ONLY WASTING TIME
After Abe Lincoln went to Rutledges' to board, time seemed to go faster
and more pleasantly than ever in his life for him. John Rutledge was
not only an agreeable gentleman, but he was an unusually well-informed
man for a pioneer, and he and the little coterie of friends passed many
winter evenings discussing topics of local and national interest.
Abe Lincoln spent very little time, however, at the Rutledge home.
There were many debates and public meetings during the Winter, all of
which he attended. His treasured Blackstone was being read and digested
with the same thoroughness he had given Washington and the Constitution
and the Bible. In addition to this he had secured, at no small outlay
of time and expense, a grammar, said to be the only one in the county,
which he was eagerly learning. He was also making the acquaintance of
Shakespeare, with which he was immoderately delighted, and which he had
announced he would learn by heart, as he had much of the text in the
few books he possessed.
Besides his newly acquired Blackstone and Shakespeare, Lincoln was
making trips to Springfield to borrow from Major Stuart what seemed to
the country youth an inexhaustible wealth of books.
So it happened that, nights when there was no meeting of any kind, Abe
Lincoln studied alone in the store or sometimes at the cooper shop,
where warmth and light were given him.
The winter of the busy year came early to New Salem, and the hamlet was
wrapped in a sheet of white which covered the roadways and fields, and
draped the bluffs, and bent the boughs of the forest trees. The streams
were muffled and, save where dark spots showed water moving sluggishly,
were hidden under the white blanket. Cattle huddled by the haystacks
and in barns, and in the log houses great fires blazed on the hearths
and the store of candles was drawn on heavily to make light for the
long evenings when the housewives used the time to spin and knit.
It was a bitter, cold night that Abe Lincoln after supper sat a few
minutes by the fire. John Rutledge had gone to Springfield and would
not return until next day. There was no meeting, and Mrs. Rutledge and
Ann thought perhaps their boarder would spend the evening with them.
The wind blew low and seemed to hug close to the earth and move
silently and stealthily as if trying to envelop some victim unaware.
The snow crunched at the slightest tread. The hearth-fire had never
seemed so good.
Abe Lincoln and Ann were alone in the room. He sat before the fire
looking at the coals; she was getting her spinning ready.
Rising suddenly he took his hat and gray muffler from the peg on the
wall.
"You're not going out, Abraham?" Ann inquired.
"Yes--I'm going over to Muddy Point."
"To Muddy Point?" Ann exclaimed setting her wheel down.
"Yes. I have it as straight as the crow lies that Snoutful Kelly's
wife and children are actually sufferin' for food. Do you suppose your
mother will fix up a basket?"
"Of course--but, Abraham--this is the coldest night of the winter!
Mother!" Ann called rather excitedly, "come here!"
Mrs. Rutledge entered with a yellow bowl in which she was beating
buckwheat batter to put by the fire to rise for breakfast cakes.
"Mother!" exclaimed Ann. "Abraham says he is going to Muddy Point."
Mrs. Rutledge turned and stared at Abe Lincoln a moment as if to make
sure he were there. Then she said, "Are you joking, Abraham?"
"No, indeed--I'm goin'. Old Kelly's wife is sick and the children
are hungry. I got it straight, and I can't sit by this warm fire so
comfortable and think of them sufferin', I've got to go."
"But, Abraham Lincoln, there is not another person in New Salem, not a
living soul of them, that would do it such a night as this."
Abe Lincoln laughed. Then he said, "That's all the more reason I must
go. Will you send a basket?"
"To be sure--but it's an awful cold night and you haven't any
long-coat."
"I'll walk fast enough to keep warm," he assured her. "If folks waited
until all signs were right for doin' these little things, they'd never
get done. We only pass this way but once, you know. Any good thing we
can do we must do as we go--we don't come back."
Mrs. Rutledge stood looking at the tall, ungainly youth. For a moment
his face seemed to be beautiful as the firelight fell on its strong
lines. Then without a word she returned to the kitchen. In a moment she
called Ann to come and help her. Abe went out, too, and together they
fixed a basket and covered it well so that it would not be frozen when
delivered.
Abe Lincoln was not warmly clad for cold weather. Ann thought of this
as he stood before the fire holding his big square muffler.
"This will keep me warm," he said, wrapping it about his throat.
"You haven't any gun," Ann said. "Wolves killed three of William
Green's pigs yesterday, and last week there was a great big catamount
at Honey Grove."
"Do you remember what I did to Armstrong? I did a catamount that same
way once. I always carry my weapons. God fastened them to me so tight I
can't leave them."
Ann and her mother laughed. Abe Lincoln went out into the cold; and
they heard the sharp crunching of the snow under his quick footsteps.
"I'm going to spin to-night, Mother," Ann said. "You don't care if I
put the kettle on and make Abraham something hot to drink when he comes
home, do you?"
"A very good idea," Mrs. Rutledge said. After she had done some mending
she put the water pail by the fire, hung a roll of pork sausage on the
wall, and, after having taken other precautions to insure a good warm
breakfast when everything would be frozen up the next morning, she went
to bed, and Ann was left to spin and to think.
Never was Ann Rutledge long alone that she was not singing. So now, as
her wheel turned in the firelight, she began to sing a glad song full
of life and hope and joy crowded into the words and melody of the old
tune, "O, how I love Jesus!"
As the fire, eating its way through the back log, told the passage
of time she stopped and listened. The kettle was steaming and on the
kitchen table was a plate of food waiting to be brought in.
At last the crunching of the snow under heavy footfalls told her he
was coming. But she only turned her wheel a little faster and sung
a little heartier as he entered, lest he should know she had been
watching.
"O, how I love Jesus!" Abe Lincoln hummed as he came by the fire and
rubbed his hands; "go on with your song and your work. While I get warm
I will tell you a story."
"Once there was a great camp-meetin'," he began, settling himself in
John Rutledge's big splint-bottom chair. "There was an exhorter named
Barcus who helped stir things up to the boilin'-over point. Among those
who got shoutin' happy was a fair and fond sister. Brother Barcus and
the sister both danced and shouted toward each other. When they met,
he said, his benign countenance shinin' with joy, 'Sister, do you love
Jesus?' 'Oh, yes,' she whispered rapturously; 'yes--yes--yes.'
"'Then kiss brother Barcus,' was this shepherd's advice to his beloved
sheep."
Abe Lincoln settled back. Ann laughed. Then she said, "Abraham, we are
bad; you for telling such a story and I for listening."
"No, we are good," he corrected, "you for not askin' the woman's name
and I for not tellin' whether she kissed Brother Barcus."
Again Ann laughed. Then she glanced at Abe Lincoln and from him to the
peg where his hat hung.
"Where is your muffler?" she asked. "You didn't lose it, did you?"
The tall man looked into the fire a moment before saying, "No--I gave
it away."
"Gave it away?"--and there was a tone of disappointment in her voice.
"Yes. I'll tell you about it. When I got out to Kelly's I found the
poor woman in bed, and a new-born baby. The little thing didn't have
any clothes or any warm blanket to wrap around it. I looked at that
fine, thick, warm, wool muffler all made by your hands, and I hated to
give it up. But that baby, Ann--it was such a little helpless thing and
so pitiful, and its mother's eyes looked in such a hungry way at that
gray muffler, I couldn't help it. So I wrapped it up myself. And I felt
that if you had been there you would have done the wrappin'. In fact, I
could see you foldin' the warm cover around that poor little thing. You
would have done it--wouldn't you, Ann?"
"Yes, Abraham."
"I was sure of it. Perhaps you'll make me another some time. Now go on
with your spinnin' and your song. It is the best music a tired man
could ever hear."
Ann turned the wheel a few times, but she did not sing. "When a woman
gets loving Jesus," he observed, "it's a sign she's lovin' somebody
else. Who do you love, Ann?"
This unexpected question took Ann quite by surprise.
"You know as well as I do that I am engaged to marry John McNeil. And
don't you think he is one of the best young men in town?" There was a
suggestion of appeal in the question.
"I am sure he is--one of the very best in the county. But tell me, Ann,
what it is to love. You know the spellin' book definition. It's in the
Bible, too, that love is stronger than death. But they both came out of
somebody's mind first, somebody who loved. Tell me about it."
"Why should I know?"
He mused a moment, then he said as if to the fire instead of Ann: "It
won't be until I _know_, that I promise to marry a woman."
Ann glanced at Lincoln. He seemed for the moment unconscious of her
existence. She called him from his reflections by speaking his name.
"Abraham," she said as the wheel spun slowly, "I have a secret to tell
you, a confession to make."
He was all attention in a minute. She dropped her hands in her lap and
moved a little way from behind the wheel.
"Do you remember the camp-meeting, and Brother Cartwright saying you
were a deluded sinner, and saying you were worth praying for?"
"Did he? I believe he did."
"Well, since that night, every day I have been remembering you at the
throne of grace, but I have made up my mind it is only wasting time.
I still don't understand how anybody can be saved and not believe in
hell, and you do some things that are not right, like the day at the
quilting-bee, which was not fair to John McNeil. My Bible says, 'by
their fruits shall men be known,' and, Abraham, your life bears fruit,
much better fruit and more of it than do some of those who call you a
sinner. So I've decided it's just wasting my time and God's to pray for
you any more."
In the moment of silence that followed this speech, Ann turned back to
the wheel.
"Don't spin," he said; "there's something I want to say."
She folded her hands in her lap and waited. There was no sound in the
room save the sputter of the fire. A bit of charred wood fell into the
ashes. Lincoln took the tongs and threw it back, then he sat looking at
it.
Presently he turned to Ann. "And you have been rememberin' me at the
throne of Grace? I don't know anything about thrones and mighty little
about grace, for the grace of life has not been my portion. But this is
what I want to say. If a man can get to God through the intercession of
a true and noble and pure-hearted man, as all Christians say they do,
I don't see why a man can't get to God through the pleadin's of a true
and noble and pure-hearted woman."
Ann looked at him questioningly.
"I don't know what you mean, Abraham," she said.
"I mean just this--if ever I reach the throne of grace where just men
get nearer glimpses of God, it will be through--Ann Rutledge. Do you
understand this?"
Ann's eyes had not for an instant left the figure of the man who was
speaking. The homely, bronzed face in the frame of black hair, the
slightly stooping shoulders, the big hands stretched at full length
on the arms of the chair, made a firelight picture fascinating to the
girl. He had asked a question--she had not answered it, yet she leaned
forward, and after studying his face a moment she said, "Abraham, you
look as if you were starving. I must get you something to eat"; and she
hurried to the kitchen.
Lincoln leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. "It wouldn't
be fair to John McNeil," he seemed to hear her saying again, and with a
deep sigh he said in his heart: "Separated by the rules of the game of
honor."
* * * * *
"Ann," said Mrs. Rutledge the next morning, "what did you and Abe
Lincoln find to talk about so long last night?"
"Camp-meetings and mufflers and Kelly's new baby," Ann answered.
"You must be careful, Ann," her mother said. "Your word is out to John
McNeil and he has a good start in life. Abe is a fine boy and honest as
the day is long, but he hasn't got anything to take care of a woman on.
Besides, he does all sorts of queer things. For all we know he may yet
take to writing poetry. You must not give him any encouragement. Since
that quilting-bee I've had some thoughts. He wasn't there to learn to
quilt. He'd be fearful hard to get shut of if he got in love good and
hard."
"He has no idea of love at all," Ann hastened to assure her mother. "He
doesn't even know what it means. He told me so."
"That's the worst kind to get stirred up. The kind that just naturally
knows how are always having attacks of love the same as they do attacks
of measles. But the kind that has to be waked up and taught by some
woman have terrible bad cases. Don't you get Abe Lincoln stirred up."
"He doesn't care for girls, anyway--no particular ones. He likes books
and is not the kind to fall in love."
"Love can pipe through any kind of a reed," was Mrs. Rutledge's answer.
"Don't stir Abe Lincoln up."