THE OLD BLACKSMITH'S SHOP AND THE MERRY STORY-TELLERS.
_JOHNNIE KONGAPOD'S INCREDIBLE STORY._
The country store, in most new settlements, is the resort of
story-tellers. It was not so here. There was a log blacksmith-shop by
the wayside near the Gentryville store, overspread by the cool boughs of
pleasant trees, and having a glowing forge and wide-open doors, which
was a favorite resort of the good-humored people of Spencer County, and
here anecdotes and stories used to be told which Abraham Lincoln in his
political life made famous. The merry pioneers little thought that their
rude stories would ever be told at great political meetings, to generals
and statesmen, and help to make clear practical thought to Legislatures,
senates, and councils of war. Abraham Lincoln claimed that he obtained
his education by learning all that he could of any one who could teach
him anything. In all the curious stories told in his hearing in this
quaint Indiana smithy, he read some lesson of life.
The old blacksmith was a natural story-teller. Young Lincoln liked to
warm himself by the forge in winter and sun himself in the open door in
summer, and tempt this sinewy man to talk. The smithy was a common
resort of Thomas Lincoln, and of John and Dennis Hanks, who belonged to
the family of Abraham's mother. The schoolmaster must have liked the
place, and the traveling ministers tarried long there when they brought
their horses to be shod. In fact, the news-stand of that day, the
literary club, the lecture platform, the place of amusement, and
everything that stirred associated life, found its common center in this
rude old smithy by the wayside, amid the running brooks and fanning
trees.
The stories told here were the curious incidents and adventures of
pioneer life, rude in fact and rough in language, but having pith and
point.
Thomas Lincoln, on the afternoon of the next day, said to Jasper:
"Come, preacher, let's go over to the smithy. I want ye to see the
blacksmith. We all like to see the blacksmith in these parts; he's an
uncommon man."
They went to the smithy. Abraham followed them. The forge was low, and
the blacksmith was hammering over old nails on the anvil.
"Hello!" said Thomas Lincoln; "not doin' much to-day. I brought the
preacher over to call on you--he's a Tunker--has been to see the
school--he teaches himself--thought you'd want to know him."
"Glad you come. Here, sit down in the leather chair, and make yourself
at home. Been long in these new parts?"
"No, my friend; I have been to Illinois, but I have never been here
before. I am glad to see you."
[Illustration: STORY-TELLING AT THE SMITHY.]
"What do you think of the country?" said the blacksmith. "Think it is a
good place to settle in? Hope that you have come to cast your lot with
us. We need a preacher; we haven't any goodness to spare. You come from
foreign parts, I take it. Well, well, there's room for a world of people
out here in the woods and prairies. I hope that you will like it, and
get your folks to come. We'll do all we can for you. We be men of good
will, if we be hard-looking and poor."
"My good friend, I believe you. You are great-hearted men, and I like
you."
"Brainy, too. Let me start up the forge."
"Preacher, come here," said Thomas Lincoln. "I haven't had no edication
to speak of, but I've invented a new system of book-keepin' that beats
the schools. There's one of them there. The blacksmith keeps all of his
accounts by it. I've got one on a puncheon at home; did you notice it?
This is how it is; you may want to use it yourself. Come and look at
it."
On a rough board over the forge Thomas Lincoln had drawn a number of
straight lines with a coal, as are sometimes put on a blackboard by a
singing-master. On the lower bars were several cloudy erasures, and at
the end of these bars were initials.
"Don't understand it, do you? Well, now, it is perfectly simple. I
taught it to Aunt Olive, and she don't know more than some whole
families, though she thinks that she knows more than the whole creation.
Seen such people, hain't ye? Yes. The woods are full of 'em. Well, that
ain't neither here nor there. This is how it works: A man comes here to
have his horse shod--minister, may be; short, don't pay. Nothin' to pay
with but funeral sermons, and you can't collect them all the time. Well,
all you have to do is just to draw your finger across one of them lines,
and write his initials after it. And when he comes again, rub out
another place on the same lines."
"And when you have rubbed out all the places you could along that line,
how much would you be worth?" said the blacksmith.
"I call that a new way of keeping accounts," continued Thomas Lincoln,
earnestly. "Did you ever see anything of the kind before? No. It's a new
and original way. We do a great lot o' thinkin' down here in
winter-time, when we haven't much else to do. I'm goin' to put one o'
them new systems into the mill."
The meetings of the pioneers at the blacksmith's shop formed a kind of
merry-go-round club. One would tell a story in his own odd way, and
another would say, "That reminds me," and tell a similar story that was
intended to exceed the first in point of humor. One of Thomas Lincoln's
favorite stories was "GL-UK!" or, as he sometimes termed it--
"_HOW ABRAHAM WENT TO MILL._
"It was a mighty curi's happenin'," he would say. "I don't know how to
account for it--the human mind is a very strange thing. We go to sleep
and are lost to the world entirely, and we wake up again. We die, and
leave our bodies, and the soul-memory wakes again; if it have the new
life and sense, it wakes again somewhere. We're curi's critters, all on
us, and don't know what we are.
"When I first came to Indiana I made a mill of my own--Abe and I did.
'Twas just a big stone attached to a heavy pole like a well-sweep, so as
to pound heavy, up and down, up and down. You can see it now, though it
is all out of gear and kilter.
"Then, they built a mill 'way down on the river, and I used to send Abe
there on horseback. Took him all day to go and come: used to start early
in the mornin', and, as he had to wait his turn at the mill, he didn't
use to get back until sundown. Then came Gordon and built his mill
almost right here among us--a horse-mill with a windlass, all mighty
handy: just hitch the horse to a windlass and pole, and he goes round
and round, and never gets nowhere, but he grinds the corn and wheat.
Something like me: I go round and round, and never seem to get anywhere,
but something will come of it, you may depend.
"Well, one day I says to Abraham:
"You must hitch up the horse and go to Gordon's to mill. The meal-tub is
low, and there's a storm a-brewin'.'
"So Abe hitched up the horse and started. That horse is a mighty steady
animal--goes around just like a machine; hasn't any capers nor
antics--just as sober as a minister. I should have no more thought of
his kickin' than I should have thought of the millstones a-hoppin' out
of the hopper. 'Twas a mighty curi's affair.
"Well, Abe went to Gordon's, and his turn come to grind. He hitched the
horse to the pole, and said, as always, 'Get up, you old jade!' I always
say that, so Abe does. He didn't mean any disrespect to the horse, who
always maintained a very respectable-like character up to that day.
"The horse went round and round, round and round, just as steady as
clock-work, until the grist was nearly out, and the sound of the
grindin' was low, when he began to lag, sleepy-like. Abe he run up
behind him, and said, 'Get up, you old jade!' then puckered up his
mouth, so, to say 'Gluck.' 'Tis a word I taught him to use. Every one
has his own horse-talk.
"He waved his stick, and said 'Gl--'
"Was the horse bewildered? He never did such a thing before. In an
instant, like a thunder-clap when the sun was shinin', he h'isted up his
heels and kicked Abraham in the head, and knocked him over on the
ground, and then stopped as though to think on what he had done.
"The mill-hands ran to Abraham. There the boy lay stretched out on the
ground just as though he was dead. They thought he was dead. They got
some water, and worked over him a spell. They could see that he
breathed, but they thought that every breath would be his last.
"'He's done for this world,' said Gordon. 'He'll never come to his
senses again. Thomas Lincoln would be proper sorry.' And so I should
have been had Abraham died. Sometimes I think like it was the Evil One
that possessed that horse. It don't seem to me that he'd 'a' ever ha'
kicked Abe of his own self--right in the head, too. You can see the scar
on him now.
"Well, almost an hour passed, when Abe came to himself--consciousness
they call it--all at once, in an instant. And what do you think was the
first thing he said? Just this--'uk!'
"He finished the word just where he left it when the horse kicked him,
and looked around wild-like, and there was the critter standin' still as
the mill-stun.' Now, where do you think the soul of Abe was between
'Gl--' and 'uk'? I'd like to have ye tell me that."
A long discussion would follow such a question. Abraham Lincoln himself
once discussed the same curious incident with his law-partner Herndon,
and made it a subject of the continuance of mental consciousness after
death.
It was a warm afternoon. A dark cloud hung in the northern sky, and grew
slowly over the arch of serene and sunny blue.
"Goin' to have a storm," said the blacksmith. "Shouldn't wonder if it
were a tempest. We generally get a tempest about this time of year, when
winter finally breaks up into spring. Well, I declare! there comes
Johnnie Kongapod, the Kickapoo Indian from Illinois--he and his dogs."
A tall Indian was seen coming toward the smithy, followed by two dogs.
The men watched him as he approached. He was a kind of chief, and had
accepted the teachings of the early missionaries. He used to wander
about among the new settlements, and was very proud of himself and his
own tribe and race. He had an honest heart. He once composed an epitaph
for himself, which was well meant but read oddly, and which Abraham
Lincoln sometimes used to quote in his professional career:
"Here lies poor Johnnie Kongapod,
Have mercy on him, gracious God,
As he would do if he was God,
And you were Johnnie Kongapod."
The Indian sat down on the log sill of the blacksmith's shop, and
watched the gathering cloud as it slowly shut out the sky.
"Storm," said he. "Lay down, Jack; lay down, Jim."
Jack and Jim were his two dogs. They eyed the flaming forge. One of them
seemed tired, and lay down beside his master, but the other made himself
troublesome.
"That reminds me," said Dennis Hanks; and he related a curious story of
a troublesome dog, perhaps the one which in its evolutions became known
as "SYKES'S DOG," though this may be a later New Salem story. It was an
odd and a coarse bit of humor. Lincoln himself is represented as telling
this, or a like story, to General Grant after the Vicksburg campaign,
something as follows:
"'Your enemies were constantly coming to me with their criticisms while
the siege was in progress, and they did not cease their ill opinions
after the city fell. I thought that the time had come to put an end to
this kind of criticism, so one day, when a delegation called to see me
and had spent a half-hour, and tried to show me the great mistake that
you had made in paroling Pemberton's army, I thought I could get rid of
them best by telling the story of Sykes's dog.
"'Have you ever heard the story of Sykes's dog?' I said to the spokesman
of the delegation.
"'No.'
"'Well, I must tell it to you. Sykes had a yellow dog that he set great
store by; but there were a lot of _small boys_ around the village, and
the dog became very unpopular among them. His eye was so keen on his
master's interests that there arose prejudice against him. The boys
counseled how to get rid of him. They finally fixed up a cartridge with
a long fuse, and put the cartridge in a piece of meat, and then sat down
on a fence and called the dog, one of them holding the fuse in his
hand. The dog swallowed the meat, cartridge and all, and stood choking,
when one of them touched off the fuse. There was a loud report. Sykes
came out of the house, and found the ground was strewed with pieces of
the dog. He picked up the biggest piece that he could find--a portion of
the back with the tail still hanging to it--and said:
"'Well, I guess that will never be of much account again--_as a
dog_.'--'I guess that Pemberton's forces will never amount to much
again--as an army.' By this time the delegation were looking for their
hats."
Like stories followed among the merry foresters. One of them told
another "That reminds me"--how that two boys had been pursued by a small
but vicious dog, and one of them had caught and held him by the tail
while the other ran up a tree. At last the boy who was holding the dog
became tired and knew not what to do, and cried out:
"Jim!"
"What say?"
"Come down."
"What for?"
"To help me let go of the dog."
This story, also, whatever may have been the date of it, President
Lincoln used to tell amid the perplexities of the war. In the darkest
times of his life at the White House his mind used to return for
illustration to the stories told at this backwoods smithy, and at the
country stores that he afterward came to visit at Gentryville, Indiana,
and New Salem, Illinois.
He delighted in the blacksmith's own stories and jokes. The man's name
was John Baldwin. He was the Homer of Gentryville, as the village
portion of this vast unsettled portion of country was called. Dennis
Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's cousin, who frequented the smithy, was also a
natural story-teller. The stories which had their origin here evolved
and grew, and became known in all the rude cabins. Then, when Abraham
Lincoln became President, his mind went back to the quaint smithy in the
cool, free woods, and to the country stores, and he told these stories
all over again. It seemed restful to his mind to wander back to old
Indiana and Illinois.
The cloud grew. The air darkened. There was an occasional rustle of wind
in the tree-tops.
"It's comin'," said the blacksmith. "Now, Johnnie Kongapod, you tell us
the story. Tell us how Aunt Olive frightened ye when you went to pilot
her off to the camp-meetin'."
"No," said Johnnie Kongapod. "It thunders. You must get Aunt Olive to
tell you that story."
"When you come to meet her," said the blacksmith to Jasper. "Kongapod
would tell it to you, but he's afraid of the cloud. No wonder."
A vivid flash of lightning forked the sky. There followed an appalling
crash of thunder, a light wind, a few drops of rain, a darker air, and
all was still. The men looked out as the cloud passed over.
"You will have to stay here now," said the blacksmith, "until the cloud
has passed. Our stories may seem rather rough to you, edicated as you
are over the sea. Tell us a story--a German story. Let me put the old
leather chair up here before the fire. If you will tell us one of those
German stories, may be I'll tell you how Johnnie Kongapod here and Aunt
Olive went to the camp-meetin', and what happened to them on the way."
There was a long silence on the dark air. The blacksmith enlivened the
fire, which lit up the shop. Jasper sat down in the leather chair, and
said:
"Those Indian dogs remind me of scenes and stories unlike anything here.
The life of the dog has its lesson true, and there is nothing truer in
this world than the heart of a shepherd's dog. I am a shepherd's dog. I
am speaking in parable; you will understand me better by and by.
"Let me tell you the story of 'THE SHEPHERD DOG,' and the story will
also tell a story, as do all stories that have a soul; and it is only
stories that have souls that live. The true story gathers a soul from
the one who tells it, else it is no story at all.
"There once lived on the borders of the Black Forest, Germany, an old
couple who were very poor. Their name was Gragstein. The old man kept a
shepherd dog that had been faithful to him for many years, and that
loved him more than it did its own life, and he came to call him
Faithful.
"One day, as the old couple were seated by the fire, Frau Gragstein
said:
"'Hear the wind blow! There is a hard winter comin', and we have less in
our crib than we ever had before. We must live snugger than ever. We
shall hardly have enough to keep us two. It will be a long time before
the birds sing again. You must be more savin', and begin now. Hear the
wind howl. It is a warning.'
"'What would you have me do?' asked Gragstein.
"'There are three of us, and we have hardly store for two.'
"'But what would you have me do with _him_? He is old, and I could not
sell him, or give him away.'
"'Then I would take him away into the forest and shoot him, and run and
leave him. I know it is hard, but the pinch of poverty is hard, and it
has come.'
"'Shoot Faithful! Shoot old Faithful! Take him out into the forest and
shoot him! Why, a man's last friends are his God, his mother, and his
dog. Would you have me shoot old Faithful? How could I?'
"At the words 'Shoot old Faithful,' the great dog had started up as
though he understood. He bent his large eyes on the old woman and
whined, then wheeled around once and sank down at his master's feet.
"'He acts as though he understood what you were saying.'
"'No, he don't,' said the old woman. 'You set too much store by the dog,
and imagine such things. He's too old to ever be of service to us any
more, and he eats a deal. The storm will be over by morning. Hear the
showers of the leaves! The fall wind is rending the forest. 'Tis seventy
falls that we have seen, and we will not see many more. We must live
while we do live, and the dog must be put out of the way. You must take
Faithful out into the forest in the morning and kill him.'
"The dog started up again. 'Take Faithful and kill him!' He seemed to
comprehend. He looked into his master's face and gave a piteous howl,
and went to the door and pawed.
"'Let him go out,' said the old woman. 'What possesses him to go out
to-night into the storm? But let him go, and then I can talk easier
about the matter. Did you see his eyes--as if he knew? He haunts me! Let
him go out.'
"The old man opened the door, and the dog disappeared in the darkness,
uttering another piteous howl.
"Then the old couple sat down and talked over the matter, and Gragstein
promised his wife that he would shoot the dog in the morning.
"'It is hard,' said the old woman, 'but Providence wills it, and we
must.'
"The wind lulled, and there was heard a wild, pitiful howl far away in
the forest.
"'What is that?' asked the old woman, starting.
"'It was Faithful.'
"'So far away!'
"'The poor dog acted strange. There it is again, farther away.'
"The morning came, but the dog did not return. He had never stayed away
from the old hut before. The next day he did not come, nor the next. The
old couple missed him, and the old man bitterly reproached his wife for
what she had advised him to do.
"Winter came, with pitiless storms and cold, and the old man would go
forth to hunt alone, wishing Faithful was with him.
"'It is not safe for me to go alone,' said he. 'I wish that the dog
would come back.'
"'He will never come back,' said the old woman. 'He is dead. I can hear
him howl nights, far away on the hill. He haunts me. Every night, when I
put out the light, I can hear him howl out in the forest. 'Tis my
tender heart that troubles me. 'Tis a troubled conscience that makes
ghosts.'
"The old man tottered away with his gun. It was a cold morning after a
snow. The old woman watched him from the frosty window as he
disappeared, and muttered:
"'It is hard to be old and poor. God pity us all!'
"Night came, but the old man did not return. The old woman was in great
distress, and knew not what to do. She set the candle in the window, and
went to the door and called a hundred times, and listened, but no answer
came. The silent stars filled the sky, and the moon rose over the snow,
but no answer came.
"The next morning she alarmed the neighbors, and a company gathered to
search for Gragstein. The men followed his tracks into the forests, over
a cliff, and down to a stream of running water. They came to some thin
ice, which had been weakened by the rush of the current, and there the
tracks were lost.
"'He attempted to cross,' said one, 'and fell in. We will find his body
in the spring. I pity his poor old wife. What shall we tell her?--What
was that?'
"There was heard a pitiful howl on the other side of the stream.
"'Look!' said another.
"Just across the stream a great, lean shepherd dog came out of the snow
tents of firs. His voice was weak, but he howled pitifully, as though
calling the men.
"'We must cross the stream!' said they all.
"The men made a bridge by pushing logs and fallen trees across the ice.
The dog met them joyfully, and they followed him.
"Under the tents of firs they found Gragstein, ready to perish with cold
and hunger.
"'Take me home!' said he. 'I can not last long. Take me home, and call
home the dog!'
"'What has happened?' asked the men.
"'I fell in. I called for help, and--the dog came--Faithful. He rescued
me, but I was numb. He lay down on me and warmed me, and kept me alive.
Faithful! Call home the dog!'
"The men took up the old man and rubbed him, and gave him food. Then
they called the dog and gave him food, but he would not eat.
"They returned as fast as they could to the cottage. Frau Gragstein came
out to meet them. The dog saw her and stopped and howled, dived into the
forest, and disappeared.
"The old man died that night. They buried him in a few days. The old
woman was left all alone. The night after the funeral, when she put out
the light, she thought that she heard a feeble howl in the still air,
and stopped and listened. But she never heard that sound again. The next
morning she opened the door and looked out. There, under a bench where
his master had often caressed him in the summer evenings of many years,
lay the body of old Faithful, dead. He had never ceased to watch the
house, and had died true. 'Tis the best thing that we can say of any
living creature, man or dog, he was true-hearted.
"Remember the story. It will make you better. The storm is clearing."
The cloud had passed over, leaving behind the blue sky of spring.
"That was an awful good dog to have," said John Hanks. "There are human
folks wouldn't 'a' done like that."
"I wouldn't," said one of the men. "But here, I declare, comes the old
woman. Been out neighborin', and got caught in the storm, and gone back
to Pigeon Creek. We won't have to tell that there story about her and
the wig, and Johnnie Kongapod here. She'll tell it to you herself,
elder--she'll tell it to you herself. She's a master-hand to go to
meetin', and sing, and tell stories, she is.--Here, elder--this is Aunt
Olive."
The same woman that Jasper had met on his way to Pigeon Creek came into
the blacksmith's shop, and held her hands over the warm fire.
"Proper smart rain--spring tempest," said she. "Winter has broke, and we
shall have steady weather.--Found your way, elder, didn't you? Well, I'm
glad. It's a mighty poor sign for an elder to lose his way. You took my
advice, didn't you?--turned to the right and kept straight ahead, and
you got there. Well, that's what I tell 'em in conference-meetin's--turn
to the right and keep straight ahead, and they'll get there; and then I
sing out, and shout, 'I'm bound for the kingdom!' Come over and see me,
elder. I'm good to everybody except lazy people.--Abraham Lincoln, what
are you lazing around here for?--And Johnnie Kongapod! This ain't any
place for men in the spring of the year! I've been neighborin'. I have
to do it just to see if folks are doin' as they oughter. There are a
great many people who don't do as they oughter in this world. Now I am
goin' straight home between the drops."
The woman hurried away and disappeared under the trees.
The cloud broke in two dark, billowy masses, and red sunset, like a sea,
spread over the prairie, the light heightening amid glimmerings of
pearly rain.
Jasper went back to Pigeon Creek with Abraham.
"Isn't that woman a little queer?" he asked--"a little touched in mind,
may be?"
"She does not like me," said the boy; "though most people like me. I
seem to have a bent for study, and father thinks that the time I spend
in study is wasted, and Aunt Olive calls me lazy, and so do the
Crawfords--I don't mean the master. Most people like me, but there are
some here that don't think much of me. I am not lazy. I long for
learning! I will have it. I learn everything I can from every one, and I
do all I can for every one. She calls me lazy, though I have been good
to her. They say I am a lively boy, and I like to be thought well of
here, and when I hear such things as that it makes me feel down in the
mouth. Do you ever feel down in the mouth? I do. I wonder what will
become of me? Whatever happens, or folks may say, elder, I mean to make
the best of life, and be true to the best that is in me. Something will
come of it. Don't you think so, elder?"
They came to Thomas Lincoln's cabin, and the serene face of Mrs. Lincoln
met them at the door. A beautiful evening followed the tempest gust, and
the Lincolns and the old Tunker sat down to a humble meal.
The mild spring evening that followed drew together another group of
people to the lowly home of Thomas Lincoln. Among them came Aunt Olive,
whose missionary work among her neighbors was as untiring as her tongue.
And last among the callers there came stealing into the light of the
pine fire, like a shadow, the tall, brown form of Johnnie Kongapod, or
Konapod.
The pioneer story-telling here began again, and ended in an episode that
left a strange, mysterious impression, like a prophecy, on nearly every
mind.
"Let me tell you the story of my courtship," said Thomas Lincoln.
"Thomas!" said a mild, firm voice.
"Oh, don't speak in that tone to me," said the backwoodsman to his wife,
who had sought to check him.--"Sally don't like to hear that story,
though I do think it is to her credit, if simple honesty is a thing to
be respected. Sally is an honest woman. I don't believe that there is an
honester creatur' in all these parts, unless it was that Injun that
Johnnie Kongapod tells about."
A loud laugh arose, and the dusky figure of Johnnie Kongapod retreated
silently back into a deep shadow near the open door. His feelings had
been wounded. Young Abraham Lincoln saw the Indian's movement, and he
went out and stood in the shadow in silent sympathy.
"Well, good folks, Sally and I used to know each other before I removed
from Kentuck' to Indiany. After my first wife died of the milk-fever I
was lonesome-like with two young children, and about as poor as I was
lonesome, although I did have a little beforehand. Well, Sally was a
widder, and used to imagine that she must be lonesome, too; and I
thought at last, after that there view of the case had haunted me, that
I would just go up to Kentucky and see. Souls kind o' draw each other a
long way apart; it goes in the air. So I hitched up and went, and I
found Sally at home, and all alone.
"'Sally,' said I, 'do you remember me?'
"'Yes,' said she, 'I remember you well. You are Tommy Linken. What has
brought you back to Kentuck'?'
"'Well, Sally,' said I, 'my wife is dead.'
"'Is that so,' said she, all attention.
"'Yes; wife died more than a year ago, and a good wife she was; and I've
just come back to look for another.'
"She sat like a statue, Sally did, and never spoke a word. So I said:
"'Do you like me, Sally Johnson?'
"'Yes, Tommy Linken.'
"'You do?'
"'Yes, Tommy Linken, I like you well enough to marry you, but I could
never think of such a thing--at least not now.'
"'Why?'
"'Because I'm in debt, and I would never ask a man who had offered to
marry me to pay my debts.'
"'Let me hear all about it,' said I.
"She brought me her account-book from the cupboard. Well, good folks,
how much do you suppose Sally owed? Twelve dollars! It was a heap of
money for a woman to owe in those days.
"Well, I put that account-book straight into my pocket and _run_. When
I came back, all of her debts were paid. I told her so.
"'Will you marry me now?' said I.
"'Yes,' said she.
"And, good folks all, the next morning at nine o'clock we were married,
and we packed up all her things and started on our weddin' tour to
Indiany, and here we be now. Now that is what I call an honest
woman.--Johnnie Kongapod, can you beat that? Come, now, Johnnie
Kongapod."
The Indian still stood in the shadow, with young Abraham beside him. He
did not answer.
"Johnnie is great on telling stories of good Injuns," said Mr. Lincoln,
"and we think that kind o' Injuns have about all gone up to the moonlit
huntin'-grounds."
The tall form of the Indian moved into the light of the doorway. His
eyes gleamed.
"Thomas Linken, that story that I told you was true."
"What! that an Injun up to Prairie du Chien was condemned to die, and
that he asked to go home and see his family all alone, and promised to
return on his honor?"
"Yes, Thomas Linken."
"And that they let him go home all alone, and that he spent his night
with his family in weepin' and wailin', and returned the next mornin' to
be shot?"
"Yes, Thomas Linken."
"And that they shot him?"
"Yes, Thomas Linken."
"Well, Johnnie, if I could believe that, I could believe anything."
"An Injun has honor as well as a white man, Thomas Linken."
"Who taught it to him?"
"His own heart--_here_. The Great Spirit's voice is in every man's
heart; his will is born in all men; his love and care are over us all.
You may laugh at my poetry, but the Great Spirit will do by Johnnie
Kongapod as he would have Johnnie Kongapod do by him if Johnnie Kongapod
held the heavens. That story was true, and I know it to be true, and the
Great Spirit knows it to be true. Johnnie Kongapod is an honest Injun."
"Then we have two honest folks here," said Aunt Olive. "Three,
mebby--only Tom Linken owes me a dollar and a half. So, Jasper, you see
that you have come to good parts. You'll see some strange things in your
travels, way off to Rock River. Likely you'll see the Pictured Rocks on
the Mississippi--dragons there. Who painted 'em? Or Starved Rock on the
Illinois, where a whole tribe died with the water sparklin' under their
eyes. But if you ever come across any of the family of that Indian that
went home on his honor all alone to see his family, and came back to be
shot or hung, you just let us know. I'd like to adopt one of his boys.
That would be something to begin a Sunday-school with!"
The company burst into another loud laugh.
Johnnie Kongapod raised his long arm and stood silent. Aunt Olive
stepped before him and looked him in the face. The Indian's red face
glowed, and he said vehemently: "Woman, that story is true!"
Sally Lincoln arose and rested her hand on the Indian's shoulder.
"Johnny Kongapod, I can believe you--Abraham can."
There was a deep silence in the cabin, broken only by Aunt Olive, who
arose indignantly and hurried away, and flung back on the mild air the
sharp words "_I_ don't!"
The story of the Indian who held honor to be more than life, as related
by Johnnie Kongapod, had often been told by the Indians at their
camp-fires, and by traveling preachers and missionaries who had faith in
Indian character. Among those settlers who held all Indians to be bad it
was treated as a joke. Old Jasper asked Johnnie Kongapod many questions
about it, and at last laid his hand on the dusky poet's shoulder, and
said:
"My brother, I hope that it is true. I believe it, and I honor you for
believing it. It is a good heart that believes what is best in life."
How strange all this new life seemed to Jasper! How unlike the old
castles and cottages of Germany, and the cities of the Rhine! And yet,
for the tall boy by that cabin fire new America had an opportunity that
Germany could offer to no peasant's son. Jasper little thought that that
boy, so lively, so rude, so anxious to succeed, was an uncrowned king;
yet so it was.
And the legend? A true story has a soul, and a peculiar atmosphere and
influence. Jasper saw what the Indian's story was, though he had heard
it only indirectly and in outline. It haunted him. He carried it with
him into his dreams.
[Illustration: THE HOME OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN WHEN IN HIS TENTH YEAR.]