^313.7 L 63
 
 LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 *^'^
 
 Spanish Peggy
 
 mmnm of Illinois
 
 YOUNG LINCOLN AT THE COOPER S SHOP
 
 a: 
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 A STORY OF YOUNG 
 
 ILLINOIS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO. 
 CHICAGO & NEW YORK 1899
 
 COPYRIGHTED, I 899, BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
 
 1 * 
 
 UH' 
 
 UNIVERSm OF ILLiriOlS 
 URBAWA 
 
 •69348
 
 DON PEDRO LORIMER AT THE SCHOOLHOUSE
 
 TO SUE 
 
 THE DEAR YOUNG SECRETARY WHO GATHERED THE MATERIAL, 
 AND HELPED ME MAKE THIS STORY 
 
 A 
 o 
 
 •O 
 
 bo 
 6M 
 
 Oil
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 URBA?<A
 
 in 
 
 -c: 
 
 173, 7^ 4,3 z.,,,.^^,^. 
 
 ^ 7^^ ridge on which New Salem stood has not now 
 
 "^ one log upon another. The trees^ the grass., the sky, old 
 ^ witnesses of old doings, are there, as they were in Abraham 
 ^ Lincoln^ s day ; but the swarming village life is gone. 
 
 However, open your eyes : look carefully, and you may 
 see on that ridge and its environment this story lived again.
 
 SPANISH PEGGY 
 
 A BRAHAM LINCOLN lay stretched on his 
 ^^L stomach, his head supported by his hands, 
 ^^ "^^ facing the cooper's fireplace. A blaze of shav- 
 ings and blocks lighted cobwebby beams overhead, clean 
 staves and hoop-poles standing around the wall, the 
 cooper's work-bench and tools, and the lank, aguish face 
 of a man who sat on a keg beside the hearth, holding a 
 book from which the young student recited. The shop 
 had part of a log left out in the side, filled, like all New 
 Salem windows, with oiled paper instead of glass. Outer 
 darkness made this a blurred oblong framed by logs. 
 
 People knew that the cooper let young Lincoln turn 
 his shop into a study an hour or two every evening, and 
 no one before this night had come picking at the latch. 
 
 "The string's pulled in, Minter," said Lincoln, turn- 
 ing his head, as suppressed laughter and a shuffle of feet 
 on the log step disturbed his recitation. " Never mind 
 the boys; they'll go away pretty soon." 
 
 " Maybe the Grove fellows have come to town," said 
 the aguish young man on the keg, listening anxiously. 
 "They'd as lief break in the cooper's paper as not." 
 
 " I reckon we'd better hurry, anyway," urged the
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 student, and he continued repeating as rapidly as he could 
 the remainder of the lesson. 
 
 Presently with a click the door turned back on its 
 wooden hinges and bumped the wall. 
 
 "I know you, Slicky," declared the interrupted scholar 
 without looking. "Come in. Folks wouldn't give you 
 the name of Slicky Green if you hadn't a way of getting 
 what you want." He scooped a double handful of blocks 
 and shavings on the blaze, and, warned by some unusual 
 restraint at the door, hastily drew up his length before 
 the fire. It showed him a slim giant in blue homespun 
 trousers, which did not quite cover his ankles, and an 
 open roundabout hanging loosely from the shoulders, and 
 betraying the fact that his vest was buttoned crooked. 
 Seeing a stranger on the threshold with the boy he called 
 Slicky, Lincoln ran his hand through his dark hair, leav- 
 ing it tossed in every direction. 
 
 " How did you know I was home from college, Abe ? 
 Dick and I rode in from the farm on purpose to see you. 
 This is Dick Yates, one of our boys from the Jackson- 
 ville school. Dick, this is Abe Lincoln." 
 
 How do you do, Dick ? " said Abe, offering his hand. 
 How do you do, Abe?" said Dick, seizing it. 
 
 "And here's our schoolmaster, Minter Grayham," 
 continued Slicky, presenting the pale occupant of the 
 keg. Minter rose with the dignity of a man who often 
 pronounced words of five syllables. The mounting 
 firelight found reflecting threads in Dick Yates's bright 
 auburn hair. The schoolmaster thought him a beauti- 
 
 es
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 ful young fellow, with modest manners. His features, 
 perfectly modeled and rosy as a girl's, were manly, from 
 full forehead to outstanding chin. Though of a robust, 
 well-knit figure for a lad of eighteen, his head barely 
 reached Lincoln's shoulder as the two stood looking at 
 each other. 
 
 " I've been telling Dick so much about you, Abe, that 
 he wanted to see you," said Slicky. 
 
 Abe blushed and Dick blushed, with eager friendli- 
 ness and recognition of power. 
 
 "Are you studying Blackstone?" inquired Dick, indi- 
 cating the huge book which Minter Grayham held closed. 
 
 "Yes. It's mighty interesting reading to me." 
 
 " I'm going to study law, too. But it scares me to 
 death to begin a debate ; and Slicky says you make a fine 
 speech." 
 
 " If I ever met you as an opponent, I'd want some 
 advantage. S'pose we make a compact to work together 
 on our first case ?" 
 
 " Done ! " said Yates. " It's as good as won." 
 
 " William Green ! " spoke a girl's voice from the humid 
 spring darkness outside ; " have you forgot how bad the 
 wolves are in the timber we have to ride through ^ " 
 
 "Come in, girls!" exclaimed the proprietor of the 
 rough study. His tutor echoed the invitation. "It's 
 Abe's recess. Come in, Nancy and Ann Rutledge, and 
 the rest of you." 
 
 Half a dozen figures emerged from the night of the 
 village street, bearing Nancy Green company, laughing 
 
 3
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 and half reluctant; and let themselves be coaxed into 
 sharing a long bench which the boys drew up before the 
 fire. It was like an invasion of swallows. Abe raked 
 up all the shavings and blocks and brought them to the 
 hearth. A festive spirit filled the place. Nearly all 
 the girls were bareheaded, in linsey dresses. They had 
 stepped out of their homes along the winding road for 
 the mere pleasure of being abroad and free from tasks at 
 the end of the day ; with the exception of Nancy Green, 
 and Martha Bell Clary, who had come from Clary's 
 Grove to stay all night with Mahala Cameron. A simi- 
 lar group of young people in a French cabin would have 
 cleared the floor directly for dancing, all the merrier for 
 having met unexpectedly. But these children of serious 
 Massachusetts, Tennessee, Carolina, and Kentucky pio- 
 neers held experience meeting instead. The state was 
 still so young, and their knowledge of the wide world so 
 limited, that they and their elders took primitive delight 
 in telling over their own adventures. The oftener a story 
 was repeated the more dignity it acquired. 
 
 "Talking about wolves," said young Green, when 
 nobody had said a word about wolves since the girls' 
 entrance, looking at his sister with sly enjoyment, " I 
 was going afoot to the mill early one morning last sum- 
 mer, and met two in the path — a black one and a gray 
 one. I stood still and looked at them, and they stood 
 still and looked at me. I knew if I turned to run they 
 would pull me down in a minute. Finally I whipped 
 out my jack-knife and cut a rosin-weed, and lashed at 
 
 4
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 them, yelling with all my might. They were so scared 
 they ran like sheep." 
 
 " Or like that wagon that you stopped before we came 
 to Illinois," retorted his sister Nancy. "When daddy 
 was going to move from Car'lina he bought a new wagon. 
 We children had never seen such a thing, and we climbed 
 the spokes, and William took hold of the chain on the 
 tongue. The wagon started down hill, and everybody 
 let go but William. The tongue ran into a tree and 
 broke, and left the chain in his hand. * I was going to 
 hold on if it killed me, mother,' says he. * For if that 
 wagon had got away, how were we going to move out to 
 the Illinois ?' " 
 
 "Speaking about sheep," continued young Green, as 
 if he had not heard the wagon story, "daddy told Nancy 
 when she was herding the sheep, that she must carry a 
 bag with her and save the wool that stuck to the bushes. 
 Our old ewe was tame, and it was easier to pick the wool 
 off her back than to hunt through the bushes. So Nancy 
 picked the old ewe, and came home with a full poke two 
 nights hand running. The first night daddy praised her ; 
 but the second night he found it out! " 
 
 "I wasn't ten years old then," remembered Nancy; 
 " and my conscience hurt me worse the first night than 
 daddy's punishment did the second." 
 
 "That reminds me, Nancy," said Lincoln, "of what 
 your mother told me Slicky did when he was about ten 
 years old. He brought in some frozen eggs and raked 
 out the coals and put the eggs to thaw on her best pewter 
 
 5
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 platter. She said when she found the melted pewter run- 
 ning all over the hearth she felt discouraged about him ! " 
 
 Ann Rutledge laughed, and flung one of her thick 
 auburn braids behind her shoulder. 
 
 " Haven't you any tale to tell of Abe, Minter 
 Grayham ? " 
 
 Minter Grayham, used to having his name prolonged 
 by the soft Southern drawl with gentle familiarity, smiled 
 and shook his head. No one around the cooper's fire- 
 place had a sense of the degradation of poverty or the 
 triviality of any human experience. Life in New Salem 
 was full of zest which they brought from Massachusetts, 
 from Kentucky and Tennessee and Carolina mountains, 
 and from good English ancestry; though it was merely 
 the ordinary pioneer life of a young state. 
 
 As Abe cast on more fuel and the blaze flared higher, 
 a scream like a rabbit's pierced the doorway, and some- 
 thing writhed over the step on the puncheon floor. A 
 furious woman, the vision of a witch, with beard grow- 
 ing tufted on her long chin, whacked the writhing object 
 with a crutch as hard as she could plant the blows. Ann 
 Rutledge screamed. 
 
 " Hold on ! " cried Lincoln in two or three long 
 strides. " Don't do that ! " He received on his arm 
 the last stroke of the stick, which the woman carried 
 with her as she ran from 'him. 
 
 "Oh, my dear!" said Ann, brushing shavings off a 
 little girl whom she helped up from the floor, " are you 
 hurt ? " 
 
 6
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " Sally got me that time ! " the child answered, hop- 
 ping to balance herself, and laughing while tears ran 
 down her cheeks. " She took my crutch from me so I 
 couldn't run. But I saw this door open, and goody ! 
 m m ! 
 
 "And she was born a white woman ! " cried Ann indig- 
 nantly. " Sally Shickshack behaves like a savage ! You 
 would think she was the Indian and Shickshack the 
 white." 
 
 " I'm nimbler than Sally when I have my crutch," 
 laughed the child, still weeping through her laughter, and 
 trying to swallow her sobs. Ann and Dick Yates helped 
 her to the cooper's bench. Piteous and courageous as 
 the little figure was, the other girls looked at her with dis- 
 favor, and one of the younger Rutledges whispered to 
 Mahala Cameron that "a certain person was always tag- 
 ging Ann," as if resenting interference with a sister's 
 privilege. 
 
 " Never mind, Peggy," said Lincoln, cheerfully. 
 "Sally will make a man of you if hard knocks can do 
 it. Where are Shickshack and the boy ? " 
 
 "They haven't come in from hunting yet." 
 
 "And Sally took the opportunity to enjoy herself." 
 
 He drew his own large bandanna handkerchief out of 
 his pocket and kindly wiped the child's face. She hic- 
 coughed in her effort to control more tears, and smiled at 
 him. Ann kept one arm around her, and brushed down 
 the hair which straggled to her shoulders. Peggy had 
 a colorless, aquiline face, and a prominent though tiny 
 
 7
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 mouth, her short upper lip failing to quite conceal her 
 teeth. Her dress was of soft tanned deerskin, and showed 
 by its lines that it had been cut out by a masculine knife 
 instead of by feminine scissors. There was scarcely a fold 
 to conceal her slim shape, and its scantiness displayed one 
 moccasined foot hanging down. Her other foot was curled 
 under the bench, while pointing straight at the fire was a 
 wooden leg strapped to her knee. She tried with careful 
 hands to spread the skin drapery over it. 
 
 Dick Yates could not help looking at her with curi- 
 osity. Even in that time when so many mixed elements 
 went to the creating of a settlement, she was an unusual 
 figure. Ann Rutledge, seeking on Peggy's head and 
 back the welts left by the crutch, noticed the inquiry in 
 his eye and answered it. 
 
 " She is not Sally Shickshack's child, or Shickshack's, 
 either. They have been in New Salem only a little while. 
 He is a Sac Indian, and likes to live among white men. 
 His white wife you saw. She has a stepson, I think, a Cana- 
 dian boy. There are four in the family. Shickshack 
 and his wife have no children of their own, though people 
 say she was married twice before. He is a good Indian." 
 
 The good Indian that moment appeared at the door 
 with his wife's stepson behind him. That he had almost 
 come upon his wife in the act of using the crutch was 
 evident, for he carried the crutch in his hand, and had 
 not yet unslung from his back a full game-bag. His 
 gun he rested against the wall within the door. 
 
 "Come in, everybody," cried young Green. "All 
 
 8
 
 liVAmm Of iLLlNOfS
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 New Salem is on a frolic to-night. Sally has just been 
 here enjoying herself, Shickshack, and we expected you 
 and Antywine would follow." 
 
 The Indian with dignity stepped upon the puncheons, 
 and as soon as he saw Peggy a look of satisfaction relieved 
 the tension of his face. She sat still within Ann Rut- 
 ledge's arm, but gave the men of her family an affectionate 
 glance. Antywine, who had probably been christened 
 Antoine, and was known to bear the name of La Chance, 
 kept shyly in the background, lifting himself with a 
 graceful spring to sit by the vise on the cooper's high 
 work-bench. But Shickshack strode forward to sit in 
 full council, as became his age and character, Minter 
 Grayham hastily giving him the keg. 
 
 The blaze showed his moccasins roughened by much 
 tramping, and his leggins, fringed down the outside seams. 
 But Shickshack had compromised with the white man's 
 dress by substituting a roundabout for a hunting-shirt. 
 This was buttoned around the breech-cloth girding his 
 waist, but stood open, showing his sinewy red neck at the 
 top. He had also let his hair grow, and it made a black 
 thatch upon his head. 
 
 Dick Yates gave Shickshack the grave salutation 
 which he knew an Indian loved. The Sac fastened his 
 eyes on Dick as the chief man at the fire, and the one 
 for whom perhaps it had been kindled. Though his face 
 did not betray it, he was pleased also to hear the young 
 pale face talking to Peggy under the chatter of other 
 voices. 
 
 9
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 "You have as much spunk as a boy," approved 
 Dick. " I like to see a little girl able to hush up crying." 
 
 " But I am not a little girl," said Peggy. " I am 
 fifteen years old." 
 
 " Fifteen, Peggy ! You can't be fifteen ! I thought 
 you were about ten." 
 
 " That's because I am so little for my age. And 
 my name isn't really Peggy." 
 
 "They called you Peggy." 
 
 "That's because I have a peg leg. My own name 
 is Consuelo Lorimer. And I have another that the 
 Sacs called me." 
 
 Everybody who went to Minter Grayham's school- 
 house, knew that her name was set down as Consuelo 
 Lorimer on his book. It meant nothing in New 
 Salem, but Yates heard it with quick interest. 
 
 "Was old Don Luis Lorimer, who used to be a 
 Spanish governor down the river a long while ago, any 
 relation of yours?" 
 
 Shickshack on his keg uttered so strong a grunt that 
 all the others stopped talking and listened. 
 
 " The young chief knows a heap," said Shickshack. 
 
 "I only know there was such a governor, on old 
 Spanish ground — part French himself, but his wife was 
 pure Spanish. I've been to Cape Girardeau. But I 
 don't know whether he has any living descendants or 
 not. 
 
 " Last grandchild," said Shickshack, indicating Peggy. 
 Her eyes moved apprehensively from white lad to Indian. 
 
 lO
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 
 Then you're a Spaniard," said Dick. 
 I'm not a Spaniard!" denied Peggy, facing down 
 the accusation vehemently. "I'm white!" 
 
 " Spaniards are white." 
 
 " I'm white Hke folks in New Salem," insisted Peggy, 
 repudiating the vague foreign taint. She saw the young 
 Rutledges and Mahala Cameron and Martha Bell Clary 
 looking at her suspiciously. Spanish governors cut no 
 figure in the imagination of New Salemites. 
 
 " I suppose you are of mixed blood and really ought 
 to be called a Creole," pursued Dick, interested in the case. 
 
 "That's a kind of a pullet," whispered Martha Bell 
 to Mahala. 
 
 "I'm not of mixed blood !" cried Peggy, unable to 
 bear any more. 
 
 " Why, everybody here is of mixed blood !" asserted 
 Dick, and that was a comfort. It gave her the chance 
 to look back at her antagonists. 
 
 " Have you never told her that she was Spanish?" 
 Dick inquired of Shickshack. 
 
 The silent Indian shook his head. His impassive 
 face glowed in the firelight. Young Yates seemed to 
 have cast a spell on him. From the contents of his 
 heavy game-bag, which he had unslung as he entered 
 and left beside his gun, to the secrets of his past, he was 
 ready to lay everything he owned at the young chiefs 
 feet. 
 
 " How did the Sac brave come to adopt the Spanish 
 child ?" inquired Dijck. 
 
 II
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Shickshack silently admired his knowledge of how to 
 address a Sac brave without offensively shouting out 
 that brave's name in public. 
 
 " No father. No mother. Me hunt with her father 
 on the Platte. Me love white men since that time. 
 Never in my life me shed white man's blood. When 
 he die he give his child to me." 
 
 "Was Peggy lame from the first?" inquired Ann. 
 
 Shickshack looked at her steadily without replying. 
 Then he shook his head. 
 
 " Me love white men. Me marry white woman," 
 he answered ; and dropped his face. 
 
 " Does he mean that Sally lamed her ?" whispered 
 Ann to Lincoln. 
 
 "Sally is a mighty energetic woman," admitted 
 Lincoln, smiling from the hearth corner. A huge mole 
 showed in the crease made under his cheek by a smile. 
 
 " Will the young chief be here to-morrow ? " Shick- 
 shack asked Dick Yates. 
 
 " No. We must go back to Jacksonville to-morrow. " 
 
 Slicky Green added that it was not vacation time. 
 The two had begged a day off on account of his extreme 
 homesickness, and would have to ride early next morning. 
 
 " Me like to talk," said the Sac, fixing his gaze on 
 Dick. " Me have something for the young chief's ear." 
 
 " We can take a walk together now," suggested Dick. 
 
 Shickshack rose up at once. The sheath of a long 
 hunting-knife hung down his side by a leather strap. He 
 had kept Peggy's crutch in his hand. He stood it 
 
 12
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 against the wall beside the chimney, and Dick, stepped 
 over the bench to follow him. 
 
 " Hello !" shouted a cheerful voice. Two horses 
 were brought up abreast, facing the door, their hoofs at 
 the very step. Light shone out over them and their 
 riders, revealing the weekly mail-carrier with the post-bag 
 from Springfield bulging on each side of his saddle, and 
 his leggins splashed with mud; and a stranger having 
 black eyes and hair and mustache, whose entire equip- 
 ment was foreign. 
 
 Shickshack stood while he drew one breath and looked 
 at the stranger. For the first time a Sac war-whoop was 
 heard in New Salem, and as he yelled he snatched his 
 hunting-knife from its sheath. 
 
 13
 
 HIV 
 
 THE whole village knew before bedtime how 
 Shickshack had threatened the stranger. A 
 community of interest as swift as the telephone 
 carried news the length of the winding street. 
 
 " Shickshack screeched loud enough to be heard at 
 Wolf," gasped Mahala Cameron, telling the tale to her 
 folks, "and drew his knife and jumped at the man like a 
 wildcat !" 
 
 " And Abe Lincoln and the other boys caught him," 
 put in Martha Bell Clary, assisting her. " The man's 
 horse and the mail-carrier's horse both reared up — they 
 were scared nearly to death like the rest of us ! But 
 just as soon as the boys caught hold of Shickshack he 
 dropped his head and stood like he was ashamed." 
 
 "He's a live Indian yet," said Mahala Cameron's 
 father. " He'll stir himself and take a scalp one of these 
 days. I wonder what he had against the stranger ?" 
 
 Rutledge's tavern entertained rare travelers who 
 stayed over night in New Salem. The candles were all 
 put out early, yet before folks covered their fires they 
 had in some way absorbed the facts about the new 
 arrival. He was a well-spoken man, with a foreign twist 
 to his tongue, inclined to laugh at the rage of Shick- 
 shack, whom he knew very well. He told openlv that 
 
 H
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 he was Don Pedro Lorimer, a sugar planter from the 
 island of Cuba, and that his errand through the States 
 was political in the main ; though he intended when other 
 matters pressed him less, to remove his half wild young 
 cousin, Consuelo Lorimer, from the care of the Indian, 
 who had taken advantage of her father's death on the 
 plains to adopt her. 
 
 A tropical sun had given him the darkest skin ever 
 carried by a white man around New Salem. He walked 
 abroad in the early morning ; and having had Shick- 
 shack's closed house pointed out to him, stood and 
 looked at it smiling, without attempting to enter. 
 
 The Indian and his adopted daughter were not seen 
 abroad during that day, though both of them were ac- 
 customed to live outdoors at all seasons. Shickshack 
 said he loved to see the deer galloping in the bottoms, or 
 to watch them as they gathered in herds, the sun shining 
 in their eyes. 
 
 New Salem was a single long and winding street on a 
 high ridge, which sloped so suddenly on both sides that 
 all the gardens ran down hill. Seen from the school- 
 house, it looked like a huge wave of earth riding against 
 the northern horizon. The schoolhouse, standing at the 
 base of another ridge, was divided from the village by a 
 deep ravine, through which ran a small stream called 
 Rock Creek. 
 
 The schoolhouse was the only meeting-place. Its log 
 stack and white clay chimney represented church, town 
 hall, and theater — if so godless a place as a theater had 
 
 15
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 been allowed — in New Salem. It was headquarters on 
 muster days, and the arena of those wordy wars which 
 the pioneers called debates. Eager to hear any strange, 
 new thing, the whole town flocked across Rock Creek as 
 soon as candles began to bloom like primroses at dusk 
 in boot-shaped sconces on the schoolhouse walls. It 
 might be that the cousin of Shickshack's girl had not as 
 much to say as he had given out that he had. But New 
 Salem would hear him and judge. Minter Grayham's 
 pupils — particularly the smaller ones — were lined up on 
 front benches, which their own long use had worn to 
 the smoothness of glass. The stranger had advertised 
 through their schoolmaster that he would give the prize 
 of a book to any boy or girl who could, at the close 
 of the lecture, stand up and spell correctly the word 
 Ompompanoosuck ! 
 
 Unusual war had raged on the playground at both 
 recesses and noon concerning the spelling of this word. 
 Camps divided to play Indian or Horsethief met to 
 wrangle over combinations of letters. Some sly ones 
 who thought they were going to get the prize, retired to 
 puzzle alone. Minter Grayham, who taught a modest 
 amount of spelling, the Testament, the English Reader, 
 and the Rule of Three in arithmetic to advanced scholars, 
 was in honor obliged to look as ignorant as he felt in this 
 great matter. 
 
 Some women saw with consternation that the boys 
 from Clary's Grove were gathered on the back seats, a 
 couple of dozen young villains, whose leader, Redmond 
 
 i6
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Clary, was the most desperate rider in the Sangamon 
 country. The gravest charge brought against these un- 
 curbed youths was their determination to govern the com- 
 munity. In them the hfe of the frontier found its wild- 
 est expression. When one of them had a colt to break, 
 he summoned the others, and they forced it into the San- 
 gamon River. One sat on its back, another hung to its 
 tail, and the rest clung about and hampered it in every 
 way. The untamed thing, obliged to swim for its life 
 carrying weight, finally came out of the water a subdued 
 beast. They were ready to deal in like manner with any- 
 thing that antagonized them. Each man had brought an 
 egg carefully bestowed on his person, and at a concerted 
 signal he expected to throw it at the lecturer, for the mere 
 sport of seeing an uninteresting foreigner smeared from 
 head to foot. But he caught their fancy. 
 
 Don Pedro Lorimer, smiling on the plain men and 
 women of New Salem, told them he was traveling through 
 the States to urge everywhere the annexation of Cuba. 
 He described the tropical luxuriance of Cuba, and its 
 relative position to the continent; and some of his hearers 
 learned for the first time that there was such a place. He 
 told how planters were made to suffer in estate by unjust 
 tyranny of a dominating European power. Some like 
 himself had even been driven into exile, with only a 
 remnant of their once large fortunes. So bad was the 
 government that people starved there in the midst of 
 abundance. He begged to have Cuba admitted into the 
 Union. Such a novel plea had never been urged before 
 
 17
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 upon men who were struggling to get a living out of the 
 scarcely upturned sod of a new State. 
 
 Some older men smiled at each other, thinking the 
 United States had all she could do at that time to take 
 care of her own territory. But it was flattering to have 
 a rich island, represented by an elegant man of the world 
 dressed in the best clothes which money could buy, appeal- 
 ing to them for protection; and they helped their neigh- 
 bors stamp vigorous applause every time he rounded one 
 of his glowing periods with — "If Cuba may only be 
 annexed to America!" 
 
 Still there was a hard-headed element that held out 
 against the stranger. They would give him fair play, 
 but they would test his arguments. 
 
 " Look at Abe Lincoln," one Carolina settler whis- 
 pered to another during the stir which followed the 
 conclusion. "I'd like to hear what he thinks. He can 
 beat this fellow all hollow making a speech." 
 
 "Abe says the fellow looks just like gamblers he saw 
 in New Orleans when he went down with the flatboat." 
 
 "I allow," said a third Carolinian, "and I have been 
 watching him close, that this brown gentleman, with 
 his shiny hair and eyes, is a runaway slave putting on a 
 bold face and trying to get through to Canada. Some 
 body-servant that knows how to wear his master's 
 clothes." 
 
 " What spite would Shickshack have against a run- 
 away slave ?" objected the first man. "And his hair is 
 as straight as that little girl's at the In'ian's cabin. I'd 
 
 i8
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 sooner take him for a horsethief. We've had some fine 
 looking horsethieves in this part of the state." 
 
 Mahala Cameron's father, who, on account of build- 
 ing the mill, had claimed and obtained the privilege of 
 naming the town, and had called it New Salem for old 
 Salem where he was born on the Massachusetts coast, 
 put in his word. 
 
 " I had an uncle," he said, " that followed the sea, 
 and made voyages to Cuba. It's about such a place as 
 the man describes." 
 
 While private opinion thus see-sawed, the row of 
 Minter Grayham's pupils on the front benches, roused 
 from drowsiness to keen interest, stood up at the 
 stranger's bidding, and accumulated the worst kind of a 
 case against him. For however they attempted Ompom- 
 panoosuck — 
 
 " O-w-m, owm ; p-o-w-m, powm — * 
 A-u-m, aum ; p-a-u-m, paum — " 
 O-m, om ; p-o-m, pom; p-y, py, ompompy — " 
 it was not right ; and the audience began to laugh with 
 appreciation of a joke. Martha Bell Clary heard her 
 own brother Redmond shouting with such delight as she 
 struggled hopelessly with Ompompanoosuck, that she 
 turned and made what was called in New Salem "a 
 mouth " at him. Though the lecturer endeared himself 
 greatly to the Grove boys, it was plain he had only put 
 up Minter Grayham's scholars to be made ridiculous 
 before their parents and friends. 
 
 " I'd hate to have him for a relation, even if I was as 
 
 19 
 
 (C
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 bad off as Peggy Shickshack," whispered Martha Bell 
 to Mahala Cameron. 
 
 "So would I," responded Mahala. "I don't believe 
 he has any book to give as a prize. And I don't believe 
 he has any plantation in Cuba, either." 
 
 Shickshack's wife came in late, and sat by the school- 
 house door, looking steadily at the speaker. It was the 
 first time the village had ever seen her at any meeting. 
 The women nearest were more occupied in being repelled 
 by her than they were with the annexation of Cuba. It 
 surprised nobody that she should come out to hear 
 Shickshack's enemy. But it surprised some who de- 
 parted slowly after the dismissal that she had a word or 
 two, and touched hands with the stranger as he passed by 
 her at the door. An unlovely nature had worked so 
 long on features striking for angularity that she carried 
 habitually a malignant look. The boys of New Salem 
 liked to venture on Sally Shickshack's doorstep, or climb 
 her garden fence, and have her chase them with gourds 
 of hot water. Though she had been so short a time 
 in the village, it was already known that Antywine La 
 Chance, a former husband's son, had not inherited a 
 fip'ny-bit of his father's property; and as a fip'ny-bit 
 was smaller than the proverbial shilling with which heirs 
 were sometimes cut off, it was plain Antywine La Chance 
 had been cheated by his stepmother. 
 
 Don Pedro Lorimer mounted his horse the following 
 morning, and took the eastward-stretching road which 
 separated north and south beside the Sangamon. He 
 
 20
 
 Cf::;v:RS(TY of jllino/s
 
 THE OAK AND THE ELM AT NEW SALEM 
 Growing on the spot where Lincohi's store stood
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 nodded to everybody he saw along the narrow street. 
 His departure was as public as his errand had been, and 
 a notunkindly feeling went with him and would welcome 
 him again. For a man who traveled around at his own 
 expense, without charging a price, to lecture on the annex- 
 ation of Cuba, must be in earnest; and frontiersmen 
 respected a person in earnest. 
 
 Lincoln usually closed his store soon after the village 
 supper-time, in order to recite his daily lesson to Minter 
 Grayham in the cooper-shop. Few customers were so 
 belated as to need anything at the store when candles 
 were lighted. Those who dropped in met to talk and 
 whittle; and since the nightly study blaze had begun 
 to show in the cooper-shop these gossips felt obliged to 
 seek another rendezvous. The law student therefore 
 found himself delayed by Shickshack, who entered with 
 Antywine as he was about to blow out the lights. 
 
 "What shall I show you, Shickshack?" said Lincoln. 
 
 The Indian looked around at a country stock: barrels 
 of New Orleans salt and sugar, and sacks of coffee ; a 
 few scant shelves of calico ; hoes, rakes and shovels ; a 
 grand leghorn bonnet or two, of mighty brim and crown ; 
 threads, needles and pins ; and all the simple necessities 
 of people on the edge of civilization. He shook his 
 head. 
 
 " Me want to talk. Shut the door." 
 
 Lincoln closed the door and sat down on the counter, 
 drawing up his knees and encircling them with his arms 
 in a favorite attitude for relaxing chat ; motioning his 
 
 21
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 visitors to make use of the same high bench. Shick- 
 shack got up and curled his legs under him Indian fash- 
 ion, but Antywine remained standing by the door. Two 
 candles on a high shelf at the rear cast swaying shadows 
 of the white man and the red man and the crowded 
 objects in the little store. 
 
 " I reckon all New Salem is talking to-night about the 
 man you were going to kill when he came to town." 
 
 Shickshack glowered at his young counselor. 
 
 " Me wrong to give the war-cry. Me ought to 
 keep still, and stab him in the dark ! But when see 
 that man me forget me Christian Indian! " 
 
 " The whoop might pass muster better than the stab 
 among Christians," suggested Lincoln. 
 
 Shickshack fixed his restless black eyes like the eyes 
 of a snapping-turtle on the rugged and sincere face before 
 him. 
 
 " Pedro Lorimer is a bad white man. He not one 
 of Don Luis' sons." 
 
 " He says he wants Cuba annexed to the United 
 States. Is he a Cuban planter ? " 
 
 The Sac uttered a contemptuous grunt. 
 
 " No ! No planter. No Cuba. He is New Orleans 
 man; gambler." 
 
 " I reckoned so," said Lincoln. 
 
 " Me live in my tribe's country, where the chief Black 
 Hawk has his village. Pedro Lorimer come there and 
 trouble me. If my tribe take my part, all the people 
 who want their land will say, * These Sacs are dangerous. 
 
 22
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Drive them out,' So Black Hawk say to me, 'You 
 love white men : go to Belleville.' Me go to Belleville. 
 Think me marry a white woman ; she help. An Indian 
 cannot get a very good white woman. But me see 
 the Widow La Chance, and Antywine, her husband's 
 son. Me getting old; and Antywine is young. He can 
 take care of the child when me die. So year ago me marry 
 the Widow La Chance. The first thing she hurt the 
 child. And Antywine" — Shickshack uttered the words 
 deliberately, turning his head toward the figure at the 
 door — " he is nothing but a squaw ! " 
 
 Antywine opened the door and went out, closing it 
 behind him, and sitting down on the step. 
 
 " Pedro Lorimer follow to Belleville, and trouble me 
 there. Me come away to New Salem. The moon has 
 not changed four times since me come to New Salem ; 
 and he is here to trouble me again ! " 
 
 "What does he want? " inquired Lincoln. 
 
 " He want the child's money." 
 
 " Has Peggy money ? How much has she ? " 
 
 The Indian held his hands less than a yard apart; 
 the length of a full-grown rattlesnake. 
 
 "A snakeskin full of gold." 
 What have you done with it ? " 
 Me hide it from my white woman and Pedro Lori- 
 mer. Sometimes me think she divide it with him, if he 
 could help her get it. All day, all year, she want that 
 money herself But she take what is Antywine's, and 
 was his father's, and give him nothing." 
 
 23 
 
 (I
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 "You have fed and clothed Peggy by your own 
 labor." 
 
 "She is my adopted child. Me send her to white 
 man's school, too. Me give the schoolmaster four 
 dollars." 
 
 " You are a mighty good fellow! " said Lincoln. " But 
 Pedro Lorimer is gone ; so what troubles you now ? " 
 
 " He come back. He would steal the child to make 
 me give up her money as ransom. He would take her 
 as far as New Orleans." 
 
 " Does he know what she has ? " 
 
 " No. But he would rob her of the last piece and 
 leave her to starve. He got much that belonged to her 
 people." 
 
 " Have you put Peggy's money where he cannot 
 find it ? " 
 
 It is in a safe place." 
 
 Has he ever made any attempt to carry her off?" 
 
 "Me not let him make attempt. Me watch." 
 
 " As a relative, he might prove that he had a right to 
 the guardianship if he were a fit person." 
 
 "What a white man want he can take from an In- 
 dian!" 
 
 "No, Shickshack, you stand your ground and fight 
 him. If he troubles you again in this community count 
 on me for all the help I can give. Every decent man in 
 New Salem would take your part." 
 
 Shickshack's face relaxed from anxious sternness to 
 satisfaction. 
 
 24 

 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " Such men as you and the young chief Yates and the 
 chief Lorimer make an Indian want to live with white 
 men." 
 
 The tavern directly across the street had its windows 
 open to let in the soft spring night air. At intervals a 
 chorus of bullfrogs came faintly across the dark from 
 where the Sangamon, swelling with freshets, rose frothing 
 yeastily toward its brim. As Peggy hopped on her crutch 
 around the tavern she could see a white fog floating and 
 changing over Rock Creek in the valley, like fairy linen 
 spread to bleach by starlight. One of Rutledges' deer- 
 hounds loped up from the stable down the slope to bay 
 at her, and recognizing the intruder, drew back at once 
 with a greyhound's sensitive apology. 
 
 Near the east side of the house stood a log hand-mill, 
 one end being firmly planted in the ground, the other 
 hollowed by burning and scraping. The pestle, hanging 
 from a long pole weighted like a well-sweep, was a knot 
 of hard wood spiked with nails, and had a crossbar 
 handle. In this primitive mortar parched corn could be 
 readily pounded to meal. A deerskin was stretched and 
 fastened snugly over the top to keep grains in when the 
 mill was in use, and litter out when it stood idle. Peggy 
 caught hold of the sweep and lifted herself to a seat on 
 the hand-mill. She could see, through a deep embrasure 
 of logs, the Rutledge family at home. The tavern 
 windows were movable sashes, with the tough oiled 
 paper like transparent skin laid firmly upon them. Part 
 of a tree smouldered crimson without flame in the white 
 
 25
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 clay chimney. Shickshack's wife never allowed more than 
 one candle lighted in his house. M rs. Rutledge drew tallow 
 tapers out of candle molds and filled a six-branched can- 
 delabrum of old English silver. It stood on a table 
 surrounded by the children at their tasks, and the father, 
 reading a paper, brought in the weekly mail. The 
 younger girls were sewing; Ann sat at her flax wheel. 
 
 "The Rutledge girls can't say I'm tagging anybody 
 now, because I'm not tagging," breathed Peggy. "But 
 goody'! I can watch them through the window! " 
 
 The most desirable thing in the world was to be 
 lovely. She looked at Ann Rutledge, to whom hearts 
 were given on sight. An ungraceful movement seemed 
 impossible to Ann. There was no angle in the lines of 
 her tall, supple body. Her deep blue eyes sometimes 
 turned golden in moments of happiness. Unconscious 
 that any outsider watched her, she lifted them and smiled 
 at darkness through the open window. The passes of 
 her hands as she spun and the sweetness of life expressed 
 in her face brought a sob up Peggy's throat. 
 
 "Til never be like her," whispered Peggy. "I'm a 
 peg-legged Spaniard, little for my age, and ugly. I can't 
 spin. I can't sew. Sally says squaw clothes are good 
 enough for me, and Shickshack has to cut them out, and 
 we piece them together as well as we can. He's done it 
 ever since we left his people and have had no Indian 
 women to help us. I can't read like Ann Rutledge does. 
 If I could even knit I could make stockings for Anty- 
 wine and Shickshack. They are the only men in New 
 
 26
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Salem that have to keep on wearing neips wrapped 
 around their ankles for stockings." 
 
 She set her teeth together so the grating was audible. 
 Something stirred behind her, like one of the hounds 
 creeping near, but she paid no attention to it. A blanket 
 dropped over her head. 
 
 Peggy fought it with both hands, hearing the crutch 
 that had laid across her knees roll to the ground. This 
 was the last sound she heard. Screaming and smother- 
 ing in the muffling folds, she felt herself dragged off the 
 hand-mill and carried away. 
 
 27
 
 A NN RUTLEDGE heard through the open win- 
 L\ dow Peggy's muffled cry and struggle, and ran 
 -^ -^ to the door. By starHght it was barely possible 
 to see a shadow fleeing from the hand-mill : but Anty- 
 wine La Chance, in pursuit of it, passed across the bar 
 of light, a lithe, long-bodied and long-limbed shape, his 
 uncovered blond hair flying back from a face cut like the 
 high-bred features of a French noble. He bounded by 
 the hand-mill and crossed a fence at the foot of the 
 garden. 
 
 When Antywine thought he was about to overtake 
 the object down the ravine, a scamper of horse's hoofs 
 sounded through the valley. Peggy's captor had left a 
 horse ready for flight. Instead of making southeastward 
 for the Rock Creek bridge and the road to Springfield, 
 he rounded the bluffs and the village, and was evidently 
 striking toward Beardstown. The western continuation 
 of New Salem street, stretching across the prairies until 
 it met and curved with bluffs along the Sangamon, was 
 the route to Beardstown, which stood at the junction of 
 the Sangamon with the Illinois. 
 
 Light-footed as a deer, scarcely pausing to think, 
 Antywine with inherited instinct turned east toward the 
 river, though it was the direction opposite that in which 
 
 28
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Peggy was carried. A boat could be found at the mill. 
 The river was high and running swiftly. By taking 
 advantage of the unusual current he might reach the 
 bluff road as soon as a horse floundering across the mud of 
 the prairies would be able to reach it. What he would 
 then do afoot he did not attempt to foresee. There was 
 a small settlement at the mouth of Rock Creek called 
 Wolf Oxen were more plentiful than horses in Wolf, as 
 in New Salem ; yet Antywine had one passing flash of 
 determination to go there and demand a horse. But 
 breathless with haste, he plunged through naked woods 
 and down the terraced bank of the Sangamon, shding on 
 dead leaves in his descent, straight to the mill. 
 
 The boat was tied above the dam. He pushed out 
 before he thought of the dam, half covered by swelling 
 water and roaring across the width of the Sangamon. 
 Antywine was never more alive than when his feet were 
 planted in a boat. He came of a line of voyageurs who 
 had threaded Canadian rapids time out of mind. Al- 
 though his later years had been spent in Belleville, off 
 great stream courses, his inborn dexterity was too much 
 a part of him to be forgotten. There was no time for 
 thought. He swooped down the curve poised in the 
 stern of his boat, laughing aloud at the shock, which 
 nearly swamped him. The boat ran without direction, 
 making for partly submerged trees while he bailed with 
 his hands. Antywine stuck out an oar for rudder, and 
 turned his craft into the racing current. So, baling with 
 one hand and steering with the other, he got under way, 
 
 29
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 and was soon able to sit on the bench, fit the oars into 
 rowlocks, and pull with the racing force which spun him 
 along. Branches and logs menaced his dim course. 
 
 The shores were black. Froth spots like white money 
 appeared and disappeared around him with phosphoric 
 swiftness. And underneath rose and fell the bullfrogs' 
 diapason. 
 
 Not many miles down was the fork of the Sangamon, 
 where the stream turned toward the Illinois. Beards- 
 town, by prairie and river-bluff route, was nearly forty 
 miles from New Salem. Frost was out of the ground, 
 and a bottomless trail would delay the most hurried rider. 
 The scalloped bank, ascending and descending in ser- 
 rated cliff and hollow, seeming to swim past Antywine, 
 finally curved away from a wider current ; and he made 
 for shore through drift. He drew the boat out, and left 
 it beached above the rising water. 
 
 There was no sound abroad in all that void darkness 
 except the Sangamon's low note and the intermittent cry 
 of frogs. He thought of sloughs on the Beardstown 
 road, and of hungry wolves infesting the night. Starlight 
 had become lost in thickening mist, and as Antywine 
 pushed on he felt the sting of rain in his face. He tried 
 to distinguish a track which ought to darken the pallid 
 turf near this place, and set out in the direction of 
 Beardstown. 
 
 He heard at his left the suction of horse feet in mud. 
 It came nearer, and he braced himself to spring at the 
 bridle, if he had been so fortunate as thus to intercept 
 
 30
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Peggy's captor. But two horses, instead of one, plunged 
 up from a slough, and swept past him in a tearing race 
 toward Beardstown. 
 
 "Shickshack and Sieur Abe," thought Antywine. 
 He shouted after them, but they did not hear him. 
 There was so little travel at that season he felt sure these 
 riders were in pursuit of Peggy, and comforted, he fol- 
 lowed lightly on, keeping to the spongy dead grass by 
 the roadside. 
 
 The humid forest stretching from the bank of the 
 Sangamon still darkened his way with skeleton trees. 
 He passed an empty cabin which he had seen once before 
 when hunting deer. The rain now began to pelt. 
 
 Though he had lived so long among English-speak- 
 ing people at Belleville that their language had become 
 in a measure his own, Antywine never found himself 
 able to part with buckskins. The hunting shirt was 
 sometimes exchanged for one of linsey, but buckskin 
 breeches, molding his supple limbs down to his mocca- 
 sins, he always wore, making them himself, as his father 
 had done before him. Indifferent to weather, he stepped 
 on through darkness and was within hand's reach of an 
 unsteady object before he saw it. 
 
 Antywine gave a laughing shout to scare a wolf and 
 followed it by an exclamation. He lifted the toppling 
 figure in his arms and ran back with it to the empty 
 cabin. 
 
 Peggy had a blanket around her, but she was wet and 
 cold and seemed partially stunned. The puncheons or 
 
 31
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 split logs which floored the cabin sagged inward as if a 
 sill had rotted at the farther side, and the chimney was a 
 ruin upon its own hearth. Perhaps wolves or wild hogs 
 made this place a lair. Antywine had not his tinder box 
 with him. It was impossible to get a light. The fallen 
 door he dragged aside from its opening and made a seat 
 for Peggy. 
 
 "Stay here, sweetheart," spoke Antywine, using an 
 English word which he did not quite understand, but 
 translated in his own mind as "little one." 
 
 He made the circuit of the walls, kicking his way in 
 the dark, satisfying himself that no beast housed with 
 them. Then he sat down on the door where he could 
 shelter Peggy from the wind. 
 
 "Are you hurt, sweetheart?" 
 
 Peggy found her voice with a laugh. "Goody! 
 you've come, Antywine ! I was trying to walk without 
 my crutch when you picked me up. I had to hop." 
 
 " How you happen where I find you ? " 
 
 "I don't know. The horse stumbled and fell down, 
 and maybe I was pitched on my head. This blanket was 
 round me so tight that I fought to get my mouth and 
 nose and hands out. It seemed like there were a 
 dozen horses racing, and I thought they would 
 all run over me. But when I got up I was beside the 
 road, and could just hear the mud splashing away off." 
 
 " Who is it that steal you ? " 
 
 " Of course, it must have been that Pedro Lorimer man, 
 though I couldn't see him, and only heard his voice when 
 
 32
 
 s 
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 he spoke to the horse. He threw a blanket over me and 
 made me ride on the horse's neck, and I'm so little and 
 lame I couldn't help myself. Are you cold, Antywine?" 
 
 " No," he answered, with a Canadian's indifference. 
 But Peggy gave him a corner of the blanket and bade 
 him draw it around his shoulders, which he did. 
 
 The rain beat upon shingles and spouted from the 
 cabin eaves. There was snugness in being housed after 
 so much anxiety and exertion. 
 
 " We wait here." The boy laughed quietly to him- 
 self. " Shickshack say to Sieur Abe Lincoln, 'Antywine, 
 he is nothing but a squaw.' But I find you, and Shick- 
 shack have not." 
 
 " Did he call you a squaw?" 
 
 " Me, yes ; he call me that." 
 
 " You are like a woman, Antywine," said Peggy, after 
 considering. " I want you to be like a woman." 
 
 " Tonnerre ! Why ? " 
 
 " Because you are like one." 
 
 Antywine turned this illogical reason in his mind. 
 
 " How can we go home, Antywine?" 
 
 "We wait," he replied, "until Shickshack and Sieur 
 Abe come back. They ride the horses you think will 
 run over you, and they not see you in the dark. They 
 chase the man to Beardstown." 
 
 "Are you sure? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 Peggy's mind at once turned back to New Salem. 
 I wonder what Sally will do when we get home." 
 
 33 
 
 a
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " It Is that woman that make a squaw of me," said 
 Antywine. " Since my father marry her she has been 
 worse than a loup-garou. I not mind the fist or the 
 stick — bah ! — but her evil eye, and the beard on her chin 
 — saints! I am crawl all over! It is not healt'y to be 
 scare all the time! I wear a charm against her. When 
 she take Shickshack I think I will go to my father's 
 peop* in Canada. But if I do she will have nobody but 
 you when she is enrage. And see what is done to you 
 when we are but out of the house, sweetheart!" 
 
 Peggy busied herself in silence and threw an object 
 from her which bounded among the chimney ruins. 
 
 " I am not going to be a peg-leg any more, " she 
 announced. "I'll not strap that wooden leg to my knee 
 again. " 
 
 " But you not able to walk," said Antywine. " I 
 carry you," he added, in afterthought. 
 
 " Shickshack will take me on the horse when he 
 comes. It's so ugly. Don't you think a peg-leg is ugly, 
 Antywine? " 
 
 " I have not consider," he responded; adding, with 
 French grace, "not anything that belong to you is 
 ugly." 
 
 " My month," suggested Peggy. " It will not shut." 
 
 "It is like the wild plum," said Antywine, "when 
 the white bud is just break through." 
 
 Though they had been housemates almost a year, 
 Peggy and Antywine felt that they were just discovering 
 each other. The tall, silent lad had once in a while ven- 
 
 34
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 (( 
 
 tured on some kindness to the girl. There was be- 
 tween them the whimsical sympathy of companions in 
 misery. 
 
 "And I am so little," continued Peggy, after a silence. 
 People think I am only ten years old. Ann Rutledge 
 is large and beautiful." 
 
 " Mam'selle Ann Rutledge," responded Antywine, "is 
 too large to be carry. You are not too large to be carry." 
 
 "But I want to be," insisted Peggy. 
 
 " Me, I think you will grow," conceded Antywine, 
 indulgently. 
 
 " Do you think I will always be lame ? " 
 
 "I not know. The doctor in Belleville cannot say." 
 
 " The doctor in Belleville put that peg-leg on my 
 knee. Sometimes I think if I try to use my leg, Anty- 
 wine, it will grow stronger. But I have to hop yet when 
 Sally takes my crutch from me." 
 
 "Shickshack think, and me, I think too, she have 
 bring that lameness on you." 
 
 " I never contradicted her when she told him it was a 
 fall ; but she knows when she struck me and how it hurt. 
 Don't tell him, Antywine. Shickshack is so good." 
 
 " She not fool me," said Antywine. "I think now I 
 will give you my charm to keep off evil." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 He took her hand in the darkness and laid a small 
 image on the palm. She knew it was something which 
 their religion taught them to venerate. 
 
 No, Antywine, I will not take it from you." 
 
 35 
 
 i(
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 "Keep it," he insisted. "I feel better when I am 
 out hunting if you have that around your neck. She 
 bring evil into the house. She is worse than the Chasse 
 Galerie." 
 
 " What is the Chasse Galerie ? " 
 
 " Have you never hear of the Chasse Galerie that fly 
 across the sky at night ?" 
 
 "How could I hear about such things in the Sac vil- 
 lage or at Belleville?" 
 
 Antywine proceeded at once to tell the story of the 
 wild huntsman and his dogs, and their chase above the 
 clouds. This led on to feux follets, or balls of fire, 
 into which bad spirits turned themselves to lure sinners 
 into quagmires. Then loup-garous, or man-wolves, 
 made darkness flame with their eyes, to Peggy's imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 "Are your feet or hands cold?" Antywine inquired 
 once in a while. Peggy answered "No," forgetting she 
 had hands and feet, her large, excited gaze fixed on the 
 wonder-world of folk-story. His voice abounded in 
 sympathetic tones. It was full and golden, reaching into 
 distance or sinking to monotones as he half told and 
 half sung his people's legends. 
 
 So hour after hour passed; rain continued to pour 
 down the shingles and visit them in gusts of spray 
 through the broken chimney. 
 
 It was a dehcious experience to remember a lifetime. 
 But as Peggy's responses became few, Antywine stretched 
 out his legs and made a pillow of his lap with a corner 
 
 36
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 of the blanket, to which her drowsy head came readily- 
 down. He watched and she slept until darkness faded 
 to the pallor of dawn. 
 
 The noise of horses' feet in the heavy road, for which 
 he had waited so long, could at last be heard approach- 
 ing. He withdrew carefully from the head of the 
 sleeper, and went out to intercept the riders. 
 
 They were splashed with mud and jaded, moving side 
 by side, their tired horses snorting flakes of foam. Thus 
 more than once the men of New Salem had come back 
 from chasing horse-thieves, less ready, perhaps, to give 
 the details of the exploit than were Shickshack and his 
 companion. Both drew rein when they saw Antywine, 
 and he told them directly where Peggy was. 
 
 Shickshack asked where he found her. He pointed 
 to the road beyond the cabin, and in his brief Canadian- 
 English repeated what had happened. 
 
 " Your squaw boy doesn't put up many fizzlegigs and 
 fireworks, but he seems to be worth two men," observed 
 Lincoln. 
 
 His lank hair dripped moisture. He was haggard 
 with hard riding. 
 
 "You catch the man?" inquired Antywine. 
 
 " No," Shickshack answered in disgust. 
 
 " You know him ? " 
 
 " No. Me not care now." 
 
 " He winked out," said Lincoln. "We lost him this 
 side of Beardstown. The closest view we had was when 
 we nearly ran him down back here. We intended to 
 
 37
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 raise a party and hunt. I reckon you better bring the 
 little girl now, so we can get home to breakfast." 
 
 Shickshack's red face revealed itself through growing 
 daylight polished like copper. He gave a strong grunt 
 of satisfaction when Antywine set Peggy behind him on 
 the horse. The Canadian boy mounted lightly to a seat 
 behind Lincoln, and as they rode toward New Salem a 
 clear whiteness like the promise of fair weather appeared 
 in the east. Water hung beaded on the stems of trees, 
 but a great commotion of robins came out of the woods. 
 
 It was the general opinion in the village that Don 
 Pedro Lorimer had "done it." Why he should put 
 himself to the inconvenience of trying to carry off such a 
 poor little thing many declared they could not under- 
 stand. All day Lincoln was visited at the store by 
 inquiring friends, who sat on counters and salt barrels 
 and interrogated him about his night's ride. He joked, 
 as any man among them would have done, about the 
 hard service taken out of borrowed horses, instead of 
 dwelling on the Indian's affairs and the labors of the 
 night. Lincoln had the strength of three ordinary men. 
 
 "I allow," said one of the Carolina settlers, "that it 
 was an ornary trick of one of them Grove boys." 
 
 " I guess you are wrong there," put in a Massachu- 
 setts man, "The Grove boys know better than to pick 
 the runt out of a litter. If one of them wanted to steal 
 a girl he wouldn't go so nigh the tavern and stop on the 
 outside." 
 
 The outrage was resented as a municipal indignity, 
 
 38
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 whoever had attempted it ; but it stirred less resentment 
 than it would have stirred had any other young maid in 
 New Salem been the sufferer. It was talked about a 
 fortnight with zest and much repetition. By the end of 
 a month it was still good material, when women took 
 their knitting and visited one another of afternoons. But 
 by muster day other slow happenings had covered it. 
 
 If Sally knew more about it than any one else, 
 she kept the secret. The Sac brave often fixed his eyes 
 on her with speculation in them. 
 
 "In my tribe," he said once to Lincoln, "a warrior 
 can take a tent-pole and beat his squaw, or he can give 
 her plenty goods and drive her out of his wigwam. But 
 me marry white woman ; me have to stand her like 
 white man." 
 
 He was at first concerned, and questioned Peggy 
 about the loss of her wooden leg. 
 
 " I will not wear it," she repeated, stubbornly. " It 
 hurt, and I threw it away." 
 
 She hopped about the street on her crutch, which Ann 
 Rutledge had found by the hand-mill the night the alarm 
 was given, her injured leg hanging straight beneath the 
 deerskin garment. Some change in her was noticed, even 
 by her schoolmates. 
 
 "Who cut Peggy Shickshack's hair, Viane Rut- 
 ledge ? " inquired Nancy Green, when the girls sat out- 
 doors with their dinner reticules the first warm day. The 
 budding woods were then alive with bees. 
 
 'Ann," responded Ann's younger sister, with asperity. 
 
 39 
 
 ((
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 "We have her tagging to our house all the time, now. I 
 allow the Indians might as well move in with us." 
 
 " Shickshack's wife doesn't visit the neighbors, does 
 she ? " 
 
 " No. She stays at home and heats water to scald 
 the boys with." 
 
 " Peggy looks nicer with her hair cut straight around 
 below her ears and combed smooth. And I am glad she 
 lost her wooden leg when Satan or something tried to 
 carry her off." 
 
 " My brother Red," exclaimed Martha Bell Clary, 
 "told me the horse blanket that was throwed over Peggy 
 Shickshack that night smelt of brimstone!" 
 
 "Your brother Red," retorted Nancy Green with 
 impatience, " gets threatened with brimstone so much in 
 meeting that he smells it on everything ! " 
 
 " Well, how do you suppose the boat Antywine La 
 Chance went down the river in, got back to the mill by 
 morning, when he rode home on horseback ? " 
 
 "Antywine brought it back himself. Part of the way 
 he pulled the boat, and part of the way he rode horse- 
 back. You get such stories in the Grove!" said Mahala 
 Cameron. 
 
 Martha Bell wagged her head and looked at Peggy, 
 sitting apart, eating corn bread in solitude. She was glad 
 to be Martha Bell Clary instead of Peggy Shickshack. 
 None of the girls meant to be cruel. They wished Peggy 
 well, but made her understand she was not as other 
 daughters of New Salem. 
 
 40
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " We all thought she was queer before we found out 
 she was a Spaniard," said Martha Bell. 
 
 "You'd be queer, too," exclaimed Nancy Green, "if 
 you'd been born a Spaniard and raised among the Sacs, 
 and dressed always like a squaw." 
 
 " But I wasn't." 
 
 " Peggy can talk the Sac language just like Shick- 
 shack," remarked Mahala. " Let's get her do it for us." 
 
 "Shickshack won't let her," objected Ann Rutledge's 
 sister. " He wants her to learn English. He says she 
 learned to speak English in a year." 
 
 " Humph ! " commented another of the group, resent- 
 fully ; "the master shows partiality to Peggy Shickshack, 
 so he does ; but I wouldn't be her, if she is the best 
 reader in school." 
 
 This first really warm noon of the budding year, 
 while Peggy's schoolmates were looking at and talking 
 about her, Antywine stood at the open tavern door wait- 
 ing to speak to Ann Rutledge. Too bashful to knock, 
 he shifted from one moccasin to the other, hoping that 
 some kind saint would send Ann to the door to inquire 
 what he wanted. He had a parcel in his left hand, and 
 sometimes held it before him and sometimes hid it behind 
 his back, keeping his right hand ready to uncap himself 
 if she appeared. There was not anything in the woods 
 or on the prairie which Antywine feared. But Ann Rut- 
 ledge represented to his mind the power of society; and 
 he was coming to sue that power. She entered, singing, 
 from an inner room, and paused, throwing her long braids 
 
 41
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 behind her back when she saw the Canadian at the 
 door. 
 
 He snatched off his cap, standing erect, narrow of hips 
 and shoulders and full in chest, an elegant lightness of 
 make and grace of carriage setting him apart from Eng- 
 lish-Americans, and fixed his wistful blue eyes upon her. 
 Come in, Antywine La Chance." 
 No, mam'selle. I will stand here." 
 Did you want to see any one ? " 
 I want to see you." 
 '' Here I am." The girl dimpled at his embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 " Mam'selle, I have to ask of you a favor. Will you 
 do me the kindness to look at what I bring in my hand? " 
 
 
 42
 
 iriD 
 
 FROM the back yard of more than one New Salem 
 home, where soap-making and gardening were 
 going forward, azure smoke rose over pink coals 
 of wood and old vines. The whole world was getting 
 ready to be new. Ann's own winter linsey was laid aside. 
 She wore something which made her look like a blossom 
 to the eyes of the boy. 
 
 Antywine gave her the parcel and stood abashed while 
 it was unrolled, revealing yards of dark red and yellow 
 calico, the colors alternating in tiny flecks which globed 
 themselves to pomegranates. Ann had noticed it in the 
 store as a most daring attempt in cotton printing. Some 
 balls of thread fell out and Antywine picked them up. 
 " It's for Peggy, isn't it ? " 
 Yes, mam'selle." 
 
 Did you buy it yourself, Antywine ? " 
 " I have some money that I make in Belleville," he 
 apologized. " Shickshack and the woman have not got 
 some tas'e in clothes for young girls. You, mam'selle, 
 have that tas'e." 
 
 "If you think I really have, Antywine, you must let 
 me help Peggy make this dress." 
 
 "Oh, mam'selle! It is what I would ask, but dare 
 not ! " 
 
 43 

 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 '* I would love to do it, and Peggy will be so glad to 
 have a new dress." 
 
 Peggy was glad when Ann waylaid her in the evening. 
 Her face quivered and she said, "Goody! " She talked 
 the great event quite out with Antywine, standing beside 
 their cabin, because they seldom spoke to each other in 
 the presence of Shickshack's wife. Then there was the 
 joy of going to the tavern and learning neat stitches 
 while Ann cut and basted and fitted. The slow process 
 of hand sewing went on a part of every day, as the two 
 girls had time, until Peggy, by the accident of Anty- 
 wine's choice, stood at last unconsciously arrayed in the 
 colors of Spain. The garment was gathered to her slim 
 figure under the bust, whence escaping fullness hung as 
 low as her ankles. This short-waisted look, and the 
 gorgeous setting of colors for her pale olive skin, and her 
 hair cut in the fashion of the Middle Ages, suddenly devel- 
 oped in her a charm. People noticed her, and said that 
 she was not exactly growing pretty, but there was some- 
 thing to her. The confidence of knowing how to do 
 things appeared in her face. For, having begun with the 
 needle, Ann Rutledge went on to knitting and spinning. 
 
 Ann had pretty clothes, for her father never rode to 
 Springfield without bringing her a gift, and her mother 
 even indulged her with a cassimere pelisse modeled after 
 one worn by the doctor's wife, who came a bride to New 
 Salem. Viane saw with some resentment her elder sister 
 take things which had usually fallen to her and cut them 
 over for the Indian's adopted daughter. Thus Peggy 
 
 44
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 became transformed in every garment except her mocca- 
 sins. To these heelless, quill-embroidered shoes she 
 clung with the instinct of a wilderness lover. They were 
 light and soft and small, hampering her no more than 
 her own muscles. Anty wine made them for her when he 
 made his own. In return she knitted woolen stockings 
 to keep him and her foster father warm in winter. 
 
 When Peggy first learned to knit she pulled the yarn 
 so tight that the stocking leg stood above the needles as 
 stiflFas a board triangle and had to-be raveled anddoneover. 
 
 "You're not building stake-and-ridered fences for 
 your men folks," laughed Ann. 
 
 Shickshack's wife gave Peggy many tasks to do, but 
 in a house where there was no home-making, strewn with 
 the appointments of a dirty camp, the tasks were sordid 
 and often useless. Sally let pots and kettles litter the 
 hearth, and her cob pipe dropped ashes into a pinner 
 hanging on the crane; the joists were grimy, and dust 
 stood thick on the pewter she got with her first husband 
 and was too stingy to use. But her splint-bottomed 
 chairs had to be scoured with soap and sand every week, 
 and she made the lame girl, in deerskin dress, creep inch 
 by inch over the puncheon floor, cleaning it by the same 
 hard process. When the weather was bad Peggy's tasks 
 were doubled, and her struggle with marks of New Salem 
 clay became hopeless. 
 
 Shickshack's wife never seemed to look up ; plodding 
 along the street, her sullen eyes fixed on the ground, she 
 exchanged no word with a neighbor. Shickshack's dis- 
 
 45
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 gust was extreme with sordid housekeeping he had 
 nowhere encountered in an Indian village. 
 
 The changes in Peggy Shickshack were not without 
 influence on her schoolmates, but the Spaniard, with 
 pride of her own, held aloof from them. They swung 
 their feet from tall benches and whispered behind their 
 books while -Peggy fiercely studied. When the Testa- 
 ment class stood up she was at the head. Her progress 
 through the simple course was so rapid that Minter 
 Grayham calculated she would know in a year all that he 
 was able to teach her. 
 
 Antywine, whose stepmother had never sent him to 
 school, was nineteen years old, and could not read. 
 Peggy began to teach him during the long spring twi- 
 lights. There was a large stone halfway across the valley, 
 sheltered as the sun slipped north of afternoons, under 
 which Peggy hid her outgrown lesson book for Anty- 
 wine. Whatever direction his day's hunt led him, he 
 made a detour to arrive at the stone, and if he arrived 
 first, sat down to study. If Peggy, carrying her dinner 
 reticule home from school, reached it first, she waited. 
 
 They sat and held the book together. English spell- 
 ing provoked Canadian exclamations; but he had to spur 
 him not only Peggy, but the powerful example of Sieur 
 Abe Lincoln, studying every spare minute. 
 
 Antywine knew where the best swimming places were 
 in the Sangamon. Sometimes he came to his lesson, his 
 blond hair separating into dark clinging tendrils, which, 
 as they dried, became a powder of gold-shot curls around 
 
 46
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 his face and temples. If Peggy could not keep her fingers 
 from touching this fleece, Antywine pretended he did not 
 know it. His hands and shoulders worked as hard as 
 his mind. With shrugs and gesticulating fingers he flung 
 English spelling all around. When he encountered a 
 terrific word he would throw down the book and jump on 
 it. But Antywine's moccasins were light; he did not 
 damage the learning under his feet. His rages were all 
 rages of laughter. Whatever he did so delighted Peggy 
 that she said: 
 
 " It makes me almost laugh out in school to think 
 how you dance on your speller ! " 
 
 As month followed month and Pedro Lorimer neither 
 showed himself again in New Salem nor made any other 
 attempt to kidnap the Indian's adopted daughter, her 
 guardian's anxiety relaxed to ease. He thought : "These 
 white men in this village are my friends ; they will take 
 my part. The young chief Abe is as strong as three 
 Pedro Lorimers, and his hand is with me." 
 
 Every Sunday Mahala Cameron's father preached in 
 the schoolhouse, and nearly all the people, whether they 
 accepted the Cumberland Presbyterian creed or not, went 
 to the service. Wild-plum groves made bouquets of 
 snow on the prairies. The woods were full of flov/ers, 
 having such fragrance as breaks only from old loam. All 
 the trees, from the rich green of the pecan to the delicate 
 and slowly deepening maple gave out their foliage to the 
 sun. The Judas tree burst out like flame in the forest. 
 
 Happy boys were seen coming home from the river 
 
 47
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 of evenings with strings of croppies, bass, and pike. Half- 
 yearly muster day came, when the local militia stepped 
 out in awkward squads and practiced such military tactics 
 as the leader knew to the squeak of a fife and the thump 
 of a drum. Antywine put himself among the boys. He 
 liked life and movement. But Shickshack stood and 
 looked gloomily on. He knew that his own people, the 
 Sacs, were being crowded in their reservation, and this 
 play of war might sometime become reality. Whisky 
 was plentiful on muster days. Antywine noticed that 
 Lincoln did not touch it. Having considered the height 
 and strength of Sieur Abe, he also spat out of his mouth 
 a taste of fiery stuff pushed between his lips by a Grove 
 boy, and decided that he would fight rather than be 
 forced to drink. 
 
 Slicky Green and Ann Rutledge's brother were home, 
 working in their fathers' fields. Young Yates was seen 
 at intervals during the summer. The boys and girls of 
 New Salem found a world of material for their own hap- 
 piness. There were quiltings, where the older women 
 labored in the afternoon and young men and women 
 came to evening games. 
 
 Peggy Shickshack stood outside of such festivities, 
 and so did Antywine, because the singular mother of 
 their household had no fellowship with the mother of 
 any other household. For all the villagers began to look 
 kindly at the unfolding womanliness of the lame Span- 
 iard, the blond head of Antywine, and the good old 
 Indian who loved white men. 
 
 48
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 But the festival that Peggy Hked best and was not 
 left out of, was blackberrying. The girls rose at dawn 
 and put on their worst clothes, meeting by appointment 
 at the tavern with baskets on their arms. They did not 
 speak loud. The dust in the road took the prints of 
 their feet like ashes. The whole sweet-smelling world 
 was drenched in dew, and as they brushed down the 
 ravine and across to the woods beyond, they were bap- 
 tized by every bush. Then their tongues were loosened, 
 and they sang and told stories. Sometimes they pre- 
 tended to see wolves sneaking to cover, but this was 
 merely for the pleasure of frightening themselves. It 
 was the loveliest pilgrimage ever invented. There was 
 peril in it, too, for in the wooded field of wild brambles 
 the thick-mottled rattlesnake, or objects resembling him, 
 caused many a start and shriek. 
 
 Once little Jane Rutledge got a fat grasshopper down 
 her back, and yelled for deliverance from — "a snake! a 
 snake!" 
 
 "Oh, run home, Jane! Run home, quick!" cried 
 Mahala Cameron. 
 
 But Ann tore the child's clothing open and freed the 
 grasshopper, clinging with all his feet to the tender white 
 back ; and they all laughed at Mahala, who would have 
 sent her three miles for help. 
 
 Sometimes the girls swam grass to their waists, as in 
 a sea of dew, Peggy dividing her way with her crutch. 
 The rising sun showed glittering in the brambles, black- 
 berries and luscious dewberries half as long as one's 
 
 49
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 thumb, melting ripe to keep that very morning's appoint- 
 ment. To go blackberrying late in the day was not to go 
 blackberrying at all, but to a hot and weary search of 
 rifled fields. 
 
 When the party trailed homeward with heaped baskets 
 they could see along the ridge of the Sangamon tents and 
 camps of farmers who had come long distances to mill. 
 Each man was obliged to wait his turn to have his 
 grain ground. It was like a fair. Quoit pitching, 
 wrestling matches, races, and trading filled up the idle 
 time. 
 
 Insensibly the season changed. Sumac leaves began 
 to burn around scarlet fruit veiled in white, the oaks 
 were faintly tinted, and the first September days had 
 come. 
 
 Antywine's reading lessons at the stone ended, for 
 Lincoln was taking up surveying and going out to dis- 
 tant parts of the county, and Antywine was to go with 
 him as his chain-bearer. 
 
 " I put the book in my bundle," said the Canadian 
 while he and Peggy were bidding each other farewell at 
 the stone. "Sieur Abe will help me." 
 
 Peggy's hands and feet became cold. She felt as if 
 autumn were driving the blood back upon her heart. 
 
 " Viane Rutledge told at school the other day that 
 you are the best-looking young man in New Salem." 
 
 Antywine expanded with satisfaction. He always 
 carried his chin up, so that people called him high- 
 headed. 
 
 50
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " I am tall." 
 
 " Don't you think Viane Rutledge is a pretty girl, 
 Antywine?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " She's the prettiest girl that goes to school, isn't she?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Tears sprang into Peggy's eyes; she winked them 
 back, ashamed of being grieved. 
 
 " But Viane Rutledge is not a good reader," she hon- 
 estly declared. 
 
 " Me, I am not a good reader, eitheir," observed 
 Antywine. 
 
 "You don't want to put yourself alongside of Viane 
 Rutledge as a poor reader," spoke Peggy, sharply — " do 
 your 
 
 " I don't know," returned Antywine, with a teasing 
 winsomeness specially his own. He smiled on the land- 
 scape and lifted his chin higher, a look of concern 
 replacing the smile. 
 
 ''Why you cry, sweetheart? " 
 
 " My foot's tired," said Peggy, drying her tears. 
 
 " You been trying to walk without the crutch ? 
 
 "A little." 
 Then I carry you up to the house." 
 I don't want you to. If Mahala Cameron's brother 
 was here he could help you make a saddle and carry me. 
 He takes hold of hands with one of the Clary boys, and 
 they lift me up on the saddle and run with me when we 
 play Indian." 
 
 51 

 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " He have no business ! " exclaimed Antywine, full of 
 indignation. " They will fall and hurt you ! " 
 
 "O, no, they won't. He is a nice boy, and has such 
 red cheeks." 
 
 " Me, if I have those red cheeks I strip the skin off 
 my face!" said Antywine, disgusted. "You like those 
 red cheeks, eh? " 
 
 " Well, I think they are about as pretty as Viane 
 Rutledge." 
 
 "Viane Rutledge," spoke Antywine, sincerely, "she 
 not have that charm like you, and those manners." 
 
 " Do you think I am learning manners ? " 
 
 "You have improve every day." 
 
 "Antywine, I've got the best apple in my pocket ! 
 Don't you want a bite of it ? " 
 
 " Did those Cameron boy give you that apple ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "You have it, then, from that Grove feller, who is 
 behave so bad the master whip him ? " 
 
 " No. Mahala gave it to me." 
 
 " Then I will take some bite." 
 
 Peggy drew forth the apple and they ate it together, 
 feeling that their differences were reconciled. It was their 
 parting meal, for food eaten at Sally's board had no such 
 taste as this. 
 
 Shickshack said nothing about Antywine's first serious 
 undertaking of civilized work. The boy until that time 
 had been nothing but a hunter. Perhaps the Indian 
 pondered on the white man's influence. He set himself 
 
 52
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 to bring in plenty of venison to dry for winter, and an 
 abundance of buckskin to tan. His cabin was as good 
 as any in New Salem. 
 
 Shickshack held land in his reservation, as all his tribe 
 held it, without cultivating or improving an acre except 
 patches of maize and pumpkins. He could not under- 
 stand the white man's greed of real estate when the 
 prairies were so free to all. The product of his labor 
 consisted of peltries. These he exchanged for the neces- 
 saries of simple living. 
 
 Shickshack was not unmindful of the change in his 
 adopted child. He used to watch her silently. When 
 she brought him the first pair of stockings made by her 
 hand he sat and smoothed them across his buckskin knee. 
 They were useless to him as a covering, for he could not 
 enjoy the freedom of his ankles in anything but hunter's 
 neips. 
 
 Before the weather grew cold he gave Peggy a roll of 
 heavy dark red linsey cloth instead of the usual tanned 
 deerskins. Ann Rutledge helped her cut and make the 
 dress. He had the satisfaction of seeing her warmly clad, 
 in short-waisted gown with bag sleeves and a thick cape 
 and hood lined with dull yellow flannel which Ann had 
 saved among her stores. 
 
 As autumn days drew close to the margin of winter, 
 the big boys, relieved of labor that they owed to their 
 parents every working season until they were twenty-one 
 years old, came to Minter Grayham's school. Though 
 willing to make themselves useful carrying in logs for the 
 
 53
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 fireplace, they were full of frolic as colts. They stirred 
 up the school until Minter Grayham in despair made a 
 new law and announced that he would listen to no more 
 complaints of wad-throwing, fisticuffing, and fighting, 
 unless the complainant could show that blood had been 
 drawn. Then the boys were gloriously happy. The 
 sallow young schoolmaster, writing copies at his high 
 desk, would suddenly hear through the drone of study: 
 
 " Master, Viane Rutledge looked at me and drew 
 blood ! " 
 
 " Master, Nancy Green's eyes are drawing blood on 
 me this minute I " 
 
 In November there was a haze over the landscape like 
 bloom on grapes. Indian summer lingered. Settlers had 
 not then learned the Mississippi Valley's sudden and 
 bitter changes of climate. 
 
 Lincoln and Antywine were still absent early in 
 December, when Shickshack waited one evening behind 
 Minter Grayham's schoolhouse for Peggy to come out. 
 A jet of boys and girls seemed to spout forth, racing 
 down to Rock Creek. They could almost smell their 
 supper johnnycakes across the ravine. Peggy was hop- 
 ping briskly in the joyful midst of her schoolmates, when 
 she saw her foster father beckoning her at the foot of the 
 bluff. She followed him. 
 
 Shickshack led her where there was no path through 
 ascending woods, parting naked bushes for her, and help- 
 ing her over fallen logs which had become almost a pow- 
 der of flakes covered with moss. 
 
 54
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " Where are we going ? " she inquired more than once. 
 
 But Shickshack made no reply until he had put a loop 
 of deerskin around him over his blanket, and lifted Peggy 
 on his back in this portable hammock. She was learning 
 to use her lame leg with a stoical determination which 
 the New Salem doctor encouraged. Though never with- 
 out her crutch, she oftener carried than leaned on it. 
 Shickshack was evidently undertaking a journey, and 
 she looked anxiously through the woods as some flakes 
 of snow melted on her face, and up at the void peopled 
 as by winged white insects. 
 
 " Father," said Peggy in the Sac language, " where 
 are you taking me ? " 
 
 " To the young chief Yates," he answered in English, 
 trudging across the ridge, sure-footed and muscular. 
 
 " But he lives far away, and I won't go ! What will 
 Antywine and Mr. Lincoln say when they come home ? " 
 
 " Antywine and the chief Abe on the survey trail. 
 They not here to stop Pedro Lorimer. He get you 
 this time." 
 
 " Has he come back again ? " 
 
 Shickshack grunted. "At the Grove — two, four 
 days. He tell the young braves Black Hawk is on 
 the war path. Drive out old Indian ! Burn his wigwam ! 
 Old Indian help Black Hawk. Me not need totem signs 
 to find out what he want. He say old Indian have no 
 business to keep white girl." 
 
 " But, father, you cannot carry me so far ! " Peggy 
 strongly revolted. She wept, shivering against his back. 
 
 55
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 He descended toward a darkened plain without heeding 
 her arguments against his course, except to assure her 
 he intended to hire a horse at the first cabin. 
 
 The sloughs were frozen, and frost-blackened grass 
 crisped under his feet. Nowhere could any farmhouse 
 light be seen, and the gentle flicker-like insect wings had 
 become a driving storm of snow. Shickshack found 
 the road stretching southwest toward Jacksonville, and 
 plodded steadily along. Jogging through an immensity 
 of night and cold and drifting whiteness, Peggy ceased 
 to beg that he would let her walk, and lapsed into such 
 drowsiness that he was obliged to shake her when he 
 set her down. By that time the chill windrows were 
 nearly to his knees. Unsheltered by his body, she felt 
 the dry spume spinning in her face. 
 
 " Me have to put you in the log to-night," said 
 Shickshack. " Snow too bad to go farther." 
 
 Every New Salemite had heard of or seen the huge 
 hollow log strangely left upon the prairie beside that road. 
 Once Slicky Green and another boy, belated on a bitter 
 night while searching for lost cattle, had driven wild hogs 
 out of it, and saved their own lives in its roomy hollow. 
 It loomed a white ridge, higher than Peggy's head, 
 its black opening already banked with drift. Shickshack 
 crawled in with his knife unsheathed. A yelping, snarl- 
 ing struggle was muffled by the log, until something 
 dark leaped past Peggy, and ran across the snow. 
 
 " Wolf," observed the Sac. " Him not like to leave 
 him good bed." 
 
 56
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Reluctantly, in spite of the cold, Peggy crawled past 
 him into the deep shelter, dragging her crutch. Her 
 hand touched something furry, and green eyes shot flame 
 at her. Shickshack haled a cub from its cushion of rotten 
 wood and threw it out after its mother. 
 
 Peggy was so drowsy that she remembered nothing 
 further of the night, except some noises at the open end 
 of the log. 
 
 When she awoke it was light enough to see overhead 
 the ridged vault of her wooden cavern. The snow cast 
 in a pallid illumination. She sat up and called Shick- 
 shack. He remained in a rigid attitude, with his back to 
 her, and his legs extending out under a white lapful. His 
 arm was hard as marble in her hand when she touched 
 him, and he did not turn his head. 
 
 "Father!" she screamed. " Father! " 
 
 57
 
 ID 
 
 THE old Sac, who had guarded her rooftree, 
 whether cabin or wigwam, every night of her 
 remembrance, sat upright, holding his knife, 
 on which frozen blood was crystallized. Two or three 
 dead wolves lay outside the log on the snow. But not 
 .one of them was frozen stifFer than the Indian, who, 
 after his own fashion, had given life itself for the safety 
 of his adopted child. 
 
 Peggy would not believe he was dead. She clung 
 to his solid shoulders, and screamed to rouse him. 
 The Sac, who loved white men, and had never failed 
 to answer the appeal of his white child, silently blocked 
 the entrance of the log. His eyebrows were hoar frost, 
 and the dark ruddiness of his face and neck seemed 
 crusted with rough silver. 
 
 Peggy's wild crying might have resounded long in the 
 hollow log, and brought no person to help her. For all 
 around was the vast prairie stretching from horizon to 
 horizon, a glare of whiteness unpierced by the smoke 
 of a single fire. But two figures toiled toward New Salem 
 through the early cold, wading with effort, and finally 
 making for the hummock in which they recognized the 
 submerged log. Lincoln and his chain-bearer encountered 
 
 58
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 the frozen Indian and the crying girl as they stooped to 
 enter and warm themselves. 
 
 High as drifts were piled in New Salem streets, for 
 this was the winter known long afterward as "the winter 
 of the deep snow," people gathered hastily through the 
 unabated storm when word went around that Shickshack 
 had been brought in frozen to death. Lincoln and Anty- 
 wine, in silent agreement, stopped the ox sled they had 
 borrowed, at the door of Rutledge's tavern. Neither said, 
 " Let us take him to his own cabin." In death, at least, 
 he should escape from the environment which Sally 
 made, and be publicly honored. 
 
 Antywine went directly to carry the news to the 
 widow, and Sally heard it, making a clicking sound of 
 disapproval with her tongue. 
 
 She knocked the ashes out of her cob pipe, partly on 
 the hearth and partly in the dinner pot, which hung from 
 the crane. 
 
 " Now don't that beat ye ! Gone and froze hisself to 
 death the first big snow, and New Salem seven miles 
 from a buryin' ground ! He always was the most ill-con- 
 venient old Injan ! Took him to the tavern, did ye?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Antywine, without apology. 
 
 "Well, keep him there. I'll come to the funeral. 
 Funerals is no novelty to me, buryin* men as often as I 
 have." 
 
 Neighbors talked in whispers around the dignified 
 figure stretched on a white-covered board under an oblong 
 canopy of sheets. But Antywine and Lincoln had them- 
 
 59
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 selves washed it, and dressed it in the Sac's best buck- 
 skins. They found girded around the waist a heavy belt 
 of rattlesnake skin. 
 
 " This is the snakeskin of money belonging to Peggy 
 that he told me about," Lincoln said to Antywine. "He 
 must have taken it out of its hiding-place before he 
 started to find Dick Yates. What shall we do with it?" 
 
 " Put it on, Sieur Abe, to wear for her, as Shickshack 
 did." 
 
 " They say snakeskin in the hat is good for the head- 
 ache; but I don't think I could bear it rubbing against my 
 naked hide. This belt is nearer your size, Antywine." 
 
 " Me, I am a boy, Sieur Abe. Shickshack put his 
 trust in you. He tell you I am a squaw!" 
 
 " 1 reckon he changed his opinion. He only struck 
 out to find Dick because we were away. But you're a 
 little nearer than nearest of kin to Peggy, so if you say 
 Tm to undertake the thing, I'll try it. And if Mother 
 Eve is too strong in me to stand the snake next to me 
 I'll manage it some other way." 
 
 Lincoln and Antywine also helped the cooper make 
 Shickshack's coffin, for neighbor was then obliged to 
 depend upon neighbor for such a service. No fee was 
 ever charged, though if one was offered it had to be 
 accepted. 
 
 Religion did little to soften the grimness of death in 
 those early days. The unpainted coffin stood on two 
 chairs in the largest room of the tavern, and Mahala 
 Cameron's father, hymn book in hand, placed himself 
 
 60
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 behind it as behind an intrenchment, whence he could 
 launch warnings on the uncertainty of life. His father, 
 called old Daddy Cameron, a tremulous and toothless 
 creature, who encountered age as a disease rather than a 
 transition, sat by, sighing, as if to illustrate the unpleas- 
 antness of life's certainty. 
 
 Such funeral rites as New Salem afforded were held 
 in the early forenoon, because snow continued to fall, and 
 seven miles of drift had to be cut through to Concord 
 burying ground. The entire population, as well as men 
 from Clary's Grove, crowded the tavern. People stared 
 when Don Pedro Lorimer came in with Redmond Clary, 
 richly and warmly dressed, as if he had not found it 
 unprofitable to plead the annexation of Cuba. His shin- 
 ing black hair and olive face had a placid, worldly look. 
 One hard-working woman whispered to another that you 
 would not think butter could melt in his mouth, and he 
 appeared the last man to rob an orphan or to run her ofF 
 with him against her will. 
 
 Peggy saw him through her tears with indignation. 
 She sat beside Antywine on one of three chairs which 
 Ann Rutledge placed at the head of the coffin for Shick- 
 shack's family. But the third chair remained vacant 
 until the preacher stood in embarrassment, undecided 
 whether or not to raise a hymn while all the mourners 
 gathered. 
 
 Shickshack's widow finally entered the tavern muffled 
 from the snow in a blanket, carrying a basket on her arm. 
 The crowded assembly opened to let her pass. She set her 
 
 6i
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 basket down, and with a vicious pounce took Antywine 
 and Peggy both by the ear. Antywine visibly restrained 
 himself and walked unresisting with Peggy to the foot of 
 the coffin. Sally shoved their chairs after them, and 
 returned to her own place as chief mourner. 
 
 "This isn't your funeral ! " the bereaved woman 
 explained sourly to them. " He wasn't no kin to either 
 of ye!" 
 
 Solemn-featured neighbors relaxed in countenance and 
 looked sidelong at one another. They watched Sally lay 
 off the blanket and take from her basket a rusty mourn- 
 ing shawl, a black bonnet, and crape veil. In this regalia, 
 kept for her husbands' funerals, she dressed herself pub- 
 licly, and, having completed her preparations, sat down, 
 heaving a deep sigh. The sight of her beard under 
 widow's weeds so affected one of the Grove boys that he 
 disgraced himself by an audible snort. He did not mind 
 disturbing meeting, but a funeral was different ; and he 
 whispered apologetically to the man beside him : " I bet 
 God laughed when He made that woman ! " 
 
 Candles were lighted in the tavern before the mascu- 
 line population of New Salem — for only those went who 
 could shovel snow and help dig a grave — returned from 
 burying Shickshack. A river of icy air flowing out of 
 the northwest had by that time cleared the storm away. 
 Peggy and Antywine were to spend the second night of 
 their peculiar orphanage at the Rutledges', in order to 
 settle the business of Peggy's own inheritance, which 
 Shickshack had silently passed on to his successors. 
 
 62
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 They sat down with Lincoln and Ann Rutledge in 
 the best room, and he put the rattlesnake skin before 
 them on a table. Peggy looked at it curiously, having 
 never before seen her fortune, or the case which held it. 
 The spots described by scales made her shudder. Ann 
 also saw it with aversion, and wondered why Shickshack 
 preferred that to a strong piece of buckskin. 
 
 "A rattlesnake," said Lincoln, " when you get over 
 the first shock of introduction to him, is a mighty pretty 
 fellow. See his combine of colors ! He has lost his first 
 freshness and his rattles, trying to bruise the tough hide 
 of mankind. But I doubt if he ever stung anybody; he 
 wouldn't unless he was crowded." 
 
 Through an open door the tavern kitchen displayed 
 a roaring hearth, where the Dutch oven, with coals on its 
 head and beneath its feet, held a joint of venison. A 
 coffee pot, standing on a trivet over embers, sent per- 
 fume abroad. Johnnycakes of parched corn ground in 
 the hand-mill were browning on boards slanted toward 
 the fire — "the best bread that ever was e't ! " testifies a 
 surviving New Salemite. Hominy hissing in pork fat 
 sent its song through the room, while the younger Rut- 
 ledge girls helped their mother bring to the table cold 
 turkey, cream and butter, fruits preserved in maple syrup, 
 and honey found in the wild-bee tree. 
 
 Plenty of food, an abundance of candle-light, and 
 the heartening warmth of the Franklin stove near her, 
 may have suggested visions to Peggy as she inquired of 
 her friends, "What must I do with this money ? " 
 
 63
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " Sieur Abe has kept it safe," suggested Antywine. 
 
 " There is no one trustier ! " spoke Ann. 
 
 "Will you keep it for me, Mr. Lincoln?" 
 
 " I am not a good money-getter," he laughed, "and I 
 doubt if I am a good money-keeper. The only thing 
 I could do would be to carry it around for you and guar- 
 antee it shouldn't fall into worse hands." 
 
 " The sweetheart knows you are the strongest man in 
 New Salem," said Antywine, resting his cheek upon his 
 hand and lifting eyes of confidence to his elder. 
 
 " But I haven't measured with Clary's Grove yet." 
 
 "Antywine and I both know," said Peggy, " how 
 everybody looks up to you. We could not keep it our- 
 selves as well as you could do it for us, Mr. Lincoln." 
 
 Ann stretched out one slim, long-fingered hand to 
 caress Peggy's cheek. 
 
 "Well, children, I'm of age, and Ann is eighteen. I 
 reckon we'll have to father and mother you. Do you 
 know how much money you have in this bank of Shick- 
 shack's, Peggy ? " 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 " Do you know, Antywine .? " 
 
 " Me ? No. I have never inquire', and Shickshack 
 have not sho' me." 
 
 " If the trust is to be put into my hands I must know 
 the amount." 
 
 Lincoln untied the leather cord which bound the 
 snake's neck, and shook it by the tail. Out gushed all 
 the yellow pieces with the ring of gold upon the table ; 
 
 64
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 Spanish doubloons and French louis, which cost him 
 some trouble to calculate. He set them in cylindrical 
 piles, row after row. Wood snapped in the open Frank- 
 lin stove, and no other sound could be heard in the room 
 but the liquid clink of gold. Ann and Peggy and Anty- 
 wine watched the counting. 
 
 Viane Rutledge, looking through the door at the 
 silent company, beckoned little Jane to stare at such 
 amazing wealth. 
 
 " Whose is it ? " whispered Jane. 
 
 " Peggy Shickshack's, of course. Where would Anty- 
 wine La Chance, or Mr. Abe Lincoln, or Ann get it? 
 The old Indian must have been a miser. But I wouldn't 
 be her — and a Spaniard — for all her money." 
 
 " Two thousand and fifty dollars," announced Lin- 
 coln. He began to return the gold to its pouch. 
 
 "Two thousand dollars is a large amount," said Ann. 
 
 "Am I very rich ? " inquired Peggv. 
 
 " Well, one hundred dollars will buy eighty acres of 
 land, or two horses. You are therefore worth sixteen 
 hundred acres of land, and something over for calico and 
 linsey; and, considering the times and the country, may 
 call yourself fairly well off." 
 
 " Must I buy sixteen hundred acres of land? " 
 
 Lincoln's eyes twinkled, losing for a moment their 
 usual expression of dark blue wistfulness. He was not 
 much older than the Canadian boy who venerated him as 
 an oracle, but he had already begun to guide the destinies 
 of others. 
 
 6s
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " You'd better let your husband decide that matter 
 when you are older," he answered, and while the words 
 were being spoken, Pedro Lorimer entered the tavern in a 
 whirl of winter air. He closed the outer door, made his 
 salutations with grace, and approached the table where the 
 money counters sat. Lincoln deliberately filled the snake 
 skin, tied its neck shut, and sat with it in his large hands, 
 pleasantly returning the visitor's greeting. The tavern 
 was free to all comers. Yet Antywine at once stood up 
 in front of Peggy, his blond head towering above the 
 swart arrival. 
 
 " What you do here, eh ? You drive Shickshack 
 around, so he die in the drift ! When I see you to-day I 
 think I will throw you in the street ! Go off — get some 
 states hannex* to Cuba ! " 
 
 " My pretty fellow," returned Pedro Lorimer, " I rode 
 here through very biting cold to see my young cousin. I 
 shall now take charge of her." 
 
 " Tell him I won't go with him, Antywine," said Peggy. 
 The gentleman must understand," spoke Lincoln, 
 that he cannot force his guardianship on a girl of 
 Peggy's age — except by kidnaping. We folks in New 
 Salem have not measured ourselves with the great peo- 
 ple in the world, but we rather reckon that a New 
 Orleans gambler would make a mighty poor guardian." 
 
 The foreigner's olive skin, chilled by the cold from 
 which he had just entered, took a swift greenish pallor. 
 He stepped forward hissing, and snapped his fingers in 
 Lincoln's face. Antywine was upon him like a tiger, 
 
 66 
 
 (C 
 
 it
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 dragging him to the door, throwing him out into the 
 snow, and shooting the bolt behind him. 
 
 " Goody ! " Peggy exclaimed with passionate approval. 
 
 Ann put her hands to her eyes and Lincoln laughed. 
 
 "Take care, Antywine." 
 
 The oiled paper of the window through which Peggy 
 had watched Ann Rutledge from the hand-mill, was 
 slashed by a knife. Antywine flattened himself against 
 the door. The knife shot past his head and stuck quiv- 
 ering in the opposite wall. 
 
 If New Salem folks had distrusted this erratic and 
 intermittent visitor from the first, they quite made up 
 their minds about him when he disappeared once more 
 after Shickshack's funeral. It became generally known 
 how he had followed that poor Indian to rob a girl. The 
 winter of the deep snow gave shut-in householders plenty 
 of time to talk. The fact that Pedro Lorimer had been 
 harbored at Clary's Grove added no sweetness to his 
 reputation. Some were afraid he would come back and 
 organize the wild spirits there for any kind of local annex- 
 ation which might strike his fancy. But the northern 
 winter, from which a tropical nature shrank, went by 
 without disturbance. If Black Hawk had stirred in the 
 Northwest, he settled down to wait a better season. People 
 no longer rode in sleds over buried stake-and-ridered 
 fences. Vast white frosted loaves of prairies, and forests 
 standing knee-deep in snow, returned to their natural 
 aspect. Streams ran brimful, and Rock Creek covered 
 half the valley during the spring thaw. 
 
 67
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 Peggy had plenty of chances to loan her money at a 
 high rate of interest to impecunious people, with little 
 prospect of getting it back. Lincoln said he was not a 
 good adviser, for he had failed at storekeeping, and made 
 debts which must cost him years of hard work. But it 
 appeared to him that her gold was safer in the snakeskin 
 coiled around his waist than it would be turned into any- 
 thing else, until she could buy and hold land. 
 
 Antywine and Peggy had gone back to Sally's cabin. 
 But as the season advanced and it was time to take up 
 the work of surveying again, Antywine consulted Lin- 
 coln. 
 
 "I have make up my mind," he declared, "not to 
 live with that woman some more at all. She have my 
 father's goods, and her first man's goods, and Shickshack's 
 cabin. She is well off. There is that Onslow house at 
 the west end of the road. I can buy it myself for some 
 trade. We will keep house." 
 
 " Peggy and you ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Antywine, with innocent enthusiasm. 
 " I will take care of her. Me, I can make moccasins ; I 
 can kill plenty deer and cure venison. When I am away 
 with you to carry the chain, she can bar the door and 
 keep Sally out, and I sleep easy. I not sleep easy, Sieur 
 Abe, to go away and leave her alone with that Sally, who 
 may cast an evil eye or a stick of wood at her the min- 
 ute my back is turn' ! " 
 
 " You better put off the housekeeping until we come 
 home," suggested Lincoln, smiling, "and let Peggy 
 
 68
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 board at the tavern while we are away. She has plenty 
 of money." 
 
 Antywine's blue eyes flashed joy at the unfolding of 
 this brilliant plan. He had never thought of Peggy's 
 money as currency which might be put to use. It was 
 simply a valuable possession, hoarded for her. 
 
 Peggy was directly received into the Rutledge family, 
 where she had an abundance of good food and Ann's 
 teaching and companionship for a stipulated sum in shil- 
 lings and fips amounting to less than two dollars a week. 
 To her it was a season of joy and rapid development. 
 Viane Rutledge, herself budding into girlhood, watched 
 the Spaniard with surprise and reluctant approval. Peggy's 
 angles disappeared. She shot up taller. Her lissome 
 limbs were round, and her halting step without a crutch 
 had an appealing charm. Her little face gathered a sweet- 
 ness which provoked kisses ; it had the clean polish of a 
 flower petal. She was so good and so happy, so busy 
 learning how to manage the affairs of daily hving, and so 
 glad to draw her breath, that everybody said, " She is 
 growing pretty ! Whoever imagined that little weazened 
 Spaniard would turn out like this ? " 
 
 Antywine and Lincoln were away until early June. 
 They came driving an ox-wagon from the west into New 
 Salem one evening at sunset, and drew up at the vacant 
 cabin which Antywine intended to make his own. It 
 stood waiting for him in primitive security. The ox- 
 wagon carried a squat, low chest of drawers, evidently 
 bought at second-hand, but bright and rosy through its 
 
 69
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 old mahogany surface, and Antywine's first housekeep- 
 ing investment. Lincoln helped him unload it, and they 
 set it on the sward before the cabin door. 
 
 " I Hft him into the house myself," said Antywine. 
 So Lincoln drove the borrowed cattle on, knowing he was 
 welcome to put them into anybody's pasture until he and 
 his chain bearer returned them. 
 
 Antywine opened the door of the playhouse he was 
 intending to make for Peggy. Though the sensitive part 
 of him, which Peggy said was like a woman, quivered 
 with delight, he had a free, bold spirit, ready to dare any- 
 thing. On long tramps and rides and through days of 
 mechanical labor with a master mind he had been coming 
 to his own as a man. 
 
 "There's a mighty diiFerence," Lincoln once said to 
 him, "between studying with the outside of your eyeballs 
 and studying with your eyes open clear to the bottom of 
 your brain." 
 
 Antywine saw that new oiled paper would have to be 
 put into the weather-beaten windows, over which Peggy 
 would hang short white curtains, perhaps, like those that 
 could be shoved apart on strings at the tavern. He 
 selected the corner for his chest of drawers, and was 
 silently calculating how long it would take to turn out 
 chairs and tables at the cooper's shop, when the smell of 
 a cob pipe made him shut the door to keep Sally from 
 looking into his house. Sally had come up behind him and 
 was examining the chest of drawers. In earlier days, 
 before beard grew upon her face, or avarice and vindic- 
 
 70
 
 — V 
 
 "sally was examining the chest of drawers
 
 OI^IVERSITY OF ILLINUfS
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 tiveness hewed it, her piercing black eyes may have 
 been admired. She fixed them on Antywine. 
 
 He touched his cap with the courtesy his father had 
 taught him to show all women, and said, " Good day, 
 Sally." He heard Lincoln's gee-hawing to the oxen turn 
 to " W'oa, Buck ! " and saw that Slicky Green and young 
 Yates had come down the road to meet the surveyor. 
 
 " Have you heard about Peggy's death ? " inquired 
 Sally. 
 
 " Her death ? " Antywine repeated. 
 
 "Yes. She was buried a week ago." 
 
 71
 
 iDir 
 
 ^^ "1" NOT believe you ! " said Antywine. 
 
 I " You can ask them Rutledges, then, that was 
 hired to take such fine care of her ! Why don't 
 you go and ask them ? " 
 
 "I not beheve you!" trembled Antywine. He sat 
 down on the doorstep holding his blinded head between 
 his hands. 
 
 "You and Peggy thought you would go to your- 
 selves, didn't you ? But she lays in Concord buryin'- 
 ground now, right alongside of Shickshack ; and you 
 know where he lays. The new grave's there." 
 
 " I not believe you ! I not believe you ! I not 
 believe you ! " 
 
 Antywine leaped from the doorsill and ran like a deer 
 to the tavern, passing the young men and the oxen with- 
 out noticing or hearing them. Ann Rutledge was sew- 
 ing by an open window with her back toward him. The 
 two younger girls were in the garden with their mother. 
 He did not see Peggy anywhere. A hush was upon the 
 house, and as Ann turned and saw him with a frightened 
 look on her face, he could not ask any question, but 
 took the path down to Rock Creek, and ran to the stone 
 where Peggy used to hide her book for him. The sun 
 
 72
 
 Ul^lVERSITY OF ILUNOIS
 
 " RAIN BEAT UPON ANTYWINE THROUGH SAPLING BOUGHS
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 was down and a ribbon of mist wavered in front of the 
 closed schoolhouse. 
 
 Nobody would ever wait for him at that rock again. 
 He ran along the ravine below the gardens and returned 
 to his house, barring the door and drawing the latch- 
 string in. Lying on the floor in the darkest corner, he 
 hid his weeping, and made no answer to the young 
 men, who called his name through the window. 
 
 Sally was asleep in her own cabin long before 
 Antywine crept out of his and took the road to Con- 
 cord burying-ground. It was a long walk under blurred 
 stars, for the wind changed after midnight, belying the 
 promise of a fair sunset. 
 
 Antywine tried to bring Peggy's face before him, with 
 its many flitting expressions. Her eyes were hazel, or 
 black, or gray, by changeable turns, swarming with points 
 of light. He remembered drinking from the gourd after 
 her, on the very side where she had drank, and the 
 pleased trembling of her lips when she noticed it. All the 
 ways and traits which went to the making of the com- 
 panion he called sweetheart were present to his mind, 
 when groping among saplings in the thinly peopled 
 burying-ground he came to Shickshack's sunken grave 
 which he had himself helped to make, and found a fresh 
 clay hillock beside it. 
 
 The latter part of the night rain poured upon the 
 chest of drawers which Antywine had left standing in 
 front of the cabin and streamed down its polished sides. 
 Rain beat upon Antywine through sapling boughs, satu- 
 
 73
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 rating his linsey hunting-shirt and darkening his worn 
 buckskins. 
 
 Drenched grass and a tangle of little trees he scarcely- 
 felt or saw when sodden and miserable daylight came. 
 By the end of the afternoon some light crept out from 
 sunset, and there was a clearing up in the west. Lincoln 
 climbed the burying-ground fence, and found Antywine 
 lying asleep across the new-made grave. He was so 
 ghastly that Lincoln at once shook him, feeling relieved 
 when he opened his eyes. 
 
 The boy looked up at the mole like a warm pulsing 
 heart on his friend's cheek. But his friend's eyes 
 twinkled. 
 
 " What are you doing here on old Daddy Cameron's 
 grave, Antywine? " 
 
 Antywine sprang as from a rattlesnake. He was 
 exhausted, so that Lincoln gave him both hands to help 
 him rise. 
 
 " Daddy Cameron died last week and they buried him 
 in the same row with Shickshack. He was a fine old 
 man, but if I were you I wouldn't lie out all night and 
 all day on his grave ! " 
 
 " Sally have tell me this is where she is bury' ! " 
 
 "Who? Peggy?" 
 
 " Yes, Sieur Abe. Where is she ? " 
 
 "At the tavern." 
 
 "She is not dead?" 
 
 " Not a bit ! " 
 
 "But Sally have tell me—" 
 
 74
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 " Haven't you summered and wintered Sally long 
 enough to know when she is paying you a grudge? " 
 
 "But I run to the tavern myself — " 
 
 "And scare Ann, and run away again without asking 
 any questions. I've had a long jaunt through the mud 
 and searched the better part of a day for you." 
 
 Antywine threw his arms around Lincoln and sobbed 
 and laughed like a woman. He swayed, and could 
 scarcely stand. 
 
 "You've made yourself sick being so downhearted, 
 when you ought to have kept your wits. That Lorimer 
 fellow is back at the Grove again, and he's making a 
 bold stand now. If he had known I carry the snakeskin 
 I reckon he would have followed our chain. But Dick 
 Yates is here. We tried to find you last night, and 
 couldn't." 
 
 " I tell Sally I not believe her ! " shivered Antywine. 
 
 "And then you leg it out here and pass a sentimental 
 night and watery day on Daddy Cameron's grave ! I'm 
 surprised at you ! " 
 
 The American way of joking over what had been 
 tragedy seemed delicious to the Canadian boy as he 
 tramped back the long seven miles. When he reached 
 his house at the end of the village Lincoln did not think 
 it advisable to take him any farther. Antywine was so 
 ill that he lay down upon the floor, resisting any sugges- 
 tion of food. 
 
 Through delirious eyes he saw the blaze, which Lin- 
 coln contrived to start in the chimney, interlace sticks 
 
 75
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 
 piled there months before in readiness for a first house- 
 warming. 
 
 Lincoln was on his knees blowing it when he heard 
 Slicky Green pant through the door: 
 
 " Are you here, Abe ? You're wanted at the tav- 
 ern. 
 
 " What's the matter at the tavern ? " 
 
 " The Grove boys are coming to throw everything out 
 of doors if you don't give that Lorimer man the Span- 
 iard and her money." 
 
 How do you know ? " 
 
 Martha Bell Clary slipped off on her father's horse 
 and brought word." 
 
 "Where's Dick?" 
 
 " He's looking somewhere else for you." 
 
 Lincoln stood up and glanced at Antywine, who had 
 suffered, but was unable to fight, resting like a log at the 
 hearth corner. 
 
 " Poor Antywine !" he whispered, and carefully shut 
 the door as he went out to settle the unconscious boy's 
 fate. 
 
 The self-appointed censors of the Grove had once 
 wrecked a store in New Salem, and kicked the merchan- 
 dise about the street. The population of the village was 
 about one hundred souls, few of whom could be mus- 
 tered as fighting men; while the Grove males were all 
 fighting men. 
 
 The night was starlit and cloudless, but there was no 
 moon. Dull panes of oiled paper revealed candles in 
 
 76
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 some houses, but a hush like expectation seemed to 
 stretch along the unseen windings of the street. When 
 the Grove boys mounted for a raid of any sort they 
 usually rode at full gallop, yelling like Indians. Lincoln 
 was ahead of Slicky Green in the race to the tavern, 
 when both stopped, halted by a procession with lanterns. 
 There had been no noise of shouting and no crash of de- 
 struction. The quiet approach of the company seemed 
 worse than its ordinary rioting. 
 
 " They didn't stop at the tavern ! " whispered Slicky 
 Green. 
 
 They had been to the tavern, for Dick Yates, bare- 
 headed, was leading them peaceably away from it, walk- 
 ing in front of the cavalcade ; and a girl's figure could be 
 discerned sitting upon a led horse. The velvet dust of a 
 village road muffled the tread of hoofs. But along house 
 fronts on each side, where footpaths were marked by 
 daily use, sounded the uneven patter of many feet. Men, 
 women, and children of New Salem, suffered to witness 
 what they could not prevent, were hovering around Lin- 
 coln and the little Spaniard. He thought he saw Ann 
 Rutledge, in her short-sleeved house dress, her face 
 showing white and anxious through the dark ; and Min- 
 ter Grayham, whose haggardness and puny strength 
 the Grove boys would have laughed at if opposed to 
 them. 
 
 " Here is Abe Lincoln," announced Yates ; and as if 
 he had given a command to halt, the company halted, 
 
 "Here I am," said Lincoln. "Do you want me?" 
 
 77
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 
 Dick and Slicky stood beside him in the middle of the 
 road. 
 
 " My friends and I," spoke a voice with a foreign 
 accent, " have an affair of two minutes with you. You 
 have somewhere a snakeskin purse belonging to my 
 cousin, Consuelo Lorimer. Bring it, and you shall not 
 be injured." 
 
 " But if I did she'd be injured !" 
 
 " Don't let him take me, Mr. Lincoln ! " besought 
 Peggy from the midst of the riders. " I will not go ! 
 Where's Antywine ? " 
 
 Boys, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves ! " 
 We didn't come out for a speech, Abe," mocked 
 Redmond Clary. 
 
 " And I'm not practicing polemics." 
 
 "You get the girl's money and hand it over." 
 
 "You let her out of that gang." 
 
 The gang growled. 
 
 " We have a crowd and you have just two backers. 
 New Salem people can't do anything. We don't want 
 to hurt you, Abe, unless we have to." 
 
 " String him up like a horsethief ! " cried a man at the 
 rear. 
 
 " Are you going to hand over the Spaniard's money?" 
 
 " No, I'm not," replied Lincoln. 
 
 " Ride him down ! " cried another, and the horses 
 were spurred forward. Some women and children 
 shrieked in fright as the three young fellows were driven 
 in retreat to Antywine's cabin and sprang upon the chest 
 
 78
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 of drawers. Standing close together with that short ros- 
 trum under their feet, they faced about the ring of horse- 
 men who drew up around them. The perforated tin lan- 
 terns showered drops of yellow light on trampled grass. 
 Behind the men's heads and shoulders were a void of 
 trees and the starlit sky, and the excited murmur of New 
 Salem. Lincoln towered in the midst of the circle. 
 
 He could dimly see the Spanish girl, and he remem- 
 bered for one instant how Antywine lay exhausted within 
 the cabin. She was looking for the last time at what was 
 to have been her home, and wondering, with an ache of 
 grief worse than her terror of the ruffians, what had 
 become of the gentle housemate who had never before 
 failed to take her part. 
 
 " Now men, listen to me one minute," exclaimed 
 Dick Yates. 
 
 "We're not here to listen," ruled the leader. 
 
 " These boys ought to be put out," one man 
 insisted. "We don't want them." 
 
 " Let my cousin's property be restored to her," spoke 
 Pedro Lorimer, " without delay." 
 
 "And who are you ? " demanded Yates, the beauty of 
 his rosy youth, which had been felt rather than seen, 
 changing suddenly to the power of a man with irresisti- 
 ble magnetism. His voice rolled out across the wall of 
 rough faces. His eyes had scathing lights. His unwill- 
 ing listeners raised their lanterns to look at him. " I 
 have been gathering facts about you for more than a year. 
 You are a New Orleans gambler. You ply your trade 
 
 79
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 under cover of some political scheme about Cuba, a place 
 you never saw. All you want of the poor young girl 
 sitting on the horse beside you, is the handful of money 
 her father contrived to hide from you. You think it is 
 a very large sum. It is about two thousand dollars. If 
 it hadn't been for poor old Shickshaclc you would have 
 robbed her long ago. You paid Shickshack's half crazy, 
 avaricious wife to send you word where he could be 
 found, every time he moved to get rid of you. 
 
 " These men wouldn't send a child as helpless as one 
 of their own sisters with you, if they knew you. You play 
 the grandee before them. And in the West we always 
 have backed a man up in taking his own when his rights 
 were denied. But the only right you have in this com- 
 munity is to be dipped in the Sangamon!" 
 
 Lincoln, who had seen a knife thrown at Antywine's 
 head for fewer words, kept his eye guarding the indistinct 
 movements of the Spaniard. An uneasy tremor ran 
 around what had been a dead wall of antagonism. But 
 unfortunately Mahala Cameron's father now lifted his 
 voice from the background, and in the character of min- 
 ister exhorted Redmond Clary to draw his followers 
 homeward and cease abetting the ungodly. Redmond 
 Clary turned on him and told him to go home himself, 
 or he might be neatly laid beside his daddy in the Con- 
 cord burying-ground. 
 
 One word had swiftly followed another while Lincoln 
 gauged the force drawn around him. His hair was rumpled 
 over the arch of his head. His strong nose and clean- 
 
 80
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 cut neck and the outward curving of his lips showed by 
 fitful light above his shorter companions. Some radia- 
 tion from his personality made one of the men exclaim : 
 
 "Abe, we know you're honest. But if you're too 
 stubborn to hand over that money we've got a barrel at 
 the mill all ready to roll you into the river." 
 
 " Wait ! " said Lincoln, stretching out a long finger. 
 
 Pedro Lorimer hissed at him : " I do not wait while 
 boys practice speeches ! I could myself in return call 
 my enemies names. This is not what was prom- 
 ised me." 
 
 " What Red Clary promised you," stated Lincoln 
 with intuition which amounted to knowledge, " was if you 
 would cancel his gambling debts he would make me hand 
 over the little Spaniard's money." 
 
 Redmond Clary flung himself off his horse and ran at 
 his accuser. The time for words was past. If the figure 
 towering above them all had stood Vv'ith less assurance, 
 the raging leader might have led his mob to a cruet mur- 
 der. But Lincoln's humorous eye spread a contagion of 
 smiles as he caught the bull-bodied champion of the 
 Grove by the collar and flung that muscular bulk across 
 the ring to cool. 
 
 There was to be a fight. The men drew deep inhala- 
 tions of enjoyment. For ever since Abraham Lincoln 
 appeared in New Salem they had wanted to see him 
 matched with Red Clary. Lincoln knew he was about 
 to succeed or fail with the only argument which could 
 move those to whom might was right. Eloquent and 
 
 8i
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 convincing words had to be backed by a man who could 
 master his listeners. He was tired and supperless. The 
 Spanish girl leaned down on her horse's neck, uncon- 
 sciously uttering prayers aloud for her champion. The 
 struggle would be over in a few minutes, but if Red 
 Clary whipped him her future lay in unknown and terri- 
 ble places. That Antywine was missing seemed a token 
 that the worst must be in store for her. She was in the 
 grip of an evil force. 
 
 Both men threw off their roundabouts and vests. 
 Lincoln faced his two companions, making them a screen, 
 and hurriedly unfastened the belt of gold which he wore 
 under his shirt, and put it in his hat. This he gave to 
 Slicky Green, who held it, while Yates stood guard. 
 
 "You were cut out for a banker, Slicky," said Lin- 
 coln. " I wasn't. I might burst the snakeskin and 
 spill the money." 
 
 His opponent rushed at him like a mastiff let loose, 
 and Peggy doubled herself lower upon the horse's neck. 
 She heard the impact of blows, which sent shudder after 
 shudder down her body, and the panting of spent 
 breath. The Grove boys set up a yell, and she stuffed 
 the horse's mane into her ears. The big, muscular bully 
 who had made everybody in the Sangamon country 
 afraid of him, and shaped public opinion for the Grove, 
 was taking some cruel advantage of a clean wrestler, un- 
 used to sledge-hammer brutality. Then a hush pene- 
 trated even the horsehair, and Peggy looked as Lincoln 
 knocked Red Clary flat beneath the chin of a startled 
 
 8a
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 animal. He fell against its hoofs, and being pulled into 
 the clear space by one of his friends, lay still. 
 
 " I reckon," said Lincoln, pulling his own shirt collar 
 wider open, and sitting on the chest of drawers to breathe, 
 "he has the wind knocked out of him." 
 
 " Goody ! " Peggy's own cry of thanksgiving was the 
 first sound heard by the vanquished man. He sat up, 
 blinking at those who had seen him humbled. 
 
 Lincoln bent over until his body described a right 
 angle, and shook one long horizontal arm at the unim- 
 paneled jury who would have to render verdict in this 
 first case which Yates and he had associated themselves 
 to win. 
 
 "A boy," he panted, "is like a white dress: soil him, 
 and he can be washed and made clean again. But a girl 
 is like a glass bottle: if you let her fall, or throw her down 
 and break her, she is broken forever. Now, men, are you 
 determined to have this poor little bottle destroyed ? " 
 
 There is often speech where no language is heard; 
 and Pedro Lorimer knew he stood by himself from that 
 instant. 
 
 He spurred his horse toward Slicky to seize the hat 
 and break away with it. But Antywine darted out of 
 the cabin and across the open space like a stroke of light, 
 intercepting the Spaniard. His eyes large with fever, and 
 his high features impassioned, he had almost the beauty 
 of an apparition. As the two encountered, Antywine 
 seized the horse's bits and jerked it to its haunches. He 
 and Pedro Lorimer stared at each other. Before the 
 
 83
 
 Spanish Peggy- 
 
 rider found his balance again Lincoln asked with whim- 
 sical significance: 
 
 " Boys, how would any of you like to get up out of 
 chill-and-fever, and find all Clary's Grove helping a 
 stranger rob you of your own dear gal? " 
 
 A sympathetic and sheepish grin seemed to relax as 
 much as could be seen of every rude face; and Pedro 
 Lorimer, throwing away caution, spurred over Antywine. 
 The boy fell, and leaped up, understanding it was a 
 struggle for Peggy. A whirlpool of shouts and plunging 
 horses, and men scrambling to mount, drove all watchers 
 back. Even Redmond Clary's voice was heard, denoun- 
 cing the man whose part he had taken. The crowd that 
 had come down New Salem Street seeking Lincoln went 
 back driving Pedro Lorimer. 
 
 Hoi:rified as New Salem people were by threatened 
 violence, they were unable to refrain from cheering. 
 They crowded to the chest of drawers, where, left 
 stranded as by a stormy tide, sat Peggy and Antywine. 
 He held the hat and snakeskin which Slicky Green 
 thrust into his keeping before following the ebb. The 
 pair clung together, hearkening to no voices but their 
 own, as two robins escaping from some peril of man, 
 might have felicitated and comforted each other. The 
 air was fresh like the breath of the sea after a hot land 
 breeze has gone by. 
 
 Mounted all three upon the horse from which Lin- 
 coln had flung Peggy to Antywine, Lincoln and Yates, 
 and Slicky filling its back from mane to tail, made the 
 
 84
 
 I'" 
 
 UWIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 URBANA
 
 *' AND LOOK OUT FEARFULLY FOR A DREADED FACE "
 
 Spanish Peggy 
 
 
 best haste they could to the Sangamon. They stood at 
 the top of the terraced bank while Pedro Lorimer was 
 rolled down in a barrel. 
 
 Three times, tradition has it, the unhappy wretch 
 took his plunge, and came bobbing up like a buoy. 
 Then Lincoln and Yates, and the cooling effect of the 
 water on those who had him to pull out, succeeded in 
 moderating popular rage against him. He was turned 
 loose, and his horse whipped in the direction of Spring- 
 field, with emphatic assurance that the barrel would be 
 kept for him, and if he ever came back would be put to 
 its final use as his floating coffin. 
 
 Don Pedro Lorimer was never seen again in that 
 country. When Peggy and Antywine were married, 
 and keeping house in their own cabin, she used some- 
 times to part her white curtains at night, and look out 
 fearfully for a dreaded face. But happiness and security 
 become a habit, and she loved after a while to tell her 
 own story. 
 
 Years later the two who had steered her destiny — 
 Abraham Lincoln and Richard Yates — began to steer 
 the destinies of a nation and a state, and the Spaniard of 
 New Salem grew to experience the grateful awe of a 
 person who has been visited unawares by strong angels. 
 
 85
 
 VRD BROTHERS 
 
 JRARY BOOK BINDERS 
 
 JACKSONVILLE. ILL. 
 Process Pat. Aug'. 13, '01 
 
 d for folder explaining our itn- 
 !d method of binding. Old books