“He has the pass-key to hearts, to him the
response of the prying of hands on the knobs.”
--_Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Answerer.”_
“Did I know Lincoln? Well, I should say. See that chair there? Take
it, set down. That’s right. Comfortable, ain’t it? Well, sir, Abraham
Lincoln has set in that chair hours, him and Little ‘Doug,’ and Logan
and Judge Davis, all of ’em, all the big men in this State, set in that
chair. See them marks? Whittlin’. Judge Logan did it, all-firedest man
to whittle. Always cuttin’ away at something. I just got that chair
new, paid six dollars for it, and I be blamed if I didn’t come in this
store and find him slashin’ right into that arm. I picked up a stick
and said: ‘Here, Judge, s’posin’ you cut this.’ He just looked at me
and then flounced out, mad as a wet hen. Mr. Lincoln was here, and you
ought to heard him tee-hee. He was always here. Come and set by the
stove by the hour and tell stories and talk and argue. I’d ruther heard
the debates them men had around this old stove than heard Webster and
Clay and Calhoun and the whole United States Senate. There wa’n’t never
a United States Senate that could beat just what I’ve heard right here
in this room with Lincoln settin’ in that very chair where you are this
minute.
[Illustration: “_Come and set by the stove by the hour and tell stories
and talk and argue_”]
“He traded here. I’ve got his accounts now. See here, ‘quinine,
quinine, quinine.’ Greatest hand to buy quinine you ever see. Give it
to his constituents. Oh, he knew how to be popular, Mr. Lincoln did.
Cutest man in politics. I wa’n’t a Whig. I was then and I am now a
Democrat, a real old-fashioned Jackson Democrat, and my blood just
would rise up sometimes hearin’ him discuss. He was a dangerous man--a
durned dangerous man to have agin you. He’d make you think a thing
when you knew it wa’n’t so, and cute! Why, he’d just slide in when you
wa’n’t expectin’ it and do some unexpected thing that u’d make you
laugh, and then he’d get your vote. You’d vote for him because you
liked him--just because you liked him and because he was so all-fired
smart, and do it when you knew he was wrong and it was agin the
interest of the country.
“Tell stories? Nobody ever could beat him at that, and how he’d enjoy
’em, just slap his hands on his knees and jump up and turn around and
then set down, laughin’ to kill. Greatest man to git new yarns that
ever lived, always askin’, ‘Heard any new stories, Billy?’ And if I
had I’d trot ’em out, and how he’d laugh. Often and often when I’ve
told him something new and he’d kin’ a forgit how it went, he’d come in
and say, ‘Billy, how about that story you’se tellin’ me?’ and then I’d
tell it all over.
“He was away a lot, you know, ridin’ the circuit along with some right
smart lawyers. They had great doin’s. Nuthin’ to do evenings but to set
around the tavern stove tellin’ stories. That was enough when Lincoln
was there. They was all lost without him. Old Judge Davis was boss of
that lot, and he never would settle down till Lincoln got around. I’ve
heard ’em laugh lots of times how the Judge would fuss around and keep
askin’, ‘Where’s Mr. Lincoln, why don’t Mr. Lincoln come? Somebody go
and find Lincoln,’ and when Lincoln came he would just settle back and
get him started to yarning, and there they’d set half the night.
“When he got home he’d come right in here first time he was downtown
and tell me every blamed yarn he’d heard. Whole crowd would get in
here sometimes and talk over the trip, and I tell you it was something
to hear ’em laugh. You could tell how Lincoln kept things stirred up.
He was so blamed quick. Ever hear Judge Weldon tell that story about
what Lincoln said one day up to Bloomington when they was takin’ up a
subscription to buy Jim Wheeler a new pair of pants? No? Well, perhaps
I oughten to tell it to you, ma says it ain’t nice. It makes me mad to
hear people objectin’ to Mr. Lincoln’s stories. Mebbe he did say words
you wouldn’t expect to hear at a church supper, but he never put no
meanin’ into ’em that wouldn’t ’a’ been fit for the minister to put
into a sermon, and that’s a blamed sight more’n you can say of a lot of
stories I’ve heard some of the people tell who stick up their noses at
Mr. Lincoln’s yarns.
“Yes, sir, he used to keep things purty well stirred up on that
circuit. That time I was a speakin’ of he made Judge Davis real mad; it
happened right in court and everybody got to gigglin’ fit to kill. The
Judge knew ’twas something Lincoln had said and he began to sputter.
“‘I am not going to stand this any longer, Mr. Lincoln, you’re always
disturbin’ this court with your tomfoolery. I’m goin’ to fine you. The
clerk will fine Mr. Lincoln five dollars for disorderly conduct.’ The
boys said Lincoln never said a word; he just set lookin’ down with his
hand over his mouth, tryin’ not to laugh. About a minute later the
Judge, who was always on pins and needles till he knew all the fun
that was goin’ on, called up Weldon and whispered to him, ‘What was
that Lincoln said?’ Weldon told him, and I’ll be blamed if the Judge
didn’t giggle right out loud there in court. The joke was on him then,
and he knew it, and soon as he got his face straight he said, dignified
like, ‘The clerk may remit Mr. Lincoln’s fine.’
“Yes, he was a mighty cute story-teller, but he knew what he was about
tellin’ ’em. I tell you he got more arguments out of stories than
he did out of law books, and the queer part was you couldn’t answer
’em--they just made you see it and you couldn’t get around it. I’m a
Democrat, but I’ll be blamed if I didn’t have to vote for Mr. Lincoln
as President, couldn’t help it, and it was all on account of that snake
story of his’n illustratin’ the takin’ of slavery into Kansas and
Nebraska. Remember it? I heard him tell it in a speech once.
“‘If I saw a pizen snake crawlin’ in the road,’ he says, ‘I’d kill it
with the first thing I could grab; but if I found it in bed with my
children, I’d be mighty careful how I touched it fear I’d make it bite
the children. If I found it in bed with somebody else’s children I’d
let them take care of it; but if I found somebody puttin’ a whole batch
of young snakes into an empty bed where mine or anybody’s children was
going to sleep pretty soon, I’d stop him from doin’ it if I had to
fight him.’ Perhaps he didn’t say ‘fight him,’ but somehow I always
tell that story that way because I know I would and so would he or you
or anybody. That was what it was all about when you come down to it.
They was tryin’ to put a batch of snakes into an empty bed that folks
was goin’ to sleep in.
“Before I heard that story I’d heard Lincoln say a hundred times,
settin’ right there in that chair, where you are, ‘Boys, we’ve got
to stop slavery or it’s goin’ to spread all over this country,’ but,
somehow, I didn’t see it before. Them snakes finished me. Then I knew
he’d got it right and I’d got to vote for him. Pretty tough, though,
for me to go back on Little ‘Doug.’ You see he was our great man, so we
thought. Been to the United States Senate and knew all the big bugs all
over the country. Sort o’ looked and talked great. Wan’t no comparison
between him and Lincoln in looks and talk. Of course, we all knew he
wa’n’t honest, like Lincoln, but blamed if I didn’t think in them days
Lincoln was too all-fired honest--kind of innocent honest. He couldn’t
stand it nohow to have things said that wan’t so. He just felt plumb
bad about lies. I remember once bein’ in court over to Decatur when
Mr. Lincoln was tryin’ a case. There was a fellow agin him that didn’t
have no prejudices against lyin’ in a lawsuit, and he was tellin’ how
Lincoln had said this an’ that, tryin’ to mix up the jury. It was
snowin’ bad outside, and Mr. Lincoln had wet his feet and he was tryin’
to dry ’em at the stove. He had pulled off one shoe and was settin’
there holdin’ up his great big foot, his forehead all puckered up,
listenin’ to that ornery lawyer’s lies. All at onct he jumped up and
hopped right out into the middle of the court-room.
“‘Now, Judge,’ he says, ‘that ain’t fair. I didn’t say no sich thing,
and he knows I didn’t. I ain’t goin’ to have this jury all fuddled up.’
“You never see anything so funny in a court-room as that big fellow
standin’ there in one stockin’ foot, a shoe in his hand, talking so
earnest. No, sir, he couldn’t stand a lie.
“‘Think he was a big man, then?’ Nope--never did. Just as I said, we
all thought Douglas was _our_ big man. You know I felt kind of sorry
for Lincoln when they began to talk about him for President. It seemed
almost as if somebody was makin’ fun of him. He didn’t look like a
president. I never had seen one, but we had pictures of ’em, all of ’em
from George Washington down, and they looked somehow as if they were
different kind of timber from us. Leastwise that’s always the way it
struck me. Now Mr. Lincoln he was just like your own folks--no trouble
to talk to him, no siree. Somehow you just settled down comfortable to
visitin’ the minute he come in. I couldn’t imagine George Washington
or Thomas Jefferson settin’ here in that chair you’re in tee-heein’
over some blamed yarn of mine. None of us around town took much stock
in his bein’ elected at first--that is, none of the men, the women was
different. They always believed in him, and used to say, ‘You mark my
word, Mr. Lincoln will be president. He’s just made for it, he’s good,
he’s the best man ever lived and he ought to be president.’ I didn’t
see no logic in that then, but I dunno but there was some after all.
“It seems all right now though. I reckon I learned somethin’ watchin’
him be President--learned a lot--not that it made any difference in
_him_. Funniest thing to see him goin’ around in this town--not a mite
changed--and the whole United States a watchin’ him and the biggest
men in the country runnin’ after him and reporters hangin’ around to
talk to him and fellers makin’ his pictures in ile and every other
way. That didn’t make no difference to him--only he didn’t like bein’
so busy he couldn’t come in here much. He had a room over there in
the Court House--room on that corner there. I never looked up that it
wa’n’t chuck full of people wantin’ him. This old town was full of
people all the time--delegations and committees and politicians and
newspaper men. Only time I ever see Horace Greeley, he came in here to
buy quinine. Mr. Lincoln sent him. Think of that, Horace Greeley buyin’
quinine of _me_.
[Illustration: “_Horace Greeley, he came in here to buy quinine_”]
“No end of other great men around. He saw ’em all. Sometimes I used
to step over and watch him--didn’t bother him a mite to see a big
man--not a mite. He’d jest shake hands and talk as easy and natural as
if ’twas me--and he didn’t do no struttin’ either. Some of the fellers
who come to see him looked as if _they_ was goin’ to be president, but
Mr. Lincoln didn’t put on any airs. No, sir, and he didn’t cut any of
his old friends either. Tickled to death to see ’em every time, and
they all come--blamed if every old man and woman in Sangamon County
didn’t trot up here to see him. They’d all knowed him when he was
keepin’ store down to New Salem and swingin’ a chain--surveyed lots of
their towns for ’em--he had--and then he’d electioneered all over that
county, too, so they just come in droves to bid him good-by. I was over
there one day when old Aunt Sally Lowdy came in the door. Aunt Sally
lived down near New Salem, and I expect she’d mended Mr. Lincoln’s
pants many a time; for all them old women down there just doted on
him and took care of him as if he was their own boy. Well, Aunt Sally
stood lookin’ kind a scared seein’ so many strangers and not knowin’
precisely what to do, when Mr. Lincoln spied her. Quick as a wink he
said, ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ and he just rushed over to that old woman
and shook hands with both of his’n and says, ‘Now, Aunt Sally, this is
real kind of you to come and see me. How are you and how’s Jake?’ (Jake
was her boy.) ‘Come right over here,’ and he led her over, as if she
was the biggest lady in Illinois, and says, ‘Gentlemen, this is a good
old friend of mine. She can make the best flapjacks you ever tasted,
and she’s baked ’em for me many a time.’ Aunt Sally was jest as pink
as a rosy, she was so tickled. And she says, ‘Abe’--all the old folks
in Sangamon called him Abe. They knowed him as a boy, but don’t you
believe anybody ever did up here. No, sir, we said Mr. Lincoln. He was
like one of us, but he wa’n’t no man to be over familiar with. ‘Abe,’
says Aunt Sally, ‘I had to come and say good-by. They say down our way
they’re goin’ to kill you if they get you down to Washington, but I
don’t believe it. I just tell ’em you’re too smart to let ’em git ahead
of you that way. I thought I’d come and bring you a present, knit ’em
myself,’ and I’ll be blamed if that old lady didn’t pull out a great
big pair of yarn socks and hand ’em to Mr. Lincoln.
“Well, sir, it was the funniest thing to see Mr. Lincoln’s face pucker
up and his eyes twinkle and twinkle. He took them socks and held ’em
up by the toes, one in each hand. They was the longest socks I ever
see. ‘The lady got my latitude and longitude ’bout right, didn’t she,
gentlemen?’ he says, and then he laid ’em down and he took Aunt Sally’s
hand and he says tender-like, ‘Aunt Sally, you couldn’t a done nothin’
which would have pleased me better. I’ll take ’em to Washington and
wear ’em, and think of you when I do it.’ And I declare he said it so
first thing I knew I was almost blubberin’, and I wan’t the only one
nuther, and I bet he did wear ’em in Washington. I can jest see him
pullin’ off his shoe and showin’ them socks to Sumner or Seward or
some other big bug that was botherin’ him when he wanted to switch off
on another subject and tellin’ ’em the story about Aunt Sally and her
flapjacks.
[Illustration: “_Aunt Sally, you couldn’t a done nuthin’ which would
have pleased me better_”]
“‘Was there much talk about his bein’ killed?’ Well, there’s an awful
lot of fools in this world and when they don’t git what they want
they’re always for killin’ somebody. Mr. Lincoln never let on, but I
reckon his mail was pretty lively readin’ sometimes. He got pictures
of gallows and pistols and other things and lots of threats, so they
said. I don’t think that worried him much. He was more bothered seein’
old Buchanan givin’ the game away. ‘I wish I could have got down there
before the horse was stole,’ I heard him say onct in here, talkin’ to
some men. ‘But I reckon I can find the tracks when I do git there.’ It
was his cabinet bothered him most, I always thought. He didn’t know the
men he’d got to take well enough. Didn’t know how far he could count on
’em. He and Judge Gillespie and one or two others was in here one day
sittin’ by the stove talkin,’ and he says, ‘Judge, I wisht I could take
all you boys down to Washington with me, Democrats and all, and make
a cabinet out of you. I’d know where every man would fit and we could
git right down to work. Now, I’ve got to learn my men before I can do
much.’ ‘Do you mean, Mr. Lincoln, you’d take a Democrat like Logan?’
says the Judge, sort of shocked. ‘Yes, sir, I would; I know Logan. He’s
agin me now and that’s all right, but if we have trouble you can count
on Logan to do the right thing by the country, and that’s the kind of
men I want--them as will do the right thing by the country. Tain’t a
question of Lincoln, or Democrat or Republican, Judge; it’s a question
of the country.’
“Of course he seemed pretty cheerful always. He wan’t no man to show
out all he felt. Lots of them little stuck-up chaps that came out here
to talk to him said, solemn as owls, ‘He don’t realize the gravity of
the situation.’ Them’s their words, ‘gravity of the situation.’ Think
of that, Mr. Lincoln not realizing. They ought to heard him talk to us
the night he went away. I’ll never forgit that speech--nor any man who
heard it. I can see him now just how he looked, standin’ there on the
end of his car. He’d been shakin’ hands with the crowd in the depot,
laughin’ and talkin’, just like himself, but when he got onto that car
he seemed suddint to be all changed. You never seen a face so sad in
all the world. I tell you he had woe in his heart that minute, woe. He
knew he was leavin’ us for good, nuthin’ else could explain the way he
looked and what he said. He knew he never was comin’ back alive. It was
rainin’ hard, but when we saw him standin’ there bare headed, his great
big eyes lookin’ at us so lovin’ and mournful, every man of us took
off his hat, just as if he’d been in church. You never heard him make a
speech, of course? You missed a lot. Curious voice. You could hear it
away off--kind of shrill, but went right to your heart--and that night
it sounded sadder than anything I ever heard. You know I always hear it
to this day, nights when the wind howls around the house. Ma says it
makes her nervous to hear me talk about him such nights, but I can’t
help it; just have to let out.
“He stood a minute lookin’ at us, and then he began to talk. There
ain’t a man in this town that heard him that ever forgot what he said,
but I don’t believe there’s a man that ever said it over out loud--he
couldn’t, without cryin’. He just talked to us that time out of his
heart. Somehow we felt all of a suddint how we loved him and how he
loved us. We hadn’t taken any stock in all that talk about his bein’
killed, but when he said he was goin’ away not knowin’ where or whether
ever he would return I just got cold all over. I begun to _see_ that
minute and everybody did. The women all fell to sobbin’ and a kind of
groan went up, and when he asked us to pray for him I don’t believe
that there was a man in that crowd, whether he ever went to church in
his life, that didn’t want to drop right down on his marrow bones and
ask the Lord to take care of Abraham Lincoln and bring him back to us,
where he belonged.
[Illustration: “_He just talked to us that time out of his heart_”]
“‘Ever see him again?’ Yes, onct down in Washington, summer of ’64.
Things was lookin’ purty blue that summer. Didn’t seem to be anybody
who thought he’d git reëlected. Greeley was abusin’ him in _The
Tribune_ for not makin’ peace, and you know there was about half the
North that always let Greeley do their thinkin’ fer ’em. The war wan’t
comin’ on at all--seemed as if they never would do nuthin’. Grant was
hangin’ on to Petersburg like a dog to a root, but it didn’t seem to do
no good. Same with Sherman, who was tryin’ to take Atlanta. The country
was just petered out with the everlastin’ taxes an’ fightin’ an’ dyin’.
It wa’n’t human nature to be patient any longer, and they just spit it
out on Mr. Lincoln, and then, right on top of all the grumblin’ and
abusin’, he up and made another draft. Course he was right, but I tell
you nobody but a brave man would ’a’ done such a thing at that minute;
but he did it. It was hard on us out here. I tell you there wa’n’t many
houses in this country where there wa’n’t mournin’ goin’ on. It didn’t
seem as if we _could_ stand any more blood lettin.’ Some of the boys
round the State went down to see him about it. They came back lookin’
pretty sheepish. Joe Medill, up to Chicago, told me about it onct. He
said, ‘We just told Mr. Lincoln we couldn’t stand another draft. We
was through sendin’ men down to Petersburg to be killed in trenches.
He didn’t say nuthin’; just stood still, lookin’ down till we’d all
talked ourselves out; and then, after a while, he lifted up his head,
and looked around at us, slow-like; and I tell you, Billy, I never knew
till that minute that Abraham Lincoln could get mad clean through.
He was just white he was that mad. “Boys,” he says, “you ought to be
ashamed of yourselves. You’re actin’ like a lot of cowards. You’ve
helped make this war, and you’ve got to help fight it. You go home and
raise them men and don’t you dare come down here again blubberin’
about what I tell you to do. I won’t stan’ it.” We was so scared we
never said a word. We just took our hats and went out like a lot of
school-boys. Talk about Abraham Lincoln bein’ easy! When it didn’t
matter mebbe he was easy, but when it did you couldn’t stir him any
more’n you could a mountain.’
[Illustration: “_You’re actin’ like a lot of cowards. You’ve helped
make this war, and you’ve got to help fight it_”]
“Well, I kept hearin’ about the trouble he was havin’ with everybody,
and I just made up my mind I’d go down and see him and swap yarns and
tell him how we was all countin’ on his gettin’ home. Thought maybe
it would cheer him up to know we set such store on his comin’ home if
they didn’t want him for president. So I jest picked up and went right
off. Ma was real good about my goin’. She says, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if
’twould do him good, William. And don’t you ask him no questions about
the war nor about politics. You just talk home to him and tell him some
of them foolish stories of yourn.’
“Well, I had a brother in Washington, clerk in a department--awful set
up ’cause he had an office--and when I got down there I told him I’d
come to visit Mr. Lincoln. He says, ‘William, be you a fool? Folks
don’t visit the President of the United States without an invitation,
and he’s too busy to see anybody but the very biggest people in this
administration. Why, he don’t even see me,’ he says. Well, it made me
huffy to hear him talk. ‘Isaac,’ I says, ‘I don’t wonder Mr. Lincoln
don’t see you. But it’s different with me. Him and me is friends.’
“‘Well’ he says, ‘you’ve got to have cards anyway.’ ‘Cards,’ I says,
‘what for? What kind?’ ‘Why,’ he says, ‘visitin’ cards--with your name
on.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘it’s come to a pretty pass, if an old friend like
me can’t see Mr. Lincoln without sendin’ him a piece of pasteboard.
I’d be ashamed to do such a thing, Isaac Brown. Do you suppose he’s
forgotten me? Needs to see my name printed out to know who I am? You
can’t make me believe any such thing,’ and I walked right out of the
room, and that night I footed it up to the Soldiers’ Home where Mr.
Lincoln was livin’ then, right among the sick soldiers in their tents.
“There was lots of people settin’ around in a little room, waitin’ fer
him, but there wan’t anybody there I knowed, and I was feelin’ a little
funny when a door opened and out came little John Nicolay. He came from
down this way, so I just went up and says, ‘How’d you do, John; where’s
Mr. Lincoln?’ Well, John didn’t seem over glad to see me.
“‘Have you an appintment with Mr. Lincoln?’ he says.
“‘No, sir,’ I says; ‘I ain’t, and it ain’t necessary. Mebbe it’s all
right and fittin’ for them as wants post-offices to have appintments,
but I reckon Mr. Lincoln’s old friends don’t need ’em, so you just trot
along, Johnnie, and tell him Billy Brown’s here and see what he says.’
Well, he kind a flushed up and set his lips together, but he knowed
me, and so he went off. In about two minutes the door popped open and
out came Mr. Lincoln, his face all lit up. He saw me first thing, and
he laid holt of me and just shook my hands fit to kill. ‘Billy,’ he
says, ‘now I am glad to see you. Come right in. You’re goin’ to stay to
supper with Mary and me.’
“Didn’t I know it? Think bein’ president would change him--not a mite.
Well, he had a right smart lot of people to see, but soon as he was
through we went out on the back stoop and set down and talked and
talked. He asked me about pretty nigh everybody in Springfield. I just
let loose and told him about the weddin’s and births and the funerals
and the buildin’, and I guess there wan’t a yarn I’d heard in the three
years and a half he’d been away that I didn’t spin for him. Laugh--you
ought to a heard him laugh--just did my heart good, for I could see
what they’d been doin’ to him. Always was a thin man, but, Lordy, he
was thinner’n ever now, and his face was kind a drawn and gray--enough
to make you cry.
[Illustration: “_We went out on the back stoop and sat down and talked
and talked_”]
“Well, we had supper and then talked some more, and about ten o’clock I
started downtown. Wanted me to stay all night, but I says to myself,
‘Billy, don’t you overdo it. You’ve cheered him up, and you better
light out and let him remember it when he’s tired.’ So I said, ‘Nope,
Mr. Lincoln, can’t, goin’ back to Springfield to-morrow. Ma don’t
like to have me away and my boy ain’t no great shakes keepin’ store.’
‘Billy,’ he says, ‘what did you come down here for?’ ‘I come to see
you, Mr. Lincoln.’ ‘But you ain’t asked me for anything, Billy. What is
it? Out with it. Want a post-office?’ he said, gigglin’, for he knowed
I didn’t. ‘No, Mr. Lincoln, just wanted to see _you_--felt kind a
lonesome--been so long since I’d seen you, and I was afraid I’d forgit
some of them yarns if I didn’t unload soon.’
“Well, sir, you ought to seen his face as he looked at me.
“‘Billy Brown,’ he says, slow-like, ‘do you mean to tell me you came
all the way from Springfield, Illinois, just to have a _visit_ with
_me_, that you don’t want an office for anybody, nor a pardon for
anybody, that you ain’t got no complaints in your pocket, nor any
advice up your sleeve?’
“‘Yes, sir,’ I says, ‘that’s about it, and I’ll be durned if I wouldn’t
go to _Europe_ to see you, if I couldn’t do it no other way, Mr.
Lincoln.’
“Well, sir, I never was so astonished in my life. He just grabbed my
hand and shook it nearly off, and the tears just poured down his face,
and he says, ‘Billy, you never’ll know what good you’ve done me. I’m
homesick, Billy, just plumb homesick, and it seems as if this war never
would be over. Many a night I can see the boys a-dyin’ on the fields
and can hear their mothers cryin’ for ’em at home, and I can’t help
’em, Billy. I have to send them down there. We’ve got to save the
Union, Billy, we’ve got to.’
“‘Course we have, Mr. Lincoln,’ I says, cheerful as I could, ‘course we
have. Don’t you worry. It’s most over. You’re goin’ to be reëlected,
and you and old Grant’s goin’ to finish this war mighty quick then.
Just keep a stiff upper lip, Mr. Lincoln, and don’t forget them yarns
I told you.’ And I started out. But seems as if he couldn’t let me
go. ‘Wait a minute, Billy,’ he says, ‘till I get my hat and I’ll walk
a piece with you.’ It was one of them still sweet-smellin’ summer
nights with no end of stars and you ain’t no idee how pretty ’twas
walkin’ down the road. There was white tents showin’ through the trees
and every little way a tall soldier standin’ stock still, a gun at
his side. Made me feel mighty curious and solemn. By-and-by we come
out of the trees to a sightly place where you could look all over
Washington--see the Potomac and clean into Virginia. There was a bench
there and we set down and after a while Mr. Lincoln he begun to talk.
Well, sir, you or nobody ever heard anything like it. Blamed if he
didn’t tell me the whole thing--all about the war and the generals and
Seward and Sumner and Congress and Greeley and the whole blamed lot. He
just opened up his heart if I do say it. Seemed as if he’d come to a
p’int where he must let out. I dunno how long we set there--must have
been nigh morning, fer the stars begun to go out before he got up to
go. ‘Good-by, Billy,’ he says, ‘you’re the first person I ever unloaded
onto, and I hope you won’t think I’m a baby,’ and then we shook hands
again, and I walked down to town and next day I come home.
“Tell you what he said? Nope, I can’t. Can’t talk about it somehow.
Fact is, I never told anybody about what he said that night. Tried to
tell ma onct, but she cried, so I give it up.
“Yes, that’s the last time I seen him--last time alive.
“Wa’n’t long after that things began to look better. War began to move
right smart, and, soon as it did, there wa’n’t no use talkin’ about
anybody else for President. I see that plain enough, and, just as I
told him, he was reëlected, and him an’ Grant finished up the war in
a hurry. I tell you it was a great day out here when we heard Lee had
surrendered. ’Twas just like gettin’ converted to have the war over.
Somehow the only thing I could think of was how glad Mr. Lincoln would
be. Me and ma reckoned he’d come right out and make us a visit and get
rested, and we began right off to make plans about the reception we’d
give him--brass band--parade--speeches--fireworks--everything. Seems as
if I couldn’t think about anything else. I was comin’ down to open the
store one mornin’, and all the way down I was plannin’ how I’d decorate
the windows and how I’d tie a flag on that old chair, when I see Hiram
Jones comin’ toward me. He looked so old and all bent over I didn’t
know what had happened. ‘Hiram,’ I says, ‘what’s the matter? Be you
sick?’
“‘Billy,’ he says, and he couldn’t hardly say it, ‘Billy, they’ve
killed Mr. Lincoln.’
“Well, I just turned cold all over, and then I flared up. ‘Hiram
Jones,’ I says, ‘you’re lyin,’ you’re crazy. How dare you tell me
that? It ain’t so.’
“‘Don’t Billy,’ he says, ‘don’t go on so. I ain’t lyin’. It’s so. He’ll
never come back, Billy. He’s dead!’ And he fell to sobbin’ out loud
right there in the street, and somehow I knew it was true.
“I come on down and opened the door. People must have paregoric and
castor ile and liniment, no matter who dies; but I didn’t put up
the shades. I just sat here and thought and thought and groaned and
groaned. It seemed that day as if the country was plumb ruined and I
didn’t care much. All I could think of was _him_. He wan’t goin’ to
come back. He wouldn’t never sit here in that chair again. He was dead.
“For days and days ’twas awful here. Waitin’ and waitin’. Seemed as if
that funeral never would end. I couldn’t bear to think of him bein’
dragged around the country and havin’ all that fuss made over him. He
always hated fussin’ so. Still, I s’pose I’d been mad if they hadn’t
done it. Seemed awful, though. I kind a felt that he belonged to us
now, that they ought to bring him back and let us have him now they’d
killed him.
“Of course they got here at last, and I must say it was pretty grand.
All sorts of big bugs, Senators and Congressmen, and officers in grand
uniforms and music and flags and crape. They certainly didn’t spare no
pains givin’ him a funeral. Only we didn’t want ’em. We wanted to bury
him ourselves, but they wouldn’t let us. I went over onct where they’d
laid him out for folks to see. I reckon I won’t tell you about that. I
ain’t never goin’ to get that out of my mind. I wisht a million times
I’d never seen him lyin’ there black and changed--that I could only
see him as he looked sayin’ ‘good-by’ to me up to the Soldiers’ Home
in Washington that night.
“Ma and me didn’t go to the cemetery with ’em. I couldn’t stan’
it. Didn’t seem right to have sich goin’s on here at home where he
belonged, for a man like him. But we go up often now, ma and me does,
and talk about him. Blamed if it don’t seem sometimes as if he was
right there--might step out any minute and say ‘Hello, Billy, any new
stories?’
“Yes. I knowed Abraham Lincoln; knowed him well; and I tell you there
wan’t never a better man made. Leastwise I don’t want to know a better
one. He just suited _me_--Abraham Lincoln did.”