In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 6

"The mill-hands ran to Abraham. There the boy lay stretched out on the ground just as though he was dead. They thought he was dead. They got some water, and worked over him a spell. They could see that he breathed, but they thought that every breath would be his last.

"'He's done for this world,' said Gordon. 'He'll never come to his senses again. Thomas Lincoln would be proper sorry.' And so I should have been had Abraham died. Sometimes I think like it was the Evil One that possessed that horse. It don't seem to me that he'd 'a' ever ha'

kicked Abe of his own self--right in the head, too. You can see the scar on him now.

"Well, almost an hour pa.s.sed, when Abe came to himself--consciousness they call it--all at once, in an instant. And what do you think was the first thing he said? Just this--'uk!'

"He finished the word just where he left it when the horse kicked him, and looked around wild-like, and there was the critter standin' still as the mill-stun.' Now, where do you think the soul of Abe was between 'Gl--' and 'uk'? I'd like to have ye tell me that."

A long discussion would follow such a question. Abraham Lincoln himself once discussed the same curious incident with his law-partner Herndon, and made it a subject of the continuance of mental consciousness after death.

It was a warm afternoon. A dark cloud hung in the northern sky, and grew slowly over the arch of serene and sunny blue.

"Goin' to have a storm," said the blacksmith. "Shouldn't wonder if it were a tempest. We generally get a tempest about this time of year, when winter finally breaks up into spring. Well, I declare! there comes Johnnie Kongapod, the Kickapoo Indian from Illinois--he and his dogs."

A tall Indian was seen coming toward the smithy, followed by two dogs.

The men watched him as he approached. He was a kind of chief, and had accepted the teachings of the early missionaries. He used to wander about among the new settlements, and was very proud of himself and his own tribe and race. He had an honest heart. He once composed an epitaph for himself, which was well meant but read oddly, and which Abraham Lincoln sometimes used to quote in his professional career:

"Here lies poor Johnnie Kongapod, Have mercy on him, gracious G.o.d, As he would do if he was G.o.d, And you were Johnnie Kongapod."

The Indian sat down on the log sill of the blacksmith's shop, and watched the gathering cloud as it slowly shut out the sky.

"Storm," said he. "Lay down, Jack; lay down, Jim."

Jack and Jim were his two dogs. They eyed the flaming forge. One of them seemed tired, and lay down beside his master, but the other made himself troublesome.

"That reminds me," said Dennis Hanks; and he related a curious story of a troublesome dog, perhaps the one which in its evolutions became known as "SYKES'S DOG," though this may be a later New Salem story. It was an odd and a coa.r.s.e bit of humor. Lincoln himself is represented as telling this, or a like story, to General Grant after the Vicksburg campaign, something as follows:

"'Your enemies were constantly coming to me with their criticisms while the siege was in progress, and they did not cease their ill opinions after the city fell. I thought that the time had come to put an end to this kind of criticism, so one day, when a delegation called to see me and had spent a half-hour, and tried to show me the great mistake that you had made in paroling Pemberton's army, I thought I could get rid of them best by telling the story of Sykes's dog.

"'Have you ever heard the story of Sykes's dog?' I said to the spokesman of the delegation.

"'No.'

"'Well, I must tell it to you. Sykes had a yellow dog that he set great store by; but there were a lot of _small boys_ around the village, and the dog became very unpopular among them. His eye was so keen on his master's interests that there arose prejudice against him. The boys counseled how to get rid of him. They finally fixed up a cartridge with a long fuse, and put the cartridge in a piece of meat, and then sat down on a fence and called the dog, one of them holding the fuse in his hand. The dog swallowed the meat, cartridge and all, and stood choking, when one of them touched off the fuse. There was a loud report. Sykes came out of the house, and found the ground was strewed with pieces of the dog. He picked up the biggest piece that he could find--a portion of the back with the tail still hanging to it--and said:

"'Well, I guess that will never be of much account again--_as a dog_.'--'I guess that Pemberton's forces will never amount to much again--as an army.' By this time the delegation were looking for their hats."

Like stories followed among the merry foresters. One of them told another "That reminds me"--how that two boys had been pursued by a small but vicious dog, and one of them had caught and held him by the tail while the other ran up a tree. At last the boy who was holding the dog became tired and knew not what to do, and cried out:

"Jim!"

"What say?"

"Come down."

"What for?"

"To help me let go of the dog."

This story, also, whatever may have been the date of it, President Lincoln used to tell amid the perplexities of the war. In the darkest times of his life at the White House his mind used to return for ill.u.s.tration to the stories told at this backwoods smithy, and at the country stores that he afterward came to visit at Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois.

He delighted in the blacksmith's own stories and jokes. The man's name was John Baldwin. He was the Homer of Gentryville, as the village portion of this vast unsettled portion of country was called. Dennis Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's cousin, who frequented the smithy, was also a natural story-teller. The stories which had their origin here evolved and grew, and became known in all the rude cabins. Then, when Abraham Lincoln became President, his mind went back to the quaint smithy in the cool, free woods, and to the country stores, and he told these stories all over again. It seemed restful to his mind to wander back to old Indiana and Illinois.

The cloud grew. The air darkened. There was an occasional rustle of wind in the tree-tops.

"It's comin'," said the blacksmith. "Now, Johnnie Kongapod, you tell us the story. Tell us how Aunt Olive frightened ye when you went to pilot her off to the camp-meetin'."

"No," said Johnnie Kongapod. "It thunders. You must get Aunt Olive to tell you that story."

"When you come to meet her," said the blacksmith to Jasper. "Kongapod would tell it to you, but he's afraid of the cloud. No wonder."

A vivid flash of lightning forked the sky. There followed an appalling crash of thunder, a light wind, a few drops of rain, a darker air, and all was still. The men looked out as the cloud pa.s.sed over.

"You will have to stay here now," said the blacksmith, "until the cloud has pa.s.sed. Our stories may seem rather rough to you, edicated as you are over the sea. Tell us a story--a German story. Let me put the old leather chair up here before the fire. If you will tell us one of those German stories, may be I'll tell you how Johnnie Kongapod here and Aunt Olive went to the camp-meetin', and what happened to them on the way."

There was a long silence on the dark air. The blacksmith enlivened the fire, which lit up the shop. Jasper sat down in the leather chair, and said:

"Those Indian dogs remind me of scenes and stories unlike anything here.

The life of the dog has its lesson true, and there is nothing truer in this world than the heart of a shepherd's dog. I am a shepherd's dog. I am speaking in parable; you will understand me better by and by.

"Let me tell you the story of 'THE SHEPHERD DOG,' and the story will also tell a story, as do all stories that have a soul; and it is only stories that have souls that live. The true story gathers a soul from the one who tells it, else it is no story at all.

"There once lived on the borders of the Black Forest, Germany, an old couple who were very poor. Their name was Gragstein. The old man kept a shepherd dog that had been faithful to him for many years, and that loved him more than it did its own life, and he came to call him Faithful.

"One day, as the old couple were seated by the fire, Frau Gragstein said:

"'Hear the wind blow! There is a hard winter comin', and we have less in our crib than we ever had before. We must live snugger than ever. We shall hardly have enough to keep us two. It will be a long time before the birds sing again. You must be more savin', and begin now. Hear the wind howl. It is a warning.'

"'What would you have me do?' asked Gragstein.

"'There are three of us, and we have hardly store for two.'

"'But what would you have me do with _him_? He is old, and I could not sell him, or give him away.'

"'Then I would take him away into the forest and shoot him, and run and leave him. I know it is hard, but the pinch of poverty is hard, and it has come.'

"'Shoot Faithful! Shoot old Faithful! Take him out into the forest and shoot him! Why, a man's last friends are his G.o.d, his mother, and his dog. Would you have me shoot old Faithful? How could I?'

"At the words 'Shoot old Faithful,' the great dog had started up as though he understood. He bent his large eyes on the old woman and whined, then wheeled around once and sank down at his master's feet.

"'He acts as though he understood what you were saying.'

"'No, he don't,' said the old woman. 'You set too much store by the dog, and imagine such things. He's too old to ever be of service to us any more, and he eats a deal. The storm will be over by morning. Hear the showers of the leaves! The fall wind is rending the forest. 'Tis seventy falls that we have seen, and we will not see many more. We must live while we do live, and the dog must be put out of the way. You must take Faithful out into the forest in the morning and kill him.'

"The dog started up again. 'Take Faithful and kill him!' He seemed to comprehend. He looked into his master's face and gave a piteous howl, and went to the door and pawed.

"'Let him go out,' said the old woman. 'What possesses him to go out to-night into the storm? But let him go, and then I can talk easier about the matter. Did you see his eyes--as if he knew? He haunts me! Let him go out.'