The Crisis — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER III. IN WHICH STEPHEN LEARNS SOMETHING

  It was Mr. Lincoln who brought him back. The astonishing candidate forthe Senate had sunk into his chair, his face relaxed into sadness savefor the sparkle lurking in the eyes. So he sat, immobile, until thelaughter had died down to silence. Then he turned to Stephen.

  "Sonny," he said, "did you want to see me?"

  Stephen was determined to be affable and kind, and (shall we say it?)he would not make Mr. Lincoln uncomfortable either by a superiority ofEnglish or the certain frigidity of manner which people in the West saidhe had. But he tried to imagine a Massachusetts senator, Mr. Sumner,for instance, going through the rat story, and couldn't. Somehow,Massachusetts senators hadn't this gift. And yet he was not quite surethat it wasn't a fetching gift. Stephen did not quite like to becalled "Sonny." But he looked into two gray eyes, and at the face, andsomething curious happened to him. How was he to know that thousands ofhis countrymen were to experience the same sensation?

  "Sonny," said Mr. Lincoln again, "did you want to see me?"

  "Yes, sir." Stephen wondered at the "sir." It had been involuntary. Hedrew from his inner pocket the envelope which the Judge had given him.

  Mr. Lincoln ripped it open. A document fell out, and a letter. He putthe document in his tall hat, which was upside down on the floor. As hegot deeper into the letter, he pursed his mouth, and the lines of hisface deepened in a smile. Then he looked up, grave again.

  "Judge Whipple told you to run till you found me, did he, Mr. Brice?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Is the Judge the same old criss-cross, contrary, violent fool that healways was?"

  Providence put an answer in Stephen's mouth.

  "He's been very good to me, Mr. Lincoln."

  Mr. Lincoln broke into laughter.

  "Why, he's the biggest-hearted man I know. You know him, Oglesby,--SilasWhipple. But a man has to be a Daniel or a General Putnam to ventureinto that den of his. There's only one man in the world who can beardSilas, and he's the finest states-right Southern gentleman you ever saw.I mean Colonel Carvel. You've heard of him, Oglesby. Don't they quarrelonce in a while, Mr. Brice?"

  "They do have occasional arguments," said Stephen, amused.

  "Arguments!" cried Mr. Lincoln; "well, I couldn't come as near tofighting every day and stand it. If my dog and Bill's dog across thestreet walked around each other and growled for half a day, and thenlay down together, as Carvel and Whipple do, by Jing, I'd put pepper ontheir noses--"

  "I reckon Colonel Carvel isn't a fighting man," said some one, atrandom.

  Strangely enough, Stephen was seized with a desire to vindicate theColonel's courage. Both Mr. Lincoln and Judge Oglesby forestalled him.

  "Not a fighting man!" exclaimed the Judge. "Why, the other day--"

  "Now, Oglesby," put in Mr. Lincoln, "I wanted to tell that story."

  Stephen had heard it, and so have we. But Mr. Lincoln's imitation of theColonel's drawl brought him a pang like homesickness.

  "'No, suh, I didn't intend to shoot. Not if he had gone off straight.But he wriggled and twisted like a rattlesnake, and I just couldn'tresist, suh. Then I sent m'nigger Ephum to tell him not to let me catchsight of him 'round the Planters' House. Yes, suh, that's what he was.One of these damned Yankees who come South and go into nigger-deals andpolitics."'

  Mr. Lincoln glanced at Stephen, and then again at the Judge's letter. Hetook up his silk hat and thrust that, too, into the worn lining, whichwas already filled with papers. He clapped the hat on his head, andbuttoned on his collar.

  "I reckon I'll go for a walk, boys," he said, "and clear my head, so asto be ready for the Little Giant to-morrow at Freeport. Mr. Brice, doyou feel like walking?"

  Stephen, taken aback, said that he did.

  "Now, Abe, this is just durned foolishness," one of the gentlemenexpostulated. "We want to know if you're going to ask Douglas thatquestion."

  "If you do, you kill yourself, Lincoln," said another, who Stephenafterwards learned was Mr. Medill, proprietor of the great 'Press andTribune'.

  "I guess I'll risk it, Joe," said Mr. Lincoln, gravely. Suddenly comesthe quiver about the corners of his mouth and the gray eyes respond."Boys," said he, "did you ever hear the story of farmer Bell, down inEgypt? I'll tell it to you, boys, and then perhaps you'll know why I'llask Judge Douglas that question. Farmer Bell had the prize Bartlett peartree, and the prettiest gal in that section. And he thought about thesame of each of 'em. All the boys were after Sue Bell. But therewas only one who had any chance of getting her, and his name was JimRickets. Jim was the handsomest man in that section. He's been hungsince. But Jim had a good deal out of life,--all the appetites, and someof the gratifications. He liked Sue, and he liked a luscious Bartlett.And he intended to have both. And it just so happened that that prizepear tree had a whopper on that year, and old man Bell couldn't talk ofanything else.

  "Now there was an ugly galoot whose name isn't worth mentioning. He knewhe wasn't in any way fit for Sue, and he liked pears about as well asJim Rickets. Well, one night here comes Jim along the road, whistling;to court Susan, and there was the ugly galoot a-yearning on the bankunder the pear tree. Jim was all fixed up, and he says to the galoot,'Let's have a throw.' Now the galoot knew old Bell was looking overthe fence So he says, 'All right,' and he gives Jim the first shot--Jimfetched down the big pear, got his teeth in it, and strolled off to thehouse, kind of pitiful of the galoot for a, half-witted ass. When he gotto the door, there was the old man. 'What are you here for?' sayshe. 'Why,' says Rickets, in his off-hand way, for he always had greatconfidence, 'to fetch Sue.'"

  "The old man used to wear brass toes to keep his boots from wearingout," said Mr. Lincoln, dreamily.

  "You see," continued Mr. Lincoln, "you see the galoot knew that JimRickets wasn't to be trusted with Susan Bell."

  Some of the gentlemen appeared to see the point of this politicalparable, for they laughed uproariously. The others laughed, too. Thenthey slapped their knees, looked at Mr. Lincoln's face, which wasperfectly sober, and laughed again, a little fainter. Then the Judgelooked as solemn as his title.

  "It won't do, Abe," said he. "You commit suicide."

  "You'd better stick to the pear, Abe," said Mr. Medill, "and fightStephen A. Douglas here and now. This isn't any picnic. Do you know whohe is?"

  "Why, yes, Joe," said Mr. Lincoln, amiably. "He's a man with tens ofthousands of blind followers. It's my business to make some of thoseblind followers see."

  By this time Stephen was burning to know the question that Mr. Lincolnwished to ask the Little Giant, and why the other gentlemen were againstit. But Mr. Lincoln surprised him still further in taking him by thearm. Turning to the young reporter, Mr. Hill, who had finished hiswriting, he said:

  "Bob, a little air will do you good. I've had enough of the old boys fora while, and I'm going to talk to somebody any own age."

  Stephen was halfway down the corridor when he discovered that he hadforgotten his hat. As he returned he heard somebody say:

  "If that ain't just like Abe. He stopped to pull a flea out of hisstocking when he was going to fight that duel with Shields, and now he'swalking with boys before a debate with the smartest man in this country.And there's heaps of things he ought to discuss with us."

  "Reckon we haven't got much to do with it," said another, half laughing,half rueful. "There's some things Abe won't stand."

  From the stairs Stephen saw Mr. Lincoln threading his way through thecrowd below, laughing at one, pausing to lay his hand on the shoulderof another, and replying to a rough sally of a third to make the place atumult of guffaws. But none had the temerity to follow him. WhenStephen caught up with him in the little country street, he was talkingearnestly to Mr. Hill, the young reporter of the Press and Tribune. Andwhat do you think was the subject? The red comet in the sky that night.Stephen kept pace in silence with Mr. Lincoln's strides, anothershock in store for him. This rail-splitter, this postmaster, thisflat-boatman, whom he ha
d not credited with a knowledge of the New Code,was talking Astronomy. And strange to say, Mr. Brice was learning.

  "Bob," said Mr. Lincoln, "can you elucidate the problem of the threebodies?"

  To Stephen's surprise, Mr. Hill elucidated.

  The talk then fell upon novels and stories, a few of which Mr. Lincolnseemed to have read. He spoke, among others, of the "Gold Bug." "Thestory is grand," said he, "but it might as well have been written ofRobinson Crusoe's island. What a fellow wants in a book is to know wherehe is. There are not many novels, or ancient works for that matter, thatput you down anywhere."

  "There is that genuine fragment which Cicero has preserved from a lastwork of Aristotle," said Mr. Hill, slyly. "'If there were beings wholived in the depths of the earth, and could emerge through the openfissures, and could suddenly behold the earth, the sea, and the--vaultof heaven--'"

  "But you--you impostor," cried Mr. Lincoln, interrupting, "you're givingus Humboldt's Cosmos."

  Mr. Hill owned up, laughing.

  It is remarkable how soon we accustom ourselves to a strange situation.And to Stephen it was no less strange to be walking over a muddy road ofthe prairie with this most singular man and a newspaper correspondent,than it might have been to the sub-terrestrial inhabitant to emerge onthe earth's surface. Stephen's mind was in the process of a chemicalchange: Suddenly it seemed to him as if he had known this tallIllinoisan always. The whim of the senatorial candidate in choosing himfor a companion he did not then try to account for.

  "Come, Mr. Stephen," said Mr. Lincoln, presently, "where do you hailfrom?"

  "Boston," said Stephen.

  "No!" said Mr. Lincoln, incredulously. "And how does it happen that youcome to me with a message from a rank Abolitionist lawyer in St. Louis?"

  "Is the Judge a friend of yours, sir?" Stephen asked.

  "What!" exclaimed Mr. Lincoln, "didn't he tell you he was?"

  "He said nothing at all, sir, except to tell me to travel until I foundyou."

  "I call the Judge a friend of mine," said Mr. Lincoln. "He may not claimme because I do not believe in putting all slave-owners to the sword."

  "I do not think that Judge Whipple is precisely an Abolitionist, sir."

  "What! And how do you feel, Mr. Stephen?"

  Stephen replied in figures. It was rare with him, and he must havecaught it from Mr. Lincoln.

  "I am not for ripping out the dam suddenly, sir, that would drown thenation. I believe that the water can be drained off in some other way."

  Mr. Lincoln's direct answer to this was to give Stephen stinging slapbetween the shoulder-blades.

  "God bless the boy!" he cried. "He has thought it out. Bob, take thatdown for the Press and Tribune as coming from a rising young politicianof St. Louis."

  "Why," Stephen blurted out, "I--I thought you were an Abolitionist, Mr.Lincoln."

  "Mr. Brice," said Mr. Lincoln, "I have as much use for the BostonLiberator as I have for the Charleston Courier. You may guess how muchthat is. The question is not whether we shall or shall not have slavery,but whether slavery shall stay where it is, or be extended according toJudge Douglas's ingenious plan. The Judge is for breeding worms. I amfor cauterizing the sore so that it shall not spread. But I tell you,Mr. Brice, that this nation cannot exist half slave and half free."

  Was it the slap on the back that opened Stephen's eyes? It was certainthat as they returned to the tavern the man at his side was changed. Heneed not have felt chagrined. Men in high places underestimated Lincoln,or did not estimate him at all. Affection came first. The great warmheart had claimed Stephen as it claimed all who came near it.

  The tavern was deserted save for a few stragglers. Under the dim lightat the bar Mr. Lincoln took off his hat and drew the Judge's letter fromthe lining.

  "Mr. Stephen," said he, "would you like to come to Freeport with meto-morrow and hear the debate?"

  An hour earlier he would have declined with thanks. But now! Now hisface lighted at the prospect, and suddenly fell again. Mr. Lincolnguessed the cause. He laid his hand on the young man's shoulder, andlaughed.

  "I reckon you're thinking of what the Judge will say."

  Stephen smiled.

  "I'll take care of the Judge," said Mr. Lincoln. "I'm not afraid ofhim." He drew forth from the inexhaustible hat a slip of paper, andbegan to write.

  "There," said he, when he had finished, "a friend of mine is going toSpringfield in the morning, and he'll send that to the Judge."

  And this is what he had written:--

  "I have borrowed Steve for a day or two, and guarantee to return him a good Republican. A. LINCOLN."

  It is worth remarking that this was the first time Mr. Brice had beencalled "Steve" and had not resented it.

  Stephen was embarrassed. He tried to thank Mr. Lincoln, but thatgentleman's quizzical look cut him short. And the next remark made himgasp.

  "Look here, Steve," said he, "you know a parlor from a drawing-room.What did you think of me when you saw me to-night?"

  Stephen blushed furiously, and his tongue clave to the roof of hismouth.

  "I'll tell you," said Mr. Lincoln, with his characteristic smile, "youthought that you wouldn't pick me out of a bunch of horses to race withthe Senator."