CHAPTER XXVIII

"HE'S RUINT HISSELF FOREVER"

There was no one in New Salem surprised when it began to be whispered about that Abe Lincoln was setting up to Ann Rutledge.

Indeed that seemed quite the natural thing. Both were favorites. Both were different in some ways from any others, perhaps superior, and both were everybody's friends. The wonderful change in Ann, too, was a source of pleasure to all who knew her, for she had not been able to hide the disappointment and embarrassment through which she had passed.

Abe Lincoln had always been fairly happy so far as any one knew. He seemed even more happy now, and quite naturally the people charged this to Ann Rutledge, and the two words, "Ann and Abe," began to be everywhere linked together. It was not until Thanksgiving, however, that any definite announcement was made. This was at a dinner, the biggest and jolliest ever given in New Salem.

"Mother," John Rutledge had said to his wife, "the increase has been fair, but we've more than increase to be thankful for. Ann's got back to herself again. Fact, there never was a time in all her life when her singing sounded so good to me as now, and she laughs as if there were no such thing in the world as trouble. Then I'm not sorry she and Abe fixed things up. Abe Lincoln's got some future, sure as two and two make four. It does seem outside the bounds of all reason that a young backwoodsman that never went to school and has had more hard knocks than ten men generally stands up under, could ever get to be Governor of Illinois. Yet who knows--who knows?"

"John," Mrs. Rutledge answered, "you're getting visionary. Just 'cause you like Abe Lincoln uncommon well and he's going to marry our Ann ain't any sign he'll ever get to any such exalted position as Governor."

"I don't know. He's doing fairly--fairly. He's the youngest member in the Legislature. His life is before him. He's going to finish law next year, and Major Stuart says there's no man, old or young, in this state to-day that knows the Constitution like Abe Lincoln. He may never get there, but I'd not die of surprise if he did. And I'm waiting with interest to see what stand he takes down at Vandalia. But getting back to Thanksgiving, we have uncommon things to be thankful for, Abe has no home and like as not nobody ever had a dinner for him. Let Abe and Ann have a dinner and invite in some of the young people."

This plan suited Mrs. Rutledge. Abe and Ann were delighted and preparations were at once begun. There were mince and pumpkin pies, and cakes and plum pudding to be baked, and the tenderest pig and the biggest turkey on the farm were to be roasted. The cellar and store-house were raided and in the woods Ann had the good fortune to find a vine with shining leaves and blue-black berries which she twined about a great bouquet of evergreen set in a frame of shining, red apples in the middle of the table.

Abe stayed near Ann, and once when she was making pastry for jam tarts he kissed her, until in self-defense she powdered his black hair white with her flour-dusted hands, and Mrs. Rutledge laughed until she had to rest her ample body in an easy chair.

This incident was not long in getting out, for Nance, who was present, told it at singing-school, and it was passed around with as genuine a feeling of pleasure as if those telling it were themselves being kissed.

"I've been looking for just this kind of love-affair for Abe Lincoln," Hannah Armstrong said. "The kind that's taking up with everything that swings petticoats only has skin-deep cases, but there's others has bone cases. When it gets in the bone, ain't any use ever trying to get it out."

The afternoon before Thanksgiving, Abe Lincoln announced that he was going to Springfield on an important mission. What it was he told nobody but Ann's mother. Ann had an idea the mission had something to do with the festivities of the next day, but no hint was dropped as to what it was.

With Thanksgiving came the dinner and the merriment about the long table of laughing and story-telling with jokes about Ann and Abe, for as yet the progress of their courtship was not definitely known.

Abe and Ann had been put side by side in two chairs which Nance and other girls had decorated with strings of pop-corn and sprigs of green. When the dinner was at last over, Abe arose and, stretching himself to his full height and stepping behind Ann's chair, said, "There are all sorts of Thanksgivin's and all sorts of things to be thankful for. But there will never be another one like this, for I have asked Ann Rutledge, the sweetest girl in all the world, to be my wife, and she has done me the honor of givin' me her promise. I have here a little band of gold to be put on that finger which it is said sends the channels of its blood directest to the heart. It has words inside which carry the world's greatest message. Hold out your hand, Ann."

The speech was a surprise. Every eye was turned on Ann as Abe Lincoln took her hand and slipped the little band on her third finger. John Rutledge leaned eagerly forward. Immediately there was a great clapping of hands and then the young people gathered around Ann to see the ring and to learn the message that Abe had had put in the ring.

"Read it Ann--read it," they cried.

And Ann, her face shining with joy and pink with blushes, read, "Love is eternal."

She looked at Abraham Lincoln. Their eyes met a moment, then he bent down and kissed her, and again the young companions shouted and laughed and, when there were none of them looking his way, Ann's father wiped his eyes.

* * * * *

Just a few days later Abraham Lincoln made ready to go to Vandalia, seventy-five miles from New Salem, to represent Sangamon County. As usual he had no money, but he had no trouble borrowing enough to buy a cheap suit, which was the best, however, he had as yet put on his back. John Rutledge furnished the horse, and Ann and her mother looked after his simple outfit.

"Abraham," Ann said when she surveyed him in his new suit, "you look so nice, only your tie is crooked."

He pulled it around, saying, "Such a nuisance. What are they good for, anyhow?"

Ann laughed. "You've got it as far out of line under your left ear now as you had it before under the right," she said. "Let me fix it for you." Stepping on a foot-stool she motioned him to stand before her, and straightened his tie.

"Abraham," she said in despair before he left the house, "it's crooked again--your tie."

"Let it alone," was his answer. "The tie is all right. It's my neck that's crooked."

After he had gone Ann began spinning, piecing quilts and hemming linen in preparation for a spring wedding.

Both John Rutledge and Ann heard from Sangamon County's representative. To the father he wrote that he was forming a plan to have the state capitol moved from Vandalia to Springfield, in his opinion a much better point than the small place down the country. What he wrote to Ann nobody asked. Sometimes she let her father and mother read the letters. Once John Rutledge read, "I am glad you are so well--so strong, so happy, my little pilgrim. The world is a new world, Ann, now that I have you. I feel some insistent force pushing me on to something--I do not know what. But with the love of a woman like you, there are no heights a man dare not reach out for."

Meantime discussion in New Salem about Lincoln kept up. Almost every man in town was of the opinion that Abe was going to be somebody, but they all waited to see what he would stand for in this his first experience as representative of the people.

It came at last. Abraham Lincoln had gone on record in favor of woman suffrage and against slavery.

When this news was told in the little group of which Ole Bar happened to be one, he was for a moment struck dumb with disappointment. Then with impressive profanity he burst out, "A bar would have more sense. Couldn't he find nothin' in Vandalyer to take up but wimmin and niggers? He's ruint hisself forever."