Abe Lincoln at Last!: A Merlin Mission (9 page)

A
spring breeze was whispering through the trees. “We’re home,” said Jack. They were back in Frog Creek, wearing their own clothes again. Jack looked in his backpack and pulled out their book on Abraham Lincoln.

Annie reached into one of her jacket pockets. “Good, they’re still here!” she said. She took out Abraham Lincoln’s gifts: the bottle of blackberry ink and the goose-feather pen.

“Cool,” said Jack.

“Before we go, I want to look in our book and
see if there’s a picture of Willie and Tad,” said Annie. She took the book from Jack and checked the index. “Yes!” Then she turned to a page on the Lincoln children.

Annie read for a moment, then she whispered a sad “Oh, no.” She closed the book and put it down. She looked terribly sad.

“What’s wrong? What did you read?” said Jack.

“I just read that Willie died of typhoid fever in 1862,” said Annie.

“Oh, no,” said Jack. “That was the year after we met him.”

“Poor Abraham Lincoln,” said Annie.

“Poor Tad,” said Jack.

“Yeah, he really needed Willie,” said Annie.

“And then Tad will lose his dad just four years later,” said Jack. “President Lincoln will get assassinated.”

“I know,” said Annie softly.

Jack didn’t know what to say. He felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. All his
annoyance at Tad disappeared. He wished he’d been kinder to him.

“It doesn’t make sense, does it?” said Annie.

“I guess that’s why
hope
is such an important thing,” Jack said.

“What do you mean?” said Annie.

“We can’t explain why sad things happen,” Jack said. “All we can do is hope they make sense someday.”

“Like when?” said Annie. “When will they make sense?”

“I don’t know when,” said Jack. “Maybe not even in a person’s lifetime. Maybe in a world beyond this world.” He sighed. “Maybe we just have to accept that it’s a mystery.”

Annie nodded, blinking back tears. “Well, we brought back the feather of hope,” she said.

“And we gave hope to Abraham Lincoln,” said Jack.

“And he did really great things as president, didn’t he?” Annie said.

“Yeah, and he was a great dad, too,” said Jack.

Jack placed the feather of hope in the corner of the tree house next to the glacial buttercup and the emerald rose.

“There’s one more thing to get to save Penny,” said Annie.

“Tomorrow,” said Jack.

“Definitely,” said Annie. “Today I just want to live my normal life: have breakfast with Mom and Dad—”

“And go to school,” added Jack.

“We’re lucky we can go to school,” said Annie.

“Yeah,” said Jack. “And we’re lucky to have a nice house with heat and running water.”

“And comfortable beds,” said Annie. She started down the rope ladder.

“And lots of books,” said Jack. He grabbed his backpack and climbed down after her.

As Jack and Annie headed home between the trees, a breeze shook the wet branches. Sparkling raindrops filled the Frog Creek woods.

Author’s Note

W
hen researching Abraham Lincoln, I was inspired by what his friends and family said about him. The sampling below taught me a lot about what kind of person he was.

From Dennis Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s cousin:

“Abe was getting hungry for books, reading everything he could lay his hands on.… He would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn bread, take down a book, sit down in a chair, cock his leg up as high as his head, and read.”

“[Abe] would commence his pranks, tricks,
jokes, stories, and … all would stop—gather around Abe and listen.”

From Sarah Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s stepmother:

“Abe was a good boy … was diligent for knowledge … and if pains and labor would get it, he was sure to get it. He was the best boy I ever saw. He read all the books he could lay his hands on.”

“When he came across a passage [in a book] that struck him, he would write it down on boards if he had no paper and keep it there till he did get paper—then he would rewrite it, look at it [and] repeat it.”

“Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused in fact, or even in appearance, to do anything I requested him.”

From a family friend of the Lincolns’:

“If there was any motto or slogan of the White House during the early years of the Lincolns’ occupancy it was this: ‘Let the children have a good time.…’ When the president came into the
family sitting room and sat down to read, the boys would rush at him and demand a story. Tad perched precariously on the back of the big chair, Willie on one knee.…”

Now I hope that
you
will do your own fact-tracking—and enjoy learning more in the Magic Tree House Fact Tracker:
Abraham Lincoln
.