ay it was in those days.

* * * * *

They fared along through Indiana and over the wide savannas of Illinois,
and on the ninety-seventh day of their journey they drove through
rolling, grassy, flowering prairies and up a long, hard hill to the
small log cabin settlement of New Salem, Illinois, on the shore of the
Sangamon. They halted about noon in the middle of this little prairie
village, opposite a small clapboarded house. A sign hung over its door
which bore the rudely lettered words: "Rutledge's Tavern."

A long, slim, stoop-shouldered young man sat in the shade of an oak tree
that stood near a corner of the tavern, with a number of children
playing around him. He had sat leaning against the tree trunk reading a
book. He had risen as they came near and stood looking at them, with the
book under his arm. . . .

He wore a hickory shirt without a collar or coat or jacket. One
suspender held up his coarse, linsey trousers, the legs of which fitted
closely and came only to a blue yarn zone above his heavy cowhide shoes.
Samson writes that he "fetched a sneeze and wiped his big nose with a
red handkerchief" as he stood surveying them in silence, while Dr. John
Allen, who had sat on the doorstep reading a paper--a kindly-faced man
of middle age with a short white beard under his chin--greeted them
cheerfully.

The withering sunlight of a day late in August fell upon the dusty
street, now almost deserted. Faces at the doors and windows of the
little houses were looking out at them. Two ragged boys and a
ginger-colored dog came running toward the wagon. The latter and Sambo
surveyed each other with raised hair and began scratching the earth,
straight-legged, whining meanwhile, and in a moment began to play
together. A man in blue jeans who sat on the veranda of a store
opposite, leaning against its wall, stopped whittling and shut his
jacknife.

"Where do ye hail from?" the Doctor asked.

"Vermont," said Samson.

"All the way in that wagon?"

"Yes, sir."

"I guess you're made o' the right stuff," said the Doctor. "Where ye
bound?"

"Don't know exactly. Going to take up a claim somewhere."

"There's no better country than right here. This is the Canaan of
America. We need people like you. Unhitch your team and have some dinner
and we'll talk things over after you're rested. I'm the doctor here and
I ride all over this part o' the country. I reckon I know it pretty
well."

A w