The Day Lincoln Lost by Charles Rosenberg

Author:Charles Rosenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Published: 2020-05-22T19:08:17+00:00

37

But that was not to be.

All Mr. Hostetler said was, “She is either in Canada or dead. Most likely dead. Or perhaps one of the slave catchers stumbled upon her and took her directly back south. Since there was already a court order to return her, whoever found her may have felt no obligation to go back into court.”

“Are you planning to go back to Springfield today?” Mrs. Hostetler said.

“I had thought to,” Annabelle said.

Mrs. Hostetler looked over at her husband. “It is getting late,” she said. “If she goes back, given the roads, she may not make it before dark.”

“I agree. It would be bad for you to be on the road after dark,” Mr. Hostetler said. “We can certainly put you up for the night.”

Annabelle thought about it for a second. They were right. “That would be most kind of you,” she said. “But I hate to be a burden on you.”

“It’s no burden!” both Hostetlers said, almost as one.

After that, the tension went out of the room.

Mr. Hostetler gave her a tour of their two barns (which required that she put her muddy boots back on), and Mrs. Hostetler showed her around the house, including the bedrooms on the second floor and, finally, the basement, where the Hostetlers were storing cheese and drying apples over the winter. Annabelle had the sense that they were showing her everything so that she could see for herself that Lucy wasn’t being hidden anywhere on the property. Of course, they could always have moved her from basement to barn while Annabelle was looking around upstairs and so forth.

Dinner had been pleasant, and Annabelle had been fascinated by the political talk. Mr. Hostetler was a member of the Liberty Party, an avowedly abolitionist party that had, unfortunately in the opinion of both Hostetlers, not fielded a candidate for president this time around. Or at least not in Illinois. They hated Vice President Breckinridge because he had owned slaves. They hated Douglas for introducing the Congressional act that permitted people in the territories to vote on whether to permit slavery, and they hated Bell because he was campaigning on the idea that slavery wasn’t an issue worth talking about anymore. As for Lincoln, Mr. Hostetler had thought about voting for him, but he was waiting to see if he would do the “moral thing.”

“What is that?” Annabelle said.

Mrs. Hostetler answered for him. “Why, announce he’ll pardon Abby Kelley if she’s convicted and he’s elected. It’s the only moral thing to do if he truly cares about the fate of the poor slave.”

The conversation then drifted into farm prices as well as tariffs on imports, which the Hostetlers favored. The higher the better.

Not long after dark, they snuffed out the candles, except for the single one that each carried as they went up the steps on the way to bed. Mrs. Hostetler apologized that they had not yet added gas lamps to the house.

After she tucked herself into the feather bed in her room,

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