughter, 
 Or bewitch him with charms of old fables, the 
 
 lies of the Devil, 
 Aye, the worst sort of lies of the Father of 
 
 Lies, the first Liar. 
 
 But the little red schoolhouse was witness to 
 other excitements, 
 
 As the common hot center of all the commun- 
 ity 's passions, 
 
 Even the temperance talker could tease to 
 intemperate anger, 
 
 For the corngod too had his temple and wor- 
 shippers zealous, 
 
 Who would avenge any slanderous words 
 blaspheming their idol.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Also the mesmeric lecturer raised by his art 
 
 a small riot, 
 As he in league with Satan was seen enchant- 
 
 ing his victim, 
 Or would read at a distance the minds of his 
 
 spell-haunted people. 
 
 Oft on the grass nearby two wrestlers would 
 meet in a challenge 
 
 Thus to settle the problem, which one of the 
 twain was the better 
 
 Or perchance by trial to find the best man of 
 the township; 
 
 Each had his friends who failed not at last 
 to take part in the tussle 
 
 Hard-fisted yeomanry, ready to fight in a min- 
 ute the Indian, 
 
 Or if he were not present, to have a free bout 
 with each other. 
 
 So the village would surge far out on the 
 
 boisterous border, 
 Daring to vanguard the civilized world in 
 
 front of the savage, 
 Where the tempest is ready to rage on the 
 
 outside and inside 
 With all the tumult of life sailing into the sea 
 
 of Hereafter.
 
 114 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 But the deepest upheaval that ever had 
 shaken New Salem, 
 
 Afterward keeping the town divided in 
 thought and in feeling, 
 
 Roared when the bold abolitionist came and 
 began his harangue there, 
 
 Scattering pamphlets in print and trumpet- 
 ing talks from the schoolhouse, 
 
 Which assailed black slavery and favored the 
 freedom of negroes. 
 
 Boys hissed on by Doctor Palmetto would an- 
 swer with hooting, 
 
 Then they bespattered the speaker with hens ' 
 eggs, not sparing the rotten, 
 
 Till not an egg was left at the store of Abner 
 the absent; 
 
 Still the man kept talking in spite of the 
 smear and the odor, 
 
 Braving the threat which gave him an hour 
 for quitting the village. 
 
 Four of the stalwart townsmen then seized 
 
 the hapless offender, 
 Bearing him down to the Sangamon 's waters 
 
 and ducking him under, 
 Till he crawled out dripping and sat on a 
 
 stone in the sunshine. 
 Next they piled up the perilous pamphlets 
 
 and set them to blazing,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Though some sought to dissuade them and 
 took the wet man from his captors. 
 
 One of his rescuers was the roused school- 
 master, Mentor presageful, 
 
 Who dared threaten the boisterous mob with 
 the whirl of his ferule, 
 
 Though suspected himself of a bent to the 
 damnable doctrine; 
 
 He f oresaid in the fit of his foresight the pen- 
 alty coming : 
 
 "For this deed you will yet have to give of 
 yourselves the full payment; 
 
 Something of yours, I proclaim, will soon 
 have to burn for this burning, 
 
 Fate you invoke on your town and the doom 
 of retributive Furies." 
 
 Lincoln also was present and lent his arm 
 
 to the rescue, 
 But to the crowd he spake a calm sentence, 
 
 yet with a fore-cast : 
 "I believe in free speech, though I may not 
 
 agree with the speaker; 
 But I shall dare foretell you the future which 
 
 comes of repression : 
 You will yet have to listen to what this man 
 
 has been saying."
 
 LINCOLN AND INN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 Though some tongues wagged bitterly over 
 
 the action of Lincoln, 
 Then and afterward calling him nicknames 
 
 with Doctor Palmetto, 
 Who had now a new ground of dislike for the 
 
 worth of his rival, 
 Still the people forgave and forgot, e'en those 
 
 not approving; 
 History soon too remote was that deed in 
 
 rapid New Salem, 
 Though it had left on the village a shred of 
 
 uncanny remembrance 
 Which had better be buried by time in eerie 
 
 oblivion, 
 Than dug up for exploiting the pleasures of 
 
 retaliation. 
 
 So the citizens flocked to the place at the call 
 of the school-bell, 
 
 And were talking in voluble groups, not spar- 
 ing the village ; 
 
 Even another remove to the borderland sav- 
 age was hinted, 
 
 Once more obeying the transmitted impulse 
 to turn to the sunset 
 
 Which never failed to throb in the heart of 
 the restless frontiersmen.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 Even the well-weighing Squire made an eye 
 
 which glinted departure, 
 And the wainwright, though old, was faced 
 
 with a smile of approval. 
 
 But behold ! what is yonder, winding around 
 
 on the highway? 
 Soon a slow train heaves up into town mid the 
 
 stare of the people ; 
 Three large wagons with covers of drilling 
 
 which vaulted their contents, 
 Carrying household goods paled high with 
 
 women and children, 
 Nor was wanting the new-born babe with its 
 
 well-bosomed mother. 
 So they formed a full chain that linked from 
 
 the past to the future, 
 Over whose line was fleeting the spark of the 
 
 spirit electric, 
 Bearing History's soul to its new-world home 
 
 in the Northwest. 
 
 When the first wagon had come to the school- 
 house's tetering well-sweep, 
 
 Youthful the owner leaped down to the 
 ground to water his horses, 
 
 Which with many a puff had sturdily wound 
 up the hillside.
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 "Where are you going?" was asked by the 
 
 throng that gathered about him ; 
 1 i On to the wild Mississippi, aye, still onward 
 
 across it," 
 Said the youth as he thrust down the pole of 
 
 the stone-balanced well-sweep, 
 While there pulsed in his voice the westering 
 
 beat of migration. 
 All that crowd felt the throb and secretly 
 
 wished to go with him, 
 As he leaped to his seat and clucked to his 
 
 team to step forward, 
 Which then planted their hooves and straight- 
 
 ened up stoutly the trace-chain^. 
 Not a half dozen years had run since New 
 
 Salem was founded, 
 Still its people are feeling today a fresh 
 
 flight in their bosom. 
 
 Slowly a carriage now rolled up the knoll to 
 
 the thirst-slaking waters; 
 Old was the driver who called in his need for 
 
 help from his negro, 
 When to the question of Doctor Palmetto he 
 
 plaintively answered : 
 "I unwilling have quitted my home and my 
 
 blood in the coast-lands, 
 Where my ancestral family bloomed for six 
 
 generations,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 My armorial seal from England is stamped 
 
 on this carriage. 
 I dislike your prairies so level, they level me 
 
 also, 
 And I confess me not wholly in love with your 
 
 one sort of freedom. 
 But my young folks are dragging me onward 
 
 until I turn backward." 
 Yet he tickled his steeds by his lash and 
 
 trailed with the others. 
 
 Soon the third full wagon pulled up to the 
 
 bountiful well-head, 
 When a man climbed down by the hub of the 
 
 wheel to the horse-trougE. 
 On his middle-aged face the years had writ- 
 ten their message 
 Which was telling a tale of the sorrow and 
 
 joy of deliverance ; 
 To the question: "What state do you hail 
 
 from!" he answered: 
 * ' Over the mountains our journey has wound 
 
 from distant Virginia; 
 Loth I was, I acknowledge, to leave the loved 
 
 land of my fathers, 
 But I forefelt the hour of reckoning big with 
 
 misfortune, 
 And with my children I fled to your free 
 
 Northwest from the Judgment,"
 
 120 LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. BOOK VI. 
 
 Some of his listeners dreamed what he meant, 
 
 but one, and one only, 
 Grasped the full sweep of his bodeful words 
 
 -'twas Abraham Lincoln, 
 Who with the crowd was watching the wavy 
 
 procession of wagons, 
 As they heaved up the road to the well, then 
 
 sank down the hillside, 
 Hazily vanishing out of the view in the San- 
 
 gamon valley. 
 
 But the man who looked at them longest was 
 
 Squire Ebenezer, 
 Who had asked them to stay in New Salem, 
 
 but none of them tarried. 
 Over him came the old feeling to rear a new 
 
 communal structure, 
 Thrice in his life he had done it, and longed 
 
 to do it the fourth time. 
 Silent in wonder stood gazing the people 
 
 adown from the hillock, 
 For they saw too themselves in these emi- 
 grants pushing to sunset 
 What they had done in the past and still 
 
 might do in the future. 
 
 When the last wisp of the wavering wain to 
 a cloudlet had sunken,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 All turned round to the platform of scantling 
 
 high-piled for the speaker, 
 Candidate Lincoln, who speedily picked up 
 
 the thought of the people ; 
 Thus he started to form it to words deep- 
 
 hewn from his reason : 
 
 " Strange how man still keeps on his way 
 
 round the world to the westward, 
 Building his home, his town, his State, and 
 
 also his Nation, 
 That he may dwell with his kind in a house 
 
 of invisible structure 
 Safely, ever devote to the task of fulfilling 
 
 his freedom ! 
 All this he bears in his brain more lasting 
 
 than chattel or cattle, 
 
 Making his weal what unites in one bond him- 
 self and his fellow. 
 Here the husbandman tills his own lot, and 
 
 is lord of it wholly, 
 Still he belongs to an order above him, and 
 
 has to pay taxes. 
 Ownership first of the soil is his motto writ 
 
 in his heart's blood 
 Whose red drops he often has paid to the 
 
 murderous savage; 
 Then he is owner in fee of himself too, and 
 
 rightly a freeman,
 
 122 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOE VI. 
 
 Able to make of the land a free world and 
 
 to rule it in freedom, 
 And he starts of himself on his way, without 
 
 king, without nobles; 
 Not from above, from below upwells now the 
 
 fount of the Time-stream; 
 Self-directed the man, himself in his might 
 
 his own patron, 
 Visible hews he his house out of wood and 
 
 other material, 
 But an invisible tenement also he builds of 
 
 his spirit, 
 "Which he lives in with all his community 
 
 jointed together ; 
 And methinks, too, himself he is building 
 
 meanwhile the new man, 
 Now first appearing as character writ on 
 
 history's pages 
 Architect thrice of his home, of himself, of 
 
 his own institution." 
 
 Lincoln now felt he had soared to the clouds 
 
 out of sight of his people, 
 One man only excepted; at once he swoops 
 
 down to the earth with an image : 
 "All your farms close-clustered around us 
 
 are cells of the bee-hive, 
 Each has its own busy occupant who, while 
 
 gathering honey,
 
 THE PEOPLE. 123 
 
 Chooses the law to govern himself and 
 
 chooses its maker, 
 Whom I desire to be, and now solicit your 
 
 suffrage : 
 Choose ye, children of God in this new 
 
 promised land, me your Moses. " 
 
 So he spake, and the strong-boned tillers of 
 Sangamon county 
 
 Shouted assent to the flattering speech of 
 their candidate lofty, 
 
 For they all understood when he told them 
 in words of the Scripture, 
 
 Then he straightened himself to a plumb- 
 line and sped his oration: 
 
 "Here we stand at the front of this Nation 
 ever advancing, 
 
 Stand at the front of civilization itself roll- 
 ing onward, 
 
 As it streams through our prairies up to the 
 Father of Waters; 
 
 Nor can it there be detained, but to the Pa- 
 cific it surges. 
 
 This little village has slid down the ages to 
 hold us together; 
 
 Hoary its ancestry reaches in time, if we 
 knew how to trace it.
 
 124 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 Just in that line of wagons we saw is borne 
 
 a young harvest, 
 Seeds of communities free, sown over the 
 
 lands of the Northwest, 
 Free of too many forefathers, free of too 
 
 much tradition, 
 Though we lovingly look at the ancestor back 
 
 where we left him. 
 "We have fled from our own old world along 
 
 the Atlantic, 
 Over the mountains down into the one Great 
 
 Valley united, 
 There to build the new world which puts into 
 
 order man's freedom, 
 If the new lawgiver may but appear in the 
 
 Ealls of Vandalia. 
 Who he is I might guess, were I not by my 
 
 modesty tongue-tied." 
 
 Here one man of them all broke into a titter 
 disdainful, 
 
 That was Doctor Palmetto, the finder of 
 faults and diseases, 
 
 Foremost troubler of all the town and its 
 champion critic, 
 
 Antipathetic far down in his soul to the prom- 
 ise of Lincoln. 
 
 Just one glance fire-barbed the speaker shot 
 out at the Doctor,
 
 PEOPLE. 125 
 
 Then to a silence lie clicked down his throat 
 
 the rise of his choler, 
 Changing his eye and his tone, he seemed to 
 
 look into the future : 
 
 "Let me foresay the ominous word awaiting 
 fulfillment : 
 
 We shall have to turn round and go back to 
 the land whence we started, 
 
 Back to the sea-locked States which we or our 
 parents once quitted, 
 
 Well overworking that old world into our new 
 one and better. 
 
 Yon tented wagon now slowly drowsing away 
 in the distance 
 
 Will be wheeling about with the years to re- 
 turn to Virginia 
 
 Making it free, and re-bearing it into the re- 
 born Union, 
 
 Aye, re-building the old commonwealths once 
 settled from Europe, 
 
 After the type of the State first seen at the 
 birth of our Northwest. 
 
 Nor overlooked shall it be too the birthdom 
 of Doctor Palmetto." 
 
 With an ironical twinkle infusing each line 
 of his features
 
 126 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VI. 
 
 Lincoln then turned to the people who won- 
 dered at what he was saying, 
 
 For they could not easily catch up that pros- 
 pect prophetic, 
 
 He himself, when not in the glow, could 
 scarcely repeat it. 
 
 Harder perchance he had hit, if he had not 
 beheld James Eutledge 
 
 Who was also a native where grows the fan- 
 leafed Palmetto 
 
 Of the good citizens first, and he had too a 
 beautiful daughter, 
 
 Who stood listening there on the top of the 
 knoll with her father. 
 
 So the wordrich orator also knew how to be 
 silent ; 
 
 Deftly he turned to the theme of the time in 
 a present example : 
 
 "Let us recall that lumbering wagon which 
 
 passed here before us : 
 All of its parts the wheel and its axle, the 
 
 horse and the road too 
 That whole outfit must soon be transformed 
 
 in its speed and its power. 
 'Tis too weak, too slow, too costly to meet the 
 
 endeavor 
 Born of the age and the country which has 
 
 to construct a new carriage
 
 THE PEOPLE. 127 
 
 Whirling our products and us with the wind 
 
 from ocean to ocean. 
 That laborious horse must be changed out of 
 
 flesh into iron, 
 
 That he may race all day and all night with- 
 out wilting weary, 
 Bonding in speed our States to a Union more 
 
 closely than ever, 
 Crossing the line of the North and the South 
 
 where it seems to be rifting, 
 On a bridge well-jointed of rails made of 
 
 metal the stoutest. 
 And that tireless steed would align our town 
 
 with the earth's folk 
 Turning extension of Space to the swiftness 
 
 of Time with his gallop. ' ' 
 
 Thus the orator voiced the deep though vague 
 
 aspiration 
 Of his townsmen ambitious only the Doctor 
 
 dissented : 
 If for a moment he heard the far-reaching 
 
 forecast of Lincoln, 
 There would befall him a sudden attack of 
 
 mental dyspepsia. 
 
 Brightly uprose the next day the sun of the 
 Candidate's trial,
 
 128 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLED&E.BOOK VI. 
 
 When the last ray had expired, the judges 
 
 declared him elected. 
 But not fully unanimous counted the vote in 
 
 his favor, 
 One torn ballot with No written over it was 
 
 the exception, 
 Yet without any name or design inscribed on 
 
 the paper ; 
 Still the town was agreed in spelling the 
 
 name of the voter. 
 
 Next a bon-fire was built to the shout of Lin- 
 coln elected, 
 
 Store-boxes, tar-barrels, aye, and the plat- 
 form's newly-sawn scantling, 
 
 With some cordwood were heaped up and 
 kindled to flames on the hilltop, 
 
 Which shone far down the valley with tidings 
 of Lincoln elected. 
 
 All the men of the township were standing 
 around the big bon-fire, 
 
 Which flashed ghostly reflections over the 
 ships of white cloudland, 
 
 Or would dance its whimsical shapes on the 
 bluff in the distance, 
 
 Merrily weaving their shadowy whorls to the 
 music of Lincoln elected.
 
 THE PEOPLE. 129 
 
 See a new hat sail into the fire it is Squire 
 Ebenezer 's, 
 
 Flung in mad fun by Trueblood the farmer, 
 whose palm-leaf soon follows, 
 
 Even the dignified beaver of grave James 
 Eutledge whirls whizzing 
 
 Into the blazes the deed of rustic respect- 
 less Rube Ruffm; 
 
 Fast ran the jollification, every man was soon 
 hatless 
 
 One excepted alone and he was Abraham 
 Lincoln. 
 
 Somebody clutched at his head, but he dodged 
 and slid into darkness, 
 
 Saving his Postoffice hat from the general 
 conflagration 
 
 For the sake of its past, but also for sake of 
 its future, 
 
 Somehow with it he felt himself bonded in 
 soulship forever, 
 
 Duty it had unfulfilled a letter not yet de- 
 livered.
 
 00k 
 
 Lincoln and Ann Rutledge. 
 
 Clouded the dawn of the morn which followed 
 
 the day of election ; 
 Heaven above had a tear in her eye, unable 
 
 to shed it, 
 And the firmament golden had suddenly 
 
 turned to be leaden. 
 Light drooped down to the earth in a gloom 
 
 bereft of its sunshine, 
 While the treetops of autumn, song-rocked 
 
 in the spring, were now silent. 
 Even the Sangamon saucy was threading the 
 
 folds of his valley 
 Tuneless unsounded on shoal and on shore 
 
 were his bantering ripples, 
 As he sulkily slunk through the grass to the 
 
 all-purging Ocean. 
 
 (130)
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 Lincoln arose and strode through the village, 
 
 throbbing disquiet 
 Which interwove in his soul dark strands 
 
 with a bright one of triumph. 
 He had been lifted by choice of the folk to 
 
 their temple of service, 
 That rejoiced him as earnest prophetic of 
 
 higher fulfilment; 
 But underneath the feeling triumphal a throb 
 
 of the heart-break 
 Pulsed with its pain to the nethermost depths 
 
 of his being; 
 If for a moment on victory's upspring he rose 
 
 to a tiptoe, 
 Vengeful melancholy would smite him, bow- 
 
 ing him earthward. 
 So he staggered, rising and falling in throes 
 
 of a conflict 
 Which kept rolling in surges of storm his soul 
 
 and his body, 
 Inner peace had fled e'en if he was outwardly 
 
 victor. 
 
 Such was the struggle far deeper than any 
 
 political contest, 
 Which now writhed inside him with fury of 
 
 dragons contending. 
 Lincoln, the lover unpromised, loves her who 
 
 is promised another,
 
 132 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 Duty makes strife with his passion which up- 
 heaves him in heart-swells; 
 
 He is bonded in word to search for his rival 
 now absent, 
 
 Whom he hopes never to find in spite of the 
 quest he is making. 
 
 Writing a pitiful prayer he begs in fair 
 phrases an answer, 
 
 Which, if it came to his call, he could cover 
 with love's malediction. 
 
 Thus he feels himself double, and double the 
 part he is acting, 
 
 Ever unpraying his prayer he brands himself 
 a dissembler. 
 
 Conscience bids him renounce, but his heart 
 keeps smothering conscience 
 
 Which stabs back in the dark till he bleeds 
 with the poignant reproaches. 
 
 So it comes that he in response has written 
 another epistle 
 
 That was the unaddressed letter, yet bearing 
 the sign of his heart's blood, 
 
 Which though hid in his bosom, refuses to 
 be there imprisoned, 
 
 But leaps forth unexpected to light as if seek- 
 ing men's eyesight, 
 
 Hinting some message unspoken which must 
 in time be delivered.
 
 LFNCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 This is the letter he secretly plans to give 
 
 to Ann Butledge, 
 When the moment is born, instead of that of 
 
 the lover. 
 
 Wandering lorn and alone on the highway he 
 passes tEe mansion, 
 
 Home of the high-born dame, the Lady Eula- 
 lia Lovelace, 
 
 Whom he knows as the oracle giving her help- 
 ful responses 
 
 Sage reconciler of all the sore troubles of 
 heart in the village. 
 
 Harmony's balsam she drops divinely, when- 
 ever consulted, 
 
 Healing the wounds of the soul from her wells 
 of deepest experience. 
 
 Lincoln there sighed to himself: "Ah! what 
 can she do in my crisis ! 
 
 Dare I show her myself in this heart-stamped 
 letter ensanguined!" 
 
 But he could not enter the house in the clash 
 of his feelings, 
 
 So he sped up the road to walk off the edge 
 of the battle. 
 
 Soon he had strayed to the mulberry tree 
 which stood at the roadside,
 
 134 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 Which had become as sacred to him as the 
 oak of old fable, 
 
 From whose leaves as tongues the high God 
 would whisper responses, 
 
 Giving a glimpse of the future to the inquisi- 
 tive mortal. 
 
 Lincoln looked up at the foliage searing a lit- 
 tle in autumn, 
 
 With a foreboding of fate whereof he knew 
 not the reason. 
 
 Soon he sat down on the settle entwisted of 
 
 curls of the grapevine, 
 Which there seemed to embrace him in many 
 
 a tangle and flexure. 
 Then he talks to himself, for he cannot silence 
 
 his conflict: 
 "She the loved is betrothed to another, and 
 
 well do I know it ! 
 That is the thought which knifes me in two, 
 
 that knowledge ! knowledge ! 
 Primal curse upon man at his start in the 
 
 Garden of Eden ! 
 My beginning of life it is too, with a love that 
 
 is hopeless 
 Yet keeps hoping anew and haling me back 
 
 to my trial ; 
 For she disdains me not in her heart, she 
 
 shows me her favor.
 
 LINCOLN 2ND ANN RUTLEDGE. 105 
 
 Duty is giving her one command, but Love 
 
 quite another ; 
 Shall she be true to the hest of her heart, or 
 
 true to her conscience! 
 For even Truth turns double and pulls her 
 
 fiercely asunder. 
 
 In its full fury and uproar her struggle I mir- 
 ror within me, 
 For it is mine I see it as hers but I feel it 
 
 as mine too 
 All my heart to a demon within me is turned 
 
 by her promise ; 
 Love too, the holiest angel, is scourging me 
 
 down to damnation 
 What I ought is a hammer that seems to be 
 
 beating my brains out. 
 So I have written a letter which tells her my 
 
 renunciation, 
 But none the less is the Hope still alive that 
 
 time may reward it ; 
 Love, sweet Love I write down renounced, 
 
 obeying stern Conscience, 
 Yet the counterstroke slips from my pen, to 
 
 renounce my renouncement. 
 Let me read once more that script of a sybil- 
 line leaflet." 
 
 Lincoln took off his hat and gazed at the heart 
 on the letter
 
 136 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK VII. 
 
 Which as he held in his hand was trembling 
 in tune to his pulse-waves, 
 
 Letter unsigned, unaddressed, undated, per- 
 chance too unhappy, 
 
 As it throbbed with a pain that writhed to the 
 tip of his fingers, 
 
 And ran wrenching the lines of his face to the 
 echoes of sorrow. 
 
 When he had read the letter again and pon- 
 dered each sentence, 
 
 Taking the oath anew to fulfill the work of 
 renouncement 
 
 From the mulberry top down fell a lone leaf 
 on the letter, 
 
 Twirling until its last curve on the ink-red 
 token alighted, 
 
 Which it seemed there to melt with in kisses 
 of rapturous silence. 
 
 Up he sprang from his seat and hastened 
 away from that leafage 
 
 Which in a thousand mirrors was holding be- 
 fore him his image 
 
 Borne in an overflow flooding his soul -with 
 frenzy forebodeful. 
 
 Past the round red schoolhouse he stepped 
 with memory tender, 
 
 As he thought of the hours he spent with Ann 
 Eutledge in study,
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 Where their heads as well as their hearts 
 
 grew joined in a marriage, 
 Destined to stay unfulfilled to the law, though 
 
 the tie be eternal, 
 Which in his mind ran back to that day when 
 
 he glimpsed on the hillside 
 First the fair maid as he sped in his flatboat 
 
 over the milldam. 
 
 While he went rocking his soul in the cradle 
 of sweet reminiscence, 
 
 Just then struck the clear bell with a tremu- 
 lous note from its belfry 
 
 Thrilling the air into throbs sympathetic 
 with tender emotions, 
 
 As it called the loitering children to school 
 in the morning, 
 
 Who in glad groups were fain to prattle and 
 play by the wayside. 
 
 But its vanishing thrills seemed to chime 
 with his mood of renouncement, 
 
 Giving a toll to the beat of his heart in mem- 
 ory tender. 
 
 Mentor Graham, the master, was there and 
 
 stood on the doorstep 
 Welcoming all with a swing of his ferule, the 
 
 badge of his empire,
 
 138 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 To whom Lincoln nodded salute which was 
 hearty and grateful, 
 
 But not mooded he was to stop at the peda- 
 gogue's challenge 
 
 To a roistering fable about his triumphant 
 election. 
 
 Anxiously onward he steps he hardly dares 
 dream what is coming 
 
 Through the Public Square, along its diagonal 
 cowpath, 
 
 Stopping to glance at a rifted cloud with its 
 downburst of sunshine, 
 
 But not failing to fling as he passed a glower- 
 ing eye-shot 
 
 At the store of Abner the absent which stood 
 on the corner, 
 
 And appeared to be woefully waiting in watch 
 for the owner. 
 
 Soon he stood under the sign of the well- 
 known inn of the village, 
 
 Which was the cheery abode of James Rut- 
 ledge, the dignified father, 
 
 Ever the pride of citizens, resident first of 
 New Salem. 
 
 Lincoln Halted a breath, for he heard palpitat- 
 ing the music
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE. 
 
 139 
 
 Sprung of the shuttle and loom in the dance 
 
 of their rounded recurrence, 
 Weaving in cadence the web and the warp of 
 
 a garment together; 
 With it was mingled the low sweet note of 
 
 the voice of a maiden 
 Which took the beat of its time from the 
 
 measuring stroke of the cross-beam, 
 And interwove its melody tender with threads 
 
 of the fabric. 
 Well did the listener know the tune and the 
 
 soft intonation, 
 Which she had sung him in many a soulful 
 
 strain of a ballad. 
 
 Stepping up to the open window he looked 
 
 and he listened, 
 While in his bosom was smiting a loom in 
 
 heart-strokes concordant, 
 Weaving destiny's vesture alive with the 
 
 beats of the future. 
 Wistful he watches the sweep of her arm and 
 
 the swing of her body 
 As she forward and backward bends with the 
 
 dip of the heddle, 
 And keeps flinging in turn and return the 
 
 sharp-pointed shuttle, 
 Which adds line upon line to the garment in 
 
 steady procession ;
 
 140 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 Fleetly the bobbin is flying bird-like in the 
 
 sway of the branches, 
 From one side to the other is streaming a 
 
 thread in its mouth-piece, 
 As the maid catches its flight in her hand and 
 
 whips it around thence 
 So that it leaves in its trail a filament spun 
 
 of its body, 
 Like Arachne the spider who spins her fine 
 
 gossamer network 
 Out of herself in long lines that cross in her 
 
 intricate pattern. 
 
 Lincoln hearkened the stroke of the loom beat 
 
 time to her ditty 
 Weaving her musical soul along with each 
 
 thread of the garment ; 
 Bowing her head to her work she seemed to 
 
 be saying her prayer. 
 Up and down lilts the warp as if tuned to 
 
 the tread of the dancer 
 Going and coming in mazes of texture with 
 
 harmony woven, 
 While in the shuttle is humming the spool cut 
 
 of hollowed elder. 
 
 Sadly was sighing the lay of the maid as if 
 she were singing
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 Her own tragical love and the desperate 
 
 struggle within her, 
 Weaving her life-threads one by one, with 
 
 each cast of the shuttle, 
 Making a tissue that seemed to be woven of 
 
 matter and spirit. 
 
 Suddenly tapped the schoolhouse bell a toll 
 
 to her measure, 
 Causing her hand to miss in its grip the dart 
 
 of the shuttle, 
 As she called up the past of her heart on the 
 
 way to the present. 
 
 Then a moment she stopped and looked at the 
 
 ring on her finger, 
 For it had caught, as she jerked, in the 
 
 strands of the garment, 
 Seemingly seeking to stem the dexterous work 
 
 of the weaver, 
 Jealous of what the finger and hand were 
 
 busily making, 
 As they rapidly hurtled the warp and the 
 
 woof to a fabric. 
 
 Even she tried one tug to pull off the obsti- 
 nate token 
 Which still clug to its place, refusing to slip 
 
 by the knuckle.
 
 142 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 Deeply she sighed as she sundered the thread 
 from the ring which had caught it, 
 
 Muttering: "Ah, methinks my shroud this 
 day I am weaving!" 
 
 Lincoln heard it and uttered a sob as he stood 
 at the window, 
 
 While the heart in his bosom hit loud on its 
 walls as a drum-beat, 
 
 And there rolled down his cheek in spite of 
 himself tEe hot tear-ball, 
 
 For he seemed to presage the maiden's trag- 
 edy coming, 
 
 And to weep at the dream of her fate which 
 her lips had forespoken. 
 
 But Ann Rutledge had heard in response the 
 
 low sough of his breathing, 
 Quickly she whirled round her head to the 
 
 source of that deep suspiration, 
 Catching the lines of his face at the throb of 
 
 their tristful emotion ; 
 Well she knew the sad mood of the man and 
 
 the gloom of his nature, 
 Knew how to turn it aside to the fanciful play 
 
 of his humor 
 Putting a mask of joy on a soul overborne 
 
 with its sorrow.
 
 LINCOLN AtfD ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 Up she sprang from the stool of her loom 
 
 with countenance smile-lit, 
 Pouring the balm of her look she tripped to 
 
 the face at the window, 
 And with the sunshine born of a word she 
 
 scattered the rain-cloud: 
 ' i Well, you peeper ! So you have come to spy 
 
 out my secret ! 
 Always trying to read just what I keep in 
 
 me unspoken ! 
 Always trying to hear the unheard of my 
 
 heart in its secret ! 
 But now tell me, does not my handiwork seem 
 
 to you happy ? 
 For I was happy in doing it, weaving myself 
 
 to this raiment; 
 You too can fabric yourself in a story give 
 
 me a sample." 
 
 Such was the shift of her sunlit soul from a 
 cloud to a rainbow. 
 
 Instantaneous with Love's look from sympa- 
 thy's well-head 
 
 Over the face of Lincoln a humorous wavelet 
 ran trickling: 
 
 "Yes, I must be a weaver, a fable I often 
 have woven, 
 
 Out of the Black Hawk War, on the loom of 
 my fancy romantic,
 
 144 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 And I see that you too have been dipped in 
 
 the spirit of fabling. 
 But relate to me now your secret the nub of 
 
 your story." 
 
 Luminous, Ann responded, noting the change 
 
 in his features : 
 "I shall tell it at once this garment I weave 
 
 is for you, sir, 
 Given by father and mother and me in your 
 
 honor's election, 
 To be used for a new suit of clothes when you 
 
 leave for Vandalia, 
 Where will begin your mount on the ladder or 
 
 lofty ambition ; 
 How will the title resound through the world 
 
 the Hon'rable Abraham Lincoln I " 
 
 Thus she meeded him praises, summoning all 
 
 of her sunshine 
 That she might gently illumine the clouds 
 
 which had lowered in Lincoln, 
 For she long had been ware, in the feel of her 
 
 soul, of the night-spell 
 Which had been laid on his life, perchance in 
 
 the womb of his mother, 
 And still more, had been wrought in the look 
 
 of the fate-eyed frontiersman,
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 Ever foreboding the danger which loomed 
 
 from the wreak of the savage. 
 Such was the rill of his character trickling 
 
 from fountain ancestral, 
 Which the maiden knew how to transform to 
 
 an overflow sunny, 
 Making him glow when gloomed, by a dip in 
 
 the sheen of her spirit. j 
 
 Slowly to his drew nearer her eyes and 
 warmed to a sparkle, 
 
 Tender the whisper she lipped, and worded 
 in tones confidential: 
 
 "I was thinking of you with every shot of 
 the shuttle, 
 
 At each shift of the warp I saw a tall form 
 in new raiment, 
 
 Thoughts of mine own would run of them- 
 selves into lines of the texture, 
 
 And this loom has woven you too with the 
 yarn of the spinner. 
 
 But behold ! at the image within me I looked 
 through the window, 
 
 When the face of my fancy shot into the face 
 here before me 
 
 With a sudden fulfilment of hope which baf- 
 fles me dreaming." 
 
 Then she lit up her look with radiance fresh 
 of her soulshine.
 
 146 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VII. 
 
 Buoyantly swayed on her smiles rose Lincoln 
 out of his sorrow 
 
 Layered within him far down in the bottom- 
 less sea of his being; 
 
 Yet she too had her sorrow, surging in con- 
 flict ferocious, 
 
 Hers was a running fight underneath her 
 pleasant exterior 
 
 Waged between her unpromised love and her 
 unloved promise; 
 
 Chained to the loveless law is the lawless love 
 in each heart-throb, 
 
 Which at the presence of Lincoln smote her 
 more fiercely than ever. 
 
 But the youth was illumined with new light 
 
 that streamed through his features, 
 And he spake forth his radiant mood in an 
 
 eager inquiry : 
 "What do you say you are weaving? Tell 
 
 me concerning this garment 
 Suit of fine clothes bran-new you people are 
 
 going to give me ! 
 Strangely forefelt! it is just what I needed 
 
 and secretly longed for. 
 Such a providence takes off the scowl of high 
 
 Heaven down at me. ' '
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 To him responded the maid sympathetic in 
 
 voice and in eye-glance : 
 "All of us thought the new dress you must 
 
 have to bespeak the new calling, 
 For your career now takes its first stride to 
 
 the goal of the future, 
 Passing from little New Salem on up to the 
 
 State, to the Nation, 
 Oft have I seen in my dream your steps to 
 
 the top of the mountain ; 
 Our whole household has shared in the joy 
 
 of weaving this garment. 
 'Tis a month since I started, forecasting that 
 
 you would be chosen 
 See ! it is done but two threads more are all 
 
 that are needed, 
 Those I shall add just now while you look at 
 
 me throwing the shuttle." 
 
 Then she sprang to her seat and played on 
 her loom a sweet music, 
 
 Only two notes of the strain whose measures 
 had built the whole fabric, 
 
 While each thread of the texture was woven 
 along with a heart-beat. 
 
 "Finished!" she cried in a joy, to a bolt she 
 wound up her labor, 
 
 Talking meanwhile to the wonder-smit coun- 
 tenance peeking before her :
 
 148 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOE TIL 
 
 1 l This is what we are going to send to the vil- 
 lage 's tailor, 
 
 To the crosslegged Sandy, skillfully plying 
 his needle, 
 
 Shearing and stitching and pressing his flat- 
 iron hot on his lapboard." 
 
 Then she turned and faced intently the youth 
 
 at the window, 
 Drawing her look to a question which seemed 
 
 to wish " no " for an answer : 
 "Have you brought me today the letter a long 
 
 time expected?" 
 Ere he could utter a word, his hat she had 
 
 daintily lifted 
 Luckless rent-free Postoffice hat, which she 
 
 knew as his mail-bag 
 When down flitted that unaddressed letter of 
 
 Fate with its token, 
 To the surprise of the maid, as Lincoln spake 
 
 out the presage : 
 "There it drops out again! The secret can 
 
 never be hidden ! 
 Thrice it has sped to the sight, defying my 
 
 every precaution, 
 And has revealed the full heart to the eye in 
 
 symbol of red-ink. 
 By myself I dared not give it, but Heaven 
 
 now helps me.
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. 
 
 Take it, 'tis written to you, but not by; your 
 
 absentee Abner." 
 Ann for a moment was startled, feeling the 
 
 cut of her conflict, 
 As the youth let fall on her palm the weird- 
 
 working token, 
 Saying: "You need not answer it till I re- 
 
 turn from Vandalia, 
 And expect not a line till you see me appear- 
 
 ing in person; 
 To renounce is my word which I solemnly lip 
 
 in my vow here." 
 
 But soon Lincoln unkeyed to his love the 
 
 tense turn of his features, 
 And with the look of a hope he preluded his 
 
 purpose more gently: 
 "I shall write once a week to the Lady Eula- 
 
 lia Lovelace 
 Who is the friend of us both, and also deft 
 
 mender of heart-break; 
 Till then renounce, and with you so pledged 
 
 I shall have to renounce too. 
 You were strong when you passed by the mul- 
 berry shunning my presence, 
 Just as strong I am trying to be and fulfill 
 
 your example, 
 Then the days will bring the reward of our 
 
 double renouncement. "
 
 150 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLED'GE.BOOK VII. 
 
 So he spake, and would give up the present 
 in hope of the future. 
 
 But just look at the blush of the maiden as 
 she clings to the letter 
 
 With a deep sudden sough of her breath, 
 which was pulsed with her heart-beats 
 
 Throwing out on the air the shock of her in- 
 nermost conflict! 
 
 Then she pressed to her quivering lips that 
 symbol of red-ink, 
 
 Quite as if she might dare, in the fire of her 
 feeling, to kiss it. 
 
 Lincoln leaned forward, perchance to bestead 
 the sweet lot of that letter, 
 
 But he saw on her raised-up hand the red 
 wrath of the ruby 
 
 Flashing out like a blood-shot eye from the 
 ring of betrothal ; 
 
 At the implacable image of anger he shudder- 
 ing shrank back, 
 
 Dropping his visage to earth in the glance of 
 the flame-eyed demon. 
 
 There they stood heart-struck apart, the ring 
 was a Hell-fire between them, 
 
 Silent they stared as it were on the brink of 
 the chasm infernal,
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 When down dropped on their hideous dream 
 
 the voice of the school-bell, 
 Calling them back to themselves for fulfilling 
 
 the work of renouncement. 
 Each turned away from the other in spite of 
 
 their mutual longing, 
 Hopefully waiting for time to resolve the lorn 
 
 strife of their love-sighs ; 
 Still they both peeped backward, each looked 
 
 at the other while looking.
 
 I00K 
 
 Vandalia. 
 
 Now behold on the road to the Capital Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, 
 
 Leaving New Salem behind, afoot he is 
 threading the country 
 
 Whose expanse is rolling beyond and be- 
 yond in the distance, 
 
 Carrying upward and onward his ken into 
 dreams of the future, 
 
 Till in the welkin above him he sees the high 
 dome of the Nation 
 
 Bending around the horizon which drops sun- 
 lit to the prairie, 
 
 And encircles each step with a heaven of far- 
 glancing glory, 
 
 Even the threatening cloud-wrack would 
 
 flash into fleeces of gold-wool. 
 (152)
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 153 
 
 Oft he inspects the new suit of which he is 
 wearer triumphant, 
 
 Smoothing it over the nap with his hand 
 caressingly gentle, 
 
 Watchfully picking away from its surface 
 each gossamer stranded, 
 
 Each wrecked cobweb idly afloat in the sea 
 of the sunbeams, 
 
 For his happiest hope was to keep the gar- 
 ment still flawless 
 
 Till he returned from his trip in the bloom of 
 the Spring to New Salem, 
 
 Love was secretly wound in each thread, love- 
 spun and love-woven. 
 
 Loftily in his new vesture he trod a new man 
 down the highway, 
 
 Newly aware of himself, beginning anew his 
 career too ; 
 
 Even a strut now and then he would stride, in 
 ambition exalted. 
 
 Still he kept turning around for a glance at 
 the village receding 
 
 Till it swooned out of view in the arms of the 
 wooing horizon, 
 
 When it left him alone to himself in a fare- 
 well of silence. 
 
 Hark! it still has a tremulous voice, though 
 vanished from vision !
 
 154 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 'Tis the bell of the schoolhouse breathing the 
 
 lisp of its tinkle 
 In its low breath which throbs on his ear for 
 
 a moment, then dies there, 
 Quite unable to pulse a beat farther across the 
 
 mid air-sea, 
 Bearing a message of love which startles his 
 
 soul's reminiscence, 
 As he dreams that he hears the last sigh of 
 
 a maid in the whisper 
 Faintingly to him syllabled from the invisible 
 
 belfry, 
 For the dark backstroke of Fate smote in him 
 
 amid all his joyance, 
 Just from the depths of his love overflowed 
 
 him the forecast of losing. 
 
 Autumn has ripened the round of the seasons 
 
 to fullness of fruitage, 
 Shimmering into the sun-beshone hours a 
 
 sense of fulfilment. 
 Still the yellowing year hath a yearning for 
 
 something beyond it, 
 
 Even the day in decline doth whisper a long- 
 ing immortal, 
 And the set of one sun is felt as the rise of 
 
 another. 
 
 Time itself this moment must die to re-live 
 the next moment.
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 155 
 
 Lincoln was sauntering slowly along in the 
 
 mood of the autumn 
 Which was playing its tints on his soul like 
 
 the vanishing rainbow, 
 When he was suddenly met at the crossing by 
 
 one of his voters, 
 Best of the neighboring farmers, who then 
 
 started to quiz him : 
 "So our lawmaker lofty is off for the halls 
 
 of Vandalia, 
 Which lies dreamily muddy along the low 
 
 banks of Kaskaskia, 
 Weening itself already the Capital true of 
 
 the Nation. 
 But, good Abraham, fetch me at once that 
 
 railroad of iron 
 
 With its horse to skip fleetly across my lob- 
 lolly prairie, 
 That I may give up my oxcart and quit so 
 
 much walking. 
 I would like if it ran just in front of the door 
 
 of my cabin; 
 Anyhow keep it away, for my vote, from the 
 
 farm of Jake Jaggers." 
 
 Such was the name of a neighbor and rival 
 
 he spitefully spat out. 
 Artfully Lincoln switched off to a story in 
 
 giving his answer :
 
 156 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 "Let me now tell you what I am thinking 
 
 about on this journey: 
 That whole Capital I am propounding to 
 
 scoop at an armful, 
 And to carry it off to the banks of the San- 
 
 gamon river, 
 Where it rightly belongs if we list to the 
 
 voice of our county ; 
 Yea, my New Salem would never refuse the 
 
 gift of the State-house." 
 
 On sped the speaker leaving his voter to pon- 
 der the problem. 
 
 Often he shifted around in his mind his law- 
 giving burden, 
 
 Thinking how he might knit the whole State 
 in the knot of new union, 
 
 Tieing it through and through with the iron- 
 bound tracks of the railroad, 
 
 Bringing more closely together its people in 
 commerce and travel. 
 
 Also he peered in the rift which ran through 
 the heart of the Nation, 
 
 Which made of one two peoples that started 
 to facing each other, 
 
 Still united, but quaked with uncanny fore- 
 boding of struggle, 
 
 Which already was stamped on his soul pre- 
 saging the future.
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 157 
 
 Aye that pedestrian silently faring ahead on 
 the highway, 
 
 Saw around the horizon the far heat-light- 
 ning in flashes, 
 
 Which, unvoiced of the thunder, seemed deed- 
 less caresses of fancy; 
 
 Or at night the star-shot welkin would fling 
 him a fire-ball 
 
 Suddenly over the sky, illuming the firma- 
 ment's arches, 
 
 Torching terrestrial ways for a minute, then 
 blaze into nothing. 
 
 But the strife which moiled in his mind most 
 
 often and deeply, 
 Came of the Furies of Love which kept 
 
 wrenching his heart as two wrestlers 
 In their desperate combat, dragon-like, 
 
 twisted together. 
 Love's deepest truth in his being becomes 
 
 what assails the Law's sanction, 
 Yet he the Lawmaker is for others, aye for 
 
 himself too. 
 What he owns in every droplet of blood of his 
 
 body 
 Cannot be his by the right of the world but 
 
 belongs to another ; 
 What in nature is one and the whole, stays 
 
 halved and asunder.
 
 158 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK VIT1. 
 
 Think what may happen while he is away 
 
 in the distant Vandalia ! 
 Winged by Chance the letter expected may 
 
 drop any moment ; 
 Then sad Ann would behold as the signs 
 
 of her innermost combat 
 Two contending writs, each making the claim 
 
 of possession. 
 Or the absenter himself might appear and 
 
 take up his promise ! 
 Thus the lone wayfarer tossed on the wave* 
 
 of his soul in a tempest, 
 Seeking to fathom the oracles dark of the 
 
 deeds that are coming. 
 
 Now at a farm-house facing the roadside he 
 
 asks for his dinner ; 
 Which the generous owner, guest-loving, 
 
 heartily offers. 
 Lincoln had soon, from his place on the porch, 
 
 peered in at a window 
 Whence he had heard the sound of a loom in 
 
 weaving a garment; 
 
 Where on a stool sat the daughter busily ply- 
 ing her shuttle, 
 With the same bend of the head, and graceful 
 
 cast of the forearm, 
 Which he had seen once before when he 
 
 peeped at the beautiful weaver,
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 While she wove with body and soul the gar- 
 
 ment he wore now. 
 Even the look seemed the same recalling in 
 
 rapture her image; 
 As he stood in a silence steadily eyeing the 
 
 window, 
 He was waked from his dream by a call to 
 
 partake of the viands, 
 Which he did with a relish, oft adding the 
 
 sauce of a story. 
 
 Finished with luck the good dinner, thriftily 
 
 spoke up the farmer: 
 "Acres of corn are now ripe awaiting the cut 
 
 of the corn-hook, 
 
 Frost has bitten it gently, today we are start- 
 ing to shock it ; 
 How all the ears of the stalks have suddenly 
 
 shifted their color, 
 From their suits of fresh velvety green to a 
 
 butternut fading! 
 And the red tassels so silken and soft that 
 
 waved in the sunshine 
 Like a fiery bandanna hung out from its 
 
 pocket of corn-shucks, 
 Are burnt crumbling and crisp to the touch, 
 
 and sere to the eye-sight; 
 Also some ears, the best of the crop, we shall 
 
 strip for a hoe-cake,
 
 160 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 For the roasting-ear's kernel now hardens 
 
 upon the last nubbin." 
 When he heard of the husking-bee Lincoln 
 
 rejoiced as a victor, 
 For as lawmaker knew he far less of his craft 
 
 than as husker, 
 Though another sly motive he had which he 
 
 hid in his bosom. 
 So Ee asked of the farmer to take him along 
 
 to the cornfield, 
 Modestly saying this word of himself: "I 
 
 think I can help you." 
 
 All then jollily started away to the trial of 
 
 labor ; 
 Lincoln first shucked off his coat and his vest 
 
 from himself like a corn-ear, 
 Carefully folding and laying these garments 
 
 bran-new on a fence-rail; 
 But the new trousers he could not so easily 
 
 save from the ordeal. 
 Then he took the curved cutter and slashed 
 
 away at a corn-hill 
 Four large stalks it contained overarching 
 
 him under their leaf-blades ; 
 Each of the stalks bore two ears of corn and 
 
 perchance a wee nubbin, 
 But he severed them all at one cut .of the 
 
 keen crescent corn-hook.
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 161 
 
 Gripping their tops and thrusting them into 
 
 the shock by the handful. 
 Then he clasped on his long middle finger the 
 
 thong of tough leather 
 Which would fasten the husking peg cut of a 
 
 hickory sapling 
 Tapering down to a point to pierce the 
 
 rough husk of the corn-ear, 
 Till the serried lines of gold grains would 
 
 flash in the sunlight 
 Massed in phalanxes close round the cob in 
 
 the shape of a spindle. 
 
 So the ears kept flying to heaps from the 
 
 hands of the huskers, 
 Till the supper-horn blew its sweet welcoming 
 
 note from the farm-house 
 Making a music softly attuned to the glow of 
 
 the sunset, 
 Hurrying hungry huskers to frugal fare of 
 
 the farmer, 
 Mush and milk as the vanguard, then hominy 
 
 hulled and the bacon, 
 Crowned with a fry of young chicken that 
 
 swam in a sea of cream gravy. 
 
 Ended the meal well-seasoned with humorous 
 bits of the backwoods,
 
 162 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VlII. 
 
 Lincoln addressed the daughter and begged 
 
 for a tune on her fiddle, 
 Namely the loom with its bow and its strings 
 
 strung tense to be played on, 
 Tapping the harmonies held in his heart by 
 
 the mode of its music, 
 Thrilling the halls of memory's temple with 
 
 images happy 
 
 Which restore the whole world of New Sa- 
 lem 's beautiful weaver 
 Re-enacting the glint of her eyes and the lisp 
 
 of her lips too. 
 This was the reason why Lincoln had stayed 
 
 and swinked in the cornfield. 
 Fain would he witness in life once more his 
 
 heart's fondest drama 
 Played by the daughter before him attuning 
 
 the loom and the shuttle. 
 
 So he re-lived in that farm-house the sweet- 
 est scene of existence 
 
 For awhile, when a rap was heard and a 
 tread on the doorstep ; 
 
 Bidden by guestship to enter, a stranger 
 walked in out the night-tide, 
 
 As the good farmer held up the candle but 
 uttered no question, 
 
 Then the newcomer spoke: "I am trudging 
 my way to Vandalia,
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 163 
 
 Chosen lawgiver for the whole State from 
 
 Montgomery County, 
 Dimmed by the dark and weary of footstep I 
 
 ask a night's lodgment." 
 Hesitating the farmer replied as if forced 
 
 to refusal: 
 ''Here we have but one bed for a guest, and 
 
 that is now taken." 
 Lincoln then broke in suddenly: "We can 
 
 lie under one cover; 
 Friend, I too am bound for Vandalia, going 
 
 to-morrow, 
 Tall representative cornstalk grown in the 
 
 Sangamon Valley. 
 Possibly we shall agree on some law as we 
 
 talk in our slumber, 
 And I would like to be winning a vote for my 
 
 railroad beforehand." 
 "Yes, but mine is a heavier burden than 
 
 that," said the stranger. 
 
 Both lay down underneath one bed-quilt, the 
 
 best of the household 
 Only last week it was merrily stitched at a 
 
 neighborhood quilting 
 Both of the lawgivers soon were in mutual 
 
 harmony snoring, 
 Worn with the work of the day they enter the 
 
 portal of dreamland
 
 164 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTL'EDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 Where is still living their past, oft mingling 
 with shapes of the future. 
 
 One of the sleepers heard lisped a faint word 
 from a voice of his dreamf oik : 
 
 "Soon I shall be but a ghost, yet to stay in 
 thy presence forever." 
 
 With that voice still haunting his ears rose 
 
 Lincoln at daybreak, 
 Strolled about on the porch, then looked at 
 
 the loom through the window. 
 Soon the wife of the farmer, forethoughtful, 
 
 had ready their breakfast, 
 To whose homely fare was added the fry of 
 
 some hen's eggs, 
 Nor did she fail to give them a slice of her 
 
 ham from the smoke-house- 
 Delicate beechnut ham, the best of the flesh 
 
 of the porker. 
 
 Both of the guests partook, and paid their re- 
 spects to the hostess, 
 Who well knew how to serve her food with a 
 
 flavor domestic. 
 Briskly together they started to step off the 
 
 way to Vandalia, 
 Law-making seat of the State, which hovered 
 
 a day in the distance.
 
 TANDALIA. 
 
 First the companion spoke up to Lincoln who 
 
 lagged absent-minded : 
 "Twice already a member, I now am going 
 
 the third time 
 Here in my knapsack are well-thumbed 
 
 pages of print you should know of : 
 Jefferson's manual showing the order which 
 
 guides our Assembly; 
 Two Constitutions, of State and of Nation, I 
 
 always keep by me, 
 They are the rock on which the true patriot 
 
 has to stay anchored." 
 
 "With a knock of surprise was Lincoln jerked 
 
 out of his dream-world, 
 For the man now spoke like a sage of expe- 
 rience and learning, 
 As he pulled off his coon-skin cap with tails 
 
 ornamented, 
 And unbuttoned to freedom of speech his 
 
 checkered shirt-collar. 
 Then the philosopher clad in the style of the 
 
 backwoods, gave answer 
 Why he had quit the civilized world to dwell 
 
 on the border : 
 "I was born in Virginia, near-by stood famed 
 
 Monticello, 
 Known as Jefferson's temple, sacred to all 
 
 his disciples,
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 One of whom I was in youth, and today I do 
 
 not deny him. 
 But a good dozen years have sped since I fled 
 
 from my birthland, 
 Feeling a doom suspended above it and des- 
 
 tined to light there. 
 So I began with thousands of others the toil- 
 
 some migration 
 To this spacious North- West, by Jefferson 
 
 dowered with freedom. 
 Yet I fear lest we may in this State have 
 
 trouble to keep it." 
 
 Quickly a look sympathetic shot out of the 
 eye-balls of Lincoln, 
 
 As the man uttered his heart in words that 
 fell saddened by forecast. 
 
 Meantime they stopped at the cross-roads 
 reading a sign-board, 
 
 When on one of the centering ways came roll- 
 ing a carriage ; 
 
 In it was seated a gentleman dignified, lofty 
 in presence 
 
 Like a cavalier cloaked and hatted, and some- 
 what ringleted also; 
 
 High on the seat in front was perched the 
 bred darkey as driver. 
 
 Stately the man in the carriage nodded to 
 Lincoln's companion
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 167 
 
 Whom he well knew, for both had been mak- 
 ers of law at Vandalia. 
 
 Aristocratic he glanced at the footmen, and 
 rather disdainful, 
 
 He too wore a new suit, but cut to the fashion 
 of Richmond. 
 
 When he had whirled in his vehicle by them, 
 
 began the companion: 
 ''That is the man who tried and yet tries to 
 
 make us a Slave-State, 
 But we thwarted him still we may have to 
 
 meet him this session 
 Honest I hold him, he never would sell out 
 
 his honor for money, 
 Though for what I then did, he shows me a 
 
 grudge in his bearing ; 
 Did you not notice it? Yet he too was born in 
 
 Virginia, 
 Not many miles from the shrine Monticello, 
 
 the center of Statesmen, 
 Also he claims to uphold the true Jeffersonian 
 
 doctrine. 
 But I came from the opposite side of the 
 
 same Monticello." 
 
 In a pause of reflection, Lincoln then picked 
 up the discourse:
 
 163 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOR VIII. 
 
 "Also my fathers were born of that State 
 
 and its character twofold : 
 Oft I have wondered at the two doctrines 
 
 which sprang from her mind-world, 
 Opposites quite ; and she bore two sets of po- 
 litical children 
 These new States of the West, all born of 
 
 Mother Virginia, 
 For example our Illinois here, and yonder 
 
 Kentucky " 
 But the philosopher whirling, broke in with 
 
 gesture emphatic: 
 "Friend, Virginia is halved, deep-cleft with 
 
 a line of division 
 Down in her soul her land even seems to me 
 
 now to lie double ; 
 Parent of States half black half white, half 
 
 slave but half free too, 
 List what is doomful, half union her faith yet 
 
 half separation. 
 And her great men are dual inside, though 
 
 much do I love them; 
 That is the birthmark of Fate which they 
 
 show in their doing and thinking. 
 Not alone on the man is it stamped, but on 
 
 State and Nation." 
 
 The philosopher took up his gait, slow-step- 
 ping, reflective :
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 ' ' Truly methinks I now see my exemplar, my 
 
 Jefferson also 
 Is composed of two opposite strains inter- 
 
 woven, colliding, 
 Yet the people are such too, and that is our 
 
 destiny's riddle.'* 
 
 Peripatetic the sage revealed himself still 
 
 in his life-lines 
 As he gave with a sigh the last turn to his 
 
 heart- felt reflection : 
 "Once we had hoped to break every fetter 
 
 within our Dominion, 
 But the Compromise passed and we quit the 
 
 old home for new freedom, 
 As did thousands and thousands, and still 
 
 they are coming by thousands 
 On all the roads that branch to the prairies 
 
 and woods of the North-West. 
 Jefferson's domain I call it, the seat of a new 
 
 liberation 
 Yonder already they come" as he spoke, he 
 
 triumphantly pointed 
 To a white serpentine train many-jointed of 
 
 round-covered wagons 
 Winding about through the limitless level of 
 
 grassy prairie.
 
 170 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 But see the Capital lying along the sluggish 
 
 Kaskaskia, 
 Sunning itself on the mud-made banks in a 
 
 hundred log cabins 
 Of the frontiersmen, all of them ready to 
 
 wing away westward, 
 Over the roiled Mississippi and over the 
 
 snaggy Missouri, 
 And still farther ahead to the threatening 
 
 spurs of the Rockies 
 Flying above the others and lighting adown 
 
 on the front line, 
 
 Like the swirl of a covey of blackbirds round- 
 ing the grainfield, 
 Whirling over the ground in turn upon turn 
 
 as a roller, 
 For the last will be first when the first has 
 
 been left as the last one. 
 
 Even the Capital seemed to be ready to quit 
 its foundation, 
 
 As if eager to rise on the wing and take pass- 
 age elsewhither, 
 
 Quite uncertain of stay in the dowerless town 
 of Vandalia 
 
 Which now Lincoln beheld, with a tale on his 
 tongue as he entered ; 
 
 This, however, he told not, finding just then 
 not a hearer,
 
 VANDALIA. 
 
 171 
 
 Grave legislators were coming each hour, 
 
 well-shotted with speeches. 
 Many a member had borne on his shoulder the 
 
 long-barreled rifle 
 Ready to shoot the fleet deer by the way or the 
 
 crested wild turkey, 
 Loving the sport of the hunter and furnishing 
 
 meat for his journey. 
 Others came riding on horseback well-steeded 
 
 and booted and stirruped, 
 Men of cavalier names and manners gemming 
 
 the backwoods ; 
 One legislator still rattled his buckskin 
 
 breeches with fringes; 
 Still another would strut in his grandfather's 
 
 old regimentals. 
 
 Whose is that round and rubicund face all 
 
 smiling unbristled? 
 Lincoln looks at it well as if watching the 
 
 time in a mirror, 
 Which is imaging to him his opposite, outer 
 
 and inner ; 
 That is Douglas, hardly of age, and not long 
 
 in the North- West, 
 Son of distant Yankeeland, here quite alone 
 
 in his birthdom. 
 Both of them heirs of the future now casting 
 
 the lots for their inning.
 
 172 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 Such are the antitypes twain yet inseparate, 
 
 yoked both together, 
 Suns revolving about each other within the 
 
 one system, 
 Each repellent of each, yet both held fast by 
 
 attraction 
 Stronger than they were or knew of that 
 
 universal attraction 
 Which unites the great cosmos without us 
 
 and also within us 
 Each fulfilling the other when seen in the 
 
 cycle of ages. 
 
 Soon the session began and Lincoln listlessly 
 listened, 
 
 For his heart he had left behind in a home of 
 New Salem, 
 
 Little remained him for making the law in 
 Vandalia law-making, 
 
 "While on his winter of soul lay chilly the win- 
 ter of nature. 
 
 But with the roll of the season the hour ar- 
 rived for his speaking, 
 
 Somehow often deferred until the last day of 
 the session, 
 
 When he began to run through the State his 
 ubiquitous railroad. 
 
 Chiefly his theme was the iron-bound bond of 
 the Union now rifting;
 
 7ANDALIA. 
 
 Newly remarried, the North and the South 
 
 would stay one forever. 
 Two were the loves which seemed interwound 
 
 in the turn of each sentence, 
 For the love of his country would fuse with 
 
 the love of his maiden. 
 At his highest he painted the North and the 
 
 South in a picture 
 Kissing, yea hugging each other by means of 
 
 his amorous railroad, 
 Till he dwelt more on the union of love than 
 
 on love of the union. 
 All his images glowed with the fire of a pas- 
 
 sionate longing 
 Lit in two souls now parted but living a 
 
 dream-life together; 
 All his fancies seemed to burst up from a 
 
 flame underlying, 
 Even cold facts were heated white-hot in the 
 
 forge of his feelings. 
 
 Self-forgetful he was, he soon forgot his dear 
 
 railroad, 
 Also out of his memory lapsed for a moment 
 
 his country, 
 Just the one fierce love had seemingly 
 
 swallowed the other, 
 As he spoke of a scene, forecasting the place 
 
 and the action ;
 
 174 LINCOLN AND ANN R&TLEDGE.BOOK VIII. 
 
 Thus at his argument's topmost pitch in his 
 fervor he cried out : 
 
 "Here at the mulberry tree now let us be 
 plighted forever." 
 
 Lincoln had heard his own words, which 
 startled him dumb at their meaning, 
 
 For they had secretly tapped the underworld 
 dread of his being, 
 
 So that the hope most hid in his heart had 
 bubbled up sunward. 
 
 Meanwhile arose with a shout from the mem- 
 bers unanimous laughter: 
 
 "Where is that tree we wish to be there at 
 the tick of the moment." 
 
 But instead of the speaker who hushed, an- 
 other responded : 
 
 ' * Who is the girl f Now tell us the story, and 
 we'll vote for your measure, 
 
 That I am sure will be the best argument yet 
 for your railroad." 
 
 Snappishly old Sam Wildfly, sarcastic re- 
 torter from Wabash 
 
 Eose to a point of order adjusting his spec- 
 tacles brass-rimmed : 
 
 "Not before this House is the subject brought 
 up by the speaker, 
 
 From the railroad wandering off to the kiss 
 of his sweetheart ; 
 
 'Tis not debatable under the rules of Jeffer- 
 son's Manual."
 
 VANDALIA. 175 
 
 Such was the humorous punch which raised 
 up the head-drooping Lincoln, 
 
 And which started his tongue word-smit, to 
 funning an answer: 
 
 ' 'Friends, the gavel I seize and rule myself 
 out of order, 
 
 For our departure the hour has struck I ad- 
 journ myself to next session 
 
 When I shall finish my speech, and tell you 
 the end of my story."
 
 took 
 
 The Letters. 
 
 Drearier lounge the wintering days on the 
 
 hill of New Salem, 
 Older the hours have seemed to be growing 
 
 since Lincoln's departure, 
 And the village though young in its years 
 
 turns gray with the season, 
 Aged already within while silvered in snow 
 
 of December. 
 Hark! the hoarse crows which are dolefully 
 
 cawing around the bleak skyline! 
 Almost bare are the boughs of the sycamore 
 
 hung with its plume-balls, 
 Which keep swinging in dance to the bois- 
 terous tune of the storm-wind, 
 Till they are whirled from their sport and 
 
 drop to the earth in the springtime. 
 (176)
 
 THE LETTERS. ^77 
 
 Icy and shrunk the rivulet crawls through 
 
 Sangamon Valley, 
 Listlessly laving old logs that are lodged in 
 
 the slime of its streambed, 
 While the sere grass on its banks droops 
 
 over to house the shy rabbit. 
 
 People at home would hug the hot hearth in 
 
 moody seclusion, 
 Or at the store would cock up their feet on 
 
 the stove in a circle, 
 Bating the times for their troubles, not spar- 
 
 ing the lag of the village, 
 Often shying a rock at the law and the lax 
 
 legislation. 
 Every minute ticked off a complaint and 
 
 blamed every other, 
 And all daylight from morning till evening 
 
 seemed only sunset, 
 Even old Time lagged weary of scything the 
 
 universe wicked. 
 
 But the stream of discussion would lash into 
 
 foam at the highest 
 When two speakers would clinch and begin 
 
 a political wrestle, 
 Deftly unsheathing their keen-edged tongues 
 
 for a stab or a story.
 
 178 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK 7.T. 
 
 Best of these fencers were Squire Ebenezer 
 
 and Doctor Palmetto 
 When they both waxed wroth on the theme 
 
 of President Jackson 
 Till the wordsmen seemed ready to turn on 
 
 the spot into swordsmen. 
 Still they did not, for after one sally of hot 
 
 effervescence, 
 Evenly Squire Ebenezer would balance the 
 
 scales of his temper, 
 Cooling down from his boil to big bubbles 
 
 of good-natured humor. 
 
 Lincoln had failed not to send a letter each 
 
 week from Vandalia, 
 Where he was passing the winter in exile 
 
 unhappy yet hopeful- 
 Letter well-spelt, well-written of hand, well- 
 turned in its phrases, 
 Over each word of his pen he would linger a 
 
 moment in longing, 
 For he well knew who would hear it and 
 
 feel out its meaning most deeply, 
 Though it be sent to the name of the Lady 
 
 Eulalia Lovelace 
 Who would open it first and peruse all the 
 
 words in it written, 
 Words on the surface subdued to the calm 
 
 of an inner renouncement.
 
 THE LETTERS. 179 
 
 Still he would utter the wish of his heart 
 to get back to New Salem, 
 
 Giving various reasons, all good, but never 
 the best one, 
 
 Which he would cunningly hide between lines 
 as they flowed in his missive. 
 
 Often the word had one sense for the Lady 
 and one for the maiden; 
 
 But at times broke forth in despite the gen- 
 uine outburst; 
 
 "Tell me," he asks in a letter, "which of 
 them is the more binding 
 
 Be it Love's troth or Love's truth, or be it 
 the form or the essence?" 
 
 Then again he would lip a few sounds of the 
 strife of his bosom: 
 
 "Lawmaker sworn of the State I am seem- 
 ing my days at Vandalia, 
 
 Lawbreaker down in my heart I oft catch 
 me in plans of my action." 
 
 Such were the sayings which he would weave 
 in the ink of his pen-lines 
 
 Scarce understood by the reader, the Lady 
 Eulalia Lovelace; 
 
 But spring-clear to Ann Rutledge who silent- 
 ly saw to their bottom, 
 
 For they told her own to herself, reflecting 
 her image,
 
 180 LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. BOOK IX. 
 
 Thus confessing himself he spoke her deep- 
 est confession. 
 
 Lastly he utters the man in the words of a 
 balanced decision: 
 
 ''Though unpledged, I shall ever be faithful 
 not faithless with pledges ; 
 
 Loyal still, though renouncing loyalty's fair- 
 est fruition." 
 
 Eeading this passage one day, the Lady 
 rose asking the question : 
 
 "What does it mean? Do you know?" but 
 the maiden held sighless her breath-tip, 
 
 Leaving unworded the throbs in her bosom 
 assailing each other, 
 
 Till she went home to herself and lulled them 
 in tasks of the household. 
 
 Nun-like in look she eases her heart of its 
 
 struggle by labor, 
 Even the loom she plies not so much through 
 
 need of the fabric 
 As for the sake of its soul-tuning gift of 
 
 sweet reminiscence 
 Softly retelling her thoughts as she wove 
 
 the garment of Lincoln, 
 And recalling the bliss which arose with the 
 
 play of the shuttle, 
 When he appeared at the window just in the 
 
 midst of her dream-world.
 
 THE LETTERS. 
 
 Nor forgot she the flutter of doom in the fall 
 
 of the letter 
 "Which still next to her heart she wore with 
 
 its symbol of crimson. 
 So in her feeling would rise the combat ever- 
 
 recurrent, 
 Raging between sweet Love in itself and stern 
 
 Love as a duty. 
 Often she looked at her image within as a 
 
 person divided 
 Self unleal has given away the Self that is 
 
 leal; 
 What is her fate where her heart and her 
 
 hand are fighting each other? 
 
 In the stress of her spirit she draws from her 
 
 bosom its treasure, 
 And has started to grope for the secret sense 
 
 of the message, 
 Long she stares in a far-away trance at the 
 
 blood-tinted symbol, 
 Even she picks up her pen to send a request 
 
 to Vandalia, 
 When a fresh letter is brought and laid on 
 
 the table before her 
 Just alongside of the red-hearted missive of 
 
 Lincoln it fell down. 
 
 Strangely withheld she her hand from put- 
 ting a word on the paper.
 
 182 LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. BOOK IX. 
 
 Well she knew the turn of the script and the 
 
 sort of envelope, 
 Knew who had written her name on its back, 
 
 and the penmanship's flourish; 
 Oft she had seen it before in times gone by 
 
 though not lately. 
 Blow unexpected! though long expected! the 
 
 letter has come now ! 
 Letter of absentee Abner announcing his 
 
 speedy arrival, 
 Wreathing skillfully many excuses for ab- , 
 
 sence and silence. 
 
 But he soon will return to make good by mar- 
 riage his promise, 
 And a festival hold for herself and for all of 
 
 New Salem. 
 
 Stronger than ever she felt the daggered 
 strife in her bosom 
 
 Cutting both ways till divided she swooned 
 in her chair for a moment; 
 
 Then she rallied and rose to her feet in the 
 strength of her passion 
 
 While the two letters she seized as if grap- 
 pling the source of her conflict; 
 
 With teeth clenched she flung both of them 
 down on the table together, 
 
 Where they stood on their edges and leaned 
 each to each in a combat,
 
 THE LETTERS. 183 
 
 Till they slowly fell over, the heart-blazoned 
 one on top of the other, 
 
 Hiding quite the address though wreathed in 
 fanciful pen-strokes. 
 
 Ann had tokened with bodeful delight the 
 prognostication, 
 
 Though in triumph she suddenly glowed, 
 
 she drooped soon defeated, 
 .And began to wrench in the struggle more 
 deeply than ever 
 
 Which now stood in her eye-glance, while 
 also it raged in her bosom. 
 
 Thus to herself she dialogued there her fu- 
 rious soul-strife: 
 
 "Sacred promise on one side, sacred love 
 on the other, 
 
 I between them am lodged, yea within them, 
 and they too within me 
 
 Where they rend me in twain while ruth- 
 lessly rending each other. 
 
 Not alone do I view, but I am, their desper- 
 ate duel." 
 
 From the table she picked up the letters and 
 
 held in each hand one : 
 In the left she caressingly stroked with her 
 
 fingers the heart's sign, 
 In the right she crumpled her name writ on 
 
 the envelope
 
 184 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK IX. 
 
 Crushing all of its well-rounded flourishes 
 
 into cross wrinkles and creases 
 And at the top of her frenzy she called to 
 
 the fighters inside her: 
 " Which is it? Shall now perish my heart 
 
 or perish my pledges'? 
 Is Love ruler of Law, or is it the Law which 
 
 is ruler?" 
 Both of the letters fell down on the table 
 
 from fingers unnerving, 
 Then with a sigh she smoothed out the folds 
 
 of the script she had crumpled, 
 And re-read her own name on the back of 
 
 the furrowed envelope. 
 Soon the letters she picked up and held both 
 
 together thus saying: 
 "Oh this strife I cannot endure, nor can I 
 
 resolve it, 
 On these covers of paper are wrestling the 
 
 very inscriptions, 
 Eed against dark, the heart against words 
 
 of my name writ in order 
 Outwardly trimmed with many a curled-up 
 
 crinkle and frizzle. 
 Off again I must haste to the rare reconciler 
 
 of trouble." 
 
 Quickly she reaches the mansion of Lady Eu- 
 lalia Lovelace
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 Who so often had stayed the tossed soul in 
 
 sympathy hopeful, 
 On whose palm are laid the two letters with 
 
 problems embattled, 
 When she responded what seemed to accord 
 
 with the wish of the asker : 
 "Absentee lovers must forfeit the claim 
 
 which they have neglected; 
 And the promise, if not fulfilled in its time, 
 
 is unpromised. 
 Thou hast waited the limit, renouncing thy 
 
 tenderest selfhood; 
 Thy new freedom of choice thou hast won, 
 
 just by thy renouncement." 
 
 So the oracle spake, oracular still her re- 
 sponses ; 
 But the wound lay deeper, far deeper than 
 
 she had suspected. 
 For Ann glanced at the ring and appeared to 
 
 shrink back from the outlook, 
 Feeling the might of her word once given to 
 
 thrill on her heart-strings. 
 Then the Lady Eulalia uttered boldly the 
 
 mandate : 
 "Take off that sign of betrothal which now 
 
 encircles thy finger, 
 Let me have it to give to the right one whom 
 
 I shall discover,
 
 186 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. BOOK IX. } 
 
 Or to return to the owner when thine ndj 
 
 longer it can be." 
 Tearfully tense Ann Eutledge replied to the 
 
 words of the Lady, 
 "That I have often attempted already, but 
 
 never it slips off, 
 Hand may wrestle with hand, but the one 
 
 cannot conquer the other; 
 Then if it come off, that is no stop of the 
 
 struggle within me, 
 Firmer this ring has been put on my soul 
 
 than here on my finger. " 
 
 Up from her seat the maiden had sprung in 
 the thrust of her sentence, 
 
 When old Betsey the negress appeared and 
 brought in a letter, 
 
 Aye a new letter making the third of that 
 company written, 
 
 Which had just come by the mail addressed 
 to the mansion's mistress, 
 
 In a hand-writing well known to the watch- 
 ful eye of Ann Eutledge, 
 
 Who had caught at a glance the dip of the 
 lines on the missive. 
 
 Soon the Lady had broken the seal and read 
 the short message, 
 
 Which she reported : "Lincoln is now on his 
 way to New Salem,
 
 THE LETTERS. 
 
 More than a week is gone since the session 
 
 adjourned at Yandalia; 
 He is making a roundabout journey to visit 
 
 his parents, 
 Chiefly his step-mother; who in his boyhood 
 
 mothered his soul's hope. 
 Let me count up the time he may come 
 
 down the road any minute." 
 
 Ann sank back to her seat at the word medi- 
 tatively silent, 
 
 For there began in the depths of her heart 
 a new kind of encounter: 
 
 As she thought the two lovers might meet in 
 that mansion together. 
 
 Abner was coming, Lincoln was coming, per- 
 chance the next minute ; 
 
 Both had announced by letter the news of 
 their future intention. 
 
 Soon she upgathered herself and nervously 
 clutched her two letters, 
 
 One hand took hold of the heart-sign, the 
 other was twirling the word-sign 
 
 With the tips of her fingers, as she bemoaned 
 her contention: 
 
 ''Higher, still higher is rising the struggle 
 within and without me ! 
 
 Where can I turn now for help, or even a 
 hope of allayment
 
 188 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK IX. 
 
 Not to the world which flings me from all 
 to the den of my demons, 
 
 Not to myself, who am but the battle ground 
 for my own feelings 
 
 Which to the death have grappled to throt- 
 tle each other and me too." 
 
 Lady Eulalia looked at the speaker 1 with 
 sympathy hopeless, 
 
 Quite tongue-tied in her doubt as to what 
 she could do in the crisis, 
 
 For the case lay beyond all her power of 
 sage ministration. 
 
 It was the first time she ever had known the 
 defeat of her wisdom, 
 
 And she could not help thinking her hour had 
 struck for departure 
 
 Back to the home of her earliest love in her 
 vaunted Virginia. 
 
 Also Ann Eutledge had felt the fresh impo- 
 tence of her adviser, 
 
 As she uttered in sighs her word of re- 
 newed resignation: 
 
 "This is a criss-cross far stronger than I 
 am, even than we are ; 
 
 Mightier is the high hand which is dealing 
 this dole to my life's course. 
 
 When I came hither I bore in my soul two 
 sides of a combat,
 
 THE LETTERS. 139 
 
 And I bore in my hand two strifes in the 
 
 inkstains of writing ; 
 Both of thd messages warring flew down 
 
 from above on my table, 
 For a spell I gazed at their conflict, e'en 
 
 tried to compose it, 
 But it had gone already beyond my power 
 
 of self-help 
 That fierce duel between the two scripts of 
 
 Abner and Lincoln. 
 So I ran out of the house and hastened my 
 
 pace to your mansion, 
 Seeking my peace from the sweet benediction 
 
 which flows from your presence." 
 
 Brightlier gleamed in her eyes the Lady Eu- 
 
 lalia Lovelace 
 When she glimpsed but a glance of herself 
 
 in solacing sorrow, 
 For she would live the beatitude born of the 
 
 peace-maker blessed. 
 But the maiden then paled and gave a new 
 
 turn to her problem : 
 ' ' Only behold this wheel of my destiny whirl 
 
 a fresh struggle! 
 
 Not the two letters alone engage now in fu- 
 rious combat, 
 Eising up like contestants before the thick 
 
 throngs of my fancy
 
 190 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDOE.BOOK IX. 
 
 And then clinching, line around line, for 
 
 the deadly encounter, 
 But the two writers themselves appear in 
 
 personal presence; 
 Strangely transmuted to life from the ink 
 
 of their very hand-writing, 
 Forth they step in array from behind the 
 
 dark strokes of their pen-points 
 Into the place of their meeting which is my 
 
 soul as the witness, 
 
 Yea as the battle itself too, and I am the vic- 
 tor and vanquished: 
 God! perchance in this duel I am the slain 
 
 and the slayer," 
 
 In a surge of foreboding she quitted the 
 house of her helper, 
 
 Who no longer could help in the deluge of 
 down-pouring trials, 
 
 Feeling the world to be fated around her 
 and changed to a demon 
 
 That was dogging her soul with remorse ful- 
 filling a judgment 
 
 Which had been burnt in her brain by the 
 tongue-flame of Cartright the preacher. 
 
 Even the sunshine shone doom on the man- 
 sion, the schoolhouse, the village, 
 
 As she looked back on her path, or forward 
 away in the landscape.
 
 THE LETTERS. 
 
 But the letters she kept, for she could not 
 
 part from their presence, 
 Just one glance at them both would give 
 
 some relief to her soul's fray, 
 As it turned her from Furies inside to the 
 
 symbols outside her. 
 Still the one letter she bore in her bosom 
 
 where it lay hidden, 
 While the other she twisted in twirls of her 
 
 fugitive fingers ; 
 So the heart and the hand kept asunder in 
 
 space and in spirit. 
 
 Lonely and lorn she wandered about the 
 streets of the village 
 
 To herself unknown in what she was dream- 
 ily doing, 
 
 Till at last she had come to the mulberry 
 tree and its settle, 
 
 Drawn to memory 's shrine by the instinct of 
 happier moments. 
 
 But on her joy soon smote the dread back- 
 stroke of sorrow remorseful 
 
 Till she dragged from her bosom to view the 
 red-symboled letter, 
 
 Tearing it nearly atwain through the heart 
 that reddened upon it, 
 
 When she besaw it a moment as by a shred it 
 was hanging;
 
 192 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOE IX. 
 
 Then with a seeming relief which bespoke 
 
 it dearer than ever, 
 Gently she put it again in its place just 
 
 next to her heart-throbs. 
 
 Spring, the young lover, was kissing in 
 
 warmth the hill and the valley, 
 Trees had responded with outburst of buds 
 
 and of leaves and of flowers 
 While the prairie had flung out in rapture 
 
 its flowing green garment, 
 In whose folds it now draped its bare white 
 
 body of winter. 
 Also the mulberry's branches had answered 
 
 the vernal caresses, 
 Eobed in foliage new which bended down 
 
 over the settle, 
 To embrace it in love and to hide it from 
 
 prying outsiders, 
 
 Waving above it the treetop's coronal stud- 
 ded with flowers, 
 One of which hung close down to the hand 
 
 of Ann Eutledge who plucked it, 
 As she drew from her bosom the letter and 
 
 gazed at the red-heart, 
 Which in spite of the rent kept clinging in 
 
 hope still together. 
 But the other envelope was whisked to the 
 
 earth in her motion,
 
 THE LETTERS, 
 
 "Whose inscription she saw, when she heard 
 
 its command to be picked up. 
 Meantime she thought of the man who had 
 
 woven this intricate settle 
 Out of the tortuous twigs of the tree and 
 
 the sinewy grapevines 
 For a purpose she knew of indeed, as she 
 
 often had used it 
 Aye, was using it now in the fanciful work 
 
 of her day-dreams. 
 Still she foreboded that to it remained some 
 
 higher fulfilment, 
 As the trysting-place final of love for him 
 
 and for her too. 
 
 Why in her face are the flashes now fitfully 
 chasing each other! 
 
 Ah, she is glancing again at the ring ingrown 
 on her finger, 
 
 Circling also her soul, the fatal ring of be- 
 trothal, 
 
 Which rounds fiercely in one ear the promise 
 with hiss of a demon, 
 
 But in the other breathes softly the unpronv 
 ised love, like an angel ; 
 
 Even by one wrench more she tests it, but 
 vain is the effort.
 
 194 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK IX. 
 
 Then she holds up before her and ponders 
 that heart of renouncement 
 
 Which sheds comfort anew with a hope of 
 some happy deliverance, 
 
 Though it hangs on a shred, by a Fury cleft 
 through in the middle. 
 
 Out of her revery lofty she woke at the call 
 of the bluebird 
 
 Which on a twig just over her head is swing- 
 ing and singing 
 
 Merrily for its winged mate who flies to its 
 home in the branches, 
 
 Where are performed to the music of breezes 
 the happy espousals 
 
 Which she looks up at in joy, then she beams 
 her lit eye-glances earthward. 
 
 Down the road in the distance she sees a tall 
 figure approaching; 
 
 Well she remembered the words of Lady Eu- 
 lalia Lovelace 
 
 While perusing a letter in forecast of some- 
 body coming ; 
 
 Still that shape appeared to be strolling up 
 out of her dream-world 
 
 Limned into life there before her largening 
 eyes: who is it?
 
 Back from Capital. 
 
 "Swim, if you dare, in a race with me over 
 
 this turbulent river, 
 To yon hill-top of green, the highest above 
 
 the mad surges." 
 
 Lincoln shot out the words at a rounded and 
 
 orotund talker, 
 Douglas, whom he would test by a dare to a 
 
 trial of action, 
 Who stood merrily babbling, the center of 
 
 home-going members, 
 Young, but already well-versed in the art of 
 
 winning men's friendship, 
 Skillful to draw the attention, and clever in 
 
 cunning devices. 
 
 (195)
 
 196 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X 
 
 "Pick up your gauntlet at once I shall, and 
 
 now I am ready." 
 Then he began on the spot before all to strip 
 
 for the struggle, 
 Seizing the start to tickle the lungs of the 
 
 pioneer hardy, 
 Who delighted to cheer on the contest and 
 
 watch the contestants. 
 
 Such was the trial of strength, the first one 
 of many to follow, 
 
 Testing the Age's advancing protagonists, 
 Lincoln and Douglas, 
 
 Who had already selected each other, uncon- 
 sciously choosing. 
 
 Each of them faced to the opposite side in 
 political measures, 
 
 Counterparts seemed they in stature and 
 spirit, yet bound up together. 
 
 Often they met and passed with a nod in the 
 course of the session, 
 
 But underneath ever feeling the grapple of 
 destinies inner, 
 
 Which now utterance found, ere they part- 
 ed, in shape of a challenge, 
 
 Friendly indeed, yet presaging perchance the 
 cast of the future. 
 
 Strange, but the eyeshot of each would 
 pierce to the soul of the other,
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 197 
 
 Though not a word in jest or in earnest be 
 spoken by either. 
 
 Lincoln, when he had come to his fireside, 
 thus often reflected: 
 
 ' * Truly, of all of the men I have seen in the 
 test of this session, 
 
 That young fellow belongs to the future, 
 tried by my touch-stone. 
 
 So do I also both of us, twinned to a mutual 
 struggle 
 
 Spirit wrestles with spirit in a spectral mul- 
 titude's presence; 
 
 I can feel this genius of mine in a coil with 
 his genius, 
 
 If I but pass him alone on the street, each 
 silently stepping. 
 
 So I shall test futurity's wink by this inno- 
 cent wager, 
 
 Whether perchance the oracle dark may hint 
 me a presage." 
 
 Both of them daringly plunged in the surges 
 
 of swollen Kaskaskia, 
 Far overflowing its banks by the copious 
 
 showers of springtime, 
 Whirling along in its wrath much soil, some 
 
 trees and a cabin, 
 Animals wild and tame could be seen in a 
 
 strife with the torrent ;
 
 198 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 Once a corpse came bobbing along in the roll 
 
 of the wavelets, 
 Ghastly warning to youths ambitious of 
 
 swimming the deluge. 
 
 Douglas scudded more quickly the scum of 
 
 the boiling Kaskaskia, 
 Splashing his strokes in the stream till he 
 
 reached a helpful green islet, 
 Where overworn by the task he lay down on 
 
 the bed of its herbage. 
 Lincoln more slowly kept whirling long arms 
 
 in circles successive, 
 Till he passed the green islet without ever 
 
 stopping to rest there, 
 And was nearing the goal when Douglas 
 
 again wooed the waters. 
 But too late the stout swimmer could be 
 
 overtaken no longer, 
 Who soon strode up the hill the highest 
 
 above the wild current. 
 
 Generous Douglas was first to salute his ri- 
 val as victor, 
 
 While the crowd on the shore responded with 
 cheers to the triumph; 
 
 And then rapidly homeward scattered to put 
 in their corn-crops,
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 199 
 
 Not to meet till next winter again in law- 
 making Vandalia 
 
 Dozens of Spartan Lycurguses sprung of the 
 Western prairie. 
 
 Now behold on the road from the Capital, 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 By a roundabout route returning in hope to 
 New Salem, 
 
 Out of the tumult concentered from all of 
 the State to a whirlpool, 
 
 Out of the conflict of soul which raged with- 
 in him by absence. 
 
 Glad he is to be free of the struggle of par- 
 ties for power, 
 
 Glad to be rid for a while of the troubles that 
 loomed in the Nation. 
 
 Still he bears deep strife, the deepest of all 
 
 in his life-time : 
 He the maker of Law, doth feel himself too 
 
 its unmaker, 
 As he appeals the keen suit of his Love to 
 
 his own Legislature. 
 Thus of two Law-giving bodies strangely he 
 
 finds himself member, 
 Issuing opposite mandates, both valid, an 
 
 outer and inner.
 
 200 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOE X. 
 
 Lover and lawgiver coupled lie is, each fight- 
 ing the other, 
 
 Making the law and breaking the law he joins 
 in one person. 
 
 So he quits the mad scene, at odds with him- 
 self and the place too, 
 
 Often preluding alone on his path this note 
 of his discord: 
 
 "Strifeful State-House, next time I shall 
 carry thee off elsewhither, 
 
 Even shall bear thee away to my home in the 
 Sangamon Valley. " 
 
 So he already had spoken his mind to Van- 
 dalia's dwellers 
 
 "Whose one creed was antipathy to all Capi- 
 tal-movers 
 
 They who would steal the beautiful bride of 
 Kaskaskia's kisses, 
 
 Making her marry that dwarf of a Sangamon 
 shrunken, 
 
 Which was scarcely able to float a respect- 
 able flat-boat, 
 
 While their own dear nymph of a stream 
 seemed an Amazon mighty. 
 
 Still the lore which Lincoln had won was 
 learnt for a life-time,
 
 SACK FROM CAPITAL. 01 
 
 Every part of the State he had seen in its 
 
 men at Vandalia, 
 Leaders selected they were from its South, 
 
 and its North, and its Middle, 
 Well representing the flood of its people now 
 
 forward now backward, 
 Hinting iflie interflow subtle of currents of 
 
 western migration, 
 As they came rolling along from the old 
 
 Thirteen to the New-State, 
 Knitting together and knotting in thousands 
 
 of communal nodules 
 At the crossing of roads, or perchance at the 
 
 ferry of rivers, 
 Eound the new sawmill or gristmill driven by 
 
 fall of the water, 
 Eound the strong man as center, whose soul 
 
 was the soul of the village. 
 
 Heroes big and little were these, heroic 
 
 world-builders, 
 Prairial demi-gods, Hercules modernized, 
 
 but yet unstoried, 
 Draining the swamps, and slaying wild 
 
 beasts, and subduing wild Nature, 
 So they laid everywhere the foundations of 
 
 civilized order.
 
 202 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 Such were the men whose choicest by Lin- 
 coln were seen at Vandalia, 
 
 Now the lawgivers chosen for the whole 
 State by their people. 
 
 Often he heard them discussing together the 
 overcast problem: 
 
 Which is first in authority's right: the State 
 or the Nation, 
 
 Some upholding the one as supreme, but 
 others the other. 
 
 Often he thought : * ' Just that is the question 
 which has to be settled 
 
 In the future not by the word, but the 
 deed oh! Heaven!" 
 
 Well he recalled the same problem debated 
 by two young Lieutenants 
 
 In the Black Hawk War, officers both of the 
 National Army, 
 
 Eobert Anderson one of them, Jefferson Da- 
 vis the other; 
 
 Each stood ready to battle on opposite sides 
 of the conflict. 
 
 That debate had stayed in his mind with des- 
 tiny's imprint, 
 
 For the strife had seemed to take place with- 
 in him on both sides, 
 
 Yet at the end the vision rose up of himself 
 as the healer.
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 203 
 
 So the political drift underlying the rush of 
 
 the session 
 Often transmuted its sound in his soul to a 
 
 music uncanny 
 Like the clashing of steel and once like the 
 
 roar of a cannon, 
 Dark presentiment's underflow bursting its 
 
 way up to sunlight. 
 
 Thug was trudging along the new road the 
 lawmaker Lincoln, 
 
 Leisurely tuning his steps to the gait of his 
 slow meditations, 
 
 Which came echoing back to him out of Van- 
 dalia's winter 
 
 With its manifold conflicts in Memory's bil- 
 lows resurging, 
 
 As they rolled quivering through him in 
 shapes of his feverish fancy, 
 
 Images loving of Love, and of State, and 
 also of Nation, 
 
 While around them would rise unbidden the 
 presence of Douglas, 
 
 Now his counterpart fated to march with 
 him forth to the future, 
 
 Like a high pair of cosmical suns in hot revo- 
 lution, 
 
 Till all ablaze in its death the one drops into 
 the other.
 
 204 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 Suddenly near the roadside he heard the 
 strokes of a chopper 
 
 Who was felling in thirls of his axe the oak 
 of the forest. 
 
 Bit by bit he had cut the bole of the tree to 
 its center 
 
 On one side, and had wearily started to chip 
 at the other, 
 
 When the tall stranger steps up to him beg- 
 ging a turn at the axe-helve. 
 
 To the proposal the woodman consented, 
 deep-breathing his "Yes, sir." 
 
 Lincoln then started his labor, whicH was 
 
 a flight from his feelings; 
 Out of his inner world suddenly seemed he 
 
 to speed to his outer, 
 Work had called him away from himself in 
 
 the clash of his conflict, 
 Given him happy release by turning his 
 
 thought into action; 
 Walking up to the tree, he had walked from 
 
 one life to another. 
 
 Deftly he clenched his keen weapon and 
 whirled it around in great circles, 
 
 Cutting a mouth in the oak which spat out 
 its chips all about him,
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 205 
 
 Till its heart had been slit, and its head 
 
 many-branched began drooping, 
 When it started to crash in its fall through 
 
 the neighboring tree-tops, 
 Bending the limbs in its path as it fell to 
 
 the earth like a giant 
 Shaking the forest around and afar with a 
 
 grand detonation. 
 
 Lincoln then spake to the man who admired 
 the swirl of his arm's swing: 
 
 ''Now you are breathed, so bring on your 
 saw with its set-teeth 
 
 If you wish me to help you cut up this bole 
 into saw-logs 
 
 Fit to be sawn into boards or split by the 
 wedge into fence-rails." 
 
 Gladly the man brought thither the sharp- 
 toothed saw and two-handled, 
 
 Soon it had bitten the bole into logs of the 
 length of the fence-rail, 
 
 Which they readily rolled apart by the help 
 of the hand-spike, 
 
 When kind Lincoln offered once more the 
 good of his service, 
 
 Likewise seeking to drive off the merciless 
 gnaw of the glum-glums :
 
 206 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 " Yonder I see the maul and the wedge for 
 cleaving this oak-log, 
 
 Let me put them to work that I splinter it 
 into fine fence-rails. 
 
 I am come from the Capital where I was law- 
 making member, 
 
 But at home I now feel, engaged in this pres- 
 ent vocation; 
 
 Happier far as a rail-splitter than as a law- 
 giver am I." 
 
 Then with a joy on his face he knuckled the 
 
 hickory handle, 
 And kept whizzing around in great spirals 
 
 the oak-knotted maul-head, 
 Fetching it down with a thud on the top of 
 
 the ironwood wedges, 
 Till the tough-grained log he had riven to 
 
 right-fashioned fence-rails, 
 Not too big nor too little for keeping the 
 
 swine from the cornfield. 
 
 Ended the task with a story, the woodman 
 
 spake up astonished: 
 * ' Stranger, how comes it that work you seem 
 
 to regard as a pastime?" 
 In slow words of reflection the railsplitter 
 
 mauled him the answer :
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 07 
 
 1 'Humble the deed may be, and still of its 
 kind can be perfect; 
 
 Excellence would I attain in my life, though 
 but a wee sparkle ; 
 
 All perfection is Godlike, it need be just a 
 scintilla. 
 
 So it results that in making a rail I find 
 greater pleasure 
 
 Than in making a law when I know not how 
 I can make it. 
 
 Let me the excellent be, though only the ex- 
 cellent hogherd." 
 
 Lincoln then nodded a farewell, still his so- 
 liloquy voicing : 
 
 1 ' But the railsplitter perfect must rise to the 
 lawmaker perfect. 
 
 Over my limit to mount is the excellence all- 
 excelling. 
 
 That is the test which awaits me next time at 
 law-making Vandalia." 
 
 From the stare of the man the speaker then 
 fled through the brushwood, 
 
 Leaving his burden behind as he skipped out 
 into the open; 
 
 Light was the heart now of Lincoln as fleetly 
 he sped on the roadway ;
 
 298 LINCOLN AMD ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 Mauling the bole with his brawn, he had 
 mauled from his brain all his troubles, 
 
 Freed of the inner corrosion which sprang 
 from the clash of his conflicts. 
 
 Now all at once he beholds in himself the de- 
 lights of the spring-time, 
 
 Which is outwardly rollicking over the wold 
 and the woodland, 
 
 Tuning the earth and the sky to the mood of 
 its laugh universal. 
 
 Oft he would stop and hark to the chorus 
 of thousands of blackbirds, 
 
 Who were chanting their ecstacy for the re- 
 turn of the season, 
 
 In the shaggy high sycamore hugging and 
 shading the brookside, 
 
 Out of whose branches were pouring the 
 showers of melody sky-born. 
 
 On the root of a tree, where the rivulet 
 
 drowsily rippled, 
 Lincoln sat down by the wayside, listing the 
 
 choir of the warblers, 
 Who might sing him to sleep in a roundel 
 
 attuned to the waters.
 
 SACK FROM CAPITAL 09 
 
 Soon he had dreamed himself stepping the 
 road in sight of New Salem; 
 
 There he saw too the mansion of Lady Eu- 
 lalia Lovelace, 
 
 Thinking how always his missives to her 
 were meant for another, 
 
 For the maiden who treasured the fire-red 
 sign of renouncement. 
 
 Eut he passed onward, dreaming to hie to 
 the heart of the village, 
 
 Where! he would greet good "William the 
 wainwright and Squire Ebenezer, 
 
 Then to the crowd assembled about him 
 would tell a new story. 
 
 But mid his revery rustled the branches 
 above him in whispers, 
 
 So that he trod in his fantasy under the mul- 
 berry's blossoms, 
 
 Where he sat down on the settle so cunning- 
 ly woven of grapevines, 
 
 Visioning there a shape to be present and 
 waiting to meet him. 
 
 Suddenly neard he adream the echoing 
 
 strokes of the school-bell 
 Which by its bodeful vibration shook him 
 
 out of his ghost-world, 
 So that he leaped from his seat and uttered 
 
 a word disappointed:
 
 210 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 "No, not yet, not yet, though such be my 
 
 hope of fulfilment ; 
 First I must go to my mother before I can 
 
 ever be happy. 
 
 Step-mother though she be, more compell- 
 ing than blood is our kinship. 
 Though she bore not my body at birth, she 
 
 mothered my genius, 
 Having a seeress's glance which can look in 
 
 the glass of the future." 
 This he would hear from her lips just after 
 
 his earliest inning, 
 Spoken in love from the deepest communion 
 
 of spirits united, 
 For she could draw up a sybilline word from 
 
 sources eternal. 
 
 So the traveler trudges his way with the 
 landscape conversing, 
 
 Which would silently tell him its tale, reflect- 
 ing his humor 
 
 In the play of the color spread over the mea- 
 dow and hillside, 
 
 In the laugh of the buds as they burst to the 
 fullness of flowers, 
 
 In the joy of the sunshine fleeting with 
 fleeces of cloudland 
 
 Which run racing in golden processions 
 around the blue welkin.
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 11 
 
 Once he turned to the field as he heard the 
 words of the plowman 
 
 Who would talk to his team in a language 
 well known to the horses 
 
 While they turned up the soil for planting 
 the crop of the future. 
 
 Lincoln himself would grapple the plow by 
 the curve of the handle, 
 
 Cluck his command to the quadrupeds lazily 
 lagging, 
 
 Till they had drawn round the field the plow- 
 share 's quadrangular furrows, 
 
 Which were soon to be combed into shape 
 by the currying harrow, 
 
 When would be dropped and covered the 
 grains of the corn in the hillock, 
 
 Four of them rightly, according to trans- 
 mitted wont of the farmer. 
 
 Next on his journey he came to the huts de- 
 cayed of the Indian, 
 
 Wreckage of what was once a well-filled abor- 
 iginal village, 
 
 Pitiful remnants left of the red race now 
 going to pieces, 
 
 Which recalled to his memory scenes in the 
 war against Black Hawk. 
 
 Sympathy welled from his heart at the trag- 
 edy of a whole people,
 
 212 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK Z. 
 
 Who seemed wilting to death at sight of the 
 
 poisonous White-face 
 People whose skins were fate-dyed into their 
 
 coppery color, 
 Able no longer to stem the furious tide of 
 
 migration 
 Which already had swept them far over the 
 
 broad Mississippi. 
 
 Look! here rolls a fresh fill of the westerly 1 
 
 current of people, 
 Through this Indian village which seems 
 
 but a piece of old driftwood 
 Stranded along the river, and soon to van- 
 ish forever, 
 Sinking beneath the high overflow's flood of 
 
 the emigrant wagons 
 Which are now bearing the tenants to dwell 
 
 in the land of the future: 
 These, by the traveler met, are moving in 
 
 every direction, 
 Plodding along through the mud of the 
 
 prairie with ox-team or draught-horse, 
 Or perchance encamped for the night by a 
 
 spring or a runnel, 
 Where a fire is lit in the brushwood for 
 
 cooking the supper. 
 Deep ran that stream of the folk who were 
 
 'quitting the country where settled,
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 13 
 
 And instinctively sweeping in shoals to the 
 
 borderland's front-line 
 As if they mightily wrought for a continent's 
 
 quick transformation, 
 Turning it to the abode of civilized life from 
 
 the savage. 
 
 Lincoln had likewise driven his yoke of la- 
 borious oxen, 
 
 When with his people he came in his youth 
 to the Sangamon country. 
 
 Thus he beheld a part of himself in this 
 search for the sunset, 
 
 Still he could feel in his soul the prick of 
 the lust of migration ; 
 
 Such an experience was his, and that of his 
 ancestors also, 
 
 Who had ever vanguarded their race in its 
 march to the westward. 
 
 Now his journey has led to the door of his 
 
 father's log cabin, 
 Primitive home of the frontier, standing 
 
 alone on the prairie, 
 Prairie called Little Goose-Neck, by some 
 
 fanciful humor. 
 There on the sill stood the mother who had 
 
 sprung up from her spinning
 
 214 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 But the step-mother was she, the merciful, 
 
 Sally Bush Lincoln 
 That she might welcome the son of her soul 
 
 though not of her body. 
 
 Lincoln lovingly tarried e'en in his haste to 
 
 return home, 
 Whither another true love was wooingly 
 
 winging him onward, 
 And the good mother presaged it, bespeaking 
 
 her sibylline spirit: 
 ''So your career has begun its first stride 
 
 in its mounting up starward. 
 Well did I know it, forecasting your bent by 
 
 the deeds of your boyhood, 
 As you lay on the floor in the light of the 
 
 hickory firewood 
 Conning the print of your book till the hour 
 
 of midnight was over. 
 This is but the beginning and many a step 
 
 you will take yet, 
 But along with the steps as you rise smite 
 
 the backstrokes of sorrow; 
 Son of my spirit, now march to your des- 
 tiny's goal as a victor, 
 But I forefeel it your life will be full of 
 
 high triumphs woe-laden."
 
 SACK FROM CAPITAL. 215 
 
 So she was reading his soul and its stress 
 
 with a sibyl's precision, 
 When in her mood she oracled new the grim 
 
 fates of existence: 
 "Let me confess on myself I see lettered 
 
 your lot in its outline ; 
 I have known the sweet hap and the mishap 
 
 of love and of marriage. 
 Mine is in small what yours is in large, oh! 
 
 Fate, in the largest ! 
 I peruse on my own soul what you are to be 
 
 in the future, 
 Only magnified thousands of times is the 
 
 luminous print there, 
 When I behold you here standing before me 
 
 within this cribbed cabin; 
 Still the tragedy greater is yours, my heart's 
 
 son I see it!" 
 
 There aside she had turned to fling down a 
 
 tear on the hearth-stone, 
 Lincoln was startled, and yet sympathetic 
 
 far down he responded, 
 For he too had felt out the end in the gloom 
 
 of his being ; 
 But the mother came back with a thought she 
 
 had left still unspoken: 
 "I can see that you wish to hurry away to 
 
 New Salem;
 
 216 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK X. 
 
 Well do I know the little live loadstone 
 drawing you thither. 
 
 Abe, the girl that you love I saw when she 
 shone out the best one 
 
 For I marked all of her turns as she gave 
 you the sword of her fathers 
 
 When you went to the war intending to bat- 
 tle with Black Hawk ; 
 
 Young and beautiful, aye too beautiful ever 
 to last long, 
 
 And I could trace in each dart of her tremu- 
 lous eye the heart's struggle, 
 
 Which had begun to look out underneath the 
 fair lines of her features. 
 
 I shall remember her as a bright soul on her 
 way up to Heaven, 
 
 Yet her lot is like yours, and mine not unlike 
 I can see it, 
 
 But foremoulded to yours by love is her des- 
 tiny's outcome 
 
 Love that is deeper than mine, and grown of 
 a different soul-seed, 
 
 Love that passes from Life through Death 
 for its fiery trial. 
 
 blest boy, I hear it foredoomed me that I 
 shall survive thee!" 
 
 Down drooped his head upon hers in re- 
 sponse to the might of her presage.
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 217 
 
 So they parted in mutual love the future 
 forefeeling. 
 
 Lincoln went out to the field to visit awhile 
 with his father, 
 
 Whom he assisted to hoe to a finish a patch 
 of potatoes, 
 
 Giving him also some dollars out of the law- 
 giver's stipend. 
 
 Then they bade to each other goodbye, with 
 kind wishes of welfare, 
 
 For the son and the father could hold no in- 
 ner communion, 
 
 Child of the flesh refusing all kinship with 
 child of the spirit, 
 
 Who was mothered by step-mother, but was 
 step-fathered by father. 
 
 Down the road turned Lincoln, thinking on 
 all that had happened, 
 
 Chiefly revolving the prairial seeress's vati- 
 cination, 
 
 For it tuned with his own far down in his 
 being unconscious. 
 
 Slowly the afternoon sank into night with 
 the lowering sunset 
 
 Whither the young man seemed to himself to 
 be journeying forthright, 
 
 Inward and outward into the vale of the 
 shadow eternal,
 
 218 LINCOLN AND ANN' RUT LEDGE, BOOK X. 
 
 Till the pedestrian weary lay down to his 
 dreams on a hay-stack. 
 
 When he awoke the sunrise was laughing 
 straight into his darkness; 
 
 Soon with temper renewed by a cheerful 
 meal at a farm house 
 
 Lightly he trod on the road as it wound with 
 the leaf-shaded brooklet, 
 
 Now in his mood's attunement he heark- 
 ened the soul of the season. 
 
 All the earth was a hope outbursting in 
 
 green of the spring-tide; 
 Songsters in every bush were choiring their 
 
 festival's music, 
 Over the prairie was verdantly spreading the 
 
 velvety ocean 
 Through whose level of waves the deer would 
 
 fleet in the distance, 
 Oft the wild-fowl would suddenly whirr 
 
 overhead and then drop down 
 Into the tangle of brushwood whence would 
 
 spring out the squirrel ; 
 Even the cloud was clad in its gold-lace and 
 
 fringes of Heaven, 
 
 While with Spring the glad hills were fes- 
 tooned for Love's holiday happy.
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 19 
 
 Inside the high-domed mansion of welkin 
 
 and prairie encircled 
 Lincoln was wending his way uphearted with 
 
 happiness lofty, 
 Vibrating through and through to the thrill 
 
 of Nature's caresses, 
 Feeling the heart of himself responsive to 
 
 beats of the world's heart. 
 
 Every step was an image until he had 
 reached the headwaters 
 
 Where he heard the first infantile prattle of 
 Sangamon's streamlet 
 
 His dear Sangamon, hurrying onward to 
 come to New Salem 
 
 Like himself in its longing which he could 
 feel in each bubble 
 
 Restlessly rushing to kiss the fresh face of 
 the village's hillside. 
 
 Lincoln kept pace with the passionate stream 
 in light-lifted footsteps, 
 
 Feeling companionship intimate which was 
 conversing unworded 
 
 Through all the tortuous twists and whimsi- 
 cal whirls of the water. 
 
 He would lie down on the sedge of the brook 
 in a well- shaded dingle, 
 
 Where he would list to himself and the rip- 
 ples in secret communion.
 
 220 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK X. 
 
 Hark ! a new sound ! there is wafted a musi- 
 cal wavelet of tinkles! 
 
 Faintly they flit on his ear, as light as the 
 fall of a snowflake, 
 
 Weaving their notes with the mood of the 
 Sangamon's murmurs in concord. 
 
 There ! once more that waf ture of tones ! oh 
 list ! His the school-bell 
 
 Into whose outermost circle of sound thrill- 
 ing echoes concentric 
 
 Lincoln has entered with heart strings tuned 
 to the wavelets sonorous. 
 
 See, he comes to a knoll, from whose height 
 he descries a proud mansion 
 
 Nestling its roof within the umbrageous em- 
 brace of the tree-tops, 
 
 "Where is the high-pillared home of the Lady 
 Eulalia Lovelace. 
 
 There he thought of stopping a moment to 
 greet the high hostess, 
 
 Who had loyally answered the letters he 
 sent from Vandalia, 
 
 But he sees some distance ahead the mul- 
 berry shade-tree 
 
 With all its branches outleaved and blooming 
 in flowery splendor. 
 
 That whole tree seems to titter in love which 
 tingles his bosom,
 
 BACK FROM CAPITAL. 21 
 
 And he steps more exalted along on the 
 boards of the side-walk 
 
 As he approaches the shrine of many a hal- 
 lowed meeting. 
 
 Soon he takes a fresh step round the turn of 
 a fence by the roadside 
 
 When there dawns on his eye-glance search- 
 ing the seat of the grapevines 
 
 Made by himself in a moment presageful 
 of hope's sweet fulfilment 
 
 What can it be? 'Tis something that 
 moves a dress and a bonnet ! 
 
 Decking the form of a woman half hid in the 
 leaves of the branches! 
 
 Look! she has risen and seems to give a sa- 
 lute in the distance, 
 
 First recognizing the stalwart figure and 
 then too the garment 
 
 Woven in love on the loom by her hand and 
 her heart as her handsel; 
 
 While he comes up, she steps to the front 
 from the leafage who is it?
 
 00k 
 
 Under the Mulberry. 
 
 ''When the leaves of this treetop peeped 
 fluttering into my eyesight, 
 
 You I held in my heart and hoped for the 
 bloom of your presence." 
 
 Lincoln had stepped from the roadway while 
 these words he was saying, 
 
 Till he stood underneath the silk-green mul- 
 berry's leafage 
 
 Which with the flowers paired was whirling 
 in dance to the breezes. 
 
 Airily rising and taking her place in front 
 
 of the comer, 
 Spake through blushes the maid, as she 
 
 glanced up into his features: 
 (222)
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 223 
 
 "And I too, when I first came hither today 
 and lounged on this settle, 
 
 More than an hour ago, I seemed to grow 
 into the earth here 
 
 Dreaming that you would soon be espied on 
 the road from Vandalia." 
 
 "And I too was dreaming of you on this set- 
 tle reclining 
 
 When my love-born imagery slips into being 
 before me ; 
 
 Softly there starts to sing me a note far 
 sweeter than music. " 
 
 "Also my fancy was watching you walk in 
 your cloudland of fancy, 
 
 When you stepped right out of the ghost- 
 world into my presence, 
 
 As I dreamed you dreaming my dream of 
 happiness future." 
 
 "Also my fancy saw yours and the shapes 
 which it joyously played with, 
 
 For they were mine and seemed in their love 
 to know one another. 
 
 Tell me, are we a phantom, or even a phan- 
 tom of phantoms?" 
 
 So they had come together again at the shrine 
 of their trysting,
 
 224 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XI. 
 
 After a long separation of space but not of 
 
 the spirit. 
 Even though here in the body, they could 
 
 not come out of their dreamland 
 Where they had happily lived, to each other 
 
 in freedom united, 
 Far from the conflict of life which had 
 
 hounded them both like a Fury. 
 Lincoln in hope looked out of himself for a 
 
 view of kind nature, 
 If she would deign him perchance a breath of 
 
 her loving suggestion: 
 
 "Watch this mulberry tree with its rollick- 
 ing leaflets and flowers! 
 Oft underneath these branches we twain 
 
 have attuned our best moments, 
 What does it say to us now foretelling the 
 
 cast of our fortune?" 
 
 Fairily lifted the maiden her hand and 
 
 plucked a bright blossom 
 Pinning it on the lapel of his coat whose 
 
 threads she had woven, 
 Saying with eyebeams outpoured: "It smiles 
 
 you a bright benediction." 
 Lincoln again for relief fled into the joys of 
 
 the season: 
 "Not alone this mulberry blooms in a vernal 
 
 carousal,
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 225 
 
 But the fields and the woods have shot up 
 heavenward striving. 
 
 Look ! the earth and the welkin sink down in 
 each other's embraces 
 
 All around the horizon which hides them be- 
 hind its blue curtain. 
 
 Birds are singing and mating and making 
 their nests for the future, 
 
 Herds are mad with the season and frolic- 
 the day through the meadow, 
 
 Bees are buzzing high-hearted amid the flow- 
 ering tree-tops, 
 
 I can hear them at work now, humming of 
 hives and of honey." 
 
 Here the word waited awhile in the lull of his 
 
 sympathy's silence, 
 "While the youth and the maiden were sunk 
 
 in the throb of the spring's spell; 
 But soon Lincoln was striking the keynote 
 
 of Heaven outside him, 
 And inside him as well, the outer preluding 
 
 the inner: 
 "Mark too the azure eye that is tenderly 
 
 rounded above us ! 
 Now it is hiding its blue with a white woolly 
 
 flock of a cloudlet, 
 Passionate longing it looks, but modestly 
 
 keeps in the distance."
 
 226 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XL 
 
 Then the coy maiden drew closer and dar- 
 ingly whispered the answer: 
 
 "See the bold bright face of the sun while 
 he pours out his glances 
 
 On the earth all his bride, and tells her the 
 gold of his treasures." 
 
 Both of them drooped down together into 
 the seat of the grapevines, 
 
 Wide enough seat for the one, yet narrow 
 for two, still both sat down, 
 
 Quite as one person the twain seemed bent 
 to the sides of each other, 
 
 "While the mulberry's flowers hung downward 
 and smiled at the lovers 
 
 Just like themselves now blooming their hour 
 at height of the season, 
 
 Half concealed in their glory behind the 
 tapestry leafy. 
 
 Thus they sat in their bower alone and felt 
 
 their new freedom, 
 Silent they gazed on each other, but silence 
 
 was fuller than speeches 
 Till it burst overflowing to words from the 
 
 heart of Ann Eutledge : 
 "Long I have secretly hoped, I confess, for 
 
 the turn of this moment, 
 Aye, ever since I beheld the brave youth take 
 
 his boat through the milldam."
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 227 
 
 Lincoln replied: "I saw the fair form that 
 
 stood on the hillside 
 Waving her handkerchief thrice and again 
 
 I could go to the spot now 
 Oft I have gone there and looked at myself 
 
 in the years intervening, 
 With a hope in my heart a hope but not a 
 
 fulfillment 
 Deeply I longed for it, still I never expected 
 
 this moment." 
 "Then on that day," fell slowly the words 
 
 of the maid to a falter, 
 ' * Then on that day when I girded thee round 
 
 with the sword of my fathers, 
 Thee, young Captain, that moment I dreamed 
 
 thee my hero forever." 
 
 So in their soul's own spring-time they sat 
 
 with ecstasy thrilling, 
 When the maiden uplifted her hand to stroke 
 
 a caress on his forearm, 
 Or to pick off a gossamer caught in the nap 
 
 of his garment 
 Of a sudden the face of the youth grew dark 
 
 as the cloud-wrack, 
 Even the sigh burst up from the far-down 
 
 source of his being, 
 As he rolled round his eye and glanced at the 
 
 ring on her finger
 
 228 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK XL 
 
 Whose red ruby seemed flashing a curse 
 
 whenever he saw it. 
 Wincing with memory's pitiless pain he 
 
 worded his sorrow : 
 
 "But the counterstroke felled me when I re- 
 turned from my absence, 
 For I found the dear prize had meanwhile 
 
 been won by my rival." 
 Ann heaved a sob which rose from her soul 
 
 like the roll of the tide-wave, 
 E'en a low shriek she voiced with her breath 
 
 in the stress of her struggle, 
 As she jerked back her finger encircled with 
 
 pledge of betrothal. 
 Then she grappled that ring of her fate and 
 
 she wrenched it : 
 * ' Off, off, and out of my sight ! I ban thee not 
 
 to be mine more!" 
 
 So she reproached it: "Thou sign of de- 
 spair at my happiest moment!" 
 But it fought her and stayed, though she 
 
 bloodied the knob of her knuckle 
 In her fierce writhing to loose from its clench 
 
 that symbol of promise. 
 Soon she stopped and wilted in look to sad 
 
 resignation 
 Quite unable to put from her hand or her 
 
 heaven the token: 
 "Fain I would now be quit of it, but it never 
 
 will leave me."
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 29 
 
 Sorrowful, Lincoln was soothing the rage of 
 the maidenly battle, 
 
 When she fell on his bosom and coupled her 
 own to his heart-beat, 
 
 Till they both were transfused to one soul 
 that could never be parted. 
 
 Thus they lay in the lull of their Paradise, 
 when the youth whispered: 
 
 "He, the absentee, Abner, will never come 
 back by my presage ; 
 
 You have not yet received the reply I un- 
 willingly wrote for?" 
 
 With a short jet of a scream upwhirling from 
 life's last fountain, 
 
 Forth she drew from her pocket the writ 
 which she crushed in a crackle 
 
 Till her well-flourished name on the paper 
 was furrowed to creases : 
 
 "Yes, here it is," and she broke, as if march- 
 ing to death, the envelope : 
 
 "He is soon to return perchance he is now 
 in New Salem." 
 
 Terror shook the brave man when he saw all 
 
 his world fall in ruins ; 
 Hope, the newborn star of his life, dropped 
 
 dead like a cinder; 
 Agony wrung every limb in his frame with 
 
 the rage of a demon;
 
 230 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XI. 
 
 But suppress it lie must, so lie spoke oui 
 
 calmly resigning: 
 ''Heaven be witness! eternal must be oui 
 
 renunciation ! ' ' 
 So he appeals as if facing just there all tht 
 
 fates of existence. 
 
 But at the shock of the word Ann seizes the 
 doom-bringing letter, 
 
 And she tears it to pieces again and again in 
 her frenzy, 
 
 Flinging the ominous fragments away from 
 herself by the handful, 
 
 Seeming to spurn in disdain each inked little 
 shred of the missive. 
 
 But just see ! the papery flock flung out on the 
 breezes ! 
 
 One wee whirl of the eddying wind is whisk- 
 ing the fragments 
 
 Back to the seat and e 'en to the hand of the 
 maid which had whirled them, 
 
 And they besprinkle with speckles the gar- 
 ment of Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Which for him she had woven before he went 
 down to Vandalia. 
 
 Aye, they even dared fly in his face with the 
 twirl of the whirlwind, 
 
 One of them lights in his eye, to blind him 
 the way of the future.
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 231 
 
 Up he springs and shakes off the bits of im- 
 pertinent paper 
 
 Which had defiantly come in the way of his 
 highest fulfillment, 
 
 While through his face are fixed tense lines 
 of his determination, 
 
 Though around them the tenderest looks of 
 his love throb trembling. 
 
 Dares he meet the new crisis? Let destiny 
 vengefully smite him 
 
 Taking his seat he clasps the maid to his 
 bosom in transport; 
 
 Boldly he spares not the kiss, the kiss of 
 eternal betrothal, 
 
 Which she gives back to him twice and thrice 
 in fiery rapture, 
 
 While she whispers a word from her heart 
 for acceptance of Heaven, 
 
 Mid her tear-drops falling and sighs up- 
 storming she prays there : 
 
 1 1 Thou Almighty, oh ! tell me, can this be my 
 second betrothal?" 
 
 Then she fell, as if severed within by her 
 promises double. 
 
 Lincoln calmed himself for the sake of calm- 
 ing the maiden, 
 
 Bade her look up to partake of the joy of the 
 mulberry blossoms
 
 232 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XI. 
 
 Which all day were blooming their love to 
 
 the world and its lovers, 
 Every branch was waving above them the 
 
 leaves of a garland, 
 Backward and forward attuned to the harp 
 
 of the low-piping breezes, 
 With which whistled the robin his note now 
 
 and then from the tree-top, 
 While the sparrows would twitter their 
 
 speeches and beak one another, 
 Also debating of Love as they sat in their 
 
 parliament feathered. 
 Mid such music he breathed in the ear of the 
 
 maiden a whisper : 
 "Now Love's truth and Love's troth are 
 
 joined in a union forever, 
 While the hope of the heart grows one with 
 
 the tongue and its promise, 
 And the holiest wish to the word runs coun- 
 ter no longer. " 
 
 Scarcely had sounded the tones of Lincoln's 
 
 happy concordance, 
 When she lifted her palm to place it in his 
 
 for the blessing 
 What is this sudden convulsion ! witness the 
 
 act of Ann Eutledge, 
 As she holds up one hand to his gaze and the 
 
 finger ring on it
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 33 
 
 Whose dumb look he well understands in its 
 
 sinister meaning, 
 Which now quakes each joint of his body in 
 
 shudders repeated. 
 Then the maiden begins to wrench off that 
 
 sign of her promise 
 More ferocious than ever before against its 
 
 refusal ; 
 But it clings fast with mortal embrace in her 
 
 flesh, in her soul too, 
 Dumbly affirming its place by the right of 
 
 the primal betrothal. 
 But at a twist the red-teared ruby leaps out 
 
 of its socket 
 
 Sailing unseen far off in the grass or per- 
 chance in the bushes. 
 "Let it go," she spake with decision, "no 
 
 longer I wish it, 
 All that heart has shot out my ring and out 
 
 of myself too, 
 Let this sign on my finger now stay as it is 
 
 heartless." 
 
 List ! to the shock of her word comes tolling 
 the sound of the school-bell, 
 
 Bringing to both of the lovers the eventide's 
 message unwelcome, 
 
 For the afternoon hours already had slid off 
 unheeded.
 
 234 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XL 
 
 Lincoln sprang up in a shiver hearing the 
 bodeful vibrations, 
 
 Saying: "Now I must part, there is tonight 
 a discussion 
 
 That's the first call of the bell I hurried to- 
 day to be present." 
 
 Still he lingered and sat down again with the 
 maid on the settle, 
 
 Who recalled the memories sweet of the lit- 
 tle red schoolhouse, 
 
 When their heads and their hearts first en- 
 twined in the rapture of study. 
 
 But once more interrupted their talk that 
 echoing belfry 
 
 As they lurked half-hid in the gauze of the 
 leaves of their bower, 
 
 Bidding them part and follow away in the 
 wake of the sound-waves. 
 
 "Well-aday! now I am off," leaped Lincoln 
 from under the leafage, 
 
 Tenderly breathing a sigh, ere he sped, on 
 the lips of Ann Eutledge, 
 
 Though he marked the agony tearing her face 
 as he left her. 
 
 Then alone, as was best, he turned down the 
 road to the village,
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 35 
 
 Soon he had dodged out of sight, though 
 glancing furtively backward, 
 
 Darting afar a sunburst of love, which again 
 made her happy. 
 
 Now by herself the maiden slipped off to the 
 home of her parents, 
 
 Lightly uplifted in tread at the start and ex- 
 ultant of spirit. 
 
 But on her way she saw the white storehouse 
 of Abner the absent, 
 
 Bead his name on the sign-board lettered in 
 front of the building, 
 
 Then came the back-stroke again with the 
 pitiless might of her conflict, 
 
 Whelming her more than ever down into the 
 den of the Furies 
 
 As she reflected: "My doom is fallen, I feel 
 it redoubled, 
 
 Mark it rise upward ! two letters, two lovers, 
 and now two betrothals! 
 
 How the scythe of old Time keeps halving me 
 deeper and deeper!" 
 
 Soon she had crossed the doorsill, and silent- 
 ly entered her chamber, 
 
 Throwing herself on her bed, she drew forth 
 the red-hearted letter, 
 
 And at its glance rose murmuring words 
 from her nethermost fountain
 
 236 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XI. 
 
 As she prayerful seemed to address an in- 
 visible presence : 
 "Soon I shall take thy letter along to my 
 
 bridal hereafter 
 When I shall come before God on His throne 
 
 with my love everlasting, 
 And beseech Him in mercy divinely to seal 
 
 my espousals. 
 Though of earth be the law of my word, I 
 
 shall not disobey it, 
 Eather now let me be crushed by the weight 
 
 of its honest fulfillment, 
 Only beyond I go free of the chain of my 
 
 primal betrothal. 
 I shall hold up this letter of thine in the 
 
 presence of Heaven, 
 Hold it up with the hand here gyved by this 
 
 ring on my finger, 
 I shall show it as pledge of fidelity's oath to 
 
 my conscience, 
 Yet too as sign of my love triumphant for 
 
 thee in all struggle. 
 There on high a new ring will be given me, 
 
 ring of betrothal 
 Which I shall wear at the Judgment of Man, 
 
 as the sign of salvation." 
 
 So the maiden lay glooming her forecast in 
 dim premonition,
 
 UNDER THE MULBERRY. 237 
 
 When half adream she seemed to be hearing 
 
 the voice of the preacher 
 Weirdly attuning the air to the words of a 
 
 musical whisper: 
 "God is deathless Love, whose fulfillment is 
 
 only in Heaven. " 
 
 Soothingly Ann's whole soul had slid out 
 
 of time to a vision, 
 Which repeated that sentence again and 
 
 again with her heart-throbs 
 Till in her flight she suddenly winged to the 
 
 Presence Eternal, 
 Who as Last Judge had called her before his 
 
 final tribunal. 
 There he gazed at her soul with its love in 
 
 infinite pity, 
 
 Crowning her true as a bride with the lumi- 
 nous garland of Heaven, 
 He as High-Priest supreme of the Universe 
 
 gave her in marriage 
 Stamping the love of God Himself on the 
 
 love of the maiden; 
 Thus transfigured to truth immortal was 
 
 truth of the mortal.
 
 238 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XI. 
 
 In the night Ann Kutledge was waked from 
 
 her sleep by the moon's touch, 
 Whose fine fingers of radiance reached forth 
 
 lifting her eyelids, 
 Gently leading her back once more to her life 
 
 on this earth-ball ; 
 But she was ill, and she woke up weak from 
 
 her dream-world, 
 For a fever had wrapped in its blaze her face 
 
 and her body 
 And was burning her strength when to rise 
 
 from her bed she attempted. 
 Dropping back on her pillow, she called for 
 
 help from her mother, 
 Who soon came with the father and stood on 
 
 watch at the bed-side.
 
 look 
 
 The Double Debate. 
 
 Twilight of eve is flinging her veil transpar- 
 ent, triumphant, 
 
 Over the face of the Earth in pursuit of her 
 lover, the Sungod ; 
 
 Swift on his tracks she is happily smiling in 
 hope to o'ertake him 
 
 Ere he drop underneath the last rim of the 
 rounded horizon, 
 
 Though to keep her afar he out-thrusts the 
 long arms of his sunbeams. 
 
 Now he has leaped in the Ocean, she follow- 
 ing rapidly after, 
 
 While the Ethiop Night has slunk down the 
 Sangamon Valley 
 
 And is sneaking up slowly to darken the hill 
 of New Salem 
 
 (239)
 
 240 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Hark! there is heard in the sky overhead a 
 loud detonation 
 
 All of a sudden, the Heavens flash full of the 
 spatter of sparkles, 
 
 Till the whole dome of the stars seem thun- 
 dering out of their orbits 
 
 Into some cosmical battle which fires just now 
 its first cannon 
 
 Over the village, whose people are quaking in 
 terrible wonder, 
 
 Palely upturning their faces and asking: 
 "What is it the sign of 1" 
 
 So they began to delve in themselves for an 
 
 interpretation. 
 Every person first thought of some ill to 
 
 himself now foreshadowed, 
 Then he sought to review all the deeds he had 
 
 done in his vengeance, 
 And he could find them swarming on each 
 
 little speck of existence, 
 Till he fled from the prospect of dream- 
 wrought damnation in terror. 
 Then he would think of his family, town, of 
 
 his State and the Nation, 
 Soon selecting for doom what he deemed 
 
 their deed most infernal, 
 Thus in himself his own soul was turned to 
 
 a scene of Last Judgment.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 241 
 
 Even the world was felt underneath to be 
 
 shaky by many, 
 Who remembered the wrath of the Lord as 
 
 pictured by Cartright, 
 Furious preacher predicting the end in a 
 
 grand conflagration, 
 Whereof the harbinger hot has been flared in 
 
 the Heavens as warning. 
 All New Salem turned prophet inspired by 
 
 that fire-ball celestial, 
 Dumbly f orefeeling its fate, the hours it went 
 
 about ghost-like, 
 Hanging between two dreamworlds, living as 
 
 though in a fable. 
 
 Even calm Lincoln gave rein to his prognos- 
 tication, 
 Though he had read in a book about meteors 
 
 madly exploding 
 When they tore our outermost air in their 
 
 swift revolutions. 
 So he believed with cold science, still in spite 
 
 of his reason 
 Rose all the might of his underworld into Bis 
 
 sad premonition ; 
 What the ages ancestral had laid in his soul, 
 
 was the stronger, 
 For it was tuned to the time which seemed 
 
 presaging destruction,
 
 242 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK XII. 
 
 Tuned to the mood of the village forefeeling 
 
 its own evanescence, 
 Tuned to the pang of his love with its woe of 
 
 remediless conflict, 
 Which had pierced with its perilous point to 1 
 
 the life of the dearest. 
 
 Even the bell of the school-house was seem- 
 ing to gasp from its belfry, 
 Slowly transmuting its strain to a dirge with 
 
 a resonance dying 
 Far on tKe throbs of the air enringing the 
 
 village 's hilltop ; 
 Tolling together the folk, it seemed for itself 
 
 to be tolling, 
 As it sighed out its low tintinnabular hum in 
 
 the distance. 
 
 Slowly the people uneasy began to assemble 
 
 together, 
 Not a joke would prosper, though several 
 
 hopefully tried it, 
 Something hung heavily over the world both 
 
 outer and inner, 
 Silent and spectral each stalked on his path 
 
 to the school-house, 
 Which had a vanishing look as it sank in the 
 
 dusk of the night-tide. 
 But now it gleams with small flares lit within 
 
 from candles of tallow,
 
 TSE DOUBLE DEBATE 243 
 
 Long-fingered candles melted and cooled on 
 
 wicks in the tin-molds, 
 Shedding a flickering flame on New Salem 
 
 instead of the sunshine. 
 
 Mentor Graham was there preparing his desk 
 for the Chairman, 
 
 Also adjusting the seats in opposite rows for 
 contestants, 
 
 Who would come to debate this evening's 
 question appointed, 
 
 "Which of the two, the red man or black, has 
 been injured more deeply; 
 
 Or as the race-hating borderer in his harsh 
 lingo would put it : 
 
 Which of the curses is bigger for us, the In- 
 jun or Nigger? 
 
 So the sage schoolmaster parted the places 
 of both the debaters, 
 
 Lest from near-by the quick blow might pur- 
 sue the sharp word of the speaker. 
 
 All predicted a white-hot time in discussing 
 the question 
 
 Which reached down to the core of the heart- 
 iest hates of the people, 
 
 Yea to the strifes far back unrecorded of 
 origin human,
 
 244 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Giving its ultimate task of atonement to civ- 
 ilization 
 
 To associate in love the venomous blood of 
 the races. 
 
 Troubled in foresight the master has hidden 
 the long iron poker, 
 
 Also the slates and the inkstands of lead 
 were unseen in their places, 
 
 Lest as weapons to clinch some argument 
 they might be seized on. 
 
 But the ferule he kept in his hand, the badge 
 of his calling, 
 
 While he left overhead the small switch of 
 flexible willow, 
 
 Which would tickle the palm of the bad little 
 boy caught in mischief. 
 
 All the shreds of paper and whittlings which 
 littered the deal-floor 
 
 He had swept together with care and thrown 
 in the wood-box, 
 
 Which had been used for various contents 
 quids of tobacco, 
 
 Broken old pipestems, corn-cobs, emptied bot- 
 tles of whiskey 
 
 Implements social of all frontiersmen wher- 
 ever assembled.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 245 
 
 Into that wood-box also was flung the live 
 
 snuff of the candles, 
 Which the farmer would crop with his finger 
 
 and thumb, without snuffers, 
 Suddenly slapping his hand on his thigh, the 
 
 burn to get rid of. 
 Wisely the schoolmaster read in advance the 
 
 mind of his people, 
 Bead it in light of himself, for he felt in his 
 
 heart the same conflict, 
 Well did he know that he too could be stormed 
 
 in this struggle of races. 
 Now foreboding the strife of debate, himself 
 
 he foreboded, 
 If some witling should twit him and make him 
 
 boil over with passion, 
 While he was speaking the part assigned him 
 
 on side of the negro 
 
 For an old memory left him a sizzling vol- 
 cano down under. 
 
 Meanwhile knots of the folk were standing 
 
 around the lit schoolhouse, 
 Talking of matters of neighborhood gossip, 
 
 of crops and of business ; 
 But each whispered that portent of Heaven, 
 
 the meteor blazing; 
 Featured in awe was his face, while he spake 
 
 in an undertone solemn,
 
 246 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK XII. 
 
 Darkly forefeeling a fate to lurk in the pres- 
 age uncanny, 
 
 Worse for his knowing not what, but certain- 
 ly something prodigious. 
 
 Still one group cared not for the ominous 
 sign of the fire-ball, 
 
 That was Doctor Palmetto, a group of him- 
 self, ever grumbling, 
 
 Bitter denier of all, denying at last his de- 
 nial, 
 
 Who said No to the sign and to everything 
 else but his No Sir, 
 
 Even to that in the end, if you gave him the 
 time to get round to't 
 
 Loudly proclaiming his freedom through sci- 
 ence from all superstition, 
 
 He had already begun the wrangle outside on 
 the darkey, 
 
 But he secretly aimed his poisonous squibs 
 at his rival, 
 
 Lincoln, who had not yet appeared, though 
 expected as speaker. 
 
 All for his advent were waiting as for the 
 soul in their body: 
 
 ''Where is our Abraham, usually prompt 
 with his pouch full of stories?"
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 241 
 
 So they kept looking around with an eye-shot 
 at every newcomer : 
 
 "Where is our lawmaker Lincoln to right- 
 fully lead the discussion ? 
 
 Surely the bottom will fall out unless he be 
 present as spokesman.'* 
 
 So they hummed through the groups, one 
 hummer alone was discordant, 
 
 Humming his Nay to it all until himself he 
 benayed too. 
 
 Well-a-way! up from the store is walking a 
 
 man unexpected, 
 
 Long since known in the town, but this morn- 
 ing returned from his absence 
 Store-keeper Abner, Fate! for years the 
 
 betrothed of Ann Eutledge! 
 Bound him was raging her destiny's battle 
 
 with love and with promise, 
 Woe-darting center of conflict for her and 
 
 also for Lincoln. 
 All saluted him, but with reserve, which he 
 
 could not help noting, 
 So he appeared not hearty in answer as once 
 
 his frank wont was, 
 Well he knew that the people all minded his 
 
 unexplained conduct, 
 Taking the part of the maid, the favorite 
 
 fair of the village.
 
 248 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Not a word he vouchsafed in excuse, and no- 
 body asked him; 
 
 Only one wag dared break a sly jest on his 
 sudden appearance : 
 
 "Ab, was it you that popped down on our 
 earth from the crack of that comet? 
 
 Well, no wonder it burst into thunder with 
 you in its belly." 
 
 Still not a word he replied, but twisted a lip- 
 grin sardonic, 
 
 Shunning and shunned he felt the discomfort 
 before the whole people; 
 
 Possibly too he avoided all part in the praises 
 of Lincoln. 
 
 Abe and Ab with their names fore-shortened 
 were busily buzzing 
 
 From the tongues of an hundred putting a 
 sting in their contrast ; 
 
 So it came that the new-comer soon slipped 
 away from the meeting. 
 
 Meanwhile responded to Doctor Palmetto 
 
 pugnacious Jack Armstrong, 
 Who had fought in the Black Hawk War as 
 
 Orderly Sargent, 
 Hating the Indian and not altogether in love 
 
 with the Negro, 
 Yet disliking black slavery, wishing it off in 
 
 the distance,
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 249 
 
 Out of the State where he lived, but it trou- 
 bled him not in Kentucky 
 
 Strongly affected to Lincoln who once in a 
 wrestle upset him. 
 
 Words were getting too choleric, both were 
 shouting together 
 
 When the schoolmaster rapped with his fer- 
 ule the sash of the window, 
 
 Then flung open the door of the schoclhouse 
 and bade people enter; 
 
 All rushed in like a flock when the sheep 
 spring into the sheepfold 
 
 After the bell-wether, whose little tinkle they 
 hear and then follow. 
 
 "Let this meeting be opened the moment 
 has come and has gone too" 
 
 It was Mentor, the master, who picked up 
 the word that awaited : 
 
 "But I nowhere can see the orator choice of 
 the evening, 
 
 Though I heard Uncle Jimmy declare he was 
 seen in the distance 
 
 For a single short glimpse, and then vanished 
 away in the brushwood, 
 
 Fleet as the timorous deer, when it feels it- 
 self hit by man's eye-shot. 
 
 He may come yet but debate must begin 
 has already begun here."
 
 250 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Meantime the people had noisily; entered and 
 
 taken their places, 
 Once again the wise Mentor addressed the 
 
 now seated assembly: 
 " Still one warning: cool be the argument, 
 
 good be the order, 
 This is the temple of light, burn it not up 
 
 in your passion! 
 You can destroy it by wrath, though you may 
 
 not fire it with tinder; 
 Be it the shrine of sweet peace consecrated 
 
 now by your example. " 
 
 So exhorted the schoolmaster uttering saws 
 
 of sage counsel 
 Which he deeply forefelt the chief need of 
 
 the present occasion, 
 For in his heart he read to himself quite the 
 
 same sort of warning, 
 His own soul he knew as the scene of a similar 
 
 danger, 
 What he saw writ in his bosom he spoke as 
 
 the truth to his people, 
 Well aware that the Furies and Fates in the 
 
 world were his own too, 
 That underneath all strife with its death lay 
 
 the soul's resurrection.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 251 
 
 There sit the folk in their ranks divided al- 
 most in the middle, 
 
 Two are the sides, each taking their seats on 
 the opposite benches, 
 
 Facing each other with places assigned for 
 the leaders contestant. 
 
 Where is Lincoln? Hardly lie knows just 
 
 where he himself is, 
 Wandering lone through by-paths he turns 
 
 from the way to the schoolhouse, 
 Dodging now into the moon-shade to keep 
 
 himself hidden from eye-sight. 
 To the debate had stormed up within him 
 
 the fiercest repugnance, 
 Far too dread was the inside debate to hold 
 
 the one outside; 
 Nor could he summon the mood for telling 
 
 the people a story, 
 Who were expecting an hour arabesqued with 
 
 his fancy and humor, 
 As he wont when he trod in the village's 
 
 treadmill of humdrum. 
 But he was living a story far deeper than 
 
 what he could fable, 
 For he had heard from the maid that Abner 
 
 might soon be expected, 
 Yea might stroll to the schoolhouse into his 
 
 presence this evening,
 
 252 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 While perchance he was spinning for fun a 
 
 fiction fantastic, 
 Whereat he knew that every fine thread of 
 
 his story would snap off. 
 Even the dream of seeing the rival had start- 
 ed a thrill of convulsion, 
 To whose fit he was chained by fate in a 
 
 struggle demonic, 
 Which he could never escape, and of which 
 
 he could not be victor, 
 Throbbing his day and his night in the throes 
 
 of a torture infernal. 
 So he saunters about, lashed forward by 
 
 love's sweetest longing, 
 Yet at the same time harried with hate's un- 
 earthly damnation; 
 Love of the one is fiendishly coupled with 
 
 hate of the other, 
 Each of them scourging the victim in turn 
 
 with rivalry jealous, 
 Till of a sudden he stands on the banks where 
 
 he harkens the prattle 
 Lipped by the Sangamon's tremulous ripples 
 
 along its low stream-bed, 
 Where he can watch the luminous dance of 
 
 the silvery minnows 
 Leaping up sidelings over the pebbles to kiss 
 
 the young moonbeam 
 Which is swooning in tender caresses upon 
 
 the lit lap of the landscape.
 
 253 
 
 Still that scene can but call him away from 
 
 himself for a moment, 
 Looking around he beholds high-perched on 
 
 its hill-top the school-house, 
 Now illumed through the windows it shines 
 
 to beckon him thither, 
 But he can not respond, still choosing the 
 
 talk of the waters, 
 
 Though it be wordless, to the mad clash of de- 
 bate with its uproar, 
 Eambling until he stops on the slope and 
 
 looks down at the mill-weir, 
 Where he again sees himself directing the 
 
 flight of his flat-boat, 
 Years agone when once it had lodged on the 
 
 dam in the river 
 Where too he sees a fair phantom that stood 
 
 on the spot where he now stands, 
 Who throbbed sympathy down to him just at 
 
 the top of his labor, 
 Then a handkerchief waved as in triumph 
 
 the feat was accomplished. 
 That was the first time he saw her, never 
 
 again of him unseen 
 During her life and even when life has with 
 
 her evanished. 
 
 Thus he reviews his happiest moment in 
 tender remembrance
 
 254 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 "Wafted from sorrow to joy, from joy 
 
 whelmed back into sorrow, 
 Sighing his heart out as he went creeping 
 
 foot-sore, fate-weary, 
 Through the moon-shaded nooks fay-haunted 
 
 of valley and village ; 
 All New Salem had turned to the flit of a 
 
 shadowy specter, 
 As he glanced up and saw the faint flicker 
 
 of light from the school-house, 
 Whence he thought he could hear the shrill 
 
 voice of some passionate speaker. 
 
 Suddenly feeling turned speech when he 
 
 spoke to himself as his other: 
 "What an oppressive presence! a fume flows 
 
 the Sangamon sultry, 
 Where all seemed on a time upspringing in 
 
 buoyancy youthful ! 
 What a sweltering world weighs on me and 
 
 crushes me inward!" 
 So he sat down on a stone and gazed at the 
 
 Sangamon star-gemmed, 
 Which then appeared to run through his soul 
 
 as it flashed on his eye-sight, 
 Like a thread which threaded his life with 
 
 memories tender 
 Since the time he first floated its current 
 
 along to the river,
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 255 
 
 Which thence plunged him down into the 
 
 frown of the mad Mississippi. 
 Thus the Sangamon small grew great through 
 
 Lincoln who henceforth 
 Dwelt not far from its hanks as it wound 
 
 through his days till his sunset, 
 Laving the land not far from his tomb still 
 
 today we may see it. 
 
 But just now sad Lincoln broke down at the 
 view of the waters. 
 
 "I must leave here else I shall fling me out 
 into yon mill-dam, 
 
 Memory dear in the past has become my de- 
 spair in the present.** 
 
 So he gave a quick turn and shot through 
 an alley of leafage 
 
 From the sight of the river which coiled 
 through his soul like a serpent, 
 
 As if to bear it away from his body off into 
 dark Hades. 
 
 But as he townward was musing he saw a 
 
 lone light in the window 
 At the home of the Eutledges fitfully flicker 
 
 in pulses; 
 Lincoln stopped in his tracks and gazed, 
 
 foreboding some illness :
 
 256 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK Xll. 
 
 11 Shall I go to inquire and offer my service 
 if needed?" 
 
 So he balanced both sides of himself sus- 
 pending the balance; 
 
 Then again he looked up and marked the 
 weird light of the school-house, 
 
 Which like a Will-of-the-Wisp kept quiver- 
 ing over the hill-top. 
 
 There he stood swaying between the two 
 flickers, both of them bodeful, 
 
 Till of a sudden he heard from the school- 
 house booming an uproar, 
 
 With a tap of the bell, one tremulous tap 
 on the night air 
 
 What can it mean? So we turn back our 
 tale to probe for the secret. 
 
 Let us now enter the little red round-house 
 
 laughing in moonshine, 
 Where the people are seated with lungs full 
 
 of cheers for the speakers, 
 Somewhat boisterous yet good natured, with 
 
 jokes of the backwoods 
 Bandied about from one mouth to the other 
 
 in many a guffaw; 
 Each of the sides has taken its seats, quite 
 
 equal in numbers, 
 As the sage schoolmaster marshals them 
 
 in to the stroke of his ferule ;
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 57 
 
 Swelling his bosom up to a vociferous pitch 
 
 he commands them, 
 So that above all the noise his> voice can be 
 
 heard bidding silence : 
 " Fellow-citizens, hear me and halt for a 
 
 moment your tongue-spree, 
 Squire Ebenezer I move we make chairman 
 
 controlling this meeting, 
 Balancer fair of Justice whenever she tilts 
 
 on the pivot, 
 With authority's mien he will render the 
 
 rightful decision. 
 There he is ! look for yourselves how gravity 
 
 sits in his visage, 
 Also sits in his belly well freighted with 
 
 many good dinners." 
 
 Coarse was that Humorous punch at the 
 Squire's most prominent organ, 
 
 But the Schoolmaster even, the cultured,' 
 classical Mentor 
 
 Never could quite get rid of the straightfor- 
 ward brogue of the border. 
 
 All of the audience roared at the eloquent 
 burst of the speaker, 
 
 Voting a thunderous Aye with clapping of 
 hands and with stamping.
 
 258 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK XII. 
 
 But there was one who refrained from the 
 plaudits and even from voting, 
 
 Doctor Palmetto, the cutting objector-in- 
 chief of the village; 
 
 Still his No he out-spoke not, but let it be 
 told in his action. 
 
 Next the schoolmaster gleefully grappled the 
 
 Squire by the forearm, 
 Leading him up with a laugh to the platform 
 
 of honor, thus saying: 
 "Here, take my badge, this ferule, which to 
 
 you I resign now ; 
 Yonder suspended the gad is, which you may 
 
 have to make use of, 
 Trouncing these grown-up children to order, 
 
 as I do their young ones; 
 Nor shall I seek myself to exempt from what 
 
 I've inflicted,' 
 You may be forced to schoolmaster here the 
 
 schoolmaster also, 
 Give then in turn his own medicine to him 
 
 by right of your office, 
 Show him new proof of his faith in the law 
 
 of the Fates and the Furies." 
 
 Merriment ran in a titter around the full 
 room, while the Squire shook
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 59 
 
 With a huge laugh that bounced up and down 
 
 on his prominent organ; 
 Still he beat on the desk with his ferule, 
 
 calling for order, 
 In the lull he then cried out: "What is the 
 
 will of this meeting?" 
 Note again the sage schoolmaster, rising he 
 
 reads off the question: 
 " Which one has suffered more wrong from 
 
 the whites, the red or the black man ! ' ' 
 This from a paper he holds in his hand, and 
 
 then he announces : 
 "As the first of our speakers tonight we 
 
 had chosen James Kutledge, 
 He with his dignified calm would have set 
 
 us the worthy example; 
 But he has to be absent, detained by the mal- 
 ady sudden 
 Which has seized on his daughter ; may God 
 
 save her life for our blessing!" 
 All bowed their heads and silently prayed 
 
 in response the same prayer. 
 
 Then upsprang for a speech New Salem 's 
 
 old fiery fifer, 
 Commonly called Tom Cunes, who had fought 
 
 in all wars with the Indian, 
 Whom he hated with all of the borderer 's 
 
 hate of the red skin ;
 
 260 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 As a boy he had fifed for Mad Anthony 
 
 Wayne in a battle, 
 Then as a man he was fifer at Tippecanoe, 
 
 but he shot too; 
 Fighting he fifed in the furious fight at the 
 
 death of Tecumseh, 
 Which every day with his tongue he fought 
 
 over again in New Salem. 
 Lastly through his gray mustache for Lin- 
 coln he fifed against Black Hawk. 
 Numerous wars of his own he had waged 
 
 by himself on the border 
 With the red devils so he would grace them 
 
 giving and taking; 
 Scars he abounded in one of a tomahawk 
 
 over his cheek-bone, 
 While on his scalp he would show the grim 
 
 gash of an Indian's knife-blade. 
 
 All these exploits he now ran on recounting, 
 
 with more still to draw from, 
 Telling of Daniel Boone whom he met once 
 
 up in Missouri, 
 Telling of how he outwitted the red-skins 
 
 when taken their captive, 
 How he escaped from the stake with the 
 
 faggots lighted around him:
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 261 
 
 Down fell the ferule on time in the hands 
 
 of the strict Ebenezer, 
 Who had tallied the minutes upon the Dutch 
 
 clock in the corner, 
 When old Tom cried out: "I hav'nt yet told 
 
 of Notoka, 
 Sweet Indian girl who loved me, the white 
 
 boy, and kissed me." 
 
 But said the chairman : ' ' Hundreds of times 
 
 we have heard that already, 
 On the streets you have told the story for 
 
 years in New Salem: 
 Tom, that girl was the only red face you ever 
 
 bowed down to, 
 Well you know that white Barbara who is 
 
 the wife of your bosom 
 Always has vetoed your telling that tale of 
 
 red love in her presence, 
 Hating the Indian girl as much as you hated 
 
 the parent. 
 Barbara here we shall follow, so we now call 
 
 for the next one, 
 Abraham Lincoln not yet arrived what is 
 
 it that keeps him 
 Who was to shine the bright oratorical star 
 
 of the evening 
 And to spin us his yarn of the deeds in the 
 
 halls of Vandalia?"
 
 262 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Then the tongue-quick Mentor at once by 
 the people was chosen 
 
 As the next spokesman, to tell of the wrongs 
 by us done to the negro; 
 
 Not unfit was the choice, though regarded by 
 some with suspicion, 
 
 For he was thought to favor at heart aboli- 
 tion of slavery. 
 
 Off he started his speech with the start of 
 
 that African cargo 
 Which first landed the blacks long ago on 
 
 the shores of Virginia, 
 Tracing the history up to the Compromise 
 
 named from Missouri, 
 Which he declared the Devil's infliction of 
 
 Hell on our country. 
 But behold the division halving the little 
 
 round school-house! 
 
 Hark the one half applauding, the other dis- 
 senting in murmurs ! 
 Still the chairman kept rapping with strokes 
 
 of his ferule for order, 
 While he turned to the schoolmaster monish- 
 
 ing looks to be careful; 
 Thus the deep split of the time was revealed 
 
 in the town of New Salem, 
 Which gave presage of what was to come in 
 
 the State and the Nation.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 63 
 
 All were agreed on expelling the Indian, the 
 
 savage ungodly, 
 But the African stirred up a far deeper strife 
 
 with his problem. 
 Only one man in a whisper spoke sympathy 
 
 with the wild red-skin, 
 Blaming the theft of his lands and lamenting 
 
 his race's destruction; 
 But the low speaker was drowned in the 
 
 hubbub over the darkey, 
 Who was not owner of land, not owner he 
 
 was of himself even. 
 But the tempest grew calm at last to the 
 
 voice of the chairman, 
 Who with a vigorous smile turned his look 
 
 on the speaker, thus saying: 
 ''Mentor, beware the schoolmaster present 
 
 am I so remember ; 
 See yon gad on the wall and mark too the 
 
 play of this ferule- 
 On your own skin may be written the judg- 
 ment of Fates and of Furies." 
 
 Coolly the orator started, but quickly waxed 
 
 hot in his fervor 
 As he uttered his prophecy glimpsing that 
 
 day in the future 
 When the black slave would forever be freed 
 
 by some great liberation.
 
 264 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK X1L 
 
 Then the hurrahs broke from this side, and 
 hooting and howling from yonder, 
 
 While the fused schoolmaster rose more fer- 
 vid and daring than ever, 
 
 Standing his ground till he faced down the 
 tumult with help of the chairman. 
 
 Then he reared up on tiptoe and screamed 
 at the top of his windpipe : 
 
 "You, New Salem, forget not how you the 
 lecturer hounded, 
 
 How you once smothered free speech you 
 now are trying to stab it 
 
 You must pay for that deed yet, its guilt 
 you will have to atone for 
 
 You set fire to free print in those pamphlets, 
 you too will be burning." 
 
 Fiercer than ever broke loose the storm at 
 
 such doom of the village, 
 Even the chairman smote down on the desk 
 
 with his ferule reproving 
 Mutinous words of the schoolmaster naughty 
 
 whose seat he was filling. 
 Each of the sides sprang up on the small 
 
 amphitheater 's benches, 
 Facing each other, some shaking their fists 
 
 and shouting reproaches; 
 Keenly the nerve of the time had been 
 
 pricked with the tip of the needle
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 265 
 
 That sharp tip of the schoolmaster's tongue 
 with its poisonous word-sting 
 
 "Which had hit to the heart with the threat 
 of retributive Furies. 
 
 Forward into the center sprang Doctor Pal- 
 metto the wrathful, 
 
 Who had led the mad mob which once burnt 
 up the lecturer's pamphlets, 
 
 Shouting white-hot at the speaker: "You are 
 the worst mollycoddle!" 
 
 Nobody knew just what the word meant, it 
 was new in New Salem, 
 
 But all thought it must mean something ter- 
 rible, sounding so fiercely; 
 
 One man thundered: "That is some more 
 of your devilish Latin, 
 
 But you shall not scare us any longer talk- 
 ing your ghost-talk." 
 
 So Jack Armstrong, the athletic twister of 
 men for that township, 
 
 Friend of Schoolmaster Graham and also of 
 Lawmaker Lincoln, 
 
 Sprang forth into the buzzing arena, coat 
 off for the battle, 
 
 For the Armstrong name he would justify 
 always by muscle ; 
 
 Much he disliked the Doctor's big words, 
 though he knew not their meaning,
 
 266 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 So he flung out the epithet which would open 
 
 the sluices: 
 "You are a liar!" he cried at the top of the 
 
 boisterous tumult. 
 
 Meanwhile also the Squire had hurried down 
 
 into the middle, 
 Loudly commanding peace in the name of 
 
 the law and his office, 
 Standing between the two combatants who 
 
 had stopped at his order, 
 When a sharp knock is heard at the door 
 
 behold James Rutledge, 
 Who in a pallor beseeches the doctor to go 
 
 to his dwelling 
 With all haste, for his daughter has suddenly 
 
 sunk in a fever. 
 "Speed to your duty!" the Squire thus bade 
 
 the belligerent Doctor, 
 Leading him through to the doorstep whence 
 
 with the anxious father 
 He shot off in the dark, still menacing: 
 
 "This is not ended." 
 
 Mark now the schoolmaster, how he has 
 weaponed himself for the warfare, 
 
 That long poker he grasps in one hand with 
 a look of defiance,
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 267 
 
 In the other he clutches the inkstand of lead 
 as a bullet, 
 
 Both he had hid out of sight to keep them 
 from passionate fighters; 
 
 But the Squire pushed up and quickly dis- 
 armed him, repeating, 
 
 "Now I am forced to schoolmaster here the 
 schoolmaster also 
 
 On his own self to example his faith in the 
 Fates and the Furies." 
 
 Even the gad he took down from the wall 
 and shook it at Mentor, 
 
 Whereat his rounded abdomen fell into a 
 stormy convulsion 
 
 In response to his features brimimng all over 
 with laughter. 
 
 Soon the people too caught it, at first in 
 circuits of giggles, 
 
 Till the whole mass breaks forth, both sides 
 exploding together 
 
 Into a common outburst of merriment at the 
 two actors; 
 
 So in a laugh the strife of the time is solved 
 at New Salem, 
 
 But not forever, perchance; still hearken, 
 ye laughers, a moment: 
 
 "Now I adjourn this meeting just at its hap- 
 piest temper," 
 
 Said the chairman in glee and faced his audi- 
 ence homewards ;
 
 268 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLED'GE.BOOK XII. 
 
 But as the crowd was leaving the house he 
 
 snuffed out the candles, 
 Using his fingers as snuffers and throwing 
 
 the snuff in the wood-box. 
 Then as he groped in the dark, he by acci- 
 dent clutched on the bell-rope, 
 Giving a whirl to the bell which sounded 
 
 one toll o 'er the village 
 With a shiver of echoes knelling afar in the 
 
 night-spell. 
 All the people heard it and turned their 
 
 laugh to a tremor, 
 As they remembered the mystery shot in 
 
 the skies at their village ; 
 And the schoolmaster heard it, trudging 
 
 along to his quarters, 
 Quivering still with the throes of the words 
 
 he dared speak in the meeting, 
 Words of bold prophecy uttering penalty on 
 
 the wrong-doer, 
 But his chief marvel was over the ominous 
 
 absence of Lincoln. 
 
 Where is Lincoln? Hardly he knows just 
 
 where he himself is, 
 Still in a stray, as if seeking his own lost 
 
 soul to recover; 
 In his revery slowly he strides through a field 
 
 to the roadway,
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 269 
 
 Which again leads by the mansion of Lady 
 
 Eulalia Lovelace, 
 
 Of whose courteous friendship rise reminis- 
 cences gentle. 
 But he noticed the hedge was uncropped and 
 
 the yard was uncared for, 
 Even the well-known gate stood unhinged 
 
 and was hanging half open. 
 What could it mean such neglect and in 
 
 her the pink of all neatness? 
 Every fence-corner showed a new revel of 
 
 weeds in their freedom. 
 Had the soul of that beautiful woman quit 
 
 also its mansion? 
 Musing that only his mood may mirror the 
 
 night's melancholy, 
 Glides he along in the dark underneath the 
 
 still mulberry's branches, 
 Where he recalls the sweet scenes of the one 
 
 afternoon of love's life-work, 
 Just a few hours old, still mightily storming 
 
 in heart-throbs. 
 
 But of a sudden he thinks with a clash oi his 
 
 breath the new meaning 
 Which now thrills in his brain from the last 
 
 tearful gleam of Ann Eutledge, 
 As at her parting she looked up, and sobbed 
 
 out the pain of her soul's wound,
 
 270 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Fervently asking of Heaven if this be her 
 
 second betrothal, 
 And in a prayer appealing to God to come to 
 
 her rescue. 
 Then as she spoke she revealed her agony 
 
 tearing her features, 
 For she thought of her promise of love as 
 
 now double in conflict, 
 Which gave a stab to hr soul and cut it in 
 
 twain to the bottom; 
 Still each half of herself seemed smiting in 
 
 frenzy the other. 
 Now he remembered how she had dropped 
 
 to her seat in a pallor, 
 Though she valiantly rallied and set out 
 
 alone for her dwelling. 
 Lincoln repeated her agony all of a sudden 
 
 within him, 
 When it fully came over him what she had 
 
 felt in her anguish, 
 For the same struggle had made him her 
 
 counterpart throbbing its torment. 
 
 So he arose in a pang to follow her path to 
 
 her homestead, 
 Till he came to the spot where flashed the 
 
 two flickering light-points 
 Into his auguring eye through the night 
 
 from two opposite quarters,
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 271 
 
 Yet to his mood both spoke in a similar lan- 
 guage of portent. 
 
 Listen! what is that sound which he hears 
 from the little red school-house? 
 
 Voices commingled and pitched in a scream 
 too loud for one speaker! 
 
 Bodes he: "Well do I know a fought com- 
 bat might lurk in that question; 
 
 Can it be that some hothead has flung in the 
 meeting his fire-brand? 
 
 Has the irascible Doctor perchance been 
 starting a tumult? 
 
 Heavens ! I may be needed ! How can I drive 
 myself thither ! ' ' 
 
 But of a sudden the light goes out, and dark 
 
 are the windows. 
 Lincoln, hid in the moon-shade cast by the 
 
 boughs of kind beeches, 
 Silently watches the people stream homeward 
 
 away from the school-house, 
 Till suave silence is lord of the night, and 
 
 abed is the village. 
 
 Slowly he strides to the Public Square pain- 
 fully brooding ' 
 On the twin agonies, that of himself and that 
 
 of the maiden, 
 Each of which doubles anew with a cut both 
 
 inward and outward,
 
 272 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 Look at it there ! a brief flicker darts out of 
 
 the school-house's window, 
 Then it ceases and leaves the whole hill-top 
 
 in slumberous darkness: 
 "Only my fantasy gleams thus, illuming the 
 
 phantoms of night's swoon 
 Still I behold the faint light but steady from 
 
 Eutledge's window." 
 
 So his two selves keep quizzing each other, 
 affirming, denying. 
 
 Mooded in gloom's premonition of fate he 
 paces his pathway, 
 
 When he looks up once more to contemplate 
 the heaven-tipped belfry. 
 
 See again the fleet flashes mysterious over 
 the windows, 
 
 Tongues of flame that seem hissed from the 
 mouth of a fire-breathing dragon, 
 
 Then with a flare they lap back to the dark- 
 ness inwalled of the school-house. 
 
 "Not my own eye," he reflected, "has feigned 
 that luminous phantom." 
 
 So he resolves to slip up the hillside and 
 probe for the secret 
 
 Which had touched far down to a chord un- 
 der-grown in his nature, 
 
 Weirdly connecting his life with some doom 
 of destiny coming.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 73 
 
 But just when he would take the first step, the 
 creak of a door-hinge 
 
 Over the Public Square with a music uncanny 
 fell grating ! 
 
 Thence he beheld two men stride forward and 
 stand on the pavement 
 
 Talking earnestly, face to face, a few mo- 
 ments together, 
 
 One with his hat on bowed to the other whose 
 head was uncovered, 
 
 Speaking his farewell words so loud that Lin- 
 coln could hear them: 
 
 ' ' Friend, tomorrow again I shall come at the 
 turn of her illness." 
 
 That was the Doctor addressing Ann Eut- 
 ledge's sore-troubled father, 
 
 Who hurried back to the house, while the Doc- 
 tor trudged drearily onward. 
 
 Now the big ball of the moon has rolled down 
 
 the dome of high heaven, 
 Sliding beneath the horizon and turning to 
 
 night the lit landscape, 
 Whose dark folds from one bluff to the other 
 
 have filled up the valley, 
 Under whose cover the Sangamon grumbles 
 
 invisible murmurs.
 
 274 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XII. 
 
 When lie heard the dire words of the Doctor, 
 
 Lincoln fell shot through 
 With a thunderbolt barbed of anguish, and 
 
 lay in the star-shade 
 Cast by a maple upon whose tortuous roots 
 
 he coiled up in convulsion. 
 There he lapsed to a somnolent swoon, half 
 
 awake, half dreaming, 
 When he visioned an endless procession of 
 
 years winding onward, 
 Bearing their hero they mournfully trod in 
 
 a line down to doomsday ; 
 Oft he essayed to snatch a sly peep at the 
 
 face of their God-born, 
 Whom the years, though mortal themselves, 
 
 keep ever immortal, 
 Till that youth caught a glimpse of an old 
 
 wrinkled cheek in the coffin, 
 Then he recognized fully the lines in those 
 
 deep-furrowed features, 
 Talking aloud in his dream: "I know ye 
 
 I am myself this." 
 
 Fire! Fire! pierced a shrill shout with its ter- 
 ror the sleep of the village. 
 
 Lincoln awoke and sprang to his feet in the 
 might of his startle, 
 
 Suddenly saw he a blaze leap out of the roof 
 of the school-house
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 275 
 
 And illumine the hill-top with flashes on trees 
 and on houses. 
 
 Fire! Fire! thrilled the shout of the people 
 producing a shiver, 
 
 As each bore on a run to the scene the house- 
 hold's big bucket, 
 
 And a woman came rushing half-dressed with 
 her kitchen's clothes-boiler; 
 
 Soon one ladder was brought which reached 
 to the eaves of the building, 
 
 Up whose rungs were soon handed the slop- 
 ping pailfuls of water. 
 
 Fire! Fire! But hark ! the bell begins clanging 
 the swift-clapping fire-bell! 
 
 Deed of the schoolmaster bursting the door in 
 and clutching the bell-rope 
 
 For his last ring which tolls now the funeral 
 pyre of the school-house. 
 
 See too the belfry in flames which lap up a 
 cone of fleet fire-tongues ! 
 
 Down rolls the bell on the roof and fitfully 
 rings its own death-knell, 
 
 Till it smites on the ground and breaks into 
 pieces still chiming 
 
 As they fall, at the feet of the villagers listen- 
 ing sadly.
 
 276 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK XII. 
 
 Lincoln now hastened to help with the rest, 
 but all to no purpose ; 
 
 Still as he passes the store, he sees Abner 
 saving his own first, 
 
 Who on his roof with bucket and broom runs 
 fighting the sparkles. 
 
 So the village's center of light has illumed 
 its last lesson, 
 
 Now it spells but a heap of hot cinders droop- 
 ing to ashes. 
 
 Lincoln surprises them all as he slips to a 
 
 group of his friends there, 
 Darkly discussing the problem: What could 
 
 have started the blazes? 
 Accident be it or purpose? Whom can we 
 
 blame for disaster ?" 
 " Strange," says Lincoln, "Twice there fell 
 
 in mine eye from a distance 
 Fiery flashes lolling their tongues in wrath 
 
 for a moment 
 Out of this schoolhouse when the night's noon 
 
 already was nearing ; 
 I had started to search, but the flickers would 
 
 die out in darkness, 
 So I dismissed them as only the foolery 
 
 flashed by my fancy, 
 Or as the shimmering glint of the moonshine 
 
 glanced from the windows.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 277 
 
 Probably mine was the sole eye awake in this 
 
 town but I went not." 
 Then interrupting him sighfully spake the 
 
 schoolmaster Mentor : 
 "When the door I broke open I noticed just 
 
 where the tinder had started, 
 Still was blazing the wood-box where we 
 
 would throw the old paper. 
 But I cannot conceive for me how or why it 
 
 should kin die." 
 
 Here of a sudden the schoolmaster's speech 
 and his sobs too have halted, 
 
 For there rose on his soul his faith in the 
 Fates and the Furies 
 
 Furies retributive, ever returning the deed 
 unto mankind. 
 
 And he recalled the swift words of his proph- 
 ecy lurid that evening, 
 
 Judging the Powers would balance the burn- 
 ing of print with a burning. 
 
 Doctor Palmetto "was present and gazed at 
 
 the wrath of the blazes, 
 Gratified grimly to see the fulfillment of what 
 
 he predicted, 
 While on the spot he delighted to utter his 
 
 dark diagnosis:
 
 278 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBQOE XII. 
 
 ''This is also a symptom, I hold, of the time 
 
 so deeply diseased ; 
 Everywhere I discover this fever in man and 
 
 the world too, 
 For it is racking not merely this town, but 
 
 this State and this Nation. 
 Now like a plague it is seizing the innocent 
 
 maid in her flower, 
 Bringing the malady speedy to whelm her 
 
 down under her grave-stone." 
 Further he spake not, but all thought of his 
 
 beautiful patient, 
 As they breathed a still prayer, heart-heaved 
 
 for her quick restoration. 
 Lincoln slid into a shadow to throw down a 
 
 tear in his sorrow. 
 
 Note too a man who now slips from the group 
 and plods his path homeward, 
 
 Not a word of parting he speaks, not a word 
 on the fire he utters, 
 
 For he reproaches himself as the cause of this 
 naming destruction, 
 
 Simply recalling in dole his last deed of snuff- 
 ing the candle 
 
 That was Squire Ebenezer who had once 
 builded the structure, 
 
 Chosen its circular shape and selected its site 
 on the hill-top,
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 279 
 
 Far overlooking the land round about as a 
 
 presence inspiring. 
 Chance had made him destroyer of what of 
 
 his own he held dearest, 
 In his silence he seemed to be hearing the 
 
 voice of a judgment. 
 Slowly pacing his way he would ponder r 
 
 ' * Here I cannot rebuild it 
 Done is its work so is mine, perchance, too 
 
 No, I swear never ! 
 This dead school-house I yet shall restore to 
 
 a young resurrection." 
 
 Mournfully all the citizens glanced at the 
 smouldering ash-heap, 
 
 Now but the emptied skull where housed once 
 the mind of the village ; 
 
 Soon they turned from the sight of their sor- 
 row and sped to their door-sills, 
 
 Each man trying in vain to peer through the 
 mystery's darkness, 
 
 Yet weighed down with a feeling forebodeful 
 of doom in his spirit, 
 
 Whispering: "This is the judgment which 
 sent as its signal the fire-ball. ' ' 
 
 Last of the people to leave are two persons, 
 diverse yet concordant:
 
 280 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOE.BOOK XII. 
 
 [William the wainwriglit and Mentor the peda- 
 gogue stray off together ; 
 
 In a meandering silence they flit through the 
 star-gloam like specters, 
 
 Till the sorrowful schoolmaster dooming 
 breaks out in a heart-burst : 
 
 " Deepest of all is my loss my vocation lies 
 dead in those ruins 
 
 O my life ! it seems gone ! I feel it has ended 
 in nothing 
 
 Bounded itself to a zero with many a flourish 
 and flounder. ' ' 
 
 "Nay," says William the wainwright, who 
 speaks from the center of cosmos : 
 
 "Spark of the Master eternal, the light on 
 this hill-top you kindled 
 
 Shall not go out while the world in its whirl 
 keeps circling its orbit ; 
 
 More immortal it is than the Sun which also 
 shall burn out. 
 
 I and each of your pupils must die in our time 
 like this school-house, 
 
 Still what you have helped make us endureth 
 through all generations, 
 
 And if not here, then elsewhere you will up- 
 build the new school-house.
 
 THE DOUBLE DEBATE 281 
 
 Friend, remember that word on the bell which 
 
 hung in the belfry 
 Motto of Hope undying you wrote there 
 
 Now live it Eesurgam."
 
 icmk 
 
 The Passing of Ann Rutledge. 
 
 " Doubtful the case is not bodily ailment so 
 
 much as mental; 
 Medicine goes not home to the point of the 
 
 malady's fury, 
 But is rejected with Nature's disdain of a 
 
 meddling intruder." 
 
 So said the Doctor turning away from the 
 
 bed of his patient, 
 And addressing a word in low tones to her 
 
 father James Rutledge, 
 Whose eye sphering a tear gave sign of his 
 
 strong self-suppression. 
 "Only the Doctor in Heaven can help her, 
 
 my art is now useless." 
 (282)
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RUTLEDGE. 283 
 
 And as he spoke tEe physician made ready 
 'to pass from the sick-room, 
 
 But at the door he laid on the hand of the 
 father a notelet, 
 
 Then he started away to visit some easier ill- 
 ness. 
 
 Still once more he turned round and spoke 
 the parting injunction : 
 
 "Let her mind have its way now, there is no 
 good in refusal. 
 
 I shall come no more, I think she is better 
 without me." 
 
 For the Doctor observed how his patient 
 averted her eye-balls 
 
 When beside her he sat and felt of her wrist 
 at the blood-pulse. 
 
 As he stepped forth from the door of the 
 
 house, he saw in the distance 
 Pensively pacing his path the tall figure of 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, 
 Who oft glanced at the dwelling where lay 
 
 the suffering maiden ; 
 But the two men turned aside as if shying 
 
 from each other's presence. 
 
 So Ann Eutledge was slowly approaching the 
 goal of her conflict,
 
 284 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK Zlll. 
 
 Which was cleaving her soul and had made 
 
 her life a long battle ; 
 Every breath she could draw was renewing 
 
 the fateful encounter. 
 As she lay in her bed, she would look at the 
 
 ring of betrothal, 
 Throbs of deep anguish would flush on her 
 
 face her innermost struggle, 
 While she would tug at the stubborn red 
 
 pledge to free herself of it; 
 But let her wrench and twist as she might, 
 
 she could not remove it, 
 And the wrestle without but echoed the 
 
 wrestle within her. 
 
 Over the father who watched her with sym- 
 pathy ran the same surges, 
 
 Till he felt the tense throes of her sorrow 
 inside his own bosom, 
 
 And he cried out anguished in heart yet gen- 
 tle in accent: 
 
 "Let me file from your finger that ring which 
 so worries your illness 
 
 Somehow it seems the one center of all of 
 your suffering, daughter." 
 
 ' ' No, no ! ' ' pitching her voice to a scream she 
 would speak in her struggle : 
 
 "That I well might have done for myself 
 long since, but I could not.
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RVTLEDQE. 285 
 
 It must remain where once it was put till it 
 roll off in freedom, 
 
 Or perchance till it let me remove it just by 
 my own power." 
 
 Then her voice would tone down her speech 
 to a happier cadence : 
 
 "Let me die here on this earth still true to 
 its law and my promise, 
 
 But obeying my love I must go to the Pres- 
 ence supernal! 
 
 Ah ! two duties I feel in my soul, fiercely war- 
 ring each other, 
 
 Duty terrestrial, duty celestial belong not to- 
 gether, 
 
 Yet they both are nestled within me, clinching 
 my heart-strings. 
 
 Here below is nothing but strife for my days, 
 myself am asunder, 
 
 Mortal I feel in this frame, but my Love, I 
 know, is immortal. 
 
 May I perish of Love for the one, which was 
 promised another: 
 
 Let me be whole in my God Who is Love, 
 Creator of all things ! ' ' 
 
 So she spake in the might of her faith as she 
 
 rose on her elbow, 
 But she soon fell back on her pillow and 
 
 seemed to be thinking:
 
 286 LINCOLN ND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK XIIL 
 
 "Two commands I can hear two laws yet 
 
 throttling each other 
 I can feel their tumultuous wrestle in every 
 
 blood-drop. 
 Go I must now to where they are one, in One 
 
 Being eternal." 
 For a moment she calmed, then wrenched in 
 
 a fiercer convulsion : 
 "Two betrothals are mine, and slaying each 
 
 other they slay me, 
 
 Driving my love off the earth to win its eter- 
 nal fulfillment ; 
 Here below is the judgment, above is the song 
 
 of salvation, 
 Here Love grapples with Death, but there it 
 
 rises transfigured." 
 Then she sank into silence as if too deeply 
 
 reflecting 
 For the power of words to utter the stretch 
 
 of her spirit. 
 
 Slowlier drooped to a dreamful relapse her 
 
 quivering eyelids, 
 That she might widen her inward vision to 
 
 regions beyond her ; 
 Still she bespoke her burden of heart while 
 
 keeping her glance shut :
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RUTLEDGE. 287 
 
 "I cannot live where Conscience and Love di- 
 vide me in conflict, 
 
 What I ought not I must and yet what I 
 ought I must not ; 
 
 Conscience is stabbing my heart, yet my heart 
 is sapping my Conscience ; 
 
 Placate my love of the law and the law of my 
 love I cannot. 
 
 Love the one here I dare not, but I dare love 
 him in Heaven. 
 
 God of my Hope that is deathless, take me up 
 into Thy bosom !" 
 
 Thus in her temple of prayer she seemed to 
 
 be holding her service 
 Over herself that her soul might be ready to 
 
 speed its last journey, 
 When her father addressed her, seeking to 
 
 bring her some comfort: 
 "Here is a message in writing put into my 
 
 hand by the Doctor: 
 
 From your betrothed it was sent he is com- 
 ing to pay you a visit." 
 Then Ann Eutledge opened her eyes once 
 
 more and sat up, 
 Voicing her wishes in words new-born of her 
 
 heart's aspiration:
 
 288 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGE.BOOK XIII. 
 
 "Will he restore me my promise whose bond 
 
 has made me so hapless? 
 Will he release me from law that before God 
 
 I be guiltless? 
 He must say I am free and take back this 
 
 ring of betrothal 
 That I be one in myself here, and one up in 
 
 Heaven above me.'* 
 Even she raises her arm as she stresses her 
 
 words with a gesture : 
 
 ' * Live I cannot, fulfilling a life of a limp love- 
 less duty, 
 Others may do so both the man and the 
 
 woman I shall not; 
 Rather, let me die with the hope of my love 
 
 in the future." 
 
 Then she held out her ring-finger hand as if 
 
 making confession 
 To an invisible Power which touched her with 
 
 sudden renewal, 
 For she straightened her body once more in 
 
 the stretch of her vigor. 
 But her father could only reply in sympathy's 
 
 sorrow : 
 "He will be coming today to claim thee as 
 
 bride by thy promise."
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RVTLEDGE. 289 
 
 Slowly she wilted to weakness again and sank 
 
 on her pillow, 
 As she spake to her father intoning despair 
 
 in the echo: 
 ' ' Send for Lincoln at once to soothe me amid 
 
 my last soul-pain; 
 I would look on his love here again before 
 
 I am lookless, 
 Vowing anew my single betrothal to him 
 
 him only." 
 
 Over the Public Square across from the home 
 
 of Ann Rutledge, 
 Lincoln sadly had sauntered and stood there 
 
 wistfully gazing, 
 Drawn by that consonant chord which brings 
 
 two people together, 
 Who, though remote in space, quaff the same 
 
 deep fountain of spirit, 
 Whose tuned feelings of oneness appear to 
 
 throw throbs through the distance, 
 Quite unconscious to both, who impart to 
 
 each other their presence, 
 That not only they feel but obey their mutual 
 
 devotion, 
 Till they utter the passionate word in love's 
 
 consecration.
 
 290 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK Xlll. 
 
 !When the father had beckoned him thither- 
 ward, Lincoln was ready ; 
 
 Stepping quickly along, he but followed the 
 pull of his being, 
 
 Till he had passed through the door and 
 softly had slipped to the sick-room 
 
 Which heretofore was forbidden his presence 
 by word of the Doctor, 
 
 Under the medical plea of the patient's dan- 
 gerous illness. 
 
 But now the lovers were left all alone for the 
 interview final; 
 
 Even the father withdrew in right of a bond 
 that was deeper 
 
 Than a parent's affection, and Lincoln sat 
 down by the bedside. 
 
 Sainted in look already, Ann Eutledge 
 reached to her bosom, 
 
 Thence she drew forth the torn letter of Lin- 
 coln's former renouncement, 
 
 Torn in twain to the edge through the ink- 
 red heart on the cover, 
 
 Sacredly kept the while by the maiden and 
 secretly looked at, 
 
 For it would speak to her all the mystery 
 masked of her being, 
 
 And it seemed to foresay the "cloom of her 
 Jife in its conflict.
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RUTLEDGE. 291 
 
 Calmly she then put it back to its place, be- 
 speaking her action : 
 
 "I shall keep it and die with it, holding it 
 here in my bosom, 
 
 That rent heart of your letter shall lie to 
 mine own the nearest; 
 
 Buried with me it shall be, when I am laid in 
 my coffin, 
 
 I shall bear it up with me to show at the 
 high throne of Heaven, 
 
 As a witness of love before God at my coming 
 espousals." 
 
 For a moment she halted and gleamed in the 
 
 rapture of vision, 
 Then she turned to Lincoln and spake him 
 
 her soul's consecration: 
 "No, I dare not destroy it, nor leave it on 
 
 earth here behind me, 
 Thou hast sealed in this token thy love with 
 
 mine everlasting, 
 "Which will remain with thee here to be lived 
 
 to its fullest fruition. 
 Hence I must go, but I now can forefeel that 
 
 I never shall quit thee, 
 I shall drop down in thy life when the crisis 
 
 is pushing thee hardest, 
 Shall ward off with my Love the heaviest 
 
 blows of misfortune,
 
 292 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDOEBOOK Xlll. 
 
 Which will be thine, for the greater the soul 
 
 the greater the trial.'* 
 Sobbing the youth upraised his hands to his 
 
 face for a moment, 
 Torn by the strongest human emotion he in 
 
 agony cried out: 
 1 ' Go not, leave me not here my life will be 
 
 death if without thee ; 
 I shall follow thee, follow at once let the 
 
 grave be our nuptials 
 Why should I wait t Every day will be hence 
 
 for me only a dying." 
 
 Thus was the flood of his sorrow bursting the 
 
 limit of reason, 
 When the maiden gave answer, calling him 
 
 back to his world-task : 
 "Thy renouncement must live and be 
 
 wrought out by thee to fulfillment, 
 To thy time thou must show it transforming 
 
 thy life in sore trials. 
 Love thee below I dare not but I may out 
 
 of Heaven. 
 Thou canst requite me from here in thy deed 
 
 with memory deathless. 
 My betrothal to thee is that my only be- 
 trothal."
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RUTLEDGE. 293 
 
 For a moment she rested, then worded her 
 
 gasp with her last voice: 
 "Over thee still I shall hover, of Love the 
 
 pure bodiless image, 
 And shall attend thee appearing just when 
 
 thou needest my presence ; 
 Hear me, henceforth thy love is not merely in 
 
 me to be bounded, 
 But to the Love of all people will rise up thy 
 
 love of Ann Rutledge." 
 
 Back she fell on her bed, but gently with pil- 
 lows he propped her: 
 
 1 ' Go not, my All, or let me go with thee,'* still 
 sobbed he his heart-strokes. 
 
 But she was passing, though for a look she 
 held open her eyelids, 
 
 Whence was gleaming enskyed of Love the 
 bright benediction, 
 
 With the promise of Hope, which encircled 
 her brow like a sun-wreath. 
 
 Lincoln felt in himself, as he gazed, her trans- 
 figuration 
 
 Pressing its form on his soul to stay there 
 imaged forever ; 
 
 Ghost-like to her he whispered: "This is my 
 marriage eternal."
 
 294 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XIII. 
 
 At the high vow her eye throbbed with a 
 look of blest recognition, 
 
 When to her Lincoln repeated: "This is my 
 marriage eternal! 
 
 Though thou in life art not mine, thy love 
 I shall love now forever, 
 
 Now I am wedded to Love itself, through thee 
 brought down from Heaven, 
 
 Thee I shall feel and re-live in all of the deeds 
 of my future, 
 
 Not for one person alone, for the Person him- 
 self is my passion; 
 
 Over thy form now leaving I pledge my faith 
 on God's altar: 
 
 Unto Love eternal this is my marriage eter- 
 nal. " 
 
 List! a rap was heard at the door, which 
 pulled them back earthward 
 
 From beyond, then gravely the father en- 
 tered announcing: 
 
 "Thy betrothed is here at the threshold 'and 
 wishes to greet thee." 
 
 In steps Abner, the hitherto absent, but now 
 
 again present, 
 Somewhat surprised to see lone Lincoln who 
 
 speedily darts out.
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RUTLEDGE. 295 
 
 Ann looked up at him steadily once with eye 
 
 unreproachful, 
 Then she drew down slowly the curtain of 
 
 vision forever, 
 Shutting him out from that world which she 
 
 already had entered, 
 Leaving his law to the man, but bearing her 
 
 love in her bosom 
 
 As her soul's witness to Heaven when sum- 
 moned to stand before Judgment. 
 Only her hand she can lift up a little no 
 
 word she can utter 
 Just the last act of her life but mark the 
 
 ring of betrothal ! 
 How of itself it slips off from her finger now 
 
 shrunken by illness, 
 Drops on the floor with a bound and rapidly 
 
 rolls toward the doorway 
 Where sad Lincoln is passing out of the house 
 
 with the image 
 Which he will wear on his heart till he too 
 
 shall be summoned to Judgment. 
 
 Hastily Abner picked up the ring and sought 
 
 to replace it, 
 Though he noticed the hollew-eyed socket, 
 
 where flashed once the ruby; 
 Still by force he attempted to put it again 
 
 on its finger
 
 296 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK XIII. 
 
 Which lay flexless and lifeless, though 
 
 clenched in rigidity mortal 
 And refusing to take back what it had shed 
 
 with the death-stroke. 
 That was the fateful pledge of the law which 
 
 whelmed her in conflict; 
 But with the price of her life she paid off 
 
 the debt of her promise. 
 Abner soon gave up the effort, and then with 
 
 a look of foiled purpose, 
 Into his pocket he thrust the woe-laden ring 
 
 of betrothal, 
 Which he once gave to her when it was set 
 
 with the laugh of the ruby, 
 And appeared to foretoken the hour of happy 
 
 espousals; 
 But it turned to an eye of evil, blood-shot 
 
 in its glances, 
 Looking a demonic curse ever-present into 
 
 the heart of the maiden. 
 Soon he with token returned has- hastened 
 
 away to his business. 
 
 So she passes, renouncing the love of her life 
 
 for her love's sake, 
 Gone from the world though transfigured 
 
 into a presence forever, 
 For she, eternally loving, will be the eternally 
 
 living.
 
 THE PASSING OF ANN RUTLEDGE. 297 
 
 Lincoln beholding the deed of Ann Rutledge 
 
 is with her uprisen ; 
 Into the Love re-born which is all Love he 
 
 wins the new baptism. 
 Still jthat wound will bleed all his days at 
 
 memory's time-beat, 
 For the rift is so deep that the Healer alone, 
 
 the one Healer, 
 Curer of all the scission within us and also 
 
 without us, 
 Can the sorrowless medicine send to heal him 
 
 to wholeness. 
 
 Soul-bowed Lincoln again has wandered 
 
 alone to the shade-tree, 
 Bell-topped mulberry hallowed now as a 
 
 shrine for his worship, 
 Which has beheld the holiest history lived by 
 
 the lovers, 
 Where he feels himself praying with her the 
 
 unspeakable prayer, 
 Who had left him all Love as her portion, not 
 
 merely her own love. 
 
 Crisp are the leaves which on him drop down 
 
 in tender succession, 
 As they return to the earth for repose in the 
 
 graveyard of Nature
 
 298 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGE.BOOK XIII. 
 
 Till they arise in the spring new-born to a 
 fresh foliation. 
 
 There he sits down underneath the low sighs 
 of the breeze-blown branches, 
 
 "Which in tune with his heart-beat are breath- 
 ing him strains of condolence. 
 
 Soon he looks outward he sees only vacancy 
 where stood the school-house, 
 
 Up he springs with a shock which shivers a 
 moment his being, 
 
 For the whole world seems quaking and fall- 
 ing to ruins about him. 
 
 But he recovers himself at the throb of his 
 new consecration, 
 
 While once more he rehearses his vow as the 
 creed of a life-time : 
 
 "Unto Love eternal, this is my marriage eter- 
 nal."
 
 The New Life. 
 
 Days of the autumn, one after the other, 
 
 tread onward to winter, 
 In a procession long-lined through time like 
 
 a funeral cortege, 
 Leaves twirl silently down in a dance with 
 
 the round of each moment, 
 Eendering back to the mother, the Earth, the 
 
 substance once taken, 
 Who digs yearly their tomb for their burial 
 
 over her bosom. 
 All the heart of the maple had burst and was 
 
 dripping its crimson, 
 Eagged and broken, and sere had turned the 
 
 green coat of the scrub-oak, 
 While the hickory grove was mortally yellow 
 
 in foliage, 
 
 (299)
 
 300 LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. BOOK XIV. 
 
 And its freed nuts fell crashing through twigs 
 
 to the roots of the parent, 
 peeking to find a new home in the soil for 
 
 re-bearing their forbears. 
 Fruits, too, of orchard and forest were ripe 
 
 for a new generation, 
 Seeming in sorrow to kiss good-bye to the 
 
 love of the summer 
 As they started afresh in the world to fulfill 
 
 their own life-round. 
 Even the voice of the Sangamon sulky had 
 
 shrunk to a whisper, 
 Though in its ripple still gleamed the silvery 
 
 shine of the minnows, 
 Flashing their light-points of life in the eye 
 
 of the stranded beholder. 
 
 Lincoln had seen the beloved one dying be- 
 fore him, yet staying ; 
 
 Sealed is that deed on his soul with its im- 
 age enshrined there forever, 
 
 Love universal now he has witnessed and 
 made his redemption, 
 
 Felt it within him as time-defying and death- 
 overcoming, 
 
 Through the maiden who chooses for love to 
 renounce her earthly existence, 
 
 And to await her bridal beyond in the pres- 
 ence of Heaven
 
 THE NEW LIFE. 3Q1 
 
 She above and lie below though by life they 
 be sundered. 
 
 Ever present she lives in his toil as a guar- 
 dian spirit, 
 
 Who will prompt him anew at each node of 
 the fate sent upon him : 
 
 Oft renewing the look and the lisp of the 
 words she last left him, 
 
 As Love 's presence vanishing once then abid- 
 ing forever. 
 
 Staying with her in life, he hopes fo stay with 
 her hereafter, 
 
 Love, at first mortal in birth, is his to be re- 
 born immortal. 
 
 But along with her Love he will bear in his 
 
 bosom her conflict, 
 Which will endure to the end of his days 
 
 the double soul's struggle 
 One side is Duty below, while the other is 
 
 Love up above him, 
 This will anchor his heart in its trial and 
 
 light his way onward ; 
 He must always re-live Ann Butledge's lot in 
 
 his labor, 
 Every day he has to enact her life and her 
 
 death too, 
 Harmonizing the scission of soul whereof she 
 
 has perished,
 
 302 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK XIV. 
 
 Suffering fully her fate in his own for a 
 
 higher fulfillment, 
 Living her tragedy over and feeling its throes 
 
 in each heart-throb 
 That he may rise above it the victor by loyal 
 
 endurance ; 
 So he conquers the world of harrying strife 
 
 which she could not, 
 Death-transcending through death lives the 
 
 love now of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Such is his mood welling up from the nether- 
 most fount of his being, 
 
 As he sits on the settle beneath the lone mul- 
 berry 's branches, 
 
 Praying again to the soul of his soul the un- 
 speakable prayer, 
 
 Mid the slow rain of the leaflets of autumn 
 down-falling to silence, 
 
 Mid the memories golden which drop from 
 the past like a sun-shower, 
 
 Till the moment supreme when the two loving 
 hearts were first plighted 
 
 Here, just here, underneath these sadly- 
 draped leaves now inurning. 
 
 Then he exclaims in a heart-burst: ''Here be 
 that moment's renewal, 
 
 Here be re-vowed before this witnessing tree 
 my new troth plight
 
 THE NEW LIFE. 393 
 
 Unto Love all-embracing I give my self's 
 service forever." 
 
 Scarcely had fallen the word when suddenly 
 
 there in his presence 
 Stood a shape which at first he took for a 
 
 phantom supernal ; 
 But he soon had discovered the look of good 
 
 William the wainwright, 
 Who began talking in fatherly tones that 
 
 quivered with pity : 
 
 " Lin coin, you I have seen as you wandered 
 
 around in your sorrow, 
 I have come now to say you a word of mine 
 
 own deep experience, 
 Thinking it might be a comfort to help you 
 
 hold up your burden. 
 You like me must walk in the shadow through 
 
 life lent of Nature, 
 Till there dawns in the soul the morn of a 
 
 new resurrection, 
 Till you transform the sorrow of death to the 
 
 death of all sorrow. 
 Her evanishment is but her real palingenesy 
 
 lasting, 
 If you will make her such ever re-born of 
 
 the love in your spirit.
 
 304 LINCOLN AND ANN RVTLEDGE.BOOK XIV. 
 
 I have traveled already the road and well do 
 
 I know it, 
 Faith you must get in Dea'th as the God of 
 
 man's purification, 
 Hard is the ransoming road you can make 
 
 it a curse or a blessing, 
 Hard is the test and many fall in it but you, 
 
 I vow, shall not. ' ' 
 
 Strong fell the words yet soothing the soul 
 
 of the sorrowful Lincoln, 
 Who not in speech but in look was beseeching 
 
 a further disclosure; 
 Turning his eyes to the distance began sage 
 
 William the wainwright: 
 "I have seen you haunting it yonder, the 
 
 green little churchyard, 
 Where is the fresh-turned sod which covers 
 
 the mortal Ann Eutledge, 
 Scarce could I hold back the waters of salt 
 
 from sympathy's well-head, 
 For my own Mariana lies there, not far from 
 
 the maiden; 
 Thus the cry of compassion was double, for 
 
 you and myself too; 
 Years it took me to wean my heart of that 
 
 spot of round greensward, 
 Where she rests outwardly buried and still 
 
 I plant it with flowers
 
 THE NEW LIFE. 305 
 
 But in my soul she never has died she lives 
 
 and is active 
 Aye she never is absent, but takes her abode 
 
 in my being ; 
 As a God-like presence she comes to preside 
 
 in my workshop 
 Where as a token of worship she gives me thej 
 
 guidance above me, 
 Which with the years of my toil becomes 
 
 more transparent in meaning. " 
 
 In a revery far away Lincoln seems to be 
 
 gazing, 
 When he is waked by a press of the hand from 
 
 William the wainwright: 
 "You remember the love of the wheel which 
 
 you felt in my hand-strokes 
 And the prayer you heard which silently rose 
 
 from my labor ; 
 All of it throbbed from the depths of love's 
 
 loss which once overwhelmed me, 
 That is the trial through which you too are 
 
 now passing, to prove you, 
 Death you are to transmute into life of benefi- 
 cent action 
 Small is my work a wheel but yours will 
 
 be large, aye the largest."
 
 306 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XIV. 
 
 Quickly the wainwright has vanished, leaving 
 mute Lincoln in study 
 
 Over the words which seemingly tapped the 
 hid fount of all doing, 
 
 Fate itself he has to constrain, the recom- 
 pense getting. 
 
 But that image he carries along in his daily 
 
 allotment, 
 As his spirit's most precious treasure for life 
 
 consecrated, 
 Strangely transfigured to love, yea, the love 
 
 of all Love such as God is. 
 And he will call up before him that shape in 
 
 the pinch of his trials 
 
 With it communing like a Madonna by word- 
 less petition, 
 Or he will tremblingly tell of it when in the 
 
 mood sympathetic, 
 Oft-times citing the verses whose musical 
 
 measures attune him 
 To restore the fair fleeting form of his love's 
 
 early sorrow. 
 
 By it then healed he becomes again whole in 
 the time's fierce disruption. 
 
 Such is the medicine which he prescribes to 
 his soul in his scission.
 
 THE NEW LIFE. 307 
 
 That lie may remedy by it the rent of himself 
 
 and his people, 
 Aye, the rent of the universe, ever renewing 
 
 its wholeness.
 
 The New Migration. 
 
 "What an outrage! Nothing this winter they 
 
 did, just nothing ! 
 Lawmakers they may be called to the State 
 
 they are but a scandal, 
 Sitting with feet cocked up and drawing their 
 
 pay at Vandalia ! 
 Spending the time they are paid for by us in 
 
 telling vile stories!" 
 
 Thus roared Doctor Palmetto, ever the vil- 
 lage's censor, 
 Secretly giving a cut with his razorous 
 
 tongue at his rival : 
 "No canal, no railroad, no appropriation, no 
 
 nothing!" 
 (308)
 
 THE NEW MIGRATION. 309 
 
 So his Noes lie kept piling up skyward till 
 God seemed a nothing 
 
 To whose glory he builded a pyramid lofty 
 of zeros, 
 
 Empty, hollow-eyed zeros which kept roll- 
 ing asunder 
 
 Just of themselves, like a pile of dry skulls 
 in the Doctor's own workshop 
 
 Damning all he bedamned too himself in his 
 sweep of damnation. 
 
 He was talking to Squire Ebenezer who 
 
 strangely held silence, 
 Who oft looked at the hill-top where was 
 
 once standing the school-house, 
 Which he had reared as the center of brain 
 
 for the whole of New Salem; 
 Now it lay in its ashes, and broken the bell 
 
 of the belfry, 
 In whose harmonious tones his life flowed 
 
 attuned to a music. 
 Though he perceived the point of the thrust 
 
 in the words of the Doctor 
 To be turned toward Lincoln, the lawgiver 
 
 loved of the village, 
 Also the friend of himself, not a word in 
 
 defence did he utter, 
 Nor in argument would he now balance the 
 
 sides as his wont was.
 
 310 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XV. 
 
 See the Doctor again give a spank with his 
 palm on the pine-box 
 
 .Where the two were sitting in front of the 
 store of the village 
 
 Store of Abner who now has returned and 
 taken possession; 
 
 There he stands in his door and hearkens the 
 speakers in silence, 
 
 For he too with himself was holding a dili- 
 gent query 
 
 Just concerning that future which all the vil- 
 lage now peers at, 
 
 Tipped on its pivot of destiny toppling first 
 forward then backward; 
 
 But the store-keeper silent shows not a trace 
 of a feeling 
 
 For the vanishing town, for himself, or for 
 love which has vanished. 
 
 So the keen Doctor's momentum of tongue 
 
 speeds on unopposed : 
 "What a crotchety fate hangs over this work 
 
 of town-making 
 As it bubbles up here in the West along every 
 
 road-side ! 
 Look at Chicago, rapidly rising to be the 
 
 great city, 
 Look at New Salem, rapidly sinking to be 
 
 but a cipher
 
 THE NEW MIGRATION. 
 
 And the cipher itself is doomed before long 
 
 to be rubbed out! 
 Up and down the old rickety ladder of luck 
 
 we go wabbling, 
 Till we drop in the pit or wing upward a day 
 
 in the sunshine! 
 But with the death of our school-house we 
 
 whisper in sober reflection: 
 jNext we shall bury our town and depart from 
 
 the graveyard forever." 
 Up sprang the Doctor now hushed, he too 
 
 had a twinge of compassion, 
 As he turned away from the store to attend 
 
 to his sick folk, 
 So let him vanish, prescribing for illness in 
 
 ailing New Salem. 
 
 But Ebenezer the Squire paced slowly his 
 pain-laden footsteps, 
 
 In his heart there suddenly surged a com- 
 munal sorrow 
 
 For the child of his mind whose growth he 
 had lovingly tended. 
 
 Soon he turned down the path to the shop 
 of William the wainwright, 
 
 Looking across the Sangamon Valley into 
 the sunset, 
 
 While crept over the hills the lessening sheen 
 of the evening
 
 312 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XV. 
 
 Turning to gloam of the twilight at first, 
 
 then slyly to darkness, 
 
 Like a huge dragon that laps in its far fate- 
 ful coil the whole earth-ball. 
 But not a sound was now heard of the chisel 
 
 or wimble or hammer 
 Fitting the spoke in the hub of the wheel and 
 
 arching the felloes ; 
 And in the shop of Peter the blacksmith were 
 
 puffing no bellows, 
 Silenced was song of the sledge and the anvil 
 
 with ring of the iron, 
 Nor in their chorus would ever be echoed 
 
 again the sweet bell-chimes 
 Boiling adown from the hill-top where 
 
 perched the little red school-house. 
 
 Mark ! in the yard stand covered with muslin 
 the wagons for moving, 
 
 ,Whose stout wheels are the last here round- 
 ed by "William the wainwright; 
 
 Piled up with household goods are the 
 wagons and ready for hitching ; 
 
 What can it mean? And who is starting an- 
 other migration ? 
 
 Slowly out of his shop to the path steps Wil- 
 liam forebodeful; 
 
 Often he wries his neck to gaze at his ten- 
 antless quarters,
 
 THE NEW MIGRATION. 3^3 
 
 [Where he had happily wrought to a finish a 
 
 piece of his life-work. 
 Now he was taking a look star-lit at what 
 
 he was leaving, 
 [When the Squire he met whose question he 
 
 thoughtfully answered: 
 
 "Well I must quit New Salem moving my 
 destiny onward 
 
 Over the Sangamon narrow and over the 
 broad Mississippi; 
 
 Somewhere on the frontier I shall help to re- 
 make a new center 
 
 Aye a new wheel of a town with its hub and 
 its spokes and its felloes 
 
 Baying out over the land a network which 
 draws men together, 
 
 For in that practice alone can I give my best 
 help to my brother. ' ' 
 
 [With a deep smile from his soul the Squire 
 
 responded approval, 
 But the wainwright stopped not the thrust 
 
 of his words in his ardor: 
 "Full five years have I stayed here putting 
 
 on wheels the new country, 
 Till it will run of itself for the future with 
 
 help of my pupils,
 
 314 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XV. 
 
 Two of them whom I have trained in my 
 
 workshop of soul and of body; 
 Thus the whole people may rally as one in 
 
 their communal spirit 
 Then may return each man to himself in his 
 
 own isolation 
 For we must all go back to ourselves that we 
 
 live too in common." 
 
 Here gray William down drooped to the look 
 of a long reminiscence, 
 
 Which mutely mooded the Squire when slow- 
 ly again spoke the wainwright : 
 
 "Thrice before I have migrated starting 
 from Penn's Philadelphia, 
 
 Wheeling three towns of the backwoods that 
 they may better associate ; 
 
 Old I am getting, only once more I fain would 
 be wheelwright 
 
 To the youngest community now being born 
 on the border." 
 
 Of a sudden to William's surprise flashed 
 Squire Ebenezer: 
 
 "Oh that feeling how well do I know it ! with- 
 in me has prodded 
 
 Just the same impulse which will never al- 
 low us to sit still
 
 THE NEW MIGRATION. 
 
 In one place for a life-time but pushes us 
 
 onward and onward 
 To be town-makers irresistibly up to the sun- 
 
 set, 
 Sowing the land with communal seed, as the 
 
 farmer his wheatfield 
 Builders of institutions just that is our 
 
 highest vocation 
 Architects all of the town, the county, the 
 
 State and the Nation ; 
 And still further perchance the ages shall 
 
 beckon us forward 
 To our great destiny glimpsed in a new po- 
 
 litical order." 
 
 Here the words of the Squire had quit him, 
 no longer rhapsodic, 
 
 But he pensively whipped round from future 
 to past recollecting : 
 
 ''More than once I have moved since I start- 
 ed a youth in Kentucky, 
 
 Crossing the river Ohio to seek the domain 
 of a Free-State, 
 
 For I liked not the name of a slave in our 
 country of freedom; 
 
 Then to wild Indiana I came with a com- 
 munal bee-hive, 
 
 Swarming out of the old to the new on the 
 bafbarous border;
 
 316 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XV. 
 
 Lastly I hived me just here in New Salem 
 with Eutledge, its founder; 
 
 Somehow I always was chosen to hold up 
 the balance of justice, 
 
 "Which bids stability both in the law and the 
 temper judicial." 
 
 Quite unaware to himself the Squire had 
 
 lapsed to confession, 
 As his head he bent over and whispered in 
 
 tone confidential: 
 "Let me entrust to you what in my heart I 
 
 now am, my good William, 
 That unsettling desire has uprooted me too, 
 
 I must leave here ; 
 On your journey look back, you will see me 
 
 crossing the river, 
 That is the Father of Waters who roars in 
 
 a rage at our passage 
 Over his torrent to where we shall plant the 
 
 new communal structure, 
 Such as we bear in our brain to re-model the 
 
 work of our fathers, 
 Long transmitted by time but unfolded by us 
 
 to the New- World, 
 Which is now starting to live its own life 
 
 out here in the North- West. 
 Yea, a new school-house and better shall rise 
 
 up in rejuvenation,
 
 THE NEW MIGRATION, 317 
 
 And the new school-bell shall chime me again, 
 fulfilling its motto." 
 
 "That is the best news we ever have heard,'* 
 
 said William the wainwright, 
 "In our young enterprise you were the one 
 
 most needed, most wished-for, 
 You shall be squire again in our town to arise 
 
 on the border 
 ."Weighing out justice impartial to all in the 
 
 scales of your brain-pan. 
 Others are going, farmers, mechanics, young 
 
 folk of our village, 
 Which already appears to me old, perchance 
 
 in its dotage. 
 Uncle George Trueblood now wavers, despite 
 
 his conservative habit ; 
 Sagging hither and yon, he may drop down 
 
 on us to-morrow." 
 Silently thoughtful the Squire still listened 
 
 the wainwright forecasting: 
 "Well do you know that the ruffian, the 
 
 drunkard, the criminal fail not 
 On the frontier, till the reign of the law with 
 
 its arm overtake them; 
 You have been given that arm and still wield 
 
 it right here in New Salem 
 Bring to our new town yourself, Squire, 0, 
 
 bring to us Justice." 
 
 ft
 
 318 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGEBOOK XV. 
 
 Then the wainwright lowered his voice, as im- 
 parting a secret : 
 
 "Think of it! all of us aye myself too are 
 limit-surpassers, 
 
 Mark! we may sometimes turn in our zeal 
 to be limit-transgressors; 
 
 Hear me! the bound-breaker easily runs to 
 be law-breaker also; 
 
 You are to balance us into the new world out 
 of the old one, 
 
 Lest to chaos we fall while striving up higher 
 to cosmos, 
 
 Ever uniting the order transmitted with or- 
 der arising, 
 
 Ever transforming the old institution through 
 freedom upstorming." 
 
 Meditatively Squire Ebenezer to William re- 
 sponded : 
 
 "Let me grant it once more I would have 
 me a little land-clearing, 
 
 That I may see our young West fast slough- 
 ing its skin of wild Nature ; 
 
 But far deeper I long for the days of my 
 happy town-making, 
 
 Raising once more the communal giant in- 
 formed of my spirit 
 
 That he put on his body a garment of dwell- 
 ings and workshops,
 
 THE NEW MIGRATION. 
 
 Building himself the germinal home of the 
 
 new institution. 
 Gladly would I have Lincoln along in the 
 
 young habitation, 
 His is a soul that is filled with the soul of the 
 
 age's right order, 
 But he may cling to the spot which entombs 
 
 his memories tender." 
 
 Both the men lapsed to the silence of thought, 
 for they too remembered 
 
 Till Ebenezer again in his words repeated 
 his heart-beats : 
 
 "May I uprear once more the round school- 
 house voiced with the school-bell, 
 
 .Which in my dying hour I hope to hear ting- 
 ling its message 
 
 That I too shall arise from my death to my 
 heirship immortal." 
 
 Then the wainwright lit up his reply with the 
 light of his visage : 
 
 "Friend, delay not, for this is the highest of 
 human attainment : 
 
 Every minute to live in our work the life ever- 
 lasting;
 
 320 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XV. 
 
 Tims, only thus, do we win it from time and 
 
 keep it forever, 
 Even New Salem shall still be re-lived in a 
 
 new resurrection."
 
 Resurgam. 
 
 Solitude now is the soul of sad Lincoln fleeing 
 all friendship, 
 
 For the first time in his life he shuns where 
 the people assemble, 
 
 He no more is heard telling a story or anec- 
 dote mirthful ; 
 
 Inward he turns and passes his days shut up 
 in his self's world, 
 
 Even the sound of a laugh can stir him to 
 tears of fresh sorrow. 
 
 All that he in the past has been is melting 
 within him, 
 
 Character, purpose in life, his faith, his veri- 
 est self hood, 
 
 All have been flung in the fiery furnace of 
 Death to be tested ; 
 
 (321)
 
 322 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 Sometimes his reason would sink out of 
 sight in the flood of affliction, 
 
 Dipped for a moment into the depths of man 's 
 deepest experience. 
 
 Oft he would steal unseen to a new-made 
 grave for his solace, 
 
 In the mortal to rise to communion with what 
 is immortal, 
 
 Sorrow renewing his love, but his love too re- 
 newing his sorrow, 
 
 Giving the discipline needful to mount from 
 all bonds of misfortune, 
 
 Till the loved one no longer is past but eter- 
 nally present. 
 
 Thus the mourner has stamped on his heart 
 
 the deed of Ann Eutledge, 
 Imaging her in her love he can rise into love 
 
 universal. 
 She will spring out of air to him when he is 
 
 harried by trouble, 
 Or when hit by men's hate he is tempted in 
 
 vengeance to hit back; 
 She will haunt him ghost-like in his nigh't till 
 
 again he shall love her, 
 If in the trials of time he forget her deed's 
 
 benediction.
 
 RESURGAM. 23 
 
 Days wore away, more sure of himself he be- 
 gan to be growing, 
 
 iWhen he resolved to visit the Lady Eulalia 
 Lovelace, 
 
 Known as the comforter gentle of grief -laden 
 souls in New Salem ; 
 
 But at the door of the mansion he met an- 
 other possessor, 
 
 Who to a question replied that the Lady had 
 moved to Virginia, 
 
 To the gray manse of her father and fore- 
 fathers, for her two boys ' sake. 
 
 They must be gentlemen bred on the good 
 old colonial pattern 
 
 Henceforth eschewing the mode of the life 
 of the pioneer western, 
 
 Lapsing far back to the past from the work 
 of the State-building future. 
 
 ' i Still another fresh stroke ! How the world 
 seems going to pieces ! 
 
 That is not all she appears to me fated ! so 
 are her children!" 
 
 Thus he sighed for the loss of the Lady Eu- 
 lalia Lovelace 
 
 Who to the town had given the grace of her 
 courteous presence, 
 
 Lending her lordly home to works of the 
 worthiest living,
 
 324 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 Which enkindled a civilized gleam on the bar- 
 barous border. 
 
 Still she could not help showing the longing 
 look of an exile 
 
 For the seats of the old cavaliers who cen- 
 tered at Eichmond, 
 
 Though upon them a Fury already was writ- 
 ing destruction, 
 
 iWhich in his mood the torn Lincoln could 
 feel through the time and the distance. 
 
 Then as he slowly returned to the highway, 
 painfully pensive, 
 
 He was met by a line of new wagons just 
 starting, not backward, 
 
 But still forward away to the West in strong 
 aspiration ; 
 
 Merely he said: "Again are coming the mov- 
 ers, as usual 
 
 Wave of that sea of migration which keeps 
 rolling on Westward." 
 
 But at the second keen glance he noted a vis- 
 age familiar, 
 
 Whence trilled the tone of a voice he often 
 had heard in New Salem. 
 
 "Friend of my heart, my good Lincoln, I now 
 am going to leave you,
 
 RESURGAM. 325 
 
 I Have not seen you for days, else surely I 
 
 would have informed you; 
 Off I must march, once more, over-stepping 
 
 the wide Mississippi, 
 Helping to found a new town and start it to 
 
 running ; 
 Come along now next year from our State 
 
 we shall send you to Congress." 
 
 Lincoln shook No with his head and saddened 
 
 more deeply in feature, 
 But the voice spoke on, though touched with 
 
 a tone sympathetic : 
 11 Twice already I did thus, but this I feel is 
 
 my last time; 
 Mine is to build, but not houses so much as the 
 
 village's order, 
 And discreetly by law to direct the communal 
 
 welfare." 
 
 That was Squire Ebenezer who spoke, the 
 
 fountain of Justice, 
 Which he established wherever he founded a 
 
 town on the border ; 
 This when done he persuaded the people to 
 
 b"uild a good school-house 
 "With its resonant bell as its voice to the 
 
 young and the older,
 
 326 LINCOLN ANT) ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 Calling together the brain of the place for 
 
 lesson and lecture ; 
 Thus a small university communal rose at the 
 
 cente 
 Faintly forecasting the culminant height of 
 
 the new education. 
 Deeper than anything else this lurks in the 
 
 Squire Ebenezer : 
 That the fate of the school-house presages 
 
 the fate of the village ; 
 Yea he would carry his foreglimpse up to the 
 
 State and the Nation. 
 
 Lincoln stood dazed for a moment, then 
 mused to his friend in a study : 
 
 "I have heard you say that before, still I 
 thought that you would not 
 
 But methinks that the soul of this town is 
 now leaving its body, 
 
 That which built it and kept it alive is leav- 
 ing its members, 
 
 Aye the whole world is to me but a corpse 
 with spirit departed." 
 
 Heartfull he turned from his friend, yet look- 
 ing a farewell unworded, 
 
 Scarce ten steps had he trod who is this 
 whom he suddenly faces?
 
 RESURGAM. 327 
 
 William the wainwright is migrating also 
 
 with Peter the blacksmith; 
 Peter the chatterer, now well-washed starts 
 
 playing his banter : 
 "Abraham Lincoln, you are the cause of my 
 
 leaving New Salem, 
 It is you who will fetch here new wheels, not 
 
 ironed, but iron, 
 When law-making next winter you go down 
 
 again to Vandalia." 
 
 So chaffed the blacksmith a humorous lurn 
 to divert Lincoln's sadness, 
 
 When the wainwright added with eyes of 
 melting condolence : 
 
 1 'With the solace of time you may follow us 
 when we have settled." 
 
 Then at once burst up a geyser of sobs from 
 
 an underworld molten, 
 As the heart-hit mourner gave vent to the 
 
 seething within him : 
 "No, I shall hover around this fragment of 
 
 earth for a life-time, 
 Here is the shrine of my soul whose love I 
 
 shall never abandon, 
 Till with its image seared on my life I shall 
 
 stand up for Judgment,"
 
 328 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 Off he then turned to catch for his sighs a 
 
 full breath of freedom, 
 While the train of the wagons went wavering 
 
 over the landscape 
 In a rise and a fall as they wound through 
 
 prairie and woodland 
 Joyously onward into the roar of the roiled 
 
 Mississippi, 
 Bearing along in their bosom the communal 
 
 soul of New Salem, 
 Which will arise when over the River and 
 
 take a new body, 
 Yea in thousands and thousands of bodies 
 
 afresh resurrected, 
 Symboled of old in the sacred brand borne 
 
 to the young town-hall. 
 
 When the last white wisp of a wagon had 
 
 swooned in the distance, 
 Lincoln had strolled to the knoll where stood 
 
 once the centering school-house, 
 Now but a round ashen heap in whose midst 
 
 lay % the wreck of the belfry, 
 There as he dreamily stepped, he stumbled 
 
 his foot on a fragment, 
 Chip of the bell which tingled a resonance to 
 
 him though broken, 
 As if it still would remind him of days when 
 
 it called him to study,
 
 RESURGAM. 
 
 329 
 
 .When lie could Hear the maidenly tones of 
 
 Ann Kutledge reciting, 
 Whom he weened to be speaking just now as 
 
 the voice of the ruins 
 Bodiless voice, yet strangely concordant with 
 
 hers, from the ashes ; 
 Then he bent over and read the weird word 
 
 of the school-bell's inscription, 
 Which in each letter came tongued on 
 
 breaths of the air by some presence 
 But behold ! there falls on his ear a new voice 
 
 now incarnate. 
 Still mid ruins it speaks, in accent familiar 
 
 yet trembling, 
 What! 'tis Mentor Graham grown old, the 
 
 school-master faithful 
 Haunting in anguish of soul the dolorous 
 
 scene of his life-work, 
 Yet with gushes of heavenward hope in the 
 
 downpour of sorrows; 
 
 Like a specter he spoke to the seeming spec- 
 ter of Lincoln: 
 
 ' ' Though I descend to the sunset of life, new- 
 ly aged in a night-time, 
 
 I must go with the rest and elsewhere follow 
 my calling; 
 
 Mine is to teach the rude border, I have to 
 move on with migration
 
 330 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 But, 0, Lincoln, thou shalt remain my remem- 
 brance eternal, 
 
 Waiting for birth the future lies nestled with- 
 in thee already, 
 
 Pupil of all my pupils, through thee I shall 
 live everlasting, 
 
 Always reborn in thy life with the work which 
 is mine stamped upon thee ! 
 
 And this town though it die will not fade 
 from the soul of the people, 
 
 Sacred it shall be in memory, dare I pres- 
 sage, by thy presence, 
 
 These rich days of thy youth here passed 
 make it youthful forever, 
 
 Though from the map it be blotted by fate, no 
 sign of it peeping, 
 
 Still it will last as a spirit and even be sung 
 of with Lincoln." 
 
 Strange, but the schoolmaster, fluid before, 
 turns suddenly solid, 
 
 And his features so molten shoot into the 
 crystals of sternness, 
 
 As he starts to deliver the word of a judg- 
 ment supernal: 
 
 ''Not without reason divine this lot has be- 
 fallen New Salem, 
 
 Frequently have I been threatened with ill on 
 account of my doctrines j
 
 RE '8V 'RO AM. 
 
 For its act of suppressing free speech, itself 
 
 is suppressed now, 
 When it threw the lecturer into the river, it 
 
 followed, 
 When it burnt up his pages of print, it set 
 
 fire to my school-house, 
 Written all over these ashes of death I read 
 
 retribution, 
 Flamed down on it from Heaven for damn- 
 
 able deeds like Gomorrah." 
 
 So the good Mentor burst forth in one of his 
 
 rages prophetic, 
 With a tone of the voice of the preacher, the 
 
 thunderous Cartright ; 
 First he would flare himself out at the world, 
 
 then wheel about inward, 
 Not at all sparing himself in his faults as he 
 
 sighed his confession : 
 "And I too must come under the doom of 
 
 the dying New Salem, 
 Forth I must go and begin the new school of 
 
 the backwoods, 
 With it the house and the bell in the belfry 
 
 shall be resurrected, 
 I shall drop in my time but my work must 
 
 be made self-renewing 
 Through those pupilled by me with my im- 
 press such I deem thou art."
 
 332 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 Mentor then stooped and took up a handful 
 of dust, still reflecting : 
 
 "This old body belongs to these ashes, but 
 I do not surely, 
 
 I am to make Death die, am to turn on him- 
 self the Destroyer, 
 
 Always rehearing my life in a higher regen- 
 eration.*' 
 
 With an eye of refulgence the speaker then 
 gleamed upon Lincoln : 
 
 "Death is a schoolmaster, stern and impar- 
 tial, far sterner than I am, 
 
 I too have gone to his school and have tasted 
 his discipline mortal, 
 
 Greatest of schoolmasters is he with weight- 
 iest lore, if you learn it ; 
 
 That is your task now, Lincoln, Death is 
 teaching your lesson 
 
 Out of the sorrow of love lost to rise into love 
 that is deathless, 
 
 Self -undone is the teacher when his high work 
 is perfected; 
 
 If thou wouldst live, thou art dead if thou 
 wouldst die, thou art living." 
 
 i 
 
 As they walked and talked mid the ruins in 
 sombre reflection,
 
 RESURGAM. 333 
 
 They had come to the fragment of bell with 
 its Latin inscription 
 
 Eeadable still, yea perfect, without one break 
 in a letter. 
 
 Fire had purified every line of the word to 
 new splendor, 
 
 As it lay in its refuse upturned still gleam- 
 ing its message. 
 
 Then spoke the schoolmaster tremulous still 
 
 with the quake of his judgment : 
 "That inscription foresays that this bell 
 
 shall arise and this schoolhouse, 
 Yea, this village, now dead on the march of 
 
 civilisation ; 
 
 I, too, this schoolmaster, I shall arise new- 
 born in vocation. 
 Look again at the word ! spell the gleam of its 
 
 mystical letters : 
 Once I found it upon a mossed tombstone, and 
 
 made it my prayer, 
 Then on the school bell I stamped it to ring 
 
 out over the country, 
 Word of my deepest faith, true voice of the 
 
 universe also. 
 Sol may burn like this schoolhouse, yet will 
 
 arise with the aeons, 
 Cosmos, though ever dying, is ever afresh 
 
 resurrected.'*
 
 334 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE.BOOK XVI. 
 
 Then the schoolmaster centered his eye-shot 
 right into Lincoln's : 
 
 "And the loved one who passed will arise 
 in a new resurrection, 
 
 You will arise from grief of the mortal to 
 love the immortal, 
 
 That is, my Lincoln, thy schoolmaster's les- 
 son, the last one, 
 
 Make it thine own to guide all thy coming 
 career thou wilt need it." 
 
 So they parted, uplifted each man with a ful- 
 ness of vision. 
 Dimly already the Dawn had stretched out 
 
 her daintiest finger, 
 Laying it on a white cloud as if she were 
 
 touching the bed-clothes, 
 Eeady to spring from her couch in the East 
 
 with a kiss for New Salem, 
 Leaving her human Tithonus behind as the 
 
 ghost of a husband, 
 "While she a Goddess undying embraces in 
 
 love the whole earth-ball. 
 Lincoln had wandered away in the night to 
 
 the mulberry's shadow, 
 Shrouding himself in the mantle redoubled of 
 
 Nature's own gloaming, 
 Twofold that mantle of darkness, without him 
 
 and also within him,
 
 RESURGAM. 335 
 
 Till he is silently touched by the tenderest 
 
 glance of the twilight, 
 Which is the herald of day, new-born for the 
 
 world and for man too. 
 Up he leaps from his seat as if hearing the 
 
 soul of Aurora, 
 Hastes with a hope in his heart to the ashes 
 
 which tell of the schoolhouse, 
 There to search for the word of the promise 
 
 which heartened him bravely. 
 Soon he has found the fragment of bell that 
 
 holds the inscription, 
 This he takes in his hand arid reads Hy the 
 
 light which is dawning, 
 Tenderly bears it away from the dust to a 
 
 destiny higher. 
 
 Now at the head of the fresh-sodded mound 
 which covers Ann Butledge 
 
 Love has enthroned the talisman hinting the 
 turn of the ages, 
 
 Whispering hope unto man and the sun and 
 the stars BESUEGAM.
 
 iistorit Intimations. 
 
 BOOK I. The village of New Salem lay on 
 the Sangamon Eiver, about twenty miles 
 north-west of Springfield, capital of Illinois. 
 It was founded in 1829 (the date 1828 is the 
 one given by Herndon). It lasted some ten 
 or twelve years, suddenly springing up into 
 bustling activity, and then rapidly declining. 
 ,At present "a few crumbling stones are all 
 that attest its former existence." It was 
 situated " on a bluff a hundred feet above the 
 surrounding country." At the foot of this 
 bluff rolled the Sangamon, where stood the 
 mill on whose dam Lincoln's boat was strand- 
 ed (April, 1831) an incident witnessed by 
 the people of the village standing on the hill- 
 side. This was Lincoln's introduction to New 
 Salem, where he lived about five years, in 
 various employments. 
 
 Across the river from the village the val- 
 ley of the river is about half a mile in width, 
 reaching back to the hills. "The town never 
 contained more than fifteen houses, all of 
 them built of logs; but it had an energetic 
 population of perhaps one hundred persons" 
 (336)
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 337 
 
 (Miss Tarbell, Life of Lincoln). "By 1840, 
 Petersburg, two miles down the Eiver, had 
 absorbed its business and population." 
 (Ditto.) 
 
 BOOK H. In the spring of 1832 the little 
 steamboat whose name was Talisman, came 
 puffing up the Sangamon from Bardstown 
 past New Salem to the landing-place near 
 Springfield. Lincoln was the pilot, as he well 
 knew the little stream, and along the banks 
 the people gathered hailing the advent of the 
 first steamboat. Cannons and shotguns added 
 to the noise: men and boys afoot and on 
 horseback followed the vessel. On the bluff 
 at New Salem stood a large expectant crowd, 
 having a tumultous jollification over the out- 
 look upon a dazzling future all of which 
 rested upon the dream of a navigable San- 
 gamon. The steamboat had actually come all 
 the way from Cincinnati and thus seemed to 
 suggest the connection of the Sangamon coun- 
 try with the rest of the world by naviga- 
 tion. 
 
 Says Herndon: "I remember the occa- 
 sion well for two reasons: it was my first 
 sight of a steamboat, and the first time I 
 ever saw Mr. Lincoln, though I never became 
 acquainted with him till his second race for 
 the Legislature, in 1834. After passing New 
 Salem I and the other boys, on horseback,
 
 338 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 followed the boat, riding along the banks." 
 Even the poet was not absent, but sang the 
 exploit in a little epic of which the following 
 is a verse : 
 
 "Illinois suckers, young and raw, 
 Were strung along the Sangamaw 
 To see a boat come up by steam; 
 They surely thought it was a dream." 
 
 BOOK III. Lincoln 's first candidacy for the 
 Legislature (in 1832) was unsuccessful. Still 
 he always looked back to his race with pride, 
 saying in a brief autobiography written long 
 afterwards that his own precinct gave 277 
 votes for him, and only 7 against him which 
 certainly indicated his local popularity. But 
 in the rest of the county he was not well 
 known. Before going to the Black Hawk 
 War in 1832, he had announced his candidacy 
 and had issued an address to the voters, 
 which is still preserved (See Lincoln's 
 Works, by Nicolay and Hay). In 1834 he 
 was elected representative to the State Leg- 
 islature, which then held its sessions at Van- 
 dalia, the capital. In this second race he 
 seems to have largely recovered from his de- 
 lusion which he shared with the people- 
 that the Sangamon was navigable. 
 
 BOOK IV. Already in 1834 the agitation 
 for the new means of intercommunication
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 339 
 
 the canal and railroad had begun. Later 
 it rose to the proportions of a great bubble 
 which exploded and left the State deeply in 
 debt and facing a financial crises. Lincoln 
 was an ardent supporter of these " internal 
 improvements. ' ' 
 
 On all sides were signs of the great migra- 
 tion to the North- West. The population of 
 Illinois (set down as 269,974 souls in 1835), 
 had almost doubled in half a dozen years. 
 Chicago had begun to develop in the north- 
 eastern part of the State. 
 
 Lincoln was commissioned Postmaster at 
 New Salem May 7, 1833, under the federal 
 administration of Andrew Jackson. The mail 
 arrived once a week, not in great quantity, so 
 that tEe saying soon became current that he 
 carried the post-office in his hat. It has also 
 been handed down that he read the news- 
 papers which came in the mail, with consent 
 of their owners, and then delivered them. 
 Says Herndon: "Mr. Lincoln used to tell 
 me when he had a call to go to the country, 
 he placed inside his hat all the letters belong- 
 ing to the people of the neighborhood and 
 distributed them along the way." 
 
 BOOK V. Ann Eutledge was the daughter 
 of the first citizen of New Salem, who was 
 also one of its founders James Ru'tledge, 
 born in South Carolina and related to
 
 340 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 the distinguished family of that name. Says 
 Herndon, who knew her: "She was a beau- 
 tiful girl the most popular young lady in 
 the village. One of her strong points was her 
 dexterity in the use of the needle. At every 
 quilting Ann was a necessary adjunct, and 
 her nimble fingers drove the needle swifter 
 than anyone's else. Lincoln used to escort 
 her to and from these quilting bees, and on 
 one occasion even went into the house." 
 
 But she was already engaged to a success- 
 ful young merchant of New Salem, who went 
 under the name of McNeall, but whose real 
 name was McNamar. He had left town in 
 the spring of 1834, with the design of return- 
 ing soon; but he delayed, and soon stopped 
 writing to his betrothed. Nobody knew what 
 had become of him, or what were his pur- 
 poses. Ann especially was in doubt: had he 
 deserted her? Anyhow at this juncture Lin- 
 coln gradually became her suitor. 
 
 BOOK VI. Peter Cartright represents the 
 preacher of the frontier better than any other 
 known individual. He has left an autobiog- 
 raphy which gives a simple account of his 
 remarkable career. Above all men of his 
 class he knew how to stir up the religious 
 susceptibility of the borderer. He Fad come 
 at an early day with Southern immigrants 
 .(from Tennessee and Kentucky) and had set-
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 
 
 tied in tlie Sangamon Valley, not far from 
 Springfield. He was probably the greatest 
 of all circuit-riders, Ms circuit at first "ex- 
 tending from Kaskaskia to Galena." He 
 was a Methodist and the very king of reviv- 
 als and camp-meetings. The South he had 
 quit on account of his dislike of slavery; 
 ,still he was a strong Democrat of the per- 
 fervid Jacksonian type. He did not hesitate 
 to mix politics with his religion, being elect- 
 ed a member of the Illinois Legislature in 
 1828 and in 1832; in the latter year Lincoln 
 was a candidate, but was beaten. Cartright 
 was a candidate for Congress against Lin- 
 coln in 1846, but was badly defeated. The 
 two men were of a different order of mind ; 
 they clashed repeatedly, both in the political 
 and religious domains, though both were anti- 
 slavery and born Southerners. 
 
 Jack Kelso, the poetical vagabond of New 
 Salem, reciter of Shakespeare and Burns, has 
 a place in all of Lincoln's Biographies. 
 
 BOOK VII. "As Lincoln pleaded and 
 pressed his cause, the Rutledges and all New 
 Salem encouraged his suit. McNamar's un- 
 explained absence, and his apparent neglect 
 furnished outsiders with all the arguments 
 needed to encourage Lincoln and convince 
 Ann. Although the attachment was growing 
 and daily becoming an intense and mutual
 
 342 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 passion, the young lady remained firm and 
 almost inflexible. She was passing through 
 another fire. A long struggle with her feel- 
 ings followed. (Herndon and Weik's Lin- 
 coln, Vol. 1, p. ,128.) 
 
 "All would have gone well if the young 
 girl could have dismissed the haunting mem- 
 ory of her old lover. The possibility that 
 she had wronged him, that he loved her still, 
 though she now loved another, that she had 
 perhaps done wrong, produced a torturing 
 conflict." (Miss TarbelPs Lincoln, Vol. 1, 
 p. 119.) 
 
 It should be noted that Ann Eutledge had 
 a strongly religious element in her nature. 
 It is this element which on the one hand in- 
 tensified her conflict and on the other im- 
 parted to her a great consolation. 
 
 BOOK VIIL Vandalia, the capital of the 
 State from 1820, was a town of less than a 
 thousand inhabitants when Lincoln arrived 
 there for the opening of the Assembly, De- 
 cember 1, 1834. This was composed of 26 
 senators and 55 representatives, nearlly all 
 of Southern origin, mainly from Kentucky 
 and Virginia. The bulk of the great migra- 
 tion came from the same source. " There 
 were but few Eastern men, for there was still 
 a strong prejudice in the State against Yan- 
 kees."
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 343 
 
 ''There was a preponderance of jean suits, 
 like Lincoln's, in the Assembly, and there 
 were occasional coon-skin caps and buckskin 
 pantaloons. Nevertheless, more than one 
 member showed a studied garb and a courtly 
 manner. Some of the best blood of the South 
 went into the making of Illinois, and it 
 showed itself from the first in the Assembly." 
 (Much more is to be found in the accounts of 
 early Illinois histories and in the Lincoln 
 biographies see Miss Tarbell's Lincoln, 
 Chapter VIII.) 
 
 "At this session of the Legislature (1834 
 -5), Lincoln was anything but conspicuous. 
 His name appears so seldom that we are 
 prone to think that he contented himself with 
 listening to border oratory and with absorb- 
 ing his due proportion of parliamentary law" 
 (Herndon). Other reasons can be given. 
 
 "Schemes of vast internal improvements 
 attracted a retinue of log-rollers members 
 of the 'third body' among whom at this ses- 
 sion was Stephen A. Douglas, who had come 
 from Vermont only the year before," but 
 was already in pursuit of an office, that of 
 State's Attorney. (Herndon.) 
 
 "What opinion each formed of the other, 
 or what the extent of their acquaintance, we 
 do not know," adds Herndon. Possibly 
 something is hinted in the tradition fhat Lin-
 
 344 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 coin said of him after their first meeting: 
 "He is the least man I have ever seen." 
 
 BOOK IX . Says Herndon, who carefully in- 
 vestigated this affair: "McNamar, true to 
 his promise, drove into New Salem in the fall 
 of 1835, with his mother and brothers and 
 sisters. They had come through from New 
 York, with all their portable goods in a 
 wagon." Their arrival took place a short 
 time after the passing of Ann Butledge. "With- 
 in a year McNamar married another woman 
 which fact may be taken as furnishing the 
 key to his conduct. 
 
 BOOK X. Since the Black Hawk War, the 
 northern part of the State had been rapidly 
 filling up with settlers. There had been a 
 good deal of agitation for the removal of the 
 Capital to a more central locality. This was 
 accomplished at the session of 1836-7, by 
 the nine legislators from Sangamon County, 
 called the Long Nine, on account of their 
 stature, "all of them measuring over six feet 
 in height and over two hundred pounds in 
 weight," combined with intellectual ability 
 above the average. Says Herndon: "The 
 friends of other cities fought Springfield bit- 
 terly, but under Lincoln's leadership, the 
 Long Nine contested with them every inch 
 of the way," and finally won. In the preced- 
 ing session (1834-5) there had been only talk
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 345 
 
 of the removal, not agreeable to the people 
 of Vandalia. 
 
 Also during these years the agitation 
 against slavery began to make its appearance 
 in the West. Taunts, jeers, persecution, as- 
 sassination even, greeted the early apostles 
 of reform. The attitude of Lincoln was 
 anti-slavery, but he disclaimed the name of 
 abolitionist. (See Kis famous protest in the 
 Legislature, dated 1837.) 
 
 BOOK XI. After Lincoln's return from his 
 first session at Vandalia, he became engaged 
 to Ann Rutledge. "Still the ghost of another 
 love would often rise unbidden before her," 
 says Herndon. "Within her bosom raged 
 the conflict which finally undermined her 
 health. Late in the summer she took to her 
 bed. A fever was burning in her head. Dur- 
 ing the latter days of her illness, her physi- 
 cian had forbidden visitors to enter her room, 
 prescribing absolute quiet. But her .brother 
 relates that she kept inquiring for Lincoln 
 so continuously, at times demanding to see 
 Mm, that the family at last sent for him. On 
 his arrival at her bedside, the door was 
 closed and he was left alone with her. What 
 was said was known only to him and to the 
 dying girl." Her death took place August 
 25th, 1835. (Herndon and Weik's Lincoln, 
 Vol. I, p. 129.)
 
 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 BOOK XII. Mentor Graham, the village 
 schoolmaster, was intellectually the most im- 
 portant man in New Salem for Lincoln. The 
 name seems a curious reminiscence of the 
 Ithacan Mentor, the voice of the Goddess of 
 .Wisdom to the young Telemachus (See First 
 Book of the Odyssey). It was Graham who 
 told Lincoln that if he wished to be a public 
 man. and to make speeches, he must study 
 grammar. But where could he get a text- 
 book? New Salem did not possess a copy. 
 The schoolmaster knew of one six miles away 
 in the country. Lincoln at once walked to 
 the place and borrowed it, and must have 
 finally owned it, for he gave it to Ann Eut- 
 ledge. Still the inscription can be read upon 
 it in Lincoln's handwriting: "Ann M. Eut- 
 ledge is now studying Grammar." (A fac- 
 simile of its title page can be found in Miss 
 Tarbell's Lincoln, I, p. 65, with Lincoln's in- 
 scription). Graham also helped Lincoln in 
 the study of surveying, when the latter had 
 received the appointment of assistant sur- 
 veyor of Sangamon County. 
 
 The pioneer schoolmaster followed the 
 frontier settlements and never failed on the 
 march of migration. He was found on the 
 border in Kentucky, in Indiana and Illinois, 
 during Lincoln's youth. 
 
 BOOK XIII, Says Herndon, friend, law-
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 347 
 
 partner and biographer of Linocln: "From 
 my own knowledge and the information thus 
 obtained (from the score or more of witnesses 
 whom I at one time or another interviewed 
 on this delicate subject) I repeat that the 
 memory of Ann Rutledge was the saddest 
 chapter in Mr. Lincoln's life" (I, p. 119). Ac- 
 cording to Herndon, it was "Dr. Jason Dun- 
 can who placed in Lincoln's hands a poem 
 called Immortality. The piece starts out with 
 the line : ' * Oh, why should the spirit of mor- 
 tal be proud." He committed these lines 
 to memory and any reference to or mention 
 of Miss Eutledge would suggest them." As 
 late as March, 1864, not many days before his 
 death, he repeated the lines with a strange 
 premonitory pathos. The poem was for him 
 "an ever-singing dirge of the soul over the 
 vanished loved one with the melancholy note 
 of which his deepest emotions become con- 
 cordant to the end of his days. Thus Lincoln 
 reveals an immortal love, which will attune 
 all the other throbbings of his heart, however 
 profound and intense." (Abraham Lincoln, 
 p. 172.) 
 
 BOOK XIV. The first effect of the blow 
 upon Lincoln was to bring him into a condi- 
 tion verging toward insanity. Says Herndon : 
 * * He had fits of great mental depression and 
 wandered up and down the river and into the
 
 348 LINCOLN AND ANN RUT LEDGE. 
 
 woods woefully abstracted at times in the 
 deepest distress. His condition finally be- 
 came so alarming that his friends consulted 
 together and sent him to the house of a kind 
 friend who lived in a secluded spot hidden 
 by the hills a mile south of the town, ami who 
 after some weeks brought him back to rea- 
 son, or at least a realization of his true con- 
 dition." (Herndon and Weik's Lincoln, I, 
 p. 130-1.) 
 
 Doubtless at this time Lincoln made the 
 greatest spiritual transition of his life, under 
 the most severe mental and emotional strain. 
 
 BOOK XV. As already stated, New Salem 
 barely lived a dozen years, if quite so long. 
 The rapid rise and often the equally rapid 
 decline of these border towns could be often 
 witnessed in the early settlement of the "West. 
 And the spirit of migration was never want- 
 ing to the frontiersman. The new thing 
 about this Western town-building was that its 
 source was from below and not from above 
 from the people and not from those in au- 
 thority. All felt the power in themselves to 
 re-make their village elsewhere. 
 
 BOOK XVI. "Lincoln endures the awful 
 strain and comes forth a purified soul from 
 tHe discipline of Love, but he carries the 
 mark with him all his life. What did it do 
 for him I ' ' That is a question pivotal for his
 
 HISTORIC INTIMATIONS. 349 
 
 whole future; but different persons will an- 
 swer it differently, according to their habits 
 of thought and inner experience. 
 
 "The individual Ann Kutledge is gone, in- 
 deed, forever, but the love remains and will 
 not depart. What is to be done with it? Erad- 
 icated it cannot be unless by tearing out the 
 heart itself by the roots. But it can be trans- 
 formed, or rather transfigured, and thus in 
 a manner be preserved ever active and benefi- 
 cent. From the individual it can be elevated 
 into universality, and thereby not only save 
 the man, but give him a new birth, a spirit- 
 ual palingenesis. The problem with Abraham 
 Lincoln now is: Can I transfigure the love 
 of this individual Ann Butledge, forever van- 
 ished as individual, into an universal love 
 for Humanity, ever-present and undying? 
 Can I rise even through emotion from the one 
 to the all? Verily he can and does; indeed 
 the terrible ordeal has just this providential 
 purpose : he must come to feel and perchance 
 to see that the painful Discipline of Love is 
 not- to destroy it, but to eternize it by trans- 
 figuring it into the very personality of the 
 sufferer, and thus making it the inner lumi- 
 nary which shines through character and 
 deeds." (From Abraham Lincoln, an inter- 
 pretation in Biography, p. 185.) 
 
 "Here we may behold, if not the original
 
 350 LINCOLN AND ANN RUTLEDGE. 
 
 germ, at least the grand flowering of that 
 deepest and all-pervasive trait of Lincoln 
 which we may exalt as his universal Love/' 
 which "has become at present the chief 
 theme of anecdote, reminiscence, story, novel, 
 and other literary utterance pertaining to 
 Jiim directly and indirectly." (Ditto, p. 
 185-6.) 
 
 "Though called upon to administer a na- 
 tional discipline as severe as his own per- 
 sonal discipline ever was, he did it not in 
 hate and revenge, as everybody now recog- 
 nizes" (Ditto). Finally may be added his 
 tender confession made to a friend long after- 
 wards concerning Ann Kutledge: "I think 
 often, often of her now."
 
 
 

 
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