A Man for the Ages Part 43

"We're going to see about that," Samson a.s.sured her.

"Harry had better look out," said Mrs. Brimstead.

"Abe is going to get a divorce for her an' I guess from now on the gra.s.s won't have a chance to grow under Harry's feet. The boy has worried a good deal lately. Wouldn't wonder if he'd heard o' those rich fellers but he hasn't let on about it."

Abe Lincoln and Harry entered with their host and the travelers sat down to a luncheon of pudding and milk and doughnuts and pie.

"There's no El Dorado about this," said Samson. "Women have to have something more than hopes to work with."

"The women in this country have to do all their dreaming at night," said Mrs. Brimstead.

"El Dorado will not stay long," Samson averred.

"It wouldn't cost much to shoo it off your land," Abe laughed.

"You can't either shoo or shoot it," said Brimstead.

"I look for it just to take the rickets an' die," was the comment of his wife.

"How far do you call it to the sycamore woods?" Lincoln asked as they rose from the table.

"About thirty mile," said Brimstead.

"We must be off if we are to get there before dark," the young statesman declared.

They saddled their horses and mounted and rode up to the door. After their acknowledgments and farewells Brimstead came close to Samson and said in confidence: "I enjoy bein' a millionaire for a few minutes now an' then. It's as good as goin' to a circus an' cheaper."

"The feelings of a millionaire are almost as good as the money while they last," said Abe Lincoln with a laugh.

Brimstead came up to him and whispered: "They're better 'cause if you can keep away from Samson Traylor you don't have any fear o' bein' robbed."

"It reminds me o' the time I used to play I was a horse," said Samson as they rode away. In a moment he added: "Abe, the state is getting in a bad way."

"It looks as if you were right," said the member from Sangamon County.

"It's a bad sign to find men like Peasley and Brimstead going crazy."

Up the road they pa.s.sed many farms unsown and staked into streets and avenues. The hand of industry had been checked by dreams of wealth.

"The land that once laughed with fatness now has a lean and solemn look,"

Abe admitted. "But I reckon you'll find that kind of thing going on all over the country-east and west."

"It reminds me of those fellers that danced on the table an' smashed the dishes at the banquet," said Samson.

"They had the same kind o' feelin's that Brimstead has," said the legislator. "I wish we had had you in the House."

"They would have thrown me out of a window."

"I wouldn't wonder but I reckon the time is near when they would urge you to come in at the door. You've got more good sense than all of us put together. I've heard you accuse me of growing but your own growth has astonished me."

"No one can stand still in this country especially if he's got a wife like mine," Samson answered. "Even Mr. and Mrs. Peter Lukins want to be movin' on, an' a city is likely to come an' sit down beside ye when ye ain't lookin'."

"Your wife is a wonderful woman," said Abe.

"She's been a great help to me," Samson declared. "We read together and talk the matter over. She's got better sense than I have."

"And yet they say women ought not to vote," said Lincoln. "That's another relic of feudalism. I think that the women you and I know are as well qualified to vote as the men."

"On the whole better. They are more industrious, thrifty and dependable.

Have you ever seen a 'Colonel' Lukins or a Bap McNoll in woman's dress?"

"Never. Democracy has much ground to win. For my part I believe that the Declaration of Independence is a practical doc.u.ment. My ambition is to see its truth accepted everywhere. As a contribution to human welfare its principles are second only to the law of Moses. It should be our work to keep the structure of America true to the plan of its architects."

After a moment of silence Lincoln added: "What is your ambition?"

"It is very modest," said Samson. "I've been thinking that I'd like to go into some kind of business and help develop the West."

"Well some one has got to provide our growing population with food and clothing and tools and transportation."

"And see that they don't get El Doradoed," said Harry.

At early candlelight they reached the sycamore woods very hungry. It was a beautiful grove-like forest on the sh.o.r.e of a stream. The crossing was a rough bridge of corduroy. A crude log tavern and a cruder store stood on the farther sh.o.r.e of the creek. The tavern was a dirty place with a drunken proprietor. Three ragged, shiftless farmers and a half-breed Indian sat in its main room in varying stages of inebriacy. A well dressed, handsome, young man with a diamond in his shirt-front was leading a horse back and forth in the stable yard. The diamond led Samson to suspect that he was the man Davis of whom Mrs. Brimstead had spoken.

Our travelers, not liking the look of the place, got some oats and rode on, camping near the farther edge of the woods, where they built a fire, fed and tethered their horses and sat down and ate from the store in their saddle-bags.

"I was hankering for a hot supper," said Abe as they began eating.

"Washington Irving wrote in his journal that if he couldn't get a dinner to suit his taste he endeavored to get a taste to suit his dinner. That is what we must do."

They made out very well in the undertaking and then with their knives Abe and Samson cut big armfuls of gra.s.s from the near prairie for the horses and a bed upon which the three men lay down for the night. Harry had dried out their saddle-blankets by the fire and these were their bed clothing.

"This hay may have some bugs in it but they won't tickle so bad as those in the tavern," Abe laughed.

Then Harry remarked: "There was lots of bad company in that tavern. The towel that hung over the washstand was as black as the ground."

"It reminded me of the tavern down in Pope County," Abe yawned. "A traveler found fault with the condition of its one towel and the landlord said: 'Go to h--ll, stranger. More than fifty men have used that towl to-day an' you're the first one that's complained of it.'"

Samson had that gift of "sleeping with one eye open" which the perils of the wilderness had conferred upon the pioneer. He had lain down on the side of their bed near the horses, which, were tethered to trees only a few feet away. He had gone to sleep with his pistol under his right hand.

Since the beginning of that long journey overland from Vermont Samson had been wont to say that his right hand never slept. Late in the night ha was awakened by an unusual movement among the horses. In the dim light of the fire he could see a man in the act of bridling Abe's horse.

"Hold up your hands," Samson shouted as he covered the man with his pistol. "If ye stir a foot I'll bore a hole in ye."

The man threw up his hands and stood still.

In half a moment Abe Lincoln and Harry had got up and captured the man and the loosed horse.

This is part of the entry which Samson made in his diary a week or so later:

"Harry put some wood on the fire while Abe and I led him up into the light. He was one of the dirty white men we had seen at the tavern.