CHAPTER XXXIII

"WHERE IS ABE LINCOLN?"

News of the death of Ann Rutledge spread quickly, even Snoutful Kelly taking the news to Muddy Point, and though there was much sickness in the vicinity a large number gathered around the open grave where her young body was to be put away. Even Clary Grove, with a constitutional dislike for funerals, was well represented, and Ole Bar, who had made his boast that he had never been to a "berrying" in his life, stood back behind the trees, holding tight a flower which he had picked to put on the grave.

Most of those present came from a genuine love of Abe and Ann. Some came to see how the strongest man and greatest lover in Sangamon County would take his bitter loss.

These were disappointed. Standing as he did, head and shoulders above any other man in the community, it would have been unnecessary to look for the chief mourner. And yet every eye around the grave searched for Abe Lincoln.

While the preacher was trying to give words of hope and consolation to the bereaved ones it was quiet in the place of graves except for subdued sobs. But when the singers began the old, plaint hymn.

Asleep in Jesus, blessed sleep, From which none ever wakes to weep,

sobs broke out everywhere, for the melody carried to the saddened hearts about the open grave more than the words of the preacher had done, the pain-filled consciousness that the voice of the gladdest, sweetest singer of them all was hushed forever.

After the simple burial rites were over, Nance Cameron, Miss Rogers and others brought armfuls of early goldenrod and asters which they had gathered, to cover the low mound of the best-loved girl in New Salem.

It was not until the company had gone that Ole Bar came out of the woods, and, kneeling by the grave, put his lone flower over the place where under the earth her hands were folded.

From the dead, interest turned to the living, and the one question asked by his friends was: "Where is Abe Lincoln?" Dr. Allen asked Mrs. Rutledge. She did not know and asked John Rutledge. He did not know. William Green was asked and Mentor Graham. Nobody knew anything about Lincoln.

Early the morning after the day of the funeral, Katy Kelly looked out and saw a man coming.

"Ma," she called, "there's an old man comin' to our place."

Visitors being almost unheard of out there, Mrs. Kelly looked out. For a moment she seemed puzzled. The man was somewhat stooped and walking slowly. It was none other than Abraham Lincoln.

"Howdy, Mrs. Kelly," he said wearily. "I was passing by and thought I'd stop a minute."

Mrs. Kelly hastened into her one room and cleared off the only chair in the house.

"Ma," whispered Katy, not knowing she had ever seen him before, "What's ailin' of that old man?"

"Shut up," her mother whispered. "His gal's dead, and he's not got over it yet." Then to Lincoln she said: "You look nigh starved, Mr. Linking. We hain't much, but if you was to refuse I'd feel powerful hurt."

"But I'm not hungry at all--I couldn't eat. I've been over about Concord and just stopped to get a drink of water."

"We've got a cow since Kelly got broke up from dram drinkin'. You'll take a cup of milk, I'm sure."

He drank the milk, thanked her and went on. She watched him until he disappeared behind the trees. "He's a awful-sized man to take it to heart so. Don't he know there's as good fish in the sea as has ever been caught?"

The second night that Abe Lincoln was missing a few of his close friends held a council at Dr. Allen's house. William Green was there and Mentor Graham. Dr. Allen had been telling them that Lincoln himself had not been well for several weeks. The suggestion that he might have, in a moment of despair, ended his life was not reasonable to those who knew him. Neither was Dr. Allen of the opinion that the shock would impair his reason.

"Lincoln is large in all ways. He has a great mind and a great heart. He has been a great lover--the greatest lover that ever lived in these parts. Just now he is numbed by the shock of his loss as one is numbed by a great blow. He is somewhere alone in his grief--no telling where. But unless he has food and medical attention, he too may follow Ann shortly. We must find him."

While they were discussing his whereabouts, Lincoln was, as Dr. Allen had supposed, alone with his grief.

After a night by the grave of his dead, Abe Lincoln set out at twilight of the second day to visit the places where she who seemed yet living had lived.

Turning his face toward New Salem he made his way slowly along the well-known roadway to the place where he had dropped his bundle and listened on a never-to-be-forgotten night to a sweet voice singing on the heights. Then he had been a friendly stranger in New Salem. How fast the years had gone. What long and patient waiting and what fulness of joy had been their measure. But now the cup was bitter to the brim with the stupefying potion of dead hope and the gall of human loss.

In the shadow of the bluff he paused. He moved nearer the bluff, raised his face and, with a feverish expectancy, listened. As he stood the drowsy stillness was broken by the far, faint tinkle of a cow-bell. For a moment the mirage of hope set his heart beating with spasmodic joy. It was all a fearful dream--all a heart crushing unreality. She was yet up on the heights, alive, glad, singing and shouting. He listened, even straining his ear for the first notes of her glad, free song.

As if she were not yet beyond sound of his voice he called: "Ann! Ann!" Again he listened intently.

The gray of twilight deepened. The dim music of the far-away bell dissolved itself in a pervading hush, and all was still.

In a voice suggesting the pain of a fresh blow, the man in the shadow whispered with upturned face, "Ann! Ann!" The whisper, too, was gathered into the all-enveloping gloom and silence.

He went a little farther on, the soft music of water running over stones came to his ear. It was the stream in the schoolroom where ferns had been books and God had been the teacher.

Mechanically he turned toward it. The swollen stream across which he had carried Ann on a night not so long ago was smaller now. He stepped across.

The gray of the open road deepened in the fern-dell into gloom. But no light was needed to bring to the vision of the man the picture of one he yet sought in the land of the living. Again he saw her with the sun-shine falling over the red-gold tresses of her wreath-bound hair as she sat on the ledge of rock. Again he heard her voice but he was too numb now to remember its message.

Groping his way to the stone, he knelt beside it and spread his hands over the place where she had sat. His fingers came in contact with dead leaves. Feeling along the way they lay he found the wreath, yet there, that had been a crown on May day. Lifting it gently he cried: "Oh, Ann! Ann! It cannot be. You have not gone away forever! You will come back to me! We will have our little home! Oh, Ann! Ann!" His pleading voice ended in a groan. He dropped his face against the faded leaves.

How long he remained by the rock and the wreath he did not know. After a time, like a crushed and wounded animal, he crept from the place and proceeded on his way toward the village.

He walked slowly a few minutes, then, as if drawn by some pleasant fancy, he quickened his pace. The rear of the mill-dam had caught his ear. He was going to the mill. Here was a place that she had said seemed sacred to her, and he was glad when the dark outlines of the mill stood out against the growing shadows. The double doors stood open, just as they had before. He went into the building and out on the platform over the river, just as he had before. The foam of the falling water shone white in the pale light, just as it had before. The trees cast their shadows and the stars their bright reflections, just as before. He leaned against the doorway as he had done once before when in great gloom, then he waited for the one to come who had brought the light.

Several times he turned toward the door as if expecting to see the fair-faced girl emerging from the dusky gray and coming toward him. In a sort of numb expectancy he waited. Once he reached out his long arm as if to encircle some near object, but there were only shadows in the dark.

After a time he took the little ring from his pocket. He moved near the edge of the platform. He lifted the frail, little token of eternal love to his lips and held it there a moment. Then he reached his long arm out over the foaming water and with a groan let the ring fall into the depths of the smoothly flowing Sangamon.

As if loath to leave the place he turned back from the doorway and, leaning against the wall, looked out into the darkness. Shortly after he had done so, someone touched him gently on the arm. With a great start he cried: "Ann! Ann!"

A small figure drew back slightly and a voice said: "I've been lookin' fer you, Abry Linkhorn. You're worse than a bee to run down."

The man hesitated a second, then he held out his hand and said, "Howdy, partner. What did you want with me?"

"I've been numerous in bar hunts as you've heard tell, but I haven't never gone to no berryin', so help me God, but the berryin' of your Ann. And I wouldn't have gone for no one else's 'ceptin' it was you."

"I wish it had been," the man said.

"Maybe so, but since I was thar and you wasn't thar and I heard something that made me pestiferous glad I went, I thought you would like to hear about it."

"You are kind to think of me. What could have made you feel glad?"

"It made me feel glad to learn that God's not--not a damn fool."

"How did you learn this?"

"From the berryin' itself. The parson read out of a book that when this here meat body changes into the other kind like Ann Rutledge has, then death is swallered up in victory. Don't this sound like God's got horse-sense?"

"I don't know anything about God." And there was bitterness in the answer.

"Yeh, you do. You know nothin' but God could make a gal like your Ann Rutledge. And if God's not a blame fool he made her for something more than the little time she's spent in this here New Salem. I'm not promiscuous enough to tell it like the parson, but I'm tellin' you, Abry Linkhorn, that when I set by that grave and put my flower over the place where her hands was berried and said what I didn't never have words to say when she was here about thankin' her for remembering poor Ole Bar, I _know_ she heard it. She didn't say nothin', but I seen her smile and I know--I know--curse it, I can't tell what I know. But Ann Rutledge ain't blowed out like no candle. I know this. And I am glad. And I'm glad, too, Abry Linkhorn, that she wasn't none of my gal. If you'd seen John Rutledge standin' beside that grave you'd been glad she wasn't no flesh and blood of yourn. I never knew before that grizzle-tops like him, that's men, and not chipper-perkers, liked gals so well. He didn't make no noise like her mother did, but it's still water that runs deep and he'll have the heart-bleeds for many a changin' moon."

"Poor Rutledge," Lincoln said brokenly. "I must go to see him."

"Yep, and there's others you ought to go to see, and you can't get started none too quick. The whole kit and posse of 'em's' about to start searchin' fer you; Clary Grove to boot. Any reason why you should make your friends beat the bushes when walking's good and you ain't no cripple?"

It was this appeal that turned the steps of Lincoln to the home of Dr. Allen as he and William Green yet sat discussing him.

As Ole Bar and Abe Lincoln passed Rutledge Inn, the latter looked across the street. A light burned in the window of the room where Ann's little sewing-table had been.

The tall man hesitated and moved on.