In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 41

"There's mutiny aboard the s.h.i.+p; There's feud no force can smother; Their blood is up to fever-heat; They're cutting down each other.

Buchanan here, and Douglas there, Are belching forth their thunder, While cunning rogues are sly at work In pocketing the plunder.

"Our s.h.i.+p is badly out of trim; 'Tis time to calk and grave her; She's foul with stench of human gore; They've turned her to a slaver.

She's cruised about from coast to coast, The flying bondman hunting, Until she's strained from stem to stern, And lost her sails and bunting.

"Old Abram is the man!

Old Abram is the man!

And he'll trim her sails, As he split the rails.

Old Abram is the man!

"We'll give her what repairs she needs-- A thorough overhauling; Her sordid crew shall be dismissed, To seek some honest calling.

Brave Lincoln soon shall take the helm, On truth and right relying; In calm or storm, in peace or war, He'll keep her colors flying.

"Old Abram is the man!

Old Abram is the man!

With a st.u.r.dy mate From the Pine-Tree State, Old Abram is the man!"

These words seem commonplace to-day, but they were trumpet-notes then.

"Our Lincoln is the man!" trembled on every tongue, and a tumultuous applause arose that shook the air. The enthusiasm grew; the minstrel had voiced the people, and they would not let him stop singing. They finally mounted him on their shoulders and carried him about in triumph, like a victor bard of old. Ever rang the chorus from the lips of the people, "Our Lincoln is the man!" "Old Abram is the man!"

Lincoln heard the song. He loved songs. One of his favorite songs was "Twenty Years ago." But this was the first time, probably, that he had heard himself sung. He was living at that time in the plain house in Springfield that has been made familiar by pictures. The song delighted him, but he, of all the thousands, was forbidden by his position to express his pleasure in the song. He would have liked to join with the mult.i.tudes in singing "Our Lincoln is the man!" had not the situation sealed his lips. But after the scene was over, and the great ma.s.s of people began to melt away, he sought the minstrel, and said:

"Come to my room, and sing to me the song privately. _I_ want to hear you sing it."

So he listened to it in private, while it was being borne over the prairies on tens of thousands of lips. Did he then dream that the nations would one day sing the song of his achievements, that his death would be tolled by the bells of all lands, and his dirge fill the churches of Christendom with tears? It may have been that his destiny in dim outline rose before him, for the events of his life were hurrying.

Aunt Indiana was there, and she found the Tunker.

"The land o' sakes and daisies!" she said. "That we should both be here!

Well, elder, I give it up! I was agin Lincoln until I heard all the people a-singin' that song; then it came over me that I was doin' just what I hadn't ought to, and I began to sing 'Old Lincoln is the man!'

just as though it had been a Methody hymn written by Wesley himself."

"I am glad that you have changed your mind, and that I have lived to see my prophecy, that Lincoln would become the heart of the people, fulfilled."

"Elder, I tell you what let's we do."

"What, my good woman?"

"Let's we each get a rail, and go down before Abe's winder, and I'll sing as loud as anybody:

"'Old Abram is the man!

Old Abram is the man!

And he'll trim her sails As he split the rails.

Old Abram is the man!'

I'll do it, if you will. I've been all wrong from the first. Why, even the Grigsbys are goin' to vote for him, and I'm goin' to do the right thing myself. Abe always had a human heart, and it is that which is the most human that leads off in this world."

Aunt Indiana found a rail. The streets of Springfield were full of rails that the people had brought in honor of Lincoln's hard work on his father's barn in early Illinois. She also found a flag. Flags were as many as rails on this remarkable occasion. She set the flag into the top of the rail, and started for the street that led past Lincoln's door.

"Come on, elder; we'll be a procession all by ourselves."

The two arrived at the house where Lincoln lived, the Tunker in his b.u.t.tonless gown, and Aunt Indiana with her corn-bonnet, printed shawl, rail, and flag. The procession of two came to a halt before the open window, and presently, framed in the open window, like a picture, the face of Abraham Lincoln appeared. That face lighted up as it fell upon Aunt Indiana.

She made a low courtesy, and lifted the rail and the flag, and broke forth in a tone that would have led a camp-meeting:

"'Our Abram is the man!

Our Abram is the man!

With a st.u.r.dy mate From the Pine-Tree State, Our Abram is the man!'

"Elder, you sing, and we'll go over it again."

Aunt Indiana waved the flag and sang the refrain again, and said:

"Abe Lincoln, I'm goin' to vote for ye, though I never thought I should.

But you shall have my vote with all the rest.--Lawdy sakes and daisies, elder--I forgot; I can't vote, can I? I'm just a woman. I've got all mixed up and carried away, but

"'Our Abram is the man!'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

_From a photograph by Alexander Hesler, Chicago, 1858._]

Six years have pa.s.sed. The gardens of Was.h.i.+ngton are bursting into bloom. The sky is purple under a clear sun. It is Wednesday morning, the 19th of April, 1865.

All the bells are tolling, and the whole city is robed in black. At eleven o'clock some sixty clergymen enter the White House, followed by the governors of the States. At noon comes the long procession of Government officers, followed by the diplomatic corps.

In the sable rooms rises a dark catafalque, and in it lies a waxen face.

Toll!--the bells of Was.h.i.+ngton, Georgetown, and Alexandria! Minute-guns boom. Around that dead face the representatives of the nation, and of all nations, pa.s.s, and tears fall like rain.

A funeral car of flowers moves through the streets. Abraham Lincoln has done his work. He is on his journey back to the scenes of his childhood!

The boy who defended the turtles, the man who stretched out his arm over the defenseless Indian in the Black Hawk War, and who freed the slave; the man of whom no one ever asked pity in vain--he is going back to the prairies, to sleep his eternal sleep among the violets.

Toll! The bells of all the cities and towns of the loyal nation are tolling. In every princ.i.p.al church in all the land people have met to weep and to pray. Half-mast flags everywhere meet the breeze.

They laid the body beneath the rotunda of the Capitol, amid the April flowers and broken magnolias.

Then homeward--through Baltimore, robed in black; through Philadelphia, through New York, Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Chicago. The car rolls on, over flowers and under black flags, amid the tolling of the bells of cities and the bells of the simple country church-towers. All labor ceases. The whole people stop to wonder and to weep.

The dirges cease. The m.u.f.fled drums are still. The broken earth of the prairies is wrapped around the dead commoner, the fallen apostle of humanity, the universal brother of all who toil and struggle.

The courts of Europe join in the lamentation. Never yet was a man wept like this man.

His monument enn.o.bles the world. He stands in eternal bronze in a hundred cities. And why? Because he had a heart to feel; because to him all men had been brothers of equal blood and birthright; and because he had had faith that "RIGHT MAKES MIGHT."