Chapter IV: Prologue: I (3)

The Boy consented. Boney went with him for company. As a self-respecting coon dog he scorned to hunt any animal that couldn't fight with an even chance for his life. As for a deer--he'd as lief chase a calf!

Dennis placed the Boy at a choice stand behind a steep hill in which the deer would be sure to plunge in their final rush to escape the dogs when close pressed in the valley.

"Now the minute you see him jump that ridge let him have it!" Dennis said. "He'll come straight down the hill right inter your face."

The Boy took his place and began to feel the savage excitement of his older companion. He threw the gun in place and drew a bead on an imaginary bounding deer.

"All right. I'll crack him!" he promised.

"Now, for the Lord's sake, don't you miss 'im!" Dennis warned. "I don't want Tom ter have the laugh on us."

The Boy promised, and Dennis called his dogs and hurried into the bottoms toward the Salt Lick. In half an hour the dogs opened on a hot trail that grew fainter and fainter in the distance until they could scarcely be heard. They stopped altogether for a moment and then took up the cry gradually growing clearer and clearer. The deer had run the limit of his first impulse and taken the back track, returning directly over the same trail.

Nearer and nearer the pack drew, the trail growing hotter and hotter with each leap of the hounds.

The Boy was trembling with excitement. He cocked his gun and stood ready. Boney lay on a pile of leaves ten feet away quietly dozing. Louder and louder rang the cry of the hounds. They seemed to be right back of the hill now. The deer should leap over its crest at any moment. His gun was half lifted and his eyes flaming with excitement when a beautiful half grown fawn sprang over the hill and stood for a moment staring with wide startled eyes straight into his.

The savage yelp of the hounds close behind rang clear, sharp and piercing as they reared the summit. The panting, trembling fawn glanced despairingly behind, looked again into the Boy's eyes, and as the first dog leaped the hill crest made his choice. Staggering and panting with terror, he dropped on his knees by the Boy's side, the bloodshot eyes begging piteously for help.

The Boy dropped his gun and gathered the trembling thing in his arms. In a moment the hounds were on him leaping and tearing at the fawn. He kicked them right and left and yelled with all his might:

"Down, I tell you! Down or I'll kill you!"

The hounds continued to leap and snap in spite of his kicks and cries until Boney saw the struggle, and stepped between his master and his tormenters. One low growl and not another hound came near.

When Dennis arrived panting for breath he couldn't believe his eyes. The Boy was holding the exhausted fawn in his lap with a glazed look in his eyes.

"Well, of all the dam-fool things I ever see sence God made me, this takes the cake!" he cried in disgust. "Why didn't ye shoot him?"

"Because he ran to me for help--how could I shoot him?"

Dennis sat down and roared:

"Well, of all the deer huntin', this beats me!"

The Boy rose, still holding the fawn in his arms.

"You can take the gun and go on. Boney and me'll go back home----"

"You ain't goin' ter carry that thing clean home, are you?"

"Yes, I am," was the quiet answer. "And I'll kill any dog that tries to hurt him."

Dennis was still laughing when he disappeared, Boney walking slowly at his heels.

He showed the fawn to his mother and told Sarah she could have him for a pet. The mother watched him with shining eyes while he built a pen and then lifted the still trembling wild thing inside.

Next morning the pen was down and the captive gone. The Boy didn't seem much surprised or appear to care. When he was alone with his mother she whispered:

"Didn't you go out there last night and let it loose when the dogs were asleep?"

He was still a moment and then nodded his head.

His mother clasped him to her heart.

"O my Boy! My own--I love you!"

XII

The second winter in the wilderness was not so hard. The heavy work of clearing the timber for the corn fields was done and the new cabin and its furniture had been finished except the door, for which there was little use.

The new neighbors had brought cheer to the mother's heart.

An early spring broke the winter of 1818 and clothed the wilderness world in robes of matchless beauty.

The Boy's gourds were placed beside the new garden and the noise of chattering martins echoed over the cabin. The toughened muscles of his strong, slim body no longer ached in rebellion at his tasks. Work had become a part of the rhythm of life. He could sing at his hardest task. The freedom and strength of the woods had gotten into his blood. In this world of waving trees, of birds and beasts, of laughing sky and rippling waters, there were no masters, no slaves. Millions in gold were of no value in its elemental struggle. Character, skill, strength and manhood only counted. Poverty was teaching him the first great lesson of human life, that man shall eat his bread in the sweat of his brow and that industry is the only foundation on which the moral and material universe has ever rested or can rest.

Solitude and the stimulus of his mother's mind were slowly teaching him to think--to think deeply and fearlessly, and think for himself.

Entering now in his ninth year, he was shy, reticent, over-grown, consciously awkward, homely and ill clad--he grew so rapidly it was impossible to make his clothes fit. But in the depths of his hazel-grey eyes there were slumbering fires that set him apart from the boys of his age. His mother saw and understood.

A child in years and yet he had already learned the secrets of the toil necessary to meet the needs of life. He swung a woodman's axe with any man. He could plow and plant a field, make its crop, harvest and store its fruits and cook them for the table. He could run, jump, wrestle, swim and fight when manhood called. He knew the language of the winds and clouds, and spoke the tongues of woods and field.

And he could read and write. His mother's passionate yearning and quenchless enthusiasm had placed in his hand the key to books and the secrets of the ages were his for the asking.

He would never see the walls of a college, but he had already taken his degree in Industry, Patience, Caution, Courage, Pity and Gentleness.

The beauty and glory of this remarkable spring brought him into still closer communion with his mother's spirit. They had read every story of the Bible, some of them twice or three times, and his stubborn mind had fought with her many a friendly battle over their teachings. Always too wise and patient to command his faith, she waited its growth in the fulness of time. He had read every tale in "Æsop's Fables" and brought a thousand smiles to his mother's dark face by his quaint comments. She was dreaming now of new books to place in his eager hands. Corn was ten cents a bushel, wheat twenty-five, and a cow was only worth six dollars. Whiskey, hams and tobacco were legal tender and used instead of money. She had ceased to dream of wealth in goods and chattels until conditions were changed. Her one aim in life was to train the minds of her children and to this joyous task she gave her soul and body. It was the only thing worth while. That God would give her strength for this was all she asked.

And then the great shadow fell.

The mother and children were walking home from the woods through the glory of the Southern spring morning in awed silence. The path was hedged with violets and buttercups. The sweet odor of grapevine, blackberry and dewberry blossoms filled the air. Dogwood and black-haw lit with white flame the farthest shadows of the forest and the music of birds seemed part of the mingled perfume of flowers.

The boy's keen ear caught the drone of bees and his sharp eye watched them climb slowly toward their storehouse in a towering tree. All nature was laughing in the madness of joy.

The Boy silently took his mother's hand and asked in subdued tones:

"What is the pest, Ma, and what makes it?"

"Nobody knows," she answered softly. "It comes like a thief in the night and stays for months and sometimes for years. They call it the 'milk-sick' because the cows die, too--and sometimes the horses. The old Indian women say it starts from the cows eating a poison flower in the woods. The doctors know nothing about it. It just comes and kills, that's all."

The little hand suddenly gripped hers with trembling hold:

"O Ma, if it kills you!"

A tender smile lighted her dark face as the warmth of his love ran like fire through her veins.

"It can't harm me, my son, unless God wills it. When he calls I shall be ready."

All the way home he clung to her hand and sometimes when they paused stroked it tenderly with both his.

"What's it like?" he asked at last. "Can't you take bitters for it in time to stop it? How do you know when it's come?"

"You begin to feel drowsy, a whitish coating is on the tongue, a burning in the stomach, the feet and legs get cold. You're restless and the pulse grows weak."

"How long does it last?"

"Sometimes it kills in three days, sometimes two weeks. Sometimes it's chronic and hangs on for years and then kills."

Every morning through the long black summer of the scourge he asked her with wistful tenderness if she were well. Her cheerful answers at last brought peace to his anxious heart and he gradually ceased to fear. She was too sweet and loving and God too good that she should die. Besides, both his father and mother had given him a lesson in quiet, simple heroism that steadied his nerves.

He looked at the rugged figure of his father with a new sense of admiration. He was no more afraid of Death than of Life. He was giving himself without a question in an utterly unselfish devotion to the stricken community. There were no doctors within thirty miles, and if one came he could but shake his head and advise simple remedies that did no good. Only careful nursing counted for anything. Without money, without price, without a murmur the father gave his life to this work. No neighbor within five miles was stricken that he did not find a place by that bedside in fearless, loving, unselfish service.

And when Death came, this simple friend went for his tools, cut down a tree, ripped the boards from its trunk, made the coffin, and with tender reverence dug a grave and lowered the loved one. He was doctor, nurse, casket-maker, grave-digger, comforter and priest. His reverent lips had long known the language of prayer.

With tireless zeal the mother joined in this ministry of love, and the Boy saw her slender dark figure walk so often beside trembling feet as they entered the valley of the great shadow, that he grew to believe that she led a charmed life. Nor did he fear when Dennis came one morning and in choking tones said that both his uncle and aunt were stricken in the little half-faced camp but a few hundred yards away. He was sorry for Dennis. He had never known father or mother--only this uncle and aunt.

"Don't you worry, Dennis," the Boy said tenderly. "You'll live with us if they die."

They both died within a few days. The night after the last burial, Dennis crawled into the loft with the Boy to be his companion for many a year.

And then the blow fell, swift, terrible and utterly unexpected. He had long ago made up his mind that God had flung about his mother's form the spell of his Almighty power and the pestilence that walked in the night dared not draw near. An angel with flaming sword stood beside their cabin door.

Last night in the soft moonlight a whip-poor-will was singing nearby and he fancied he saw the white winged sentinel, and laughed for joy.

When he climbed down from his loft next morning his mother was in bed and Sarah was alone over the fire cooking breakfast.

His heart stood still. He walked with unsteady step to her bedside and whispered:

"Are you sick, Ma?"

"Yes, dear, it has come."

He grasped her hot outstretched hand and fell on his knees in sobbing anguish. He knew now--it was the angel of Death he had seen.

XIII

Death stood at the door with drawn sword to slay not to defend, but the Boy resolved to fight. She should not give up--she should not die. He would fight for her with all the hosts of hell and single-handed if he must.

He rose from his knees still holding her hand, his first hopeless burst of despair over, his heart beating with desperate resolution.

"You won't give up, will you, Ma?" he whispered.

She smiled wanly and he rushed on with breathless intensity: "I'm not going to let you die. I won't--I tell you I won't. I'll fight this thing--and you've got to help me--won't you?"

"I'm ready for God's will, my Boy," she said simply.

"I don't want you to say that!" he pleaded. "I want you to fight and never give up. Why you can't die, Ma--you just can't. You're my only teacher now. There ain't no schools here. How can I learn books without you to help me? Say you'll get well. Please say it for me--please, just say it----"

He paused and couldn't go on for a moment, "Say you'll try then--just for me--please say it!"

"I'll try, Boy," she said tenderly at last.

He flew to the creek bank and in two hours came home with an armful of fresh sarsaparilla roots. He cut and pounded them into a soft pulp and made a poultice. Sarah helped him put it in place. He made his mother drink the bitters every hour. He got stones ready and had them hot to wrap in cloths and put to her feet the moment they felt cold. He wouldn't take her word for it either. He kept slipping his little hands under the cover to feel.

The mother smiled at his tender, eager touch.

"Now, Boy," she said softly. "I'm feeling comfortable, will you do something for me?"

"What is it?" he cried eagerly.

She smiled again:

"Read to me. I want to hear your voice."

"All right--what?"

"The Bible, of course."

"What story?"

"Not a story this time--the twenty-third Psalm."

The Boy took the worn Bible from the shelf, sat down on the edge of the bed, opened, and began in low tones to read:

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want----"

His voice choked and he stopped:

"O, Ma, I just can't read that now--why--why did he let this come to you if He's your Shepherd--why--why--why!"

He buried his face in his hands and her slender fingers touched his hair:

"He knows best, my son--read on--the words are sweet to my soul from your lips."

With an effort he opened the Book again:

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

"He leadeth me beside the still waters.

"He restoreth my soul:

"He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

"I will fear no evil; for thou art with me----"

Again the voice choked into silence and he closed the Book.

"I can't--I can't read it. I'm afraid you're going to give up!" he sobbed. "O Ma, you won't, will you? Please say you won't?"

"No, no, I won't give up, my Boy," she said soothingly. "I'm just ready for anything He sends----"

"But I don't want you to say that!" he broke in passionately. "You must fight. You mustn't be ready. You mustn't think about dying. I won't let you die--I tell you!"

She stroked his forehead with gentle touch:

"I won't give up for your sake----"

"It's a promise now?" he cried.

"Yes, I promise----"

"Then I'm going for a doctor right away----"

"You can't find him, Boy," his father said. "It's thirty miles across the Ohio into Kentucky where he lives. An' in all this sickness he ain't at home. Hit's foolishness ter go----"

"I'll find him," was the firm response.

The father made no further protest. He helped him saddle the horse, buckled the stirrups to fit his little bare legs and gave him as clear directions as he could.

"The moon'll be shinin' all night, Boy," were his last words. "Yer can cross the river before eight o'clock. Ef ye git lost on t'other side ax yer way frum the fust house ye come to----"

The Boy nodded, and when had fixed his bare toes in the stirrups he leaned low and whispered:

"You won't give up, Pa, will ye? You'll fight for her till I get back?"

The big gnarled fist closed over the little hand on the pommel of the saddle, and the father's voice was husky:

"As long as there's breath in her body--hurry now."

The last command was not needed. The horse felt the quiver of tense suffering in the low voice and the nervous touch of the switch on his side. With a quick bound he was off at a full gallop down the trail toward the river.

The sun had set before they reached the open country beyond the great forest, but by seven o'clock the Boy saw from the hill top the shining mirror of the river in the calm moonlit valley. Before night he had succeeded in rousing the ferryman and reached the opposite shore.

He lost the way once about nine o'clock and a settler whose light he saw in the woods called sharply from the door with his rifle in hand:

"Who are you?"

"I'm just a little boy," the voice faltered. "I'm trying to find the doctor's house. My mother's about to die and I'm lost. I want you to show me the road."

The rifle was lowered and the cabin stirred. The man dropped back and a woman appeared in the door way.

"Won't ye come in, Honey, and rest a minute and me give ye somethin' to eat while Pa's gettin' ready to go with ye a piece?"

"No'm I can't eat nuthin'----"

He didn't dare go near that tender voice that spoke so clearly its sympathy in the night. He would be crying in a minute if he did and he couldn't afford that.

The settler caught a horse and rode with him an hour to make sure he wouldn't miss the way again.

He reached the doctor's house by eleven o'clock, and to his joy found him at home. The rough old man refused to move an inch until he had fed his horse and eaten a hearty meal.

The Boy tried to eat, but couldn't. The food stuck squarely in his throat. It was no use.

He went outside and waited beside his horse until the doctor was ready. It seemed an eternity, the awful wait. How serene the still beauty of the autumn night! Not a breath of wind stirred. The full moon hung in the sky straight overhead, flooding the earth with silver radiance, marking in clear and vivid lines the shadows of the trees on the ground.

Bitter wonder and rebellion filled his young soul. How could God sit unmoved among those shining stars and leave his mother to die!

The doctor came at last and they started.

In vain he urged that they gallop.

"I won't do it, sir!" the old man snapped. "Your horse has come thirty miles. I'll not let you kill him and I'm not going to kill myself plunging over a rough road at night."

They reached the cabin at daylight. The Boy saw the glow of the flame in the big fireplace through the woods and his heart beat high with new hope. Now that the doctor was here he felt sure her life could be saved.

The Boy stood close by his side when he felt her pulse, and looked at the strange whitish-brown coating on her tongue.

"You can do something, Doctor?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes," was the short answer.

He asked for a towel and bowl and opened his saddlebags. He examined the point of his lancet and bared the slender arm.

"What are ye goin' ter do?" Tom asked with a frown.

"Bleed her, of course. It's the only thing to do----"

The Boy suddenly pushed himself between the doctor and the bed and looked up into his stern face with a resolute stare:

"You shan't do it. I don't know nothin' much about doctorin' but I got sense enough to know that'll kill her--and you shan't do it!"

The doctor looked angrily at the father.

"I say so, too," Tom replied. "She's too weak for that."

With a snort of anger, the old man threw the lancet into his saddlebags, snapped them together and strode through the cabin door.

The Boy followed him wistfully to the stable, and when he seized the bridle to put on the horse, caught his hand and looked up:

"Please don't go," he begged. "I'm mighty sorry I made you mad. I didn't go to do it. You see----" his voice faltered--"I love her so I just couldn't let you cut her arm open and see her bleed. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Won't you stay and help us? Can't ye do somethin' else for her? I'll pay ye. I'll go work for ye a whole year or five years if ye want me--if you'll just save her--just save her, that's all--don't go--please don't!"

Something in the child's anguish found the rough old man's heart. His eyes grew misty for a moment, he slipped one arm about the Boy's shoulders and drew him close.

"God knows I'd stay and do something if I could, Sonny, but I don't know what to do. I'm not sure I'm right about the bleeding or I'd stay and make you help me do it. But I'm not sure--I'm not sure--and I can do no good by staying. Keep her warm, give her all the good food her stomach will retain. That's all I can tell you. She's in God's hands."

With a heavy heart the Boy watched him ride away as the sun rose over the eastern hills. The doctor's last words sank into his soul. She was in God's hands! Well, he would go to God and beg Him to save her. He went into the woods, knelt behind a great oak and in the simple words of a child asked for the desire of his heart. Three times every day and every night he prayed.

For four days no change was apparent. She was very weak and tired, but suffered no pain. His prayer was heard and would be answered!

The first symptom of failure in circulation, he promptly met by placing the hot stones to her feet. And for hours he and Sarah would rub her until the cold disappeared.

On the morning of the seventh day she was unusually bright.

"Why, you're better, Ma, aren't you?" he cried with joy.

Her eyes were shining with a strange excitement:

"Yes. I'm a lot better. I'm going to sit up awhile. I'm tired lying down."

She threw herself quickly on the side of the bed and her feet touched the bear-skin rug. She rose trembling and smiling and took a step. She tottered a bit, but the Boy was laughing and holding her arm. She reached the chair by the fire and he wrapped a great skin about her feet and limbs.

"Look, Pa, she's getting well!" the Boy shouted.

Tom watched her gravely without reply.

She took the Boy's hand, still smiling:

"I had such a wonderful dream," she began slowly--"the same one I had before you were born, my Boy. God had answered my prayer and sent me a son. I watched him grow to be a strong, brave, patient, wise and gentle man. Thousands hung on his words and the great from the ends of the earth came to do him homage. With uncovered head he led me into a beautiful home with white pillars. And then he bowed low and whispered in my ear: 'This is yours, my angel mother. I bought it for you with my life. All that I am I owe to you'----"

Her voice sank to a whisper that was half a sob and half a laugh.

"See how she's smiling, Pa," the Boy cried. "She's getting well!"

"Don't ye understand!" the father whispered. "Look--at her eyes--she's not tellin' you a dream--she's looking through the white gates of heaven--it's Death, Boy--it's come--Lord God, have mercy!"

With a groan he dropped by her side and her thin hand rested gently on his shaggy head.

The Boy stared at her in agonizing wonder as she felt for his hand and feebly held it. She was gazing now into the depths of his soul with her pensive hungry eyes.

"He good to your father, my son----" she paused for breath and looked at him tenderly. She knew the father was the child of the future--this Boy, the man.

"Yes!" he whispered.

"And love your sister----"

"Yes."

"Be a man among men, for your mother's sake----"

"Yes, Ma, I will!"

The little head bent low and the voice was silent.

They went to work to make her coffin at noon. An unused walnut log of burled fibre had been lying in the sun and drying for two years, since Tom had built the furniture for the cabin. Dennis helped him rip the boards from this dark, rich wood, shape and plane it for the pieces he would need.

The Boy sat with dry eyes and aching heart, making the wooden nails to fasten these boards together.

He stopped suddenly, walked to the bench at which his father was working and laid by his side the first pins he had whittled.

"I can't do it, Pa," he gasped. "I just can't make the nails for her coffin. I feel like somebody's drivin' 'em through my heart!"

The rugged face was lighted with tenderness as he slowly answered:

"Why, we must make it, Boy--hit's the last thing we kin do ter show our love fur her--ter make it all smooth an' purty outen this fine dark wood. Yer wouldn't put her in the ground an' throw the cold dirt right on her face, would you?"

The slim figure shivered:

"No--no--I wouldn't do that! Yes, I'll help--we must make it beautiful, mustn't we?"

And then he went back to the pitiful task.

They dug her grave, these loving hands, father and son and orphan waif, on a gentle hill in the deep woods. As the sun sank in a sea of scarlet clouds next day, they lowered the coffin. The father lifted his voice in a simple prayer and the Boy took his sister's hand and led her in silence back to the lonely cabin. He couldn't stay to see them throw the dirt over her. He couldn't endure it.

He had heard of ghosts in graveyards, and he wondered vaguely if such things could be true. He hoped it was. When the others were asleep, just before day, he slipped noiselessly from his bed and made his way to her grave.

The waning moon was shining in cold white splendor. The woods were silent. He watched and waited and hoped with half-faith and half-fear that he might see her radiant form rise from the dead.

A leaf rustled behind him and he turned with a thrill of awful joy. He wasn't afraid. He'd clasp her in his arms if he could. With firm step and head erect, eyes wide and nostrils dilated, he walked straight into the shadows to see and know.

And there, standing in a spot of pale moonlight, stood his dog looking up into his eyes with patient, loving sympathy. He hadn't shed a tear since her death. Now the flood tide broke the barriers. He sank to the ground, slipped his arm around the dog's neck, and sobbed aloud.

He wrote a tear stained letter to the only parson he knew. It was his first historic record and he signed his name in bold, well rounded letters--"A. LINCOLN." Three months later the faithful old man came in answer to his request and preached her funeral sermon. Something in the lad's wistful eyes that day fired him with eloquence. Through all life the words rang with strange solemn power in the Boy's heart:

"O Death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory! Blessed are they that die in the Lord! Death is not the chill shadow of the night--but the grey light of the dawn--the dawn of a new eternal day. Lift up your eyes and see its beauty. Open your ears and hear the stir of its wondrous life!"

When the last friend had gone, the forlorn little figure stood beside the grave alone. There was a wistful smile on his lips as he slowly whispered:

"I'll not forget, Ma, dear--I'll not forget. I'll live for you."

Nor did he forget. In her slender figure a new force had appeared in human history. The peasant woman of the old world has ever taught her child contentment with his lot. And patient millions beyond the seas bend their backs without a murmur to the task their fathers bore three thousand years ago.

Free America has given the race a new peasant woman. Born among the lowliest of her kind, she walks earth's way with her feet in the dust, her head among the stars.

This one died young in the cabin beside the deep woods, but not before her hand had kindled a fire of divine discontent in the soul of her son that only God could extinguish.

_The Story_