Chapter 19
Abe loved living in his cabin with Zeus and Caesar, but it wasn’t without problems. Trying to cook with standing on one leg or even with crutches created a lot of problems. He had problems with balance.
He didn’t want to fall on the stove or fireplace, and he had trouble washing dished too.
He finally had to bring over a pot of hot water to the table and sit down at the table and wash and dry his dishes and then put them away.
Everything seemed to take so much longer to do on his crutches and on one leg.
He had been able to make a work bench in the barn in the same corner that the previous owner had kept his tools.
He kept it simple and just made it big enough for him to lay his boards on to work with.
He also built a stool for him to sit while he worked.
It gave him a lot more stability instead of using his crutches for balance.
He was just getting started on making himself a peg leg when Travis showed up and he wasn’t alone. They arrived in a wagon.
“Abe! I come bringing gifts and a very good friend.” Travis called out and Abe walked out of the barn with Zeus at his heels.
He remembered Travis, but he growled at Cal.
“Abe, this is Cal, he’s the carpenter in Angel Falls.
Before you arrived, I asked Cal to work on a peg leg for you.
I also asked Amos Carlson to make a leather strap to keep it on your leg.
His wife, Shirley, made some pads so that your stump won’t get so sore getting used to wearing it.
I hope you don’t mind that I asked them to help.
“Cal also asked me what you were doing to wash your clothes. I didn’t even think about how you were going to wash your clothes.
Then I looked at Angie’s washstand. We came to build you one to make it easier for you to wash your clothes instead of bending over the stream to get it done.
If you would like me to dig up a space for a garden, I’ll also do that while I’m here if you want a garden.
I even brought you some garden seeds with me.
Just tell us what you want us to do.” Travis told his friend.
He wasn’t sure that Abe would accept all that they wanted to do for him.
Abe was quiet for a few minutes then struck out his hand to Cal.
“It’s nice to meet you, Cal. I appreciate you making me a peg leg.
Let’s take a look at it. These crutches are driving me crazy.
I can’t keep my balance trying to cook or wash dishes.
I about fell into the stove and burned myself.
I been washing dishes sitting down at the table with a big pot of hot water in front of me to wash dishes in.
It’s not great, but it works. I’m not real good at carrying a bucket or a pan with one hand and using a crutch with the other, but I’m making it work.
I put the eggs in my pocket to carry them.
Tell Mavis she did a real good job getting me clothes that fit and I like wearing clothes that aren’t the Union blue ones.
” Abe told them and sat down on the bench in front of his cabin.
He pulled up the pant leg and long underwear he was wearing on his stump.
He was self-conscious of it, but he also wanted to get rid of those crutches.
Cal got down on the ground and took out his whittled leg.
It wasn’t a tiny thin leg; he had made a wide leg for a man Abe’s size.
Abe grinned. Cal was another person who didn’t say anything about his size but did take it into account when he made his new leg.
Then, he took the leather and small pads and placed them around and under the stump.
It took him about fifteen minutes to make the adjustments for his leg.
For Abe, it felt really strange…but he was ready for it.
Travis helped him stand up for the first time on his new leg.
For Abe to be able to stand up again without the crutches was wonderful.
He stood with Travis’s help for a few seconds.
Then, he made Travis let go. He tried to take a step by himself.
He almost fell. He reached for Travis to help keep him up but was able to gain balance by himself. He took three steps by himself.
“We’ll make you some bars, so that you can practice walking with the peg leg.
You’ll get better and better and be walking with it in no time.
Now, you sit and we’ll make your washstand and plow your garden.
I think Travis said that Angie and his boys were going to come out and help you plant it later today or tomorrow.
” Cal told him and went to the wagon. It was filled with rocks to build the washstand.
He even had a bucket of clay to hold the rocks together.
Abe sat down and watched them work on the garden and washstand.
Cal had built these before and soon had it up and a fire in it to bake the clay.
He was building the rinse box next to it, and putting up clothes lines, too.
Travis had the garden plowed and a log pulled over it, and they were building some bars so that he could practice walking with the peg leg and leather brace by himself.
It took them several hours, but before they left, he was pretty well set.
“Abe, I also had another reason for coming. Travis told me that you were really good with your hands. I have a woman who wants me to build her a fancy headboard. I build beds, but I don’t do fancy. Do you do scroll work?” Cal asked him as they were putting their tools away.
“Before the war I did. I loved working with my hands. I just finished making me a workbench in the barn with a stool, so that I could begin working with my hands again. I even carried my scroll tools with me for four long years into battle in my saddle bags.” Abe told him.
“Good. I brought the headboard with me and the footboard, too. Would you give it a try?” Cal asked him. “It would really get me out of a tight spot.”
“I’ll do my best. Travis, you and Cal put the headboard and footboard on my workbench. I’ll do my best to get it done. Give me a week. But I’ll get it done for you. I really appreciate all you’ve done for me, and you didn’t even know me.” Abe told him.
“Maybe not. But we knew Travis, Tate, Sam, and Angie. They were part of your family, and that made you family, too. You’ll find that in Angel Falls, family means everything to us.
” Cal told him and slapped him on his massive shoulder.
“I appreciate you trying to do the fancy scroll work for me. I don’t like working for these ladies that want things just so.
Just let me build you a house or cabin. Don’t want all these China cabinets, and fancy headboards…
let me send away for those. I’d love to be able to tell them that you can do that for me. ”
Abe just nodded. “I’d like to help anyway I can. I need to make a living somehow. I like working with my hands, and being able to stand on my own two legs will be a big help. I’ll tell Travis when I’m finished with the headboard and the footboard.”
Cal headed back to town and Travis took his horse and headed out on his rounds.
He didn’t know that the headlines on the newspaper today was that the war had ended.
Lee had surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House on April 9th on 1865.
The war was over. The entire town erupted with the news.
Angie couldn’t wait to tell Travis when he came back from his rounds and helping Travis with his washstand, garden, bar, and fitting him with his peg leg.
He was going to be so happy. Maybe now his friend Logan Callihan would also be able to come to Angel Falls.
Travis was having a good day. He felt really good about all the help they were giving his friend Abe.
The fact that Abe was accepting it was a miracle.
He had always been a little stiff necked about taking help from anybody.
It took almost a year before he was letting Logan and him give him help while they were fighting in the same platoon.
That was after he had saved both of their lives, but he didn’t want their thanks or their paybacks.
Finally, Logan had held him down and told him that thanks goes both ways.
If he wasn’t going to let them tell him thanks than he could just tell them goodbye.
They couldn’t be friends if it was just a one-way street.
Being friends meant you didn’t measure helping each other with how much you could get back in return.
Abe had nodded and they had let him up. That wasn’t easy when you were holding down a six-foot seven-inch man.
He couldn’t begin to count the skirmishes they had been in over the last four years of the war.
He only wished the war was over and that Logan could join them here in Angel Falls.
He wanted to know that he was safe. The last thing he wanted was for him to get injured now when the war was about to end.
He rode into town and found them all in a state of celebration. He stopped at the jail and went in. The first person he saw was the sheriff. “Red, why all the celebration? What happened?”
“Oh, that’s right…you were out on rounds.
Word just got to us that the war ended. Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House.
The war is over, Travis. All our men can come home.
I don’t know how long that will take, but the North won.
There is no longer a Confederacy.” Red told him and saw Travis smile.
“It’s about time! That means that my friend Logan Callihan can join us in Angel Falls.
Hot Damn! I can’t wait to tell Abe about this.
He will be as happy as I am.” Travis told Red and slapped him on the back.
Then, he headed out the door to talk to Tate and Sam about Logan staying in the room in the warehouse that he had stayed in when he first arrived back in town from the war.
Tate saw him coming and hugged him, he was so happy that the war was finally over. “Can you believe it? The war is over. All the senseless killing is over.”
“I’m hoping that since the war is over, Logan Callihan my last friend will come to Angel Falls. If he does, do you think I could offer for him to stay in that room in the warehouse that I stayed in when I first came home.” Travis asked him as he kept waiting on customers.
“Course he can, I’ll even get Sam to wash the sheets before he arrives.
I know he’ll come, if only to see how Abe is doing and to see you.
We’ll make him welcome…he’s part of your family, and that makes him part of ours.
” Tate told him and smiled. Travis smiled back.
He loved this brother of his, he accepted everyone with a smile.
He left to continue on his rounds and to talk to Angie about the war and his friend, Logan. He wanted her and his boys to be prepared for him. He was excited about seeing him again. He couldn’t wait for him to arrive.
Logan was counting the days to be released from active duty from the Union Army.
They told them all that the war was over, but it would take about ten days for all the paperwork to be completed.
Some of the men left that very night without any paperwork, they couldn’t care less about paperwork.
But if you were black, you needed all the paperwork you could get to keep from being arrested or thrown back into someone’s ownership.
Now that they couldn’t keep slaves, he intended to stay free.
He also intended to go to Angel Falls and find his best friends.
He didn’t know if he would settle down and live there.
He’d find out if black men were welcome there first, or if there were other blacks living there.
Were they treated like men or black men?
He was tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.
He just wanted to be treated like a man.
Like Abe and Travis treated him. They didn’t look at the color of his skin; they saw him as a man.
That’s how he wanted to live from now on.
If he needed to travel halfway across the United States to do it, so be it.
He was finally released from the Union Army and given his dismissal papers.
He had all his money that he has saved for the last five years.
At least the Union Army had paid him the same as every other soldier that fought.
He bought a ticket and climbed on a train and sat down.
He was going to see his friends. He had no family that he knew of.
He’d been sold many years before from his mother and father.
He had run away and lived from what he could earn working for a man running a warehouse.
He carried bags of feed every day all day long from the time he was twelve years old.
It helped him develop larger muscles and get stronger for his age.
He grew up and kept to himself. He was paid less than a white man and constantly called boy even though he was a man and taller and bigger than most other men.
Then, the war came. It gave him a reason to fight for something he believed in…
he hated slavery and to fight to end it for all blacks was something he believed in.
He was just lucky to be put in a platoon with Abram Harrison and Travis Buchanan.
They didn’t see him as a black man, just a man.
From the very first day…they became friends…
more than friends after a few months. Logan considered them his family, his brothers. He would do anything for them.
He couldn’t believe that while waiting to be released from the Army, that Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed. What was going to happen to the country now?