That Nation Might Live: One Afternoon with Lincoln’s Stepmother Page 7
“John Hanks, as I recall it, was the one to find a man who was going to supply the cargo and boat. Departing from Springfield, Illinois. First I heard of the place. Man’s name sound just like one with big plans —name of Denton Offutt. Ain’t that a name for a man who’s out to make all kind a things happen? ‘Ceptin when they track him down at a tavern, he’s full a whiskey, speeching on to the assembled, also full a whiskey. Abe said he spoke flourishgly of Andrew Jackson. Abe’s new partner had plenty of speeches, and no boat neither. Welcome to the world, Abe Lincoln!
“Mr. Offut, he sent the boys off toward government timber and said if they want a boat, he reckons they should make it. Sure nuff they done it. Went to hauling goods on the river, hogs and corn again mostly. Five of them set off, including Mr. Denton Offut. He was eager to spend his earnings in New Orleans. Lordy, Lordy, what sin he’d find without much bother, not that he bother. John Hanks jumped off at Saint Louis and come home. Just like Nancy, he wasn’t to see the journey to its end.
“With both my boys gone, I was sick every day, could not manage much solid. A Mama’s heart faces many perils. They stay a full month in New Orleans. Mr. Denton Offut was in no hurry to return home with the earnings like Allen Gentry was that first trip. Day finally come after that when I see them coming over yonder. Next they both go off to war together, like they were trying to kill me, it felt so. But I am a bit ahead of myself to fire that yarn just yet. This’n here is about Abe in the slaving center for a whole month. Abe took note with such wonder at how them civilized people of New Orleans could make a business of selling people just like them. He figured over it till it take him a long, long ways down his thoughts. Abe said often of the scars on his heart he got in New Orleans. Painful to speak of, Billy.”
I replied to Mrs. L. that these experiences could be relevant to history. I desired to spare her the heartache, but I was compelled to share my opinion that Abe’s thoughts about slavery, those wounds in his heart, could be important to the generations to come, and she was most likely the only one alive he had left those memories with. She gathered her strength, hands clenched with fistfuls of shawl, she continued:
“Abe walked the streets plenty. Slaves, free blacks, and whites mingled in the port of the Mississipp. Sights and sounds of the river delta unimaginable for an old lady from the clearing. He said New Orleans was what I known, maybe a little bigger is all. We have our log cabin church, and folks gather from all around. New Orleans has a Cathedral with a tower, maybe twice the top of the Liztown courthouse. At the top of this Cathedral was a clock big enough for all to see. Abe said a bell rung all through the day. Was where the folks gathered around. Just more of them and looking every shade a color possible. That was the best I could reckon he was saying about mulattos and ochanondos, and all kind words troubling to a small mind such as my own.
“All them roads meet in a central square at the center of town. Abe said he could cross a street and back and not come across a single word he could understand as folks were speaking their native country. Other than that, Abe said it just like Gentryville, making up the center of things for sundries and seeing other folk.
“I ask Abe once about the dress of the proud body ladies, hopeless sinners as they are. He said the ladies wear white gloves and dress in their finest cloth, like table linens, ‘cept thinner, and shade or two brighter. Women were prone to wear fancy jewelry and colorful hats, some with a basket over their arms, others fancy a Negro servant to carry their basket.
“He loved to tell his Mama about the things he seen, describing harvested crops I couldn’t rightly imagine. Seen something from south of America, countries Abe try and imagine. He wanted to go to Europe after he was President, wanted to take his beautiful Mary and their Blessed boys. Did you know that, Billy? Abe come across a crop that looked like green apple, but shaped like sorta like a bean. Cut open it was orange as a sunset and smelled just like a flower, and even taste like candy. Can you imagine it, Billy, such a crop? S’pose I’m down along wilderness path with my words again, for sake a sparing us the troubles. There was much shame. Abe breathe it in.
“Slave pens were scattered throughout the business district. Newspapers were filled with advertisements for sales, and auctions were taking place all around the city. Abe said they brung them poor souls out chained six together. Iron was around the left wrist of each, and this fastened to the main chain by a shorter one. Abe compare it to fish upon a trot line, the Negros were strung together so precisely like. He speak on about how they were being separated forever from anything a poor soul could cherish - mamas and wives, children, friends, and everything they ever known or were. Left without so much as a pinch a dignity, stripped naked and required to dance to show their strength and wares. He seen children taken from their Mama but he hardly spoke none on it. Trying to forget it is best of my figuring. “
Mrs. L. greatly distressed. Weeps freely. Writer joins.
“Abe seen folks in pens. Animal pens is what they were. Can you imagine it, Billy? My boy marveled when he seen them, said them Negro folk were the most cheerful and apparently happy souls. One played the fiddle almost continually while the others danced, sung, cracked jokes and played various games with cards. Ain’t seen too many animals playing games with cards. Was the gravest insult to us all. Abe know’d it that way, showed me and a few others too.
“John D. told me once about an auction they seen when a beautiful girl was exhibited like a race horse, her points dwelt on one by one, in order, as the auctioneer said that bidders might satisfy themselves. Johnny said Abe’s heart bled open just then, said nothing much, was off somewheres else like. Turning to the others my Abe offered a solemn oath, ‘Boys, if ever I get a chance to hit that slavery, I’ll hit it hard.’ He bide his time, but he done it.
“He told me he seen an older Negro man and he come right out, innocent and maybe a little green about it too, and he ask the man if he was happy in slavery. The old feller unbent his back as much as possible and raising a face without a crease of hope in it and said, Abe said it just as he done, ‘No—no Marse. I nevah is happy no mo. Whippin’s is things that black folks nevah can stop rememberin’ about—they hurt so.’
“Abe had his hardest trial around two boys same age as him. Before his eyes they were sold off by a trader to a local man. Them boys become fast friends after they were dragged away in chains together. Soon they hatch a plan and run off. Abe was quick to say he’d a done the same thing. It vexed him so that they were just like him and they were bound in slavery. Tortured him truly. A man caught one of them boys—name of Elisha, who broke free a his captor an nearly stab him to his death.
“There was no sign of the other boy, his name is long gone from my head. But they were on the trail now of Elisha, till they caught that poor, terrorized little boy. His Mama—oh, I ache over it now as I done then. If she know’d what become of her boy, she never have another moment of joy again, not a moment’s peace til Judgement Day.
“Elisha got himself caught again, and they build a gallows outside his Parish Prison window. Hung him four days later. I was wishing I could say then that the other boy made it to freedom, but it ain’t so. Know why, Billy? Cause he show up to see his friend hang to his death. When the trap door rip open on Elisha, stealing his last breathe, the other boy was watching along with the crowd assembled. Just then he died right along with his friend. Abe said the newspaper read the boy died of something they called ‘violent spasms,’ but Abe know’d, and I know’d, and you know too, Billy—that boy died of a broke heart. Abe was forged right then into a sword to be wielded by the Almighty. He was given a mission, and I curse myself, selfish as the devil, that I just wanted him to be my son, living still, here now having tea with his friend Billy and his Mama.”
Here the old lady stopped—turned around & cried.
“Abe’s mind was a marvelous instrument. He figured this one would do this and that that one would do that. He knew folks. Might be he set it up just right for folks in
the North to accept war as they done. They rallied for war after Abe‘s having the Rebs fire on us at Fort Sumter. We were fighting for Union, not for freeing Negros. Even if that’s what Abe had in mind all along. Abe didn’t free the slaves. They freed themselves with their fleeing feet and warring bravery. Abe just give name to it—Emancipation. He need them slaves to win the war, and we done it. Yes, Billy, his mind was a marvelous instrument to steer them narrows. In the end it was all about winning, to protect what George Washington teach him in that there Parson Weem’s book from so long ago, once belong to Old Blue Nose himself, Josiah Crawford. Tee-hee-hee.
“Just like that, we didn’t fight for kings and queens no more, we fight for what we believed, one way or the other. My family was from Kaintuck. They all fought for the Rebs, many died for them. Most awful horror, truly was. Our boys were killing each other. We may a had our diff’rences then, but us Mamas all got the same aching heart now. I know’d it was somehow all got to be, Abe sayin’ it so.
Abe found a way
out of every tight place
while the rest of us
were standing round
scratching our fool heads.
I reckon
Abe an Aunt Sairy
run that moving
an good thing they did
or we‘d a been run into a swamp
an sucked under.
6
Good Thing They Did
“It was John Hanks who got restless fust. Lit out for Illinois. Wrote for us all to come, and he’d git land for us. Tom was always itching for the land of Canaan nohow, and the land of Pigeon Creek wasn’t all paid for. Then milk sick come back and it was time for goodbyes.
“Tommy and me went back to Kaintuck a last time to sell my tiny property. Sold it for one hundred and twenty-three dollars. Paid but twenty-five for it as a scared widow. Seen my kin a last time. We spent our one final evening firing yarns bout things Ma and Pa done. Talked all over their chillern with joyful introductions. The time was precious and we know’d it. Seen my Ma and Pa’s graves together for the first and last time. Made my best goodbye. Wished they’d a met Abe.
“Back in Indianny Tommy handed the mortgage back over to James Gentry. Sold most of the livestock to David Turnham, I recall. Piled everything into ox wagons and we went. Lincolns and Hankses and Johnstons, all hanging together. I reckon we were like one of the tribes of Israel that you kain’t break up, nohow. There were five famlies of us then.
“Was a final church service with most of the folks round. Visit to gravesites was more wrought to the core. Nancy and Sairy, and that seed of a boy all laid into ground soaked with tears. It pains me to speak of it, Billy.
“Something I want to git for you, Billy,” she said, rising and making her way slowly to the bureau near the fire. Opening the top drawer, she reached in and took out a folded sheet of paper. “This here’s a poem Abe wrote for me, of his return to Indiana, years later. Would you read it for me?” It was my divine pleasure to do so. I transcribe:
My childhood home I see again,
And gladden with this view;
And still as mem’ries crowd my brain,
There’s sadness in it too—
O memory! Thou mid-way world
’Twixt Earth and Paradise;
Where things decayed, and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise—
And freed from all that’s gross or vile,
Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like Scenes in some enchanted isle,
All bathed in liquid light—
Now twenty years had passed away
Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play
And schoolmates loved so well—
The very spot where grew the bread
That formed my bones, I see.
How strange, old field, on thee to tread,
And feel I’m part of thee!
Mrs. L. appears ready the moment my eyes look up from the transcription above. Alert, she continues:
“It took us two weeks to git to Illinois, rafting over the Wabash, cutting our way through the woods, fording rivers, prying wagons and steers out of sloughs with fence rails. Abe made sure to joke every time he cracked a whip, and between us we found a way out of every tight place while the rest of them were standing round scratching their fool heads. I reckon Abe and me run that moving. Good thing we did, too, or it would a been run into a swamp and sucked under.
“Were three covered wagons. Women sat in a covered cart, stare at the backsides of a yoke of oxen. Was me a course, and my girls Betsy and Tildy. Their husbands were along by horseback, Denny and Squire. Chillern push as they can, or just walk along iffin able to keep the weight off the wagon. Abe strode along in the mud, driving the oxen as best he could. He was fond of wearing a felt hat round about then. It was black when he first got it, but was sunburned until it was a combine of colors. He was tall and tightly wound. Round then Abe wore a suit of blue homespun waistcoat and britches. Had a roundabout jacket. Wore boots then, he did. Too cold to do otherwise.
“The oxen were a pulling our wares through the mud and snow. We pressed on, anxious to settle on a parcel and git a crop in. Denny was speeching, seemed continuous at times. He was crowing about the sights he seen when he went out afore us to spy the land.
“Mornings were best, mud thickens as the day warms up. Times the men had to unharness all eight beasts, six ox and both horses, to have them pull one wagon at a time through the orneriest places. Men were on all corners a pushing and a heaving. Times we’d unload some of our goods right there in the wilderness, all size of people were carrying armfuls across the roughs, and then load it back up again somewheres further along, after we’d passed through it. Was a struggle at times cutting West.
“Most of the trip I spent stealing baby Johnny from Tildy. He was just a newborn still, worked his lungs plenty along the rocks and stumps bumping his ride. Fussy lil varmint! Granmarm done her best to grin up through worst of it. Johnny and I were bonded for life after that, still see him a plenty, bouncing in my door to see his Granmarm. Tildy and Squire were already up to quite a brood, four of them by then. Tildy was a right natural Mama, having John D. to keep an eye on all them years.
“Dennis fetched us some game as we went along, plentiful as the sixth day after the Good Lord finished Creation. A time come when we noticed the family dog - Abe call her ‘Honey,’ mostly because he seem to call all his dogs Honey - wasn’t with us. Tommy, Denny, John D., and Squire, the lot of them said we must keep on going. Abe wasn’t having it a’tall, and he fix us for camp and turned back, paying no mind to the menfolk’s fussing no more than the little papoose on my lap. He found old Honey running up and down the river bank, too scared to cross the current, which was plenty swift. Abe crossed back over the stream and swoop up Honey and walk her back, doing his best to restrain the terrified critter and ford the stream at the same time, in the shadows of dusk by then. But he done it of course. He simply couldn’t endure the idea of leaving that poor dog behind. That was the heart that beat inside my boy, Nancy’s boy too. I wasn’t pestered by the wait on him back then.
“Seen my Sister Hannah on the way through Illinois. She was Hannah Bush Radley by then. It was quite a time, shame it was just one night. Ain’t seen her since I run off the day I married Tommy, was maybe ten years since. She had her family and I had plenty a news from Kaintuck, seeing as I had just been there. Her kin may a had the Radley name but to look at them they were pure Bushes, even by name, John and Isaac. My brother Isaac must a been purt nigh honored with the news his sister named her boy Isaac. He spoke nothing of it to no one though, for certain.
The Radley/Bush boys were kind enough to accompany us to our land. Imagine it, Billy, them boys being there was like an escort from none other than my brothers and very own Pa. Was a Blessing from the All-Loving, Merciful and Kind. Was another three days afore we reached flat lands that were owned by no
one but the blue skies and the feasting thick grass.
“Afore too long we were served up fever and winter as I had never known. Was fighting to live in this land of milk and honey. Tommy had us all going back to Indiana till my sister Hannah visit and talk some Bush sense into him. Hannah Bush Radley, none other than my Mama’s namesake, gonna pass on some of her wisdom. She tell Tommy what he need to hear - the children of Israel trying to find the Promised Land, but no Red Sea divided for us yet. Times come when all sorts of difficulties beset us. We keep on the course we set.
“It was a purty country up on the Sangamon River, and we were all took up with the idea that they could run steamboats up to our cornfields and load. We moved to Coles County, and we’ve been here ever since. Abe helped put up a cabin for Tom and me, cleared fifteen acres for corn, and split walnut rails to fence it in. Abe was then somewheres round twenty-one. Was free to go then, had reached his age of independences, and Tommy give him some money to get what we used to call a ‘freedom suit.’ Abe stayed through that next spring and most of the summer to build and clear and get us set.
“When the seed was in the field, last thing Abe done was to plant me a garden of flowers. He know’d more than just vegetables. He always seen a world beyond and now it was his time. I certainly couldn’t follow him so there was nothing for this lonely old woman to do ‘ceptin to say goodbye. I done all I could right then not to let him go, but a course I know’d what must be.
“Abe said goodbye to his Pa, promising to send money as soon as he could. They shook hands then. Tom was hoarse and not speaking, if for only once in his life. Abe turned to me and I felt I should nearly die right then. He put his long arms around me and must a kept me from falling. Wasn’t but a few blinks it was me holding that wilderness boy from feeding the forest floor. Oh Lord a-Mighty! It went too fast! He whispered to me that he’s gonna see me as often as he can, and would not let a day pass that he don’t think of me generally. I knew it was so, Billy, but it was sweet as honey for my ears to hear the words said. I watched him walk off, and turn and wave once more afore he clear the horizon. I look off every day still hoping to see my boy appear small in the distance. When Abe went to live away from us, we all just thought the whole world was gone. Felt so.