CHAPTER XIV.
The coming of Mr. Clem had a great effect upon our household. It was like a new breeze, blowing in from afar off where the woods are fresh. With his foot he was ever ready to press upon a tradition, and to leave off if the annoyance was too great; he experimented constantly with the sentiments and prejudices of anyone who happened to be near him. He joked with Old Miss, something ever dangerous to undertake, and at times he wrought sorely upon Old Master by arguing abolition with him. But no matter how hot might be the discussion, it was always pleasantly tempered, in the end, by some joke borrowed from the sturdy men who were busy with the building of a new political empire in the West. Lincoln was his hero. He had lived in Springfield, and had seen the great stump-speaker striding across a pasture land with a naked youngster on his back, and with the Galilean's smile upon his face. From his saddle-bags he brought forth newspapers with abstracts of the backwoodsman's speeches, words that rang like an axe on a frosty morning, and he never was weary of declaring that the man was inspired. "He is Peter come back to the earth," I remember hearing him say, "and upon a rock he is going to build a great church not for caste, but for man."
"If you are going to worship a man, let him be a hero," Old Master cried. We were in the library and the elder brother was walking up and down in the fire-light. I was hunting a book for Young Master and purposely made a lag of my errand.
"I don't know what you mean by a hero," said Mr. Clem, looking up from his pipe in the corner.
"A man who does something for his country," Old Master retorted, still walking with his hands behind him.
Mr. Clem smiled. "Yes, that is a hero," said he. "But what would you have a man do? Overcome a band of Mexicans and win a new territory, or save his entire country?"
Old Master halted, posing to make an impressive reply, but at that moment Mr. Clem sprang to his feet, threw open the window and thrusting forth his head shouted: "Hi, there, don't you want to swap that horse for a better one?"
He had heard the sounds of hoofs and had seen a man riding past the gate. The man reined up and looked round. "I don't know but I might," he answered. "Well, just wait a minute," Mr. Clem shouted and turned about to leave the room. Old Master frowned. "You are not going to swap horses here on a Sunday morning," he said. "It will bring a scandal upon us."
"Now, Guilford, that's nonsense," Mr. Clem protested. And then he shouted again from the window: "Ride on down to the end of the lane and I'll meet you there."