The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
want thee.'
"Sam'l went, and found the old man standing over a big rat hole, where the rats came out to feed on the scraps.
"'Sam'l,' says he, 'fetch the tongs.'
"Sam'l fetched the tongs.
"'Now, Sam'l,' says the old man, 'thou wilt sit here until thou hast a rat. Never mind thy dinner. And when thou hast him, if I hear thee swear, thou wilt sit here until thou hast another. Dost thou mind?'"
Here Mr. Lincoln seized two cotton umbrellas, rasped his chair over the bare boor into a corner of the room, and sat hunched over an imaginary rat hole, for all the world like a gawky Quaker apprentice. And this was a candidate for the Senate of the United States, who on the morrow was to meet in debate the renowned and polished Douglas!
"Well," Mr. Lincoln continued, "that was on a Monday, I reckon, and the boys a-shouting to have their horses shod. Maybe you think they didn't have some fun with Sam'l. But Sam'l sat there, and sat there, and sat there, and after a while the old man pulled out his dinner-pail. Sam'l never opened his mouth. First thing you know, snip went the tongs." Mr. Lincoln turned gravely around. "What do you reckon Sam'l said, Judge?"
The Judge, at random, summoned up a good one, to the delight of the audience.
"Judge," said Mr. Lincoln, with solemnity, "I reckon that's what you'd have said. Sam'l never said a word, and the old man kept on eating his dinner. One o'clock came, and the folks began to drop in again, but Sam'l, he sat there. 'Long towards night the boys collected 'round the door. They were getting kind of interested. Sam'l, he never looked up." Here Mr. Lincoln bent forward a little, and his voice fell to a loud, drawling whisper. "First thing you know, here come the whiskers peeping up, then the pink eyes a--blinking at the forge, then--!"
"Suddenly he brought the umbrellas together with whack.
"'By God,' yells Sam'l, 'I have thee at last!'"
Amid the shouts, Mr. Lincoln stood up, his long body swaying to and fro as he lifted high the improvised tongs. They heard a terrified squeal, and there was the rat squirming and wriggling,--it seemed before their very eyes. And Stephen forgot the country tavern, the country politician, and was transported straightway into the Quaker's smithy.
CHAPTER III. IN WHICH STEPHEN LEARNS SOMETHING
It was Mr. Lincoln who brought him back. The astonishing candidate for the Senate had sunk into his chair, his face relaxed into sadness save for the sparkle lurking in the eyes. So he sat, immobile, until the laughter had died down to silence. Then he turned to Stephen.
"Sonny," he said, "did you want to see me?"
Stephen was determined to be affable and kind, and (shall we say it?) he would not make Mr. Lincoln uncomfortable either by a superiority of English or the certain frigidity of manner which people in the West said he had. But he tried to imagine a Massachusetts senator, Mr. Sumner, for instance, going through the rat story, and couldn't. Somehow, Massachusetts senators hadn't this gift. And yet he was not quite sure that it wasn't a fetching gift. Stephen did not quite like to be called "Sonny." But he looked into two gray eyes, and at the face, and something curious happened to him. How was he to know that thousands of his countrymen were to experience the same sensation?
"Sonny," said Mr. Lincoln again, "did you want to see me?"
"Yes, sir." Stephen wondered at the "sir." It had been involuntary. He drew from his inner pocket the envelope which the Judge had given him.
Mr. Lincoln ripped it open. A document fell out, and a letter. He put the document in his tall hat, which was upside down on the floor. As he got deeper into the letter, he pursed his mouth, and the lines of his face deepened in a smile. Then he looked up, grave again.
"Judge Whipple told you to run till you found me, did he, Mr. Brice?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is the Judge the same old criss-cross, contrary, violent fool that he always was?"
Providence put an answer in Stephen's mouth.
"He's been very good to me, Mr. Lincoln."
Mr. Lincoln broke into laughter.
"Why, he's the biggest-hearted man I know. You know him, Oglesby,--Silas Whipple. But a man has to be a Daniel or a General Putnam to venture into that den of his. There's only one man in the world who can beard Silas, and he's the finest states-right Southern gentleman you ever saw. I mean Colonel Carvel. You've heard of him, Oglesby. Don't they quarrel once in a while, Mr. Brice?"
"They do have occasional arguments," said Stephen, amused.
"Arguments!" cried Mr. Lincoln; "well, I couldn't come as near to fighting every day and stand it. If my dog and Bill's dog across the street walked around each other and growled for half a day, and then lay down together, as Carvel and Whipple do, by Jing, I'd put pepper on their noses--"
"I reckon Colonel Carvel isn't a fighting man," said some one, at random.
Strangely enough, Stephen was seized with a desire to vindicate the Colonel's courage. Both Mr. Lincoln and Judge Oglesby forestalled him.
"Not a fighting man!" exclaimed the Judge. "Why, the other day--"
"Now, Oglesby," put in Mr. Lincoln, "I wanted to tell that story."
Stephen had heard it, and so have we. But Mr. Lincoln's imitation of the Colonel's drawl brought him a pang like homesickness.
"'No, suh, I didn't intend to shoot. Not if he had gone off straight. But he wriggled and twisted like a rattlesnake, and I just couldn't resist, suh. Then I sent m'nigger Ephum to tell him not to let me catch sight of him 'round the Planters' House. Yes, suh, that's what he was. One of these damned Yankees who come South and go into nigger-deals and politics."'
Mr. Lincoln glanced at Stephen, and then again at the Judge's letter. He took up his silk hat and thrust that, too, into the worn lining, which was already filled with papers. He clapped the hat on his head, and buttoned on his collar.
"I reckon I'll go for a walk, boys," he said, "and clear my head, so as to be ready for the Little Giant to-morrow at Freeport. Mr. Brice, do you feel like walking?"
Stephen, taken aback, said that he did.
"Now, Abe, this is just durned foolishness," one of the gentlemen expostulated. "We want to know if you're going to ask Douglas that question."
"If you do, you kill yourself, Lincoln," said another, who Stephen afterwards learned was Mr. Medill, proprietor of the great 'Press and Tribune'.
"I guess I'll risk it, Joe," said Mr. Lincoln, gravely. Suddenly comes the quiver about the corners of his mouth and the gray eyes respond. "Boys," said he, "did you ever hear the story of farmer Bell, down in Egypt? I'll tell it to you, boys, and then perhaps you'll know why I'll ask Judge Douglas that question. Farmer Bell had the prize Bartlett pear tree, and the prettiest gal in that section. And he thought about the same of each of 'em. All the boys were after Sue Bell. But there was only one who had any chance of getting her, and his name was Jim Rickets. Jim was the handsomest man in that section. He's been hung since. But Jim had a good deal out of life,--all the appetites, and some of the gratifications. He liked Sue, and he liked a luscious Bartlett. And he intended to have both. And it just so happened that that prize pear tree had a whopper on that year, and old man Bell couldn't talk of anything else.
"Now there was an ugly galoot whose name isn't worth mentioning. He knew he wasn't in any way fit for Sue, and he liked