Jasper heard the local stories at the smithy and at Aunt Indiana's with intense interest. To him they furnished a study of the character of the people. They were not like stories of beautiful spiritual meaning that he had been accustomed to hear at Marienthal, at Weimar, and on the Rhine. The tales of Richter, Haupt, Hoffman, and Baron FouquÉ could never have been created here. These new settlements called for the incident or joke that represented a practical fact, and not the soul-growth of imagination. The one question of education was, "Can you cipher to the rule of three?" and of religion, "Have you found the Lord?" The favorite tales were of Indians, bears, and ghosts, and the rough hardships that overcome life. Jasper heard these tales with a sympathetic heart.

The true German story is a parable, a word with a soul. Jasper loved them, for the tales of a people are the heart of a people, and express the progress of culture and opinion.

One day, as Jasper was cobbling at Aunt Olive's, he sought to teach her a lesson of contentment by a German household story. Johnnie Kongapod had come in, and the woman was complaining of her hard and restricted life.

"Aunt Indiana," said Jasper, "do you have fairies here?"

"Never have seen any. We don't spin air here in America."

"We have fairies in Germany. All the children there pass through fairy-land. There once came a fairy to an old couple who were complaining, like you."

"Like me? I'm the contentedest woman in these parts. 'Tis no harm to wish for what you haven't got."

"There came a fairy to them, and said:

"'You may have three wishes. Wish.'

"The old couple thought:

"'We must be very wise,' said the woman, 'and not make any mistake, since we can only wish three times. I wish I had a pudding.'

"Immediately there came a pudding upon the table. The poor woman was greatly surprised.

"'There, you see what you have done by your foolish wishing!' said the man.

"'One of our opportunities has gone,' said the woman. 'We have but two chances left. We must be wiser.'

"They sat and looked into the fire. The fairy had disappeared from the hearth, and there were only embers and ashes there.

"The man grew angry that his wife had lost one of their opportunities.

"'Nothin' but a pudding!' said he. 'I wish that that miserable pudding were hung to your nose!'

"The pudding leaped from the table and hung at the end of the old woman's nose.

"'There!' said she, 'now you see what you have done by your foolish wishing.'

"The old man sighed. 'We have but one wish left. We must now be the wisest people in all the world.'

"They watched the dying embers, and thought. As they did so, the pudding grew heavy at the end of the old woman's nose. At last she could endure it no longer.

"'Oh!' she said, 'how I wish that pudding was off again!'

"The pudding disappeared, and the fairy was gone."

"'Tain't true," said Aunt Indiana.

"Yes," said Jasper, "what is true to life is true. Stories are the alphabet of life."

Johnnie Kongapod had listened to the tale with delight. Aunt Indiana knew that no fairy would ever appear on her hearth, but Johnnie was not so sure.

"I've seen 'em," said he.

"You—what? What have you seen? I'd like to know," said Aunt Indiana.

"Fairies—"

"Where?"

"When I've been asleep."

"There never was any fairies in my dreams," said Aunt Indiana.

No, there were not. The German Tunker and the prairie Indian might see fairies, but the hard-working Yankee pioneer had no faculties for creative fancy. Her fairy was the plow that breaks the ground, or the axe that fells the timber. Yet the German soul-tale seemed to haunt her, and she at last said:

"I wish that we had more such stories as that. It is pleasant talk. Abe Lincoln tells such things out of the Pilgrim's Progress. He's all imagination, just like you and the Indians. People who don't have much to do run to such things. I suppose that he has read that Pilgrim's Progress over a dozen times."

"I have observed that the boy had ideals," said Jasper.

"What's them?" said Aunt Indiana.

"People build life out of ideals," said Jasper. "A cathedral is an ideal before it is a form. So is a house, a glass—everything. He has the creative imagination."

"Yes—that's what I said: always going around with a book in his hand, as though he was walking on the air."

"His step-mother says that he's one of the best of boys. He does everything that he can for her, and he has never given her an unkind word. He loves his step-mother like an own mother, and he forgets himself for others. These are good signs."

"Signs—signs! Stop your cobblin', elder, and let me prophesy! That boy just takes after his father, and he will never amount to anything in this world or any other. His mother what is dead was a good woman—an awful good woman; but she was sort o' visionary. They say that she used to see things at camp-meetin's, and lose her strength, and have far-away visions. She might have seen fairies. But she was an awful good woman—good to everybody, and everybody loved her; and we were all sorry when she died, and we all love her grave yet. It is queer, but we all seem to love her grave. A sermon goes better when it is preached there under the great trees. Some folks had rather hear a sermon preached there than at the meetin'-house. Some people leave a kind o' influence; Miss Linken did. The boy means well—his heart is all right, like his poor dead mother's was—but he hasn't got any head on 'im, like as I have. He hasn't got any calculation. And now, elder, I'm goin' to say it, though I'm sorry to: he'll never amount to shucks! There, now! Josiah Crawford says so, too."

"There is one very strong point about Abraham," said Jasper. "He has a keen sense of what is right, and he is always governed by it. He has faith that right is might. Didn't you ever notice it?"

"Yes, I'll do him justice. I never knew him to do a thing that he thought wrong—never. He couldn't. He takes after his mother's folks, and they say that there is Quaker blood in the Linkens."

"But, my good woman, a fool would be wise if he always did right, wouldn't he? There is no higher wisdom than to always do right. And a boy that has a heart to feel for every one, and a conscience that is true to a sense of right, and that loves learning more than anything else, and studies continually, is likely to find a place in the world.

"Now, I am going to prophesy. This country is going to need men to lead them, and Abraham Lincoln will one day become a leader among men. He leads now. His heart leads; his mind leads. I can see it. The world here is going to need men of knowledge, and it will select the man of the most learning who has the most heart, the most sympathy with the people. It will select him. I have a spiritual eye, and I can see."

"A leader of the people—Abe Lincoln! You have said it now. I would as soon think of Johnnie Kongapod! A leader of the people! Are you daft? When the prairies leap into corn-fields and the settlements into banks of gold, and men can travel a mile a minute, and clodhoppers become merchants and Congressers, and as rich as Spanish grandees, then Abraham Lincoln may become a leader of the people, but not till then! No, elder, you are no Samuel, that has come down here among the sons of Jesse to find a shepherd-boy for a king. You ain't no Samuel, and he ain't no shepherd-boy. He all runs to books and legs, and I tell you he ain't got no calculation. Now, I've prophesied and you've prophesied."

"Time tells the truth about all things," said Jasper. "We shall meet, if I make my circuits, and we will talk of our prophecies in other years, should Providence permit. My soul has set its mark on that boy: wait, and we will see if the voice within me speaks true. It has always spoken true until now."

At the close of this prophetic dialogue the subject of it appeared at the door. He was a tall boy, with a dark face, homely, ungainly, awkward. He wore a raccoon-skin cap, a linsey-woolsey shirt, and leather breeches, and was barefooted, although the weather was yet cool. He did not look like one who would ever cause the thrones of the world to lean and listen, or who would find in the Emperor of all the Russias the heart of a brother.

"Abe," said Aunt Indiana, "the Tunker here has been speakin' well of you, though you don't deserve it. He just says as how you are goin' to be somebody, and make somethin' in the world. I hope you will, though you're a shaky tree to hang hopes on. I ain't got nothin' ag'in ye. He says that you'll become a leader among men. What do you think o' that, Abe? Don't stand there gawkin'. Come in and sit down."

"It helps one to have some one believe in him," said the tall boy. "One tries to fulfill the good prophecies made about him. I wish I was good.—Thank ye, elder, for your good opinion. I wonder if I will ever make anything? I sometimes think I will. I look over toward mother's grave there, and think I will; but you can't tell. Crawford the schoolmaster he thinks good of me, but the other Crawford—Josiah—he's ag'in me. But if we do right, we'll all come out right."

"Yes, my boy," said Jasper, "have faith that right is might. This is what the Voice and the Being within tells me to preach and to teach. Let us have faith that right is might, and do our duty, and the Spirit of God will give us a new nature, and make us new creatures, and the rebirth of the spiritual life into the eternal kingdom."

The prairie winds breathed through the trees. A robin came and sang in the timber.

The four sat thoughtful—the Tunker, the Indian, the pioneer woman, and the merry, sad-faced boy. It was a commonplace scene in the Indiana timber, and that one lonely grave is all that is left to recall such scenes to-day—the grave of the pioneer mother.