One might as well
applaud the Lord's Prayer--it would have been sacrilege. And they
all felt it--down to the lowest. There was a long minute of reverent
silence, no sound from all that great throng--it seems to me, an
enemy, that it was the most perfect tribute that has ever been paid by
any people to any orator."
The boy, lifting his hand from his brother's shoulder to mark the
effect of his brother's words, saw with surprise that in the strange
lawyer's eyes were tears. But the wounded man did not notice.
"It will live, that speech. Fifty years from now American schoolboys
will be learning it as part of their education. It is not merely my
opinion," he went on. "Warrington says the whole country is ringing
with it. And you haven't read it? And your name's Lincoln? Warry, boy,
where's the paper Nellie left? I'll read the speech to Mr. Lincoln
myself."
The boy had sprung to his feet and across the room, and had lifted
a folded newspaper from the table. "Let me read it, Carter--it might
tire you."
The giant figure which had crouched, elbows on knees, in the shadows
by the narrow hospital cot, heaved itself slowly upward till it loomed
at its full height in air. Lincoln turned his face toward the boy
standing under the flickering gas-jet and reading with soft, sliding
inflections the words which had for twenty-four hours been gall and
wormwood to his memory.
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