Abe and Harry went to a number of settlements in the county with a like result save that no more violence was needed.  At one place there were men in the crowd who knew Harry’s record in the war.  They called on him for a speech.  He spoke on the need of the means of transportation in Sangamon County with such insight and dignity and convincing candor that both Abe and the audience hailed him as a coming man.  Abe and he were often seen together those days.

In New Salem they were called the disappointed lovers.  It was known there that Abe was very fond of Ann Rutledge although he had not, as yet, openly confessed to any one—­not even to Ann—­there being no show of hope for him.  Ann was deeply in love with John McNeil—­the genial, handsome and successful young Irishman.  The affair had reached the stage of frankness, of an open discussion of plans, of fond affection expressing itself in caresses quite indifferent to ridicule.

For Ann it had been like warm sunlight on the growing rose.  She was neater in dress, lovelier in form and color, more graceful in movement and sweeter-voiced than ever she had been.  It is the old way that Nature has of preparing the young to come out upon the stage of real life and to act in its moving scenes.  Abe manfully gave them his best wishes and when he spoke of Ann it was done very tenderly.  The look of sadness, which all had noted in his moments of abstraction, deepened and often covered his face with its veil.  That is another way that Nature has of preparing the young.  For these the roses have fallen and only the thorns remain.  They are not lured; they seem to be driven to their tasks, but for all, soon or late, her method changes.

On a beautiful morning of June, 1834, John McNeil left the village.  Abe Lincoln and Harry and Samson and Sarah and Jack Kelso and his wife stood with the Rutledges in the dooryard of the tavern when he rode away.  He was going back to his home in the far East to return in the autumn and make Ann his bride.  The girl wept as if her heart would break when he turned far down the road and waved his hand to her.

“Oh, my pretty lass!  Do you not hear the birds singing in the meadows?” said Jack Kelso.  “Think of the happiness all around you and of the greater happiness that is coming when he returns.  Shame on you!”

“I’m afraid he’ll never come back,” Ann sobbed.

“Nonsense!  Don’t get a maggot in your brain and let the crows go walking over your face.  Come, we’ll take a ride in the meadows and if I don’t bring you back laughing you may call me no prophet.”

So the event passed.