Kitabı oku: «Si Klegg, Book 2», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XX. THE DEACON BUTTS IN
ENFORCES THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
"PAP," said Si, as they were riding back, comfortably seated on a load of corn-fodder, "now that it's all over, I'm awfully scared about you. I can't forgive myself for runnin' you up agin such a scrape. I hadn't no idee that there wuz a rebel in the whole County. If anything had happened you it'd just killed mother and the girls, and then I'd never rested till I got shot myself, for I wouldn't wanted to live a minute."
"Pshaw, my son," responded his father rather testily; "you ain't my guardeen, and I hope it'll be a good many years yit before you are. I'm mighty glad that I went. There was something Providential in it. I'm a good deal of a Quaker. I believe in the movin's of the spirit. The spirit moved me very strongly to go with you, and I now see the purpose in it. If I hadn't, them fellers might've got the bulge on you. I seen them before any o' you did, and I fetched down their head devil, and I feel that I helped you a good deal."
"Indeed you did," said Shorty earnestly. "You ought to have a brevet for your 'conspicuous gallantry in action.' I think the Colonel will give you one. You put an ounce o' lead to particularly good use in that feller's karkiss. I only wish it'd bin a little higher up, where it'd a measured him for a wooden overcoat."
"I'm awful glad I hit him jest where I did," responded the Deacon. "I did have his heart covered with my sights, and then I pulled down a little. He was pizen, I know; but I wanted to give him a chance to repent."
"He'll repent a heap," said Shorty incredulously. "He'll lay around the house for the next six months, studyin' up new deviltry, and what he can't think of that secesh mother o' his'll put him up to. Co. Q, and particularly the Hoosier's Rest, is the only place you'll find a contrite heart and a Christian spirit cultivated."
"That reminds me," said Si; "we hain't licked the Wagonmaster yit for throwin' cartridges down our chimbley."
"Blamed if that ain't so," said Shorty. "I knowed I'd forgotten some little thing. It's bin hauntin' my mind for days. I'll jest tie a knot in my handker chief to remember that I must tend to that as soon's we git back."
"I'm quite sure that I don't want another sich a tussle," meditated the Deacon. "I never heerd any thing sound so murderin' wicked as them bullets. A painter's screech on a dark night or a rattler's rattle wuzzent to be compared to 'em. It makes my blood run cold to think o' 'em. Then, if that feller that shot at me had wobbled his gun a little to the left, Josiah Klegg's name would 've bin sculped on a slab o' white marble, and Maria would 've bin the Widder Klegg. I wish the war wuz over, and Si and Shorty safe at home. But their giddy young pates are so full o' dumbed nonsense that there hain't no room for scare. But, now that I'm safe through it, I wouldn't 've missed it for the best cow on my place. After all, Providence sends men where they are needed, and He certainly sent me out there.
"Then, I'll have a good story to tell the brethren and sisters some night after prayer meetin's over. It'll completely offset that story 'bout my comin' so near gittin' my head shaved. How the ungodly rapscallions would've gloated over Deacon Klegg's havin' his head shaved an' bein' drummed out o' camp. That thing makes me shiver worse'n the whistlin' o' them awful bullets. But they can't say nothin' now. Deacon Klegg's bin a credit to the church."
They were nearing camp. The Captain of Co. Q ordered:
"Corporal Klegg, take your wagon up that right-hand road to the Quartermaster's corral of mules, and bring me a receipt for it."
Si turned the wagon off, and had gone but a few hundred yards, when he and Shorty saw a house at a little distance, which seemed to promise to furnish something eatable. He and Shorty jumped off and cut across the fields toward it, telling the Deacon they would rejoin him before he reached the picket-line, a mile or so ahead.
The Deacon jogged on, musing intently of the stirring events of the day, until he was recalled to the things immediately around him by hearing a loud voice shout:
"Stop, there, you black scoundrel! I've ketched ye. I'm gwine to blow your onery head off."
He looked up and saw a man about his own age, dressed in butternut homespun, and riding a fine horse. He wore a broad-brimmed slouch hat, his clean-shaven face was cold and cruel, and he had leveled a double-barreled shotgun on a fine-looking negro, who had leaped over from the field into the middle of the road, and was standing there regard ing him with a look of intense disappointment and fear.
"You devil's ape," continued the white man, with a torrent of profanity, "I've ketched ye jest in the nick o' time. Ye wuz makin' for the Yankee camp, and 'd almost got thar. Ye thought yer 40 acres and a mule wuz jest in sight, did ye? Mebbe ye reckoned y'd git a white wife, and be an officer in the Yankee army. I'm gwine to kill ye, right here, to stop yer deviltry, and skeer off others that air o' the same mind."
"Pray God, don't kill me, massa," begged the negro. "I hain't done nuffin' to be killed foh."
"Hain't done nothin' to be killed for!" shouted the white man, with more oaths. "Do ye call sneakin' off to jine the enemy and settin' an example to the other niggers nothin'? Git down on yer knees and say yer prayers, if ye know any, for ye ain't a minnit to live."
The trembling negro dropped to his knees and be gan mumbling his prayers.
"What's the matter here?" asked the Deacon of the teamster.
"O, some man's ketched his nigger tryin' to run away to our lines, an's goin' to kill him," answered the teamster indifferently.
"Goin' to kill him," gasped the Deacon. "Are we goin' to 'low that?"
"'Tain't none o' my business," said the teamster coolly. "It's his nigger; I reckon he's a right to do as he pleases."
"I don't reckon nothin' o' the kind," said the Deacon indignantly. "I won't stand and see it done."
"Better not mix in," admonished the teamster. "Them air Southerners is pretty savage folks, and don't like any meddlin' twixt them and their niggers. What's a nigger, anyway?"
"Amounts to about as much as a white-livered teamster," said the Deacon hotly. "I'm goin' to mix in. I'll not see any man murdered while I'm around. Say, you," to the white man; "what are you goin' ter do with that man?"
"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth shet if ye know when y're well off."
"O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was standing in the road.
"All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'm around," said the Deacon.
"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet," said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o' them slinkin' nigger-stealin' Abolitionists, comin' down here to rob us Southerners of our property?"
He followed this with a torrent of profane denunciation of the "whole Abolition crew."
"Look here, Mister," said the Deacon calmly, reaching back into the wagon and drawing out a musket, "I'm a member o' the church and a peaceable man. But I don't 'low no man to call me names, and I object to swearin' of all kinds. I want to argy this question with you, quietly, as between man and man."
He looked down to see if there was a cap on the gun.
"What's the trouble 'twixt you and this man here?"
"That ain't no man," said the other hotly. "That's my nigger bought with my money. He's my property. I've ketched him tryin' to run away tryin' to rob me of $1,200 worth o' property and give it to our enemies. I'm gwine to kill him to stop others from doin' the same thing."
"Indeed you're not," said the Deacon, putting his thumb on the hammer.
"Do you mean to say you'll stop me?" said the master, starting to raise his shotgun, which he had let fall a little.
"Something like that, if not the exact words," an swered the Deacon calmly, looking at the sights of the musket with an interested air.
The master resumed his volley of epithets.
The Deacon's face became very rigid, and the musket was advanced to a more threatening position. "I told you before," he said, "that I didn't allow no man to call me sich names. I give you warnin' agin. I'm liable to fall from grace, as the Methodists say, any minnit. I'm dumbed sure to if you call me an other name."
The master glared at the musket. It was clearly in hands used to guns, and the face behind it was not that of a man to be fooled with beyond a certain limit. He lowered his shotgun, and spoke sharply to the negro:
"Sam, git 'round here in front of the hoss, and put for home at once."
"Stay where you are, till I finish talkin' to this man," commanded the Deacon. "Are you a loyal man?" he inquired of the master.
"If ye mean loil to that rail-splittin' gorilla in Washington," replied the master, hotly; "to that low-down, nigger-lovin', nigger-stealin'—"
"Shet right up," said the Deacon, bringing up his gun in a flash of anger. "You sha'n't abuse the President o' the United States any more'n you shall me, nor half so much. He's your President, whom you must honor and respect. I won't have him blackguarded by an unhung rebel. You say yourself you're a rebel. Then you have no right whatever to this man, and I'm goin' to confiscate him in the name o' Abraham Lincoln, President o' the United States, an' accordin' to his proclamation of emancipation, done at Washington, District o' Columbia, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three and of our Independence the 87th.
"Now, you jest turn your hoss around and vacate these parts as quick as you can, and leave me and this colored man alone. We're tired o' havin' you 'round."
The master was a man of sense. He knew that there was nothing to do but obey.
CHAPTER XXI. THE PERPLEXED DEACON
TROUBLED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THE FREEDMAN
"WHAT is yer a-gwine tub do wid me, mas'r?" asked the negro, with a look and an attitude curiously like a forlorn stray dog which had at last found an owner and protector.
"Wish to gracious I knowed," answered the Deacon, knitting his brows in thought. "I don't know as I've anything to do with you. I've about as much idee what to do with you as I would with a whale in the Wabash River. I'm neither John Brown nor a colonization society. I've about as much use for a nigger, free or slave, as a frog has for a tail. You're free now that's all there is of it. Nobody's got nothin' to do with you. You've got to do with yourself that's all. You're your own master. You go your way and let other folks go theirs."
In the simplicity of his heart the Deacon thought he had covered the whole ground. What more could the man want, who had youth, health and strength, than perfect liberty to go where he pleased and strive for what he wanted?
The negro looked dazed and perplexed.
"Isn't yo' a-gwine tuh take me wid yo', mas'r?" he asked.
"Take you with me!" repeated the Deacon in astonishment and some petulance. "Certainly not. I don't want you. And you mustn't call me master. You mustn't call any man master. You're no longer a slave. You're your own master. You're free; don't you understand?"
"But whah'm I tuh go?" reiterated the negro hopelessly.
"Go where you please," repeated the Deacon with impatience. "The whole world's open to you. Go to the next County; go to Kaintucky, Injianny, Ohio, Illinoy, Kamskatky, New Guiney, Jericho, or Polkinhorn's tanyard if you like."
"Afo' God, I don't know what tuh do, or wha tuh go," said the negro despairingly. "If yo' leab me here, I know dat ole mas'r 'll fin' me an' done kill me daid."
"Niggers is like mules," remarked Groundhog savagely. "They only know two places in the whole world: their master's place and somewhere else. They want to run away from their master, but they hain't nary idee whar to go when they run away. A hoss has more sense 'n either a nigger or a mule. When he lights out he's got some idee o' where he wants t' go. I tell you; jest give that nigger to me. I know what to do with him. I know a man that'll give me $100 for him, and I'll whack up fair and square with you."
"Shut up, you mullet-headed mule-whacker," said the Deacon irritably. "You hain't got sense enough to take care o' mules right, let alone a man. I wouldn't trust you an hour with the poorest team on my place. I'll take care o' this man myself, at least, until I kin have a talk with the boys. Here, you nigger, what's your name?"
"Dey call me Sam, mas'r," replied the negro.
"Well, we'll change that. You're a free man, and I'll give you another name. I'm goin' to call you Abraham—Abraham Lincoln the grandest name in the world to-day. For short I'll call you Abe. You must stop callin' me, or anybody, master, I tell you. You just call be Mister Klegg."
"Mistuh what?" said the negro, puzzled.
"Well, jest call me boss. Now, Abe, climb up into the wagon here, and come along with me."
"He can't git into no wagon o' mine," said the teamster surlily. "Government wagons ain't no passenger coaches for runaway niggers. I didn't hire to haul niggers on pleasure excursions. That ain't no part of a white man's bizniss. Let him walk alongside."
"You dumbed citizen," said the Deacon angrily. He had been in camp long enough to catch the feeling of the men toward the Quartermaster's civilian employees. "This man shall ride in this wagon along side o' me, and you'll drive us into camp, or I'll find out the reason why. Now jest gether up your lines and start."
"I won't take no slack from no old Wabash hayseed like you," responded the teamster cordially. "You can't boss me. You hain't no right. You can't ring me in to help you steal niggers, unless you divide with me. You come out here in the road and I'll punch that old sorrel-top head o' your'n."
And the teamster pranced out and brandished his blacksnake whip menacingly.
It had been many years since anybody on the Wabash had dared Deacon Klegg to a match in fisticuffs. The memory of some youthful performances of his had secured him respectful immunity. His last affair had been a severe suppression of a noted bully who attempted to "crowd the mourners" at a camp-meeting for the good order of which the Deacon felt himself somewhat responsible. It took the bully six months to get over it, and he went to the mourner's bench himself at the next revival.
The Deacon looked at the gesticulating teamster a minute, and the dormant impulse of his youth stirred again within him. He laid his gun down and calmly slid from the fodder to the ground. He pulled off his coat and hat, and laid them on the wagon. He took the quid of tobacco from his mouth, carefully selected a place for it on the edge of the wagon-bed, laid it there on a piece of corn-husk, and walked toward the teamster, rolling up his sleeves.
The effect upon the monarch of the mules was immediate and marked. He stopped prancing around, and began to look alarmed.
"Now, don't you hit me," he yelled. "I'm the driver o' this team, and in Gov'ment employ. If you hit me I'll have you courtmartialed."
"I'm not goin' to hit you," said the Deacon, raising a fist as big as a small ham, "if you behave yourself. I want you to shut your mouth, and git on your mule and start for camp. If you don't 'tend to your bizness, or give me any more o' your sass, I'll pound the melt out o' you. D' you hear? Git on your mule at onct."
The teamster did as he was bid, and drove on till they came up to where the boys were sitting on a fence-corner waiting for them.
Si had a brace of chickens tied together by the feet, and Shorty a crock of honey in the comb, with a bag of saleratus biscuits and one of cornmeal, and a number of strings of dried apples.
"Bin waitin' for you a good while, Pap. What kep' you so long? Break-down?" said Si.
"No; had to stop and argy the fugitive slave law with a Southern gentleman, and then debate niggers' civil rights with the teamster," said the Deacon. Then he told them the story. "Here's the darky," he said, as he concluded. "Seems to be a purty fair sort of a farm-hand, if he has sense enough to come in when it rains, which I misdoubt. What are we goin' to do with him?"
"Do with him?" said Shorty. "Do everything with him. Take him into camp first. Hire him out to the Quartermaster. Let him wait on the Captain. Take him back home with you to help on the farm while Si's away. Jehosephat, a big buck like that's a mighty handy thing to have about the house. You kin learn him more tricks in a week than he'd learn with his owner in a lifetime. Say, boy, what's your name?"
"S s-s," the negro began to say, but he caught the Deacon's eye upon him, and responded promptly, "Abr'm Lincoln."
"I believe the nigger kin be taught," thought the Deacon. "Probably this's some more o' Providence's workin's. Mebbe He brung this about jest to give me my share o' the work o' raisin' the fallen race."
"Boys," said he, "I'm glad you've got something good to eat there. Them chickens seem tol'ble young and fat. I hope you came by 'em honestly."
"Well, Pap," chuckled Si, "I don't know as a man who's been runnin' around for another man's nigger, and got him, is jest in shape to ask questions how other men got chickens and things; but I'll relieve your mind by sayin' that we came honestly by 'em."
"Yes; thought it would be interestin' to try that way once, for a change," said Shorty. "Besides, it wuz too near camp for any hornswogglin'. These fellers right around camp are gettin' on to the names o' the regiments. They're learnin' to notice 200th Ind. on our caps, and' foller you right into camp, and go up to the Colonel. We're layin' altogether too long in one place. The Army o' the Cumberland oughter move."
"We paid full value, C. O. D.," added Si, "and not in Drake's Plantation Bitters labels nor in busted Kalamazoo bank notes, neither. I think fellers that pass patent-medicine labels and business-college advertisements on these folks for money, oughter to be tied up by the thumbs. It's mean."
"That's what I say, too," added Shorty, with virtuous indignation. "'Specially when you kin git the best kind o' Confederit money from Cincinnati for two cents on the dollar. I always lay in enough o' that to do my tradin' with."
"What's that? What's that?" gasped the Deacon. "Passin' Confederate money that you buy in Cincinnati at two cents on the dollar? Why, that's counterfeitin'."
"That's drawin' it a little too fine," said Shorty argumentatively. "These flabbergasted fools won't take greenbacks. I offered the woman to-day some, and she said she wouldn't be found dead with 'em. She wanted Confedrit money. You may call it counterfeitin', but the whole Southern Confederacy is counterfeit, from its President down to the lowest Corporil. A dollar or two more or less won't make no difference. This feller at Cincinnati has got just as much right to print notes as they have in Richmond."
"He prints 'em on better paper, his pictures are better, and he sells his notes much cheaper, and I don't see why I shouldn't buy o' him rather than o' them. I believe in patronizin' home industry."
"Si," said his father, in horrified tones, "I hope you hain't bin passin' none o' the Cincinnati Confederate money on these people."
"I hope not, Pap. But then, you know, I ain't no bank-note detector. I can't tell the Cincinnati kind from the Richmond kind, and I never try very hard. All Confedrt money's alike to me, and I guess in the end it'll be to them. Both kinds say they'll be paid six months after the conclusion of peace be twixt the Confederate States and the United States, and I guess one stands jest as good show as the other. The woman asked me $2 apiece for these chickens, and I paid her in the Confedrit money I happened to have in my pocket. I didn't notice whether it wuz printed in Cincinnati or Richmond. I got it from one o' the boys playin' p–. I mean he paid it to see me." He gave Shorty a furtive kick and whispered: "Come mighty nigh givin' my self away that time."
There was a long hill just before they came in sight of the entrance to the camp, and they got out and helped the mules up. They walked on ahead until they came to the top. The Deacon looked at the entrance, and said:
"I declare, if there isn't that owner o' this nigger waitin' for us."
"That so?" said Si, turning his eyes in that direction. "And he's got some officers with him. There's some officers jest mean enough to help these rebels ketch their niggers. I'd like to knock their addled heads off."
"Jest wait till we git discharged, Si, and then we kin lick 'em as much as we want to," said Shorty. "But we've got to do somethin' now. They can't see us yit. Deacon, jest take yer nigger and cut down around through the crick there until you come to the picket-line. Then wait. Me and Si'll go on in, and come around and find you."
"All right," assented the Deacon, who was falling into camp ways with remarkable facility. "But you've got to look out for that teamster. He's meaner'n dog-fennel. He'll tell everything."
"Good point," said Si. "We must 'tend to him. See here, Groundhog," he continued, walking back to the teamster; "you don't know nothin' about that old man and nigger that got on your wagon. They slipped off into the woods when you wuzn't lookin', while you wuz busy with your mules, and you don't know whether they went to the right or to the left, up the road or down it."
"Do you s'pose I'm goin' to help steal a nigger, and then lie about it to the officers, for you galoots, and all for nothin'?" said the teamster. "You are blamed fools, that's all I've got to say."
"Look here, Groundhog," said Shorty, coming up close, with a portentious doubled fist. "You know me, and you know Si. You know that either of us can maul the head off you in a minute, whenever we've a mind to, and we're likely any time to have a mind to. We're a durned sight nearer you all the time than any o' the officers, and you can't git away from us, though you may from them. They may buck and gag you, as they ought to, 'bout every day, but that won't be nothin' to the welting one of us 'll give you. Now, you tell that story, jest as Si said, and stick to it, or you won't have a whole bone in your carcass by the end o' the week."
When they came up to the entrance there indeed stood the owner of Abraham Lincoln, holding his horse, and by him stood the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 200th Ind., a big, burly man, who had been a drover and an influential politician before he got his commission, and had a high reputation at home as a rough-and-tumble fighter. He had not added to his bellicose fame since entering the field, because for some mysterious reason he had been absent every time the regiment went into a fight, or was likely to. Consequently he was all the more blustering and domineering in camp, in spite of the frequent repressions he got from the modest, quiet little Colonel.
"Old Blowhard Billings is there," said Si. "Now we'll have a gust o' wind."
"Didn't know he was in camp," said Shorty. "I've a notion to bust a cap and scare him back to Nashville agin. Don't let him bluff you, Si, even if he is the Lieutenant-Colonel."
They rode up to the entrance looking as innocent and placid as if bringing in a load from the fields on the Wabash.
"Corporal Klegg," said the Lieutenant-Colonel sternly, "bring out that nigger from the wagon."
"We ain't got no nigger in the wagon, Colonel," said Si, with an expression of surprise.
"Come, now, don't fool with me, sir, or I'll make you very sorry for it. I'm no man to be trifled with, sir. If you ain't got a nigger in the wagon, what 've you done with him."
"We ain't done nothin' with him, Colonel," persisted Si. "I hain't had nothin' to do with no nigger since we started out this mornin'; hain't spoken to one. Sometimes niggers jump on our wagons, ride a little ways, and then jump off agin. I can't keep track of 'em. I generally make 'em git off when I notice 'em."
"Corporal Klegg, you're lyin' to me," said the Lieutenant-Colonel roughly. "I'll settle with you directly. Groundhog, have you got a nigger in the wagon?"
"No, sir," replied the teamster.
"Didn't you have' one?"
Groundhog looked up and caught Shorty's eye fixed unflinchingly on him.
"I b'lieve that one did git on," he stammered, "but he got off agin d'rectly. I didn't notice much about him. My mules wuz very bothersome all the time. They're the durndest meanest mules that ever a man tried to drive. That there off-swing mule'd—"
"We don't want to hear nothin' about your mules. We'll look in the wagon ourselves."
The search developed nothing. The Lieutenant-Colonel came back to Si, angrier than ever.
"Look here, Klegg, you're foolin' me, an' I won't stand it. I'll have the truth out o' you if I have to kill you. Understand?"
There was a dangerous gleam in Si's and Shorty's eyes, but they kept their lips tightly closed.
"This gentleman here," continued the Lieutenant-Colonel, "says, and I believe his story, against all that you may say, that the men with this wagon, which he's bin watchin' all along, took his nigger away from him and drove him off with insults and curses. They threatened his life. He says he can't reckonize either of you, and likely you have disguised yourselves. But he reckonizes the wagon and the teamster, and is willin' to swear to 'em. I know he's tellin' the truth, because I know you fellers. You're impudent and sassy. You've bin among them that's hollered at me. You've bin stealin' other things besides niggers to-day, and have 'em in your possession. You're loaded down with things you've stolen from houses. I won't command a regiment of nigger-thieves. I won't have nigger-thieves in my regiment. If I've got any in my regiment I'll break 'em of it, or I'll break their infernal necks. I believe you fellers got away with that nigger, and I'll tie you up by the thumbs till I get the truth out o' you. Sergeant o' the guard, take charge o' these men, and bring 'em along. Take that stuff that they've stolen away from them and send it to my tent."
Si and Shorty got very white about the mouth, but Si merely said, as they handed their guns to the guard:
"Colonel, you may tie us up till doomsday, but you'll git no help out of us to ketch runaway niggers and put 'em back in slavery."
"Shut up, you scalawag," roared the Lieutenant-Colonel. "If I hear another word out o' you I'll buck-and-gag you."
They marched to Regimental Headquarters and halted, and the Lieutenant-Colonel renewed his browbeating, Si and Shorty continued obstinate, and the Lieutenant-Colonel, getting angrier every minute, ordered them tied up by the thumbs. While the Sergeant of the Guard, who was a friend of the boys, and had little heart for the work, was dallying with his preparations, the Colonel himself appeared on the scene.
"Ah, Colonel, you've got back, have you?" said the Lieutenant-Colonel, little pleased at the interruption. "I've just caught two of the men in a little job o' nigger-stealin', and I was about to learn them a lesson which will break them of the habit. With your consent I'll go on with the work."
"Nigger-stealing?" said the Colonel quietly. "You mean helping a slave to get away? Did you learn whether the owner was a loyal man?"
"I don't know as that makes any difference," replied 'the Lieutenant-Colonel surlily. "As a matter of fact, I believe he said he had two sons in the rebel army."
"Well, Colonel," said the other, "I'll invite your attention to the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, and the orders from the War Department, which prohibit the return of slaves to disloyal owners, and make it the duty of officers and men to assist in their escape. You had better dismiss the men to their quarters."
"If that's the case if I don't resign. I'm no
"Abolitionist. I didn't come into the army to free the niggers."
"I shall take pleasure in forwarding your resignation with a recommendation of its acceptance for the good of the service," said the Colonel calmly.
"Men, go to your quarters."
"Altogether, Pap, I consider this a mighty good day's work," remarked Si that evening after supper, as they sat around the fire smoking, with Abraham Lincoln snoring vigorously on the floor, in his first night's sleep as a free man.
