THE FOREST COLLEGE.
"Well, how time flies, and the clock of the year does go round! Here's
the elder again! It's a bright day that brings ye here, though I
shouldn't let ye sleep in the prophet's chamber, if I had one, 'cause ye
ain't any prophet at all. But ye are right welcome just the same. Where
is yer Indian boy?"
"He's gone to his own people, Aunt Olive."
"To whet his tommyhawk, I make no doubt. Oh, elder, how ye have been
deceived in people! Ye believe that every one is as good as one can be,
or can be grafted to bear sweet fruit, but, hoe-down-hoe, elder, 'taint
so. Yer Aunt Indiana knows how desperately wicked is the human heart. If
ye don't do others, others will do ye, and this world is a warfare. Come
in; I've got somethin' new to tell ye. It's about the Linkens' Abe."
The Tunker entered the cheerful cabin in the sunny clearing of the
timber.
"I've been savin' up the news to tell ye when ye came. Abe's been to
war!"
"He has not been hurt, has he?"
"_Hurt!_ No, he hasn't been hurt. A great Indian fighter he proved! The
men were all laughin' about it. He'll live to fight another day, as the
sayin' goes, and so will the enemy. Well, I always thought that there
was no need of killin' people. Let them alone, and they will all die
themselves; and as for the enemy, let them alone, and they will come
home waggin' their tails behind them, as the ditty says. Well, I must
tell ye. Abe's been to war. He didn't see the enemy, nor fight, nor
nothin'. But a wild Indian came right into his camp, and the soldiers
started up to kill him, and what do ye suppose Abe did?"
"I think he did what he thought to be right."
"He let him go! There! what do you think of that? He just went to
fightin' his own company to save the Indian. There's a warrior for ye!
And that wasn't all. He talked in such a way that he frightened his own
men, and he just gave the Indian some bread and cheese, and let him off.
And the Indian went off blessin' him. Abe will never make a soldier or
handle armies much, after all yer prophecies. Such a soldier as that
ought to be rewarded a pinfeather."
"His conduct was after the Galilean teaching--was it not?--and produced
the result of making the Indian a friend. Was not that a good thing to
do? Who was the Indian?"
"It was old Main-Pogue. He was uncle, or somethin', to that boy who used
to travel about with you, teachin' you the language--Waubeno; the old
interpreter for General Cass's men. He'll go off and tell Waubeno. I
wonder if Main-Pogue knew who it was that saved him, and if he will tell
Waubeno that?"
"Lincoln did a noble act."
"Oh, elder, ye've got a good heart, but ye're weak in yer upper story.
That ain't all I've got to tell ye. Abe has failed, after all yer
prophecies, too. He and another man went to keepin' store up in New
Salem, and he let his partner cheat him, and they _failed_; and now he's
just workin' to pay up his debts, and his partner's too."
"And his partner's too? That shows that he saved an honest purpose out
of losses. The greatest of all losses is a loss of integrity of purpose.
I'm glad to hear that he has not lost that."
"Oh, elder, ye've allus somethin' good to say of that boy. But I'm not
agin him. He's Tom Linken's son, just as I told ye; and he'll never come
to anythin' good. He all runs to books and gabble, and goes 'round
repeatin' poetry, which is only the lies of crazy folks. I haven't any
use for poetry, except hymns. But he's had real trouble of late, besides
these things, and I'm sorry for that. He's lost the girl what he was
goin' to marry. She was a beautiful girl, and her death made him so
downhearted that they had to shut him up and watch him to keep him from
committin' suicide. They say that he has very melancholy spells. He
can't help that, I don't suppose. His mother what sleeps over yonder
under the timber was melancholy. How are all the schools that you set to
goin' on the Wabash?"
"They are all growing, good woman, and it fills my heart with delight to
see them grow. They are all growing like gardens for the good of this
great country. It does my heart good, and makes my soul happy, to start
these Christian schools. It's my mission. And I try to start them
right--character first, true views of things next, and books last; but
the teaching of young children to think and act right spiritually is the
highest education of all. This is best done by telling stories, and so I
travel and travel telling stories to schools. You do not see my plan,
but it is the true seed that I am planting, and it will bear fruit when
I am gone to a better world than this."
"Oh, ye mean well," said Aunt Olive, "but ye don't know more than some
whole families--pardon my plainness of speech. I don't doubt that ye are
doin' some good, after a fashion; but don't prophesy--yer prophecies in
regard to Abe have failed already. He'll never command the American
army, nor run the nation, nor keep store. Yer Aunt Indiana can read
character, and her prophecies have proved true so far."
"Wait--time tells the whole truth; and worth is worth, and passes for
the true gold of life in time."
"Ye don't think that there's any chance for him yet, do ye, elder, after
lettin' the Indian go, and failin', and havin' that melancholy spell?"
"Yes, I do. My spiritual sense tells me so."
"Yer spiritual sense! Elder, ye ought to go to school. Ye are nothin'
but a child yerself. And let me advise ye never to have anythin' more to
do with that there Indian boy. Fishes don't swim on rocks, nor hawks go
to live in a cage. An Indian is an Indian, and, mark my words, that boy
will have yer scalp some day. He will, now--he will. I saw it in his
eye."
The Tunker journeyed toward the new town of Springfield, Illinois, along
the fragrant timber and over the blooming prairies. Everywhere were to
be seen the white prairie schooner and the little village of people that
followed it.
Springfield was but a promising village at this time, in a very fertile
land. Probably no one ever thought that it would become a capital city
of an empire of population, the hub of that great wheel of destiny
rimmed by the Wabash, the Mississippi, Rock River, and the Lake; and
still less did any one ever dream that it would be the legislative
influence of that tall, laughing, sad-faced boy, Lincoln, who would
produce this result.
Jasper preached at Springfield, and visited the log school-house, and
told stories to the little school. He then started to walk to New Salem,
a distance of some eighteen or twenty miles.
It was a pleasant country, and all things seemed teeming with life, for
it was now the high tide of the year. The prairies were billows of
flowers, and the timber was shady and cool, carpeted with mosses,
tangled with vines, with its tops bright with sunshine and happy with
the songs of birds.
About half-way between the two towns Jasper saw some lofty trees, giants
of the forest, that spread out their branches like roofs of some ancient
temple. There were birds' nests made of sticks in their tops, and a cool
stream ran under them. He sought the place for rest.
As he entered the great shadow, he saw a tall young man seated on a log,
absorbed in reading a book. He approached him, and recognized him as
young Lincoln.
"I am glad to meet you here, in this beautiful place," he said.
"This is my college," said Lincoln.
"What are you studying, my friend?"
"Oh, I am trying my hand at law a little. Stuart, the Springfield
lawyer, lends me his law-books, and I walk over there from New Salem to
get them, and when I get as far back as this I sit down on this log and
study. I can study when I am walking. I once mastered forty pages of
Blackstone in a walk. But I love to stop and study on this log. It is
rather a long walk from New Salem to Springfield--almost twenty
miles--and when I get as far back as this I feel tired. These trees are
so grand that they look like a house of Nature, and I call them my
college. I can't have the privileges of better-off young men, who can go
to Philadelphia, New York, or Boston to study law, and so I do the best
I can here. I get discouraged sometimes, but I believe that right is
might, and do my best, and there is something that is leading me on."
"I am glad to find you here, Abraham Lincoln. I love you in my heart,
and I wish that I might help you in your studies. But I have never
studied law."
"But you do help me."
"How?"
"By your faith in me. Elder, I have been having a hard row to hoe, and
am an unlucky fellow. Have been keeping a grocery, and we have
failed--failed right at the beginning of life. It hurt my pride, but,
elder, it has not hurt my honor. I've worked and paid up all my debts,
and now I am going to pay _his_. I might make excuses for not paying his
part of the debts, but, elder, it would not leave my name clear. I must
live conscience free. People call me a fool, but they trust me. They
have made me postmaster at New Salem, though that ain't much of an
office. The mail comes only once a week, and I carry it in my hat.
They'll need a new post-office by and by."
"My friend, you are giving yourself a moral self-education that has more
worth than all the advantages of wealth or a famous name or the schools
of Boston. The time will come when this growing people will need such a
man as you to lead them, and you will lead them more grandly than others
who have had an easier school. You have learned the first principles of
true education--it is, the habit that can not do wrong without feeling
the flames of torment within. Every sacrifice that you have made to your
conscience has given you power. That power is a godlike thing. You will
see all one day, as I do now."
"Elder, they call me a merry-maker, but I carry with me a sad heart. I
wish to tell you, for I feel that you are my true friend. I loved Ann
Rutledge. She was the daughter of James Rutledge, the founder of our
village and the owner of the mill on the Sangamon. She was a girl of a
loving heart, gentle blood, and her face was lovely. You saw her at the
tavern. I loved her--I loved her very name; and she is dead. It has all
happened since you were here, and I have wished to meet you again and
tell you all. Such things as these make me melancholy. A great darkness
comes down upon me at times, and I am tempted to end all the bright
dream that we call life. But I rise above the temptation. Elder, you
don't know how my heart has had to struggle. I sometimes think of my
poor mother's grave in the timber in Indiana, and I always think of
_her_ grave--Ann Rutledge's--and then it comes over me like a cloud,
that there is no place for me in the world. Do you want to know what I
do in those hours, elder? I repeat a long poem. I have said it over a
hundred times. It was written by some poet who felt as I do. I would
like to repeat it to you, elder. I tell stories--they only make me more
melancholy--but this poem soothes my mind. It makes me feel that other
men have suffered before, and it makes me willing to suffer for others,
and to accept my lot in life, whatever it may be."
"I wish to hear the poem that has so moved you," said the Tunker.
Abraham Lincoln stood up and leaned against the trunk of one of the
giant trees. The sunlight was sifting through the great canopy of
leaves, boughs, and nests overhead, and afar gleamed the prairies like
gardens of the sun. He lifted his long arm, and, with a sad face, said:
"Elder, listen.
"'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
"'The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall molder to dust, and together shall lie.
"'The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blest--
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
"'[_The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,_
_Shone beauty and pleasure, her triumphs are by;_
_And the memory of those who loved her and praised,_
_Are alike from the minds of the living erased_.]
"'The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,
The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
"'The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep,
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
"'[The saint who enjoyed the communion of Heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.]
"'So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
"'For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
"'The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds from us all like a bird on the wing.
"'They loved, but the story we can not unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
"'They died, ay, they died: we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
"'Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
"''Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud--
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?'"
He stood there in moody silence when he had finished the recitation,
which was (unknown to him) from the pen of a pastoral Scotch poet. The
Tunker looked at him, and saw how deep were his feelings, and how
earnest were his desires to know the true way of life and to do well his
mission, and go on with the great multitude, whose procession comes upon
the earth and vanishes from the scenes. But he did not dream of the
greatness of the destiny for which that student was preparing in the
hard college of the woods.
"My education must always be defective," said the young student. "I can
not read law in great law-offices, like other young men, but I can be
just--I can do right; and I would never undertake a case of law, for any
money, that I did not think right and just. I would stand for what I
thought was right, as I did by the old Indian, and I think that the
people in time would learn to trust me."
"Abraham Lincoln, to school one's conscience to the habit of right, so
that it can not do wrong, is the first and the highest education. It is
what one is that makes him a knight, and that is the only true
knighthood. The highest education is that of the soul. Did you know that
the Indian whom you saved was Main-Pogue?"
"Yes."
"And that Main-Pogue is the uncle and foster-father of my old guide,
Waubeno?"
"No. Waubeno was the boy who came with you to the Wabash?"
"Waubeno's father was killed by the white people. He was condemned to
death. He asked to go home to see his family once more, and returned
upon his honor to die. That old story is true. Does it seem possible
that an English soldier could ever take the life of an Indian like
that?"
"No, it does not. Will Main-Pogue tell Waubeno that it was I who saved
him?"
"Does Main-Pogue know you by name? I hope he does."
"He may have forgotten. I would like for him to remember it, because the
Indian boy liked me, and an Indian killed my grandfather. I liked that
Indian boy, and I would do justice, if I could, by all men, and any
man."
"Lincoln, I came to love and respect that Indian boy. There was a native
nobility in him. But my efforts to make him a Christian failed, for he
carried revenge in his heart. I wish that he could know that it was you
who did that deed; your character might be an influence that would
strike an unknown cord in the boy's heart, for Waubeno has a noble
heart--Waubeno is noble. I wish he knew who it was that spared
Main-Pogue. Acts teach where words fail, and the true teacher is not
lips, but life. The boy once said to me that he would cease to seek to
avenge his father's death if he could find a single white man who would
defend an Indian to his own harm, because it was right. Now, Lincoln,
you have done just the act that would change his heart. But he has gone
with the winds. How will he ever hear of it? How will he ever know it?
"When Main-Pogue meets him, if he ever does again, he may tell him all.
But does Main-Pogue understand the relations that exist between you and
me, and us and that boy? O Waubeno, Waubeno, I would that you might hear
of this!"
He thought, and added: "He _will_ hear of it, somehow, in some way.
Providence makes golden keys of deeds like yours. They unlock the doors
of mystery. Let me see, what was it Waubeno said--his exact words?
_'When I find a single white man who defends an Indian to his own hurt,
because it is right, I will promise.'_ Lincoln, he said that. You are
that man. Lincoln, may God bless you, and call you into his service when
he has need of a man!"