Hezekiah Butterworth

“ He is waiting for me. We are all about to die. When the wheat-fields blaze and the stacks take fire, and the houses crackle, then we shall all die. So says Waubeno." He listened again.
"Hear the earth cry—all the animals. My father hears—his soul hears. This is the day that I have carried in my soul. My spirit is in the fire."
He listened again. The prairie roared with the hot air, the flames, and the clouds of smoke. There fell another rain of fire, and women shrieked for mercy, and children cried on their mothers' breasts. ”

“ Father, the father of Waubeno could teach the pale-face. In the head? No, in the heart? No, in the soul, which is the true book of the Great Spirit that you call God. You came to us to teach us God. It is good. You are a brother, but God came to us before. He has written the law of right in the soul of every man. The right will find the light. You teach the way—you bring the Word of him who died for mankind. It is good. I've got you a runner to run with you. It is good. You help the right to find the light. ”

“ A boy who can spell all the words in the spelling-book, and bound all the countries in the world, and repeat all the dates of history, and yet who could have the heart to crush a turtle, has not been properly educated."
"Then your view is that the end of education is to make a young person do right?"
"No, my good friend, pardon me if I speak plain. The end of education is not to make young people do right, but to train the young heart to love to do right; to make right doing the nature and habit of life." ”

“ One leafy afternoon in May, Jasper and Waubeno came to Aunt Olive's, at Pigeon Creek. Southern Indiana is a glory of sunshine and flowers at this season of the year, and their journey had been a very pleasant one.
They had met emigrants on the Ohio, and had seen the white sail of the prairie schooner in all of the forest ways.
"The world seems moving to the west," said Jasper, "as in the white Indian's dream. There is need of my work more and more. Every child that I can teach to read will make better this new empire that is being sifted out of the lands. ”

“ A funeral car of flowers moves through the streets. Abraham Lincoln has done his work. He is on his journey back to the scenes of his childhood! The boy who defended the turtles, the man who stretched out his arm over the defenseless Indian in the Black Hawk War, and who freed the slave; the man of whom no one ever asked pity in vain—he is going back to the prairies, to sleep his eternal sleep among the violets. ”

“ Mary Panisciowa, think how he died, and of the men who killed him. They claimed to be Christians. Think of that! I am not a Christian. Mary Panisciowa, there is a spot that burns in my heart. I do not dissemble. I do not deceive. But that fire will burn there till I have kept my vow, and I shall do it."
"Waubeno," said the woman, "listen to better counsels. Revenge only spreads the fires of evil. Forgiveness quenches them.—That is a noble letter," she said to Jasper.
"Yes, a noble letter, and the marquis is an apostle of human liberty, a friend of all men everywhere. What brings him here?" ”

“ I would not be a true soldier if I failed in my duty to this old man. In every event of life it is right that makes might; and the rights of an Indian are as sacred as those of any other man, and I would defend them, at whatever cost, as those of a white man.—Main-Pogue, go hence! Here will I stand between you and death."
"Heaven bless you for protecting a poor old man! I have been a runner for the whites for many years, but I have never met a man like you. I will tell my boy of this. Your name is Lincoln?" ”

“ I know that you are good within, else he would not come; only they whose beings within are good see the white Indian, and he brings bright suns and moons and calumets of peace, and so the days go on forever. I now know that you speak true. And Waubeno has seen him; he will do well; he has seen the white crow among the black crows, and he will do well. Happy moons await Waubeno."
The lake was glorious in these midsummer days. The prairie roses hung from the old trees in the groves, and the air rang with the joyful notes of the lark and plover. Indians came to the fort and went away. ”

“ My friend, you are giving yourself a moral self-education that has more worth than all the advantages of wealth or a famous name or the schools of Boston. The time will come when this growing people will need such a man as you to lead them, and you will lead them more grandly than others who have had an easier school. You have learned the first principles of true education—it is, the habit that can not do wrong without feeling the flames of torment within. Every sacrifice that you have made to your conscience has given you power. ”

“ It was at that grave that Black Hawk listened to the hawks in the sky, and vowed vengeance against the white people forever, and summoned his warriors for slaughter."
"He's a hard Indian," said Thomas Lincoln. "Don't you trust Black Hawk. You don't know him."
"Hard? Yes, but did not your brother Mordecai make the same vow and follow the same course after the murder of your father by the Indians? A slayer of man is a slayer of man whoever and wherever he may be. May the gospel bring the day when the shedding of human blood will cease! But the times are still evil. ”

“ I wish that he could know that it was you who did that deed; your character might be an influence that would strike an unknown cord in the boy's heart, for Waubeno has a noble heart—Waubeno is noble. I wish he knew who it was that spared Main-Pogue. Acts teach where words fail, and the true teacher is not lips, but life. The boy once said to me that he would cease to seek to avenge his father's death if he could find a single white man who would defend an Indian to his own harm, because it was right. ”

“ You will do all you can for me, will you not, Waubeno?"
"Parable, listen! You love my people, and I will do all [Pg 130] that this arm, this heart, and this head can do for you. Whatever may happen, I will be true to you. If it costs my life, I will be true to you! You may have my life. Do you not believe Waubeno?"
"Yes, I believe you, Waubeno. You hold honor dearer than life. You say that I love your people. You know that I would do right by your people, to my own harm. Then why will you not make to me the promise I sought from you on the prairie?" ”

“ Nearly every man and woman had some special experience of the soul to tell; and if ever there was a community of simple faith and brotherhood, it was here.
Jasper's school began in the summer, when the sun was high, the cool shadows of the oaks grateful, and the bluebells filled the tall, wavy grasses, and the prairie plover swam in the air. ”

“ Abraham Lincoln has become the typical character of American institutions, and it is the purpose of this book, which is a true picture in a framework of fiction, to show how that character, which so commanded the hearts and the confidence of men, was formed. He who in youth unselfishly seeks the good of others, without fear or favor, may be ridiculed, but he makes for himself a character fit to govern others, and one that the people will one day need and honor. The secret of Abraham Lincoln's success was the "faith that right makes might." ”

“ The supper consisted of corn-bread of very rough meal, and of bacon, eggs, and coffee.
"Do you smoke?" asked Mr. Lincoln, when the meal was over.
"No," said Jasper. "I have given up everything of that kind, luxuries, and even my own name. Let us talk about our experiences. There is no news in the world like the news from the soul. A man's inner life and experience are about all that is worth talking about. It is the king that makes the crown." ”

“ I have planned to go down the Illinois in the spring, in a canoe, to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi to the Ohio, and visit Kaskaskia, and thence along the Ohio to the Wabash, and to the home where the boy lives who defended the turtles. It will be a long journey, and I expect to stop at many places, and preach and teach and form schools. I want you to go with me and guide my canoe. All these rivers are beautiful in summer. They are shaded by trees, and run through prairies of flowers. The waters are calm, and the skies are bright, and the birds sing continually. ”

“ Among the odd people sure to be found in such rural assemblies were the man with visionary schemes for railroads, canals, and internal improvements, the sanguine inventor, the noisy free-thinker, the benevolent Tunker, the man who could preach without notes by "direct inspiration," the man who thought that the world was about to come to an end, and the patriot who pictured the American eagle as a bird of fate and divinity. ”

“ The tall form dropped the two boys, and soon all was peace in the April-like air.
"Abraham Lincoln will never allow any quarrels in our school," said another boy. "Where he is there has to be peace. It wouldn't be fair for him to use his strength so, only he's always right; and when strength is right it is all for the best."
The boy had a rather clear perception of the true principles of human government. A will to do right and the power to enforce it, make nations great as well as character powerful.
The eventful day came, with blue-birds in the glimmering timber, and a blue sky over all. ”

“ He read the true character of the boy in buckskin breeches, human heart, and fluent tongue. He sat down on the log step of the school-house in silence, and Mr. Crawford presently came out with a quill pen behind his ear, and sat down beside him.
"That boy has been teaching what you and I ought first to teach," said Jasper.
"What is that?" asked Mr. Crawford.
"The heart! What is head-learning worth, if the heart is left uneducated? As Pestalozzi used to say, The soul is the true end of all education. Religion itself is a failure, without right character." ”

“ Waubeno gazed on the young giant as he drank his coffee, and sank into a deep slumber on a mat in the room. He watched him as he slept.
When he woke, Jasper said to him:
"Abraham, I wish you to know this Indian boy. I think there is a native nobility in him. Do you remember Johnnie Kongapod's story, at which the people all used to laugh?"
"Yes, elder."
"Abraham Lincoln, I can believe that story was true. I have faith in men. You do. Your faith will make you great." ”

“ The clod becomes a flower; the egg a reptile, fish, or bird. The cunning woodchuck, that looks out of his hole on the awakening earth and blue sky, seems almost to have a sense of the miracle that has been wrought. The boy who throws a stone at him, to drive him back into the earth, seems less sensible of nature than he. It is a pleasing sight to see the little creature, as he stands on his haunches, wondering, and the brain of a young Webster would naturally seek to let such a groundling have all his right of birth. ”

“ Lincoln, who had had a kindly word and pleasant story for everybody, pitied everybody, loved everybody, and forgave everybody, and yet carried a sad heart. Lincoln, who had resolved that in law and politics he would do just right.
John Hanks had brought some of the rails that the candidate for the presidency had split into the Convention of Illinois, and the rails that represented the hardships of pioneer life became the oriflamme of the leader from the prairies. He who is true to a nation is first true to his parents and home. ”

“ The enthusiasm grew; the minstrel had voiced the people, and they would not let him stop singing. They finally mounted him on their shoulders and carried him about in triumph, like a victor bard of old. Ever rang the chorus from the lips of the people, "Our Lincoln is the man!" "Old Abram is the man!"
Lincoln heard the song. He loved songs. One of his favorite songs was "Twenty Years ago." But this was the first time, probably, that he had heard himself sung. He was living at that time in the plain house in Springfield that has been made familiar by pictures. ”

“ Jasper saw young Lincoln among the people who had come to hear the great lawyer's plea, and said to him:
"You have traveled a long distance to be here to-day."
"Yes," said the tall young man. "There is nothing that leads one to seek information of the most intelligent people like a debating society. We, who used to meet to discuss questions at Jones's store, have formed a debating society, and I want to learn all I can of law for the sake of justice, and I owed it to myself and the society not to let this great occasion pass. ”

“ He rode away amid the stacks and corn-fields. He saw that the fields were dry as powder.
Out on the prairie he turned and looked back on the lights of the settlement as they glimmered among the trees. Could [Pg 235] he apply the torch to the dry sea of grasses around the peaceful homes?
Once, revenge would have made it a delight to his eyes to see such a settlement in flames. But Jasper's teaching had created a new view of life and a new conscience. He felt what the Tunker taught was true, and that the young soldier who had spared Main-Pogue had done a nobler deed than any act of revenge. ”