"Yes," said Mr. Gentry, "but it has been a hard winter here, and they are about to move. The milk sickness has been here again and has carried off the cattle, and the people have become discouraged, and look upon the place as unhealthy. I have bought Thomas Linken's property. The man was here this morning. You will find him getting ready to go away from Indiana for good and all." "Where is he going?" asked Jasper. "Off to Illinois." "So I thought," said Jasper. "I must go to see him. How is that bright boy of his?" "Abe?" "Yes. I like that boy. I am drawn toward him. There is something about him that doesn't belong to many people--a spiritual graft that won't bear any common fruit. I can see it with my spiritual eye, in the open vision, as it were. You don't understand those things--I see you don't. I must see him. There are not many like him in soul, if he is ungainly in body. I believe that he is born to some higher destiny than other men. I see that you do not understand me. Time will make it plain." "I'm a trader, and no prophet, and I don't know much about such matters as these. But Abe Linken, he's grown up now, and _up_ it is, more than six feet tall. He's a giant, a great, ungainly, awkward, clever, honest fellow, full of jokes and stories, though down at times, and he wouldn't do a wrong thing if it were for his right hand, and couldn't do an unkind one. He comes up to the store here often and tells stories, and sometimes stays until almost midnight, just as he used to do at Jones's. Everybody likes him here, and we shall all miss him when he goes away." Jasper and Waubeno left the little Indiana town, and went toward the cabin of the Lincolns. On the way Jasper turned aside to pay a short visit to Aunt Olive. The busy woman saw the preacher from her door, and came out to welcome him. "I knew it was you," was her salutation, "and I am right glad that you have come. It has been distressin' times in these parts. Folks have died, and cattle have died, and we're all poor enough now, ye may depend. Where are ye goin'?" "To see the Lincolns." "Sho'! goin' to see them again. Well, ye're none too soon. They're gettin' ready to move to Illinois. Thomas Linken's always movin.' Moved four times or more already, and I 'magine he'll just keep movin' till he moves into his grave, and stops for good. He just lives up in the air, that man does. He always is imaginin' that it rains gold in the _next_ State or county, but it never rains anythin' but rain where he is; and if it rained puddin' and sugar-cane, his dish would be bottom upward, sure. Elder, what does make ye take such an interest in that there family?" "Mrs. Lincoln is a very good woman, an uncommon one; and Abraham--"