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Then we went out-doors and looked up at the monument, and it made me dizzy to see the clouds sail over the top of it. And there was a figure of Linkern in iron, and of soldiers in iron charging, and horses in iron; besides mottoes cut in the stone and in iron. Then we went around to the back again where the old soldier had killed himself. They had the blood wiped up now.
So we looked through the iron bars where a stone coffin was, but Linkern wasn't in there, Mr. Miller said. For once they had tried to steal him, and got the lead coffin out, and clear down the hill that we could see; but they caught 'em.
And pa says it will never make any difference how old I get, the play will be wonderfuler and wonderfuler, and is to him; and that finally I'll wonder how any man could ever write such a thing." "But didn't Shakespeare he wrote it, didn't he? get it out of some history?" "Of course," says Mitch, "and didn't Linkern live, and right here in this town, as you might say?
He came in then and said Vangy would be over, then he went to a trunk and got out a Bible, and showed it to us. And says he, "Linkern read out of this, by God." That was the swear word he kept usin', and I don't like to use it, and won't again. But when I say John swore, you'll know what I mean.
You see, there ain't anything left of the village of Salem, but it all comes back to me, and I can close my eyes and see the people that used to walk around here, and see Linkern. And I'll tell you a story of a man who found treasure here." Mitch looked awful eager and bright-eyed, and the old feller twisted off some tobacco and began to chew and get the thread of his story.
"Nor me," says I. "I'm a good deal lonelier than you are, Mitch Miller, and nobody understands me either; and I have no girl. Girls seem to me just like anything else dogs or chickens I don't mean no disrespect but you know." By this time we'd got to Petersburg, and up to a certain corner, and we'd been talking about Linkern so much that a lot of things came to me.
And it was out of that barl that Linkern became what he was. He found his treasure there. He might have found it sommers else; but at least he found it there. And you can't get treasure that's good that the good of you wasn't put into it in getting it. Remember that. If you dug up treasure here, what have you put into the getting of that treasure?
You see he warn't tried at Havaner, but down at Beardstown, and the only time I went thar was when I went to see Duff with my mother, while Duff was thar in jail." "Did you see him?" asked Mitch. He was sottin' thar, him and another feller. Thar they was in jail. "How long was Duff in jail?" asked Mitch. I don't recollect; and then they had the trial and Linkern cleared him with a almanac."
Now pa says that Linkern lived there onct and kept store, but he didn't get it. He was so poor that he used to have welts on his legs from wearin' the same buckskin pants. That's what pa says. So if he didn't get the treasure, who did? It couldn't be Mr. Branson, for he got his start raisin' onions and peddlin' 'em here in town.
Yet, once in the early summer-time, our boy Cyrus he come to me an' said: "Father, I want you to let me go away for a spell." "Cyrus, my boy! Go away?" "Yes, father; President Linkern has called for soldiers; father, you have always taught me to obey the voice of Duty. That voice summons me now." "God in heaven," I thought, "you have given us this child only to take him from us!"
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