So Abe Lincoln went home with William Green, where he was fed and looked after by the motherly Aunt Sally Green and where he was in turn expected to look after "Baby Green." Here children came to romp with him, books and papers were sent, and occasionally several of the old friends from New Salem came out to tell him the political gossip. Aunt Sally found something for him to do every night, for she did not want him wandering away to Ann's grave. He made no effort to do so, however, and after a few weeks' rest he returned to New Salem to take up his life as best he could, and day by day live on for the things that were to be. CHAPTER XXXV THE POEM The Clary Grove gang were going to have an important meeting. It had been rumored that Windy Batts, who went as a missionary to the Indians, had lost his head. The general satisfaction with which this news had been received by the Clary Grove gang, singly, indicated that it would prove a pleasant topic for discussion, and nobody was likely to disagree with Ole Bar when he said: "Them pizen shooting injuns has riz to a tall and mighty pre-eminence in my mind if they cut off that fire and brimstone croaker's rattle box." Kit Parsons was expected to divulge a plan for giving the angels another job. He had been desperately sick during the summer, and while lying at death's door a local religious enemy had said the gates of hell would soon shut Kit in where he had ought to have been before he was born. Kit said he had pulled through to fan the face off of this profane wretch with brick-bats. The details of the plans expected to prove interesting. A great horse-swapping horse-story was also expected, provided Buck Thompson reached New Salem that night. He had been up the Ohio River and it was told by a man that passed through Sangamon County that Buck had traded a Yankee out of a horse and got fairly good boot; that he took the horse, fed it some filler, painted its ears, trimmed its tail and dyed it, put a few dapples on its hide and traded it back to the same Yankee for yet more boot. The group was about the fire when Buck came. He had been away some weeks, and before the story-telling started he wanted to hear something of town affairs. "Lots of sickness," Kit Parsons said. "Yeh?" Buck questioned. "Yes--Grandpa Johnson's dead and Clem Herndon's boy and Ann Rutledge." Buck was interested now. "Ann Rutledge dead? No!" "Yeh--she's dead." "Abe's gal." "Dead and buried out near Concord." "Poor old Abe. Take it hard, did he?" "Nobody knows. He ain't saying nothin'." "They say he went crazy for a time," Kit Parsons remarked. "They lie," said Ole Bar. "Abry Linkhorn hain't never gone nowhere near crazy at no time." "Maybe he didn't go clear crazy, but Doc Allen said he was hit hard and wasn't likely to git over it no time soon." "I bet a bottle against a bottle he's over it now," said Buck Thompson. "Who'll take it up? Will you, Jack Armstrong?"