The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 18

"G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d's hands! Well, he would go to G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 G.o.d, have mercy!"

With a groan he dropped by her side and her thin hand rested gently on his s.h.a.ggy 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Be a man among men for your mother's sake--'"]

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 G.o.d could extinguish.

_The Story_