A Friend of Mr. Lincoln

A Friend of Mr. Lincoln by Stephen Harrigan Page B

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Authors: Stephen Harrigan
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Springfield to ever close his eyes again.
    “Let’s leave Speed to sleep his storekeeper’s sleep while we ramble through the capital city.”
    Cage was just agitated enough—from the play he had seen earlier and the course it had set him on, from the excitement of Lincoln’s unexpected appearance in Springfield and his contagious enthusiasm—to agree.
    They strode forth into a pleasantly chilly April night—the lamps on the streets out, dogs barking after them. They walked around and around the square, then across Town Branch toward Aristocracy Hill, past Ninian Edwards’s grand house, out along a vacant road where the starlight shone upon open farm fields.
    “Why do I love that poem so much?” Lincoln asked himself more than he did Cage. “The more melancholy a sentiment is, the more despairing it is, the more beautiful I find it. Is that normal?”
    “You have a greater capacity for laughter than any man I know.”
    “Yes, but I’m not really a man you know. We’ve spent one night together and had a few memorable conversations.”
    “We’ve gathered up the dead together.”
    “I haven’t forgotten. That’s a sacred bond, I reckon. You know what we should do? Start a poetry society. You and me and Speed and Ash and of course Ned Baker—you know him?”
    “Not well.”
    “We’ll fix that. He’s one of those men it’s important to know well. He’s a couple years younger than we are—twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. But he’s riding a fast horse. If he hadn’t had the bad luck to be born in England, I’d predict he’d be president someday. His poetry is excellent, what I’ve read of it. A little pompous, but so is Ned. Of course when it comes to poetry, it’s unfair to place any of us in the same room with you, so if you think it’d be beneath you—”
    “No, a poetry society sounds like a fine idea.”
    They came to the end of a rail fence; beyond it was a stretch of unbroken ground, and then closed-in forest. The treetops swayed in a soft spring breeze, stirring like some sort of beast of the night that could not be still. Cage remembered the feeling of being watched from the trees by Black Hawk’s warriors. Lincoln must have too, because without speaking about it they both turned around and walked back toward town.
    Lincoln gripped the back of Cage’s neck in his big hand and shook it playfully back and forth. Under the force of his friend’s grip, Cage’s neck felt pliant as a stalk.
    “I’ve been observing you all night,” Lincoln declared. “Close observation of humankind is the first business of a sharp-witted lawyer like myself. So what’s stewing up there inside your head? I sense turmoil of an animalistic nature. Women maybe.”
    “I’m thinking of the work I need to do. Hoping it’s the work I’m meant to do.”
    “I wonder if I’ll be any good at the law. I confess my arm trembled a bit when I raised it in front of the supreme court clerk the other day and took the oath.”
    Cage started to reassure him but decided not to, didn’t think he needed to. So they walked on through the night in silence until Lincoln spoke again.
    “Has Speed told you about this girl he’s set up?”
    “Yes, and it sounds like he’s wasted no time in telling you as well.”
    “He’s proud of her some.”
    “Proud of having her is more like it. Did he offer to share her with you?”
    “As long as I pay her. I wouldn’t mind a turn with her. She’s bound to be reasonably good-looking, knowing Speed’s taste. But I don’t have the money to spend and I’m not as carefree as our friend. Besides, there’s that other thing.”
    “Other thing?”
    “I told you about her, don’t you remember? Miss Owens.”
    “So you’re marrying her?”
    “Only if you advise it.”
    “How can I possibly give you advice one way or the other? I’ve never met her.”
    “But you will,” Lincoln said. “There’s going to be a picnic, to which you are going to be invited for the purpose of

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