In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 33

"When Main-Pogue meets him, if he ever does again, he may tell him all.

But does Main-Pogue understand the relations that exist between you and me, and us and that boy? O Waubeno, Waubeno, I would that you might hear of this!"

He thought, and added: "He _will_ hear of it, somehow, in some way.

Providence makes golden keys of deeds like yours. They unlock the doors of mystery. Let me see, what was it Waubeno said--his exact words?

_'When I find a single white man who defends an Indian to his own hurt, because it is right, I will promise.'_ Lincoln, he said that. You are that man. Lincoln, may G.o.d bless you, and call you into his service when he has need of a man!"

CHAPTER XX.

MAKING LINCOLN A "SON OF MALTA."

When Jasper, some years later, again met Aunt Eastman, she had a yet more curious story to tell about Abraham.

It was spring, and the cherry-trees were in bloom and musical with bees.

In the yard a single apple-tree was red with blooms, which made fragrant the air.

"And here comes Johnnie Apple-seed!" said Aunt Olive. "Heaven bless ye!

I call ye Johnnie Apple-seed because ye remind me so much of that good man. He was a good man, if he had lost his wits; and ye mean well, just as he did. Smell the apple-blossoms! I don't know but it was _him_ that planted that there tree."

To explain Aunt Olive's remarks, we should say that there once wandered along the banks of the Ohio, a poor wayfaring man who had a singular impression of duty. He felt it to be his calling in life to plant apple-seeds. He would go to a farmer's house, ask for work, and remain at the place a few days or weeks. After he had gone, apple-seeds would be found sprouting about the farm. His journeys were the beginnings of many orchards in the Middle, West, and prairie States.

"I love to smell apple-blossoms," said Aunt Olive. "It reminds me of old New England. I can almost hear the bells ring on the old New England hills when I smell apple-blooms. They say that Johnnie Apple-seed is dead, and that they filled his grave with apple-blooms. I don't know as it is so, but it ought to be. I sometimes wish that I was a poet, because a poet fixes things as they ought to be--makes the world all over right. But, la! Abe Linken was a poet. _Have_ ye heard the news?"

"No. What?--nothing bad, I hope?"

"_He's_ hung out his s.h.i.+ngle."

"Where?"

"In Springfield."

"In Springfield?"

"Yes, elder, I've seen it. I have traveled a good deal since I saw you--'round to camp-meetin', and fairs, rightin' things, and doin' all the good I can. I've seen it. And, elder, they've made a mock Mason on him."

In the pioneer days of Illinois the making of mock Masons, or _pseudo_ Sons of Malta, was a popular form of frolic, now almost forgotten. Young people formed mock lodges or secret societies, for the purpose of initiating new members by a series of tricks, which became the jokes of the community.

"Yes," said Aunt Olive, "and what do ye think they did? Well, in them societies they first test the courage of those who want to be new members. There's Judge Ball, now; when they tested his courage, what do you think? They blindfolded him, and turned up his blue jean trousers about the ankles, and said, 'Now let out the snakes!' and they took an elder-bush squirt-gun and squirted water over his feet; and the water was cold, and he thought it was snakes, and he jumped clear up to the cross-beams on the chamber floor, and screamed and screamed, and they wouldn't have him."

Jasper had never heard of these rude methods of making jokes and odd stories in the backwoods.

"What did they do to test Abraham's courage?" he asked.

"I don't know--blindfolded him and dressed him up like a donkey, and led him up to a lookin'-gla.s.s, and made him promise that he would never tell what he saw, and then _on_bandaged his eyes--or something of that kind.

His courage stood the test. Of course it did; no matter what they might have done, no one could frighten Abe. But he got the best o' them."

"How?"

"He took up a collection for a poor woman that he had met on the way, and proposed to change the society into a committee for the relief of the poor and sufferin'."

"That shows his heart again."

"I knew that you would say that, elder."

"Everything that I hear of Lincoln shows how that his character grows.

It is my daily prayer that Waubeno may hear of how he saved Main-Pogue.

It would change the heart of Waubeno. He will know of it some day, and then he will fulfill his promise to me."

The Tunker sat down in the door under the blooming cherry-trees, and Aunt Olive brought a tray of food, and they ate their supper there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SARAH BUSH LINCOLN, ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S STEP-MOTHER.

_After photograph taken in 1865._]

Afar stretched the prairies. The larks quivered in the air, happy in the May-time, and gurgling with song. In the sunny outlines were seen a train of prairie schooners winding over the plain.

These were rude times, when all things were new. Men were purchasing the future by hards.h.i.+p and toil. But the two religious enthusiasts presented a happy picture as they sat under the cherry-trees and talked of camp-meetings, and the inner light, and all they had experienced, and ate their frugal meal. Odd though their views and beliefs and habits may seem in some respects, each had a definite purpose of good; each lived in the horizon of bright prospects here and hereafter, and each was happy.

CHAPTER XXI.

PRAIRIE ISLAND.

The beautiful country between Lake Michigan, or old Fort Dearborn, and the Mississippi, or Rock Island, was once a broad prairie, a sea of flowers, birds, and bright insects. The buffaloes roamed over it in great herds, and the buffalo-birds followed them. The sun rose over it as over a sea, and the arched aurora rose red above it like some far gate of a land of fire. Here the Sacs and Foxes roamed free; the Iowas and the tribes of the North. It was one vast sunland, a breeze-swept brightness, almost without a dot or shadow.

Almost, but not quite. Here and there, like islands in a summer sea, rose dark groves of oak and vines. These spots of refreshment were called prairie islands, and in one of these islands, now gone, a pioneer colony made their homes, and built a meeting-house, which was also to be used as a school-house. Six or more of these families were from Germantown, Pennsylvania, and were Tunkers. The other families were from the New England States.

To this nameless village, long ago swept away by the prairie fires, went Jasper the Parable, with his cobbling-tools, his stories, and his gospel of universal love and good-will. The Tunkers welcomed him with delight, and the emigrants from New England looked upon him kindly as a good and well-meaning man. There were some fifteen or twenty children in the settlement, and here the peaceful disciple of Pestalozzi, and friend of Froebel, applied for a place to teach, and the school was by unanimous consent a.s.signed to him.

So began the school at Prairie Island--a school where the first principles of education were perceived and taught, and that might furnish a model for many an ambitious inst.i.tution of to-day.

"It is life that teaches," the Parable used to say, quoting Pestalozzi.

"The first thing to do is to form the habits that lead to character; the next thing is to stamp the young mind with right views of life; then comes book-learning--words, figures, and maps--but stories that educate morally are the primer of life. Christ taught spiritual truths by parables. I teach formative ideas by parables. The teacher should be a story-teller. In my own country all children go through fairy-land. Here they teach the young figures first, as though all of life was a money-market. It is all unnatural and wrong. I must teach and preach by stories."

The school-house was a simple building of logs and prairie gra.s.s, with oiled paper for windows, and a door that opened out and afforded a view of the vast prairie-sea to the west. Jasper taught here five days in a week, and sang, prayed, and exhorted on Sunday afternoons, and led social meetings on Sunday evenings. The little community were united, peaceful, and happy. They were industrious, self-respecting people, who were governed by their moral sense, and their governing principle seemed to be the faith that, if a person desired and sought to follow the divine will, he would have a revelation of spiritual light, which would be like the opening of the gates of heaven to him. Nearly every man and woman had some special experience of the soul to tell; and if ever there was a community of simple faith and brotherhood, it was here.

Jasper's school began in the summer, when the sun was high, the cool shadows of the oaks grateful, and the bluebells filled the tall, wavy gra.s.ses, and the prairie plover swam in the air.

Jasper's first teaching was by the telling of stories that leave in the young mind right ideas and impressions.

"My children, listen," said the gracious old man, as he sat down to his rude desk, "and let me tell you some stories like those Pestalozzi used to tell. Still, now!"

He lifted his finger and his eyebrows, and sat a little while in silence.