A Man for the Ages Part 33

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH ABE RETURNS FROM VANDALIA AND IS ENGAGED TO ANN, AND THREE INTERESTING SLAVES ARRIVE AT THE HOME OF SAMSON TRAYLOR, WHO, WITH HARRY NEEDLES, HAS AN ADVENTURE OF MUCH IMPORTANCE ON THE UNDERGROUND ROAD.

Again spring had come. The great meadows were awake and full of color.

Late in April their green floor was oversown with golden blossoms lying close to the warming breast of the earth. Then came the braver flowers of May lifting their heads to the sunlight in the lengthening gra.s.ses--red and white and pink and blue--and over all the bird songs. They seemed to voice the joy in the heart of man. Sarah Traylor used to say that the beauty of the spring more than paid for the loneliness of the winter.

Abe came back from the Legislature to resume his duties as postmaster and surveyor. The evening of his arrival he went to see Ann. The girl was in poor health. She had had no news of McNamar since January. Her spirit seemed to be broken. They walked together up and down the deserted street of the little village that evening. Abe told her of his life in Vandalia and of his hopes and plans.

"My greatest hope is that you will feel that you can put up with me," he said. "I would try to learn how to make you happy. I think if you would help me a little I could do it."

"I don't think I am worth having," the girl answered. "I feel like a little old woman these days."

"It seems to me that you are the only one in the world worth having,"

said Abe.

"If you want me to, I will marry you, Abe," said she. "I can not say that I love you, but my mother and father say that I would learn to love you, and sometimes I think it is true. I really want to love you."

They were on the bluff that overlooked the river and the deserted mill.

They were quite alone looking down at the moonlit plains. A broken sigh came from the lips of the tall young man. He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. He took her hand in both of his and pressed it against his breast and looked down into her face and said:

"I wish I could tell you what is in my heart. There are things this tongue of mine could say, but not that. I shall show you, but I shall not try to tell you. Words are good enough for politics and even for the religion of most men, but not for this love I feel. Only in my life shall I try to express it."

He held her hand as they walked on in silence for a moment.

"About a year from now we can be married," he said. "I shall be able to take care of you then, I think. Meanwhile we will all help you to take care of yourself. You don't look well."

She kissed his cheek and he kissed hers when they parted at the door of the tavern.

"I am sure I shall love you," she whispered.

"Those are the best words that ever came to my ears," he answered, and left her with a solemn sense of his commitment.

Soon after that Abe went to the north line of the county to do some surveying, and on his return, in the last week of May, came out for a talk with the Traylors.

"I've been up to the Kelsos' home and had a wonderful talk with him and Brimstead," said Abe. "They have discovered each other. Kelso lives in a glorious past and Brimstead in a golden future. They're both poets. Kelso is translating the odes of Pindar. Brimstead is constructing the future of Illinois. They laugh at each other and so create a fairly agreeable present."

"Did you see Annabel?" Harry asked.

"About sixty times a minute while I was there. So pretty you can't help looking at her. She's coming down to visit Ann, I hope. If you don't see her every day she's here, I shall lose my good opinion of you. It will be a sure sign that your eyes don't know how, to enjoy themselves."

"We shall all see her and fall in love with her, too, probably," said Sarah.

"She's made on the right pattern of the best material," Abe went on.

"She's full of fun and I thought it would be a great thing for Ann. She hasn't had any one to play with of her own age and standing since Bim went away. I was thinking of Harry, too. He needs somebody to play with."

"Much obliged!" the young man exclaimed. "I was thinking that I'd have to take a trip to Hopedale, myself."

"I knew he'd come around," Sarah laughed.

But all unknown to these good people, the divinities were at that moment very busy.

That was the 26th of May, 1835, a date of much importance in the calendar of the Traylors. It had been a clear, warm day, followed by a cloudless, starry night, with a chilly breeze blowing. Between eleven and twelve o'clock Sarah and Samson were awakened by the hoot of an owl in the dooryard. In a moment they heard three taps on a window-pane. They knew what it meant. Both got out of bed and into their clothes as quickly as possible. Samson lighted a candle and put some wood on the fire. Then he opened the door with the candle in his hand. A stalwart, good-looking mulatto man, with a smooth shaven face, stood in the doorway.

"Is the coast clear?" he whispered.

"All clear," Samson answered, in a low tone.

"I'll be back in a minute," said the negro, as he disappeared in the darkness, returning presently with two women, both very black. They sat down in the dim light of the cabin.

"Are you hungry?" Sarah asked.

"We have had only a little bread and b.u.t.ter to-day, madame," said the mulatto, whose speech and manners were like those of an educated white man of the South.

"I'll get you something," said Sarah, as she opened the cupboard.

"I think we had better not stop to eat now, madame," said the negro. "We will be followed and they may reach here any minute."

Harry, who had been awakened by the arrival of the strangers, came down the ladder.

"These are fugitive slaves on their way north," said Samson. "Take them out to the stack. I'll bring some food in a few minutes."

Harry conducted them to their hiding-place, and when they had entered it, he brought a ladder and opened the top of the stack. A hooped shaft in the middle of it led to a point near its top and provided ventilation.

Then he crawled in at the entrance, through which Samson pa.s.sed a pail of food, a jug of water and some buffalo hides. Harry sat with them for a few moments in the black darkness of the stack room to learn whence they had come and whither they wished to go.

"We are from St. Louis, suh," the mulatto answered. "We are on our way to Canada. Our next station is the house of John Peasley, in Tazewell County."

"Do you know a man of the name of Eliphalet Biggs who lives in St.

Louis?" Harry asked.

"Yes, suh; I see him often, suh," the negro answered.

"What kind of a man is he?"

"Good when he is sober, suh, but a brute when he is drunk."

"Is he cruel to his wife?"

"He beats her with a whip, suh."

"My G.o.d!" Harry exclaimed. "Why don't she leave him?"

"She has left him, suh. She is staying with a friend. It has been hard for her to get away. She has been a slave, too."

Harry's voice trembled with emotion when he answered:

"I am sure that none of her friends knew how she was being treated."