Mitch was now a changed boy and every one could see it. He didn't come
around as much as he used to. At first Mr. Miller set him to work to
learn the printer's trade as I have told. That kept him away from me;
but after he lost the job, still I didn't see him like I used to. I
looked him up a good deal, but he was mostly quiet. He didn't want to
fish, or to swim, or to go out to the farm--he just read, Shakespeare
and other books; lying in the grass by his house. And he wouldn't come
down to see me much, because he said it made him think of Little Billie.
And Zueline had gone away with her mother, they said to Springfield; and
if she'd been home, Mitch couldn't have seen her anyway. I was terrible
lonesome without Mitch and the days dragged, and I kept hearin' of him
bein' off with Charley King and George Heigold and it worried me.
Harold Carman had been put in jail, and then let out on bond, which held
him to testify in the Rainey case. And one day Mitch came to me and
says: "I'm really caught in this law. I've been to see your pa. I
thought I'd told my story once and that would do; but he says there'll
be a new jury that never has heard about the case or what I know; and
I'll have to tell it all over again. And with Harold Carman to tell
about their tryin' to get him to say he found a pistol, and my story,
they can convict Temple Scott. So I'm caught; and if we had ever so much
to do, and ever so much treasure to find, or trips to take, I'd have to
put it aside for this here law and testifyin'. And if they knew how I
hated it, they'd never ask me if I didn't like it, and like makin' a
sensation and actin' the part of Tom Sawyer."
"Pinafore" was played at last, and we all went, but when my pa sang the
"Merry, Merry Maiden and the Tar," Mitch got up and left the hall,
because, as he said to me afterward, it brought back that awful night
when Joe Rainey was killed. It must have affected others that way too;
that and the death of Mrs. Rainey, who had a part in the show. For they
only played two nights, instead of three, which they intended. Not
enough came to make it worth while.
Then one night I went up to see Mitch and the house seemed quieter. The
girls was playin' as before, but not so wild. Mr. Miller was readin' to
Mrs. Miller, English history or somethin'; but Mrs. Miller looked kind
of like she was tryin' to pay attention. She didn't act interested and
happy like she used to. Mitch told me then that his pa had been let out
of the church; that while we was gone to St. Louis the trustees met and
decided that they wanted a minister who would put a lot of go into the
church and get converts and make things hum; that the mortgage on the
church had to be met and they couldn't meet it without gettin' more
people interested in the church and church work. That may have been all
true; but just the same everybody said that Mr. Miller was let go
because he preached that sermon about God bein' in everything, which he
didn't mean except just as a person talks to hisself. He was dreamin',
like Mitch, when he said it.
So Mr. Miller was goin' to Springfield to see what he could do about
gettin' to sell books or maps or atlases, and quit preachin' till a
church turned up, or preach a little now and then, and marry folks when
he could, and preach at funerals. I heard Mr. Miller say to my pa that
he was worried about Mitch; that Mitch talked in his sleep and ground
his teeth, and talked about engines and horses and findin' pistols and
treasure, and ridin' on steamboats, and about Zueline and Tom Sawyer.
And he said he'd tried to get him to go out to the farm with me and ride
horses and get a change, but he wouldn't. He just read Shakespeare until
they hid the book; and then they found him readin' Burns; and once
Ingersoll's Lectures, which they also took away, because Mr. Miller
thought Mitch was too young.
About this time I was about a third through readin' the Bible to earn
that five dollars that grandma had promised me. And Mitch asked me what
I thought, and I said I didn't understand it much; but in parts it was
as wonderful as any book. And Mitch says, "Do you know what the Bible
is?" "No," I says; "what is it?" "Why," he says, "the Bible is the 'Tom
Sawyer' of grown folks. I know that now; so I don't have to go through
the trouble of findin' it out after I'm grown up and depended upon it
for a long while. There's the sky and the earth, and there are folks,
and we're more or less real to each other, and there's something back of
it. But I believe when you die, you're asleep--sound asleep--I almost
know it. And why we should wake up a bit and then go to sleep forever is
more than my pa knows or any person in the world knows."
Mitch scared me with his talk. He was so earnest and solemn and seemed
so sure.
One night when I was up to Mr. Miller's, it came up somehow what we was
goin' to do when we was grown up--Mitch and me--and Mrs. Miller thought
we should be taught somethin' to earn a livin' by; and that the schools
instead of teachin' so much, and teachin' Latin and Greek, which nobody
used, should teach practical things.
And Mr. Miller said, "Look out! That's comin' fast enough; it's on us
already. For back of the schools are the factories and places that
always want workers, and they're already usin' the schools to turn out
workers, boys who don't know much, or boys who know one thing. And it
makes no difference what happens to me--it's just as much or more to
know how to enjoy life and to enjoy it, as it is to be able to earn a
livin'. If you earn a livin' and don't know how to enjoy life, you're as
bad off as if you know how to enjoy life, but can't make a livin', or
not much of one. Look here, you boys: Anything that gives you pleasure,
like Greek and Latin, stories, history, doin' things, whatever they are,
for the sake of livin', are worth while. And you let yourselves go. And
don't be molded into a tool for somebody's use, and lose your own
individuality."
And that's the way he talked. And then he said it was all right to dig
for treasure if we wanted to, and to want to see the Mississippi River
and see Tom Sawyer, and he didn't blame us a bit for anything we had
done. "Yes," he says, "I'll take you to Springfield to-morrow; ask your
pa, Skeet, and come along."
I did; and the next morning we took the train for Springfield; and here
was a big town, not as big as St. Louis, but awful big. The capitol was
bigger'n any building in St. Louis, with a great dome and a flag. And
Mr. Miller took us out to see Lincoln's monument. Just when we got
there, two men in overalls came runnin' from the back of the tomb and
said a man--an old soldier--had just killed himself with a knife. So we
ran around and found him lyin' in a lot of blood. The men came back and
took a bottle of whisky out of his pocket, and a writing which said that
the prohibition party had been defeated, and if it had won he couldn't
have got whisky; and so he killed himself because the prohibition party
had been defeated. And Mitch says, "What a fool idea! If he wanted the
prohibition party defeated, why did he drink and buy whisky; and if he
drank and carried whisky in his pocket, why did he want the prohibition
party to win, and kill himself because it lost? He was crazy, wasn't he,
pa?"
And Mr. Miller said, "Not necessarily--that's sense as things go in the
world. Some people want whisky done away with so they can't get it their
own selves, and when they can't get a law for that, it disappoints 'em,
and they keep on drinkin' because they're disappointed, or kill
themselves because their disappointment is too much. For you can depend
upon it that any man that gets his mind too much fixed on any idea is
like a cross-eyed man killin' a steer with a sledgehammer; he hits whar
he's lookin', and hits wrong. Lincoln had a way of holdin' to an idea
without the idea draggin' him down and away from everything else."
They had carried the dead man off, so we went into the tomb to see the
curiosities. And there was more things than you could see: All kinds of
flags and framed things, pictures and writing and showcases with
pistols, and all sorts of trinkets, bullets, and knives; and a pair of
spectacles which Linkern had wore, and a piece of a rail he had split,
and books he'd read, and a piece of ribbon with his blood on it the
night he died, and a theater program and lots of other things.
Then we went out-doors and looked up at the monument, and it made me
dizzy to see the clouds sail over the top of it. And there was a figure
of Linkern in iron, and of soldiers in iron charging, and horses in
iron; besides mottoes cut in the stone and in iron. Then we went around
to the back again where the old soldier had killed himself. They had the
blood wiped up now. So we looked through the iron bars where a stone
coffin was, but Linkern wasn't in there, Mr. Miller said. For once they
had tried to steal him, and got the lead coffin out, and clear down the
hill that we could see; but they caught 'em. And after that they dug way
down and put Linkern there, and then poured mortar or concrete all over
him, clear up to the top; then laid the floor again and put this marble
coffin there, which was a dummy and had nothin' in it. So now nobody
could get Linkern forever and ever.
And then we came around in front again, and Mr. Miller looked up at the
statue of Linkern and began to study it, and he says: "I brought you
boys to Springfield and out here to learn and to get things into your
mind. You'll remember this trip as long as you live. It's the first time
you've ever been here, and you'll be here lots of times again, maybe;
but you'll always remember this time. Now, just look at Lincoln's face
and his body and tell me how anybody could see him and not see that he
was different from other men. Look how his face comes out in the bronze
and becomes wonderful, and then think if you can how a handsome face
would look in bronze--just the difference between a wonderful cliff or
mountain side, and a great, smooth, perfect bowlder. And yet, boys, that
man went right around here for twenty years, yes and more, all around
this town, all around Petersburg, up at Old Salem, all over the country,
practicing law, walking along the streets with people, talkin' with 'em
on the corners, sittin' by 'em by the cannon stove in the offices of the
hotels, sleepin' in the same rooms with 'em, as he did up at Petersburg
at the Menard House, when the grand jury had the loft and they put
Lincoln up there too, because there was no other place to put him."
"The Menard House," says Mitch; "do you mean that hotel there now?"
"The very same," said Mr. Miller; "didn't you know that?"
"No," says Mitch.
[Illustration: At Lincoln's Monument]
"Well, that shows you; you're like the people who lived when Lincoln
did, they didn't know him, some of them; and now you don't know the
places he went to and the country he lived in; and you'd never have gone
to Old Salem, if you hadn't gone there for treasure--would you, Mitch?"
Mitch said he didn't know, maybe not.
"Well," said Mr. Miller, "if you find Lincoln while tryin' to dig up a
few rotten dollars, it's all right anyway. Now, boys, look here, it
seems an awful time to you since Washington lived, since the Government
was founded--but it isn't. We're all here together, and when you get to
be old men, you'll see that you were born and lived in the beginning of
the republic. How will it look hereafter? Do you want to know--take a
history and look at it now. Let's see! Washington had just been dead ten
years when Lincoln was born; Lincoln had been dead eleven years when you
were born. When Lincoln was born, the Government had been founded just
twenty-three years, was just a little more than of age. It wasn't but
just eighty years old when Lincoln became president. Why, these figures
are nothing. Think about it. When did Juvenal live? About 42 A.D. When
did Virgil and Horace live, and Caesar and Augustus and Domitian? What
does forty years here or there mean when you're lookin' back over
hundreds of years or a thousand? And so I say, you boys were born in the
beginning of the republic, not a hundred years after it was started, and
if either of you ever get your names into the history, there it will be
beside Lincoln, and not far from Washington--for you were born ten years
after Lincoln died and not a hundred after Washington. Well, there you
are. You're young and the republic is young; and the chance is before
you to do for the country and help out, for we're havin' bad times now,
and they'll be worse. After every war, times is bad, and we're goin' to
have other wars and worse'n ever."
Then Mr. Miller said: "There's two kinds of men--at least two. One that
thinks and one that acts; or one that tells people what to do, and
others that listen and do it, or else have thought it out first
themselves, and do it. Well, look at Lincoln up there. Here he was over
at Old Salem running a store, surveyin'; then in politics a little, then
a lawyer; but mostly for twenty years he was thinkin' about the state of
the country, slavery and things; and he thought it all out. Then they
elected him president, and he acted out what he thought."
"Well, don't you suppose he could have got rich practicing law or
tradin' in land? He was a good lawyer--none better! Why didn't he get
fees and save and buy land during the twenty years he practiced law?
Because his mind was set on the country, on how to make the country
better, on being a shepherd of the people. The man who thinks of money
all the time, thinks of himself; and the man who thinks of the country
and wants to help it is thinking of what can be done for people and how
the country can find treasure in having better people, and better laws,
and better life and more of it. Yes, sir, boys, you'll find somewhere
that Lincoln said his ambition was to be well thought of by his fellow
citizens, and to deserve to be. And it never occurred to him that he
could do that by getting money."
"Don't you boys think I'm lecturin' you for huntin' for treasure, or
that I want either of you to grow up and be as poor as I am. I don't. I
want you to have sense and provide for yourselves; Lincoln did that; he
really had plenty after he got fairly started. But on the other hand,
gold as gold I hate, and I see it getting power in this country. Why, it
has it now. Look at Lincoln's face, what do you think he'd think of
what's happened since the war--the robbery, ruin and conquest of the
South, the money grabbing and privilege grabbing at the North, the money
deals in New York, the money scandals everywhere--the treasure-hunting
everywhere--and not a big man left in the country; none of the old, fine
characters left who built their lives on foundations of wisdom and
service and makin' the country better--none of these left to come
forward and take the country out of the hands of these vultures, wolves,
hyenas. And what are we going to have? Is money goin' to be the master
in this country, or is man goin' to be? I hate it--I hate it as Lincoln
hated it when he asked whether the dollar or the man should be put
first. And I hate it because it is brainless, spiritless. It cares for
nothing but itself. It is a snake that swallows and sleeps and wakes to
eat again. It is a despot; it is without love, genius, morality. It is
against people, against God, against the country. It is as wicked as
Nero, as gluttonous as a cormorant; and it makes cowards, slaves,
lick-spittles of some of the best of men. In this country, intended to
be of free men, where men could grow and come to the best that is in
them, already we find these laws and principles mocked--by what? By
gold, by riches; and we find talented men and good men compelled to step
aside for rich men; and rich men held higher than good and useful
lawyers, preachers or anything else. Well, there's Lincoln: and if never
again in the history of this country a rail-splitter, a boy who worked
up from nothing with his hands and his mind, comes to rulership, still
there's Lincoln, on whom no rich man could frown; and no big-bellied
capitalist could patronize or ignore or make step aside. Why, it's
great--it makes me happy, it gives me hope. And I can see for ages and
ages the face of Lincoln on books, on coins, on monuments; until some
day his face will be the symbol of the United States of America, when
the United States of America has rotted into the manure piles of history
with Tyre and Babylon, as it will if it doesn't turn back and be what
Lincoln was: a man who worked and thought, and whose idea was to have a
free field, just laws, and a democracy where to make a man and not make
a dollar is the first consideration."
And then Mr. Miller said: "Yes, this is a great monument and Lincoln was
a great man. You see when all the sap-heads and poets down in New
England and all over was hollerin' for nigger equality and to give the
nigger a vote and to marry him, and give him the same right as anybody,
Lincoln just kept cool; and he didn't even emancipate the nigger until
he had to in order to win the war. It was to win the war, understand. He
wasn't swept off his feet by anybody, orators or poets or
yawpers--nobody. But you'll see when you grow up what the difference is
between not havin' the nigger for a slave and allowin' him to vote and
marry you; and you'll see that what Lincoln said when he went over the
country debatin' with Douglas, speakin' at Havana, and right here in
Springfield and at Petersburg, too, he said to the last and acted on to
the last. It was after the war and after Lincoln was dead that these
here snifflers and scalawags got into power and pushed it over until
they gave the nigger the vote and all that. And if this country goes to
pieces because the good breeds have been killed off and die off, and the
country is run by the riff-raff, then Lincoln, say five hundred years
from now, will stand greater than he is to-day, unless the world can
then see that the nigger should have been kept a slave, so as to let
the wise and the intelligent have time to think better and work better
for the good of the country. For, boys, you can put it down that a
country ain't good that is run on the principle of countin' noses, and
lettin' everybody have a say just because he walks on two legs and can
talk instead of barkin' or waggin' his tail." And so Mr. Miller went on.
Then Mr. Miller said damn, or that something could be "damned." And
Mitch says, "Pa, did you know you swore?" And Mr. Miller says: "I
shouldn't have, and don't you follow my example. But sometimes I get so
mad about the country."
So we had seen the monument and walked away; and when we got a long way
from it, we turned around and looked at it for the last.
Then Mr. Miller said he was glad he was out of the church, that he had
tried to do certain things, but they wouldn't let him, and kept him in a
groove. And now he was going to sell atlases and geographies, and be a
free man, and maybe write a book. And he said: "The idea seems to be
that goodness, spirituality, is church. It isn't, and it never was; it
wasn't when the Savior came; He found goodness and spirituality in a lot
of things, in a free life, in the freedom of out-doors, and not in the
synagogues. Now, boys, believe in the Bible, in the Savior--I mean that;
but don't let that belief make you into a membership with those who live
for denial, for observation of injunctions, for abstinence from life,
more or less, for solemnity, for religion as business, and business as
religion, and religion for business. This is not goodness--not
spirituality. Lincoln was good and spiritual--he believed in the mind
and he used it. Wisdom, beauty, play, adventure, friendship, love,
fights for the right, and for your rights, travel, everything, anything
that keeps the mind going; and kindness, generosity, hospitality,
laughter, trips down the Mississippi, making cities beautiful and clean,
having fun,--all these things are spirituality and goodness. They are
religion--they are the religion of the Savior. They will make America;
and they ought to be Americanism."
So Mr. Miller went on. I can't remember half he said, but it was plain
he was worked up. Losin' his church or somethin' had set his thoughts
free; and everything considered, I think he wanted to give us some ideas
about things. And so after lookin' at Linkern's home, a frame house, not
very big, not fine, but a good house; and lookin' at the furniture and
things he had, we took the train back to Petersburg.