It was Mr. Lincoln who brought him back. The astonishing candidate for
the Senate had sunk into his chair, his face relaxed into sadness save
for the sparkle lurking in the eyes. So he sat, immobile, until the
laughter had died down to silence. Then he turned to Stephen.
“Sonny,” he said, “did you want to see me?”
Stephen was determined to be affable and kind, and (shall we say it?)
he would not make Mr. Lincoln uncomfortable either by a superiority of
English or the certain frigidity of manner which people in the West said
he had. But he tried to imagine a Massachusetts senator, Mr. Sumner,
for instance, going through the rat story, and couldn't. Somehow,
Massachusetts senators hadn't this gift. And yet he was not quite sure
that it wasn't a fetching gift. Stephen did not quite like to be
called “Sonny.” But he looked into two gray eyes, and at the face, and
something curious happened to him. How was he to know that thousands of
his countrymen were to experience the same sensation?
“Sonny,” said Mr. Lincoln again, “did you want to see me?”
“Yes, sir.” Stephen wondered at the “sir.” It had been involuntary. He
drew from his inner pocket the envelope which the Judge had given him.
Mr. Lincoln ripped it open. A document fell out, and a letter. He put
the document in his tall hat, which was upside down on the floor. As he
got deeper into the letter, he pursed his mouth, and the lines of his
face deepened in a smile. Then he looked up, grave again.
“Judge Whipple told you to run till you found me, did he, Mr. Brice?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is the Judge the same old criss-cross, contrary, violent fool that he
always was?”
Providence put an answer in Stephen's mouth.
“He's been very good to me, Mr. Lincoln.”
Mr. Lincoln broke into laughter.
“Why, he's the biggest-hearted man I know. You know him, Oglesby,--Silas
Whipple. But a man has to be a Daniel or a General Putnam to venture
into that den of his. There's only one man in the world who can beard
Silas, and he's the finest states-right Southern gentleman you ever saw.
I mean Colonel Carvel. You've heard of him, Oglesby. Don't they quarrel
once in a while, Mr. Brice?”
“They do have occasional arguments,” said Stephen, amused.
“Arguments!” cried Mr. Lincoln; “well, I couldn't come as near to
fighting every day and stand it. If my dog and Bill's dog across the
street walked around each other and growled for half a day, and then
lay down together, as Carvel and Whipple do, by Jing, I'd put pepper on
their noses--”
“I reckon Colonel Carvel isn't a fighting man,” said some one, at
random.
Strangely enough, Stephen was seized with a desire to vindicate the
Colonel's courage. Both Mr. Lincoln and Judge Oglesby forestalled him.
“Not a fighting man!” exclaimed the Judge. “Why, the other day--”
“Now, Oglesby,” put in Mr. Lincoln, “I wanted to tell that story.”
Stephen had heard it, and so have we. But Mr. Lincoln's imitation of the
Colonel's drawl brought him a pang like homesickness.
“'No, suh, I didn't intend to shoot. Not if he had gone off straight.
But he wriggled and twisted like a rattlesnake, and I just couldn't
resist, suh. Then I sent m'nigger Ephum to tell him not to let me catch
sight of him 'round the Planters' House. Yes, suh, that's what he was.
One of these damned Yankees who come South and go into nigger-deals and
politics.”'
Mr. Lincoln glanced at Stephen, and then again at the Judge's letter. He
took up his silk hat and thrust that, too, into the worn lining, which
was already filled with papers. He clapped the hat on his head, and
buttoned on his collar.
“I reckon I'll go for a walk, boys,” he said, “and clear my head, so as
to be ready for the Little Giant to-morrow at Freeport. Mr. Brice, do
you feel like walking?”
Stephen, taken aback, said that he did.
“Now, Abe, this is just durned foolishness,” one of the gentlemen
expostulated. “We want to know if you're going to ask Douglas that
question.”
“If you do, you kill yourself, Lincoln,” said another, who Stephen
afterwards learned was Mr. Medill, proprietor of the great 'Press and
Tribune'.
“I guess I'll risk it, Joe,” said Mr. Lincoln, gravely. Suddenly comes
the quiver about the corners of his mouth and the gray eyes respond.
“Boys,” said he, “did you ever hear the story of farmer Bell, down in
Egypt? I'll tell it to you, boys, and then perhaps you'll know why I'll
ask Judge Douglas that question. Farmer Bell had the prize Bartlett pear
tree, and the prettiest gal in that section. And he thought about the
same of each of 'em. All the boys were after Sue Bell. But there
was only one who had any chance of getting her, and his name was Jim
Rickets. Jim was the handsomest man in that section. He's been hung
since. But Jim had a good deal out of life,--all the appetites, and some
of the gratifications. He liked Sue, and he liked a luscious Bartlett.
And he intended to have both. And it just so happened that that prize
pear tree had a whopper on that year, and old man Bell couldn't talk of
anything else.
“Now there was an ugly galoot whose name isn't worth mentioning. He knew
he wasn't in any way fit for Sue, and he liked pears about as well as
Jim Rickets. Well, one night here comes Jim along the road, whistling;
to court Susan, and there was the ugly galoot a-yearning on the bank
under the pear tree. Jim was all fixed up, and he says to the galoot,
'Let's have a throw.' Now the galoot knew old Bell was looking over
the fence So he says, 'All right,' and he gives Jim the first shot--Jim
fetched down the big pear, got his teeth in it, and strolled off to the
house, kind of pitiful of the galoot for a, half-witted ass. When he got
to the door, there was the old man. 'What are you here for?' says
he. 'Why,' says Rickets, in his off-hand way, for he always had great
confidence, 'to fetch Sue.'”
“The old man used to wear brass toes to keep his boots from wearing
out,” said Mr. Lincoln, dreamily.
“You see,” continued Mr. Lincoln, “you see the galoot knew that Jim
Rickets wasn't to be trusted with Susan Bell.”
Some of the gentlemen appeared to see the point of this political
parable, for they laughed uproariously. The others laughed, too. Then
they slapped their knees, looked at Mr. Lincoln's face, which was
perfectly sober, and laughed again, a little fainter. Then the Judge
looked as solemn as his title.
“It won't do, Abe,” said he. “You commit suicide.”
“You'd better stick to the pear, Abe,” said Mr. Medill, “and fight
Stephen A. Douglas here and now. This isn't any picnic. Do you know who
he is?”
“Why, yes, Joe,” said Mr. Lincoln, amiably. “He's a man with tens of
thousands of blind followers. It's my business to make some of those
blind followers see.”
By this time Stephen was burning to know the question that Mr. Lincoln
wished to ask the Little Giant, and why the other gentlemen were against
it. But Mr. Lincoln surprised him still further in taking him by the
arm. Turning to the young reporter, Mr. Hill, who had finished his
writing, he said:
“Bob, a little air will do you good. I've had enough of the old boys for
a while, and I'm going to talk to somebody any own age.”
Stephen was halfway down the corridor when he discovered that he had
forgotten his hat. As he returned he heard somebody say:
“If that ain't just like Abe. He stopped to pull a flea out of his
stocking when he was going to fight that duel with Shields, and now he's
walking with boys before a debate with the smartest man in this country.
And there's heaps of things he ought to discuss with us.”
“Reckon we haven't got much to do with it,” said another, half laughing,
half rueful. “There's some things Abe won't stand.”
From the stairs Stephen saw Mr. Lincoln threading his way through the
crowd below, laughing at one, pausing to lay his hand on the shoulder
of another, and replying to a rough sally of a third to make the place a
tumult of guffaws. But none had the temerity to follow him. When
Stephen caught up with him in the little country street, he was talking
earnestly to Mr. Hill, the young reporter of the Press and Tribune. And
what do you think was the subject? The red comet in the sky that night.
Stephen kept pace in silence with Mr. Lincoln's strides, another
shock in store for him. This rail-splitter, this postmaster, this
flat-boatman, whom he had not credited with a knowledge of the New Code,
was talking Astronomy. And strange to say, Mr. Brice was learning.
“Bob,” said Mr. Lincoln, “can you elucidate the problem of the three
bodies?”
To Stephen's surprise, Mr. Hill elucidated.
The talk then fell upon novels and stories, a few of which Mr. Lincoln
seemed to have read. He spoke, among others, of the “Gold Bug.” “The
story is grand,” said he, “but it might as well have been written of
Robinson Crusoe's island. What a fellow wants in a book is to know where
he is. There are not many novels, or ancient works for that matter, that
put you down anywhere.”
“There is that genuine fragment which Cicero has preserved from a last
work of Aristotle,” said Mr. Hill, slyly. “'If there were beings who
lived in the depths of the earth, and could emerge through the open
fissures, and could suddenly behold the earth, the sea, and the--vault
of heaven--'”
“But you--you impostor,” cried Mr. Lincoln, interrupting, “you're giving
us Humboldt's Cosmos.”
Mr. Hill owned up, laughing.
It is remarkable how soon we accustom ourselves to a strange situation.
And to Stephen it was no less strange to be walking over a muddy road of
the prairie with this most singular man and a newspaper correspondent,
than it might have been to the sub-terrestrial inhabitant to emerge on
the earth's surface. Stephen's mind was in the process of a chemical
change: Suddenly it seemed to him as if he had known this tall
Illinoisan always. The whim of the senatorial candidate in choosing him
for a companion he did not then try to account for.
“Come, Mr. Stephen,” said Mr. Lincoln, presently, “where do you hail
from?”
“Boston,” said Stephen.
“No!” said Mr. Lincoln, incredulously. “And how does it happen that you
come to me with a message from a rank Abolitionist lawyer in St. Louis?”
“Is the Judge a friend of yours, sir?” Stephen asked.
“What!” exclaimed Mr. Lincoln, “didn't he tell you he was?”
“He said nothing at all, sir, except to tell me to travel until I found
you.”
“I call the Judge a friend of mine,” said Mr. Lincoln. “He may not claim
me because I do not believe in putting all slave-owners to the sword.”
“I do not think that Judge Whipple is precisely an Abolitionist, sir.”
“What! And how do you feel, Mr. Stephen?”
Stephen replied in figures. It was rare with him, and he must have
caught it from Mr. Lincoln.
“I am not for ripping out the dam suddenly, sir, that would drown the
nation. I believe that the water can be drained off in some other way.”
Mr. Lincoln's direct answer to this was to give Stephen stinging slap
between the shoulder-blades.
“God bless the boy!” he cried. “He has thought it out. Bob, take that
down for the Press and Tribune as coming from a rising young politician
of St. Louis.”
“Why,” Stephen blurted out, “I--I thought you were an Abolitionist, Mr.
Lincoln.”
“Mr. Brice,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I have as much use for the Boston
Liberator as I have for the Charleston Courier. You may guess how much
that is. The question is not whether we shall or shall not have slavery,
but whether slavery shall stay where it is, or be extended according to
Judge Douglas's ingenious plan. The Judge is for breeding worms. I am
for cauterizing the sore so that it shall not spread. But I tell you,
Mr. Brice, that this nation cannot exist half slave and half free.”
Was it the slap on the back that opened Stephen's eyes? It was certain
that as they returned to the tavern the man at his side was changed. He
need not have felt chagrined. Men in high places underestimated Lincoln,
or did not estimate him at all. Affection came first. The great warm
heart had claimed Stephen as it claimed all who came near it.
The tavern was deserted save for a few stragglers. Under the dim light
at the bar Mr. Lincoln took off his hat and drew the Judge's letter from
the lining.
“Mr. Stephen,” said he, “would you like to come to Freeport with me
to-morrow and hear the debate?”
An hour earlier he would have declined with thanks. But now! Now his
face lighted at the prospect, and suddenly fell again. Mr. Lincoln
guessed the cause. He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, and
laughed.
“I reckon you're thinking of what the Judge will say.”
Stephen smiled.
“I'll take care of the Judge,” said Mr. Lincoln. “I'm not afraid of
him.” He drew forth from the inexhaustible hat a slip of paper, and
began to write.
“There,” said he, when he had finished, “a friend of mine is going to
Springfield in the morning, and he'll send that to the Judge.”
And this is what he had written:--
“I have borrowed Steve for a day or two, and guarantee
to return him a good Republican.
A. LINCOLN.”
It is worth remarking that this was the first time Mr. Brice had been
called “Steve” and had not resented it.
Stephen was embarrassed. He tried to thank Mr. Lincoln, but that
gentleman's quizzical look cut him short. And the next remark made him
gasp.
“Look here, Steve,” said he, “you know a parlor from a drawing-room.
What did you think of me when you saw me to-night?”
Stephen blushed furiously, and his tongue clave to the roof of his
mouth.
“I'll tell you,” said Mr. Lincoln, with his characteristic smile, “you
thought that you wouldn't pick me out of a bunch of horses to race with
the Senator.”