“POOR Abe Dodge.”

That’s what they called him, though he wasn’t any poorer than other folks—not so poor as some. How could he be poor, work as he did and steady as he was? Worth a whole grist of such bait as his brother, Ephe Dodge, and yet they never called Ephe poor—whatever worse name they might call him. When Ephe was off at a show in the village, Abe was following the plough, driving a straight furrow, though you wouldn’t have thought it to see the way his nose pointed. In winter, when Ephe was taking the girls to singing school or spelling bee or some other foolishness—out till after nine o’clock at night, like as not—Abe was hanging over the fire, holding a book so the light would shine, first on one page and then on the other, and he turning his head as he turned the book, and reading first with one eye and then with the other.

There, the murder’s out! Abe couldn’t read with both eyes at once. If Abe looked straight ahead he couldn’t see the furrow—nor anythin’ else, for that matter. His best friend couldn’t say but what Abe Dodge was the cross-eyedest cuss that ever was. Why, if you wanted to see Abe, you’d stand in front of him; but if you wanted Abe to see you, you’d got to stand behind him, or pretty near it. Homely? Well, if you mean downright “humbly,” that’s what he was. When one eye was in use the other was out of sight, all except the white of it. Humbly ain’t no name for it: The girls used to say he had to wake up in the night to rest his face, it was so humbly. In school you’d ought to have seen him look down at his copybook. He had to cant his head clear over and cock up his chin till it pointed out of the winder and down the road. You’d really ought to have seen him, you’d have died. Head of the class, too, right along; just as near to the head as Ephe was to the foot; and that’s sayin’ a good deal. But to see him at his desk! He looked for all the world like a week-old chicken, peekin’ at a tumble-bug! And him a grown man, too, for he stayed to school winters so long as there was anything more the teacher could teach him. You see, there wasn’t anything to draw him away; no girl wouldn’t look at him—lucky, too, seein’ the way he looked.

Well, one term there was a new teacher come—regular high-up girl, down from Chicago. As bad luck would have it, Abe wasn’t at school the first week—hadn’t got through his fall work. So she got to know all the scholars, and they was awful tickled with her—everybody always was that knowed her. The first day she come in and saw Abe at his desk, she thought he was squintin’ for fun, and she upped and laughed right out. Some of the scholars laughed too, at first; but most of ‘em, to do ‘em justice, was a leetle took back; young as they was, and cruel by nature. (Young folks is most usually always cruel—don’t seem to know no better.)

Well, right in the middle of the hush, Abe gathered up his books and upped and walked outdoors, lookin’ right ahead of him, and consequently seeing the handsome young teacher unbeknown to her.

She was the worst cut up you ever did see; but what could she do or say? Go and tell him she thought he was makin’ up a face for fun? The girls do say that come noon-spell, when she found out about it, she cried—just fairly cried. Then she tried to be awful nice to Abe’s ornery brother Ephe, and Ephe he was tickled most to death; but that didn’t do Abe any good—Ephe was jest ornery enough to take care that Abe shouldn’t get any comfort out of it. They do say she sent messages to Abe, and Ephe never delivered them, or else twisted ‘em so as to make things worse and worse. Mebbe so. mebbe not—Ephe was ornery enough for it.

‘Course the school-ma’am she was boardin’ round, and pretty soon it come time to go to ol’ man Dodge’s, and she went; but no Abe could she ever see. He kept away, and as to meals, he never set by, but took a bite off by himself when he could get a chance. (’Course his mother favored him, being he was so cussed unlucky.) Then when the folks was all to bed, he’d come in and poke up the fire and peek into his book, but first one side and then the other, same as ever.

Now what does school-ma’am do but come down one night when she thought he was a-bed and asleep, and catch him unawares. Abe knowed it was her, quick as he heard the rustle of her dress, but there wasn’t no help for it, so he just turned his head away and covered his cross-eyes with his hands, and she pitched in. What she said I don’t know, but Abe he never said a word; only told her he didn’t blame her, not a mite; he knew she couldn’t help it—no more than he could. Then she asked him to come back to school, and he answered to please excuse him. After a bit she asked him if he wouldn’t come to oblige her, and he said he calculated he was obligin’ her more by stayin’ away.

Well, come to that she didn’t know what to say or do, so, woman-like, she upped and cried; and then she said he hurt her feelings. And the upshot of it was he said he’d come, and they shook hands on it.

Well, Abe kept his word and took up schoolin’ as if nothing had happened; and such schoolin’ as there was that winter! I don’t believe any regular academy had more learnin’ and teachin’ that winter than what that district school did. Seemed as if all the scholars had turned over a new leaf. Even wild, ornery, no-account Ephe Dodge couldn’t help but get ahead some—but then he was crazy to get the school-ma’am; and she never paid no attention to him, just went with Abe. Abe was teachin’ her mathematics, seeing that was the one thing where he knowed more than she did—outside of farmin’. Folks used to say that if Ephe had Abe’s head, or Abe had Ephe’s face, the school-ma’am would have half of the Dodge farm whenever ol’ man Dodge got through with it; but neither of them did have what the other had, and so there it was, you see.

Well, you’ve heard of Squire Caton, of course; Judge Caton, they call him since he got to be Judge of the Supreme Court—and Chief Justice at that. Well, he had a farm down there not far from Fox River, and when he was there he was just a plain farmer like the rest of us, though up in Chicago he was a high-up lawyer, leader of the bar. Now it so happened that a young doctor named Brainard—Daniel Brainard—had just come to Chicago and was startin’ in, and Squire Caton was helpin’ him, gave him desk-room in his office and made him known to the folks—Kinzies, and Butterfields, and Ogdens, and Hamiltons, and Arnolds, and all of those folks—about all there was in Chicago in those days. Brainard had been to Paris—Paris, France, not Paris, Illinois, you understand—and knew all the doctorin’ there was to know then. Well, come spring, Squire Caton had Doc Brainard down to visit him, and they shot ducks and geese and prairie chickens and some wild turkeys and deer, too—game was just swarmin’ at that time. All the while Caton was doin’ what law business there was to do; and Brainard thought he ought to be doin’ some doctorin’ to keep his hand in, so he asked Caton if there wasn’t any cases he could take up—surgery cases especially he hankered after, seein’ he had more carving tools than you could shake a stick at. He asked him particularly if there wasn’t anybody he could treat for “strabismus.” The squire hadn’t heard of anybody dying of that complaint; but when the doctor explained that strabismus was French for cross-eyes, he naturally thought of poor Abe Dodge, and the young doctor was right up on his ear. He smelled the battle afar off; and ‘most before you could say Jack Robinson the squire and the doctor were on horseback and down to the Dodge farm, tool-chest and all.

Well, it so happened that nobody was at home but Abe and Ephe, and it didn’t take but few words before Abe was ready to set right down, then and there, and let anybody do anything he was a mind to with his misfortunate eyes. No, he wouldn’t wait till the old folks come home; he didn’t want to ask no advice; he wasn’t afraid of pain, nor of what anybody could do to his eyes—couldn’t be made any worse than they were, whatever you did to ‘em. Take ‘em out and boil ‘em and put ‘em back if you had a mind to, only go to work. He knew he was of age and he guessed he was master of his own eyes—such as they were.

Well, there wasn’t nothing else to do but go ahead. The doctor opened up his killing tools and tried to keep Abe from seeing them; but Abe he just come right over and peeked at ‘em, handled ‘em, and called ‘em “splendid”—and so they were, barrin’ havin’ them used on your own flesh and blood and bones.

Then they got some cloths and a basin, and one thing an’ another, and set Abe right down in a chair. (No such thing as chloroform in those days, you’ll remember.) And Squire Caton was to hold an instrument that spread the eyelid wide open, while Ephe was to hold Abe’s head steady. First touch of the lancet, and first spirt of blood, and what do you think? That ornery Ephe wilted, and fell flat on the floor behind the chair!

“Squire,” said Brainard, “step around and hold his head.”

“I can hold my own head,” says Abe, as steady as you please. But Squire Caton, he straddled over Ephe and held his head between his arms, and the two handles of the eye-spreader with his hands.

It was all over in half a minute, and then Abe he leaned forward, and shook the blood off his eye-lashes, and looked straight out of that eye for the first time since he was born. And the first words he said were:

“Thank the Lord! She’s mine!”

About that time Ephe he crawled outdoors, sick as a dog; and Abe spoke up, says he:

“Now for the other eye, doctor.”

“Oh,” says the doctor, “we’d better take another day for that.”

“All right,” says Abe; “if your hands are tired of cuttin’, you can make another job of it. My face ain’t tired of bein’ cut, I can tell you.”

“Well, if you’re game, I am.”

So, if you’ll believe me, they just set to work and operated on the other eye, Abe holding his own head, as he said he would, and the squire holding the spreader. And when it was all done, the doctor was for putting a bandage on to keep things quiet till the wounds all healed up, but Abe just begged for one sight of himself, and he stood up and walked over to the clock and looked in the glass, and says he:

“So that’s the way I look, is it? Shouldn’t have known my own face—never saw it before. How long must I keep the bandage on, doctor?”

“Oh, if the eyes ain’t very sore when you wake up in the morning, you can take it off, if you’ll be careful.”

“Wake up! Do you s’pose I can sleep when such a blessing has fallen on me? I’ll lay still, but if I forget it, or you, for one minute this night, I’ll be so ashamed of myself that it’ll wake me right up!”

Then the doctor bound up his eyes and the poor boy said “Thank God!” two or three times, and they could see the tears running down his cheeks from under the cloth. Lord! It was just as pitiful as a broken-winged bird!

How about the girl? Well; it was all right for Abe—and all wrong for Ephe—all wrong for Ephe! But that’s all past and gone—past and gone. Folks come for miles and miles to see cross-eyed Abe with his eyes as straight as a loon’s leg. Doctor Brainard was a great man forever after in those parts. Everywhere else, too, by what I heard.

When the doctor and the squire come to go, Abe spoke up, blind-folded as he was, and says he:

“Doc, how much do you charge a feller for savin’ his life—making a man out of a poor wreck—doin’ what he never thought could be done but by dyin’ and goin’ to kingdom come?”

“Oh,” says Doc Brainard, says he, “that ain’t what we look at as pay practice. You didn’t call me in; I come of myself, as though it was what we call a clinic. If all goes well, and if you happen to have a barrel of apples to spare, you just send them up to Squire Caton’s house in Chicago, and I’ll call over and help eat ‘em.”

What did Abe say to that? Why, sir, he never said a word; but they do say the tears started out again, out from under the bandage and down his cheeks. But then Abe he had a five-year-old pet mare he’d raised from a colt—pretty as a picture, kind as a kitten, and fast as split lightning; and next time Doc come down Abe he just slipped out to the barn and brought the mare round and hitched her to the gate-post, and when Doc come to be going, says Abe:

“Don’t forget your nag, doctor; she’s hitched at the gate.”

Well, sir, even then Abe had the hardest kind of a time to get Doc Brainard to take that mare; and when he did ride off, leadin’ her, it wasn’t half an hour before back she came, lickety-split. Doc said she broke away from him and put for home, but I always suspected he didn’t have no use for a hoss he couldn’t sell or hire out, and couldn’t afford to keep in the village—that was what Chicago was then. But come along towards fall Abe he took her right up to town, and then the doctor’s practice had growed so much that he was pretty glad to have her; and Abe was glad to have him have her, seeing all that had come to him through havin’ eyes like other folks—that’s the school-ma’am, I mean.

How did the school-ma’am take it? Well, it was this way. After the cuttin’ Abe didn’t show up for a few days, till the inflammation got down and he’d had some practice handlin’ his eyes, so to speak. He just kept himself to himself, enjoying himself. He’d go around doin’ the chores, singin’ so you could hear him a mile. He was always great on singin’, Abe was, though ashamed to go to singin’-school with the rest. Then, when the poor boy began to feel like other folks, he went right over to where school-ma’am happened to be boardin’ round, and walked right up to her and took her by both hands, and looked her straight in the face, and said:

“Do you know me?”

Well, she kind of smiled and blushed, and then the corners of her mouth pulled down, and she pulled one hand away, and—if you believe me—that was the third time that girl cried that season, to my certain knowledge—and all for nothin’ either time!

What did she say? Why, she just said she’d have to begin all over again to get acquainted with Abe. But Ephe’s nose was out of joint, and Ephe knowed it as well as anybody, Ephe did. It was Abe’s eyes to Ephe’s nose.

Married? Oh, yes, of course; and lived on the farm as long as the old folks lived, and afterwards, too; Ephe staying right along, like the fool he always had been. That feller never did have as much sense as a last year’s bird’s nest.

Alive yet? Abe? Well, no. Might have been if it hadn’t been for Shiloh. When the war broke out Abe thought he’d ought to go, old as he was, so he went into the Sixth. Maybe you’ve seen a book written about the captain of Company K of the Sixth. It was Company K he went into—him and Ephe. And he was killed at Shiloh—just as it always seems to happen. He got killed, and his worthless brother come home. Folks thought Ephe would have liked to marry the widow, but, Lord! she never had no such an idea! Such bait as he was compared to his brother. She never chirked up, to speak of, and now she’s dead too, and Ephe he just toddles round, taking care of the children—kind of a he dry-nurse that’s about all he ever was good for, anyhow.

My name? Oh, my name’s Ephraim—Ephe they call me, for short; Ephe Dodge. Abe was my brother.

Joseph Kirkland.