At Lincoln's MonumentAt Lincoln's Monument
"Well, that shows you; you're like the people who lived when Lincoln did, they didn't know him, some of them; and now you don't know the places he went to and the country he lived in; and you'd never have gone to Old Salem, if you hadn't gone there for treasure—would you, Mitch?"
Mitch said he didn't know, maybe not.
"Well," said Mr. Miller, "if you find Lincoln whiletryin' to dig up a few rotten dollars, it's all right anyway. Now, boys, look here, it seems an awful time to you since Washington lived, since the Government was founded—but it isn't. We're all here together, and when you get to be old men, you'll see that you were born and lived in the beginning of the republic. How will it look hereafter? Do you want to know—take a history and look at it now. Let's see! Washington had just been dead ten years when Lincoln was born; Lincoln had been dead eleven years when you were born. When Lincoln was born, the Government had been founded just twenty-three years, was just a little more than of age. It wasn't but just eighty years old when Lincoln became president. Why, these figures are nothing. Think about it. When did Juvenal live? About 42A.D.When did Virgil and Horace live, and Caesar and Augustus and Domitian? What does forty years here or there mean when you're lookin' back over hundreds of years or a thousand? And so I say, you boys were born in the beginning of the republic, not a hundred years after it was started, and if either of you ever get your names into the history, there it will be beside Lincoln, and not far from Washington—for you were born ten years after Lincoln died and not a hundred after Washington. Well, there you are. You're young and the republic is young; and the chance is before you to do for the country and help out, for we're havin' bad times now, and they'll be worse. After every war, times is bad, and we're goin' to have other wars and worse'n ever."
Then Mr. Miller said: "There's two kinds of men—at least two. One that thinks and one that acts; or one that tells people what to do, and others that listenand do it, or else have thought it out first themselves, and do it. Well, look at Lincoln up there. Here he was over at Old Salem running a store, surveyin'; then in politics a little, then a lawyer; but mostly for twenty years he was thinkin' about the state of the country, slavery and things; and he thought it all out. Then they elected him president, and he acted out what he thought."
"Well, don't you suppose he could have got rich practicing law or tradin' in land? He was a good lawyer—none better! Why didn't he get fees and save and buy land during the twenty years he practiced law? Because his mind was set on the country, on how to make the country better, on being a shepherd of the people. The man who thinks of money all the time, thinks of himself; and the man who thinks of the country and wants to help it is thinking of what can be done for people and how the country can find treasure in having better people, and better laws, and better life and more of it. Yes, sir, boys, you'll find somewhere that Lincoln said his ambition was to be well thought of by his fellow citizens, and to deserve to be. And it never occurred to him that he could do that by getting money."
"Don't you boys think I'm lecturin' you for huntin' for treasure, or that I want either of you to grow up and be as poor as I am. I don't. I want you to have sense and provide for yourselves; Lincoln did that; he really had plenty after he got fairly started. But on the other hand, gold as gold I hate, and I see it getting power in this country. Why, it has it now. Look at Lincoln's face, what do you think he'd think of what's happened since the war—the robbery, ruin and conquest of theSouth, the money grabbing and privilege grabbing at the North, the money deals in New York, the money scandals everywhere—the treasure-hunting everywhere—and not a big man left in the country; none of the old, fine characters left who built their lives on foundations of wisdom and service and makin' the country better—none of these left to come forward and take the country out of the hands of these vultures, wolves, hyenas. And what are we going to have? Is money goin' to be the master in this country, or is man goin' to be? I hate it—I hate it as Lincoln hated it when he asked whether the dollar or the man should be put first. And I hate it because it is brainless, spiritless. It cares for nothing but itself. It is a snake that swallows and sleeps and wakes to eat again. It is a despot; it is without love, genius, morality. It is against people, against God, against the country. It is as wicked as Nero, as gluttonous as a cormorant; and it makes cowards, slaves, lick-spittles of some of the best of men. In this country, intended to be of free men, where men could grow and come to the best that is in them, already we find these laws and principles mocked—by what? By gold, by riches; and we find talented men and good men compelled to step aside for rich men; and rich men held higher than good and useful lawyers, preachers or anything else. Well, there's Lincoln: and if never again in the history of this country a rail-splitter, a boy who worked up from nothing with his hands and his mind, comes to rulership, still there's Lincoln, on whom no rich man could frown; and no big-bellied capitalist could patronize or ignore or make step aside. Why, it's great—it makes me happy, it gives me hope. And I can see for ages and ages theface of Lincoln on books, on coins, on monuments; until some day his face will be the symbol of the United States of America, when the United States of America has rotted into the manure piles of history with Tyre and Babylon, as it will if it doesn't turn back and be what Lincoln was: a man who worked and thought, and whose idea was to have a free field, just laws, and a democracy where to make a man and not make a dollar is the first consideration."
And then Mr. Miller said: "Yes, this is a great monument and Lincoln was a great man. You see when all the sap-heads and poets down in New England and all over was hollerin' for nigger equality and to give the nigger a vote and to marry him, and give him the same right as anybody, Lincoln just kept cool; and he didn't even emancipate the nigger until he had to in order to win the war. It was to win the war, understand. He wasn't swept off his feet by anybody, orators or poets or yawpers—nobody. But you'll see when you grow up what the difference is between not havin' the nigger for a slave and allowin' him to vote and marry you; and you'll see that what Lincoln said when he went over the country debatin' with Douglas, speakin' at Havana, and right here in Springfield and at Petersburg, too, he said to the last and acted on to the last. It was after the war and after Lincoln was dead that these here snifflers and scalawags got into power and pushed it over until they gave the nigger the vote and all that. And if this country goes to pieces because the good breeds have been killed off and die off, and the country is run by the riff-raff, then Lincoln, say five hundred years from now, will stand greater than he is to-day, unless the world can then see that the nigger shouldhave been kept a slave, so as to let the wise and the intelligent have time to think better and work better for the good of the country. For, boys, you can put it down that a country ain't good that is run on the principle of countin' noses, and lettin' everybody have a say just because he walks on two legs and can talk instead of barkin' or waggin' his tail." And so Mr. Miller went on.
Then Mr. Miller said damn, or that something could be "damned." And Mitch says, "Pa, did you know you swore?" And Mr. Miller says: "I shouldn't have, and don't you follow my example. But sometimes I get so mad about the country."
So we had seen the monument and walked away; and when we got a long way from it, we turned around and looked at it for the last.
Then Mr. Miller said he was glad he was out of the church, that he had tried to do certain things, but they wouldn't let him, and kept him in a groove. And now he was going to sell atlases and geographies, and be a free man, and maybe write a book. And he said: "The idea seems to be that goodness, spirituality, is church. It isn't, and it never was; it wasn't when the Savior came; He found goodness and spirituality in a lot of things, in a free life, in the freedom of out-doors, and not in the synagogues. Now, boys, believe in the Bible, in the Savior—I mean that; but don't let that belief make you into a membership with those who live for denial, for observation of injunctions, for abstinence from life, more or less, for solemnity, for religion as business, and business as religion, and religion for business. This is not goodness—not spirituality. Lincoln was good and spiritual—he believed in themind and he used it. Wisdom, beauty, play, adventure, friendship, love, fights for the right, and for your rights, travel, everything, anything that keeps the mind going; and kindness, generosity, hospitality, laughter, trips down the Mississippi, making cities beautiful and clean, having fun,—all these things are spirituality and goodness. They are religion—they are the religion of the Savior. They will make America; and they ought to be Americanism."
So Mr. Miller went on. I can't remember half he said, but it was plain he was worked up. Losin' his church or somethin' had set his thoughts free; and everything considered, I think he wanted to give us some ideas about things. And so after lookin' at Linkern's home, a frame house, not very big, not fine, but a good house; and lookin' at the furniture and things he had, we took the train back to Petersburg.
CHAPTER XXVIII
I could see plainer and plainer that I was losin' Mitch. There was somethin' about having this business together of huntin' for treasure that kept us chums; and now that was over and if we didn't get something else, where would we end up? Mitch said that the trip to Springfield had cured him of being mad at his pa for takin' us to Hannibal to see Tom Sawyer the butcher. And he said: "Suppose you was at Old Salem fishin' and you had a can of worms for bait, or thought you had, and you was really out of worms. Which would be better, to set there and think you had bait and go on believin' that until you began to catch fish and needed lots of bait and found you hadn't none, or to find out you hadn't none all of a sudden and then go get some in time for the fishin' that got good? And so, wasn't it better to find out that Tom Sawyer didn't live and find it out suddenly than to go along being fooled until something serious happened, and be a fool to the end, and maybe lose some good chance?" What I wanted to tell Mitch was that our case was real, that we had found treasure and would get it on Christmas; but I had promised my pa I wouldn't tell, and I didn't. I only said to Mitch: "We're just as sure to get treasure as the sun shines." And Mitch said: "Maybe, but not real treasure, not money, not jewels, or things like that."
As I said, I was surely losin' Mitch, for he was goin'considerable now with Charley King and George Heigold. I don't know what he found with them to like; only they were older and as it turned out, he did things with them that he and I never did. I tried my best to hold on to him, but couldn't. Sometimes I'd think I wasn't losin' him, that it was just fancy. Just the same things wasn't the same. The Miller family wasn't the same; there wasn't as much fun up there; and now Mr. Miller was away a good deal selling atlases; and sometimes when I was there of evenings Mrs. Miller would be sittin' alone, no one reading to her, and the girls kind of walkin' the rooms, and Mitch a good deal away of evenings, not home like he always was before.
You see I had a pony all the time; but pa loaned him here and there, and sometimes took him out to pasture across the river to a farmer's and that's how it was I didn't ride him sometimes out to the farm. But now he was in the barn, and as I didn't have Mitch, I rode about the country by myself. And once went out to the farm for a few hours, comin' back to town in a gallop all the way, to see how quick I could make it.
Finally I thought I'd go out to the farm on my pony and stay for a few days, and go camping with my uncle over to Blue Lake. I was goin' the next day and was out under the oak tree when Mitch came along. He seemed stronger, bigger, more like Charley King and George Heigold; there was somethin' about him kind of hard. He seemed as if he'd fight easier; he was quick to talk back, he seemed to be learnin' about things I didn't know. There was a different look in his eyes. He was changed. That's all I know. Mitch set down in the grass and began to make traps out of timothy to catch crickets. Somebody had taught him that. His facebegan to change. He began to look friendlier and like himself again, except he looked older and like he knew more. And then he began to talk:
"Skeet," he says, "I'm not Tom Sawyer, and I never was; never any more than you was Huckleberry Finn. I know who I am now. Do you?"
"No," says I. "Who are you?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Skeet—I'm Hamlet."
"Hamlet—who was he?"
"Well," says Mitch, "he was a prince."
"Well, you ain't," says I.
"No, I ain't. But Hamlet could be just like me and not be the preacher's son; and because he wasn't wouldn't make him different. Yes, sir, I'm Hamlet. I've read the play and thought about it a lot. And I know now who I am. And you, Skeet, are Horatio."
"Who was he?" says I.
"He was Hamlet's friend, just as you are my friend. And as far as that goes, there was never any persons more alike in this world than you and Horatio. You are good and steady, and don't change, and you are a good friend, you have got sense, and you have no troubles of your own, and so you can listen to mine, as Horatio listened to Hamlet's."
"What troubles have you?" says I.
"Lots," says Mitch, "that is general troubles—of course Zueline and this here court worries. I've got to testify again. I'm tangled up just like Hamlet was, and I want to get away like he did, and I can't. And it teaches me that it ain't because I'm a boy that I can't get away, for Hamlet was a man and he couldn't. He was getting old, most thirty, and he couldn't do any more with his life than I can with mine—not as much, maybe."
"And yet you say he was a prince."
"Yes, but what difference did that make? Did you ever see a chip get caught in a little shallow in the river in the reeds; and then see it get out of the shallow by the current changing or somethin', and then see it start down the river all gay and free, and run into some brush floatin', or get thrown against the logs to one side of the dam and held there? Well, Hamlet was a prince, and he was just a chip caught by the dam and couldn't budge and kept tryin' to and couldn't. This is what my pa says the play means; but also I can see it for myself. I keep readin' it and it gets clearer. And pa says it will never make any difference how old I get, the play will be wonderfuler and wonderfuler, and is to him; and that finally I'll wonder how any man could ever write such a thing."
"But didn't Shakespeare—he wrote it, didn't he?—get it out of some history?"
"Of course," says Mitch, "and didn't Linkern live, and right here in this town, as you might say? But suppose somebody could write up Linkern and use the very things that Linkern did and said, not as we hear 'em around here, wonderful as they are; but write 'em up so that you'd know what Linkern really was and why and all about it. For that matter, take Doc Lyon. We know he was a lunatic, but why, and what for, and just what it means to be a lunatic, I don't know and no one will know until some Shakespeare writes him up. For that matter, some folks think that Hamlet was a lunatic."
"Well, you ain't, Mitch," says I.
"No more than Hamlet was. He just was troubled and his mind kept workin', and that's me. But whatwould you say if I was the son of Joe Rainey and Mrs. Rainey?"
"How do you mean?" says I.
"Well, suppose I was their son, and suppose I knew that Mrs. Rainey, my mother, wanted Joe Rainey, my father, dead, and put it into Temple Scott's mind to kill my father, Joe Rainey; and then Temple Scott did kill him, and then Mrs. Rainey, my mother, put a pistol down so as to make it seem that my father, Joe Rainey, had carried a pistol. Suppose I was their son and was up in the tree and saw what I saw, what would I do?"
"Then you'd have to testify," said I.
"You don't know what you're sayin', Skeet. You don't see that I love my father, and he's been murdered; and I love my mother, and she has really murdered him. And if I testify against my mother, I get her hanged; and if I don't testify against her, then I wrong my father that I love; my mother goes free, and sometimes I hate her, because she is free, and my father has been robbed of his life, and I do nothing to punish her and Temple Scott for taking his life away. That's the worst of it; or maybe it's just as bad because I'm tangled in law and can't do what I want to do—can't be free to hunt treasure, we'll say, or do what I want to. Don't you see what a fix I'm in? Then suppose with findin' out what my mother is, the whole world changes for me—I get suspicious of my girl, and won't marry her and everything goes bad and finally I get killed myself, after killin' Temple Scott who's married my mother, we'll say, and in a way cause my mother to die too."
"Well, of course all this can't be," says I, "for you're not the Raineys' son;—they're both dead anyway; and Temple Scott will probably be hanged, and no onewill kill you—you'll grow up and get married—not to Zueline—"
"No," says Mitch, "never to her. For I ain't suspicious of her—I'm just done with her, just like Hamlet was done with Ophelia. I know her as he knew Ophelia, though she's different from Ophelia. She's cold, Skeet, and never understood me. I see that now. If she had, she'd never let her mother keep her away from me. Nothin' can keep a girl away from you that loves you. And I'll tell you something right now. Not long ago, I was walkin' by her house on purpose and she came out goin' somewhere. I tried to talk to her, and tell her that we could meet sometimes, maybe down at Fillmore Springs, or take a little walk at dusk or early evening; and that I wouldn't bother her much, only we'd understand that by and by we'd get married and be together forever, and I'd go away happy if I could have that hope. Well, she kind of turned on me and said 'no,' and hurried on. And, Skeet, when I saw that, when I saw that it was her as well as her ma that wanted me away, and meant to keep away from me—something kind of froze through me—or burned maybe, and then froze—my heart got like a big stone, and I could see it just as if it had been scalt and then turned white and shiny and kind of numb like my foot I cut in two. I began to laugh and since then I have been changed; and I'll never be the same again. My ma said it was foolish, that I was just a little boy and I'd grow up and it would all be forgotten. But I know better—I'm Hamlet—and I don't forget, and I never will. Do you remember one time when you and I was out to your grandpa's farm and Willie Wallace was settin' out trees?"
I said "yes."
"Well," says Mitch, "Willie Wallace that time cut a gash in a tree with the pruner while handlin' it and settin' it out. And he says to us, 'That tree will never get over that. By and by it will be a big scar, growin' big as the tree grows big, and grown over, maybe, but still a scar; or worse, it may stay open more or less and rain and frost will get in, and insects, and after a while it will be a great rotten place, a hole for a snake or a rat, or maybe a bird.' Well, pa says that Linkern lost Anne Rutledge and that he thinks Linkern's beautiful talk and wonderful words came from losin' Anne Rutledge. I don't quite see how—but if it did, then if a bird gets into the hole in the tree, that's a sign that you say somethin' or write somethin' because you've been gashed, just as pa says that Shakespeare wrote his wonderfulest plays and sonnets because he'd lost a woman. And sometimes I think I'm goin' to write something. I keep hearin' music all the time, and I try to write words down, but they don't mean anything; they are silly; so I tear 'em up."
La Belle Dame sans MerciLa Belle Dame sans Merci
So Mitch went on and he worried me. And I says: "Mitch, I'm goin' to say somethin' to you! Do you like me as much as you used to?"
"Every bit," says he. "Why?"
"Because," says I, "you don't always act the same. And besides, you keep goin' with Charley King and George Heigold—and—and—"
"And what?" says Mitch.
"And—I was afraid you liked 'em better'n me."
"Why," says Mitch, "them two boys is just grave diggers compared to you—or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—while you are Horatio all the time."
He explained to me what he meant by this, which was that in "Hamlet," Hamlet talked to grave diggers and to two men named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, without givin' a snap for 'em compared to Horatio.
Then I said, "I'm goin' out to the farm to-morrow. School will begin in about three weeks. I'm goin' out on my pony, and you can ride behind. And you'd better come. We'll have a lot of fun, and my uncle is goin' to take me campin' to Blue Lake." So Mitch said he'd go; and after a bit he began to repeat something he'd committed to memory. He was settin' in the grass, lookin' up at me, and his voice was so wonderful and sweet, sayin' these words:
O, what can ail thee, knight at arms,Alone and palely loitering?The sedge is withered from the lake,And no birds sing.
O, what can ail thee, knight at arms,So haggard and so woe-begone?The squirrel's granary is full,And the harvest's done.
"I met a lady in the meadsFull beautiful, a faery's child.Her hair was long, her foot was light,And her eyes were wild.
"I saw pale kings and warriors too,Pale princes, death pale were they all.They said 'La Belle Dame sans MerciHath thee in thrall.'"
Mitch was goin' on with this when we heard some boys whistle. It was Charley King and George Heigold. They called Mitch to the fence and talked. Then Mitch called back and said, "I'm goin', Skeet—come for me—what time?"
"I'll be up about seven," I said.
And Mitch climbed over the fence, and went with these boys.
I went up to the fence and follered them with my eyes till they turned the corner by Harris' barn and was gone.
CHAPTER XXIX
The next morning I was on my pony and up to Mitch's house at seven, and whistled and whistled. By and by one of the girls came out and said Mitch had staid all night at Charley King's and wasn't home yet. So I went over there; but he and Charley was up and gone already. Mrs. King came to the door, came out and stood by the pony and petted him and said I had pretty eyes, same as before. Then she said Charley and Mitch had gone somewhere. She didn't know where. So I rode off and rode around a bit and then I started for the farm, thinkin' that Mitch had treated me mean—and why would he for Rosencrantz or Guildenstern? whichever Charley King was. I was sure Mitch would turn up and the next day grandpa was goin' to town early to be home by three o'clock, and he said he'd bring Mitch out if he could find him.
My uncle now was in a mood to go camping to Blue Lake. So we got the tent out and began to mend it where it needed it, and fix the ropes. We took the guns and cleaned 'em, and I helped my uncle load a lot of shells. We set aside some pie plates and cups and did a lot of tinkerin' around. Grandma didn't want us to go. She was afraid we'd get drowned or shoot ourselves, or that a storm would come up and we'd get struck by lightning.
In the afternoon old Washington Engle came and he and grandpa sat under the maple trees and talked old times, even about Indians, for they had been in the Black Hawk War together, and they had seen the country grow from buffalo grass to blue grass and clover. I sat there listenin'; and pretty soon a buggy pulled up and somebody called in a loud voice and laughed. It was John Armstrong and Aunt Caroline. They had drove over to visit; and John had brought his fiddle to play some of the old things for grandma—some of the things he had played years before when Aunt Mary was sick and grandma was takin' care of her. Grandpa liked gospel tunes, like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but grandma liked "Rocky Road to Jordan" and "The Speckled Hen"; and John could play these and couldn't play religious tunes worth a cent. And John told stories as before; and he told about a man at Oakford who never had any money and always wanted drinks. So he took a jug and filled it half full of water and went to Porky Jim Thomas' saloon and asked for a half a gallon of alcohol, and Porky Jim poured it in. Then this man said to Porky Jim, "Charge it, please," and Porky Jim says: "Why, you ain't got a cent, and you never pay anybody." So he took up the jug and poured out what he had poured in and told the man to take the jug and go. And he did and had, of course, a half gallon all mixed. John laughed terribly at his own story—the women didn't laugh, nor grandpa. My uncle did, and I that's all.
Then Aunt Caroline helped grandma get supper and we had a lot of fun and they drove home.
The next day grandpa started early for Petersburg, so as to be back by three o'clock for something. Andmy uncle and me was getting ready because we was goin' to drive to Blue Lake that night, pitch the camp, and fish while it was quiet. So we had to grease the wagon and do a lot of things. And grandpa was to bring Mitch.
Three o'clock looked like it never would come. But at last about three I saw the white horses on the far hill, and then I saw them pulling hard and slow up the near hill and I could see grandpa now but couldn't see Mitch; and I watched and looked. Then I thought he was hid under the seat; or had dropped off to walk and come in later and fool me.
Grandpa drove in the lot. His face was set. He looked serious. He didn't look at me. He held the lines and looked straight ahead. I climbed on the carriage and says, "Where's Mitch?" Just then my uncle came up to unhitch the horses. My grandpa threw him the lines and grandpa got out of the carriage. Then he said, speaking really to my uncle and not to me:
"Mitchie Miller was killed this afternoon on the railroad."
"Grandpa!" I cried. "Grandpa!"
My grandfather's eyes were purple—they had grown deep and almost terrible to see. And he said: "Yes, son," and hurried toward the house.
I went to the barn. I saddled and bridled my pony. I leaped into the saddle and struck my heels into the pony's flanks, and away I went in a run all the way to Petersburg—six miles and not a pause or a let up.
When I got there in a little more than half an hour, I found that they had Mitch up at the house of Widow Morris. So I went there. He was still alive—and theylet me in. It was terrible. Such a smell of ether—medicines. Such whisperings—such fullness in the room. The doctor said we'd have to clear out, some of us. And some left. I staid long enough to see Mitch. His eyes were closed. His face was yellow—I could see blood. I turned sick and went out of the room. Just as I got to the door I heard Mitch say, "Has pa come?" They said, "He's comin', Mitchie, be patient, he's comin'." Then I stood by the door.
And pretty soon Mrs. Miller came and the girls and my mother and Myrtle and most every one. It seemed Mr. Miller was away selling atlases, but would be home soon, maybe, or maybe not till late, and maybe not till to-morrow. All the girls cried like their hearts would break; and Mrs. Miller knelt down by the bed, and Mitch says to her, "Where's pa?" And she says, "He's comin', Mitchie." And then she choked and had to walk away. They cleared the room now pretty much, and of course Mrs. Miller allowed me to be in the room if I wanted to, and could stand it. But I stood by the door, or just inside a little, for Mitch was talkin'. Finally they let me go to the bedside, and Mitch saw me and says, "Skeet," and then turned his head kind of over as if he wanted to say something he couldn't bear to say.
Then Mitch began to talk more. "Don't row so fast," he'd say—"The river's gettin' swifter. Take the horses from that engine. I'm goin' to see Tom Sawyer—I can fly to him—fly—fly—fly—Zueline—it's you, is it?"
Then he kind of woke up and says: "Is Zueline here?" And they said, "No, but she was comin';" but she wasn't; she was out of town, and probably wouldn'thave come anyway. And then he said—"Get my pa—he must forgive me before I die."
Mitch Saw Me and Says, "Skeet"Mitch Saw Me and Says, "Skeet"
By this time I knew how Mitch was hurt. He'd been with Charley King and George Heigold, and they had been flippin' on the train. And Mitch was ridin' on the side of a car with his foot hangin' down that he had cut in two, draggin' against the wheel, which he didn't notice because his foot was numb from being cut in two when he was four or five years old. So the train gave a lurch and dragged him under; and the wheels cut him at the hip. It couldn't be amputated by the doctor, and they couldn't stop the bleedin'.
Then Mitch began to repeat all kinds of poetry from "Hamlet" and things I didn't know; and he repeated what he had recited to me that day:
"I saw pale kings and warriors too,Pale princes, death pale were they all.They said 'La Belle Dame sans MerciHath thee in thrall.'"
And he talked about flyin', about treasure, about St. Louis, about Doc Lyon, and Joe Rainey and the pistol; and once he talked as if he thought he was testifyin' in court; and he said—"Now we're on the Mississippi—how fast the boat goes—don't row so fast." But always he'd come to and say, "Where's my pa?"
And after a bit there was a stir—Mr. Miller came—pushed his way through. He was pale as ashes, all trembling, out of breath, for he'd run up the hill. And he came to the bedside, but Mitch was dreaming again, drifting and dreaming, and talking about boats, about money, about Hamlet, about treasure, about pale kings and warriors and death-pale princes. But pretty soon he says, "Where's my pa? Is he never comin'?"
"I'm here," said Mr. Miller.
Mitch opened his eyes and looked at his father for about a minute and saw his pa had come. He was pretty weak now and it was hard for him to speak. But finally he said, "Take my hand—pa." And Mr. Miller took it. And then nothin' was said for a while. And then Mitch spoke again—"Forgive me, pa." And Mr. Miller, who was tryin' to keep from cryin' so as not to worry Mitch, says, "Oh yes, Mitchie." And then Mitch says: "Say a little prayer, pa." And Mr. Miller kneltby the bed to say a prayer, and Mitch says—"Not out loud—just to yourself."
So Mr. Miller did, and then Mitch wandered again and he says, "Don't row so fast." Then there was a terrible stillness. Mitch had died with them words.
And my friend—my chum, was gone for good.
CHAPTER XXX
And then there was the funeral. It was held at Mr. Miller's house and everybody was there; my grandpa, my grandma, my uncle, John Armstrong and Aunt Caroline, Willie Wallace, Colonel Lambkin, Nigger Dick, Dinah, my ma and Myrtle, all the Sunday School children, and George Montgomery. Only Charley King and George Heigold wasn't there. They were afraid, bein' partly responsible for Mitch's death. And when everybody was seated and ready, Zueline and her ma came. They was all dressed up, and everybody looked at 'em. Mr. Miller, of course, couldn't preach the sermon for his own boy; so they sent for a wonderful preacher over at Jacksonville and he talked for about an hour about pearly gates and the golden streets of Paradise; and there was Mitch lyin' there, pale, his eyes sealed, just asleep, but in such a deep, breathless sleep. And they had the church choir there which sang. And one of the songs they sang was:
I will sing you a song of that beautiful land,Of the far away home of the soul,Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand,While the years of eternity roll.
And the minister went on to say how good God was, how no sparrow falls except He knows it, how all ourhairs was numbered and how God loves us, and would comfort the father and mother and brothers and sisters, and little friends; and how if it hadn't been for the best, Mitch wouldn't have died; and that God knew best and we didn't; and if we could look ahead and see the dreadful things that would happen, we'd know that God was good and wise to take Mitch away before they happened—while he was yet a boy, and had had no trouble and all the world was still beautiful to him. And he talked about sin and what suffering does for people, how it makes 'em humble before God, and respectful and at last saves 'em if they will heed the lessons and turn to God. Everybody cried when the last song was sung, especially the children, who sobbed out loud, and Mr. Miller and Mrs. Miller and the Miller children—and I looked over at Zueline and her ma. Her ma was just lookin' down. I thought I saw a tear in Zueline's eyes, but I'm not sure. So we went out to the cemetery and they buried Mitch not far from Little Billie. So it was all over. We began to separate and get into carriages or walk. And pretty soon I was home. There was nothing there. My ma went in and began to do something. Myrtle went out to the swing. I went in the house but couldn't stand it; and then came out and hung on the gate.
After a bit Charley King came along and asked me about everything. Pa said Mitch had been running with Charley King and George Heigold, and they got him into things too much for his age, flippin' cars and such things, and that's how Mitch lost his life. You see I'd been scared about this; I didn't want Mitch to go with 'em; I didn't know why; but now it was clear.
And with everything else, it was Sunday, for Mitch had died Friday, four or five hours after he was run over. And it was only a week now till school would take up.
The next day I went down to the office with pa. I wanted to be close to him; he was a man; he was strong, and I was lonesome and grievin', and at night always dreamin' of Mitch. And after a while Mr. Miller came in, and Mrs. Miller too. They looked terrible sad and pale. Here was Mr. Miller out of a church and not makin' much, and here they had lost their only boy.
So pa went over to his safe and got the $1000; he had it in two envelopes, one marked with my name and one with Mitch's; and he came back, holdin' 'em in his hand and he said: "You know that these boys found that money that belonged to old Nancy Allen. Well, a fellow named Joe Allen turned up here from Pike County—a third cousin of hers—and her only livin' relative, and I had this money for him. But when I told him that these boys had found it while lookin' for treasure, and what kind of boys they were, the old fellow remembered his own boyhood, his poverty, and all that and he wanted to do something for these boys. So he made me take this thousand dollars to divide between 'em." Mrs. Miller began to sob. And Mr. Miller's voice was broken, but he said, "Hard, I never heard anything like this—never in my life." "Well, here's the money," says pa; "and I made Skeet promise not to tell anybody about it until we got ready to." He stopped; and I, not thinkin', said: "It was to be a secret till Christmas."
Then Mrs. Miller broke down completely, and for several minutes nothin' was said. My pa was cryin',so was I. So was Mr. Miller, and just then the train came in, the same that had killed Mitch, and it seemed like none of us could stand it.
After a bit pa says: "Of course, half of this money goes to you and Mrs. Miller under the law, and the other half belongs to Skeet—but I'm not going to let him take it. He doesn't need it. I can always take care of him, and I'll inherit quite a lot, and he'll have that. And as far as that goes, it wasn't his idea to hunt for treasure—he was just a helper and followed up Mitchie's idea. So now here it is, and it goes with my blessing and with Skeet's."
And I said, "Indeed it does." And pa handed the envelopes to Mr. Miller, and he took 'em and fingered 'em in a nervous way and he says: "What shall we do, ma?—we need the money, but somehow I don't like it, and I won't take Skeet's share, would you?"
And she says, "No—never—I'd never take Skeet's share; that is Mitchie's share and his too." "Here," he says, "here's the envelope marked with Mitchie's name, you take this, Skeet, because you and Mitchie worked together, and if you want to give me the envelope marked with your name, I guess I'll take it—I seem to have to."
So that's the way it was done. And he said to pa: "Hard, there never was a better man than you, or a better name or family than yours, or a better boy than Skeet." Then the tears came in his eyes, and he and Mrs. Miller left. And afterwards I said to pa, "I don't want this money. If I could have had it with Mitch, if we could have spent it together for velocipedes—and dogs, and sets of tools, for scroll saws, watches and whatever we wanted, and soda water, when we wantedit, and bananas, which we never had much because they cost ten cents apiece—for anything, that would have been different. But now it's just so much rags or paper, and I haven't got any use for it whatever. I am Huck Finn at last—the money means nothing to me. It meant nothing to Huck, because when he got it, he had to put on shoes and dress up. And now I've got it, I've lost the only thing that made it worth while. I've lost Mitch who made it interestin' to get, and would have made it interestin' to spend."
Then I told pa I wanted to give it to the Miller girls, barrin' just a few dollars to buy a present for ma and grandma and Myrtle, maybe—and I wanted them to take enough to put up a stone at Mitch's grave with some words on it, suitable to him.
So pa said he thought that was all right. And I took out $20 and we put the rest in the bank in the names of the Miller girls—and that ended the treasure.
So next Monday school commenced, and I sat in my seat lookin' out of the window. Zueline had been taken to a girls' school in Springfield so as to get her out of the common schools; and her mother had gone with her to stay all winter. And every day the train came through that Mitch was killed on. The days went by; the fall went by; the winter came. The snow began to fall on Mitch's grave and Little Billie's; and still we went on. Delia got the meals as before; the washwoman came and did the washing on Monday; pa was buying wood for the stoves; we had to be fitted out for winter. Grandma and grandpa came in to see us, cheerful and kind as they always were. Once he carried a half a pig up the hill and brought it to us; and they were always giving us things; and grandma was always knittingme mittens and socks. They had lost a lot of children, two little girls the same summer, a daughter who was grown, a grown son who was drowned. They seemed to take Mitchie's death and Little Billie's death as natural and to be stood. And they said it wouldn't be long before we'd all be together, never to be separated; and then we'd all be really happy.
And finally the December court came around and they tried Temple Scott. Harold Carman testified to what he had said to the woman on the boat. And Major Abbott was kerflummoxed and lost the case. Temple Scott got fourteen years in prison—and that ended that. He went there and staid.
And then Christmas came and in the evening I went up to the Millers'. The girls were playing about the same as before. Mr. Miller was reading Shakespeare to Mrs. Miller and he looked up finally and said, "Ma, I've just thought of an epitaph for Mitchie's stone—here it is in 'Hamlet': 'The rest is silence.'" And Mrs. Miller said "yes" and put her knitting down to count stitches. The girls rushed into the room laughing and chasing each other. And then I went home.
I had presents, but what was presents? My chum was gone. I thought of the last Christmas when we was all together—Mitch was here then and Little Billie. I couldn't enjoy anything. I crept up to bed and fell asleep and dreamed of Mitch.
You will be surprised to know how I came to write this story. But before I tell you that I want to say that if Mitch had written it, it would have been much better. I sit here, dipping my nose in the Gascon wine, so to speak, as Thackeray wrote of himself; and Iknow now that Mitch was a poet. He would have made poems out of his life and mine, beautiful songs of this country, of Illinois, of the people we knew, of the honest, kindly men and women we knew; the sweet-faced old women who were born in Kentucky or Tennessee, or came here to Illinois early in their youth; the strong, courtly, old-fashioned men, carrying with them the early traditions of the republic, in their way Lincolns—honest, truth telling, industrious, courageous Americans—plain and unlettered, many of them, but full of the sterling virtues. Yes, he would have written poems out of these people; and he would have done something more—he would have given us symbols, songs of eternal truth, of unutterable magic and profound meaning like "La Belle Dame sans Merci." I am sure he would have done something of this kind—though it is idle to say he would have written anything as immortal as that. You must only indulge me in my partiality for Mitch, and my belief in his genius, and hope with me that he might have done these great things.
And yet! And now why did I write this story? As I was sitting with my nose in the Gascon wine, which is a strange figure, since there is no Gascon wine here, and no wine of any sort, since a strange sort of despot has got control of the country, for the time being only, I hope—as I said, as I was sitting with my nose in the Gascon wine, I was also reading, and I was alone. I have had chums, I have had companions, but none like Mitch, never in all my life. And being alone, I was reading—what do you suppose? I had been out for the evening, I had found a book lying on the table of my host, I had looked in the book and begun to read. My host saw I was intrigued and said, "Take it along."I did, and was reading before going to bed. The book was the letters of John Keats to Fannie Brawne.—Well, don't you suppose these letters made me think of Mitch who had repeated "La Belle Dame sans Merci" to me and was uttering some of its marvelous lines with his dying breath? But this was not all. Let me quote one of Keats' letters to Fanny Brawne:
"When you were in the habit of flirting with Brown, you would have left off, could your own heart have felt one half of one pang mine did. Brown is a good sort of man—he did not know he was doing me to death by inches. I feel the effect of every one of those hours in my side now; and for that cause, though he has done me many services, though I know his love and friendship for me, though at this moment I should be without pence were it not for his assistance, I will never see or speak to him, until we are both old men, if we are to be. I will resent my heart having been made a football. You will call this madness. I have heard you say that it was not unpleasant to wait a few years—you have amusements—your mind is away,—you have not brooded over one idea as I have, and how should you? You are to me an object intensely desirable—the air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy. I am not the same to you—no—you can wait—you have a thousand activities—you can be happy without me. Any party, any thing to fill up the day has been enough. How have you passed this month? Who have you smiled with? All this may seem savage in me. You do not feel as I do—you do not know what it is to love—one day you may—your time is not come. Ask yourself how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in loneliness. For myself I have been a martyr the whole time, and for this reason I speak; the confession is forced from me by the torture. I appeal to you by the blood of Christ you believe in. Do not write to me if you have done anything this month which it would have harried me to have seen. You may have altered—if you have not—if you still behave in dancing rooms and other societies as I have seenyou—I do not want to live—if you have done so, I wish this coming night may be my last. I cannot live without you and not only you but chaste you; virtuous you. The sun rises and sets, the day passes, and you follow the bent of your inclinations to a certain extent—you have no conception of the quantity of miserable feeling that passes through me in a day—Be serious. Love is not a plaything—and again do not write unless you can do it with a crystal conscience. I would sooner die for want of you than—"Yours forever,"J. Keats"
"When you were in the habit of flirting with Brown, you would have left off, could your own heart have felt one half of one pang mine did. Brown is a good sort of man—he did not know he was doing me to death by inches. I feel the effect of every one of those hours in my side now; and for that cause, though he has done me many services, though I know his love and friendship for me, though at this moment I should be without pence were it not for his assistance, I will never see or speak to him, until we are both old men, if we are to be. I will resent my heart having been made a football. You will call this madness. I have heard you say that it was not unpleasant to wait a few years—you have amusements—your mind is away,—you have not brooded over one idea as I have, and how should you? You are to me an object intensely desirable—the air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy. I am not the same to you—no—you can wait—you have a thousand activities—you can be happy without me. Any party, any thing to fill up the day has been enough. How have you passed this month? Who have you smiled with? All this may seem savage in me. You do not feel as I do—you do not know what it is to love—one day you may—your time is not come. Ask yourself how many unhappy hours Keats has caused you in loneliness. For myself I have been a martyr the whole time, and for this reason I speak; the confession is forced from me by the torture. I appeal to you by the blood of Christ you believe in. Do not write to me if you have done anything this month which it would have harried me to have seen. You may have altered—if you have not—if you still behave in dancing rooms and other societies as I have seenyou—I do not want to live—if you have done so, I wish this coming night may be my last. I cannot live without you and not only you but chaste you; virtuous you. The sun rises and sets, the day passes, and you follow the bent of your inclinations to a certain extent—you have no conception of the quantity of miserable feeling that passes through me in a day—Be serious. Love is not a plaything—and again do not write unless you can do it with a crystal conscience. I would sooner die for want of you than—
"Yours forever,"J. Keats"
Then I turned back a few pages in my disconnected way of reading this book, and I found these words: Fannie Brawne to whom this agonized letter of Keats' was written wrote to a Mr. Dilke ten years after Keats' death in regard to a memoir proposed to the dead, and in the following unconcerned and ignorant way:
"The kindest act would be to let him rest forever in the obscurity to which circumstances have condemned him."
No remembrance here for Keats' adoration; no thrill that a human heart, even if it had been the heart of an ordinary man, had poured out its last devotion to hers; no pity for his obscurity, if it was such, his untimely and tragic death; no recognition of his passion for beauty, including his misguided passion for the beauty which was not in her; no perception of the goodness in the man, the bravery of his heart; the white fire of his spirit; no understanding of his greatness, even after Byron had written that "Hyperion" was as sublime as Æschylus, and Shelley had poured out in "Adonais" the grief and the passion of a flaming indignation and scorn in one of the greatest of elegies; no memory contemplatingthe agony of a dying youth stricken with consumption, and torn with the tragic spectacle of defeated ambition. "Let him rest forever in the obscurity to which circumstances have condemned him."—These were her words in the face of all these things.
And so, reading these words of Fanny Brawne, my mind turned back to Mitch, and his life rose before me and took shape in my mind, and I wrote; just because he had had this boyhood love for Zueline and went through that summer of torture for losing her. And I could see that he might have suffered these pangs again; that over and over again, perhaps, he might have poured out his passion in the endless search for beauty and faith, and in the search for realization and glimpses of eternal things through them, and that he would have never found them, through woman; and so thinking I could look back upon his death at twelve years of age with complacency, and almost with gladness.
But also if he had lived through as many years as I have lived, he would have passed through the chaos, the dust, the hate, the untruth that followed the Civil War. He would have seen an army organization exercising a control in the affairs of the republic beyond its right, and ideas that were dead and were never rightfully alive, keeping the people of his country from pulling themselves out of poverties and injustices, and from planting themselves upon the new soil of each succeeding year and its needs. He would have seen wealth amass through legalized privilege into the hands of treasure hunters; and he would have seen these treasure hunters make and interpret the laws their own way, and in behalf of the treasure they had and were seeking. Hewould have seen his country go forth to free an island people, and then turn and subjugate another island people as a part of the same war, and then depart from the old ways into paths of world adventure and plunder. And he would have seen his country spend ten times what it spent in the Civil War and lose in battles or disease half as many young men as it lost in the Civil War in the crusade of making the world safe for democracy; and he would have seen democracy throttled and almost destroyed at home, and democracy abroad helped no whit by this terrible war. He would have seen that all these things happen for treasure—for gold which cares nothing for laws, nothing for liberties, nothing for beauty, nothing for human life, but always seeks its own everywhere and always, which is its own increase and its own conservation. He would have seen men jailed for nothing and sacred rights swept away by the sneers of judges, and written safeguards of the people's liberties by those very judges sworn to support, overthrown by them, at the bidding of treasure hunters who stand back of hired orators, hired newspapers, hired clergymen, hired lawyers, and hired officials. He would have seen congresses uttering and acting upon lies, and his country bound together with a network of elaborate falsehood.
The America his father hoped for and the America he would have hoped for sits for the time being, anyway, in dullness and in dust. And so I am not sorry that for these nearly thirty years, Mitchie Miller has been dust, a part of the hill overlooking the Sangamon River, not far from the deserted village of Old Salem—his dust at one with the hill and sharing its own eternity!
Printed in the United States of America.