In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 10

"The top of the morning to you! You are a stranger that I met the other day, I suppose. I've been hopin' you'd come along and see me. Where do you hail from, anyway? Come in and tell me all about it."

"I am a German," said Jasper, entering. "I came from Germany to Pennsylvania, and went from there to Ohio, and now I am here, as you see."

"How far are you goin'? Or are you just goin' to stop with us here?

Southern Injiany is a goodly country. 'Tis all land around here, for _millions_ of miles, and free as the air. Perhaps you'll stop with us."

"I am going to Rock Island, on the Mississippi River, across the prairie of the Illinois."

"Who are you now, may it please you? What's your callin'? Tell me all about it, now. I want to know."

"I am one of the Brethren, as I said. I preach and teach and cobble. I came here now to ask you if you had any shoe-making for me to do."

"One of the Tunkers--a Tunker, one o' them. Don't belong to no sect, nor nothin', but just preaches to everybody as though everybody was alike, and wanders about everywhere, as if you owned the whole world, like the air. I've seen several Tunkers in my day. They are becomin' thick in these woods. Well, I believe such as you mean well--let's be charitable; we haven't long to live in this troublesome world. I'm fryin' doughnuts; am just waitin' for the fat to heat. Hope you didn't think that I was wastin' time, standin' there at the door? I'll give you some doughnuts as soon as the fat is hot--fresh ones and good ones, too. I make good doughnuts, just such as Martha used to make in Jerusalem. I've fried doughnuts for a hundred ministers in my day, and they all say that my doughnuts are good, whatever they may think of me. Come in. I'm proper glad to see ye."

Jasper sat down in the kitchen of the cabin. The room was large, and had a delightful atmosphere of order and neatness. Over the fire swung an immense iron crane, and on the crane were pot-hooks of various sizes, and on one of these hung a kettle of bubbling fat.

The table was spread with a large dish of dough, a board called a kneading-board, a rolling-pin, and a large sheet of dough which had been rolled into its present form by the rolling-pin, which utensil was white with flour.

"I knew you were comin'," said Aunt Olive. "I dropped my rollin'-pin this mornin'; it's a sure sign. You said that you are goin' to Rock Island. The Injuns live there, don't they? What are ye goin' there for?"

"Black Hawk has invited me. He has promised to let me have an Indian guide, or runner, who can speak English and interpret. I'm going to teach among the tribes, the Lord willing, and I want a guide and an interpreter."

"Black Hawk? He was born down in Kaskaskia, the old Jesuit town, 'way back almost a century ago, wasn't he? Or was it in the Sac village? He was a Pottawattomie, I'm told, and then I've heard he wasn't. Now he's chief of the Sacs and Foxes. I saw him once at a camp-meetin'. His face is black as that pot and these hooks and trummels. How he did skeer me!

Do you dare to trust him? Like enough he'll kill ye, some day. I don't trust no Injuns. Where did you stay last night?"

"At Mr. Lincoln's."

"Tom Linken's. Pretty poor accommodations you must have had. They're awful poor folks. Mrs. Linken is a nice woman, but Tom he is shiftless, and he's bringin' up that great tall boy Abe to be lazy, too. That boy is good to his mother, but he all runs to books and larnin', just as some turnips all run to tops. You've seen 'em so, haven't ye?"

"But the boy has got character, and character is everything in this world."

"Did you notice anything _peculiarsome_ about him? His cousin, Dennis Hanks, says there's something peculiarsome about him. I never did."

"My good woman, do you believe in gifts?"

"No, I believe in works. I believe in people whose two fists are full of works. Mine are, like the Marthas of old."

Aunt Olive rolled up her sleeves, and began to cut the thin layer of dough with a knife into long strips, which she twisted.

"I'm goin' to make some twisted doughnuts," she said, "seein' you're a preacher and a teacher."

"I think that young lad Lincoln has some inborn gift, and that he will become a leader among men. It is he who is willing to serve that rules, and they who deny themselves the most receive the most from Heaven and men. He has sympathetic wisdom. I can see it. There is something peculiar about him. He is true."

"Oh, don't you talk that way. He's lazy, and he hain't got any calculation, 'n' he'll never amount to shucks, nor nothin'. He's like his father, his head in the air. Somethin' don't come of nothin' in this world; corn don't grow unless you plant it; and when you add nothin' to nothin' it just makes nothin'.

"Well, preacher, you've told me who you are, and now I'll tell ye who I am. But first, let me say, I'll have a pair of shoes. I have my own last. I'll get it for you, and then you can be peggin' away, so as not to lose any time. It is wicked to waste time. 'Work' is my motto. That's what time is made for."

Aunt Olive got her last. The fat was hot by this time--"all sizzlin',"

as she said.

"There, preacher, this is the last, and there is the board on which my husband used to sew shoes, wax and all. Now I will go to fryin' my doughnuts, and you and I can be workin' away at the same time, and I'll tell ye who I am. Work away--work away!

"I'm a widder. You married? A widower? Well, that ain't nothin' to me.

Work away--work away!

"I came from old Hingham, near Boston. You've heard of Boston? That was before I was married. Our family came to Ohio first, then we heard that there was better land in Injiany, and we moved on down the Ohio River and came here. There was only one other family in these parts at that time. That was folks by the name of Eastman. They had a likely smart boy by the name of Polk--Polk Eastman. He grew up and became lonesome. I grew up and became lonesome, and so we concluded that we'd make a home together--here it is--and try to cheer each other. Listenin', be ye?

Yes? Well, my doughnuts are fryin' splendid. Work away--work away!

"A curious time we had of it when we went to get married. There was a minister named Penney, who preached in a log church up in Kentuck, and we started one spring mornin', something like this, to get him to marry us. We had but one horse for the journey. I rode on a kind of a second saddle behind Polk, and we started off as happy as prairie plovers. A blue sky was over the timber, and the bushes were all alive with birds, and there were little flowers runnin' everywhere among the new gra.s.s and the moss. It seemed as though all the world was for us, and that the Lord was good. I've seen lots of trouble since then. My heart has grown heavy with sorrow. It was then as light as air. Work away!

"Well, the minister Penney lived across the Kentuck, and when we came to the river opposite his place the water was so deep that we couldn't ford it. There had been spring freshets. It was an evenin' in April. There was a large moon, and the weather was mild and beautiful. We could see the pine-knots burnin' in Parson Penney's cabin, so that we knew that he was there, but didn't see him.

"'What are we to do now?' Polk said he. 'We'll have to go home again,'

banterin'-like."

"'Holler,' said I. 'Blow the horn!' We had taken a horn along with us.

He gave a piercin' blast, and I shouted out, 'Elder Penney! Elder Penney!'

"The door of the cabin over the river opened, and the elder came out and stood there, mysterious-like, in the light of the fire.

"'Who be ye?' he called. 'Hallo! What is wanted?'

"'We're comin' to be married!' shouted Polk. 'Comin' to be married--_married_! How shall we get across the river?'

"'The ford's too deep. Can't be done. Who be ye?' shouted the elder.

"'I'm Polk Eastman--Polk Eastman!' shouted Polk.

"'I'm Olive Pratt--Olive Pratt--Olive!' shouted I.

"'Well, you just stay where you be, and I'll marry you there.'

"So he began shouting at the top of his voice:

"'Do you, Olive Pratt, take that there man, over there on the horse, to be your husband? Hey?'

"I shouted back, 'Yes, sir!'

"'Do you, Polk Eastman, take that there woman, over there on the horse, to be your wife?'

"Polk shouted back, 'Yes, elder, that is what I came for!'

"'Then,' shouted the minister, 'join your right hands.'

"Polk put up his hand over his shoulder, and I took it; and the horse, seein' his advantage, went to nibblin' young sprouts. The elder then shouted:

"'I p.r.o.nounce you husband and wife. You can go home now, and I'll make a record of it, and my wife shall witness it. Good luck to you! Let us pray.'