The Last Leaf | Page 3

post with a comfortable
salary, which he might easily hold, taking now and then a pleasant
sea-cruise with light duties, or indeed not leaving home at all, by
occasional trips and visits to the one man-of-war which the
Government maintained on the Great Lakes. To an impecunious
minister, with a large family to educate, it was a tempting offer. But my
father in those days was a peace-man, and he was also disinclined to
nibble at the public crib while rendering no adequate service. He
declined the appointment, a course much censured. "The fool parson, to
let such a chance go!" Mr. Fillmore admired it and their friendship
became heartier than ever. In the interview, my father had asked his
friend to explain his course on the Fugitive Slave Law, an act involving
suffering for so many, and no doubt took on a tone of remonstrance. He
told us the President raised his hands in vehement appeal. He had only
a choice between terrible evils--to inflict suffering which he hoped
might be temporary, or to precipitate an era of bloodshed with the
destruction of the country as a probable result. He did not do evil that
good might come, but of two imminent evils he had, as he believed,
chosen the lesser.
Fillmore lives in my memory a stately, massive presence, with hair

growing grey and kindly blue eyes looking down upon the little boy
with a pleasant greeting. His wife was gentle and unassuming. His
daughter Abby matured into much beauty and grace, and her sudden
death, by cholera, in the bloom of young womanhood cast a shadow on
the nation. They were homely folk, thrust up suddenly into high
position, but it did not turn their heads. In their lives they were plainly
sweet and honest. No taint of corruption attaches to Fillmore in either
his private or public career. He was my father's friend. I think he meant
well, and am glad that our most authoritative historian of the period,
Rhodes, can say that he discharged the duties of his high office "with
ability and honour."
When in February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, on his way to Washington,
arrived in Buffalo Saturday night and it became known he would spend
Sunday, the town was alive with curiosity as to where he would go to
church. Mr. Lincoln was Mr. Fillmore's guest. They had known each
other well in Congress--Fillmore a veteran at the head of the
Committee of Ways and Means, Lincoln then quite unknown, serving
his only term. Both were Whigs of the old school, in close contact and I
suppose not afterwards far apart. Lincoln was prepared to execute the
Fugitive Slave Law, while Fillmore was devoted to the Union, and
probably would have admitted at the end that Lincoln's course
throughout was good. My father's church was looked on somewhat
askance. "It's lucky," said a parishioner once, "that it has a stone face."
Would Lincoln go to the Unitarian church? Promptly at service-time
Mr. Fillmore appeared with his guest, the two historic figures side by
side in the pew. Two or three rows intervened between it and that in
which sat my mother and our household. I beheld the scene only
through the eyes of my kindred, for by that time I had flown the nest.
But I may be pardoned for noting here an interesting spectacle. As they
stood during the hymns, the contrast was picturesque. Both men had
risen from the rudest conditions through much early hardship. Fillmore
had been rocked in a sap-trough in a log-cabin scarcely better than
Lincoln's early shelter, and the two might perhaps have played an even
match at splitting rails. Fillmore, however, strangely adaptive, had
taken on a marked grace of manner, his fine stature and mien carrying a
dignified courtliness which is said to have won him a handsome

compliment from Queen Victoria--a gentleman rotund, well-groomed,
conspicuously elegant. Shoulder to shoulder with him rose the queer,
raw-boned, ramshackle frame of the Illinoisan, draped in the artless
handiwork of a prairie tailor, surmounted by the rugged, homely face.
The service, which the new auditor followed reverently, being finished,
the minister, leaving the pulpit, gave Lincoln God-speed--and so he
passed on to his greatness. My mother, sister, and brothers--the
youngest of whom before two years were gone was to fill a soldier's
grave--stood close at hand.
I once saw Stephen A. Douglas, the man who was perhaps more closely
associated than any other with the fame of Lincoln, for he was the
human obstacle by overcoming whom Lincoln proved his fitness for
the supreme place. Douglas was a man marvellously strong. Rhodes
declares it would be hard to set bounds to his ability. I saw him in 1850,
when he was yet on the threshold, just beginning to make upon