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FREEDOMWAYS          THIRD QUARTER 1969

His name's there, on one or the other of the monuments.  I always intended to go there and see, but I never did.

"The battle of Gettysburg-that was some battle.  God, the men and boys killed there.  It decided things, I guess-saved the Union-but it sure was a terrible time."

He ruminated about that battle he never tired of hearing about, or reading about, or telling about.

"Say," he said, with a commanding change of voice. "I wonder if I can still recite the Gettysburg Address.  I used to could.  Let's see."

He was past ninety at the time.  He was sitting in the big chair by the window.  He pulled himself into position for the try.  You had to sit up straight, as befit what he was about to do.  I shall never forget my own wonder and amazement as he went forward from the words-"Four score and seven years ago...." Now and then he struggled for a word, or thought.  I tried to help him.

"Don't," he'd say.  "I'll get it," and get it he did until he came to the final paragraph.  My mind was working with his, trying to remember.

"With malice toward none...." I said.

"No, that's from the Second Inaugural."

He back-tracked, and I stayed still.  Then he started again, and in triumph went on:

"...in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.  The brave men living and dead, who struggled there, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract."

And still further: "The world will little note or long remember"- my father was talking to himself now-"what we say here, but it cannot ever forget what they did here."  With no hesitation he went on to the very end-"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

"You made it," was all I managed to say.

"Yes," he said, "but I didn't think I was going to.  I bet, though, not many 90-year-olds can recite the Gettysburg Address.

"I never learned the Second Inaugural, though.  It's a lot harder.  Do you know I only knew one man in my whole life who could recite it-a colored fellow who worked for me in the glasshouse in East St. Louis, back the time of the first World War and the riots there.  1917.  Yes-sir, he could recite the Second Inaugural Address word for word, from beginning to end.  At lunch time we used to get

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 11:31:15