"That reminds me of a general who made the boys of his regiment promise to let him do all the swearin'," Abe began. "One day a sergeant got into trouble with a mule team. It was raining hard and the off mule balked. Wouldn't draw a pound. The sergeant got wet to the skin and swore a song of fourteen verses that was heard by half the regiment. The general called him up for discipline. "'Young man, I thought it was understood that I was to do all the swearin',' he said. "'So it was,' said the sergeant, 'but that swearin' had to be done right away. You couldn't 'a' got there in time to do it if I'd 'a' sent for ye.'" "I'm sorry we had to have trouble," Samson remarked, after the outburst of appreciation that followed Abe's story. "It's the only spot on the day. I'll never forget the kindness of the people of New Salem." "The raising bee is a most significant thing," said Kelso. "Democracy tends to universal friendship--each works for the crowd and the crowd for each and there are no favorites. Every community is like the thousand friends of Thebes. Most of its units stand together for the common good--for justice, law and honor. The schools are spinning strands of democracy out of all this European wool. Railroads are to pick them up and weave them into one great fabric. By and by we shall see the ten million friends of America standing together as did the thousand friends of Thebes." "It's a great thought," said Abe. "No man can estimate the size of that mighty phalanx of friendship all trained in one school," Kelso went on. "Two years ago the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ figured that the population of the United States in 1905 would be 168,000,000 people, and in 1966, 672,000,000. Wealth, power, science, literature, all follow in the train of light and numbers. The causes which moved the sceptre of civilization from the Euphrates to Western Europe will carry it from the latter to the New World." "They say that electricity and the development of the steam engine is going to make all men think alike," said Abe. "If that's so Democracy and Liberty will spread over the earth." "The seed of Universal Brotherhood is falling far and wide and you can not kill it," Kelso continued. "Last year Mazzini said: 'There is only one sun in heaven for the whole earth, only one law for all who people it. We are here to found fraternally the unity of the human race so that, sometime, it may present but one fold and one Shepherd." Then Lincoln spoke again: "I reckon we are near the greatest years in history. It is a privilege to be alive." "And young," Dr. Allen added. "Young! What a God's blessed thing is that!" said Kelso and then he quoted from Coleridge: "'Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying Where Hope clung feeding like a bee, Both were mine! Life went a maying With Nature, Hope and Poesy When I was young!' "Abe, have ye learned the _Cotter's Saturday Night_?"