CHAPTER X

THE MYSTERIOUS PIG

One day a poverty-stricken and dispirited woman, whom Abe Lincoln had not before seen, entered his store to buy a few candles and a small quantity of molasses.

As she went out the storekeeper was informed that she was the wife of a notorious drunkard, known throughout the settlement as "Snoutful Kelly," who lived in a miserable shack out near Muddy Point.

After the woman had gone, in casting up his accounts, Abe Lincoln found himself with a few pennies more than he should have, and, after puzzling over the small excess, he discovered that he had overcharged the wife of Snoutful Kelly.

Though it was yet early, he closed the store and at once set out toward Muddy Point to return the woman's change.

The shack he found the family living in was not the worst he had ever seen, and he himself had once lived in one nearly as bad. He had not expected, however, to find such a home near the thrifty settlement of New Salem.

The hearth was of dirt with a hole in the middle made by much sweeping. There was a puncheon table with forked sticks for legs, and wooden trenchers for plates. Sharp pieces of cane were used for forks; there was one knife without a handle, and one tin cup for the use of the entire family. In one corner was a pallet of leaves on a post frame with a thin quilt over it.

When Abe Lincoln entered the one room he found the mother bending over the hearth, and a small girl, with a black eye, trying to quiet a dirty baby which kicked on the post bed.

At a first glance Lincoln saw that the woman was in trouble, and, while she thanked him in a crude way for the return of the pennies and took them eagerly, her mind was thus only partially diverted from the trouble.

Hungry for pity, and led to believe she might get it from this tall youth who had come so far to return her change, the woman poured out her tale of woe.

Her pig was gone--her only pig--the pig which the children had divided food with that they might have a bit of meat for the winter. Her husband would not fix the pen and the pig had escaped and gone some days before. The bitter loss was too much for the poor woman, and she broke down and wept.

Moved with pity, Abe Lincoln asked what kind of a pig it was.

"Black, with a white spot on its left shank, and a white eye, and its ear was fresh cut with two slits and a cross mark--like this," and bending over the hearth she made some marks in the ashes which Lincoln looked at carefully. "I suppose some wolf or cat smelled the blood, cause nobody would steal a pig in these parts, would they?" and there was appeal in her voice as she asked the question.

Further discussion about the pig was cut off by a screech from the child, whose face suddenly took on an expression of great fear, while her eyes seemed fixed in horror on something she saw coming toward the house.

Abe Lincoln glanced out.

"It's her Pap coming," the woman explained. "He beat her somethin' fearful yesterday cause she got in the mud. And he told her he'd throw her in up to her neck to-day if she got in the mud, and let her stick there till the buzzards eat 'er up. And how is the poor child to help it when her Pap has brought her here where there ain't nothing but mud to fall in?" Then, turning to the child, she said: "'Tain't no use to have fits. Nobody but God can keep him from gittin' ye."

"Nobody but God, eh?" Abe Lincoln said. "We'll see."

The man came staggering toward the house, cursing and growling, his drunken wrath seeming to centre itself on the child whose face was transfixed with terror.

The child screamed just as he was about to enter the house to make good his threats. Then there suddenly pounced upon him, from just inside, something that caught him in a grip like that of a vise, and pulled him back outside. And then this something, which was a very tall youth, began shaking him and slowly making his way, as he did so, toward the creek.

As a result of the none too gentle shaking, the liquid matter the drunkard had imbibed began to return to the world of visible things until what seemed an endless amount had been emptied along the way they were taking. When the burden of liquor had been lightened, the drunkard, now chattering for pity, was ducked in the stream until his dripping chin was washed clean, and his thick tongue limbered up.

He was then marched back to the cabin door from which the wife, and child with a black eye, looked out in speechless wonder.

"Here you are now," said the tall man. "My name is Abe Lincoln. I keep store in town. I can get here in twenty minutes any time I'm needed to break up this child-beatin'--understand?" and he was off.

* * * * *

It was that same night Abe Lincoln dropped down to Clary's Grove, where he was now always welcome. When he arrived he found a feast in course of preparation. A pig was roasting in the fire and the savory odor permeated the air as different ones of the gang poked the fire, basted the roast, and otherwise prepared for the occasion.

"Just in time, my son, Abry Linkhorn," said Ole Bar.

"Where'd you get that pig?" Lincoln inquired.

"It lit in a tree and we clubbed it out and picked it. 'Tain't none too fat, but it'll do."

"Let me look at its ears," Lincoln said. "Two slits and a cross" he observed. Then he told the story of Snoutful Kelly's wife and her great grief at the loss of the pig.

There was a moment of impressive silence. Then one of the gang said: "Clary's Grove has done some things that hain't been written in no book, but they don't steal from no weepin' wimmin, and beat up hungry children. As good a pig must be put back in that pen as was ever caught in the woods by the wolves and cats."

This speech expressed the sentiment of the company, and a game was played to see who would replace the pig. When this had been decided they returned to their feast with consciences apparently as clear as those of children.

* * * * *

It was the second day following the feast by the Clary Grove Boys, that Ann Rutledge missed one of her pigs. Ann was not only a famous needle woman, a spinner, and a cook, but she had good luck raising pigs and chickens, and her father gave her a pig or two in each litter, which were to be her own to help in getting her education.

Now her pig was gone--a black one with a white spot on its flank.

Mounted on one of John Rutledge's good horses, Ann set out to search the woods for her pig.

She had gotten some distance without finding any trace of it, when she heard the cry of a child. Following the direction from which the sound came, she soon discovered a forlorn little specimen of a girl, with a black and purple eye, who was looking about in different directions as if not knowing which way to go, and was crying.

"What's the matter?" asked Ann Rutledge, "are you lost?"

"Yes," the child answered.

"Who are you--and where do you live?"

"I'm Katy Kelly, and I live at Muddy Point. Our pig is lost again," she sobbed. "We got it home once, but the pen broke, and now it's gone again."

"I'm looking for a pig, too," Ann said. "Get up on my horse, and we'll look a little and then I'll take you home."

The child climbed on, and the search continued. But the child no longer had eyes for anything but Ann Rutledge.

"How did you hurt your eye?" Ann asked kindly.

"Pap, he did it. He bunged me with his fist. He said he'd git me again the same way, and stick me in the mud till the buzzards picked my eyes out. I was scared to death. It's horrible to get bunged and beat. I begged Maw to keep Pap from beatin' me again, but he beats her, too, and she said nobody but God could keep him from beatin' me up. Just as he was about to git me, here comes God with the longest legs on earth, and he reached out his long arms an' got Pap and shook all the red eye out of him he's poured in fer a year. Then he ducked him until he got sobered up. Mam says Pap won't beat me no more, she'll bet on it, 'cause God--He can git anywhere on them legs, in twenty minutes."

This story was told between snubs and sobs, and the dirty dress sleeve was called into use between sentences to dry the tearful eyes and dripping nose.

Ann Rutledge was interested.

"So God came to help you?"

"Yep--his name is Abe Lincoln--he told Pap."

"Abe Lincoln!" Ann exclaimed. Then she rode a long way without speaking. She was thinking. The name brought the picture of a strong, elemental man, seemingly older than his years, a man who had said he was going to play fair with God, a man whom Nance Cameron had pronounced the homeliest creature that God ever put breath in.

"There's home," the child presently said, "and, _there's the pig_."

Ann looked. A small black pig with a white spot on its flank. She knew the pig.

But when she dismounted to examine the pig she found its ear cut with two slits and a cross.

"We found it in the pen. At first I couldn't believe it," Mrs. Kelly exclaimed. "It looked a bit fatter than mine, but it's ear was fresh marked; I cut it myself. And I thanked God it had come back."

"You thanked God," Ann observed as if to herself.

"Yes--for it's our only winter meat. And when it got out again I was sick over it--and likely it will get away some more, for Kelly never fixed a pen that would hold, in his life."

"I'll help you fix the pen," Ann said, and she did, meantime wondering about the pig, for she would have sworn it was her own.