IN WHICH THE CHARACTER OF BIM KELSO FLASHES OUT IN A STRANGE ADVENTURE
THAT BEGINS THE WEAVING OF A LONG THREAD OF ROMANCE.
The shell of the cabin was finished that day. Its puncheon floor was in
place but its upper floor was to be laid when the boards were ready. Its
two doors were yet to be made and hung, its five windows to be fitted and
made fast, its walls to be chinked with clay mortar. Samson and Harry
stayed that evening after the rest were gone, smoothing the puncheon
floor. They made a few nails at the forge after supper and went over to
Abe's store about nine. Two of the Clary's Grove Gang who had tarried in
the village sat in the gloom of its little veranda apparently asleep. Dr.
Allen, Jack Kelso, Alexander Ferguson and Martin Waddell were sitting by
its fireside while Abe sat on the counter with his legs hanging off.
"He's a tough oak stick of a man," Kelso was saying.
"Here he is now," said Dr. Allen. "That lad you cuffed had to stop at my
office for repairs."
"I told you once to use a crowbar if you wanted to hit anybody, but never
to use your hands," said Abe.
"Well there wasn't any time to lose and there was no crowbar handy," said
Samson.
"That reminds me of a general who made the boys of his regiment promise
to let him do all the swearin'," Abe began. "One day a sergeant got into
trouble with a mule team. It was raining hard and the off mule balked.
Wouldn't draw a pound. The sergeant got wet to the skin and swore a song
of fourteen verses that was heard by half the regiment. The general
called him up for discipline.
"'Young man, I thought it was understood that I was to do all the
swearin',' he said.
"'So it was,' said the sergeant, 'but that swearin' had to be done right
away. You couldn't 'a' got there in time to do it if I'd 'a' sent for
ye.'"
"I'm sorry we had to have trouble," Samson remarked, after the outburst
of appreciation that followed Abe's story. "It's the only spot on the
day. I'll never forget the kindness of the people of New Salem."
"The raising bee is a most significant thing," said Kelso. "Democracy
tends to universal friendship--each works for the crowd and the crowd
for each and there are no favorites. Every community is like the thousand
friends of Thebes. Most of its units stand together for the common
good--for justice, law and honor. The schools are spinning strands of
democracy out of all this European wool. Railroads are to pick them up
and weave them into one great fabric. By and by we shall see the ten
million friends of America standing together as did the thousand friends
of Thebes."
"It's a great thought," said Abe.
"No man can estimate the size of that mighty phalanx of friendship all
trained in one school," Kelso went on. "Two years ago the _Encyclopedia
Britannica_ figured that the population of the United States in 1905
would be 168,000,000 people, and in 1966, 672,000,000. Wealth, power,
science, literature, all follow in the train of light and numbers. The
causes which moved the sceptre of civilization from the Euphrates to
Western Europe will carry it from the latter to the New World."
"They say that electricity and the development of the steam engine is
going to make all men think alike," said Abe. "If that's so Democracy and
Liberty will spread over the earth."
"The seed of Universal Brotherhood is falling far and wide and you can
not kill it," Kelso continued. "Last year Mazzini said: 'There is only
one sun in heaven for the whole earth, only one law for all who people
it. We are here to found fraternally the unity of the human race so that,
sometime, it may present but one fold and one Shepherd."
Then Lincoln spoke again: "I reckon we are near the greatest years in
history. It is a privilege to be alive."
"And young," Dr. Allen added.
"Young! What a God's blessed thing is that!" said Kelso and then he
quoted from Coleridge:
"'Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying
Where Hope clung feeding like a bee,
Both were mine! Life went a maying
With Nature, Hope and Poesy
When I was young!'
"Abe, have ye learned the _Cotter's Saturday Night_?"
"Not yet. It's a heavy hog to hold but I'll get a grip on an ear and
a hind leg and lift it out o' the pen before long. You see."
"Don't fail to do that. It will be a help and joy to ye."
"Old Kirkham is a hard master," said Abe. "I hear his bell ringing every
time I get a minute's leisure. I'm nigh through with him. Now I want to
study rhetoric."
"Only schoolmasters study rhetoric," Kelso declared. "A real poet or a
real orator is born with all the rhetoric he needs. We should get our
rhetoric as we get our oxygen--unconsciously--by reading the masters.
Rhetoric is a steed for a light load under the saddle but he's too warm
blooded for the harness. He was for the day of the plumed knight--not for
these times. No man of sense would use a prancing horse on a plow or a
stone boat. A good plow horse is a beautiful thing. The play of his
muscles, the power of his stride are poetry to me but when he tries to
put on style he is ridiculous. That suggests what rhetoric is apt to do
to the untrained intellect. If you've anything to say or write head
straight across, the field and keep your eye on the furrow. Then comes
the sowing and how beautiful is the sower striding across the field in
his suit of blue jeans, with that wonderful gesture, so graceful, so
imperious! Put him in a beaver hat and broadcloth and polished calfskin
and a frilled shirt and you couldn't think of anything more ridiculous!"
In the last diary of Samson Henry Traylor is this entry:
* * * * *
"I went to Gettysburg with the President to-day and sat near him when he
spoke. Mr. Everett addressed the crowd for an hour or so. As Kelso would
say 'He rode the prancing steed of Rhetoric.' My old friend went straight
across the field and his look and gestures reminded me of that picture of
the sower which Jack gave us one night long ago in Abe's store. Through
my tears I could see the bucket hanging on his elbow and the good seed
flying far and wide from his great hand. When he finished the field,
plowed and harrowed and fertilized by war, had been sowed for all time.
The spring's work was done and well done."
* * * * *
At a quarter of ten the Doctor rose and said:
"We're keeping Abe from his sleep and wearing the night away with
philosophy. I'm going home."
"I came over to see if you could find a man to help me to-morrow," Samson
said to Abe. "Harry is going over to do the chinking alone. I want a man
to help me on the whipsaw while I cut some boards for the upper
flooring."
"I'll help you myself," Abe proposed. "I reckon I'll close the store
to-morrow unless Jack will tend it."
"You can count on me," said Jack. "I'm short of sleep anyhow and a day of
rest will do me good."
Abe went with his friends to the door beyond which the two boys from
Clary's Grove sat as if sound asleep. It is probable, however, that they
had heard what Samson had said to Abe.
"Well, I didn't know these wild turkeys were roosting here," Abe laughed.
He roused them from their slumbers and said: "Boys, you're trying to saw
the day off a little too short. It's got to run till you get to Clary's
Grove. Better take those horses home and feed 'em."
The boys got up and yawned and stretched themselves and mounted their
horses which had been tied to a bar and rode away in the darkness.
Next morning Abe and Samson set out for the woods soon after daylight.
"I like that boy Harry," said Abe. "I reckon he's got good stuff in him.
The way he landed on Bap McNoll was a caution. I like to see a feller
come right up to the scratch, without an invitation just in the nick
o' time, as he did."
"Did you see him jump in?" Samson asked.
"I saw everything some way. I saw you when ye loosened the ear o' John
Callyhan. That tickled me. But the way I felt yesterday--honest, it
seemed as if I could handle 'em all. That boy Harry is a likely young
colt--strong and limber and well put together and broad between the
eyes."
"An' gentle as a kitten," Samson added. "There never was a better face on
a boy or a better heart behind it. We like him."
"Yes, sir. He's a well topped young tree--straight and sound and good
timber. Looks as if that little girl o' Jack's was terribly took up with
him. I don't wonder. There are not many boys like Harry around here."
"What kind of a girl is she?" Samson asked.
"Awful shy since the arrow hit her. She don't know what it means yet.
She'll get used to that I reckon. She's a good girl and smart as a steel
trap. Her father takes her out on the plains with him shooting. She can
handle a gun as well as anybody and ride a horse as if she had growed to
his back. Every body likes Bim but she has her own way of behaving and
sometimes it's awful new-fashioned."
Harry Needles went whistling up the road toward the new house with
sickle, hoe and trowel. As he passed the Kelso cabin he whistled the
tune of _Sweet Nightingale_. It had haunted his mind since he had heard
it in the woods. He whistled as loudly as ever he could and looked at the
windows. Before he had passed Bim's face looked out at him with a smile
and her hand flickered back of the panes and he waved his to her. His
heart beat fast as he hurried along.
"I'm not so very young," he said to himself. "I wish I hadn't put on
these old clothes. Mrs. Traylor is an awful nice woman but she's
determined to make me look like a plow horse. I don't see why she
couldn't let me wear decent clothes."
Sarah had enjoyed mothering the boy. His health had returned. His cheeks
were ruddy, his dark eyes clear and bright, his tall form erect and
sturdy. Moreover the affectionate care his new friends had given him and
his interest in the girl filled his heart with the happiness which is the
rain of youth and without which it becomes an arid desert.
He had helped Alexander Ferguson with the making of the fireplace and
knew how to mix the mortar. He worked with a will for his heart was in
the new home. It was a fine September morning. The warm sunlight had set
the meadow cocks a crowing. The far reaches of the great, grassy plain
were dimmed with haze. It was a vast, flowery wilderness, waving and
murmuring in the breeze like an ocean. How long those acres, sown by the
winds of heaven, had waited for the plowman now arrived!
Harry felt the beauty of the scene but saw and enjoyed more the face of
Bim Kelso as he worked and planned his own house--no cabin but a mansion
like that of Judge Harper in the village near his old home. He had filled
every crevice in the rear wall and was working on the front when he heard
the thunder of running horses and saw those figures, dim in a cloud of
dust, flying up the road again. He thought of the threat of Bap McNoll.
It occurred to him that he would be in a bad way alone with those
ruffians if they were coming for revenge. He stepped into the door of the
house and stood a moment debating what he would best do. He thought of
running toward the grove, which was a few rods from the rear door of the
house, and hiding there. He couldn't bear to run. Bim and all the rest of
them would hear of it. So with the sickle in his right hand he stood
waiting inside the house and hoping they wouldn't stop. They rode up to
the door and dismounted quietly and hobbled their horses. There were five
of them who crowded into the cabin with McNoll in the lead.
"Now, you young rooster, you're goin' to git what's comin' to you," he
growled.
The boy faced them bravely and warned them away with his sickle. They
were prepared for such emergencies. One of them drew a bag of bird shot
from his pocket and hurled it at Harry's head. It hit him full in the
face and he staggered against the wall stunned by the blow. They rushed
upon the boy and disarmed and bore him to the floor. For a little time
he knew not what was passing. When he came to, his hands and feet were
tied and the men stood near, cursing and laughing, while their leader,
McNoll, was draining a bottle. Suddenly he heard a voice trembling with
excitement and wet with tears saying:
"You go 'way from here or I'll kill you dead. So help me God I'll kill
you. If one o' you touches him he's goin' to die."
He saw Bim Kelso at the window with her gun leveled at the head of
McNoll. Her face was red with anger. Her eyes glowed. As he looked a
tear welled from one of them and trailed down the scarlet surface of her
cheek. McNoll turned without a word and walked sulkily out of the back
door. The others crowded after him. They ran as soon as they had got out
of the door. She left the window. In a moment the young men were
galloping away.
Bim came into the house sobbing with emotion but with her head erect.
She stood her gun in a corner and knelt by the helpless boy. He was
crying also. Her hair fell upon his face as she looked at the spot of
deep scarlet color made by the shot bag. She kissed it and held her cheek
against his and whispered: "Don't cry. It's all over now. I'm going to
cut these ropes."
It was as if she had known and loved him always. She was like a young
mother with her first child. Tendeny she wiped his tears away with her
blond, silken hair. She cut his bonds and he rose and stood before her.
Her face changed like magic.
"Oh what a fool I've been!" she exclaimed.
"Why so?" he asked.
"I cried and I kissed you and we never have been introduced to each
other."
She covered her eyes with her hair and with bent head went out of the
door.
"I'll never forget that kiss as long as I live," said the boy as he
followed her. "I'll never forget your help or your crying either."
"How I must have looked!" she went on, walking toward her pony that was
hitched to a near tree.
"You were beautiful!" he exclaimed.
"Go away from me--I won't speak to you," she said. "Go back to your work.
I'll stay here and keep watch."
The boy returned to his task pointing up the inside walls but his mind
and heart were out in the sunlight talking with Bim. Once he looked out
of the door and saw her leaning against the neck of the pony, her face
hidden in his mane. When the sun was low she came to the door and said:
"You had better stop now and go home."
She looked down at the ground and added:
"Please, please, don't tell on me."
"Of course not," he answered. "But I hope you won't be afraid of me any
more."
She looked up at him with a little smile. "Do you think I'm afraid of
_you_?" she asked as if it were too absurd to be thought of. She
unhitched and mounted her pony but did not go.
"I do wish you could raise a mustache," she said, looking wistfully into
his face.
Involuntarily his hand went to his lip.
"I could try," he said.
"I can't bear to see you look so terribly young; you get worse and worse
every time I see you," she scolded plaintively. "I want you to be a
regular man right quick."
He wondered what he ought to say and presently stammered: "I--I--intend
to. I guess I'm more of a man than anybody would think to look at me."
"You're too young to ever fall in love I reckon."
"No I'm not," he answered with decision.
"Have you got a razor?" she asked.
"No."
"I reckon it would be a powerful help. You put soap on your lip and mow
it off with a razor. My father says it makes the grass grow."
There was a moment of silence during which she brushed the mane of her
pony. Then she asked timidly: "Do you play on the flute?"
"No, why?"
"I think it would break my heart. My Uncle Henry plays all day and it
makes him look crazy. Do you like yellow hair?"
"Yes, if it looks like yours."
"If you don't mind I'll put a mustache on you just--just to look at every
time I think of you."
"When I think of you I put violets in your hair," he said.
He took a step toward her as he spoke and as he did so she started her
pony. A little way off she checked him and said:
"I'm sorry. There are no violets now."
She rode away slowly waving her hand and singing with the joy of a bird
in the springtime:
"My sweetheart, come along
Don't you hear the glad song
As the notes of the nightingale flow?
Don't you hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale
As she sings in the valleys below--
As she sings in the valleys below?"
He stood looking and listening. The song came to him as clear and sweet
as the notes of a vesper bell wandering in miles of silence.
When it had ceased he felt his lip and said: "How slow the time passes!
I'm going to get some shaving soap and a razor."
That evening when Harry was helping Samson with the horses he said:
"I'm going to tell you a secret. I wish you wouldn't say anything about
it."
Samson stood pulling the hair out of his card and looking very stern as
he listened while Harry told of the assault upon him and how Bim had
arrived and driven the rowdies away with her gun but he said not a word
of her demonstration of tender sympathy. To him that had clothed the
whole adventure with a kind of sanctity so that he could not bear to have
it talked about.
Samson's eyes glowed with anger. They searched the face of the boy. His
voice was deep and solemn when he said:
"This is a serious matter. Why do you wish to keep it a secret?"
The boy blushed. For a moment he knew not what to say. Then he spoke: "It
ain't me so much--it's her," he managed to say. "She wouldn't want it to
be talked about and I don't either."
Samson began to understand. "She's quite a girl I guess," he said
thoughtfully. "She must have the nerve of a man--I declare she must."
"Yes-sir-ee! They'd 'a' got hurt if they hadn't gone away, that's sure,"
said Harry.
"We'll look out for them after this," Samson rejoined. "The first time
I meet that man McNoll he'll have to settle with me and he'll pay cash on
the nail."
Bim having heard of Harry's part in Abe's fight and of the fact that he
was to be working alone all day at the new house had ridden out through
the woods to the open prairie and hunted in sight of the new cabin that
afternoon. Unwilling to confess her extreme interest in the boy she had
said not a word of her brave act. It was not shame; it was partly a kind
of rebellion against the tyranny of youthful ardor; it was partly the
fear of ridicule.
So it happened that the adventure of Harry Needles made scarcely a ripple
on the sensitive surface of the village life. It will be seen, however,
that it had started strong undercurrents likely, in time, to make
themselves felt.
The house and barn were finished whereupon Samson and Harry drove to
Springfield--a muddy, crude and growing village with thick woods on its
north side--and bought furniture. Their wagon was loaded and they were
ready to start for home. They were walking on the main street when Harry
touched Samson's arm and whispered:
"There's McNoll and Callyhan."
The pair were walking a few steps ahead of Samson and Harry. In a second
Samson's big hand was on McNoll's shoulder.
"This is Mr. McNoll, I believe," said Samson.
The other turned with a scared look.
"What do ye want o' me?" he demanded.
Samson threw him to the ground with a jerk so strong and violent that it
rent the sleeve from his shoulder. McNoll's companion who had felt the
weight of Samson's hand and had had enough of it turned and ran.
"What do ye want o' me?" McNoll asked again as he struggled to free
himself.
"What do I want o' you--you puny little coward," said Samson, as he
lifted the bully to his feet and gave him a toss and swung him in the air
and continued to address him. "I'm just goin' to muss you up proper. If
you don't say you're sorry and mean it I'll put a tow string on your neck
and give you to some one that wants a dog."
"I'm sorry," said McNoll. "Honest I am! I was drunk when I done it."
Samson released his prisoner. A number in the crowd which had gathered
around them clapped their hands and shouted, "Hurrah for the stranger!"
A constable took Samson's hand and said: "You deserve a vote of thanks.
That man and his friends have made me more trouble than all the rest of
the drinking men put together."
"And I am making trouble for myself," said Samson. "I have made myself
ashamed. I am no fighting man, I was never in such a muss on a public
street before and with God's help it will never happen again."
"Where do you live?" the officer asked.
"In New Salem."
"I wish it was here. We need men like you. What part of the East do you
hail from?"
"Vermont," Samson answered. "I've just bought land and built a cabin a
little west of the village. Came here for a load of furniture."
"I'm a Maine man and a Whig and opposed to slavery and my name is Erastus
Wright," said the constable.
"I am a Whig and against slavery," Samson volunteered.
"I could tell that by the look of you," said the constable. "Some day we
must sit down together and talk things over."
Samson wrote in his diary:
* * * * *
"On the way home my heart was sore. I prayed in silence that God would
forgive me for my bad example to the boy. I promised that I would not
again misuse the strength He has given me. In my old home I would have
been disgraced by it. The minister would have preached of the destruction
that follows the violent man to put him down; the people would have
looked askance at me. Deacon Somers would have called me aside to look
into my soul, and Judge Grandy and his wife would not have invited me to
their parties. Here it's different. A chap who can take the law in his
hands and bring the evil man to his senses, even if he has to hit him
over the head, is looked up to. That day a number of men and boys
increased my shame by following us to the wagon and wanting to shake
hands and feel of my muscles and paining my soul with praise. It's a
reckless country. You feel it as soon as you get here. In time, I fear,
I shall be as headlong as the rest of them. Some way the news of my act
has got here from Springfield. Sarah was kind of cut up. Jack Kelso has
nicknamed me 'The man with the iron arms,' and Abe, who is a better man
every way, laughs at my embarrassment and says I ought to feel honored.
For one thing Jack Armstrong has become a good citizen. His wife has
foxed a pair of breeches for Abe. They say McNoll has left the country.
There has been no deviltry here since that day. I guess the gang is
broken up--too much iron in its way."
* * * * *
Sarah enjoyed fixing up the cabin. Jack Kelso had given her some deer and
buffalo skins to lay on the floors. The upper room, reached by a stick
ladder, had its two beds, one of which Harry occupied. The children slept
below in a trundle bed that was pushed under the larger one when it was
made up in the morning.
"Some time I'm going to put in a windletrap and get rid o' that stick
ladder," Samson had said.
Sarah had all the arts of the New England home maker. Under her hand the
cabin, in color, atmosphere and general neatness, would have delighted a
higher taste than was to be found on the prairies, save in the brain of
Kelso who really had some acquaintance with beauty. To be sure the bed
was in one corner, spread with its upper cover knit of gray yarn
harmonizing in color with the bark of the log walls. A handsome dark
brown buffalo robe lay beside it. The rifle and powder horn were hung
above the mantel. The fireplace had its crane of wrought iron.
Every one in the little village came to the house warming.
"There is nothing in America so beautiful as 'this here kind o' thing'
when the firelight shines upon it," said Kelso who often indulged in the
vernacular of the real ladder climbers.
"Well, of course, it isn't like Boston or New York," Sarah answered.
"Thank God!" Kelso exclaimed. "New York hurts my feelings, so many of its
buildings are of grand design and small proportions. Mrs. Traylor, you
are lucky to have this beautiful island in an ocean of music. There is
music in the look and sound of these meadows--bird music, wind music,
the level music of Felician David's Desert. Perhaps you don't know about
that and really it doesn't matter. Traylor, tune up your fiddle."
Samson began to play, stopping often to give the hand of welcome to a
guest. The people of New Salem were in their best clothes. The women wore
dresses of new calico--save Mrs. Dr. Allen, who wore a black silk dress
which had come with her from her late home in Lexington. Bim Kelso came
in a dress of red muslin trimmed with white lace. Ann Rutledge also wore
a red dress and came with Abe. The latter was rather grotesque in his new
linsey trousers, of a better length than the former pair, but still too
short.
"It isn't fair to blame the trousers or the tailor," he had said when he
had tried them on. "My legs are so long that the imagination of the
tailor is sure to fall short if the cloth don't. Next time I'll have 'em
made to measure with a ten-foot pole instead of a yardstick. If they're
too long I can roll 'em up and let out a link or two when they shrink.
Ever since I was a boy I have been troubled with shrinking pants."
Abe wore a blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons, the tails of which
were so short as to be well above the danger of pressure when he sat
down. His cowhide shoes had been well blackened; the blue yarn of his
socks showed above them. "These darned socks of mine are rather proud and
conceited," he used to say. "They like to show off."
He wore a shirt of white, unbleached cotton, a starched collar and black
tie.
In speaking of his collar to Samson, he said that he felt like a wild
horse in a box stall.
Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster, was there--a smooth-faced man with a
large head, sandy hair and a small mustache, who spoke by note, as it
were. Kelso called him the great articulator and said that he walked in
the valley of the shadow of Lindley Murray. He seemed to keep a watchful
eye on his words, as if they were a lot of schoolboys not to be trusted.
They came out with a kind of self-conscious rectitude.
The children's games had begun and the little house rang with their songs
and laughter, while their elders sat by the fire and along the walls
talking. Ann Rutledge and Bim Kelso and Harry Needles and John McNeil
played with them. In one of the dances all joined in singing the verses:
I won't have none o' yer' weevily wheat,
I won't have none o' yer barley;
I won't have none o' yer' weevily wheat,
To make a cake for Charley.
Charley is a fine young man,
Charley is a dandy,
Charley likes to kiss the girls,
Whenever it comes handy.
When a victim was caught in the flying scrimmage at the end of a passage
in the game of Prisoners, he or she was brought before a blindfolded
judge:
"Heavy, heavy hangs over your head," said the Constable.
"Fine or superfine?" the judge inquired.
"Fine," said the Constable, which meant that the victim was a boy. Then
the sentence was pronounced and generally it was this:
"Go bow to the wittiest, kneel to the prettiest and kiss the one that you
love best."
Harry was the first prisoner. He went straight to Bim Kelso and bowed and
knelt, and when he had risen she turned and ran like a scared deer around
the chairs and the crowd of onlookers, some assisting and some checking
her flight, before the nimble youth. Hard pressed, she ran out of the
open door, with a merry laugh, and just beyond the steps Harry caught
and kissed her, and her cheeks had the color of roses when he led her
back.
John McNeil kissed Ann Rutledge that evening and was most attentive to
her, and the women were saying that the two had fallen in love with each
other.
"See how she looks at him," one of them whispered.
"Well, it's just the way he looks at her," the other answered.
At the first pause in the merriment Kelso stood on a chair, and then
silence fell upon the little company.
"My good neighbors," he began, "we are here to rejoice that new friends
have come to us and that a new home is born in our midst. We bid them
welcome. They are big boned, big hearted folks. No man has grown large
who has not at one time or another had his feet in the soil and felt its
magic power going up into his blood and bone and sinew. Here is a
wonderful soil and the inspiration of wide horizons; here are broad and
fertile fields. Where the corn grows high you can grow statesmen. It may
be that out of one of these little cabins a man will come to carry the
torch of Liberty and Justice so high that its light will shine into every
dark place. So let no one despise the cabin--humble as it is. Samson and
Sarah Traylor, I welcome and congratulate you. Whatever may come, you can
find no better friends than these, and of this you may be sure, no child
of the prairies will ever go about with a hand organ and a monkey. Our
friend, Honest Abe, is one of the few rich men in this neighborhood.
Among his assets are Kirkham's Grammar, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, the
Lives of Washington and Henry Clay, Hamlet's Soliloquy, Othello's
Speech to the Senate, Marc Antony's address and a part of Webster's reply
to Hayne. A man came along the other day and sold him a barrel of rubbish
for two bits. In it he found a volume of Blackstone's _Commentaries_. Old
Blackstone challenged him to a wrestle and Abe has grappled with him. I
reckon he'll take his measure as easily as he took Jack Armstrong's.
Lately he has got possession of a noble asset. It is the _Cotter's
Saturday Night_, by Robert Burns. I propose to ask him to let us share
his enjoyment of this treasure."
Abe, who had been sitting with his legs doubled beneath him on a buffalo
skin, between Joe and Betsey Traylor, rose and said:
"Mr. Kelso's remarks, especially the part which applied to me, remind me
of the story of the prosperous grocer of Joliet. One Saturday night he
and his boys were busy selling sausage. Suddenly in came a man with whom
he had quarreled and laid two dead cats on the counter.
"'There,' said he, 'this makes seven to-day. I'll call Monday and get my
money.'
"We were doing a good business here making fun. It seems a pity to ruin
it and throw suspicion on the quality of the goods by throwing a cat on
the counter. I'll only throw one cat. It is entitled:
MY SISTER SUE
"Say, boys, I guess 'at none o' you
Has ever seen my sister Sue,
She kin rassle an' turn han'springs kerflop,
But Jimmy Crimps!--ye should see her hop!
Yes, sir!
"She kin h'ist one foot an' go like Ned!
An' hop on top o' my mother's bed,
An' back an' round the house she'll go,
'Ith her ol' knee as limber as a hickory bow,
Yes, sir!
"She kin sing a hull song 'ithout ketchin' her breath,
An' make up a face 'at 'ud scare ye to death!
She kin wiggle her ears an' cross her eyes
An' stick out her tongue till yer hair 'ud rise.
Yes, sir!
"An' play wildcat on her han's an' knees,
Honest! 'T would give ye the gibberees!
An' she sneaks along an' jumps at you
An' gives sech a yell!--my sister Sue!
Yes, sir!
"She kin shoot off a gun an' set a trap,
An' if you don't behave she kin give you a slap
She kin holler and scream like a flock o' geese
An' stan' on her head an' speak a piece.
Yes, sir!
"She kin run cross legged an' ride a cow,
An' jump from the beam to the big hay mow.
I reckon yer hair 'ud stan' up to see 'er
A breakin' a colt er throwin' a steer,
Yes, sir!
"My sister Susan has got a beau.
When he comes she sets an' acts jes' so,
An' talks so proper--it's zac'ly jes
Like the flummididles on her dress,
Yes, sir!
"When she stan's in that darn ol' Sunday gown
Ye'd think a grasshopper could knock 'er down.
An' she laughs kind o' sick--like a kitten's mew--
Ye wouldn't think 'twas my sister Sue,
No, sir!
"An' she says: 'Oh, dear! those horrid boys!
They act so rough an' make sech a noise!'
Good gracious! ye wouldn't think 'at she
Could talk as loud as a bumble bee--
No, sirs
"Honest! Er lift a chip o' wood,
She acts so puny an' nice an' good!
'Boys are awful!' she says, 'till they're grown,
Er nelse they got to be yer own!'
Oh, gosh!"
This raised a storm of merriment, after which he recited the poem of
Burns, with keen appreciation of its quality. Samson repeatedly writes of
his gift for interpretation, especially of the comic, and now and then
lays particular stress on his power of mimicry.
John Cameron sang _The Sword of Bunker Hill_ and _Forty Years Ago, Tom_.
Samson played while the older people danced until midnight. Then, after
noisy farewells, men, women and children started in the moonlit road
toward the village. Ann Rutledge had Abe on one arm and John McNeil on
the other.