Lincoln, the unknown

44 • LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNfarmer's kitchen. Lincoln soon got a job plowing corn on thesame farm. In the evening he stood in the kitchen wiping thedishes which Ann washed. He was filled with a vast happinessat the very thought of being near her. Never again was he to experiencesuch rapture and such content. Shortly before his deathhe confessed to a friend that he had been happier as a barefootfarm laborer back in Illinois than he had ever been in theWhite House.But the ecstasy of the lovers was as short as it was intense.In August, 1835, Ann fell ill. At first there was no pain, nothingbut great fatigue and weariness. She tried to carry on herwork as usual, but one morning she was unable to get out ofbed. That day the fever came, and her brother rode over to NewSalem for Dr. Allen. He pronounced it typhoid. Her bodyseemed to be burning, but her feet were so cold that they hadto be warmed with hot stones. She kept begging vainly forwater. Medical science now knows that she should have beenpacked in ice and given all the water she could drink, but Dr.Allen didn't know that.Dreadful weeks dragged by. Finally Ann was so exhaustedthat she could no longer raise even her hands from the sheets.Dr. Allen ordered absolute rest, visitors were forbidden, andthat night when Lincoln came even he was not permitted to seeher. But the next day and the following day she kept murmuringhis name and calling for him so pitifully that he was sent for.When he arrived, he went to her bedside immediately, the doorwas closed, and they were left alone. This was the last hour ofthe lovers together.The next day Ann lostconsciousness and remained unconsciousuntil her death.The weeks that followed were the most terrible period of Lincoln'slife. He couldn't sleep. He wouldn't eat. He repeatedlysaid that he didn't want to live, and he threatened to kill himself.His friends became alarmed, took his pocket-knife away, andwatched to keep him from throwing himself into the river. Heavoided people, and when he met them he didn't speak, didn'teven seem to see them, but appeared to be staring into anotherworld, hardly conscious of the existence of this.Day after day he walked five miles to the Concord Cemetery,where Ann was buried. Sometimes he sat there so long that hisfriends grew anxious, and went and brought him home. When