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Man for the Ages: A Story of the Builders of Democracy, a fiction by Irving Bacheller |
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Book 2 - Chapter 13 |
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_ BOOK TWO CHAPTER XIII WHEREIN THE ROUTE OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IS SURVEYED AND SAMSON AND HARRY SPEND A NIGHT IN THE HOME OF HENRY BRIMSTEAD AND HEAR SURPRISING REVELATIONS, CONFIDENTIALLY DISCLOSED, AND ARE CHARMED BY THE PERSONALITY OF HIS DAUGHTER ANNABEL. Early in the autumn of that year the Reverend Elijah Lovejoy of Alton had spent a night with the Traylors on his way to the North. Sitting by the fireside he had told many a vivid tale of the cruelties of slavery. "I would not have you think that all slave-holders are wicked and heartless," he said. "They are like other men the world over. Some are kind and indulgent. If all men were like them, slavery could be tolerated. But they are not. Some men are brutal in the North as well as in the South. If not made so by nature they are made so by drink. To give them the power of life and death over human beings, which they seem to have in parts of the South, is a crime against God and civilization. Our country can not live and prosper with such a serpent in its bosom. No good man should rest until the serpent is slain." "I agree with you," said Samson. "I knew that you would," the minister went on. "We have already had some help from you but we need more. I take it as a duty which God has laid upon me to help every fugitive that reaches my door. Thousands of New Englanders have come into Illinois in the last year. They will help the good work of mercy and grace. If you hear three taps upon your window after dark or the hoot of an owl in your dooryard you will know what it means. Fix some place on your farm where these poor people who are seeking the freedom which God wills for all His children, may find rest and refreshment and security until they have strength to go on." Within a week after the visit of Mr. Lovejoy, Samson and Harry built a hollow haystack about half-way from the house to the barn. The stack had a comfortable room inside of it about eight feet by seven and some six feet in height. Its entrance was an opening near the bottom of the stack well screened by the pendant hay. But no fugitive came to occupy it that winter. Early in March Abe wrote a letter to Samson in which he said: * * * * * "I have not been doing much. I have been getting the hang of things. There are so many able men here that I feel like being modest for a while. It's good practice if it is a little hard on me. Here are such men as Theodore Ford, William L. D. Ewing, Stephen T. Logan, Jesse K. Dubois and Governor Duncan. You can not wonder that I feel like lying low until I can see my way a little more clearly. I have met here a young man from your state of the name of Stephen A. Douglas. He is twenty-one years old and about the least man I ever saw to look at but he is bright and very ambitious. He has taught school and studied law and been admitted to the bar and is bristling up to John J. Hardin in a contest for the office of State's Attorney. Some pumpkins for a boy of twenty-one I reckon. No chance for internal improvements this session. Money is plenty and next year I think we can begin harping on that string. More than ever I am convinced that it is no time for anti-slavery agitation much as we may feel inclined to it. There's too much fire under the pot now." * * * * * Soon after the new year of 1835 Samson and Harry moved the Kelsos to Tazewell County. Mr. Kelso had received an appointment as Land Agent and was to be stationed at the little settlement of Hopedale near the home of John Peasley. "I hate to be taking you so far away," said Samson. "Hush, man," said Kelso. "It's a thing to be thought about only in the still o' the night." "I shall be lonesome." "But we live close by the wells of wisdom and so shall not be comfortless." Late in the afternoon Harry and Samson left the Kelsos and their effects at a small frame house in the little village of Hopedale. The men had no sooner begun to unload than its inhabitants came to welcome the newcomers and help them in the work of getting settled. When the goods were deposited in The dooryard Samson and Harry drove to John Peasley's farm. Mr. Peasley recognized the big, broad-shouldered Vermonter at the first look. "Do I remember you?" he said. "Well, I guess I do. So does my barn door. Let me take hold of that right hand of yours again. Yes, sir. It's the same old iron hand. Many Ann!" he called as his wife came out of the door. "Here's the big man from Vergennes who tossed the purty slaver." "I see it is," she answered. "Ain't ye comin' in?" "We've been moving a man to Hopedale and shall have to spend the night somewhere in this neighborhood," said Samson. "Our horses are played out." "If you try to pass this place I'll have ye took up," said Peasley. "There's plenty of food in the house an' stable." "Look here-that's downright selfish," said his wife, "If we tried to keep you here Henry Brimstead would never forgive us. He talks about you morning, noon and night. Any one would think that you was the Samson that slew the Philistines." "How is Henry?" Samson asked. "He married my sister and they're about as happy as they can be this side the river Jordan," she went on. "They've got one o' the best farms in Tazewell County and they're goin' to be rich. They've built 'em a splendid house with a big spare room in it. Henry would have a spare room because he said that maybe the Traylors would be comin' here to visit 'em some time." "Yes, sir; I didn't think o' that," said Peasley. "Henry and his wife would holler if we didn't take ye over there. It's only a quarter of a mile. I'll show ye the way and we'll all come over this evening and have a talkin' bee." Samson was pleased and astonished by the look of Brimstead and his home and his family and the account of his success. The man from the sand flats had built a square, two-story house with a stairway and three rooms above it and two below. He was cleanly shaved, save for a black mustache, and neatly dressed and his face glowed with health and high spirits. A handsome brown-eyed miss of seventeen came galloping up the road on her pony and stopped near them. "Annabel, do you remember this man?" Brimstead asked. The girl looked at Samson. "He is the man who helped us out of Flea Valley," said the girl. Brimstead leaned close to the ear of Samson and said in a low tone: "Say, everything knew how to jump there. I had a garden that could hop over the fence and back ag'in. Sometimes it was there and sometimes it was off on a vacation. I jumped as soon as I got the chance." "We call it No Santa Claus Land," said Samson. "Do ye remember how the little girl clung to the wagon?" "That was me," said a small miss of ten who ran out of the door into the arms of the big man and kissed him. "Would you mind if I kissed you?" Annabel asked. "I would be sorry if you didn't," said Samson. "Here's my boy, Harry Needles. You wouldn't dare kiss him I guess?' "I would be sorry, too, if you didn't," Harry laughed as he took her hand. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay sorry," said Annabel turning red with embarrassment. "I never saw you before." "Better late than never," Samson assured her. "You don't often see a better fellow." The girl laughed, with a subtle look of agreement in her eyes. Then came up from the barn the ragged little lad of No Santa Claus Land--now a sturdy, bright eyed, handsome boy of eight. The horses were put out and all went in to supper. "I have always felt sorry for any kind of a slave?" said Samson as they sat down. "When I saw you on the sand plains you were in bondage." "Say, I'll tell ye," said Brimstead, as he leaned toward Samson, seeming to be determined at last to make a clean breast of it. "Say, I didn't own that farm. It owned me. I got a sandy intellect. Couldn't get anything out of it but disappointment. My farm was mortgaged to the bank and I was mortgaged to the children. I couldn't even die." Samson wrote in his diary that night: * * * * * "When Brimstead brings his sense of humor into play he acts as if he was telling a secret. When he says anything that makes me laugh, he's terribly confidential. Seems so he was kind of ashamed of it. He never laughs himself unless he does it inside. His voice always drops, too, when he talks business." * * * * * "The man that's a fool and don't know it is a good deal worse off," said Samson. "Say, I'll tell ye he's worse off but he's happier. If it hurts there's hope for ye." "They tell me you've prospered," said Samson. Brimstead spoke in a most confidential tone as he answered: "Say, I'll tell ye--no wise man is ever an idiot but once. I wouldn't care to spread it around much but we're gettin' along. I've built this house and got my land paid for. You see we are only four miles from the Illinois River on a good road. I can ship my grain to Alton or St. Louis or New Orleans without much trouble. I've invented a machine to cut it and a double plow and I expect to have them both working next year. They ought to treble my output at least." After supper Brimstead showed models of a mowing machine with a cut bar six feet long, and a plow which would turn two furrows. "That's what we need on these prairies," said Samson. "Something that'll turn 'em over and cut the crop quicker." "Say, I'll tell ye," said Brimstead as if about to disclose another secret. "I found after I looked the ground over here that I needed a brain. I began to paw around an' discovered a rusty old brain among my tools. It hadn't been used for years. I cleaned an' oiled the thing an' got it workin'. On a little Vermont farm you could git along without it but here the ground yells for a brain. We don't know how to use our horses. They have power enough to do all the hard work, if we only knew how to put it into wheels and gears. We must begin to work our brains as well as our muscles on a farm miles long an' wide." "It ain't fair to expect the land to furnish all the fertility," said Samson. Brimstead's face glowed as he outlined his vision: "These great stretches of smooth, rich land just everlastingly ram the spurs into you and keep your brain galloping. Mine is goin' night and day. The prairies are a new thing and you've got to tackle 'em in a new way. I tell you the seeding and planting and mowing and reaping and threshing is all going to be done by machinery and horses. The wheel will be the foundation of the new era." "You're right," said Samson. "How are you gettin' along?" "Rather slow," Samson answered. "It's hard to get our stuff to market down in the Sangamon country. Our river isn't navigable yet. We hope that Abe Lincoln, who has just been elected to the Legislature, will be able to get it widened and straightened and cleaned up so it will be of some use to us down there." "I've heard of him. They call him Honest Abe, don't they?" "Yes; and he is honest if a man ever was." "That's the kind we need to make our laws," said Mrs. Brimstead. "There are not many men who get a reputation for honesty. It ought to be easy, but it isn't." "Men are pretty good in the main," said Samson. "But ye know there are not so many who can exactly toe the mark. They don't know how or they're too busy or something. I guess I'm a little careless, and I don't believe I'm a bad fellow either. Abe's conscience don't ever sit down to rest. He traveled three miles one night to give back four cents that he had overcharged a customer. I'd probably have waited to have her come back, and by that time it might have slipped my mind or maybe she would have moved away. I suppose that in handling dollars we're mostly as honest as Abe, but we're apt to be a little careless with the cents. Abe toed the penny mark, and that's how he got his reputation. The good God has given him a sense of justice that is like a chemist's balance. It can weigh down to a fraction of a grain. Now he don't care much about pennies. He can be pretty reckless with 'em. But when they're a measure on the balance, he counts 'em careful, I can tell ye." "Say, I'll tell ye," said Brimstead. "Honesty is like Sapington's pills. There's nothing that's so well recommended. It has a great many friends. But Honesty has to pay prompt. We don't trust it long. It has poor credit. When we have to give a dollar's worth of work to correct an error of four cents, we're apt to decide that Honesty don't pay. But that's when it pays best. We've heard the jingle o' them four cents 'way up here in Tazewell County, an' long before you told us. They say he's a smart talker an' that he can split ye wide open laughin'." "He's a great story-teller, but that's a small part of him," said Samson. "He's a kind of a four horse team. He knows more than any man I ever saw and can tell it and he can wrestle like old Satan and swing a scythe or an axe all day an' mighty supple. He's one of us common folks and don't pretend to be a bit better. He is, though, and we know it, but I don't think he knows it." "Say, there ain't many of us smart enough to keep that little piece of ignorance in our heads," said Brimstead. "It's worth a fortune, now--ain't it?" "Is he going to marry the Rutledge girl?" was the query of Mrs. Brimstead. "I don't think so," Samson answered, a little surprised at her knowledge of the attachment. "He's as humly as Sam Hill and dresses rough and ain't real handy with the gals. Some fellers are kind o' fenced in with humliness and awkwardness." Brimstead expressed his private opinion in a clearly audible whisper: "Say, that kind o' protection is better'n none. A humly boy don't git tramped on an' nibbled too much." Annabel and Harry sat in a corner playing checkers. They seemed to be much impressed by the opinion of Mr. Brimstead. For a moment their game was forgotten. "That boy has a way with the gals," Samson laughed. "There's no such fence around either of them." "They're both liable to be nibbled some," said Brimstead. "I like to see 'em have a good time," said his wife. "There are not many boys to play with out here." "The boys around here are all fenced in," said Annabel. "There's nobody here of my age but Lanky Peters, who looks like a fish, and a red-headed Irish boy with a wooden leg." "Say, she's like a woodpecker in a country where there ain't any trees," said Brimstead, in his confidential tone. "No I'm not," the girl answered. "A woodpecker has wings and the right to use them." "Cheer up. A lot of people will be moving in here this spring--more boys than you could shake a stick at," Mrs. Brimstead remarked, cheerfully. "If I shake any stick at them, it will be a stick of candy, for fear of scaring them away," said Annabel, with a laugh. Brimstead said to Samson: "Say, I'll tell ye, you're back in a cove. You must get out into the current." "And give the young folks a chance to play checkers together," said Samson. "Say, I'll tell ye," said Brimstead. "This country is mostly miles. They can be your worst enemy unless you get on the right side of 'em. Above all, don't let 'em get too thick between you an' your market. When you know about where it is, keep the miles behind ye. Great markets will be springin' up in the North. You'll see a big city growin' on the southern shore of Lake Michigan before long. I think there will be better markets to the north than there are to the south of us." "By jingo!" Samson exclaimed. "Your brain is about as busy as a beehive on a bright summer day." "Say, don't you mention that to a livin' soul," said Brimstead. "My brain began to chase the rainbow when I was a boy. It drove me out o' Vermont into the trail to the West and landed me in Flea Valley. Now I'm in a country where no man's dreams are goin' to be big enough to keep up with the facts. We're right under the end o' the rainbow and there's a pot o' gold for each of us." "The railroad will be a help in our fight with the miles," said Samson. "All right. You get the miles behind ye and let the land do the waiting. It won't hurt the land any, but you'd be spoilt if you had to wait twenty years." The Peasleys arrived and the men and women spent a delightful hour traveling without weariness over the long trail to beloved scenes and the days of their youth. Every day's end thousands were going east on that trail, each to find his pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow of memory. Before they went to bed that night Brimstead paid his debt to Samson, with interest, and very confidentially. At daylight in the morning the team was at the door ready to set out for the land of plenty. As Samson and Harry were making their farewells, Annabel asked the latter: "May I whisper something in your ear?" "I was afraid you wouldn't," he said. He bent his head to her and she kissed his cheek and ran away into the house. "That means come again," she called from the door, with a laugh. "I guess I'll have to--to get even," he answered. "That's a pretty likely girl," said Samson, as they were driving away. "She's as handsome as a picture." "She is--no mistake!" Samson declared. "She's a good-hearted girl, too. You can tell that by her face and her voice. She's as gentle as a kitten, and about as wide awake as a weasel." "I don't care much for girls these days," Harry answered. "I guess I'll never get married." "Nonsense! A big, strapping, handsome young feller like you, only twenty years old! Of course you'll get married." "I don't see how I'm ever going to care much for another girl," the boy answered. "There are a lot o' things in the world that you don't see, boy. It's a big world and things shift around a good deal and some of our opinions are apt to move with the wind like thistledown." It was a long, wearisome ride back to the land of plenty, over frozen ground, with barely an inch of snow upon it, under a dark sky, with a chilly wind blowing. "After all, it's home," said Samson, when late in the evening they saw the lighted windows of the cabin ahead. When they had put out their horses and come in by the glowing fire, Samson lifted Sarah in his arms again and kissed her. "I'm kind o' silly, mother, but I can't help it--you look so temptin'," said Samson. "She looks like an angel," said Harry, as he improved his chance to embrace and kiss the lady of the cabin. "The wind has been peckin' at us all day," said Samson. "But it's worth it to get back home and see your face and this blazin' fire." "And the good, hot supper," said Harry, as they sat down at the table. They told of the Brimsteads and their visit. "Well, I want to know!" said Sarah. "Big house and plenty o' money! If that don't beat all!" "That oldest girl is the thing that beats all," said Samson. "She's as handsome as Bim." "I suppose Harry fell in love with her," Sarah suggested, with a smile. "I've lost my ability to fall in love," said the young man. "It will come back--you see," said Sarah. "I'm going to get her to pay us a visit in the spring." Harry went out to feed and water the horses. "Did you get along all right?" Samson asked. "Colonel Lukins did the chores faithfully, night and morning," Sarah answered. "His wife helped me with the sewing yesterday. She talked all day about the 'Colonel.' Mrs. Beach, that poor woman from Ohio on the west road who has sent her little girl so often to borrow tea and sugar, came to-day and wanted to borrow the baby. Her baby is sick and her breasts were paining her." _ |
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