“We sure did.”
“We sure did. But instead he said something very different.” Thomas Lincoln affected a rich voice unlike either his own hoarse rasp or Saunders’s guttural growl. “‘You’re looking for the esteemed Abraham Lincoln? Abraham Lincoln, Esquire? Why, at this hour you’ll be likely to find him over at Spotswood’s smoking room, the finest establishment in town, where gentlemen of the fine character of Abraham Lincoln, Esquire, are given to lounge in repose at this time of evening.’”
“I very much doubt those were his exact words,” said Lincoln.
“Exact words? Or course not. How am I supposed to remember his exact words? But that sure was the impression he gave us. Wasn’t it, Johnnie? ‘The esteemed Abraham Lincoln, Esquire.’”
“Sure was,” said Johnston. “’Course, those weren’t his exact words, right?” He guffawed and elbowed his stepfather in the ribs.
Lincoln’s facial muscles were frozen in place. I could tell he would have given anything to be anywhere other than here, now. I tried to come to his rescue.
“Where are you two men traveling from?” I asked.
“Let’s see,” said Thomas Lincoln, still slurping at his bowl. “Yesterday we was in Athens. And the day before that we was in Bloomington.”
“And tomorrow?” asked Lincoln.
“Tomorrow? Why, I think we’ll be in Springfield tomorrow, most likely—”
“At least, that’s our intention,” broke in John Johnston, turning to his stepfather with an eager grin.
“Don’t be a bore, Johnnie. We’ve all left that one behind. We’ll be here in Springfield tomorrow. Be here for several days, I should think. We’re hoping you’ll conduct us around town, Abe. Show us the sights. Introduce us to your friends. That is, in addition to Mr.… what’d you say your name was?”
“Speed. Joshua Fry Speed.” I’d told him twice previously.
“In addition to Mr. Joshua Fry Speed. I’m sure you’ve got quite a few other friends for us to meet, knowing how much you like to chatter about. Now, where are you from, Mr. Speed?”
“Louisville. I moved here four years ago—”
“Kentucky? Why, we’re from Kentucky, too—me and Abe and Johnnie. Not a fancy town like Louisville, mind you. Little speck of spit called Sinking Spring. Course, these boys did most of their growing up across the border in Indiana, along Pigeon Creek.”
“So Abraham’s told me,” I said, trying to keep from smiling.
“You should of seen Abe in Indiana, Mr. Speed. What a rascal! The smartest boy for miles around. But a goddamned troublemaker, I’ll tell you.” Thomas Lincoln’s face was lit up by a grin now—not unlike his son’s face as he warmed to a story, I considered—and he gave Lincoln a hearty slap on the back.
“You should of seen him in Pigeon Creek. You remember the time with your dear mother and the whitewashed ceiling? Remember that one, Abe?”
“I do,” said Lincoln, his expression still tense and drawn.
“Remember it, Johnnie?” continued Thomas Lincoln.
“I do,” said John Johnston, with a lack of enthusiasm matching his stepbrother’s.
Thomas Lincoln turned to me. “Let me tell you what happened, Mr. Joshua Fry Speed. Abe and Johnnie’s mother, Sarah—this is my second wife, Johnnie’s blood mother. Technically Abe’s stepmother, but no blood mother ever loved her son more than my Sarah loves my Abraham. Isn’t that so, Abe?”
“It is,” said Lincoln quietly. I looked back and forth between him and John Johnston. The starkly contrasting expressions on the faces of the two sons, one by blood, the other by marriage, pointed to the same conclusion: Thomas Lincoln had just uttered a deep truth.
“Anyhow,” continued Thomas Lincoln. He stopped and shook his head. “I’m losing my own story. My mind ain’t what it was. Where was I?”
“Whitewashed ceiling,” I suggested. Lincoln shot me an aggrieved glance, which I ignored. Even if Lincoln couldn’t, I could see Thomas Lincoln had real feeling for his son. It seemed unkind to deprive him of his reminiscence.
“Exactly! Whitewashed ceiling. See, my wife Sarah, she was mighty proud of her nice whitewashed rafters. They was about the only part of her house she could keep clean, what with all them kids underfoot. Now as Abe grew and grew, she was always on him about keeping his head washed. Because he got to be so tall that any dirt on his hair rubbed against her rafters and caused them to lose their shine.
“Now what do you suppose this goddamned Abe did? He agreed to keep his head washed, all right. But one morning after it rained, he gathered three little boys from the neighborhood. He must of been—what? How old was you when this happened, Abraham?”
“Fourteen.”
“Sixteen, I think it was. He must of been sixteen. And he got three boys, ages seven or nine, something of the sort. And he told ’em he’d give ’em a penny each if they walked through a mud puddle. Well, that was the dumbest thing he’d done in his whole life, goddammit! You don’t got to pay ’em a penny! Ain’t been a nine-year-old boy born yet who wouldn’t walk through a mud puddle for free.” Thomas Lincoln roared with laughter and slapped his son on the back again.
“Anyhow, after he’d paid ’em a penny each and they’d walked through the mud, one at a time he picked ’em up, held ’em upside down, and carried ’em into our house. And he told ’em to walk their muddy feet up and down my Sarah’s whitewashed rafters. And of course they did it—you ain’t got to pay ’em a penny to walk through the mud, Abe!—and a little bit later my Sarah comes home and opens her door and screams. Every inch of her precious whitewashed rafters is covered with muddy footprints.
“Now what do you suppose my dear wife did next, Mr. Joshua Fry Speed?”
“Whipped him?”
“Nah. He was too big for that. More important, he was too loved. Too goddamned loved! After Sarah got done screaming, she started laughing. And she laughed and she laughed until tears ran down her face. And then she called for Abe and they looked at the footprints on the rafters together, arms around each other’s waists, and they laughed together. You should of seen it! ’Course, then she ordered him to scrub up her ceiling till it was like new, and ’course he agreed, being the good son he was.”
Thomas Lincoln reached up and ran his aged hand through Lincoln’s hair. With a great, almost tangible, effort, Lincoln did not pull away. John Johnston glowered.
Throughout his stepfather’s story, Johnston’s irritation had been visibly building. He was about the same age as Lincoln, maybe a year or two younger, but that was the extent of the similarities between the stepbrothers. Johnston was slight and blond-headed, with a wispy beard and a delicate nose. His clothes carried a sheen that suggested a studied attempt to obscure the poverty of the wearer. As Thomas Lincoln’s story came to its end, what remained of Johnston’s self-control gave way.
“Tell ’em about what happened the other night, Papa,” he said eagerly.
“What other night?” Thomas Lincoln was still staring at Lincoln and shaking his head at the wonder of those muddy footprints all up and down his wife’s whitewashed rafters.
“The other night in Bloomington, when we fooled that barkeep into giving us a second pour of whiskey for nothing.”
“You go ahead and tell ’em if you like, Johnnie.”
Johnston’s face fell further. He hesitated. “Maybe another time. Can’t give away all our tricks, can we?” He fiddled with one of the buttons on his coat. “So, Abe, how’re you making out with the womenfolk of Springfield?”
Lincoln turned toward his stepbrother. “Fine, I suppose, John.”
“‘Fine?’ Just ‘fine?’” Johnston looked directly at me for the first time. “Did Abe ever tell you, Mr. Speed, what went on with him and the fairer sex back when he was living in New Salem?”
“I’m not sure I consider it any of my—”
“He must not of. I’m going to tell you. There was this girl he had a fancy for. Name of Ann. Ann Winkhouse … Rutland. Something along
them lines.”
“Johnnie—” began Thomas Lincoln, but Johnston waved him aside and continued his story. Johnston thrust his chest forward, mimicking, whether consciously or not, the posture his stepfather had assumed during his tale.
“Anyway, this Ann happens to be betrothed to another man. Our Abe is too proper, too honest, to make a play for her, even though it’s obvious to everyone he wants to. What’s more, this beau fellow of Ann’s is off in the wilds somewhere, so Abe’s stuck. He’s got no one to fight for Ann’s hand.
“Now, as time passes, Ann falls for our Abe. How could you not, just looking at him?” Johnston laughed; Lincoln’s eyes were diverted to the ground. “But her beau’s still nowhere to be found. So they keep on waiting. And then it turns out this other fellow’s a fraud, a trickster. Turns out Abe knew this other fellow all along, only he knew him by a different name than the one he’d given Ann. He was a trickster, and he was playing Ann for a sucker. Playing Abe for one too, if you think about it.”
Johnston paused for a breath and finally took notice of the look of censure on Thomas Lincoln’s face. Johnston opened and closed his mouth, then opened it again and said to me, “That’s about the extent of the tale, if you ain’t heard that one before.”
Turning to Lincoln, he added, “Whatever happened to Ann Rutland? You don’t talk much about her no more.”
“Ann Rutledge,” said Lincoln in a voice so low it was hard to hear. “She died of brain fever. Not quite three years ago.”
“Oh.” There was a long pause. I could hear Saunders banging a pot around in the kitchen next to us. “Sorry, Abe. I didn’t realize—I didn’t mean to … I guess you didn’t ever bother to tell me about it.”
Thomas Lincoln struggled to his feet. “You’ll have to excuse John’s lack of common sense this evening, Mr. Speed,” he said. “We’ve had a long day on the trail and we’re both in need of a good night’s sleep. Let’s go, Johnnie. We’ll find a tree in the fields to sleep under.”
“I’m afraid our room is too crowded as it is, but I can arrange a berth for you upstairs here at the Globe,” said Lincoln. He was on his feet as well.
“No need for that,” said the elder Lincoln. “We’ll be fine in the fields, won’t we Johnnie? On a beautiful summer’s night like tonight? Couldn’t be finer, just us and the heavens. Besides, we don’t want to bother you any more than we have already. My esteemed Abraham Lincoln, Esquire.”
He took a step toward Lincoln, his hands outstretched, but Lincoln shrank back and Thomas Lincoln ended up patting his son awkwardly on the wrist. Then he grabbed his stepson by the coat collar and pulled him roughly to his feet. Without another word, the two men walked from the room.
CHAPTER 4
The next morning Lincoln and I were back at the Globe, sitting amid a dozen other men at the common table in the public room, waiting for Saunders to bring us breakfast. The Globe had once been the embodiment of progress in the frontier town, but now it was showing its age: its walls peeling, its ceiling cracked, and the odors of the stables out back seeping in through grimy windowpanes. Its location right around the corner from our lodgings was about all that still recommended it for breakfast.
Around us, conversation buzzed about the confrontation between Early and Truett. Though only one or two of our breakfast companions had been present at Spotswood’s, every man not only was well versed in the particulars of the dispute but also had formed a definite opinion about which combatant was to blame.
“Attempted assassination … right in the middle of the gentlemen’s smoking room, can you believe it?” said one man.
“Truett came in looking for trouble,” said another. “Otherwise, why would he have concealed his pistol under his coat?”
“Early’s at fault for being a busybody,” said a third. “He runs the land office like he’s got a warrant to look into the affairs of every man who walks through his doors.”
“He’s not a busybody,” interjected Lincoln, coming to the defense of his ally. “He’s merely attempting to do a professional job. A welcome change from the way the land office has been run in the past.”
“Won’t be his job for long, once the Democrats prevail at the ballot,” rejoined the man. “As they will when your man Stuart falls flat on his face, Lincoln.” He punched my friend good-naturedly in the shoulder.
“I deny it,” said Lincoln, smiling, “but I will admit public brawling is bad for the town of Springfield. It’s not the impression we want to project, not with the state capital arriving.”
“I think it’s very good for business,” came a new voice. “Mine, at least.” Looking up, I saw the distinctive, egg-shaped figure of the newspaperman Simeon Francis, publisher of the Sangamo Journal, settling himself into a chair opposite us. The rotund publisher was in his shirtsleeves, the white cloth dotted by splotches of printer’s ink. Several days’ irregular growth of whiskers clung to his weak, receding chin.
“You can’t sell enough papers merely covering the election, Simeon?” I asked.
“People tire rapidly,” the newspaperman said with an assured wave of his short arms, “of reading about politicians discussing politics. There’s only so much artifice, so much deep contrivance, a man can take with his porridge. But attempted murder? A man’ll stay interested in that, week after week. And his wife will, too.”
The men around us nodded with strenuous agreement. Simeon let out a contented sigh. Then he added, “Speaking of deep contrivance, Lincoln, there’s an item in today’s Democrat that’s intended for you, I should think.”
The newspaperman slid a copy of the Illinois Democrat across the table. It was the other newspaper in town, as reliably supporting the Democratic political position as Simeon’s Journal supported the Whig cause. “Look at the bottom of page two, on the right,” he added. “The letter from ‘S.G.’”
I looked over Lincoln’s shoulder at the sheet. There was a notice offering a reward for the return of “a runaway Negro man who calls himself Newton, about fifteen years old, with light skin and an impertinent manner, who fled from his owners at Roman Hall under false pretenses.” Further down the page was a short report on the camp meeting of religious revival that had been going on in the small forest west of town all spring, a gathering that had occasioned controversy in equal measure to the number of souls who had professed to have experienced justification by faith in atonement of their sins.
In between these two items appeared the following letter:
July 1, 1838
Lost Township, Ill.
To the Editor of the Democrat:
Every right-minded man living in Sangamon County must support the Democrats in the upcoming election. The Democrats have solutions for our turbulent, uncertain times, solutions for the problems the hapless Whigs have foist upon all of us. The Whigs have only ideas that created the Panic and Depression in the first place. And they are led by a certain person (I ignore the term ‘gentleman’, for it fits not) of great height and low intellect, who has tried a variety of occupations, both here and elsewhere, before coming to the Legislature. He has Failed and Failed in all of them. This person is hereby Warned that his remaining days are Numbered. Judgment is coming.
S.G.
“Why do you assume, Simeon,” Lincoln asked, a grin spread across his face, “I am the man of ‘great height and low intellect’ in question? Surely there are others around who answer that description.”
“Others of some height, perhaps,” replied the newspaperman, amusement lurking around his fleshy eyes. “But great height combined with spectacularly low intellect? You’re the only one it could possibly be.”
Lincoln and several of the other men sitting near us laughed heartily. Simeon added, “Besides, you’re the only target big enough to be worthy of such a challenge.”
Lincoln remained jovial, but I felt my heart beating as I read the letter a second time. “Who do you suppose this S.G. fellow is?” I asked. “And it sounds like a threat to me. One you should tak
e seriously.”
“It’s not a threat, it’s a compliment,” said Lincoln. “No one but my political opponents is after me. And all they want is my seat in the legislature.”
“There must have been two or three anonymous letters in every issue of the Democrat over the past month,” added Simeon, nodding. “In my Journal, too. This time of the election season, everyone thinks they’ve got a message to deliver, whether it makes any sense or not. And the less sense it makes, the more likely they are to conceal their identity.”
“As for ‘S.G.’…” Lincoln looked up and down the common table at our fellow diners, each of whom had examined the letter for himself by now. “Any guesses?” There was a low murmur of conversation, followed by a chorus of shaking heads. “Me neither. I can’t think of a single man in the county with those initials. Though I’m sure one will come to me.”
Saunders appeared with scalding coffee and a steaming plate of buckwheat cakes. Thirty minutes later Lincoln and I finished eating and walked out together into the bright sunshine.
“Can you spare a minute?” Lincoln asked. “I’m making a call, and I’d value your company.”
“Sure. Are we going to visit your father and stepbrother?”
He made a face. “Later, I’ll have to. Alone. To try to hustle them out of town at once. I’m sorry you had to meet them last night.”
“Don’t be foolish. I enjoyed them.”
“They were—are—an embarrassment.”
From the expression on Lincoln’s face, I felt certain that the unexpected arrival in town of his unwelcome relations during the election season was far more concerning to him than the anonymous letter from S.G.
“Not to me, they weren’t,” I said. “Besides, name me one man who doesn’t get embarrassed by his own family at least once a week.”
Lincoln muttered to himself and shook his head. We started walking toward the town square. “It’s not them we’re going to see. There’s someone … I’d like you to meet her. Properly, that is.”
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