S.^^. ► y:/"- '"-, LINCOLN ROOM UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY from CARL SANDBURG'S LIBRARY ' % r^-'^'^' S^V L^'# 3 '~<^u-0:h' ^ TVt/ -a. ^^5^--^'l_-/;s^ ^ru^o^^t^^ i9>^t-.--^^^l^^— Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/sheknewlincolnOOcart 8>z£j yfl^ ^.^^ cAll of a sudden de do' open an' Mis tab Linkun hissef stood lookin' at me. I knowed him, fo' dar wuz a whimsy smile on his blessed face, an he wuz asayin, deep an soft- like, ^^There is time for all who need me. Let the good woman come in." — -Page 8 SHE KNEW LINCOLN by ESTHER MAY CARTER Published by The Author Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY ESTHER MAY CARTER Printed in the United States of America MCMXXX l/J % To EDWIN MARKHAM whose LINCOLN the MAN of the PEOPLE is the noblest poem yet written on "the Captain with the Mighty Heart" this little tribute to NOBLENESS is gratefully dedicated. ^^The heart of Abraham Lincoln was as Big as the worldy but there was no room in it for the memory of a wrong,'' FOREWORD I commend this story for the charm with which it is told, for its fidelity to the character of Lincoln, and for its fidelity also to the wonderful capacity for ap- preciation of kindness possessed by certain types of negro women. The incident is true to Lincoln in that it shows his natural and spontaneous attitude and action in the pressure of human distress, no matter how appar- ently insignificant. IVith Lincoln human suffering was never insignificant. The negro woman is of high type also ... a credit to humanity in her power to cherish throughout her life the memory of a good deed done to her. The ordinary human being . . . 'white or black , . . forgets such deeds all too soon. Bishop Francis J. McConnell the Federal Council o )f Christ in America) New York City (President of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America) (oAutbor's Note) While Dean of Women in Lawrence College, I chanced to meet the original of the Nancy Bushrod of my story. From her own lips I heard the tale of that Red Letter Day of her life — the day she met Abraham Lincoln. It was his last day on earth — a day freighted with decisions vital to a nation's future and harassed by vexing interruptions. Yet the "Pitiful High Heart" of him found time in it to comfort a young negro mother and — as afterward disclosed — to plant deep in her heart the seeds of a dauntless all-conquering courage, before the record of which I bow my head and heart. Esther May Carter Oneida Institute Oneida, Kentucky SHE KNEW LINCOLN ,0 THE cheery tinkling of sleigh bells a big bobsled was making a cross-country run through Wisconsin snows. Tucked warm under robes and bundled in furs, the Browning Club was headed for home after its annual banquet in a neighboring city. ''We prided ourselves on last year's program/' said Agnes Gaylord — ''Club President Perpetual'' they loyally called her, having kept her in office seven years — but to-night's program topped it. Why, everybody laughed and everybody cried — and that's appreciation at its best." 1 SHE KNEW LINCOLN ''It's a big relief to have you all pleased. It was rather a daring ven- ture, even here in the North — to have readings by a Negro girl/' This from the chairman of the Program Com- mittee. "Who was the girl?'' "Explain your prodigy." "Solve us the mys- tery," came in a chorus from the end of the bobsled. Agnes Gaylord answered: "Har- riet has a real story for us, but shall we have it later, please, around the fire in Maxwell's room?" A quick, understanding glance from a dozen women — and they fell 2 SHE KNEW LINCOLN into jolly chatter of sleigh rides long ago, of drifts where the horses floun- dered, of spill-overs in soft banks. And surprisingly soon the driver's good-night rang out, prefaced by Tim Mclver's cheery chuckle, ''As foine a batch o' women as iver me team hitched onto/' ih y^ i*c- They were in Maxwell's room now, and the firelight played on thought- ful faces. For seven years these ''re- membering" friends of Agnes Gay- lord had watched the Old Year out with her — always in Maxwell's room, the room her only son no longer 3 SHE KNEW LINCOLN needed, ''sleeping in France where lilies bloom/' And now it was less the Club president, and more, far more, the mother who said: ''The Time, the Place, the Story! And we'll love the story better because Harriet says it's true." "Fm a proud discoverer," began Harriet, "proud enough to under- stand how Christopher Columbus felt about America. Fve discovered, right here in our own city, a woman who knew Abraham Lincoln." A chorus of exclamations: "Begin at the very beginning." "Don't drop a single thread." "Please hurry." 4 SHE KNEW LINCOLN '*She is Nancy Bushrod/' contin- ued Harriet, *'as dusky-skinned as she is white-souled, and Fve come to care for her as the St. Clairs cared for Uncle Tom. Eighty years old, she is sitting out her days in a sunny cor- ner of a cottage out in Glenwood. She's frail as a flower from a rack- ing cough that would have snuffed her life out years ago, only — as Doc- tor King says — she has two magic wands that keep death at bay. One is an overflowing pride in her children, and the other is the memory of the day she met Abraham Lincoln. *'Nancy and her husband were both 5 SHE KNEW LINCOLN slaves, on the old Harwood planta- tion near Richmond, until the Eman- cipation Proclamation brought them up to Washington. Here Tom joined the Army of the Potomac, and Nancy was left with twin boys and a baby girl. At first Tom sent his soldier's pay every month, but soon the pay stopped coming, and hard times fol- lowed. Washington was surfeited with colored help, and Nancy could find no work, though she tramped the city over. ''One morning the children cried because they were hungry, and Nancy's mind snapped into resolve. 6 SHE KNEW LINCOLN She would see the President himself and ask him to help her get Tom's pay. Tom was fighting for the Union, and the Union would help her find food for Tom's children; and to Nancy's simple mind the Union was — Abraham Lincoln. ''She hadn't touched food for two days and was faint from her five-mile walk when she reached the White House. 'Business with the President?' the guards at the gate asked, in good humor. Her answer was grim: 'Befo' Gawd, yes.' " 'Let her pass — they'll stop her farther on,' she heard one guard say, 7 SHE KNEW LINCOLN SO she took a deep breath and went on. The guard at the main entrance stopped her: 'No further, madam. Against orders.' But in a flash she darted under his arm and went straight to the guard at the farther door. ''To' Gawd's sake, please lemme see Mistah Linkun.' " 'Madam, the President is busy; he can not see you.' "At this Nancy must have given a httle cry, for, in her own words, 'All of a sudden de do' open, an' Mis- tah Linkun hissef stood lookin' at me. I knowed him, fo' dar wuz a whimsy SHE KNEW LINCOLN smile on his blessed face, an' he wuz a sayin', deep an' soft-like, 'There is time for all who need me. Let the good woman come in.' " Harriet King's voice, usually so quiet and steady, broke just a little here. ''Nancy Bushrod's story always breaks here," she explained. "Well, it's enough for us to know that fifteen minutes of Lincoln's crowded day was cheerfully given to a young Negro mother — simply because she needed him. "He heard her story through, then said: 'You are entitled to your sol- dier-husband's pay. Come this time 9 SHE KNEW LINCOLN to-morrow, and the papers will be signed and ready for you/ Then, as she turned to leave — 'Honey, I couldn't open my mouf to tell him how Fse gwine 'membah him fo'evah fer dem words, an' I couldn't see him kase de tears wuz fallin' " — he called her back: '' 'My good woman, perhaps you'll see many a day when all the food in the house is a single loaf of bread. Even so, give every child a slice, and send your children off to school/ ''With that, the President bowed — 'like I wuz a natch-ral born lady,' Nancy always tells it, and turned 10 SHE KNEW LINCOLN to a table piled high with work. *'A11 the long walk back, in driz- zling rain, Lincoln's kindness envel- oped her like sunshine, and the words, 'Send your children off to school,' crystallized into purpose. ''But there was no reaching the President the following day. That very night the fatal shot was fired that plunged a nation into grief, and the next morning gave Lincoln 'to the ages.'" Here Harriet's voice trailed off into silence. Then, with a little catch in her breath, Lottie Price said: "And on that very last day of his life, with a nation's problems weigh- 11 ^'^^RS!TY QF liming LIBRARY SHE KNEW LINCOLN ing him down, he had time to help a poor colored woman.'' ''Always time for all who needed him/' softly answered Elizabeth Wade. ''That's why the common people stood by him loyally, even in his darkest days. But what about Nancy?" "Nancy couldn't get near the White House that next morning, for the crowds that blocked Pennsylvania avenue. It was a big Scotch police- man, blinking back the tears, who told her, in his bluff, kind way: 'Ye dinna ken the President's deid? Woman, whaur ye livin'?" 12 SHE KNEW LINCOLN ''Nancy clung to the nearest post for support — her small world seemed shot to pieces — then she straightened: '' 'Befo' Gawd I swear it, Fse gwine ter fin' wuk, Fse gwine ter make Mis- tah Linkun's words come true. Fse gwine ter sen' my chillun off ter school!''' ''You mean, oh Harriet, do you mean" — Agnes Gay lord gave a little gasp — "that the Negro girl who charmed us so to-night was Nancy Bushrod's baby girl?" "She was Nancy's granddaughter," smiled Harriet. "Years fly fast. But more about Nancy first. How she conquered the odds against her — how 13 SHE KNEW LINCOLN she washed and ironed and scrubbed out a Hving, laying by 'coppers fer schooHn' ' in a cracked teapot her 'shif'less' Tom never could locate — it's all a true story that puts the blush on fiction. When Tom was mustered out, he only added to her burdens, for he was a 'gentleman of the plush- rocker' type, and used to spin yarns of war days, while Nancy made the soapsuds fly. But nothing could daunt her spirit. Sandy McVean, the big policeman who heard her cry out ^^^ over Lincoln's death, got her a janitress job in Ford's Theater, and for four 14 SHE KNEW LINCOLN years she reverently scrubbed the steps that Lincoln had climbed that tragic night, when he went to the theater 'to forget his cares/ 'An' I nevah done no holiah wuk/ she al- ways says, when she tells her story. ''The family moved out to Wiscon- sin in the early Seventies, partly to be near a brother of Nancy, but more for the good schools there that put no ban on color. 'Shiftless' Tom con- tinued to feel 'tollable — ^jes' tollable — too feeble fer wuk,' but Nancy, with the children's help, ran a Snow- flake Home Laundry that was the talk of the town. And out of the grades 15 SHE KNEW LINCOLN into high school cHmbed the three children, the twin boys talking col- lege all the time — and meaning it. Chloe would have meant it too, but a young minister from Milwaukee car- ried her off to be the pride of his parish, "'In the following year, sorrow came to Nancy, with fearful shock. Chloe's husband was drowned while trying to save a comrade, and — three days later — Chloe her- self gave her life for a baby girl's. '' Tse got one more uT-vw/// \^ \v 1 m chile ter eive schoolin' to 16 SHE KNEW LINCOLN now/ Nancy said, when she took the baby in her arms, 'an' I vows ter Gawd — an' ter you, Mistah Linkun — I shore will do it/ ''And now,'' Harriet concluded, "not a mother among us has more reason to be proud of her children than Nancy Bushrod. Her David is pastor of the First Colored Church in Detroit; her Booker is teaching at Tuskegee (he was Booker Washing- ton's own 'find' on one of his lecture tours) , and her Beulah was our reader tonight, valedictorian of her class last June and now taking college work in expression. As you heard, she's wise 17 SHE KNEW LINCOLN enough to confine her readings en- tirely to Negro dialect — where white folks can't compete/' *'She's an arthty^ exclaimed Lottie Price. ''I watched your faces while she read 'When Malindy Sings/ Ev- ery face smiling but not a dry eye! Why, Beulah's reading is like Malin- da's singing: 'It makes its way in glory To de very gates of God/ '' 'Terhaps/' said Elizabeth Wade, 'Taul Laurence Dunbar's poems ap- peal to her through a secret bond — his mother, too, was a slave. I've loved his 'Song of Summer' for years, and Beulah's interpretation made it 18 SHE KNEW LINCOLN the very essence of joy.'' Then she quoted softly: '' 'Breeze is blowin' wif perfume, Jes' enough to tease you, Hollyhocks is all in bloom, Smellin' fu' to please you, Go' way folks an' let me 'lone, Time is gettin' dearah — Summah's settin' on de th'one. An' I'm a-layin' neah huh.' " The stillness that followed was broken by Lottie Price: "Oh, I have a lovely thought. Let's give Nancy Bushrod the finest Lincoln portrait to be found." ''Too late," laughed Harriet. "My doctor-man gave himself that happi- 19 SHE KNEW LINCOLN ness on Nancy's eightieth birthday. And now she spends her days looking up at Lincoln's face. It's the glory of her life that she knew him, and no one chats with her who doesn't hear: '" 'Honey, I knew Lincoln — an' I knows him to-day — an' I'll know him yonder, when Sweet Chariot Swings Low fer me.' " 'J* 'J* 'f- The bells of all the churches rang in the New Year. Agnes Gaylord said softly: ''Dear Lincoln of the Great Heart, with time enough for all who needed you, you've shown us the path to follow — this New Year through." 20 Thanks are due to the editors ot Christian Herald tor their kind permission to republish this story M<> .V.