THE PILGRIM
A few days after Abraham Lincoln had entered service to split rails for a new pair of breeches, he came to town late one afternoon to get an ax.
After tarrying a short time to tell a story or two, he started back about sun-down, his ax, on the handle of which was swung a bundle, over his shoulder.
As twilight gathered, the ungainly youth took his way along the road that ran not far from the smoothly flowing Sangamon. His strides were long and easy, and, away from the small habitations and contrivances of mankind, he seemed to become one with the big things of nature, and what was sometimes considered lack of grace seemed now an easy expression of reserve force.
The roar of the mill-dam sounded musical as if the twilight were softening its daytime boisterous tumult.
The falling dew seemed loosening up the fragrance of the woods, the subtle breath of tangled vines and trailing roses, with sometimes a more decided fragrance, as when the full-sized foot of the pedestrian brushed into a bed of wild mint.
As he rounded the skirt of the bluff, the rosy tinted sky seemed suddenly to withdraw itself, and the timbers upon the summit to move themselves slowly against the crimson and fading gold, like a row of shadowy sentinels gathered for the night.