HKB
on the sign board of Berry and Lincoln. Before he took his place in the store he walked to Springfield and borrowed a law book from his friend Major Stuart.
The career of the firm began on a hot day late in August with Bill Berry smoking his pipe in a chair on the little veranda of the store and Abe Lincoln sprawled in the shade of a tree that partly overhung its roof, reading a law book. The latter was collarless and without coat or waistcoat. His feet were in yarn socks and heavy cloth slippers. Mr. Berry was looking intently at nothing. He was also thinking of nothing with a devotion worthy of the noblest cause. No breeze touched the mill pond of his consciousness. He would have said that he "had his traps set for an idea and was watching them." Generally he was watching his traps with a look of dreamy contemplation. He, too, wore no coat or waistcoat. His calico shirt was decorated with diminutive roses in pink ink. His ready tied necktie was very red and fastened on his collar button with an elastic loop. A nugget of free gold which, he loved to explain, had come from the Rocky Mountains and had ten dollars' worth of the root of evil in it, adorned his shirt-front--dangling from a pin bar on a tiny chain.
The face of Mr. Berry suddenly assumed a look of animation. A small, yellow dog which had been lying in repose beside him rose and growled, his hair rising, and with a little cry of alarm and astonishment fled under the store.
"Here comes Steve Nuckles on his old mare with a lion following him," said Berry.
Abe closed his book and rose and looked at the approaching minister and his big dog.
"If we ain't careful we'll git prayed for plenty," said Berry.
"If the customers don't come faster I reckon we'll need it," said Abe.
"Howdy," said the minister as he stopped at the hitching bar, dismounted and tied his mare. "Don't be skeered o' this 'ere dog. He were tied when I left home but he chawed his rope an' come a'ter me. I reckon if nobody feeds him he'll patter back to-night."
"He's a whopper!" said Abe.
"He's the masteris' dog I ever did see," said the minister, a tall, lank, brawny, dark-skinned man with gray eyes, sandy whiskers on the point of his chin, and clothes worn and faded. "Any plug tobaccer?"
"A back load of it," said Berry, going into the store to wait on the minister.
When they came out the latter carved off a corner of the plug with his jack-knife, put it into his mouth and sat down on the door-step.
"Mr. Nuckles, how did you happen to become a minister?" Abe asked.
"Well, sur, I done had a dream," said the Reverend Mr. Nuckles, as he clasped his hands over a knee and chewed vigorously. "I done dreamt that I had swallered a double wagon and that the tongue o' the wagon were stickin' out o' my mouth. It were a cur'ous dream an' I cain't tell what you'd make of it, but I done tuk it for a sign that my tongue were to be used on the gospel."
"It shows that a man who can swaller a wagon can swaller anything," said Abe. "But I'm glad you took it for a sign. You've done a lot of good in this country. I've seen you out in all weather and you've made over many a man and broke and bitted some of the wildest colts on the prairie."
"I jes' keep watch an' when ol' Satan comes snoopin' eround I'm right thar to ketch holt an' flop him. It done come to pass frequent I've laid it on till he were jest a hollerin' fer mercy. Where do Samson Traylor live?"
Abe took him to the road and pointed the way.
"There be goin' to be a raid," said Nuckles. "I reckon, by all I've heard, it'll come on to-night."
"A raid! Who's going to be raided?" Abe asked.