IN THE CELLAR
After months of waiting Ann Rutledge received a letter from John
McNeil. It was a straightforward explanation of the delay, mentioning
sickness along the way, and other obstacles.
Ann Rutledge was delighted. In some way it seemed to lift a burden and
answer a question.
Nance Cameron had the pleasure of starting the news of the letter, and
its satisfactory contents, which allayed gossip, and for a time Ann was
quite herself again. But no more letters came, and Ann was soon again
cast down by the strangeness of her lover's silence. Once when she had
hurried to the post-office after the weekly mail had arrived only to be
told by the postmaster there was no letter, she made an appeal to him
which touched his heart.
"He ought to write to me," she half sobbed. "Everybody is wondering
about it. I don't want people to know he never writes. Don't tell it."
The postmaster promised, but Ann's troubled face haunted him, and he
found himself getting thoroughly indignant with McNeil, even though
glad beyond expression that he was treating her just as he was.
As the days and weeks went by Ann found the burden of the secret
weighing heavily on her conscience, and the thought kept intruding
itself that since he had deceived her in one way he might have done
so in other ways. It was hard to think this, and yet it was almost as
easy to believe as that his name was not McNeil and that he had been
gone months without writing. She felt that she had done very wrong to
promise to keep a secret, and such a grave and important secret, from
her parents. Yet she had promised, and, torn between the feeling that
she must confide in her parents and that she must keep her promise,
she grew pale and quiet and unlike the laughing, singing Ann of a few
months previous. Her parents noticed this with concern, and it hurt the
heart of Abe Lincoln, yet none of them surmised the real trouble.
One day after Ann had been her unreal self for several months, Lincoln
came home for supper early and went into the kitchen to help Mrs.
Rutledge.
"I want a pan of potatoes," she said. "They're in the short bin near
the door. I sent Ann for them half an hour ago, but she must have gone
somewhere else."
"Mrs. Rutledge," said Abe Lincoln as he tucked the pan under his arm,
"what ails Ann?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Her father and I have wondered. It's something
about John McNeil I think. I suppose she's heard the talk. I can't
understand John McNeil. He's too fine a young fellow to do anything
mean I'm sure. I hope John Rutledge don't turn against him. He's slow
to rile up, but the fur flies when he does get mad. Run on now after
the taters."
Abe Lincoln made his way down the cellar-steps softly. The door was not
closed. As he entered he thought he saw some object move in one of the
dark corners. Opening the door a little more he looked into the dark.
When his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom he saw the outlines
of a human figure huddled together, and putting down his pan, with
shoulders and head bent, he walked over the hard, earthen floor to the
dark corner.
Here he found Ann Rutledge sitting on the edge of a turnip-box with her
head leaning against the log and earthen wall.
"Ann--Ann Rutledge," he said softly. A sob was his only answer.
"Ann--Ann," he said, bending over her.
"Go away, please," she said.
"No, I will not go away. You are in trouble. I want to help you."
"You cannot--nobody can help me," and again her voice was choked with
sobs.
"Of course somebody can help you. Tell me about it. Perhaps I can help
you."
"But I cannot tell--my trouble--is--is--a secret."
"A secret," Lincoln said--"a secret--who from?"
"From everybody in the world but John McNeil. I promised him I would
not tell--not even my mother."
"He got you to swear to a secret you could not confide in your mother?"
and Lincoln seemed aghast.
"Yes--and I never had a secret from Father and Mother before."
"Ann--Ann Rutledge!" and Lincoln's voice was no longer gentle; "a
secret from a girl's mother is never the right kind of a secret. A
mother is the one person on earth no honorable man would want secrets
kept from. It is wrong Ann--wrong."
"I believe it is. It is wearing me out--it is breaking my heart--I feel
that I cannot keep it--and yet I promised."
"Ann Rutledge!" Lincoln was bending over her and there was a tone in
his voice that compelled her to look up. In the gloom his face had
taken on a strange, white cast and something of the expression it had
borne when Jack Armstrong had tried the unfair trick.
"Ann Rutledge," he whispered under his breath, "has John McNeil in any
way wronged you? If he has--if he has--I--will choke the life out of
him, and that without warnin'."
"Oh, Abraham!" she cried, "don't talk so. I don't know whether he has
wronged me or not. That's what the secret's about--I don't know and I
wish I could die right here in this cellar," and again she turned her
face to the wall and sobbed.
Speechless, Abraham Lincoln looked down upon her. His face was pale,
his teeth set--his great fists were clenched, yet what could he do?
The sobs of the girl beat against his heart, strongly fanning the pain
and fierce passion.
"What shall I do--what shall I do?" she said brokenly.
"You shall go straight to your mother," he said firmly. "Tell her
everything."
"But I promised--gave an honorable promise, a solemn promise that I
would not tell."
"There can be no such thing as an honorable promise to the kind of a
man who does not know the meanin' of the word. There can be no such
thing as a sacred promise to a man who has no more conception of
sacredness than a beast. The man who has brought you to this trouble,
of whatever kind it may be, is unfit for consideration. Go to your
mother. If you don't go _I'll carry you there in my arms_."
A moment she hesitated. Then she arose. He twined his fingers around
her arm and without speaking they crossed the cellar. At the door she
paused. "Come on, Ann," he said, and they went up the steps together.
Entering the kitchen, Abe Lincoln said, "I found your little girl in
the cellar--in trouble. She has come to tell her mother about it. I'll
go fetch the potatoes."