"What's that?" quickly asked Fred. "I have seen it in a picture? Where? What do you mean?"
"Nothin', stranger, only they do say the picter of that air blamed old shanty is every whar up No'th. Blast the ole place. I don't see anything great in it. I wish it war sunk before he war born."
"Why, man, what do you mean? You talk in riddles."
"Mean!" replied the native, expectorating at a stone in the road, and hitting it fairly. "I mean that the gol-all-fir'-est, meanest cuss that ever lived war born thar, the man what's making war on the South, and wants to put the niggers ekal to us. Abe Lincoln, drat him, war born in that ole house."
Fred reverently took off his hat. This then was the lowly birthplace of the man whose name was in the mouths of millions. How mean, how poor it looked, and yet to what a master mind it gave birth! The life of Lincoln had possessed a peculiar fascination for Fred, and during the presidential campaign of the year before the picture of his birthplace had been a familiar one to him. He now understood why the place looked so familiar. It was like looking on the face of one he had carefully studied in a photograph.
"Reckon you are a stranger, or you would have knowed the place?" queried the countryman.
"Yes, I am a stranger," answered Fred. "Then this is the place where the President of the United States was born?"
"Yes, an' it war a po' day for ole Kentuck when he war born. Oughter to ha' died, the ole Abolitioner."
Fred smiled, "Well," he said, "I must be going. I am very much obliged to you for your information."
"Don't mention it, stranger, don't mention it. Say, that's a mighty fine hoss you air ridin'; look out or some of them fellers scootin' round the country will get him. Times mighty ticklish, stranger, mighty ticklish. Have a chaw of terbacker?" and he extended a huge roll of Kentucky twist.