Chapter 19

The boot-black held his breath for fear of sneezing.

The brown-stone boy shut his eyes so as not to wink.

They all stood as if turned to stone.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, came a faint sound of bells.

Nothing else was heard but the beating of their own hearts.

In exactly three-quarters of a minute, Old Glory said, "What do you think of that?"

Behold! a wonderful fairy sleigh, white as a snowdrift, and shining in the moonlight as if covered with diamond dust.

It was piled high with softest cushions and robes of fur.

It was drawn by thirteen fairy horses, with arching necks and flowing manes and tails.

Each horse wore knots of red, white and blue at his ears and the lines were wound with ribbons of the same.

"Jump in," said Old Glory.

Into the midst of the cushions and furs they sprang.

Crack went the whip, tinkle went the bells. Over the house-tops, through the frosty air, among the moonbeams, up and away sailed fairy horses and sleigh, American flags and Uncle Sam's boys.

Santa Claus with his reindeer never went faster.

Presently the tinkling bells were hushed, and the fairy horses stood very still before the tomb of Abraham Lincoln.

"Come," said Old Glory, and he led them inside.

You must get your father or mother to tell you what they saw there.

Just before they left, a dirty little hand touched Old Glory and a shrill little voice said: "I'd like to leave my flag here. May I?"

"And may I?" said another.

Old Glory looked around and saw the same wish in the other faces.

"You forget," said he, "that the flags are not yours. It would not be right to keep them. What did the people call Mr. Lincoln? You don't know? Well, I'll tell you. It was 'Honest Old Abe,' and Uncle Sam wants you to be like him."

Again the merry bells tinkled, again the proud horses, with their flowing manes and tails, sprang into the air, and before the moon had said "good-night" to the earth, they were back at the flag shop.

The very moment they reached it, horses and sleigh, cushions and robes, melted away and the children saw them no more.

TWO FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS

(Exercise for the Schoolroom)

BY LIZZIE M. HADLEY AND CLARA J. DENTON

FOR EIGHT BOYS.

This dialogue, or exercise, is to be given by eight boys. While they and the school are singing the first song the boys march upon the stage and form into a semicircle, the four boys speaking for Washington on the right, the other four (for Lincoln) on the left. Portraits of Washington and Lincoln should be placed in a convenient position on the stage beneath a double arch wreathed with evergreens. The portraits should be draped with American flags. Each one of the boys should wear a small American flag pinned to his coat.

SONG. TUNE, _Rally 'Round the Flag_

We are marching from the East, We are marching from the West, Singing the praises of a nation. That all the world may hear Of the men we hold so dear, Singing the praises of a nation.

CHORUS

For Washington and Lincoln, Hurrah, all hurrah, Sing as we gather Here from afar, Yes, for Washington and Lincoln, Let us ever sing, Sing all the praises of a nation.

Yes, we love to sing this song, As we proudly march along, Singing the praises of the heroes. Through this great and happy land, We would sound their names so grand. Singing the praises of our heroes.

CHORUS

ALL: We have come to tell you of two men whose names must be linked together as long as the nation shall stand, Washington and Lincoln. They stand for patriotism, goodness, truth and true manliness. Hand in hand they shall go down the centuries together.

FIRST SPEAKER ON THE WASHINGTON SIDE: Virginia sends you greeting. I come in her name in honor of her illustrious son, George Washington, and she bids me tell you that he was born in her state, Feb. 22, 1732.

ALL: 'Twas years and years ago.

FIRST SPEAKER: Yes, more than a hundred and seventy, nearly two centuries.

ALL: A long time to be remembered.

FIRST SPEAKER: Yes, but Washington's name is still cherished and honored all over the land which his valor and wisdom helped save, and, for generations yet to come, the children of the schools shall give him a million-tongued fame.

SECOND SPEAKER: Virginia bids me tell you that as a boy, Washington was manly, brave, obedient and kind, and that he never told a lie.

SONG: (Either as solo or chorus). AIR, _What Can the Matter Be?_

Dear, dear, who can believe it? Dear, dear, who can conceive it? Dear, dear, we scarce can believe that Never did he tell a lie.

O, surely temptation must oft have assailed him, But courage and honor we know never failed him, So let us all follow his wondrous example, And never, no never tell lies. And never, no never, tell lies.

THIRD SPEAKER: A brave and manly boy, he began work early in life, and, in 1748, when only sixteen years old, he was a surveyor of lands, and took long tramps into the wilderness. In 1775 came the Revolutionary War, and he was appointed commander-in-chief of the American Army. In 1787 he was elected president of the convention which framed the constitution of our country.

FOURTH SPEAKER: In 1789 he was chosen first president of the United States. He was re-elected in 1793 and, at the close of the second term he retired to private life at his beautiful and beloved home, Mt. Vernon. He died there, Dec. 14, 1799, honored and mourned by the whole nation, and leaving to the world a life which is a "pattern for all public men, teaching what greatness is and what is the pathway to undying fame," and richly deserving the title, "Father of his country."

ALL: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," he was second to none in the humble and endearing scenes of private life.

BOYS REPRESENTING LINCOLN: Washington was a great and good man, and so, too, was the man whom we delight to honor, whose title, "Honest Abe," has passed into the language of our times as a synonym for all that is just and honest in man.

FIRST SPEAKER ON THE LINCOLN SIDE: Kentucky is proud to claim Abraham Lincoln as one of her honored sons, and she bids me say that he was born in that state in Hardin County, Feb. 12, 1809. Indiana, too, claims him, he was her son by adoption, for, when but seven years old, his father moved to the southwestern part of that state. Illinois also has a claim upon him. It was there that he helped build a log cabin for a new home, and split rails to fence in a cornfield. Afterwards he split rails for a suit of clothes, one hundred rails for every yard of cloth, and so won the name, "The Rail-splitter."

SECOND SPEAKER: In 1828 he became a flat-boatman and twice went down the river to New Orleans. In 1832 he served as captain of a company in the Black Hawk War. After the war he kept a country store, and won a reputation for honesty. Then, for a while, he was a surveyor, next, a lawyer, and in 1834 he was elected to the Legislature of Illinois.

THIRD SPEAKER: In 1846 he was made a member of Congress, in 1860 he was elected president of the United States.

FOURTH SPEAKER: The Civil War followed, and in 1864 he was elected president for the second term. On April 14 he was shot by an assassin and died on the morning of the 15th.

SONG BY SCHOOL: AIR, _John Brown's Body_

In spite of changing seasons of the years that come and go, Still his name to-day is cherished in the hearts of friend and foe, And the land for which he suffered e'er shall honor him we know, While truth goes marching on.

CHORUS

BOTH GROUPS TOGETHER: To both these men, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, we, the children of the nation, owe a debt of gratitude which we can only repay by a lifetime of work, for God, humanity, and our country. Both have left behind them words of wisdom, which, if heeded, will make us wiser and better boys and girls, and so wiser and better men and women.

TWO BOYS FROM THE WASHINGTON GROUP: Washington said, "Without virtue and without integrity, the finest talents and the most brilliant accomplishments can never gain the respect or conciliate the esteem of the most valuable part of mankind."

TWO BOYS FROM THE LINCOLN GROUP: Lincoln said, "I have one vote, and I shall always cast that against wrong as long as I live."

TWO BOYS FROM WASHINGTON GROUP: "If to please the people we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work?"

TWO BOYS FROM LINCOLN GROUP: Lincoln said, "In every event of life, it is right makes might."

ALL: O, wise and great! Their like, perchance, we ne'er shall see again, But let us write their golden words upon the hearts of men.

SONG: TUNE _"America"_

Turn now unto the past, There, long as life shall last, Their names you'll find. Faithful and true and brave, Sent here our land to save. Men whom our father gave, Brave, true, and kind.

(_Exeunt_)

VIII

LINCOLN'S PLACE IN HISTORY

THE THREE GREATEST AMERICANS

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

As the generations slip away, as the dust of conflict settles, and as through the clearing air we look back with keener vision into the Nation's past, mightiest among the mighty dead, loom up the three great figures of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. These three greatest men have taken their places among the great men of all nations, the great men of all times. They stood supreme in the two great crises of our history, in the two great occasions, when we stood in the van of all humanity, and struck the most effective blows that have ever been struck for the cause of human freedom under the law.

HIS CHOICE AND HIS DESTINY

BY F. M. BRISTOL

As God appeared to Solomon and Joseph in dreams to urge them to make wise choices for the power of great usefulness, so it would appear that in their waking dreams the Almighty appeared to such history-making souls as Paul and Constantine, Alfred the Great, Washington, and Lincoln. It was the commonest kind of a life this young Lincoln was living on the frontier of civilization, but out of that commonest kind of living came the uncommonest kind of character of these modern years, the sublimest liberative power in the history of freedom. Lincoln felt there, as a great awkward boy, that God and history had something for him to do. He dreamed his destiny. He chose to champion the cause of the oppressed. He vowed that when the chance came he would deal slavery a hard blow. When he came to his high office, he came with a character which had been fitting itself for its grave responsibilities. He had been making wise choices on the great questions of human rights, of national union, of constitutional freedom, of universal brotherhood.

FROM "REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN"[28]

BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

Strange mingling of mirth and tears, of the tragic and grotesque, of cap and crown, of Socrates and Rabelais, of Æsop and Marcus Aurelius, of all that is gentle and just, humorous and honest, merciful, wise, laughable, lovable and divine, and all consecrated to the use of man; while through all, and over all, an overwhelming sense of obligation, of chivalric loyalty to truth, and upon all the shadow of the tragic end.

Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities. About the roots of these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity. Washington is now only a steel engraving. About the real man who lived and loved and hated and schemed we know but little. The glass through which we look at him is of such high magnifying power that the features are exceedingly indistinct. Hundreds of people are now engaged in smoothing out the lines of Lincoln's face--forcing all features to the common mold--so that he may be known, not as he really was, but, according to their poor standard, as he should have been.

Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone--no ancestors, no fellows, and no successors. He had the advantage of living in a new country, of social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. He preserved his individuality and his self-respect. He knew and mingled with men of every kind; and, after all, men are the best books. He became acquainted with the ambitions and hopes of the heart, the means used to accomplish ends, the springs of action and the seeds of thought. He was familiar with nature, with actual things, with common facts. He loved and appreciated the poem of the year, the drama of the seasons.

In a new country, a man must possess at least three virtues--honesty, courage and generosity. In cultivated society, cultivation is often more important than soil. A well executed counterfeit passes more readily than a blurred genuine. It is necessary only to observe the unwritten laws of society--to be honest enough to keep out of prison, and generous enough to subscribe in public--where the subscription can be defended as an investment. In a new country, character is essential; in the old, reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a man really is; in the old, he generally passes for what he resembles. People separated only by distance are much nearer together than those divided by the walls of caste.

It is no advantage to live in a great city, where poverty degrades and failure brings despair. The fields are lovelier than paved streets, and the great forests than walls of brick. Oaks and elms are more poetic than steeples and chimneys. In the country is the idea of home. There you see the rising and setting sun; you become acquainted with the stars and clouds. The constellations are your friends. You hear the rain on the roof and listen to the rhythmic sighing of the winds. You are thrilled by the resurrection called Spring, touched and saddened by Autumn, the grace and poetry of death. Every field is a picture, a landscape; every landscape, a poem; every flower, a tender thought; and every forest, a fairy-land. In the country you preserve your identity--your personality. There you are an aggregation of atoms, but in the city you are only an atom of an aggregation.

Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker after knowledge. You have no idea how many men are spoiled by what is called education. For the most part, colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. If Shakespeare had graduated at Oxford, he might have been a quibbling attorney or a hypocritical parson.

Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles and tears, complex in brain, single in heart, direct as light; and his words, candid as mirrors, gave the perfect image of his thought. He was never afraid to ask--never too dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy--it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought--master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit could disinfect.

He was a logician. Logic is the necessary product of intelligence and sincerity. It cannot be learned. It is the child of a clear head and a good heart. He was candid, and with candor often deceived the deceitful. He had intellect without arrogance, genius without pride, and religion without cant--that is to say, without bigotry and without deceit.

He was an orator--clear, sincere, natural. He did not pretend. He did not say what he thought others thought, but what he thought. If you wish to be sublime you must be natural--you must keep close to the grass. You must sit by the fireside of the heart; above the clouds it is too cold. You must be simple in your speech: too much polish suggests insincerity. The great orator idealizes the real, transfigures the common, makes even the inanimate throb and thrill, fills the gallery of the imagination with statues and pictures perfect in form and color, brings to light the gold hoarded by memory, the miser--shows the glittering coin to the spendthrift, hope--enriches the brain, ennobles the heart, and quickens the conscience. Between his lips, words bud and blossom.

If you wish to know the difference between an orator and an elocutionist--between what is felt and what is said--between what the heart and brain can do together and what the brain can do alone--read Lincoln's wondrous words at Gettysburg, and then the speech of Edward Everett. The oration of Lincoln will never be forgotten. It will live until languages are dead and lips are dust. The speech of Everett will never be read. The elocutionists believe in the virtue of voice, the sublimity of syntax, the majesty of long sentences, and the genius of gesture. The orator loves the real, the simple, the natural. He places the thought above all. He knows that the greatest ideas should be expressed in the shortest words--that the greatest statues need the least drapery.

Lincoln was an immense personality--firm but not obstinate. Obstinacy is egotism--firmness, heroism. He influenced others without effort, unconsciously; and they submitted to him as men submit to nature, unconsciously. He was severe with himself, and for that reason lenient with others. He appeared to apologize for being kinder than his fellows. He did merciful things as stealthily as others committed crimes. Almost ashamed of tenderness, he said and did the noblest words and deeds with that charming confusion--that awkwardness--that is the perfect grace of modesty. As a noble man, wishing to pay a small debt to a poor neighbor, reluctantly offers a hundred-dollar bill and asks for change, fearing that he may be suspected either of making a display of wealth or a pretense of payment, so Lincoln hesitated to show his wealth of goodness, even to the best he knew. A great man stooping, not wishing to make his fellows feel that they were small or mean.

He knew others, because perfectly acquainted with himself. He cared nothing for place, but everything for principle; nothing for money, but everything for independence. Where no principle was involved, easily swayed--willing to go slowly, if in the right direction--sometimes willing to stop, but he would not go back, and he would not go wrong. He was willing to wait. He knew that the event was not waiting, and that fate was not the fool of chance. He knew that slavery had defenders, but no defense, and that they who attack the right must wound themselves. He was neither tyrant nor slave. He neither knelt nor scorned. With him, men were neither great nor small,--they were right or wrong. Through manners, clothes, titles, rags and race he saw the real--that which is. Beyond accident, policy, compromise and war he saw the end. He was patient as Destiny, whose undecipherable hieroglyphs were so deeply graven on his sad and tragic face.

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.

Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe this divine, this loving man. He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. Hating slavery, pitying the master--seeking to conquer, not persons, but prejudices--he was the embodiment of the self-denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility of a nation. He spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to convince. He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. He longed to pardon. He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of a wife whose husband he had rescued from death.

Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil war. He is the gentlest memory of our world.

[Transcriber's Note: Part of this was omitted in original.]

[28] _By permission of Mr. C. P. Farrell._

LINCOLN[29]

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

Hurt was the Nation with a mighty wound, And all her ways were filled with clam'rous sound, Wailed loud the South with unremitting grief, And wept the North that could not find relief. Then madness joined its harshest tone to strife: A minor note swelled in the song of life Till, stirring with the love that filled his breast, But still, unflinching at the Right's behest Grave Lincoln came, strong-handed, from afar,-- The mighty Homer of the lyre of war! 'Twas he who bade the raging tempest cease, Wrenched from his strings the harmony of peace, Muted the strings that made the discord,--Wrong, And gave his spirit up in thund'rous song. Oh, mighty Master of the mighty lyre! Earth heard and trembled at thy strains of fire: Earth learned of thee what Heav'n already knew, And wrote thee down among her treasured few!

[29] _By permission of Mrs. Mathilde Dunbar._

THE GRANDEST FIGURE[30]

BY WALT WHITMAN

Glad am I to give even the most brief and shorn testimony in memory of Abraham Lincoln. Everything I heard about him authentically, and every time I saw him (and it was my fortune through 1862 to '65 to see, or pass a word with, or watch him, personally, perhaps twenty or thirty times), added to and annealed my respect and love at the passing moment. And as I dwell on what I myself heard or saw of the mighty Westerner, and blend it with the history and literature of my age, and conclude it with his death, it seems like some tragic play, superior to all else I know--vaster and fierier and more convulsionary, for this America of ours, than Eschylus or Shakespeare ever drew for Athens or for England. And then the Moral permeating, underlying all! the Lesson that none so remote, none so illiterate--no age, no class--but may directly or indirectly read!

Abraham Lincoln's was really one of those characters, the best of which is the result of long trains of cause and effect--needing a certain spaciousness of time, and perhaps even remoteness, to properly enclose them--having unequaled influence on the shaping of this Republic (and therefore the world) as to-day, and then far more important in the future. Thus the time has by no means yet come for a thorough measurement of him. Nevertheless, we who live in his era--who have seen him, and heard him, face to face, and in the midst of, or just parting from, the strong and strange events which he and we have had to do with, can in some respects bear valuable, perhaps indispensable testimony concerning him.

How does this man compare with the acknowledged "Father of his country?" Washington was modeled on the best Saxon and Franklin of the age of the Stuarts (rooted in the Elizabethan period)--was essentially a noble Englishman, and just the kind needed for the occasions and the times of 1776-'83. Lincoln, underneath his practicality, was far less European, far more Western, original, essentially non-conventional, and had a certain sort of out-door or prairie stamp. One of the best of the late commentators on Shakespeare (Professor Dowden), makes the height and aggregate of his quality as a poet to be, that he thoroughly blended the ideal with the practical or realistic. If this be so, I should say that what Shakespeare did in poetic expression, Abraham Lincoln essentially did in his personal and official life. I should say the invisible foundations and vertebrae of his character, more than any man's in history, were mystical, abstract, moral and spiritual--while upon all of them was built, and out of all of them radiated, under the control of the average of circumstances, what the vulgar call horse-sense, and a life often bent by temporary but most urgent materialistic and political reasons.