9

On Sunday morning the Lincolns went to church. All except Sarah. She had a headache.

"I'll go, Ma," said Abe. "When I come back, I'll tell you what the preacher said."

Sarah smiled at him fondly. Abe could listen to a sermon, then come home and repeat it almost word for word. "I'd rather hear you preachify," she said, "than the preacher himself."

Tom and his family walked single file into the log meeting house and took their places on one of the long wooden benches. John Carter, sitting on the bench in front of them, turned and nodded. Carter had promised to buy the Lincolns' south field. He would have the papers ready for Tom to sign on Monday. Tom needed the money, but the very thought of selling any of his land made him grumpy. He twisted and turned on the hard wooden bench during the long sermon. He hardly heard a word that the preacher was saying.

Abe leaned forward and listened eagerly. The preacher was a tall, thin man. He flung his arms about. His voice grew louder and hoarser as the morning passed. He paused only to catch his breath or when the members of the congregation shouted, "Amen." After the final hymn, he stood at the door shaking hands.

"Brother Lincoln," he said, "I want you to meet up with a new neighbor. This here is Mr. Swaney."

Tom shook hands. Then the preacher introduced Abe.

"Are you the new schoolmaster?" Abe asked.

"I don't figure on starting school till after harvest," Mr. Swaney replied. "Will you be one of my scholars?"

"I'd sure like to come." Abe glanced at his father.

"I reckon not," said Tom stiffly. "Abe has had as much schooling as he needs."

Back at the cabin, Sarah had dinner on the table. Tom cheered up as he and Dennis started "swapping yarns." Both were good storytellers and each tried to tell a better story than the other.

Abe did not like being left out of the conversation. "Pa," he asked, "can you answer me a question about something in the Bible?"

"I figure I can answer any question you got sense enough to ask."

Johnny and Mathilda nudged each other. They knew what was coming. One day when the preacher stopped by, Abe had asked him the same question. The preacher had been downright flustered when he couldn't answer.

"It's just this, Pa," Abe went on. "Who was the father of Zebedee's children?"

Tom flushed. "Any uppity young one can ask a question. But can he answer it? Suppose you tell me who was the father of Zebedee's children?"

"I sort of figured," said Abe, "that Zebedee was."

Everyone was laughing except Tom. Then he laughed, too. Sarah was glad. Abe had told her that Mr. Swaney was at church. She was going to talk to her husband that very afternoon about sending the children to school, and she wanted him to be in a good humor.

"What did the preacher have to say?" she asked.

"Well—" Tom was trying to remember. "What he said sort of got lost in the way he was saying it. How some of those preachers do hop and skip about!"

"I like to hear a preacher who acts like he's fighting bees," said Abe.

Sarah nodded. The description fitted the preacher "like his own moccasin," she said.

"You menfolks wait outside," she added. "Soon as the gals and I get the dishes done, we'll be out to hear Abe preachify."

The afternoon was warm. Sarah fanned herself with her apron as she sat down at one end of a fallen log near the door. The rest of the family lined up beside her. Abe stood before them, his arms folded, as he repeated the sermon he had heard that morning. Now and then he paused and shook his finger in the faces of his congregation. He pounded with one fist on the palm of his other hand.

"Brethern and sisters," said Abe, "there ain't no chore too big for the Lord, no chore too small. The Good Book says He knows when a sparrow falls. Yet He had time to turn this great big wilderness into this here land where we have our homes. Just think, folks, this Pigeon Creek had no one but Indians living here a few years back. And today we got cabins with smoke coming out of the chimneys. We got crops agrowing. We got a meeting house where we can come together and praise the Lord—"

Abe paused.

"Amen!" said Tom.

"Amen!" said the others.

"Don't forget," Abe went on, "all of this was the Lord's doing. Let us praise Him for His goodness."

He reached down, plucked a fistful of grass, and mopped his forehead. In much the same way had the preacher used his bandanna handkerchief. The Lincoln family rose, sang "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow," and church was over.

The young folks drifted away. Tom stretched out on the grass for his Sunday afternoon nap.

"Abe tells me that new Mr. Swaney was at church," Sarah said.

Tom opened his eyes. Before he had a chance to go back to sleep, she spoke again.

"He's fixing to keep a school next winter."

"So I hear," said Tom cautiously.

"He charges seventy-five cents for each scholar. Some schoolmasters charge a dollar."

"Sounds like a lot of money."

"Several of the neighbors are fixing to send their young ones," Sarah went on. "Mr. Swaney doesn't ask for cash money. He'll take skins or farm truck. We can manage that, I reckon."

Tom yawned. "Plumb foolishness, if you ask me. But Johnny and Mathilda are your young ones. If you want to send them—"

"I want Sally and Abe to go, too," Sarah interrupted. "Abe most of all. He is the one school will do the most good. He's the one who wants it most."

Tom sat up. "I can spare the younger ones, but I need Abe. With us poorer than Job's turkey, you ought to know that."

Sarah listened patiently. "I ain't talking about right now. Mr. Swaney won't start his school till winter. Farm work will be slack then."

"I can hire Abe out to split rails, even in cold weather," Tom reminded her. "Maybe I can get some odd jobs as a carpenter, and Abe can help me."

"Abe ain't no great hand at carpentry."

"He can learn. Why, he's fourteen, Sairy. The idea, a big, strapping boy like that going to school. I tell you, I won't have it."

"But I promised him."

It was the first time that Tom had ever heard a quaver in his wife's voice. He looked away uneasily. "If you made a promise you can't keep, that's your lookout. You might as well stop nagging me, Sairy. My mind is made up."

To make sure that there would be no more conversation on the subject, he got up and stalked across the grass. He lay down under another tree, out of hearing distance. Sarah sat on the log for a long time. Abe came back and sat down beside her. He could tell, by looking at her, that she had been talking to his father about letting him go to school. He knew, without asking any questions, that his father had said no.

Sarah laid her hand on his knee. "Your pa is a good man," she said loyally. "Maybe he will change his mind."