A Man for the Ages Part 29

CHAPTER XII

WHICH CONTINUES THE ROMANCE OF ABE AND ANN UNTIL THE FORMER LEAVES NEW SALEM TO BEGIN HIS WORK IN THE LEGISLATURE. ALSO IT DESCRIBES THE COLONELING OF PETER LUKINS.

The next day after his return, Abe received a letter for Ann. She had come over to the store on the arrival of the stage and taken her letter and run home with it. That Sat.u.r.day's stage brought the new suit of clothes from Springfield. Sunday morning Abe put it on and walked over to Kelso's. Mrs. Kelso was sweeping the cabin.

"We shall have to stand outside a moment," said Jack. "I have an inappeasable hatred of brooms. A lance in the hand of the Black Knight was not more terrible than a broom in the hands of a righteous woman. I had to flee from _The Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell_ when I saw the broom flashing in a cloud of dust and retreated."

He stepped to the door and said: "A truce, madam! Here is the Honorable Abraham Lincoln in his new suit."

Mrs. Kelso came out-of-doors and she and her husband surveyed the tall young Postmaster.

"Well it is, at least, sufficient," said Kelso.

"The coat ought to be a little longer," Mrs. Kelso suggested.

"It will be long enough before I get another," said Abe.

"It is not what one would call an elegant suit but it's all right," Kelso added.

"The fact is, elegance and I wouldn't get along well together," Abe answered. "It would be like going into partnership with Bill Berry."

"Next month you'll be off at the capital and we shall be going to Tazewell County," said Kelso.

"To Tazewell County!"

"Aye. It's a changing world! We should always remember that things can not go on with us as they are. The Governor has given me a job."

"And me a great sadness," said Abe. "You must always let me know where to find you."

"Aye! Many a night you and I shall hear the c.o.c.k crowing."

It was an Indian summer day of the first week in November. That afternoon Abe went to the tavern and asked Ann to walk out to the Traylors' with him. She seemed to be glad to go. She was not the cheerful, quick footed, rosy cheeked Ann of old. Her face was pale, her eyes dull and listless, her step slow. Neither spoke until they had pa.s.sed the Waddell cabin and were come to the open fields.

"I hope your letter brought good news," said Abe.

"It was very short," Ann answered. "He took a fever in Ohio and was sick there four weeks and then he went home. In two months he never wrote a word to me. And this one was only a little bit of a letter with no love in it. I don't believe he will ever come back. I don't think he cares for me now or, perhaps, he is married. I don't know. I'm not going to cry about it any more. I can't. I've no more tears to shed. I've given him up."

"Then I reckon the time has come for me to tell you what is on my heart,"

said Abe. "I love you, Ann. I have loved you for years. I would have told you long ago but I could not make myself believe that I was good enough for you. I love you so much that if you can only be happy with John McNamar I will pray to G.o.d that he may turn out to be a good and faithful man and come back and keep his promise." She looked up at him with a kind of awe in her face.

"Oh, Abe!" she whispered. "I had made up my mind that men were all bad but my father. I was wrong. I did not think of you."

"Men are mostly good," said Abe. "But it's very easy to misunderstand them. In my view it's quite likely that John McNamar is better than you think him. I want you to be fair to John. If you conclude that you can not be happy with him give me a chance. I would do my best to bring back the joy of the old days. Sometimes I think that I am going to do something worth while. Sometimes I think that I can see my way far ahead and it looks very pleasant, and you, Ann, are always walking beside me in it."

They proceeded in silence for a moment. A great flock of wild pigeons darkened the sky above them and filled it with the whirr of their wings.

The young man and woman stopped to look up at them.

"They are going south," said Abe. "It's a sign of bad weather."

They stood talking for a little time.

"I'm glad they halted us for we have not far to go," Abe remarked.

"Before we take another step I wish you could give me some hope to live on--just a little straw of hope."

"You are a wonderful man, Abe," said Ann, touched by his appeal. "My father says that you are going to be a great man."

"I can not hold out any such hope to you," Abe answered. "I'm rather ignorant and badly in debt but I reckon that I can make a good living and give you a comfortable home. Don't you think, taking me just as I am, you could care for me a little?"

"Yes; sometimes I think that I could love you, Abe," she answered. "I do not love you yet but I may--sometime. I really want to love you."

"That is all I can ask now," said Abe as they went on. "Do you hear from Bim Kelso?"

"I have not heard from her since June."

"I wish you would write to her and tell her that I am thinking of going down to St. Louis and that I would like to go and see her."

"I'll write to her to-morrow," said Ann.

They had a pleasant visit and while Ann was playing with the baby she seemed to have forgotten her troubles. They stayed to supper, after which the whole family walked to the tavern with them, Joe and Betsey drawing the baby in their "b.u.mble wagon," which Samson had made for them. When Ann began to show weariness, Abe gently lifted her in his arms and carried her.

That evening Mrs. Peter Lukins called upon Abe at Sam Hill's store where he sat alone, before the fire, reading with two candles burning on the end of a dry goods box at his elbow.

There was an anxious look in her one eye as she accepted his invitation to sit down in the firelight.

"I wanted to see you private 'bout Lukins," she began. "There's them that calls him Bony Lukins but I reckon he ain't no bonier than the everidge run o' men--not a bit--an' if he was I don't reckon his bones orto be throwed at him every time he's spoke to that away."

Peter Lukins was a slim, sober faced, quiet little man with a long nose who worked in the carding mill. He never spoke, save when spoken to, and then with a solemn look as if the matter in hand, however slight, were likely to affect his eternal welfare. In his cups he was speechless and, in a way, dumb with merriment. He answered no questions, he expressed no opinions, he told no stories. He only smiled and broke into roars of laughter, even if there was no one to share his joy, as if convinced, at last, of the hopeless absurdity of life. Some one told of following him from Springfield to New Salem and of hearing him laugh all the way. Many had noted another peculiarity in the man. He seemed always to have a week's growth of beard on his face.

"What can I do about it?" Abe asked.

"I've been hopin' an' wishin' some kind of a decent handle could be put on to his name," said Mrs. Lukins, with her eye upon a knot hole in the counter. "Something with a good sound to it. You said that anything you could do for the New Salem folks you was goin' to do an' I thought maybe you could fix it."

Abe smiled and asked: "Do you want a t.i.tle?"

"If it ain't plum owdacious I wisht he could be made a Colonel."

"That's a t.i.tle for fighting men," said Abe.

"An' that man has fit for his life ever since he was born," said Mrs.

Lukins. "He's fit the measles an' the smallpox an' the fever an' ager an'

conquered 'em."

"I reckon he deserves the t.i.tle," Abe remarked.

"I ain't sayin' but what there is purtier men," she said, reflectively, as she stuck her finger into the knot hole and felt its edges. "I ain't sayin' but what there is smarter men but I do say that the name o' Bony ain't hardly fit to be heard in company."

"A little whitewash wouldn't hurt it any," said Abe. "I'd gladly give him my t.i.tle of Captain if I could unhitch it someway."