"You were speaking of your father?" I interrupted.
"My father," said Mr. Apricot, "had settled on the banks,
both banks, of the Wabash. He was like so many other
men of his time, a disbanded soldier, a veteran--"
"Of the Mexican War or of the Civil War?" I asked.
"Exactly," answered Mr. Apricot, hardly heeding the
question,--"of the Mexican Civil War."
"Was he under Lincoln?" I asked.
"OVER Lincoln," corrected Mr. Apricot gravely. And he
added,--"It is always strange to me the way in which the
present generation regards Abraham Lincoln. To us, of
course, at the time of which I speak, Lincoln was simply
one of ourselves."
"In 1866?" I asked.
"This was 1856," said Mr. Apricot. "He came often to my
father's cabin, sitting down with us to our humble meal
of potatoes and whiskey (we lived with a simplicity which
of course you could not possibly understand), and would
spend the evening talking with my father over the
interpretation of the Constitution of the United States.
We children used to stand beside them listening open-mouthed
beside the fire in our plain leather night-gowns.
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