MAKING LINCOLN A "SON OF MALTA."
When Jasper, some years later, again met Aunt Eastman, she had a yet more curious story to tell about Abraham.
It was spring, and the cherry-trees were in bloom and musical with bees. In the yard a single apple-tree was red with blooms, which made fragrant the air.
"And here comes Johnnie Apple-seed!" said Aunt Olive. "Heaven bless ye! I call ye Johnnie Apple-seed because ye remind me so much of that good man. He was a good man, if he had lost his wits; and ye mean well, just as he did. Smell the apple-blossoms! I don't know but it was him that planted that there tree."
To explain Aunt Olive's remarks, we should say that there once wandered along the banks of the Ohio, a poor wayfaring man who had a singular impression of duty. He felt it to be his calling in life to plant apple-seeds. He would go to a farmer's house, ask for work, and remain at the place a few days or weeks. After he had gone, apple-seeds would be found sprouting about the farm. His journeys were the beginnings of many orchards in the Middle, West, and prairie States.
"I love to smell apple-blossoms," said Aunt Olive. "It reminds me of old New England. I can almost hear the bells ring on the old New England hills when I smell apple-blooms. They say that Johnnie Apple-seed is dead, and that they filled his grave with apple-blooms. I don't know as it is so, but it ought to be. I sometimes wish that I was a poet, because a poet fixes things as they ought to be—makes the world all over right. But, la! Abe Linken was a poet. Have ye heard the news?"
"No. What?—nothing bad, I hope?"
"He's hung out his shingle."
"Where?"
"In Springfield."
"In Springfield?"
"Yes, elder, I've seen it. I have traveled a good deal since I saw you—'round to camp-meetin', and fairs, rightin' things, and doin' all the good I can. I've seen it. And, elder, they've made a mock Mason on him."
In the pioneer days of Illinois the making of mock Masons, or pseudo Sons of Malta, was a popular form of frolic, now almost forgotten. Young people formed mock lodges or secret societies, for the purpose of initiating new members by a series of tricks, which became the jokes of the community.
"Yes," said Aunt Olive, "and what do ye think they did? Well, in them societies they first test the courage of those who want to be new members. There's Judge Ball, now; when they tested his courage, what do you think? They blindfolded him, and turned up his blue jean trousers about the ankles, and said, 'Now let out the snakes!' and they took an elder-bush squirt-gun and squirted water over his feet; and the water was cold, and he thought it was snakes, and he jumped clear up to the cross-beams on the chamber floor, and screamed and screamed, and they wouldn't have him."
Jasper had never heard of these rude methods of making jokes and odd stories in the backwoods.
"What did they do to test Abraham's courage?" he asked.
"I don't know—blindfolded him and dressed him up like a donkey, and led him up to a lookin'-glass, and made him promise that he would never tell what he saw, and then onbandaged his eyes—or something of that kind. His courage stood the test. Of course it did; no matter what they might have done, no one could frighten Abe. But he got the best o' them."
"How?"
"He took up a collection for a poor woman that he had met on the way, and proposed to change the society into a committee for the relief of the poor and sufferin'."
"That shows his heart again."
"I knew that you would say that, elder."
"Everything that I hear of Lincoln shows how that his character grows. It is my daily prayer that Waubeno may hear of how he saved Main-Pogue. It would change the heart of Waubeno. He will know of it some day, and then he will fulfill his promise to me."
The Tunker sat down in the door under the blooming cherry-trees, and Aunt Olive brought a tray of food, and they ate their supper there.
Sarah Bush Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's Step-mother.
After photograph taken in 1865.
Afar stretched the prairies. The larks quivered in the air, happy in the May-time, and gurgling with song. In the sunny outlines were seen a train of prairie schooners winding over the plain.
These were rude times, when all things were new. Men were purchasing the future by hardship and toil. But the two religious enthusiasts presented a happy picture as they sat under the cherry-trees and talked of camp-meetings, and the inner light, and all they had experienced, and ate their frugal meal. Odd though their views and beliefs and habits may seem in some respects, each had a definite purpose of good; each lived in the horizon of bright prospects here and hereafter, and each was happy.