"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.