The southerner : a romance of the real Lincoln

Front matter

SOUTHER! JE1

T.'IOMAS D«XD«

OuoiK

Contents

PAGE

PROLOGUE 3

CHAPTER

II

The woman rose quietly and went the rounds of her daily work. She made her bed to-day in trancelike silence. It was no gilded couch, but it had been built by the hand of her lover and was sacred. It filled the space in one corner of the cabin farthest from the fire. A single post of straight cedar securely fixed in the ground held the poles in place which formed the side and foot rail. The walls of the cabin formed the other side and head. Across from the pole were fixed the slender hickory sticks that formed the springy hammock on which the first mattress of moss and grass rested. On this was placed a feather bed made from the wild fowl Tom had killed during the past two years. The pillows were of the finest feathers from the breasts of ducks. A single quilt of ample size covered all, and over this was thrown a huge counterpane of bear skins. Two enormous bear rugs almost completely covered the dirt floor, and a carpet of oak leaves filled out the spaces.

The feather bed beaten smooth, the fur covering drawn in place and the pillows set upright against the cabin wall, she turned to the two bunks in the opposite corner and carefully re-arranged them. They might be used soon. This was the corner of her home set aside for guests. Tom had skillfully built two berths boat fashion, one above the other, in this corner, and a curtain drawn over a smooth wooden rod cut this space off from the rest of the room when occupied at night by visitors.

The master of this cabin never allowed a stranger to pass without urging him to stop and in a way that took no denial.

A savory dish of stewed squirrel and corn dumplings served for lunch. The baby's face was one glorious smear of joy and grease at its finish.

The mother took the bucket from its shelf and walked leisurely to the spring, whose limpid waters gushed from a rock at the foot of the hill. The child toddled after her, the little moccasined feet stepping gingerly over the sharp gravel of the rough places.

Before filling the bucket she listened again for the crack of Tom's rifle, and could hear nothing. A death-like stillness brooded over the woods and fields. He was probably watching for muskrat under the bluff of the creek. He had promised to stay within call to-day.

The afternoon dragged wearily. She tried to read the one book she possessed, the Bible. The pages. seemed to fade and the eyes refused to see.

"O Man, Man, why don't you come home!" she cried at last.

She rose, walked to the door, looked and listened — only the distant rattle of a woodpecker's beak on a dead tree in the woods. The snow began to fall in little fitful dabs. It was two miles to the nearest cabin, and her soul rose in fierce rebellion at her loneliness. It was easy for a man who loved the woods, the fields and running waters, this life, but for the woman who must wait and long and eat her heart out alone — she vowed anew that she would not endure it. By the sheer pull of her will she would lift this man from his drifting life and make him take his place in the real battle of the world. If her new baby were only a boy, he could help her and she would win. Again she stood dreaming of the vision 6he had seen at dawn.

The dark young face suddenly went white and her hand gripped the facing of the door.

She waited half doubting, half amused at her fears. It was only the twinge of a muscle perhaps. She smiled at her sudden panic. The thought had scarcely formed before she blanched the second time and the firm lips came together with sudden energy as she glanced at the child playing on the rug at her feet.

She seized the horn that hung beside the door and blew the pioneer's long call of danger. Its shrill note rang through the woods against the hills in cadences that seemed half muffled by the falling snow.

Again her anxious eyes looked from the doorway. Would he never come! The trembling slender hand once more lifted the horn, a single wild note rang out and broke suddenly into silence. The horn fell from her limp grasp and she lifted her eyes to the darkening sky in prayer, as Tom's voice from the edge of the woods came strong and full:

"Yes, Honey, I'm comin' !"

There was no question of doctor or nurse. The young pioneer mother only asked for her mate.

For two fearful hours she gripped his rough hands until at last her nails brought the blood, but the man didn't know or care. Every smothered cry that came from her lips began to tear the heart out of his body at last. He could hold the long pent agony no longer without words.

"My God, Nancy, what can I do for ye, Honey?"

Her breath came in gasps and her eyes were shining with a strange intensity.

"Nothing, Tom, nothing now — I'm looking Death in the face and I'm not afraid "

"Please lemme give ye some whiskey," he pleaded, pressing the glass to her lips.

"No — no, take it away — I hate it. My baby shall be clean and strong or I want to die."

The decision seemed to brace her spirit for the last test when the trembling feet entered the shadows of the dim valley that lies between Life and Death.

The dark, slender figure lay still and white at last. A sharp cry from lusty lungs, and the grey eyes slowly opened, with a timid wondering look.

"Tom !" she cried with quick eager tones.

"Yes, Nancy, yes !"

"A boy?"

"Of course — and a buster he is, too."

"Give him to me — quick!"

The stalwart figure bent over the bed and laid the little red bundle in her arms. She pressed him tenderly to her heart, felt his breath on her breast and the joyous tears slowly poured down her cheeks.

Ill

Before the first year of the boy's life had passed the task of teaching his good-natured, stubborn father became impossible. The best the wife could do was to make him trace his name in sprawling letters that resembled writing and painfully spell his way through the simplest passages in the Bible.

The day she gave up was one of dumb despair. She resolved at last to live in her boy. All she had hoped and dreamed of life should be his and he would be hers. Her hands could make him good or bad, brave or cowardly, noble or ignoble.

He was a remarkable child physically, and grew out of his clothes faster than she could make them.

It was easy to see from his second year that he would be a man of extraordinary stature. Both mother and father were above the average height, but he would overtop them both. When he tumbled over the bear rugs on the cabin floor his father would roar with laughter:

"For the Lord's sake, Nancy, look at them legs! They're windin' blades. Ef he ever gits grown, he won't have ter ax fer a blessin', he kin jest reach up an' hand it down hisself!"

He was four years old when he got the first vision of his mother that time should never blot out. His father was away on a carpenter job of four days. Sleeping in the lower bunk in the corner, he waked with a start to hear the chickens cackling loudly. His mother was quietly dressing. He leaped to his feet shivering in the dark and whispered:

"What is it, Ma?"

"Something's after the chickens."

"Not a hawk?"

"No, nor an owl, or fox, or weasel — or they'd squall — they're cackling."

The rooster cackled louder than ever and the Boy recognized the voice of his speckled hen accompanying him. How weird it sounded in the darkness of the still spring night! The cold chills ran down his back and he caught his mother's dress as she reached for the rifle that stood beside her bed.

"You're not goin' out there, Ma?" the Boy protested.

"Yes. It's a dirty thief after our horse."

Her voice was low and steady and her hand was without tremor as she grasped his.

"Get back in bed. I won't be gone a minute."

She left the cabin and noiselessly walked toward the low shed in which the horse was stabled.

The Boy was at her heels. She knew and rejoiced in the love that made him brave for her sake.

She paused a moment, listened, and then lifted her tall, slim form and advanced steadily. Her bare feet made no noise. The waning moon was shining with soft radiance. The Boy's heart was in his throat as he watched her slender neck and head outlined against the sky. Never had he seen anything so calm and utterly brave.

There was a slight noise at the stable. The chickens cackled with louder call. Five minutes passed and they were silent. A shadowy figure appeared at the corner of the stable. She raised the rifle and flashed a dagger-like flame into the darkness.

A smothered cry, the shadow leaped the fence and the beat of swift feet could be heard in the distance.

The Boy clung close to her side and his voice was husky as he spoke:

"Ain't you afraid, Ma?"

The calm answer rang forever through his memory:

"I don't know what "fear means, my Boy. It's not the first time I've caught these prowling scoundrels."

Next morning he saw the dark blood marks on the trail over which the thief had fled, and looked into his mother's wistful grey eyes with a new reverence and awe.

IV

The Boy was quick to know and love the birds of hedge and field and woods. The martins that built in his gourds on the tall pole had opened his eyes. The red and bluebirds, the thrush, the wren, the robin, the catbird, and song sparrows were his daily companions.

A mocking-bird came at last to build her nest in a bush beside the garden, and her mate began to make the sky ring with his song. The puzzle of the feathered tribe whose habits he couldn't fathom was the whip-poor-will. His mother seemed to dislike his ominous sound. But the soft mournful notes appealed to the Boy's fancy. Often at night he sat in the doorway of the cabin watching the gathering shadows and the flicker of the fire when supper was cooking, listening to the tireless song within a few feet of the house.

"Why don't you like 'em, Ma?" he asked, while one was singing with unusually deep and haunting voice so near the cabin that its echo seemed to come from the chimney jamb.

It was some time before she replied :

"They say it's a sign of death for them to come so close to the house."

The Boy laughed:

"You don't believe it?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I like 'em," he stoutly declared. "I like to feel the cold shivers when they sing right under my feet. You're not afraid of a little whip-poor-will?"

He looked up into her sombre face with a smile.

"No," was the gentle answer, "but I want to live to see my Boy a fine strong man," she paused, stooped, and drew him into her arms.

There was something in her tones that brought a lump into his throat. The moon was shining in the full white glory of the Southern spring. A night of marvellous beauty enfolded the little cabin. He looked into her eyes and they were shining with tears.

"What's the matter?" he asked tenderly.

"Nothing, Boy, I'm just dreaming of you!"

The first day of the fall in his sixth year he asked his mother to let him go to the next corn-shucking.

"You're too little a boy."

"I can shuck corn," he stoutly argued.

"You'll be good, if I let you go?" she asked.

"What's to hurt me there?"

"Nothing, unless you let it. The men drink whiskey, the girls dance. Sometimes there's a quarrel or fight."

"It won't hurt me ef I 'tend to my own business, will it?"

"Nothing will ever hurt you, if you'll just do that, Boy," the father broke in.

"May I go?"

"Yes, we're invited next week to a quilting and corn-shucking. I'll go with you."

The Boy shouted for joy and counted the days until the wonderful event. They left home at two o'clock in the wagon. The quilting began at three, the corn-shucking at sundown.

The house was a marvellous structure to the Boy's excited imagination. It was the first home he had ever seen not built of logs.

"Why, Ma," he cried in open-eyed wonder, "there ain't no logs in the house ! How did they ever put it together?"

"With bricks and mortar."

The Boy couldn't keep his eyes off this building. It was a simple, one-story square structure of four rooms and an attic, with little dormer windows peeping from the four sides of the pointed roof. McDonald, the thrifty Scotch-Irishman, from the old world, had built it of bricks he had ground and burnt on his own place.

The dormer windows peeping from the roof caught the Boy's fancy.

"Do you reckon his boys sleep up there and peep out of them holes?"

The mother smiled.

"Maybe so."

"Why don't we build a house like that?" he asked at last. "Don't you want it?"

The mother squeezed his little hand:

"When you're a man will you build your mother one?"

He looked into her eyes a moment, caught the pensive longing and answered:

"Yes. I will."

She stooped and kissed the firm mouth and was about to lead him into the large work-room where the women were gathering around the quilts stretched on their frames, when a negro slave suddenly appeared to take her horse to the stable. He was fat, jolly and coal black. His yellow teeth gleamed in their blue gums with a jovial welcome.

The Boy stood rooted to the spot and watched until the negro disappeared. It was the first black man he had ever seen. He had heard of negroes and that they were slaves. But he had no idea that one human being could be so different from another.

In breathless awe he asked:

"Is he folks?"

"Of course, Boy," his mother answered, smiling.

"What made him so black?"

"The sun in Africa."

"What made his nose so flat and his lips so thick?"

"He was born that way."

"What made him come here?"

"He didn't. The slave traders put him in chains and brought him across the sea and sold him into slavery."

The little body suddenly stiffened:

"Why didn't he kill 'em?"

"He didn't know how to defend himself."

"Why don't he run away?"

"He hasn't sense enough, I reckon. He's got a home, plenty to eat and plenty to wear, and he's afraid he'll be caught and whipped."

The mother had to pull the Boy with her into the quilting room. His eyes followed the negro to the stable with a strange fascination. The thing that puzzled him beyond all comprehension was why a big strong man like that, if he were a man, would submit. Why didn't he fight and die? A curious feeling of contempt filled his mind. This black thing that looked like a man, walked like a man and talked like a man couldn't be one ! No real man would grin and laugh and be a slave. The black fool seemed to be happy. He had not only grinned and laughed, but he went away whistling and singing.

In three hours the quilts were finished and the men had gathered for the corn-shucking.

Before eight o'clock the last ear was shucked, and a long white pile of clean husked corn lay glistening in the moonlight where the dark pyramid had stood at sunset.

With a shout the men rose, stretched their legs and washed their hands in the troughs filled with water, provided for the occasion. They sat down to supper at four long tables placed in the kitchen and work room, where the quilts had been stretched.

Never had the Boy seen such a feast — barbecued shoat, turkeys, ducks, chickens, venison, bear meat, sweet potatoes, wild honey, corn dodgers, wheat biscuit, stickies and pound cake — pound cake until you couldn't eat another mouthful and still they brought more!

After the supper the young folks sang and danced before the big fires until ten o'clock, and then the crowd began to thin, and by eleven the last man was gone and the harvest festival was over.

It was nearly twelve before the Boy knelt at his mother's knee to say his prayers.

When the last words were spoken he still knelt, his eyes gazing into the flickering fire.

The mother bent low:

"What are you thinking about, Boy? The house you're going to build for me?"

"What?"

"That nigger — wasn't he funny? You don't want me to get you any niggers with the house do you?"

"I didn't think you would," he went on thoughtfully, "because you said General Washington set his slaves free and wanted everybody else to do it too."

He paused and shook his head thoughtfully. "But he was funny — he was laughin' and whistlin' and singia

The air of the Southern autumn was like wine. The Boy's heart beat with new life. The scarlet and purple glory of the woods fired his imagination. He found himself whistling and singing at his tasks. He proudly showed a bee tree to his mother, the honey was gathered and safely stored. A barrel of walnuts, a barrel of hickorynuts and two bushels of chestnuts were piled near his bed in the loft.

But the day his martins left, he came near breaking down. He saw them circle high in graceful sweeping curves over the gourds, chattering and laughing with a strange new note in their cries.

He watched them wistfully. His mother found him looking with shining eyes far up into the still autumn sky. His voice was weak and unsteady when he spoke:

"I — can — hardly — hear — 'em — now ; they're so high !"

A slender hand touched his tangled hair :

"Don't worry, Boy, they'll come again."

"You're sure, Ma?" he asked, pathetically.

"Sure."

"Will they know when it's time?"

"Some one always tells them."

"Who?"

"God. That's what the Bible means when it says,

'the stork knoweth her appointed time.' I read that to you the other night, don't you remember?"

"But maybe God'll be so busy he'll forget my birds?"

"He never forgets. He counts the beat of a sparrow's wing."

The mother's faith was contagious. The drooping spirit caught the flash of light from her eyes and smiled.

"We'll watch for 'em next spring, won't we? And I'll put up new gourds long before they come!"

Comforted at last, he went to the woods to gather chinquapins. The squirrels were scampering in all directions and he asked his father that night to let him go hunting with him next day.

"All right, Boy!" was the hearty answer. "We'll have some fun this winter."

He paused as he saw the mother's lips suddenly close and a shadow pass over her dark, sensitive face.

"Hit's no use ter worry, Nancy," he went on good-naturedly. "I promised you not ter take him 'less he wanted ter go. But hit's in the blood, and hit's got ter come out."

Tom picked the Boy up and placed him on his knee and stroked his dark head. Sarah crouched at his feet and smiled. He was going to tell about the Indians again. She could tell by the look in his eye as he watched the flames leap over the logs.

"Did ye know, Boy," he began slowly, "that we come out to Kaintuck with Daniel Boone?"

"Did we?"

"Yes sirree, with old Dan'l hisself. It wuz thirty years ago. I wuz a little shaver no bigger'n you, but I remember jest as well ez ef it wuz yistiddy. Lordy, Boy, thar wuz er man that wuz er man ! Ye

couldn't a made no jackleg carpenter outen him "

He paused and cast a sly wink at Nancy as she bent over her knitting.

"Tell me about him?" the Boy cried.

"Yessir, Dan'l Boone wuz a man an' no mistake. The Indians would ketch 'im an' keep er ketchin' 'im an' he'd slip through their fingers slicker'n a eel. The very fust trip he tuck out here he wuz captured by the Redskins. Dan'l wuz with his friend John Stuart.

"They left their camp one day an' set out on a big hunt, and all of a sudden they wuz grabbed by the Injuns."

"Why didn't they shoot 'em?" the Boy asked.

"They wuz too many of 'em an' they wuz too quick for Dan'l. He didn't have no show at all. The Injuns robbed 'em of everything they had an' kept 'em prisoners.

"But ole Dan'l wuz a slick un. He'd been studyin* Injuns all his life an' he knowed 'em frum a ter izard. They didn't have nothin' but bows an' arrers then an' he had a rifle thes like mine. He never got flustered or riled by the way they wuz treatin' him, but let on like he wuz happy ez er June bug. Dan'l would raise his rifle, put a bullet twixt a buffalo's eyes an' he'd drap in his tracks. The Injuns wuz tickled ter death an' thought him the greatest man that ever lived — an' he wuz, too. So they got ter likin' him an' treatin' 'im better. For seven days an' nights him an' Stuart helped 'em hunt an' showed 'em how ter work er rifle. The Injuns was plum fooled by Dan'l's friendly ways an' didn't watch 'im so close.

"So one night Dan'l helped 'em ter eat a bigger supper than ever. They wuz all full enough ter bust, an' went ter sleep an' slept like logs. Hit wuz a dark night an' the fire burned low, an' long 'bout midnight Dan'l made up his mind ter give 'em the slip.

"Hit wuz er dangerous job. Ef he failed hit wuz death shore-nuff, for nothin' makes a Injun so pizen mad ez fer anybody ter be treated nice by 'em an' then try ter get away. The Redskins wuz all sleepin' round the fire. They wuz used ter jumpin' in the middle o' the night or any minute. Mebbe they wuz all ersleep, an' mebbe they wasn't.

"Old Dan'l he pertended ter be sleepin' the sleep er the dead, an' I tell ye he riz mighty keerful, shuck Stuart easy, waked him up an' motioned him ter foller. Talk about sneakin' up on a wild duck er a turkey — ole Dan'l done some slick business gettin' away frum that fire ! Man, ef they'd rustled a leaf er broke a twig, them savages would a all been up an' on 'em in a minute. Holdin' tight to their guns — you kin bet they didn't leave them — and a steppin' light ez feathers they crept away from the fire an' out into the deep dark o' the woods. They stopped an' stood as still ez death an' watched till they see the Injuns hadn't waked "

The pioneer paused and his white teeth shone through his black beard as he cocked his shaggy head to one side and looked into the Boy's wide eyes.

"And then what do you reckon Dan'l Boone done, sir?"

"What?"

"Waal, ye seed the way them bees made fer their trees, didn't ye, when they got a load er honey?"

"Yes, that's the way I found their home."

"But you had the daylight, mind ye! And Dan'l was in pitch black night, but, sir, he made a bee-line through them dark woods straight for his camp he'd left seven days afore. And, man, yer kin bet they made tracks when they got clear o' the Redskins ! Hit wuz six hours till day an' when the Injuns waked they didn't know which way ter look "

Tom paused and the Boy cried eagerly:

"Did they get there?"

"Git whar?" the father asked dreamily.

"Get back to their own camp?"

"Straight ez a bee-line I tell ye. But the camp had been busted and robbed and the other men wuz gone."

"Gone where?"

Tom shook his shaggy head.

"Nobody never knowed ter this day — reckon the Injuns scalped 'em "

He paused again and a dreamy look overspread his rugged face.

"Like they scalped your own grandpa that day."

"Did they scalp my grandpa?" the Boy asked in an awed whisper.

"That they did. Your Uncle Mordecai an' me was workin' with him in the new ground, cleanin' it fur corn when all of a sudden the Injuns riz right up outen the ground. Your grandpa drapped dead the fust shot, an' Mordecai flew ter the cabin fer the rifle. A big Redskin jumped over a log an' scalped my own daddy before my eyes ! He grabbed me an' started pullin' me ter the woods, an' then, Sonny,

somethin' happened "

Tom looked at the long rifle in its buck's horn rest and smiled:

"Old 'Speakeasy' up thar stretched her long neck through a chink in the logs an' said somethin' ter Mr. Redskin. She didn't raise her voice much louder'n a whisper. She jist kinder sighed:

"Kerpeow!"

"I kin hear hit echoin' through them woods yit. That Injun drapped my hands before I heerd the gun, an' she hadn't more'n sung out afore he wuz lyin' in a heap at my feet. The ball had gone clean through him "

Tom paused again and looked for a long time in silence into the glowing coals. The little cabin was very still. The Boy lifted his face to his mother's curiously :

"Ma, you said God counted the beat of a sparrow's wing

"Yes."

"Well, what was He doin' when that Indian scalped my grandpa?"

The mother threw a startled look at the bold little questioner and answered reverently:

"Keeping watch in Heaven, my Boy. The hairs of your head are numbered and not one falls without his knowledge. We had to pay the price of blood for this beautiful country. Nothing is ever worth having that doesn't cost precious lives."

Again the cabin was stiE. An owl's deep cry boomed from the woods and a solitary wolf answered in the distance. The Boy's brow was wrinkled for a moment and then he suddenly looked up to his father's rugged face:

"And what became of Dan'l Boone?"

"Oh, he lit on his feet all right. He always did. He moved on with Stuart, built him another camp in the deepest woods he could find and hunted there all winter — jest think, Boy, all winter — every day — thar wuz a man that wuz a man shore miff !"

"Yes, sirree !" the listener agreed.

The mother lifted her head and thoughtfully watched the sparkling eyes.

"And do you want to know why Daniel Boone was great, my son?" she quietly asked.

"Yes, why?" was the quick response.

"Because he used his mind and his hands, while the other men around him just used their hands. He learned to read and write when he was a little boy. He mixed brains with his powder and shot."

"Did he, Pa?" the questioner cried.

The father smiled. He could afford to be generous. The Boy looked to him as the authority on Daniel Boone.

"Yes, I reckon he did. He wuz smart. I didn't have no chance when I wuz little."

"Then I'm going to learn, too. Ma can teach me." He leaped from his father's lap and climbed into hers. "You will, won't you, Ma?"

The mother smiled as she slowly answered:

"Yes, Honey, I'll begin to-morrow night when you get back from hunting."

VI

Slowly but surely the indomitable will within the Boy's breast conquered the cries of aching muscles, and he went about his daily farm tasks with the dogged persistence of habit. He had learned to whistle at his work and his eager mind began to look for new worlds to conquer.

At the right moment the tempter appeared. It rained on Saturday and Austin, his neighbor, came over to see him. They cracked walnuts and hickory-nuts in the loft while the rain pattered noisily on the board roof. Austin had a definite suggestion for Sunday that would break the monotony of life.

"Let's me an' you not go ter meetin' ter-morrow?" the neighbor ventured for a starter.

"All right!" the Boy agreed. "Preachin' makes me tired anyhow."

"Me, too, an' I tell ye what I'll do. I'll get my Ma ter let me come ter your house to stay all day, an' when your folks go off ter meetin', me an' you'll have some fun!"

"What?"

"We'll stay all day on the creek banks, find duck

nests, turkey and quail nests, an', " Austin paused

and dropped his voice, "go in swimmin' if we take a notion "

The Boy slowly shook his head.

"No, less don't do that."

"Why?"

" 'Cause Ma don't 'low me to go in the creek till June — says I might ketch my death o' cold."

"Shucks ! I've been in twice already !"