“But you,” Florence exclaimed, “surely you do not have to scrub floors all night long!”
“Oh, no! Not all night long. Only this one. And I love it!” The girl’s eyes shone. “I am Jensie Crider. I am from the mountains of Kentucky. This is the Lincoln group. And Abraham Lincoln, our great President, came from the mountains where I was born. They—they let me care for these buildings because I understand how they should be kept.
“Come!” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Come back here and you shall see those other buildings by the moonlight.”
She led the way to the back of that long room, then pointed silently. Standing there, bathed in the golden moonlight, were two small log cabins and a rough structure built of boards.
“That little cabin,” the girl whispered, “is the one in which the great President was born; no, not quite. It is exactly like it, but for me it is the same.
“Does it not seem wonderful?” Her low voice was singing now. “No windows, a stick chimney, a clay floor. He was born there, the great President. He was one of us, of our poor mountain folk. Do you wonder that I love my work?”
“No,” Florence whispered.
“But look!” Jeanne gripped her companion’s arm. “What is that strange thing over there?”
“That—” The girl’s tone changed. “That is a very old hearse. Perhaps it is the one that carried our martyred President to his grave.”
“A hearse!” Jeanne shrank back. “A hearse in the moonlight.”