An Unlikely Friendship Read Free Page A

she told Robert. "It's your father's dream. He told me of it within the last week. Do you want to know what he dreamed?"
    "Becalm yourself, Mother. Here, I'll get you some brandy." He got up and went to a small table where there was a brandy set. He poured some in a glass and brought it to his mother.
    "He told me he dreamed he awoke in his bed to the sound of people crying. He betook himself below stairs and there he saw, in the East Room, a corpse lying on a catafalque, surrounded by soldiers on guard. 'Who is dead in the White House?' he asked one of the soldiers. 'The president,' came the answer. 'He was killed by an assassin.' Then, sweating and shaking, he woke up. And he couldn't sleep the rest of the night."
    "Mother, you must becalm yourself."
    Mary looked around the small room. "Someone is missing, Robert."
    "Who? Everyone is here. Except Tad. I didn't want to wake him."
    "No, Lizzy. I want Lizzy Keckley, Robert. You must send a carriage for her." Mary was becoming agitated. "Please, Robert, send a carriage for her now. I must have Lizzy with me. I cannot endure this without her, Robert."
    ***
    T HE NOISE OUTSIDE on Twelfth Street did not waken Lizzy Keckley that night. She slept undisturbed until the knock came on the door at eleven o'clock. She got up, put on her robe, and went to the door before the knocking could wake the Lewises, her landlords.
    It was a neighbor, Mrs. Brown. She looked desperate. "Mr. Lincoln has been shot," she told Lizzy.
    At first she thought Mrs. Brown was drunk. Over her shoulder she saw revelers in the street, still celebrating the end of the war. But wait, they were not celebrating.
    There were soldiers all about, with drawn bayonets, and the people—men, women, and children—were in nightclothes, some of them, and seemed to be wandering around aimlessly. They were wailing, sobbing. Some men were putting the flags at half-mast.
    "Where?" she asked Mrs. Brown. "Who shot him?"
    "I heard an actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth. The army is out looking for him now."
    She drew in her breath sharply. Mrs. Lincoln! She must go to her. But go where? The play must be over by now. To the White House! "I must dress," she told herself. The night had grown chilly and there would be rain. "I must go now."
    Within ten minutes she was out on Twelfth Street, pushing her way through the crowds of milling people. "Who shot him?" someone said. Then, "There's a reward of twenty thousand dollars for the murderers."
    And, "Excuse me, ma'am, but you're colored, aren't you? All the colored people are assembling in front of the White House."
    "Thank you," Lizzy said, and made her way toward the familiar mansion, walking briskly. Already soldiers were marching to the barking of orders; men were tearing down the flowers from light poles and putting up draped black bunting.
    But oh, the crowd in front of the White House! She would never get through! She would go the back way, a way familiar to her, through alleys and shanties of the colored people. But it was dangerous going alone this time of night. She would go back to the house and get her landlords, the Lewises, to accompany her. Mr. Lewis was a big, brawny man and had a gun.
    They were awake when she got back, throwing questions at her as they pulled on rain clothes, and she told them what it was like outside. "I can get us to the White House the way I know, but I can't go it alone," she told them.
    They agreed to come with her. Mr. Lewis put his gun inside his oilcloth slicker and picked up and lighted a lantern. And once again she ventured out, this time feeling confident that she would get there.
    By now it was quarter of one in the morning but it was like daylight in the streets, what with torchlight and bells tolling and army wagons rushing along and people gathering in bunches to console one another. All the windows of the houses were lighted, and there was an angry murmuring in the crowds.
    Lizzy led the Lewises the back way, away from the