"But she's promised, Ole Bar. She has given her honorable word."
Ole Bar chewed rapidly a moment. Then he stopped suddenly and said with decision, "Tain't nothin' to that. Wimmin is like bars. The best fighter gits the best female. If you show her what everybody else knows, that you're twice the man that deer-faced penny-grabber of hern is, she's yours, promise or no promise. Git Ann Rutledge. Tain't nobody in forty years has thought of Ole Bar and sent him a present. She'll think of ye, Abry Linkhorn, think of ye. Ain't it worth fightin' fer to have somebody to think of ye? Ain't Ann Rutledge worth fightin' fer?"
Abraham admitted she was worth fighting for, and he thought of this the night of the big spelling-match.
For the development of pioneer talent the New Salem Debating Society had been formed that winter, and had held some interesting meetings. There had been a number of men's meetings for the discussion of political subjects, which Abe Lincoln attended, but he had not yet appeared at the Debating Society.
The spelling-match was to be preceded by a debate on the question, "Resolved that the negro is more unjustly treated than the Indian?" Abe Lincoln had been invited to take one side, whichever he chose, and had said he didn't care which he took, he could win. So he was given the negro side.
On the night of the important occasion the little school house was packed with men and women and children. Candles gleamed brightly on shingles which had been fastened into the chinks of the logs, and a big fire burned in the wide fireplace.
When Abe Lincoln arose to speak it seemed that his head would hit the rafters before he finally got straightened up. He wore jean pants five inches above his shoe tops, below which an expanse of blue yarn socks showed. His collarless shirt was fastened at the neck with a big white button. His coat-tail was so short that to sit on it would have been an impossibility, his heavy shock of black hair stood out sideways, and, as he ran his hands down into his pantaloon pockets and stood for a moment as if embarrassed, a smile passed over the audience and they awaited eagerly the funny stories they thought he would tell, ready to burst into laughter.
After announcing his subject and beginning his speech, his hands came out of his pockets and his embarrassment disappeared. He forgot his surroundings in the earnestness of the thoughts he was giving expression to, and the men and women before him forgot they were not hearing a funny story and leaned forward listening earnestly. "One man says to another," he said, "'You work, you toil, you earn the bread, and I will eat it.' But I say to you that whether it be a king with a crown on his head that says this, or whether it be a class with the power to force men, it all means slavery for the man whose toil, whose work, whose labor is not his own.... Peter Cartwright and others say the question of slavery or no slavery is spreadin', and that unless it is settled there will come war.... Why don't the Government buy the slaves and set them free? This would be right—this would be just—this might save human life and great expense which at last has to be paid by human labor." Then he told them about a slave-pen he had seen in New Orleans where men were sold as the farmers about New Salem sold hogs, and he gave utterance to that basic thought of Democracy that no man is great enough to control another man's freedom of thought or action.
Ann Rutledge sat with her father and mother. "There's something besides wit under that mop of black hair," Rutledge whispered as Abe Lincoln sat down. The homely orator was loudly cheered, Ann Rutledge with smiling face clapping heartily. Lincoln glanced her way, and as his eye rested on her for a moment he thought of Ole Bar's advice.
Then the spelling-match was called. Sides were chosen and rows of young people from the age of Sis Rutledge to that of John McNeil formed one on each side of the room. Mentor Graham gave out the words from Webster's "Speller," examples of their use being required as well as spelling.