Here Ole Bar returned. They all looked at him inquiringly.
"What you lookin' at?" he growled. "Nothin' the matter with that poem. But my fool nose she runs like the devil at first frost fall and leaves ain't much good fur shuttin' her off when'a poem's goin' on."
His explanation was accepted.
Lincoln was speaking again. "You've been good friends to have, and I want to say, because I won't always be about these parts, that if any of you ever get in need of a friend and Abe Lincoln can help him out, call on him. And I want to say to you that I've lived the best time of my life right here in New Salem—the happiest—and—well, I'll see you again—good-bye, boys." And the tall man slightly bent, and moving as if aged, left the group around the fire.
There was silence about the fire for a full minute.
"Poor Old Abe," said Buck.
"I'd a give my right arm to have kept this here thing from happenin'," said Armstrong.
"Do you fellows recollect," Kit Parsons said, "the man that was through here preaching two years ago—the feller that preached one night about the 'Man of Sorrows?' Recollect how the women bawled? Looked like they couldn't suppress themselves nor get hold of enough dry-goods to sop up their flowin' tears. It's just now soakin' into my head the reason of it all."
"Well, what was it?"