THE OLD BLACKSMITH'S SHOP AND THE MERRY STORY-TELLERS.

JOHNNIE KONGAPOD'S INCREDIBLE STORY.

The country store, in most new settlements, is the resort of story-tellers. It was not so here. There was a log blacksmith-shop by the wayside near the Gentryville store, overspread by the cool boughs of pleasant trees, and having a glowing forge and wide-open doors, which was a favorite resort of the good-humored people of Spencer County, and here anecdotes and stories used to be told which Abraham Lincoln in his political life made famous. The merry pioneers little thought that their rude stories would ever be told at great political meetings, to generals and statesmen, and help to make clear practical thought to Legislatures, senates, and councils of war. Abraham Lincoln claimed that he obtained his education by learning all that he could of any one who could teach him anything. In all the curious stories told in his hearing in this quaint Indiana smithy, he read some lesson of life.

The old blacksmith was a natural story-teller. Young Lincoln liked to warm himself by the forge in winter and sun himself in the open door in summer, and tempt this sinewy man to talk. The smithy was a common resort of Thomas Lincoln, and of John and Dennis Hanks, who belonged to the family of Abraham's mother. The schoolmaster must have liked the place, and the traveling ministers tarried long there when they brought their horses to be shod. In fact, the news-stand of that day, the literary club, the lecture platform, the place of amusement, and everything that stirred associated life, found its common center in this rude old smithy by the wayside, amid the running brooks and fanning trees.

The stories told here were the curious incidents and adventures of pioneer life, rude in fact and rough in language, but having pith and point.

Thomas Lincoln, on the afternoon of the next day, said to Jasper:

"Come, preacher, let's go over to the smithy. I want ye to see the blacksmith. We all like to see the blacksmith in these parts; he's an uncommon man."

They went to the smithy. Abraham followed them. The forge was low, and the blacksmith was hammering over old nails on the anvil.

"Hello!" said Thomas Lincoln; "not doin' much to-day. I brought the preacher over to call on you—he's a Tunker—has been to see the school—he teaches himself—thought you'd want to know him."

"Glad you come. Here, sit down in the leather chair, and make yourself at home. Been long in these new parts?"

"No, my friend; I have been to Illinois, but I have never been here before. I am glad to see you."

Story-telling at the Smithy.

"What do you think of the country?" said the blacksmith. "Think it is a good place to settle in? Hope that you have come to cast your lot with us. We need a preacher; we haven't any goodness to spare. You come from foreign parts, I take it. Well, well, there's room for a world of people out here in the woods and prairies. I hope that you will like it, and get your folks to come. We'll do all we can for you. We be men of good will, if we be hard-looking and poor."

"My good friend, I believe you. You are great-hearted men, and I like you."

"Brainy, too. Let me start up the forge."

"Preacher, come here," said Thomas Lincoln. "I haven't had no edication to speak of, but I've invented a new system of book-keepin' that beats the schools. There's one of them there. The blacksmith keeps all of his accounts by it. I've got one on a puncheon at home; did you notice it? This is how it is; you may want to use it yourself. Come and look at it."

On a rough board over the forge Thomas Lincoln had drawn a number of straight lines with a coal, as are sometimes put on a blackboard by a singing-master. On the lower bars were several cloudy erasures, and at the end of these bars were initials.

"Don't understand it, do you? Well, now, it is perfectly simple. I taught it to Aunt Olive, and she don't know more than some whole families, though she thinks that she knows more than the whole creation. Seen such people, hain't ye? Yes. The woods are full of 'em. Well, that ain't neither here nor there. This is how it works: A man comes here to have his horse shod—minister, may be; short, don't pay. Nothin' to pay with but funeral sermons, and you can't collect them all the time. Well, all you have to do is just to draw your finger across one of them lines, and write his initials after it. And when he comes again, rub out another place on the same lines."

"And when you have rubbed out all the places you could along that line, how much would you be worth?" said the blacksmith.

"I call that a new way of keeping accounts," continued Thomas Lincoln, earnestly. "Did you ever see anything of the kind before? No. It's a new and original way. We do a great lot o' thinkin' down here in winter-time, when we haven't much else to do. I'm goin' to put one o' them new systems into the mill."

The meetings of the pioneers at the blacksmith's shop formed a kind of merry-go-round club. One would tell a story in his own odd way, and another would say, "That reminds me," and tell a similar story that was intended to exceed the first in point of humor. One of Thomas Lincoln's favorite stories was "Gl-uk!" or, as he sometimes termed it—

"HOW ABRAHAM WENT TO MILL.

"It was a mighty curi's happenin'," he would say. "I don't know how to account for it—the human mind is a very strange thing. We go to sleep and are lost to the world entirely, and we wake up again. We die, and leave our bodies, and the soul-memory wakes again; if it have the new life and sense, it wakes again somewhere. We're curi's critters, all on us, and don't know what we are.

"When I first came to Indiana I made a mill of my own—Abe and I did. 'Twas just a big stone attached to a heavy pole like a well-sweep, so as to pound heavy, up and down, up and down. You can see it now, though it is all out of gear and kilter.

"Then, they built a mill 'way down on the river, and I used to send Abe there on horseback. Took him all day to go and come: used to start early in the mornin', and, as he had to wait his turn at the mill, he didn't use to get back until sundown. Then came Gordon and built his mill almost right here among us—a horse-mill with a windlass, all mighty handy: just hitch the horse to a windlass and pole, and he goes round and round, and never gets nowhere, but he grinds the corn and wheat. Something like me: I go round and round, and never seem to get anywhere, but something will come of it, you may depend.

"Well, one day I says to Abraham:

"You must hitch up the horse and go to Gordon's to mill. The meal-tub is low, and there's a storm a-brewin'.'

"So Abe hitched up the horse and started. That horse is a mighty steady animal—goes around just like a machine; hasn't any capers nor antics—just as sober as a minister. I should have no more thought of his kickin' than I should have thought of the millstones a-hoppin' out of the hopper. 'Twas a mighty curi's affair.

"Well, Abe went to Gordon's, and his turn come to grind. He hitched the horse to the pole, and said, as always, 'Get up, you old jade!' I always say that, so Abe does. He didn't mean any disrespect to the horse, who always maintained a very respectable-like character up to that day.

"The horse went round and round, round and round, just as steady as clock-work, until the grist was nearly out, and the sound of the grindin' was low, when he began to lag, sleepy-like. Abe he run up behind him, and said, 'Get up, you old jade!' then puckered up his mouth, so, to say 'Gluck.' 'Tis a word I taught him to use. Every one has his own horse-talk.

"He waved his stick, and said 'Gl—'

"Was the horse bewildered? He never did such a thing before. In an instant, like a thunder-clap when the sun was shinin', he h'isted up his heels and kicked Abraham in the head, and knocked him over on the ground, and then stopped as though to think on what he had done.

"The mill-hands ran to Abraham. There the boy lay stretched out on the ground just as though he was dead. They thought he was dead. They got some water, and worked over him a spell. They could see that he breathed, but they thought that every breath would be his last.

"'He's done for this world,' said Gordon. 'He'll never come to his senses again. Thomas Lincoln would be proper sorry.' And so I should have been had Abraham died. Sometimes I think like it was the Evil One that possessed that horse. It don't seem to me that he'd 'a' ever ha' kicked Abe of his own self—right in the head, too. You can see the scar on him now.

"Well, almost an hour passed, when Abe came to himself—consciousness they call it—all at once, in an instant. And what do you think was the first thing he said? Just this—'uk!'

"He finished the word just where he left it when the horse kicked him, and looked around wild-like, and there was the critter standin' still as the mill-stun.' Now, where do you think the soul of Abe was between 'Gl—' and 'uk'? I'd like to have ye tell me that."

A long discussion would follow such a question. Abraham Lincoln himself once discussed the same curious incident with his law-partner Herndon, and made it a subject of the continuance of mental consciousness after death.

It was a warm afternoon. A dark cloud hung in the northern sky, and grew slowly over the arch of serene and sunny blue.

"Goin' to have a storm," said the blacksmith. "Shouldn't wonder if it were a tempest. We generally get a tempest about this time of year, when winter finally breaks up into spring. Well, I declare! there comes Johnnie Kongapod, the Kickapoo Indian from Illinois—he and his dogs."

A tall Indian was seen coming toward the smithy, followed by two dogs. The men watched him as he approached. He was a kind of chief, and had accepted the teachings of the early missionaries. He used to wander about among the new settlements, and was very proud of himself and his own tribe and race. He had an honest heart. He once composed an epitaph for himself, which was well meant but read oddly, and which Abraham Lincoln sometimes used to quote in his professional career:

"Here lies poor Johnnie Kongapod,
Have mercy on him, gracious God,
As he would do if he was God,
And you were Johnnie Kongapod."

The Indian sat down on the log sill of the blacksmith's shop, and watched the gathering cloud as it slowly shut out the sky.

"Storm," said he. "Lay down, Jack; lay down, Jim."

Jack and Jim were his two dogs. They eyed the flaming forge. One of them seemed tired, and lay down beside his master, but the other made himself troublesome.

"That reminds me," said Dennis Hanks; and he related a curious story of a troublesome dog, perhaps the one which in its evolutions became known as "Sykes's Dog," though this may be a later New Salem story. It was an odd and a coarse bit of humor. Lincoln himself is represented as telling this, or a like story, to General Grant after the Vicksburg campaign, something as follows:

"'Your enemies were constantly coming to me with their criticisms while the siege was in progress, and they did not cease their ill opinions after the city fell. I thought that the time had come to put an end to this kind of criticism, so one day, when a delegation called to see me and had spent a half-hour, and tried to show me the great mistake that you had made in paroling Pemberton's army, I thought I could get rid of them best by telling the story of Sykes's dog.

"'Have you ever heard the story of Sykes's dog?' I said to the spokesman of the delegation.

"'No.'

"'Well, I must tell it to you. Sykes had a yellow dog that he set great store by; but there were a lot of small boys around the village, and the dog became very unpopular among them. His eye was so keen on his master's interests that there arose prejudice against him. The boys counseled how to get rid of him. They finally fixed up a cartridge with a long fuse, and put the cartridge in a piece of meat, and then sat down on a fence and called the dog, one of them holding the fuse in his hand. The dog swallowed the meat, cartridge and all, and stood choking, when one of them touched off the fuse. There was a loud report. Sykes came out of the house, and found the ground was strewed with pieces of the dog. He picked up the biggest piece that he could find—a portion of the back with the tail still hanging to it—and said:

"'Well, I guess that will never be of much account again—as a dog.'—'I guess that Pemberton's forces will never amount to much again—as an army.' By this time the delegation were looking for their hats."

Like stories followed among the merry foresters. One of them told another "That reminds me"—how that two boys had been pursued by a small but vicious dog, and one of them had caught and held him by the tail while the other ran up a tree. At last the boy who was holding the dog became tired and knew not what to do, and cried out:

"Jim!"

"What say?"

"Come down."

"What for?"

"To help me let go of the dog."

This story, also, whatever may have been the date of it, President Lincoln used to tell amid the perplexities of the war. In the darkest times of his life at the White House his mind used to return for illustration to the stories told at this backwoods smithy, and at the country stores that he afterward came to visit at Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois.

He delighted in the blacksmith's own stories and jokes. The man's name was John Baldwin. He was the Homer of Gentryville, as the village portion of this vast unsettled portion of country was called. Dennis Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's cousin, who frequented the smithy, was also a natural story-teller. The stories which had their origin here evolved and grew, and became known in all the rude cabins. Then, when Abraham Lincoln became President, his mind went back to the quaint smithy in the cool, free woods, and to the country stores, and he told these stories all over again. It seemed restful to his mind to wander back to old Indiana and Illinois.

The cloud grew. The air darkened. There was an occasional rustle of wind in the tree-tops.

"It's comin'," said the blacksmith. "Now, Johnnie Kongapod, you tell us the story. Tell us how Aunt Olive frightened ye when you went to pilot her off to the camp-meetin'."

"No," said Johnnie Kongapod. "It thunders. You must get Aunt Olive to tell you that story."

"When you come to meet her," said the blacksmith to Jasper. "Kongapod would tell it to you, but he's afraid of the cloud. No wonder."

A vivid flash of lightning forked the sky. There followed an appalling crash of thunder, a light wind, a few drops of rain, a darker air, and all was still. The men looked out as the cloud passed over.

"You will have to stay here now," said the blacksmith, "until the cloud has passed. Our stories may seem rather rough to you, edicated as you are over the sea. Tell us a story—a German story. Let me put the old leather chair up here before the fire. If you will tell us one of those German stories, may be I'll tell you how Johnnie Kongapod here and Aunt Olive went to the camp-meetin', and what happened to them on the way."

There was a long silence on the dark air. The blacksmith enlivened the fire, which lit up the shop. Jasper sat down in the leather chair, and said:

"Those Indian dogs remind me of scenes and stories unlike anything here. The life of the dog has its lesson true, and there is nothing truer in this world than the heart of a shepherd's dog. I am a shepherd's dog. I am speaking in parable; you will understand me better by and by.

"Let me tell you the story of 'The Shepherd Dog,' and the story will also tell a story, as do all stories that have a soul; and it is only stories that have souls that live. The true story gathers a soul from the one who tells it, else it is no story at all.

"There once lived on the borders of the Black Forest, Germany, an old couple who were very poor. Their name was Gragstein. The old man kept a shepherd dog that had been faithful to him for many years, and that loved him more than it did its own life, and he came to call him Faithful.

"One day, as the old couple were seated by the fire, Frau Gragstein said:

"'Hear the wind blow! There is a hard winter comin', and we have less in our crib than we ever had before. We must live snugger than ever. We shall hardly have enough to keep us two. It will be a long time before the birds sing again. You must be more savin', and begin now. Hear the wind howl. It is a warning.'

"'What would you have me do?' asked Gragstein.

"'There are three of us, and we have hardly store for two.'

"'But what would you have me do with him? He is old, and I could not sell him, or give him away.'

"'Then I would take him away into the forest and shoot him, and run and leave him. I know it is hard, but the pinch of poverty is hard, and it has come.'

"'Shoot Faithful! Shoot old Faithful! Take him out into the forest and shoot him! Why, a man's last friends are his God, his mother, and his dog. Would you have me shoot old Faithful? How could I?'

"At the words 'Shoot old Faithful,' the great dog had started up as though he understood. He bent his large eyes on the old woman and whined, then wheeled around once and sank down at his master's feet.

"'He acts as though he understood what you were saying.'

"'No, he don't,' said the old woman. 'You set too much store by the dog, and imagine such things. He's too old to ever be of service to us any more, and he eats a deal. The storm will be over by morning. Hear the showers of the leaves! The fall wind is rending the forest. 'Tis seventy falls that we have seen, and we will not see many more. We must live while we do live, and the dog must be put out of the way. You must take Faithful out into the forest in the morning and kill him.'

"The dog started up again. 'Take Faithful and kill him!' He seemed to comprehend. He looked into his master's face and gave a piteous howl, and went to the door and pawed.

"'Let him go out,' said the old woman. 'What possesses him to go out to-night into the storm? But let him go, and then I can talk easier about the matter. Did you see his eyes—as if he knew? He haunts me! Let him go out.'

"The old man opened the door, and the dog disappeared in the darkness, uttering another piteous howl.

"Then the old couple sat down and talked over the matter, and Gragstein promised his wife that he would shoot the dog in the morning.

"'It is hard,' said the old woman, 'but Providence wills it, and we must.'

"The wind lulled, and there was heard a wild, pitiful howl far away in the forest.

"'What is that?' asked the old woman, starting.

"'It was Faithful.'

"'So far away!'

"'The poor dog acted strange. There it is again, farther away.'

"The morning came, but the dog did not return. He had never stayed away from the old hut before. The next day he did not come, nor the next. The old couple missed him, and the old man bitterly reproached his wife for what she had advised him to do.

"Winter came, with pitiless storms and cold, and the old man would go forth to hunt alone, wishing Faithful was with him.

"'It is not safe for me to go alone,' said he. 'I wish that the dog would come back.'

"'He will never come back,' said the old woman. 'He is dead. I can hear him howl nights, far away on the hill. He haunts me. Every night, when I put out the light, I can hear him howl out in the forest. 'Tis my tender heart that troubles me. 'Tis a troubled conscience that makes ghosts.'

"The old man tottered away with his gun. It was a cold morning after a snow. The old woman watched him from the frosty window as he disappeared, and muttered:

"'It is hard to be old and poor. God pity us all!'

"Night came, but the old man did not return. The old woman was in great distress, and knew not what to do. She set the candle in the window, and went to the door and called a hundred times, and listened, but no answer came. The silent stars filled the sky, and the moon rose over the snow, but no answer came.

"The next morning she alarmed the neighbors, and a company gathered to search for Gragstein. The men followed his tracks into the forests, over a cliff, and down to a stream of running water. They came to some thin ice, which had been weakened by the rush of the current, and there the tracks were lost.

"'He attempted to cross,' said one, 'and fell in. We will find his body in the spring. I pity his poor old wife. What shall we tell her?—What was that?'

"There was heard a pitiful howl on the other side of the stream.

"'Look!' said another.

"Just across the stream a great, lean shepherd dog came out of the snow tents of firs. His voice was weak, but he howled pitifully, as though calling the men.

"'We must cross the stream!' said they all.

"The men made a bridge by pushing logs and fallen trees across the ice. The dog met them joyfully, and they followed him.

"Under the tents of firs they found Gragstein, ready to perish with cold and hunger.

"'Take me home!' said he. 'I can not last long. Take me home, and call home the dog!'

"'What has happened?' asked the men.

"'I fell in. I called for help, and—the dog came—Faithful. He rescued me, but I was numb. He lay down on me and warmed me, and kept me alive. Faithful! Call home the dog!'

"The men took up the old man and rubbed him, and gave him food. Then they called the dog and gave him food, but he would not eat.

"They returned as fast as they could to the cottage. Frau Gragstein came out to meet them. The dog saw her and stopped and howled, dived into the forest, and disappeared.

"The old man died that night. They buried him in a few days. The old woman was left all alone. The night after the funeral, when she put out the light, she thought that she heard a feeble howl in the still air, and stopped and listened. But she never heard that sound again. The next morning she opened the door and looked out. There, under a bench where his master had often caressed him in the summer evenings of many years, lay the body of old Faithful, dead. He had never ceased to watch the house, and had died true. 'Tis the best thing that we can say of any living creature, man or dog, he was true-hearted.

"Remember the story. It will make you better. The storm is clearing."

The cloud had passed over, leaving behind the blue sky of spring.

"That was an awful good dog to have," said John Hanks. "There are human folks wouldn't 'a' done like that."

"I wouldn't," said one of the men. "But here, I declare, comes the old woman. Been out neighborin', and got caught in the storm, and gone back to Pigeon Creek. We won't have to tell that there story about her and the wig, and Johnnie Kongapod here. She'll tell it to you herself, elder—she'll tell it to you herself. She's a master-hand to go to meetin', and sing, and tell stories, she is.—Here, elder—this is Aunt Olive."

The same woman that Jasper had met on his way to Pigeon Creek came into the blacksmith's shop, and held her hands over the warm fire.

"Proper smart rain—spring tempest," said she. "Winter has broke, and we shall have steady weather.—Found your way, elder, didn't you? Well, I'm glad. It's a mighty poor sign for an elder to lose his way. You took my advice, didn't you?—turned to the right and kept straight ahead, and you got there. Well, that's what I tell 'em in conference-meetin's—turn to the right and keep straight ahead, and they'll get there; and then I sing out, and shout, 'I'm bound for the kingdom!' Come over and see me, elder. I'm good to everybody except lazy people.—Abraham Lincoln, what are you lazing around here for?—And Johnnie Kongapod! This ain't any place for men in the spring of the year! I've been neighborin'. I have to do it just to see if folks are doin' as they oughter. There are a great many people who don't do as they oughter in this world. Now I am goin' straight home between the drops."

The woman hurried away and disappeared under the trees.

The cloud broke in two dark, billowy masses, and red sunset, like a sea, spread over the prairie, the light heightening amid glimmerings of pearly rain.

Jasper went back to Pigeon Creek with Abraham.

"Isn't that woman a little queer?" he asked—"a little touched in mind, may be?"

"She does not like me," said the boy; "though most people like me. I seem to have a bent for study, and father thinks that the time I spend in study is wasted, and Aunt Olive calls me lazy, and so do the Crawfords—I don't mean the master. Most people like me, but there are some here that don't think much of me. I am not lazy. I long for learning! I will have it. I learn everything I can from every one, and I do all I can for every one. She calls me lazy, though I have been good to her. They say I am a lively boy, and I like to be thought well of here, and when I hear such things as that it makes me feel down in the mouth. Do you ever feel down in the mouth? I do. I wonder what will become of me? Whatever happens, or folks may say, elder, I mean to make the best of life, and be true to the best that is in me. Something will come of it. Don't you think so, elder?"

They came to Thomas Lincoln's cabin, and the serene face of Mrs. Lincoln met them at the door. A beautiful evening followed the tempest gust, and the Lincolns and the old Tunker sat down to a humble meal.

The mild spring evening that followed drew together another group of people to the lowly home of Thomas Lincoln. Among them came Aunt Olive, whose missionary work among her neighbors was as untiring as her tongue. And last among the callers there came stealing into the light of the pine fire, like a shadow, the tall, brown form of Johnnie Kongapod, or Konapod.

The pioneer story-telling here began again, and ended in an episode that left a strange, mysterious impression, like a prophecy, on nearly every mind.

"Let me tell you the story of my courtship," said Thomas Lincoln.

"Thomas!" said a mild, firm voice.

"Oh, don't speak in that tone to me," said the backwoodsman to his wife, who had sought to check him.—"Sally don't like to hear that story, though I do think it is to her credit, if simple honesty is a thing to be respected. Sally is an honest woman. I don't believe that there is an honester creatur' in all these parts, unless it was that Injun that Johnnie Kongapod tells about."

A loud laugh arose, and the dusky figure of Johnnie Kongapod retreated silently back into a deep shadow near the open door. His feelings had been wounded. Young Abraham Lincoln saw the Indian's movement, and he went out and stood in the shadow in silent sympathy.

"Well, good folks, Sally and I used to know each other before I removed from Kentuck' to Indiany. After my first wife died of the milk-fever I was lonesome-like with two young children, and about as poor as I was lonesome, although I did have a little beforehand. Well, Sally was a widder, and used to imagine that she must be lonesome, too; and I thought at last, after that there view of the case had haunted me, that I would just go up to Kentucky and see. Souls kind o' draw each other a long way apart; it goes in the air. So I hitched up and went, and I found Sally at home, and all alone.

"'Sally,' said I, 'do you remember me?'

"'Yes,' said she, 'I remember you well. You are Tommy Linken. What has brought you back to Kentuck'?'

"'Well, Sally,' said I, 'my wife is dead.'

"'Is that so,' said she, all attention.

"'Yes; wife died more than a year ago, and a good wife she was; and I've just come back to look for another.'

"She sat like a statue, Sally did, and never spoke a word. So I said:

"'Do you like me, Sally Johnson?'

"'Yes, Tommy Linken.'

"'You do?'

"'Yes, Tommy Linken, I like you well enough to marry you, but I could never think of such a thing—at least not now.'

"'Why?'

"'Because I'm in debt, and I would never ask a man who had offered to marry me to pay my debts.'

"'Let me hear all about it,' said I.

"She brought me her account-book from the cupboard. Well, good folks, how much do you suppose Sally owed? Twelve dollars! It was a heap of money for a woman to owe in those days.

"Well, I put that account-book straight into my pocket and run. When I came back, all of her debts were paid. I told her so.

"'Will you marry me now?' said I.

"'Yes,' said she.

"And, good folks all, the next morning at nine o'clock we were married, and we packed up all her things and started on our weddin' tour to Indiany, and here we be now. Now that is what I call an honest woman.—Johnnie Kongapod, can you beat that? Come, now, Johnnie Kongapod."

The Indian still stood in the shadow, with young Abraham beside him. He did not answer.

"Johnnie is great on telling stories of good Injuns," said Mr. Lincoln, "and we think that kind o' Injuns have about all gone up to the moonlit huntin'-grounds."

The tall form of the Indian moved into the light of the doorway. His eyes gleamed.

"Thomas Linken, that story that I told you was true."

"What! that an Injun up to Prairie du Chien was condemned to die, and that he asked to go home and see his family all alone, and promised to return on his honor?"

"Yes, Thomas Linken."

"And that they let him go home all alone, and that he spent his night with his family in weepin' and wailin', and returned the next mornin' to be shot?"

"Yes, Thomas Linken."

"And that they shot him?"

"Yes, Thomas Linken."

"Well, Johnnie, if I could believe that, I could believe anything."

"An Injun has honor as well as a white man, Thomas Linken."

"Who taught it to him?"

"His own heart—here. The Great Spirit's voice is in every man's heart; his will is born in all men; his love and care are over us all. You may laugh at my poetry, but the Great Spirit will do by Johnnie Kongapod as he would have Johnnie Kongapod do by him if Johnnie Kongapod held the heavens. That story was true, and I know it to be true, and the Great Spirit knows it to be true. Johnnie Kongapod is an honest Injun."

"Then we have two honest folks here," said Aunt Olive. "Three, mebby—only Tom Linken owes me a dollar and a half. So, Jasper, you see that you have come to good parts. You'll see some strange things in your travels, way off to Rock River. Likely you'll see the Pictured Rocks on the Mississippi—dragons there. Who painted 'em? Or Starved Rock on the Illinois, where a whole tribe died with the water sparklin' under their eyes. But if you ever come across any of the family of that Indian that went home on his honor all alone to see his family, and came back to be shot or hung, you just let us know. I'd like to adopt one of his boys. That would be something to begin a Sunday-school with!"

The company burst into another loud laugh.

Johnnie Kongapod raised his long arm and stood silent. Aunt Olive stepped before him and looked him in the face. The Indian's red face glowed, and he said vehemently: "Woman, that story is true!"

Sally Lincoln arose and rested her hand on the Indian's shoulder. "Johnny Kongapod, I can believe you—Abraham can."

There was a deep silence in the cabin, broken only by Aunt Olive, who arose indignantly and hurried away, and flung back on the mild air the sharp words "I don't!"

The story of the Indian who held honor to be more than life, as related by Johnnie Kongapod, had often been told by the Indians at their camp-fires, and by traveling preachers and missionaries who had faith in Indian character. Among those settlers who held all Indians to be bad it was treated as a joke. Old Jasper asked Johnnie Kongapod many questions about it, and at last laid his hand on the dusky poet's shoulder, and said:

"My brother, I hope that it is true. I believe it, and I honor you for believing it. It is a good heart that believes what is best in life."

How strange all this new life seemed to Jasper! How unlike the old castles and cottages of Germany, and the cities of the Rhine! And yet, for the tall boy by that cabin fire new America had an opportunity that Germany could offer to no peasant's son. Jasper little thought that that boy, so lively, so rude, so anxious to succeed, was an uncrowned king; yet so it was.

And the legend? A true story has a soul, and a peculiar atmosphere and influence. Jasper saw what the Indian's story was, though he had heard it only indirectly and in outline. It haunted him. He carried it with him into his dreams.

The Home of Abraham Lincoln when in his Tenth Year.