boards with a
whip saw, Abe standing on top of the log and Samson beneath it. Suddenly
the saw stopped. A clear, beautiful voice flung the music of _Sweet
Nightingale_ into the timbered hollow. It halted the workers and set the
woodland ringing. The men stood silent like those hearing a benediction.
The singing ceased. Still they listened for half a moment. It was as if a
spirit had passed and touched them.

"It's Bim--the little vixen!" said Abe tenderly. "She's hiding here in
the woods somewheres."

Abe straightened up and peered through the bushes. The singing ceased.

"I can see yer curls. Come out from behind that tree--you piece o' Scotch
goods!" Abe shouted.

Only silence followed his demand.

"Come on," Abe persisted. "There's a good-looking boy here and I want to
introduce you."

"Ask him to see if he can find me," said the voice of the girl from a
distance.

Abe beckoned to Harry and pointed to the tree behind which he had seen
her hiding. Harry stealthily approached it only to find that she had
gone. He looked about for a moment but could not see her. Soon they heard
a little call, suggesting elfland trumpets, in a distant part of the
wood. It was repeated three or four times; each time fainter and farther.
They saw and heard no more of her that day.

"She's an odd child and as pretty as a spotted fawn, and about as wild,"
said Abe. "She's a kind of a first cousin to the bobolink."

When they were getting ready to go home that afternoon Joe got into a
great hurry to see his mother. It seemed to him that ages had elapsed
since he had seen her--a conviction which led to noisy tears.

Abe knelt before him and comforted the boy. Then he wrapped him in his
jacket and swung him in the air and started for home with Joe astride his
neck.

Samson says in his diary: "His tender play with the little lad gave me
another look at the man Lincoln."

"Some one proposed once that we should call that stream the Minnehaha,"
said Abe as he walked along. "After this Joe and I are going to call it
the Minneboohoo."

The women of the little village had met at a quilting party at ten
o'clock with Mrs. Martin Waddell. There Sarah had had a seat at the frame
and heard all the gossip of the countryside. The nimble fingered Ann
Rutledge--a daughter of the tavern folk--had sat beside her. Ann was a
slender, good-looking girl of seventeen with blue eyes and a rich crown
of auburn hair and a fair skin well browned by the s