she exclaimed.
"It's just begun doin' business," said Samson.
"What does it do?" Joe asked.
"On a railroad track it can grab hold of a house full o' folks and run
off with it. Goes like the wind, too."
"Does it eat 'em up?" Joe asked.
"No. It eats wood and oil and keeps yellin' for more. I guess it could
eat a cord o' wood and wash it down with half a bucket o' castor oil in
about five minutes. It snatches folks away to some place and drops 'em.
I guess it must make their hair stand up and their teeth chatter."
"Does it hurt anybody?" Joe asked hopefully.
"Well, sir, if anybody wanted to be hurt and got in its way, I rather
guess he'd succeed purty well. It's powerful. Why, if a man was to ketch
hold of the tail of a locomotive, and hang on, it would jerk the toe
nails right off him."
Joe began to have great respect for locomotives.
Soon they came in view of the famous Erie Canal, hard by the road.
Through it the grain of the far West had just begun moving eastward in a
tide that was flowing from April to December. Big barges, drawn by mules
and horses on its shore, were cutting the still waters of the canal.
They stopped and looked at the barges and the long tow ropes and the
tugging animals.
"There is a real artificial river, hundreds o' miles long, handmade of
the best material, water tight, no snags or rocks or other
imperfections, durability guaranteed," said Samson. "It has made the
name of DeWitt Clinton known everywhere."
"I wonder what next!" Sarah exclaimed.
They met many teams and passed other movers going west, and some
prosperous farms on a road wider and smoother than any they had
traveled. They camped that night, close by the river, with a Connecticut
family on its way to Ohio with a great load of household furniture on
one wagon and seven children in another. There were merry hours for the
young, and pleasant visiting between the older folk that evening at the
fireside. There was much talk among the latter about the great Erie
Canal.
So they fared along through Canandaigua and across the Genesee to the
village of Rochester and on through Lewiston and up the Niagara River to
the Falls, and camped where they could see the great water flood and
hear its muffled thunder. . . .
"Children," said Samson, "I want you to take a good look at that. It's
the most wonderful thing in the world and maybe you'll never see it
again."
"The Indians used to think that the Great Spirit was in this river,"
said Sarah.
"Kind o' seems to me they were right," Samson remarked thoughtfully.
"Kind o' seems as if the great spirit of America was in that water. It
moves on in the way it wills and nothing can stop it. Everything in its
current goes along with it. . . ."
They had the lake view and its cool breeze on their way to Silver Creek,
Dunkirk and Erie, and a rough way it was in those days.
* * * * *
They fared along through Indiana and over the wide savannas of Illinois,
and on the ninety-seventh day of their journey they drove through
rolling, grassy, flowering prairies and up a long, hard hill to the
small log cabin settlement of New Salem, Illinois, on the shore of the
Sangamon. They halted about noon in the middle of this little prairie
village, opposite a small clapboarded house. A sign hung over its door
which bore the rudely lettered words: "Rutledge's Tavern."
A long, slim, stoop-shouldered young man sat in the shade of an oak tree
that stood near a corner of the tavern, with a number of children
playing around him. He had sat leaning against the tree trunk reading a
book. He had risen as they came near and stood looking at them, with the
book under his arm. . . .
He wore a hickory shirt without a collar or coat or jacket. One
suspender held up his coarse, linsey trousers, the legs of which fitted
closely and came only to a blue yarn zone above his heavy cowhide shoes.
Samson writes that he "fetched a sneeze and wiped his big nose with a
red handkerchief" as he stood surveying them in silence, while Dr. John
Allen, who had sat on the doorstep reading a paper--a kindly-faced man
of middle age with a short white beard under his chin--greeted them
cheerfully.
The withering sunlight of a day late in August fell upon the dusty
street, now almost deserted. Faces at the doors and windows of the
little houses were looking out at them. Two ragged boys and a
ginger-colored dog came running toward the wagon. The latter and Sambo
surveyed each other with raised hair and began scratching the earth,
straight-legged, whining meanwhile, and in a moment began to play
together. A man in blue jeans who sat on the veranda of a store
opposite, leaning against its wall, stopped whittling and shut his
jacknife.
"Where do ye hail from?" the Doctor asked.
"Vermont," said Samson.
"All the way in that wagon?"
"Yes, sir."
"I guess you're made o' the right stuff," said the Doctor. "Where ye
bound?"
"Don't know exactly. Going to take up a claim somewhere."
"There's no better country than right here. This is the Canaan of
America. We need people like you. Unhitch your team and have some dinner
and we'll talk things over after you're rested. I'm the doctor here and
I ride all over this part o' the country. I reckon I know it pretty
well."
A woman in a neat calico dress came out of the door--a strong built and
rather well favored woman with blond hair and dark eyes.
"Mrs. Rutledge, these are travelers from the East," said the Doctor.
"Give 'em some dinner, and if they can't pay for it, I can. They've come
all the way from Vermont."
"Good land! Come right in an' rest yerselves. Abe, you show the
gentleman where to put his horses an' lend him a hand."
Abe extended his long arm toward Samson and said "Howdy" as they shook
hands.
"When his big hand got hold of mine, I kind of felt his timber," Samson
writes. "I says to myself, 'There's a man it would be hard to tip over
in a rassle.'"
"What's yer name? How long ye been travelin'? My conscience! Ain't ye
wore out?" the hospitable Mrs. Rutledge was asking as she went into the
house with Sarah and the children. "You go and mix up with the little
ones and let yer mother rest while I git dinner," she said to Joe and
Betsey, and added as she took Sarah's shawl and bonnet: "You lop down
an' rest yerself while I'm flyin' around the fire."
"Come all the way from Vermont?" Abe asked as he and Samson were
unhitching.
"Yes, sir."
"By jing!" the slim giant exclaimed. "I reckon you feel like throwin'
off yer harness an' takin' a roll in the grass."
* * * * *
The tavern was the only house in New Salem with stairs in it. Stairs so
steep, as Samson writes, that "they were first cousins to the ladder."
There were four small rooms above them. Two of these were parted by a
partition of cloth hanging from the rafters. In each was a bed and
bedstead and smaller beds on the floor. In case there were a number of
adult guests the bedstead was screened with sheets hung upon strings.
In one of these rooms the travelers had a night of refreshing sleep.
After riding two days with the Doctor, Samson bought the claim of one
Isaac Gollaher to a half section of land a little more than a mile from
the western end of the village. He chose a site for his house on the
edge of an open prairie.
"Now we'll go over and see Abe," said Dr. Allen, after the deal was
made. "He's the best man with an ax and a saw in this part of the
country. He clerks for Mr. Offut. Abe Lincoln is one of the best fellows
that ever lived--a rough diamond just out of the great mine of the
West, that only needs to be cut and polished."
Denton Offut's store was a small log structure about twenty by twenty
which stood near the brow of the hill east of Rutledge's Tavern. When
they entered it Abe lay at full length on the counter, his head resting
on a bolt of blue denim as he studied a book in his hand. He wore the
same shirt and one suspender and linsey trousers which he had worn in
the dooryard of the tavern, but his feet were covered only by his blue
yarn socks.
Abe laid aside his book and rose to a sitting posture.
"Mr. Traylor," said Doctor Allen, "has just acquired an interest in all
our institutions. He has bought the Gollaher tract and is going to build
a house and some fences. Abe, couldn't you help get the timber out in a
hurry so we can have a raising within a week? You know the art of the ax
better than any of us."
Abe looked at Samson.
"I reckon he and I would make a good team with the ax," he said. "He
looks as if he could push a house down with one hand and build it up
with the other. You can bet I'll be glad to help in any way I can."
Next morning at daylight two parties went out in the woods to cut timber
for the home of the newcomers. In one party were Harry Needles carrying
two axes and a well-filled luncheon pail; Samson with a saw in his hand
and the boy Joe on his back; Abe with saw and ax and a small jug of root
beer and a book tied in a big red handkerchief and slung around his
neck. When they reached the woods Abe cut a pole for the small boy and
carried him on his shoulder to the creek and said:
"Now you sit down here and keep order in this little frog city. If you
hear a frog say anything improper you fetch him a whack. Don't allow any
nonsense. We'll make you Mayor of Frog City."
The men fell to with axes and saws while Harry limbed the logs and
looked after the Mayor. Their huge muscles flung the sharp axes into the
timber and gnawed through it with a saw. Many big trees fell before
noontime when they stopped for luncheon. While they were eating Abe
said:
"I reckon we better saw out a few boards this afternoon. Need 'em for
the doors. We'll tote a couple of logs up on the side o' that knoll, put
'em on skids an' whip 'em up into boards with the saw."
Samson took hold of the middle of one of the logs and raised it from the
ground.
"I guess we can carry 'em," he said.
"Can ye shoulder it?" Abe asked.
"Easy," said Samson as he raised an end of the log, stepped beneath it
and, resting its weight on his back, soon got his shoulder near its
center and swung it clear of the ground and walked with it to the
knollside where he let it fall with a resounding thump that shook the
ground. Abe stopped eating and watched every move in this remarkable
performance. The ease with which the big Vermonter had so defied the law
of gravitation with that unwieldly stick amazed him.
"That thing'll weigh from seven to eight hundred pounds," said he. "I
reckon you're the stoutest man in this part o' the state an' I'm quite a
man myself. I've lifted a barrel o' whisky and put my mouth to the bung
hole. I never drink it."
"Say," he added as he sat down and began eating a doughnut. "If you ever
hit anybody take a sledge hammer or a crowbar. It wouldn't be decent to
use your fist."
"Don't talk when you've got food in your mouth," said Joe who seemed to
have acquired a sense of responsibility for the manners of Abe.
"I reckon you're right," Abe laughed. "A man's ideas ought not to be
mingled with cheese and doughnuts."
"Once in a while I like to try myself in a lift," said Samson. "It feels
good. I don't do it to show off. I know there's a good many men stouter
than I be. I guess you're one of 'em."
"No, I'm too stretched out--my neck is too far from the ground," Abe
answered. "I'm like a crowbar. If I can get my big toe or my fingers
under anything I can pry some."
After luncheon he took off his shoes and socks.
"When I'm working hard I always try to give my feet a rest and my brain
a little work at noontime," he remarked. "My brain is so far behind the
procession I have to keep putting the gad on it. Give me twenty minutes
of Kirkham and I'll be with you again."
He lay down on his back under a tree with his book in hand and his feet
resting on the tree trunk well above him. Soon he was up and at work
again.
* * * * *
When they were getting ready to go home that afternoon Joe got into a
great hurry to see his mother. It seemed to him that ages had elapsed
since he had seen her--a conviction which led to noisy tears.
Abe knelt before him and comforted the boy. Then he wrapped him in his
jacket and swung him in the air and started for home with Joe astride
his neck.
Samson says in his diary: "His tender play with the little lad gave me
another look at the man Lincoln."
"Some one proposed once that we should call that stream the Minnehaha,"
said Abe as he walked along. "After this Joe and I are going to call it
the Minneboohoo."
The women of the little village had met at a quilting party at ten
o'clock with Mrs. Martin Waddell. There Sarah had had a seat at the
frame and heard all the gossip of the countryside. . . .
So the day passed with them and was interrupted by the noisy entrance of
Joe, soon after candlelight, who climbed on the back of his mother's
chair and kissed her and in breathless eagerness began to relate the
history of his own day.
That ended the quilting party and Sarah and Mrs. Rutledge and her
daughter Ann joined Samson and Abe and Harry Needles who were waiting
outside and walked to the tavern with them.
John McNeil, whom the Traylors had met on the road near Niagara Falls
and who had shared their camp with them, arrived on the stage that
evening. . . . Abe came in, soon after eight o'clock, and was introduced
to the stranger. All noted the contrast between the two young men as
they greeted each other. Abe sat down for a few minutes and looked sadly
into the fire but said nothing. He rose presently, excused himself and
went away.
Soon Samson followed him. Over at Offut's store he did not find Abe, but
Bill Berry was drawing liquor from the spigot of a barrel set on blocks
in a shed connected with the rear end of the store and serving it to a
number of hilarious young Irishmen. The young men asked Samson to join
them.
"No, thank you. I never touch it," he said.
"We'll come over here an' learn ye how to enjoy yerself some day," one
of them said.
"I'm pretty well posted on that subject now," Samson answered.
It is likely that they would have begun his schooling at once but when
they came out into the store and saw the big Vermonter standing in the
candlelight their laughter ceased for a moment. Bill was among them
with a well-filled bottle in his hand.
He and the others got into a wagon which had been waiting at the door
and drove away with a wild Indian whoop from the lips of one of the
young men.
Samson sat down in the candlelight and Abe in a moment arrived.
"I'm getting awful sick o' this business," said Abe.
"I kind o' guess you don't like the whisky part of it," Samson remarked,
as he felt a piece of cloth.
"I hate it," Abe went on. "It don't seem respectable any longer."
"Back in Vermont we don't like the whisky business."
"You're right, it breeds deviltry and disorder. In my youth I was
surrounded by whisky. Everybody drank it. A bottle or a jug of liquor
was thought to be as legitimate a piece of merchandise as a pound of tea
or a yard of calico. That's the way I've always thought of it. But
lately I've begun to get the Yankee notion about whisky. When it gets
into bad company it can raise the devil."
Soon after nine o'clock Abe drew a mattress filled with corn husks from
under the counter, cleared away the bolts of cloth and laid it where
they had been and covered it with a blanket.
"This is my bed," said he. "I'll be up at five in the morning. Then I'll
be making tea here by the fireplace to wash down some jerked meat and a
hunk o' bread. At six or a little after I'll be ready to go with you
again. Jack Kelso is going to look after the store to-morrow."
He began to laugh.
"Ye know when I went out of the tavern that little vixen stood peekin'
into the window--Bim, Jack's girl," said Abe. "I asked her why she
didn't go in and she said she was scared. 'Who you 'fraid of?' I asked.
'Oh, I reckon that boy,' says she. And honestly her hand trembled when
she took hold of my arm and walked to her father's house with me."
Abe snickered as he spread another blanket. "What a cut-up she is! Say,
we'll have some fun watching them two I reckon," he said.
The logs were ready two days after the cutting began. Martin Waddell and
Samuel Hill sent teams to haul them. John Cameron and Peter Lukins had
brought the window sash and some clapboards from Beardstown in a small
flat boat. Then came the day of the raising--a clear, warm day early in
September. All the men from the village and the near farms gathered to
help make a home for the newcomers. Samson and Jack Kelso went out for a
hunt after the cutting and brought in a fat buck and many grouse for the
bee dinner, to which every woman of the neighborhood made a contribution
of cake or pie or cookies or doughnuts.
"What will be my part?" Samson had inquired of Kelso.
"Nothing but a jug of whisky and a kind word and a house warming," Kelso
had answered.
They notched and bored the logs and made pins to bind them and cut those
that were to go around the fireplace and window spaces. Strong, willing
and well-trained hands hewed and fitted the logs together. Alexander
Ferguson lined the fireplace with a curious mortar made of clay in which
he mixed grass for a binder. This mortar he rolled into layers called
"cats," each eight inches long and three inches thick. Then he laid them
against the logs and held them in place with a woven network of sticks.
The first fire--a slow one--baked the clay into a rigid stonelike sheath
inside the logs and presently the sticks were burned away. The women had
cooked the meats by an open fire and spread the dinner on a table of
rough boards resting on poles set in crotches. At noon one of them
sounded a conch shell. Then with shouts of joy the men hurried to the
fireside and for a moment there was a great spluttering over the wash
basins. Before they ate every man except Abe and Samson "took a pull at
the jug--long or short"--to quote a phrase of the time.
It was a cheerful company that sat down upon the grass around the table
with loaded plates. Their food had its extra seasoning of merry jests
and loud laughter. Sarah was a little shocked at the forthright
directness of their eating, no knives or forks or napkins being needed
in that process. Having eaten, washed and packed away their dishes the
women went home at two. Before they had gone Samson's ears caught a
thunder of horses' feet in the distance. Looking in its direction he saw
a cloud of dust in the road and a band of horsemen riding toward them at
full speed. Abe came to him and said:
"I see the boys from Clary's Grove are coming. If they get mean let me
deal with 'em. It's my responsibility. I wouldn't wonder if they had
some of Offut's whisky with them."
The boys arrived in a cloud of dust and a chorus of Indian whoops and
dismounted and hobbled their horses. They came toward the workers, led
by burly Jack Armstrong, a stalwart, hard-faced blacksmith of about
twenty-two with broad, heavy shoulders, whose name has gone into
history. They had been drinking some but no one of them was in the least
degree off his balance. They scuffled around the jug for a moment in
perfect good nature and then Abe and Mrs. Waddell provided them with the
best remnants of the dinner. They were rather noisy. Soon they went up
on the roof to help with the rafters and the clapboarding. They worked
well a few minutes and suddenly they came scrambling down for another
pull at the jug. They were out for a spree and Abe knew it and knew
further that they had reached the limit of discretion.
"Boys, there are ladies here and we've got to be careful," he said. "Did
I ever tell you what Uncle Jerry Holman said of his bull calf? He said
the calf was such a _suckcess_ that he didn't leave any milk for the
family and that while the calf was growin' fat the children was growin'
poor. In my opinion you're about fat enough for the present. Let's stick
to the job till four o'clock. Then we'll knock off for refreshments."
The young revelers gathered in a group and began to whisper together.
Samson writes that it became evident then they were going to make
trouble and says:
"We had left the children at Rutledge's in the
care of Ann. I went to Sarah and told her she had
better go on and see if they were all right.
"'Don't you get in any fight,' she said, which
shows that the women knew what was in the air.
"Sarah led the way and the others followed her."
Those big, brawny fellows from the grove when they got merry were
looking always for a chance to get mad at some man and turn him into a
plaything. A victim had been a necessary part of their sprees. Many a
poor fellow had been fastened in a barrel and rolled down hill or nearly
drowned in a ducking for their amusement. A chance had come to get mad
and they were going to make the most of it. They began to growl with
resentment. Some were wigging their leader Jack Armstrong to fight Abe.
One of them ran to his horse and brought a bottle from his saddlebag. It
began passing from mouth to mouth. Jack Armstrong got the bottle before
it was half emptied, drained it and flung it high in the air. Another
called him a hog and grappled him around the waist and there was a
desperate struggle which ended quickly. Armstrong got a hold on the neck
of his assailant and choked him until he let go. This was not enough for
the sturdy bully of Clary's Grove. He seized his follower and flung him
so roughly on the ground that the latter lay for a moment stunned.
Armstrong had got his blood warm and was now ready for action. With a
wild whoop he threw off his coat, unbuttoned his right shirtsleeve and
rolled it to the shoulder and declared in a loud voice, as he swung his
arm in the air, that he could "outjump, outhop, outrun, throw down, drag
out an' lick any man in New Salem."
In a letter to his father Samson writes:
"Abe was working at my elbow. I saw him drop his
hammer and get up and make for the ladder. I knew
something was going to happen and I followed him.
In a minute every one was off the roof and out of
the building. I guess they knew what was coming.
The big lad stood there swinging his arm and
yelling like an Injun. It was a big arm and
muscled and corded up some but I guess if I'd
shoved the calico off mine and held it up he'd a
pulled down his sleeve. I suppose the feller's arm
had a kind of a mule's kick in it, but, good
gracious! If he'd a seen as many arms as you an' I
have that have growed up on a hickory helve he'd a
known that his was nothing to brag of. I didn't
know just how good a man Abe was and I was kind o'
scairt for a minute. I never found it so hard work
to do nothin' as I did then. Honest my hands kind
o' ached. I wanted to go an' cuff that feller's
ears an' grab hold o' him an' toss him over the
ridge pole. Abe went right up to him an' said:
"'Jack, you ain't half so bad or half so cordy as
ye think ye are. You say you can throw down any
man here. I reckon I'll have to show ye that
you're mistaken. I'll rassle with ye. We're
friends an' we won't talk about lickin' each
other. Le's have a friendly rassle.'
"In a second the two men were locked together.
Armstrong had lunged at Abe with a yell. There was
no friendship in the way he took hold. He was
going to do all the damage he could in any way he
could. He tried to butt with his head and ram his
knee into Abe's stomach as soon as they came
together. Half-drunk Jack is a man who would bite
your ear off. It was no rassle; it was a fight.
Abe moved like lightning. He acted awful limber
an' well-greased. In a second he had got hold of
the feller's neck with his big right hand and
hooked his left into the cloth on his hip. In that
way he held him off and shook him as you've seen
our dog shake a woodchuck. Abe's blood was hot. If
the whole crowd had piled on him I guess he would
have come out all right, for when he's roused
there's something in Abe more than bones and
muscles. I suppose it's what I feel when he speaks
a piece. It's a kind of lightning. I guess it's
what our minister used to call the power of the
spirit. Abe said to me afterwards that he felt as
if he was fighting for the peace and honor of New
Salem.