It was well perhaps that life thus early gave me a hint of one of
her most obstinate and insoluble riddles, for I have sorely
needed the sense of universality thus imparted to that mysterious
injustice, the burden of which we are all forced to bear and with
which I have become only too familiar.

My childish admiration for Lincoln is closely associated with a
visit made to the war eagle, Old Abe, who, as we children well
knew, lived in the state capital of Wisconsin, only sixty-five
miles north of our house, really no farther than an eagle could
easily fly! He had been carried by the Eighth Wisconsin Regiment
through the entire war, and now dwelt an honored pensioner in the
state building itself.

Many times, standing in the north end of our orchard, which was
only twelve miles from that mysterious line which divided
Illinois from Wisconsin, we anxiously scanned the deep sky,
hoping to see Old Abe fly southward right over our apple trees,
for it was clearly possible that he might at any moment escape
from his keeper, who, although he had been a soldier and a
sentinel, would have to sleep sometimes. We gazed with thrilled
interest at one speck after another in the flawless sky, but
although Old Abe never came to see us, a much more incredible
thing happened, for we were at last taken to see him.

We started one golden summer's day, two happy children in the
family carriage, with my father and mother and an older sister to
whom, because she was just home from boarding school, we
confidently appealed whenever we needed information. We were
driven northward hour after hour, past harvest fields in which