That Nation Might Live: One Afternoon with Lincoln’s Stepmother Read online

  The good old lady had not proceeded far when she blushed beet red. Paused. “Abe took up the subject of a mix up on the wedding night of that Grigsby infare.”

  Mrs. Lincoln attempted to repeat some verses but could not continue for it was hardly decent – she insisted. She proposed to tell them to Tildy, who would relay them to me. Mrs. Lincoln however, was none too proper to enjoy some ribald verse, as her daughter superfluously pivots to me to repeat her Mother’s titillated whispers:

  “Now there was a man,” begins the chronicle in question, “whose name was Reuben, and the same was very great in substance in horses and cattle and swine, and a very great household. It came to pass when the sons of Reuben grew up that they were desirous of taking to themselves wives…” it continued reverently enough. Until, hilariously I suggest, other occurances:

  I will tell you a Joke about Jewel and Mary.It is neither a Joke nor a Story. For Reubin and Charles have married two girls, But Billy has married a boy. The girlies he had tried on every Side But none could he get to agree.All were in vain he went home again And since that he’s married to Natty. So Billy and Natty agreed very well And mama’s well pleased at the match. The egg it is laid but Natty’s afraid. The Shell is So Soft that it never will hatch, But Betsy, she said, you Cursed bald head My Suitor you never Can be.Beside your low crotch proclaims you a botch And that never Can answer for me.

  “Miserbal as Abe was, I reckon it wasn’t enough for the mending of his soul to just write it down. He dropped the poem at a point on the road where he was sure one of the Grigsbys would find it. Just as it was with Josiah Crawford, I fretted most at Abe putting his gifts to the devil’s work.

  “I begun to squirm like a worm on hot ashes. There was no averting what come next, so I figure any volleys that warn’t hot lead were a release. Mostly I just know’d I was plumb scared. Them Grigsbys were wild with a rage, just as Abe hoped, and would be satisfied only when a Lincoln’s face should be pounded into jelly and a couple of ribs cracked by some member of the injured family. Pigeon Creek code of honor demanded that somebody should be thumped in public for an outrage so grievous. Billy Grigsby wasn’t foolish enough to take on Abe, so he elected to challenge John D. I was powerless nohow. The challenge came from the Grigsbys and so a fight was ordered, and a ring was marked out on the ground selected, a mile and a half from Gentryville.

  “Bullies for twenty miles around attended. The friends of both parties were present in force. Abe said John started out with fine pluck and spirit but in a little while Billy got in some clever hits. Abe was all along anxiously casting about for some way to break the ring. John was fairly down and Billy on top and all the spectators cheering, swearing and pressing up to the very edge of the ring. Just then Billy Grigsby’s friend William Bolen come into the ring, mostly from the general rukus of it all, but Abe seen his chance, yelling, ‘Bill Bolen shows foul play!’ He jumped inside the circle, grabbed Billy Grigsby by the seat of the pants and scruff of the neck and threw him into the air so hard Billy went sailing out of the ring over the heads of the spectators. The fall nearly killed him. Billy’s friends picked him up and carried him off aways. Having righted John and cleared the battleground of all opponents, Abe swung a whiskey bottle.

  “Seems nobody of the Grigsby faction, not one in that large assembly of bullies, cared to encounter the sweep of Abe’s long and muscular arms. He was master of the lick. So much poison run through his veins that he still was not content, was told he vaunted himself in the most offensive manner, singling out the clearly beaten Billy Grigsby. Billy meekly said he did not doubt that Abe could whup him, but that if Abe would make things even between them by fighting with pistols, he would not be slow to grant him a meeting. The pistol was all that was left, Mr. Herndon. I was shy of my own shadow for some time.”

  Mrs. Lincoln is again upset by the circumstances, as though the crisis was present. Requires a few minutes to compose herself. Continues:

  “Abe told me when General George was fourteen he was hankering for adventures and felt a strong desire to go to sea. His Ma said straight up that she could not bear to part with her son and young George’s trial must have been very severe. His trunk of clothes already on board the ship, his honour in some sort pledged, his boyhood companions departing. Abe liked to say, ‘His whole soul was panting for the promised pleasures of the voyage.’ The Good Lord whispered to that boy, ‘Honor thy mother, and grieve not the spirit of her who bore thee.’ George saw the last boat going with several of his friends on it. When he saw the flash, and heard the report of the signal gun for sailing, and the ship rounding off for sea, sails snapping, it was tough on George to bear it. But he done what he done for his Mama.

  “Mrs. Washington begged her son to stay, such as any mother would. I had to beg my boy to go, to go far away.”

  I believe I am kindly enough in nature

  and can be moved to pity and to pardon

  the perpetrator of almost the worst crime that the mind of man can conceive

  or the arm of man can execute;

  but any man, who,

  for paltry gain can rob Africa of her children

  to sell into interminable bondage,

  I never will pardon,

  and he may stay and rot in jail

  before he will ever get relief from me.

  5

  Rob Africa of Her Children

  “James Gentry lived afore the railroads, markets were a ways off. Mr. Gentry earned himself a heap, owned five thousand acres of land. Was the first to the area and called it after himself. So Gentryville, Indiana come about. James was southern by his nature, born in North Carolina, married in Kaintuck, settled in Indiana. A regular North Star! He done right by his family with his smarts and his energy. Cared for his neighbors generally, good hearted that way. Come to find out we could grow cotton, so Gentry got himself a cotton gin, of all things. Think we were deep South! He shared it, not looking to loot no one over it. He done fine sending flat boats south with corn and hogs mostly, down the Ohio and Mississipp to New Orleans. Thirteen hunnerd miles if you were counting, that’s what Abe said. So I done my snooping and sure enough, James was planning to send his boy Allen captaining cargo down river, and soon. That boy as I know’d him then had a good heart and keen mind, just like his Pa. Way I figure it, that’s where Abe needed to be. So I wait till I seen James, so as not to plague the idea.

  “When I seen him at a raising, like most people were at the time, James speak of this business with the Grigsbys. I was torn up about it generally. Seem the whole henhouse was a-cluck over it. I said to him, ‘As I seen it, Abe needs to git some distance from this trouble with the Grigsbys.’

  “James think on it a minute and come up on it with his eyes bright, he says, ‘Maybe Abe outta get on that flatboat with Allen.’

  “Why, James, that’s a right fine idea, if he’ll go for it.”

  “James says, ‘A course he will,’ and he goes on to speak of the adventures and sights Abe’d get to see going down river.

  “So I thunk out loud on it, spoke as if it was just like them stories Abe liked to read about in his books all the time. James shine on this thought, says he figures he’ll mention it. And so it was. Allen and Abe were gonna wait till they got the seed in and the crop start breaking ground, and then they were gonna git.

  “Mr. Herndon, you must excuse me but I must say, Lady that I am, that it could not escape me—the irony. Right quick, Allen married Katey Roby and the trip done got put off till the borning of her babe the following December. Seems how we make plans and the Good Lord gets Himself tickled purple over it.

  “Just as well, Abe settled rightfully with the Grigsbys. In time he took kindly to my nudging him and he know’d his poison hadn’t done anything to bring Sairy back, or help himself. Grigsbys owned the only good grindstone several miles round so folks brung their tools to sharpen. Reuben’s bride, name of Betsy, easy for me to recall these many years later, she turned the grindstone. Abe wait his
turn afore he said, when it come, ‘Let me do it for you, Betsy.’

  “She seen the gesture for what it was and was right pleased to get a rest from such drudgery. She step back and leave Abe to handle the job. Only when he sharpened his axe did Abe allow Betsy Grigsby to return. Just then Natty Grigsby said, ‘It’s all over now.’ Natty been torn up specially over the whole affair, as him and Abe were together most often. From then the hard feelings betwixt the Grigsbys and Abe seem to melt away like snow in spring.

  “Allen and Katey’s baby come along—a boy—and they name him James after his grandpappy. Was too soon for me when the day finally come for Allen and Abe to shove off. I dreaded that sunrise like none other, and I know’d that dread ever since. I never seen Abe the same since the day I seen him off then. Felt as I swallowed a goose, feathers and all.

  “That flatboat shove off loaded corner to corner with sacks and barrels, and critters, mostly caged and corralled. The craft was built like Abe, long and narrow. It was somewheres round eighty foot long and near twenty across. Allen was at the front, with an oar for steering, and Abe was in the back with a long oar meant for push. James paid Abe eight dollars a month. Think Abe would pay James to go if he asked it that way. My boy was starving for the outside world.

  “Took them five days on the Ohio, and then most of the next month on the Mississipp. Abe said the trick was to stay on top of the deepest part of the river he could find, keep the river bottom from slowing them down. Ohio’s got plenty of riffles (Writer ascertains—translate as “ripples”) to contend with. Abe seen mostly land as the Good Lord made it. Said forest hung down over cliffs and he reckon he could see some of them hairy elephants again. He was fooling on me some I spect, but it must a been a real spectacle to see the herds and flocks roaming and flying as they done since Creation. Abe said folks sprung up here and there. Seen buildings the size of ten of the courthouse in Liztown, back in Kaintuck. Was for storing cargo along the river, tobaccy and such. Abe seen free Negros living up with the Shawnee, can you imagine Mr. Herndon?

  Some journeys end right where the Ohio meets the Mississipp. Figure it mussin a been a wild ride with them two bullies running into the other, crafts tossed and turned, send their goods to fend for themselves. Men left fishing out what they can and walking home, feeling their pride hurt somewhat. Other men were living off the river banks, gathering up the driftwood from the busted up flatboats, turn round and sell it to the steamboats for firewood. Abe said they were river rats of a sort. He seen things along the banks he was sure not to tell his Mama. Was temperate in all things. Still steal some of the boy right out of him once put afore his eyes. He wasn’t all boy no more, and never could be again.

  “Abe said the Mississipp was wider and muddier than the Ohio, men call it Big Muddy cause of it. Big Muddy seem to be in no hurry, Abe said, curving throughout the country like it did. Wished he could straighten it, said it would half his trip. Further south he got, less it was like home. Abe saw houses that looked like courthouses, with white columns. Moss hung from the trees. Rows and rows of slave shacks scattered round a big house. Passed Vicksburg, Abe did, where General Grant was to hold seige on his brothers and sisters some years later on. I reckon Abe thought back on his trips on the Mississipp when he was warring over it in the years later.

  After a prolonged silence, Mrs. Lincoln continued:

  “It’s a wonder what those boys spoke of as they were going down river, day after day. Comment on what they seen, for certain. It’s a wonder what those boys spoke on the topic of Ms. Katey, Mama to Allen’s baby. So many unasked questions Mr. Herndon. Too, too, many.

  “Katey could see past Abe’s all round protruding features. Not all of them could. Was a time Abe was laying with Katey on the banks of the Ohio, he was to fondly recall how they would look up at the stars. Once she said the moon was on its way down. Abe says, ‘That ain’t so’ and he jump off to speak of how the earth was spinning. He was so particular and sure about what he know’d. Seemed to me from Abe’s yarn that Ms. Katey appreciated Abe as he should be. He was right what he said of the earth spinning, a course. Must a come to Katey years later that she find Abe was right all along. Seemed to me Abe put a shine on Katey, seeing she enjoyed his speeching as she did. She chose Allen.”

  Mrs. L. has a few questions of her own, with my permissions inquired how my friendly acquaintances and family members refer to Writer. I inform her that Mr. L. liked to refer to me as ‘Billy.’ She enjoys this very much, requests permission to call me the same. I grant it with pleasure, surrendering my last vestiges of objectivity.

  “Billy,” she repeats to her delight, and inquires of my children. I tell her of my oldest, and that she has not left our home for a prolonged period, though she would like to at the earliest opportunity, and with the greatest passion. This delights Mrs. L. I return her attention to the subject of her son. She pauses, acclimating with great effort.

  “It’s a might chilly in here, don’t you think?” she said to Colonel Chapman. Her assessment was a source of astonishment to Writer.

  “How about a cup of tea, nice and hot, Granmarm?” Chapman asked, rising to put another log on the modest fire. She nodded eagerly and he turned to me. “Mr. Herndon?’

  “Yes, indeed,” I replied. “Thank you.”

  Tildy appears at Sarah’s side, ministering to her comfort. Warming Sarah’s hands with her own, Tildy hugs the old woman without pause. I was unexpectedly and suddenly longing for the company of my own mother. The Peace, Strength and Glory of God be with you always my good Mother! After multiple sips of honey tea, Mrs. L. is refreshed.

  “My Tildy spiles me with her Blessed heart.” After a moment with Tildy I remind Mrs. Lincoln of our topic, Abe departing to New Orleans. She went on:

  “The flatboat was tied up for the night as they were nearing New Orleans. The boys were awakened by a ruckus along the shoreline. Abe shouted, ‘Who’s there?’ He often described the brief quiet when it wasn’t clear what was to occur. Abe said his belly tighten any time just by retrieving the incident from his memories, all them years later. Just then a gang of escaped slaves storm onto Abe and Allen’s craft carrying clubs. Allen had his Pa’s wits, and he shouted out “Bring the guns, Abe! Shoot them!” But they had no guns, Allen just made them believe in it. By now Abe’s got himself a handspike and knocked over the first, second, third, and fourth, in turn, when the remaining few took to the woods. The boys chased them off afore they cut their ties and float on. Abe had a scar from it over his eye, had it still when he come see me that final time.

  “As they got closer to New Orleans they would pull ashore lingering and get pricing, plantation after plantation, mostly slave cabins and fields of sugar cane. Soon enough they arrived. Abe said they seen it at night, like a giant kettle fire a ways off. The city was lit up like they had torches burning on every corner, ‘ceptin instead of a torch it was a lantern lighting up by fish blubber, fish called a whale, and the whale was at times as big as a whole ship. Quite a world beyond my old candlesticks and tallow dips, Billy! Abe brung it to me, just fine for him to see it and tell me all about it than for a clearing lady such as me to git out for myself.

  “Abe said they stopped when the flatboats and steamers were lining up both sides of the river, sometimes four deep, boats tied up together. Some were sold out, while the one next was loaded up. Then come a wall between the river and the city with a broad flat area on top. Men unload cargo from the flatboats, fill up the pushcarts, three or four barrels at a time, offin for the city or the steamboats. Horse and wagon pass freely on top of the wall, call it a levee. Abe said the air hardly moved, filled with the smoke from the cooking fires. Smell of food was all around like he’d never smell it and felt it afore. Eyes burn while his stomach rumbles.

  “The steamboats were filling the time rumbling and hissing like it where ten fields of snakes. Can you imagine that Billy? All the while alongside the squealing and squawking livestock on the flatboats. Whole world coming together the
re, climbing up and down the steps of that levee. Allen was of course in a mood to get back to his newborn son and wife, so they sold what was left in New Orleans and come back home by steamboat. Abe got it in his head for a time afterwards that he might captain such a ship. Made quite an impression on my boy.

  “A Merciful Lord finally deliverd Abe to my door again. He stooped under the doorway and unfurled himself to me as I dreamt it every day he was away. I brung him to me and swore then that I would not agree to release him again, and kept my hold on him. He was mightily amused by this, Billy, and it reached into my heart about as deep as it go, to feel him grinning such whilst I had him snug. Like squeezing a tree branch hugging that boy was.

  “Seemed like right soon after Abe returned that the milk sick come back to Pigeon Creek, and the news from Illinois was a land a black soil. Tommy wasn’t one for milk sick, he know’d his heart couldn’t take no more after Nancy. He was a fool too for the promise of a new land where the living was somehow appearing to be less plagued than this one. We were off just when the frost is coming out of the ground, which made it plenty muddy for driving four yoke of oxen. We find our way through daily trials. Abe help us build this here cabin and then he was off again for New Orleans.

  “Abe was independent age that second trip. Was his life now. This time my John D. was going with Abe. Spite his gumption, he was a babe once in my arms. Saying goodbye to my boys was trial worthy of the wicked. Daily I carry on feeling as through there were embers in my gullet. John Hanks, who was Nancy’s cousin from Kaintuck, fancy the idea and declared he would go along too. Pleased me so that Nancy and I should both have our represents with Abe on that trip, like we were both there in flesh and blood. Nancy like it too, I spect. Nancy is in Heaven I have no doubt, and I want to go there, go where she is, God bless Nancy.