And Mr. Miller said, "Look out! That's comin' fast enough; it's on us already. For back of the schools are the factories and places that always want workers, and they're already usin' the schools to turn out workers, boys who don't know much, or boys who know one thing. And it makes no difference what happens to me—it's just as much or more to know how to enjoy life and to enjoy it, as it is to be able to earn a livin'. If you earn a livin' and don't know how to enjoy life, you're as bad off as if you know how to enjoy life, but can't make a livin', or not much of one. Look here, you boys: Anything that gives you pleasure, like Greek and Latin, stories, history, doin' things, whatever they are, for the sake of livin', are worth while. And you let yourselves go. And don't be molded into a tool for somebody's use, and lose your own individuality."
And that's the way he talked. And then he said it was all right to dig for treasure if we wanted to, and to want to see the Mississippi River and see Tom Sawyer, and he didn't blame us a bit for anything we had done. "Yes," he says, "I'll take you to Springfield to-morrow; ask your pa, Skeet, and come along."
I did; and the next morning we took the train for Springfield; and here was a big town, not as big as St. Louis, but awful big. The capitol was bigger'n any building in St. Louis, with a great dome and a flag. And Mr. Miller took us out to see Lincoln's monument. Just when we got there, two men in overalls came runnin' from the back of the tomb and said a man—an old soldier—had just killed himself with a knife. So we ran around and found him lyin' in a lot of blood. The men came back and took a bottle of whisky out of his pocket, and a writing which said that the prohibition party had been defeated, and if it had won he couldn't have got whisky; and so he killed himself because the prohibition party had been defeated. And Mitch says, "What a fool idea! If he wanted the prohibition party defeated, why did he drink and buy whisky; and if he drank and carried whisky in his pocket, why did he want the prohibition party to win, and kill himself because it lost? He was crazy, wasn't he, pa?"
And Mr. Miller said, "Not necessarily—that's sense as things go in the world. Some people want whisky done away with so they can't get it their own selves, and when they can't get a law for that, it disappoints 'em, and they keep on drinkin' because they're disappointed, or kill themselves because their disappointment is too much. For you can depend upon it that any man that gets his mind too much fixed on any idea is like a cross-eyed man killin' a steer with a sledgehammer; he hits whar he's lookin', and hits wrong. Lincoln had a way of holdin' to an idea without the idea draggin' him down and away from everything else."
They had carried the dead man off, so we went into the tomb to see the curiosities. And there was more things than you could see: All kinds of flags and framed things, pictures and writing and showcases with pistols, and all sorts of trinkets, bullets, and knives; and a pair of spectacles which Linkern had wore, and a piece of a rail he had split, and books he'd read, and a piece of ribbon with his blood on it the night he died, and a theater program and lots of other things.
Then we went out-doors and looked up at the monument, and it made me dizzy to see the clouds sail over the top of it. And there was a figure of Linkern in iron, and of soldiers in iron charging, and horses in iron; besides mottoes cut in the stone and in iron. Then we went around to the back again where the old soldier had killed himself. They had the blood wiped up now. So we looked through the iron bars where a stone coffin was, but Linkern wasn't in there, Mr. Miller said. For once they had tried to steal him, and got the lead coffin out, and clear down the hill that we could see; but they caught 'em. And after that they dug way down and put Linkern there, and then poured mortar or concrete all over him, clear up to the top; then laid the floor again and put this marble coffin there, which was a dummy and had nothin' in it. So now nobody could get Linkern forever and ever.
And then we came around in front again, and Mr. Miller looked up at the statue of Linkern and began to study it, and he says: "I brought you boys to Springfield and out here to learn and to get things into your mind. You'll remember this trip as long as you live. It's the first time you've ever been here, and you'll be here lots of times again, maybe; but you'll always remember this time. Now, just look at Lincoln's face and his body and tell me how anybody could see him and not see that he was different from other men. Look how his face comes out in the bronze and becomes wonderful, and then think if you can how a handsome face would look in bronze—just the difference between a wonderful cliff or mountain side, and a great, smooth, perfect bowlder. And yet, boys, that man went right around here for twenty years, yes and more, all around this town, all around Petersburg, up at Old Salem, all over the country, practicing law, walking along the streets with people, talkin' with 'em on the corners, sittin' by 'em by the cannon stove in the offices of the hotels, sleepin' in the same rooms with 'em, as he did up at Petersburg at the Menard House, when the grand jury had the loft and they put Lincoln up there too, because there was no other place to put him."
"The Menard House," says Mitch; "do you mean that hotel there now?"
"The very same," said Mr. Miller; "didn't you know that?"
"No," says Mitch.