XV. "Who's Afraid?" 146 XVI. Politics and Steamboats 157 XVII. Captain Lincoln 163 XVIII. "Books Beat Guns, Sonny" 171 XIX. Abe Makes a Speech 175 XX. Story of a Boy 180 XXI. Only Wasting Time 189 XXII. Town Topics 202 XXIII. Alias McNeil 211 XXIV. In the Cellar 221 XXV. Father and Daughter 227 XXVI. Gloom and the Light 232 XXVII. Covering the Coals 245 XXVIII. "He's Ruint Hisself Forever" 256 XXIX. God's Little Girl 263 XXX. The End of June 271 XXXI. Stronger Than Death 277 XXXII. The Unfinished Song 286 XXXIII. "Where is Abe Lincoln?" 294 XXXIV. For the Things That Are to be 305 XXXV. The Poem 310 XXXVI. On the Way 321 THE SOUL OF ANN RUTLEDGE CHAPTER I ONE APRIL DAY "Ann! Ann! Ann Rutledge! Hallo! Hallo!" The cheerful voice belonged to a rosy-cheeked girl who shouted in front of Rutledge Inn, one of the straggling group of log houses that made the village of New Salem, Illinois, in 1831. Pausing in front of the Inn, the animated girl repeated her call lustily as she watched for the closed door to open. "Hallo yourself, Nance Cameron," a clear, musical voice replied from somewhere in the rear of the weather-stained building, and the next moment Ann Rutledge came around the corner. "Look! Springtime has come! Isn't it splendid to be alive in the springtime? I found them in the thicket!" and pausing she held out an armful of plum branches white with their first bloom. In the moment she stood, an artist might have caught an inspiration. On one side of the background was a vista of open garden, perhaps, and meadow, with a glimpse of forest farther back, and over it all the white-flecked, spring-blue sky. On the other side was the solid framework that told of days when there had been no meadow or garden, and of the pioneer labor that had wrought the change. In the foreground of this brown and green and blue setting stood a slender girl in a pink-sprigged calico dress. Her violet eyes were shaded with dark lashes. Her shapely head was crowned with a wealth of golden hair in which a glint of red seemed hiding. A white kerchief was pinned low about her neck, and across her breast were tied the white strings of a ruffled bonnet which dropped on her shoulders behind. She pressed her face for a moment in the armful of blossoms, sniffing deep, and with the joy of youth exclaimed again, "Isn't it splendid to be alive in the springtime!" But Nance Cameron had no eye for the artistic at this moment. "Have you been to the river?" "River? What's going on at the river?"