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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 3 - Chapter 20 |
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_ BOOK THREE CHAPTER XX WHICH TELLS OF THE SETTLING OF ABE LINCOLN AND THE TRAYLORS IN THE VILLAGE OF SPRINGFIELD AND OF SAMSON'S SECOND VISIT TO CHICAGO. Bim's judgment of her old friends was ill founded. It was a slow time in which she lived. The foot of the horse, traveling and often mired in a rough muddy highway, was its swiftest courier. Letters carried by horses or slow steamboats were the only media of communication between people separated by wide distances. The learned wrote letters of astonishing length and literary finish--letters which were passed from hand to hand and read aloud in large and small assemblies. They presented the news and the comment it inspired. In these old and generous letters, which antedate the railroad and the telegraph, critics have discovered one of the most delicate and informing of the lost arts--the epistolary. But to the average hand, wearied by heavy tools, the lightsome goose quill, committing its owner to dubious spelling and clumsy penmanship, and exposing the interior of his intellect, was a dreaded thing. When old Black Hawk signed a treaty he was wont to say that he had "touched it with the goose quill." He made only a little mark whereupon a kind of sanctity was imparted to the document. Every man unaccustomed to its use stood in like awe of this implement. When he "took his pen in hand" he had entered upon an adventure so unusual that his letter always mentioned it as if, indeed, it were an item of news not to be overlooked. So it is easy to understand that many who had traveled far were as the dead, in a measure, to the friends they had left behind them and that those separated by only half a hundred miles had to be very enterprising to keep acquainted. In March Abe Lincoln had got his license to practise law. On his return from the North he had ridden to Springfield to begin his work as a lawyer in the office of John T. Stuart. His plan was to hire and furnish a room arid get his meals at the home of his friend, Mr. William Butler. He went to the store of Joshua Speed to buy a bed and some bedding. He found that they would cost seventeen dollars. "The question is whether you would trust a man owing a national debt and without an asset but good intentions and a license to practise law for so much money," said Honest Abe. "I don't know when I could pay you." Speed was also a young man of good intentions and a ready sympathy f or those who had little else. He had heard of the tall representative from Sangamon County. "I have a plan which will give you a bed for nothing if you would care to share my room above the store and sleep with me," he answered. "I'm much obliged but for you it's quite a contract." "You're rather long," Speed laughed. "Yes, I could lick salt off the top of your hat. I'm about a man and a half but by long practice I've learned how to keep the half out of the way of other people. They say that when Long John Wentworth got to Chicago he slept with his feet sticking out of a window and that they had to take down a partition because he couldn't stand the familiarity of the woodpeckers, but he is eight inches taller than I am." "I'm sure we shall get along well enough together," said Speed. They went up to the room. In a moment Mr. Lincoln hurried away for his saddle-bags and returned shortly. "There are all my earthly possessions," he said as he threw the bags on the floor. So his new life began in the village of Springfield. Early in the autumn Samson arrived and bought a small house and two acres of land on the edge of the village and returned to New Salem to move his family and furniture. When they drove along the top of Salem Hill a number of the houses were empty and deserted, their owners having moved away. Two of the stores were closed. Only ten families remained. They stopped at Rutledge's tavern whose entertainment was little sought those days. People from the near houses came to bid them good-by. Dr. John Allen was among them. "Sorry to see you going," he said. "With you and Abe and Jack Kelso gone it has become a lonely place. There's not much left for me but the long view from the end of the hill and the singing in the prairie grass." Pete and Colonel, invigorated by their long rest, but whitened by age and with drooping heads, drew the wagon. Sambo and the small boy rode between Sarah and Samson. Betsey and Josiah walked ahead of the wagon, the latter leading a cow. That evening they were comfortably settled in their new home. Moving was not such a complicated matter those days. Abe Lincoln was on hand to bid them welcome and help get their goods in place. He had borrowed fire and cut some wood and there was a cheering blaze in the fireplace on the arrival of the newcomers. When the beds were set up and ready for the night Sarah made some tea to go with the cold victuals she had brought. Mr. Lincoln ate with them and told of his new work. "So far I've had nothing more important to do than proving damage in cases of assault and battery," he said. "There is many a man who, when he thinks he has been wronged, proceeds to take it out of the hide of the other feller. The hides of Illinois have suffered a good deal in that way. It is very annoying. Generally I stand for the hides. They need a friend and protector. When people take the law in their hands it gets badly worn and mussed up. In a little while there isn't any law. Next week I begin my first turn on the circuit." "It seems good to see folks around us," said Sarah. "I believe we shall enjoy ourselves here." "It's a wonderful place," Lincoln declared with enthusiasm. "There are fine stores and churches and sociables and speeches and theater shows." "Yes. It's bigger than Vergennes," said Sarah. "And you're goin' to have time to enjoy it," Samson broke in. "There'll be no farm work and Betsey and Josiah are old enough to be quite a help." "How the girl is developing!" Abe exclaimed. "I believe she will look like Bim in a year or two." Betsey was growing tall and slim. She had the blonde hair and fair skin of Samson and the dark eyes of her mother. Josiah had grown to be a bronzed, sturdy, good-looking lad, very shy and sensitive. "There's a likely boy!" said Samson as he clapped the shoulder of his eldest son. "He's got a good heart In him." "You'll spoil him with praise," Sarah protested and then asked as she turned to the young statesman. "Have you heard from Bim or any of the Kelsos?" "Not a word. I often think of them." "There's been a letter in the candle every night for a week or so, but we haven't heard a word from Harry or from them," said Sarah. "I wonder how they're getting along in these hard times." "I told Jack to let me know if I could do anything to help," Samson assured them. Sarah turned to Abe Lincoln with a smile and said: "As we were coming through the village Mary Owens asked me to tell you that on account of the hard times she was not going to have a public wedding." The chairman of the finance committee laughed and answered: "That old joke is still alive. She writes me now and then and tells me what she is doing in the way of preparation. It's really a foolish little farce we have been playing in--a kind of courtship to avoid marriage. We have gone too far with it." A bit later he wrote a playful letter to Mary and told her that there was so much flourishing about in carriages and the like in Springfield he could not recommend it to a lady of good sense as a place of residence. He said that owing to certain faults in his disposition he could not recommend himself as a husband; that he felt sure she could never be happy with him. But he manfully offered to marry her as soon as his circumstances would allow if, after serious consideration, she decided that she cared to accept him. It was, on the whole, one of the most generous acts in the history of human affairs. There is some evidence that Mary was displeased with these and other lines in the little drama and presently rang down the curtain. Some of the spectators were informed by her that Abe Lincoln was crude and awkward and without a word to please a lady of her breeding. But she had achieved the credit, with certain people, of having rejected a young man for whom great honors were thought to be in store. Late in November Mr. Lincoln went out on the circuit with the distinguished John T. Stuart who had taken him into partnership. Bim's letter to him bears an endorsement on its envelope as follows: * * * * * "This letter was forwarded from Vandalia the week I went out on the circuit and remained unopened in our office until my return six weeks later.--A. Lincoln." * * * * * The day of his return he went to Sarah and Samson with the letter. "I'll get a good horse and start for Chicago to-morrow morning," said Samson. "They have had a double blow. Did you read that Harry had been killed?" "Harry killed!" Mr. Lincoln exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that Harry has been killed?" "The Chicago Democrat says so but we don't believe it," said Samson. "Here's the article copied into The Sangamon Journal. Read it and then I'll tell you why I don't think it's so." Abe Lincoln read the article. "You see it was dated in Tampa, November the fifth," said Samson. "Before we had read that article we had received a letter from Harry dated November the seventh. In the letter he says he is all right and I calculate that he ought to know as much about it as any one." "Thank God! Then it's a mistake," said Lincoln. "We can't afford to lose Harry. I feel rather poor with Jack Kelso gone. It will comfort me to do what I can for his wife and daughter. I'll give you every dollar I can spare to take to them." A moment of sorrowful silence followed. "I'll never forget the kindly soul of Jack or his wit or his sayings, many of which are in my notebook," said Lincoln as he sat looking sadly into the fire. They talked much of the great but humble man who had so loved honor and beauty and whose life had ended in the unholy turmoil of the new city. "The country is in great trouble," was a remark of Abe Lincoln inspired by the reflections of the hour. "We tried to allay it in the special session of July. Our efforts have done no good. The ail is too deep seated. We must first minister to a mind diseased and pluck from the heart a rooted sorrow. You were right about it, Samson. We have been dreaming. Some one must invent a new system. Wildcat money will do no good. These big financial problems are beyond my knowledge. I don't know how to think in those terms. Next session I propose to make a clean breast of it. We're all wrong but I fear that not all of us will be brave enough to say so." Samson hired horses for the journey and set out early next morning with his son, Josiah, bound for the new city. The boy had begged to go and both Samson and Sarah thought it would be good for him to take a better look at Illinois than his geography afforded. "Joe is a good boy," his mother said as she embraced him. He was, indeed, a gentle-hearted, willing-handed, brown-eyed youth who had been a great help to his father. Every winter morning he and Betsey had done the chores and ridden on the back of Colonel to Mentor Graham's school where they had made excellent progress. Joe and his father set out on a cold clear morning in February. They got to Brimstead's in time for dinner. "How d'y do?" Samson shouted as Henry came to the door. "Better!" the latter answered. He put his hand on, Samson's pommel and said in a confidential toner "El Dorado was one of the wickedest cities in history. It was like Tyre and Babylon. It robbed me. Look at that pile of stakes." Samson saw a long cord of stakes along the road in the edge of the meadow. "They are the teeth of my city," said Brimstead in a low voice. "I've drawed 'em out. They ain't goin' to bite me no more." "They are the towers and steeples of El Dorado," Samson laughed. "Have any of the notes been paid?" "Not one and I can't get a word from my broker about the men who drew the notes--who they are or where they are." "I'm going to Chicago and if you wish I'll try to find him and see what he says." "That's just what I wish," said Brimstead. "His name is Lionel Davis. His address is 14 South Water Street. He put the opium in our pipes here in Tazewell County. It was his favorite county. He spent two days with us here. I sold him all the land I had on the river shore and he gave me his note for it." "If you'll let me take the note I'll see what can be done to get the money," Samson answered. "Say, I'll tell ye," Brimstead went on. "It's for five thousand dollars and I don't suppose it's worth the paper it was wrote on. You take it and if you find it's no good you lose it just as careful as you can. I don't want to see it again. Come into the house. The woman is making a johnny-cake and fryin' some sausage." They had a happy half-hour at the table, Mrs. Brimstead being in better spirits since her husband had got back to his farming. Annabel, her form filling with the grace and charm of womanhood, was there and more comely than ever. They had been speaking of Jack Kelso's death. "I heard him say once that when he saw a beautiful young face it reminded him of noble singing and the odor of growing corn," said Samson. "I'd rather see the face," Joe remarked, whereupon they all laughed and the boy blushed to the roots of his blond hair. "He's become a man of good judgment," said Brimstead. Annabel's sister Jane who had clung to the wagon in No Santa Claus Land was a bright-eyed, merry-hearted girl of twelve. The boy Robert was a shy, good-looking lad a little younger than Josiah. "Well, what's the news?" Samson asked. "Nothin' has happened since we saw you but the fall of El Dorado," Brimstead answered. "There was the robbery of the mail stage last summer a few miles north of here," said Mrs. Brimstead. "Every smitch of the mail was stolen. I guess that's the reason we haven't had no letter from Vermont in a year." "Maybe that's why we haven't heard from home," Samson echoed. "Why don't you leave Joe here while you're gone to Chicago?" Annabel asked. "It would help his education to rassle around with Robert an' the girls," said Brimstead. "Would you like to stay?" Samson asked. "I wouldn't mind," said Josiah who, on the lonely prairie, had had few companions of his own age. So it happened that Samson went on alone. As he was leaving, Brimstead came close to his side and whispered: "Don't you ever let a city move into you and settle down an' make itself to home. If you do you want to keep your eye on its leading citizens." "Nobody can tell what'll happen when he's dreamin'," Samson remarked with a laugh as he rode away, waving his hand to the boy Josiah who stood looking up the road with a growing sense of loneliness. Near the sycamore woods Samson came upon a gray-haired man lying by the roadside with a horse tethered near him. The stranger was sick with a fever. Samson got down from his horse. "What can I do for you?" he asked. "The will of God," the stranger feebly answered. "I prayed for help and you have come. I am Peter Cartwright, the preacher. I was so sick and weak I had to get off my horse and lie down. If you had not come I think that I should have died here." Samson gave him some of the medicine for chills and fever which he always carried in his pocket, and water from his canteen. The sun shone warm but the ground was damp and cold and there was a chilly breeze. He wrapped the stricken man in his coat and sat down beside him and rubbed his aching head. "Is there any house where I could find help and shelter for you?" he asked presently. "No, but I feel better--glory to God!" said the preacher. "If you can help me to the back of my horse I will try to ride on with you. There is to be a quarterly meeting ten miles up the road to-night. With the help of God I must get there and tell the people of His goodness and mercy to the children of men. Nothing shall keep me from my duty. I may save a dozen souls from hell--who knows?" Samson was astonished at the iron will and holy zeal of this lion-hearted, strong-armed, fighting preacher of the prairies of whom he had heard much. He looked at the rugged head covered with thick, bushy, gray hair, at the deep-lined face, smooth-shaven, save for a lock in front of each ear, with its keen, dark eyes and large, firm mouth and jaw. Samson lifted the preacher and set him on the back of his horse. "God blessed you with great strength," said the latter. "Are you a Christian?" "I am." They rode on in silence. Presently Samson observed that the preacher was actually asleep and snoring in the saddle. They proceeded for an hour or more in this manner. When the horses were wallowing through a swale the preacher awoke. "Glory be to God!" he shouted. "I am better. I shall be able to preach to-night. A little farther on is the cabin of Brother Cawkins. He has been terribly pecked up by a stiff-necked, rebellious wife. We'll stop there for a cup of tea and if she raises a rumpus you'll see me take her by the horns." Mrs. Cawkins was a lean, sallow, stern-eyed woman of some forty years with a face like bitter herbs; her husband a mild mannered, shiftless man who, encouraged by Mr. Cartwright, had taken to riding through the upper counties as a preacher--a course of conduct of which his wife heartily disapproved. Solicited by her husband she sullenly made tea for the travelers. When it had been drunk the two preachers knelt in a corner of the room and Mr. Cartwright began to pray in a loud voice. Mrs. Cawkins shoved the table about and tipped over the chairs and dropped the rolling-pin as a counter demonstration. The famous circuit rider, being in no way put out by this, she dashed a dipper of cold water on the head of her husband. The praying stopped. Mr. Cartwright rose from his knees and commanded her to desist. On her declaration that she would not he laid hold of the woman and forced her out of the door and closed and bolted it and resumed his praying. Having recorded this remarkable incident in his diary Samson writes: * * * * * "Many of these ignorant people in the lonely, prairie cabins are like children. Cartwright leads them on like a father and sometimes with the strong hand. If any of them deserve a spanking they get it. He and others like him have helped to keep the cabin people clean and going up hill instead of down. They have established schools and missions and scattered good books and comforted sorrows and kindled good desire in the hearts of the humble." * * * * * As they were leaving Mr. Cawkins told them that the plague had broken out in the settlement on Honey Creek, where the quarterly meeting was to be held, and that the people had been rapidly "dyin' off." Samson knew from this that the smallpox--a dreaded and terrible scourge of pioneer days had come again. "It's dangerous to go there," said Cawkins. "Where is sorrow there is my proper place," Cartwright answered. "Those people need comfort and the help of God." "But are you not afraid of the plague?" Samson asked. "I fear only the wrath of my Master." "I got a letter from a lady there," Cawkins went on. "As nigh as I can make out they need a minister. I can read print handy but writin' bothers me. You read it, brother." Mr. Cartwright took the letter and read as follows: * * * * * "Dear Sir: Mr. Barman gave me your name. We need a minister to comfort the sick and help bury the dead. It is a good deal to ask of you but if you feel like taking the chance of coming here I am sure you could do a lot of good. We have doctors enough and it seems a pity that the church should fail these people when they need it most. The ministers in Chicago seem to be too busy to come. One of them came out for a funeral and unfortunately took the disease. If you have the courage to come you would win the gratitude of many people. For a month I have been taking care of the sick and up to now no harm has come to me. Yours respectfully, "Bim Kelso." * * * * * "'A man's heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps,'" said Cartwright. "For three days I have felt that He was leading me." "I begin to think that He has been leading me," Samson declared. "Bim Kelso is the person I seek." "I would have gone but my wife took on so I couldn't get away," said Cawkins. "I'll come back some day soon and you and I will pry the Devil out of her with the crowbar of God's truth and mercy," Cartwright assured him as he and Samson took the road to the north. On their way to the Honey Creek settlement the lion-hearted minister told of swimming through flooded rivers, getting lost on the plains and suffering for food and water, of lying down to rest at night in wet clothes with no shelter but the woods, of hand to hand fights with rowdies who endeavored to sell drink or create a disturbance at his meetings. Such was the zeal for righteousness woven by many hands into the fabric of the West. A little before sundown they reached the settlement. Samson asked a man in the road if he knew where they could find the nurse Bim Kelso. "Do ye mean that angel o' God in a white dress that takes keer o' the sick?" the man asked. "I guess that would be Bim," said Samson. "She's over in yon' house," the other answered, pointing with his pipe to a cabin some twenty rods beyond them. "Thar's two children sick thar an' the mammy dead an' buried in the ground." "Is the plague getting worse?" Cartwright asked. "No, I reckon it's better. Nobody has come down since the day before yestiddy. Thar's the doctor comin'. He kin tell ye." A bearded man of middle age was approaching them in the saddle. "Gentlemen, you must not stop in this neighborhood," he warned them. "There's an epidemic of smallpox here. We are trying to control it and every one must help." "I am Peter Cartwright, the preacher sent of God to comfort the sick and bury the dead," said Samson's companion. "We welcome you, but if you stop here you will have to stay until the epidemic is over." "That I am prepared to do." "Then I shall take you where you can find entertainment, such as it is." "First, this man wishes to speak to Miss Kelso, the nurse," said Cartwright. "He is a friend of hers." "You can see her but only at a distance," the Doctor answered. "I must keep you at least twenty feet away from her. Come with me." They proceeded to the stricken house. The Doctor entered and presently Bim came out. Her eyes filled with tears and for a moment she could not speak. She wore a white dress and cap and was pale and weary. "But still as I looked at her I thought of the saying of her father that her form and face reminded him of the singing of birds in the springtime, she looked so sweet and graceful," Samson writes in his diary. "Why didn't you let me know of your troubles?" he asked. "Early last summer I wrote a long letter to you," she answered. "It didn't reach me. One day in June the stage was robbed of its mail down in Tazewell County. Your letter was probably on that stage." "Harry's death was the last blow. I came out here to get away from my troubles--perhaps to die. I didn't care." "Harry is not dead," said Samson. Her right hand touched her forehead; her lips fell apart; her eyes took on a look of tragic earnestness. "Not dead!" she whispered. "He is alive and well." Bim staggered toward him and fell to her knees and lay crouched upon the ground, in the dusky twilight, shaking and choked with sobs, and with tears streaming from her eyes but she was almost as silent as the shadow of the coming night. She looked like one searching in the dust for something very precious. The strong heart of Samson was touched by the sorrowful look of her so that he could not speak. Soon he was able to say in a low, trembling voice: "In every letter he tells of his love for you. That article in the paper was a cruel mistake." After a little silence Bim rose from the ground. She stood, for a moment, wiping her eyes. Her form straightened and was presently erect. Her soul resented the injustice she had suffered. There was a wonderful and touching dignity in her voice and manner when she asked: "Why didn't he write to me?" "He must have written to you." Sadly, calmly, thoughtfully, she spoke as she stood looking off at the fading glow in the west: "It is terrible how things can work together to break the heart and will of a woman. Write to Harry and tell him that he must not come to see me again. I have promised to marry another man." "I hope it isn't Davis," said Samson. "It is Davis." "I don't like him. I don't think he's honest." "But he has been wonderfully kind to us. Without his help we couldn't have lived. We couldn't even have given my father a decent burial. I suppose he has his faults. I no longer look for perfection in human beings." "Has he been out here to see you?" "And he won't come. That man knows how to keep out of danger. I don't believe you'll marry him." "Why?" "Because I intend to be a father to you and pay all your debts," said Samson. The Doctor called from the door of the cabin. Bim said: "God bless you and Harry!" as she turned away to take up her task again. That night both of them began, as they say, to put two and two together. While he rode on in the growing dusk the keen intellect of Samson saw a convincing sequence of circumstances--the theft of the mail sack, the false account of Harry's death, the failure of his letters to reach their destination, and the fact that Bim had accepted money from Davis in time of need. A strong suspicion of foul play grew upon him and he began to consider what he could do in the matter. Having forded a creek he caught the glow of a light in the darkness a little way up the road. It was the lighted window of a cabin, before whose door he stopped his horse and hallooed. "I am a belated and hungry traveler on my way to Chicago," he said to the man who presently greeted him from the open doorway. "Have you come through Honey Creek settlement?" the latter asked. "Left there about an hour ago." "Sorry, mister, but I can't let you come into the house. If you'll move off a few feet I'll lay some grub on the choppin' block an' up the road about a half-mile you'll find a barn with some hay in it where you and your horse can spend the night under cover." Samson moved away and soon the man brought a package of food and laid it on the block and ran back to the door. "I'll lay a piece of silver on the block," Samson called. "Not a darned cent," the man answered. "I hate like p'ison to turn a feller away in the night, but we're awful skeered here with children in the house. Good-by. You can't miss the barn. It's close ag'in' the road." Samson ate his luncheon in the darkness, as he rode, and presently came upon the barn and unsaddled and hitched and fed his horse in one end of it--the beast having drunk his fill at the creek they had lately forded--and lay down to rest, for the night, with the saddle blanket beneath him and his coat for a cover. A wind from the north began to wail and whistle through the cracks in the barn and over its roof bringing cold weather. Samson's feet and legs had been wet in the crossing so that he found it difficult to keep warm. He crept to the side of his horse, which had lain down, and found a degree of comfort in the heat of the animal. But it was a bad night, at best, with only a moment, now and then, of a sort of one-eyed sleep in it. "I've had many a long, hard night but this is the worst of them," Samson thought. There's many a bad night in the history of the pioneers, its shadows falling on lonely, ill-marked roads cut by rivers, creeks and marshes and strung through unnumbered miles of wild country. Samson was up and off at daylight in a bitter wind and six inches of snow. It was a kind of work he would not have undertaken upon any call less commanding than that of friendship. He reached Chicago at noon having had nothing to eat that day. There was no such eager, noisy crowd in the streets as he had seen before. The fever of speculation had passed. Some of the stores were closed; he counted a score of half-built structures getting weather-stained inside and out. But there were many people on the main thoroughfares, among whom were Europeans who had arrived the autumn before. They were changing but the marks of the yoke were still upon them. In Chicago were the vitals of the West and they were very much alive in spite of the panic. Samson bought some new clothes and had a bath and a good dinner at the City Hotel. Then he went to the office of Mr. Lionel Davis. There to his surprise he met his old acquaintance, Eli Fredenberg, who greeted him with great warmth and told of having settled in Chicago. A well-dressed young man came out of an inner office and informed Eli that Mr. Davis could not see him that day. "I'd like to see Mr. Davis," said Samson as Eli went away. "I'm Mr. Davis's secretary," the young man politely informed him. "What's a secretary?" Samson asked. "It's a man who helps another with his work." "I don't need any help myself--thank you," said Samson. "You tell him that I've got some money that belongs to him and that I'm ready to deliver it." The young man disappeared through the door of the private office and soon returned and conducted Samson into the presence of Mr. Davis who sat at a handsome desk, smoking, in a room with fine old mahogany furnishings brought up from New Orleans. The two men recognized each other. "Well, sir, what is it about?" the young speculator demanded. "The daughter of my old friend, Jack Kelso, owes you some money and I want to pay it," said Samson. "Oh, that is a matter between Miss Kelso and me." Mr. Davis spoke politely and with a smile. "Not exactly--since I knew about it," Samson answered. "I refuse to discuss her affairs with you," Davis declared. "I suppose you mistrust me," said Samson. "Well, I've offered to pay you and I'm going to make it plain to them that they don't have to worry any more about the money you loaned them." "Very well, I bid you good morning." "Don't be in a hurry," Samson answered. "I have a note of five thousand dollars against you. It is endorsed to me by Henry Brimstead and I want to collect it." "I refuse to pay it," Davis promptly answered. "Then I shall have to put it in the hands of a lawyer," said Samson. "Put it where you like but don't consume any more of my time." "But you'll have to hear me say that I don't think you're honest." "I have heard you," Davis answered calmly. Samson withdrew and went to the home of Mrs. Kelso. He found her with Bim's boy in her lap--a handsome little lad, then a bit over two years old,--at the house on La Salle Street. The good woman gave Samson an account of the year filled with tearful praise of the part Mr. Davis had played in it. Samson told of the failure of Bim's letter to reach him and of his offer to return the money which Davis had paid for their relief. "I don't like the man and I don't want you to be under obligation to him," said Samson. "The story of Harry's death was false and I think that he is responsible for it. He wanted her to marry him right away after that--of course. And she went to the plague settlement to avoid marriage. I know her better than you do. She has read him right. Her soul has looked into his soul and it keeps her away from him." But Mrs. Kelso could believe no evil of her benefactor, nor would she promise to cease depending on his bounty. Samson was a little disheartened by the visit. He Went to see John Wentworth, the editor of _The Democrat_, of whose extreme length Mr. Lincoln had humorously spoken in his presence. The young New Englander was seven feet tall. He welcomed the broad-shouldered man from Sangamon County and began at once to question him about Honest Abe and "Steve" Douglas and O.H. Browning and E.D. Baker and all the able men of the middle counties. Then he wanted to know of the condition of the people since the collapse of the land boom. The farmer's humorous comment and sane views delighted the young editor. At the first opportunity Samson came to the business of his call--the mischievous lie regarding Harry's death which had appeared in _The Democrat_. Mr. Wentworth went to the proof room and found the manuscript of the article. "We kept it because we didn't know and do not now know the writer," said Wentworth. Samson told of the evil it had wrought and conveyed his suspicions to the editor. "Davis is rather unscrupulous," said Wentworth. "We know a lot about him in this office." Samson looked at the article and presently said: "Here is a note that he gave to a friend of mine. It looks to me as if the note and the article were written by the same hand." Mr. Wentworth compared the two and said: "You are right. The same person wrote them. But it was not Davis." When Samson left the office of _The Democrat_ he had accomplished little save the confirmation of his suspicions. There was nothing he could do about it. He went to Eli Fredenberg. Eli, having sold out at the height of the boom in Springfield, had been back to Germany to visit his friends. "I haf money--plendy money," said Eli. "In de ol' country I vas rich. I thought maybe I stay dere an' make myself happy. It vas one big job. Mein frients dey hate me becos I haf succeed so much. De odders hate me becos de butcher haf mein fadder been. Dey laugh at my good close. Nobody likes me not. I come avay. Dey don't blame you here becos you vos born." "What has Davis done to you?" Samson asked, recalling where he had met Eli that morning. Eli explained that he had borrowed money from Davis to tide him over the hard times and was paying twelve per cent. for it. "Dis morning I get dot letter from his secretary," he said as he passed a letter to Samson. It was a demand for payment in the handwriting of the Brimstead note and had some effect on this little history. It conveyed definite knowledge of the authorship of a malicious falsehood. It aroused the anger and sympathy of Samson Traylor. In the conditions then prevailing Eli was unable to get the money. He was in danger of losing his business. Samson spent a day investigating the affairs of the merchant. His banker and others spoke well of him. He was said to be a man of character and credit embarrassed by the unexpected scarcity of good money. So it came about that, before he left the new city, Samson bought a fourth interest in the business of Eli Fredenberg. The lots he owned were then worth less than when he had bought them, but his faith in the future of Chicago had not abated. He wrote a long letter to Bim recounting the history of his visit and frankly stating the suspicions to which he had been led. He set out on the west road at daylight toward the Riviere des Plaines, having wisely decided to avoid passing the plague settlement. Better weather had come. In the sunlight of a clear sky he fared away over the vast prairies, feeling that it was a long road ahead and a most unpromising visit behind him. _ |
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