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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 22 |
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_ BOOK THREE CHAPTER XXII WHEREIN ABE LINCOLN REVEALS HIS METHOD OF CONDUCTING A LAWSUIT IN THE CASE OF HENRY BRIMSTEAD ET AL., VS. LIONEL DAVIS. They found many of Davis's notes in Tazewell County. Abe Lincoln's complaint represented seven clients and a sum exceeding twenty thousand dollars. "Now, Harry, you don't like Davis and I can't blame you for it," said Honest Abe before they parted. "Don't spoil our case by trying to take it out of his hide. First we've got to take it out of his pocket. When I get through there may not be any hide on him worth speaking of, but if there is you can have it and welcome." With the papers in his pocket Harry went on to the Honey Creek settlement. There he found that the plague had spent itself and that Bim had gone to a detention camp outside the city of Chicago. He rode on to the camp but was not permitted to see her, the regulations having become very strict. In the city he went to the store of Eli Fredenberg. The merchant received him with enthusiasm. Chicago had begun to recover from the panic. Trade was lively. Eli wanted Harry to go to work in the store until he was prepared for the law. "You must stay here until you haf got a wife already," said the thoughtful Eli. "It is bat for you and Bim to be not marrit so much." The young man favored both the commercial and the sentimental suggestions of Eli. He had long felt the lure of that promising little city on the lake shore. "I wish you'd take this complaint and serve it on Davis," he said. "I don't want to see him if I can help it. If you don't mind, you can tell him that I've come to life and am here in the city and that if he kills me again he'd better do it while I'm looking. It would be more decent." Eli was delighted with a task which promised a degree of discomfort to the man who had endeavored to ruin him. Harry spent the afternoon with Mrs. Kelso and Bim's baby boy. The good woman was much excited by the arrival of the young soldier. "We have had a terrible year," she said. "We couldn't have lived through it without the help of a friend. Bim went away to take care of the sick in the smallpox neighborhood. She was rather discouraged. Our friend, Mr. Davis, is in love with her. She promised to marry him. It seemed to be the only way out of our troubles. But she will not even write to him now. I think that she is very unhappy." "I shall not try to increase her troubles, but I shall prevent her from marrying Davis if I can," said Harry. "Why?" "Because I think he is dishonest." "He has convinced me that all the reports are wrong," Mrs. Kelso declared. "I think that he is one of the kindest and best of men." "I shall not argue with you as to the character of my rival," Harry answered. "The facts will be on record one of these days and then you can form your own judgment. I hope you won't mind my coming here to see you and the baby now and then." "You are always welcome. But Mr. Davis comes often and feeling as you do it might be unpleasant for you to meet him." "It would. I'll keep away until the air clears," said Harry. He wrote a very tender letter to Bim that day. He told her that he had come to Chicago to live so that he might be near her and ready to help her if she needed help. "The same old love is in my heart that made me want you for my wife long ago, that has filled my letters and sustained me in many an hour of peril," he wrote. "If you really think that you must marry Davis, I ask you at least to wait for the developments of a suit which Abe Lincoln is bringing in behalf of many citizens of Tazewell County. It is likely that we shall know more than we do now before that case ends. I saw your beautiful little boy. He looks so much like you that I long to steal him and keep him with me." In a few days he received this brief reply: * * * * * "Dear Harry: Your letter pleased and pained me. I have been so tossed about that I don't know quite where I stand. My brain is like a bridge that has been washed out by floods. I am picking up the fragments and trying to rebuild it. For a long time my life has been nothing but a series of emotions. What Honest Abe may be able to prove I know not, but I am sure that he can not disprove the fact that Mr. Davis has been kind and generous to me. For that I can not ever cease to be grateful. I should have married him before now but for one singular circumstance. My little boy can not be made to like him. He will have nothing to do with Mr. Davis. He will not be bribed or coerced. Time and kindness do not seem to diminish his dislike. My soul has been drugged with argument and--I can not help saying it--bribed with favors. But the boy has been steadfast. He has kept his frankness and honesty. I saw in this a prophecy of trouble. I left home and went down into the very shadow of death. It may be that we have been saved for each other by the wisdom of childhood. I must not see you now. Nor shall I see him until I have found my way. Even your call can not make me forget that I am under a solemn promise. I must keep it without much more delay unless something happens to release me. "I'm glad you like the boy. He is a wonderful child. I named him Nehemiah for his grandfather. We call him Nim and sometimes 'Mr. Nimble' because he is so lively. I'm homesick to see him and you. I am going to Dixon to teach and earn money for mother and the baby. Don't tell any one where I am and above all don't come to see me until in good heart I can ask you to come. "God bless you! "Bim." * * * * * In a few weeks the suit came on. It was tried in the new brick Court-House in Chicago. Davis's defense, as given in the answer, alleged that the notes were to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of lots and that in consequence of the collapse of the boom there had been no such proceeds. His claim was supported by the testimony of his secretary and another and by certain letters of his, promising payment as soon as the land was sold, and by letters from the plaintiffs allowing that grace. As to the understanding upon which the notes were drawn, there was a direct issue of veracity for which Abe Lincoln was exceedingly well prepared. He had gained possession of many facts in the history of the young speculator, including the important one that he had been convicted of fraud in New Orleans. Mr. Lincoln's cross-examination was as merciless as sunlight "falling round a helpless thing." It was kindly and polite in tone but relentless in its searching. When it ended, the weight of Davis's character had been accurately established. In his masterly summing up Mr. Lincoln presented every circumstance in favor of the defendant's position. With remarkable insight he anticipated the arguments of his attorney. He presented them fairly and generously to the court and jury. According to Samson the opposing lawyers admitted in a private talk that Lincoln had thought of presumptions in favor of Davis which had not occurred to them. Therein lay the characteristic of Mr. Lincoln's method in a lawsuit. * * * * * "It was a safe thing for him to do for he never took a case in which justice was not clearly on his side," Samson writes. "If he had been deceived as to the merits of a case he would drop it. With the sword of justice in his hand he was invincible." * * * * * First he put the thing to be weighed on the scale fully and fairly. Then, one by one, he put the units of gravity on the other side so that the court and jury saw the turning of the balance. He covered the point at issue with a few words "every one of which drew blood," to quote a phrase from the diary. He showed that the validity of such claims rested wholly on the character of the man who made them, especially when they were opposed to the testimony of people whose honesty had been questioned only by that man. "Now as to the secretary," said Mr. Lincoln, "I honestly regret that he has disagreed with himself. A young man ought not to disagree with himself as to the truth and especially when he contradicts the oath of witnesses whom we have no reason to discredit. I want to be kind to him on account of his youth. He reminds me of the young man who hired out to a Captain in Gloucester and shipped for the China coast and learned presently that he was on a pirate vessel. He had been a young man of good intentions but he had to turn to and help the business along. When the ship was captured he said: "I didn't want to be a pirate, but there was only one kind o' politics on that ship and the majority was so large I thought that the vote might as well be unanimous. At first I was in favor of reform but the walkin' was that bad I had to decide between a harp and a cutlass.' "This parable serves to illustrate the history of most young men who fall into bad company. The walking becomes more or less bad for them. They get into the bondage of Fear. We know not how it may have influenced the action of Cap'n Davis's First Mate. Probably since the hard times began, the walking has looked bad to him but still there was walking. I am sorry it must be said that there was walking and I hope that he will now make some use of it." He did and in time confessed to Samson Traylor that Mr. Lincoln's reproach had been the saving of him. A judgment was rendered in favor of the plaintiffs for the full amount of their claim with costs. The character of Lionel Davis had been sufficiently revealed. Even the credulous Mrs. Kelso turned against him. Mr. Lincoln's skill as a lawyer was recognized in the north as well as in the middle counties. From that day forth no man enjoyed a like popularity in Tazewell County. When Samson and Harry Needles left the Court-House, there seemed to be no obstacle between the young man and the consummation of his wishes. Unfortunately, as they were going down the steps Davis, who blamed Samson for his troubles, flung an insult at the sturdy Vermonter. Samson, who had then arrived at years of firm discretion, was little disturbed by the anger of a man so discredited. But Harry, on the sound of the hateful words, had leaped forward and dealt the speculator a savage blow in the face which for a few seconds had deprived him of the power of speech. That evening a friend of Davis called at the City Hall with a challenge. The hot-blooded young soldier accepted it against the urgent counsel of Samson Traylor, Mr. Lincoln having left the city. It was a fashion of the time for gentlemen to stand up and shoot at each other after such a quarrel. But Davis, since the trial, had no character to defend and therefore no right to enter the field of honor with a man of Harry's standing. But the young officer had promised to fight and was not to be dissuaded. As to the details of the tragic scene that followed next day, the writer has little knowledge. Samson was not the type of man for such a chronicle. The diary speaks of his part in it with shame and sorrow and remorse. His mind seems to have been too much engaged with its own fears and thoughts to take note of the color. We may infer from one remark in it that the sky was clear. We know, too, that it was at day-break when he and Harry rode to a point on the prairie "something more than a mile from the city limits." There he tells us they met Davis and one friend of the latter and two surgeons who had driven to the scene in a box wagon. It is evident, too, that great secrecy had been observed in the plan and its execution and that, until sometime after the last act, Lincoln knew nothing of the later developments in the drama of Davis's downfall. For the rest of the deplorable scene the historian must content himself with the naked details in the diary of a puritan pioneer. They are, at least, direct and derive a certain vividness from their haste to be done with it as a proceeding of which the less said the better. * * * * * "I went because there was no escape from it and with the shadow of God's wrath in my soul," Samson writes. "The sun rose as we halted our horses. We paced the field. The two men took their places twenty yards apart. Harry was a little pale but he stood up as straight and steady as a hitching post. The pistols rang out at the command to fire and both men fell. Davis had been hit in the left shoulder. My handsome boy lay on his face. The bullet had bored through his right lung. Before I could reach him he had risen to his feet ready to go on with the battle. Davis lay like one paralyzed by the shock of the bullet. His seconds declared they were satisfied. The surgeons began their work. I saw them take the bullet out of Harry's back where it had lodged under his skin. I helped them put the wounded men into the wagon and rode to the house of one of the doctors near the city wherein were rooms for the accommodation of critical cases, leading Harry's horse and praying for God's help and forgiveness. I took care of the boy until Steve Nuckles came to help me. Bim arrived when Harry was out of his head and didn't know her. She was determined to stay and do the nursing but I wouldn't let her. She did not look strong. I loaned her the money to pay the debt to Davis and persuaded her to go back to her work in Dixon. She went and was rather heart-broken about it. "As she was leaving she looked into my face and said: 'Don't tell him or any one what has happened to me. I want to tell him.' "I promised to keep her secret and did it. Soon I learned that she was down sick of her worries. I sent her mother to her and kept the small boy with me. "The surgeon said that Harry would live if lung fever didn't set in. It set in but he pulled through. He mended slowly. I had some fear of arrest but the conspiracy of silence kept the facts under cover. It was partly due, I guess, to the friendship of John Wentworth for me and Honest Abe. He kept it out of the papers. There were no complaints and the rumors soon fell into silence. I spent about six weeks at Harry's bedside and in the store which has begun to prosper. "The boy, 'Mr. Nimble,' is a cunning little man. When he began to get better, Harry loved to play with him and listen to his talk about fairies. The young man was able to leave his bed, by and by, but he didn't get over his weakness and pallor. He had no appetite. I sent him with Nuckles into the Wisconsin woods to live in the open. Then I took the small boy to Dixon with me in the saddle. Bim had just got back to her work. She was distressed by the news of Harry's condition. "'I fear he has got his death-blow,' she said with a sad look in her face. 'I had hoped that we could be married this autumn. But something comes between us always. First it was my folly and now it is his folly. It seems as if we hadn't sense enough to get married when there's nothing in the way of it.' "She told me that Eliphalet Biggs had been there. He had heard of the boy and wished to see him and demanded to know where he was. For fear that Biggs would try to get possession of 'Mr. Nimble' I took him with me to Springfield in the saddle. "I learn that Davis has recovered his health and left the city. A man can not do business without friends and after the trial Chicago was no place for him." _ |
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