"Black Hawk has invited me. He has promised to let me have an Indian guide, or runner, who can speak English and interpret. I'm going to teach among the tribes, the Lord willing, and I want a guide and an interpreter." "Black Hawk? He was born down in Kaskaskia, the old Jesuit town, 'way back almost a century ago, wasn't he? Or was it in the Sac village? He was a Pottawattomie, I'm told, and then I've heard he wasn't. Now he's chief of the Sacs and Foxes. I saw him once at a camp-meetin'. His face is black as that pot and these hooks and trummels. How he did skeer me! Do you dare to trust him? Like enough he'll kill ye, some day. I don't trust no Injuns. Where did you stay last night?" "At Mr. Lincoln's." "Tom Linken's. Pretty poor accommodations you must have had. They're awful poor folks. Mrs. Linken is a nice woman, but Tom he is shiftless, and he's bringin' up that great tall boy Abe to be lazy, too. That boy is good to his mother, but he all runs to books and larnin', just as some turnips all run to tops. You've seen 'em so, haven't ye?" "But the boy has got character, and character is everything in this world." "Did you notice anything _peculiarsome_ about him? His cousin, Dennis Hanks, says there's something peculiarsome about him. I never did." "My good woman, do you believe in gifts?" "No, I believe in works. I believe in people whose two fists are full of works. Mine are, like the Marthas of old." Aunt Olive rolled up her sleeves, and began to cut the thin layer of dough with a knife into long strips, which she twisted. "I'm goin' to make some twisted doughnuts," she said, "seein' you're a preacher and a teacher." "I think that young lad Lincoln has some inborn gift, and that he will become a leader among men. It is he who is willing to serve that rules, and they who deny themselves the most receive the most from Heaven and men. He has sympathetic wisdom. I can see it. There is something peculiar about him. He is true." "Oh, don't you talk that way. He's lazy, and he hain't got any calculation, 'n' he'll never amount to shucks, nor nothin'. He's like his father, his head in the air. Somethin' don't come of nothin' in this world; corn don't grow unless you plant it; and when you add nothin' to nothin' it just makes nothin'. "Well, preacher, you've told me who you are, and now I'll tell ye who I am. But first, let me say, I'll have a pair of shoes. I have my own last. I'll get it for you, and then you can be peggin' away, so as not to lose any time. It is wicked to waste time. 'Work' is my motto. That's what time is made for." Aunt Olive got her last. The fat was hot by this time--"all sizzlin'," as she said. "There, preacher, this is the last, and there is the board on which my husband used to sew shoes, wax and all. Now I will go to fryin' my doughnuts, and you and I can be workin' away at the same time, and I'll tell ye who I am. Work away--work away!