That night, after dinner, Abby and her dad were sitting on the couch in their living room. He was grading homework for his social studies class.
The TV was on, and Abby was changing channels, looking for something to watch.
“Hey, stop!” Mr. Douglass said, looking up from his work. “A history show!”
Abby started to complain—but stopped herself.
“Great,” she said. “I like history.”
The screen showed a photo of an old house. A house Abby recognized.
“That’s Springfield, Illinois,” she said. “Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s house!”
Her dad was impressed. “How’d you know that?”
“Let’s just watch,” Abby said.
The narrator of the show was saying: “The Lincoln home in Springfield was normally a lively place, with friends and political allies coming and going at all hours. But in the fall of 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was a candidate for president of the United States, the house was unusually quiet.”
The TV showed a photo of the inside of the house. Lincoln was sitting in a chair.
“Lincoln refused to talk about the coming election,” the narrator said. “In fact, he did not do anything at all. He just sat in a rocking chair, reading. All day. Every day. That’s it. Well, sometimes, he played handball in an alley near his office. But really, not much else.”
Lincoln’s waiting, Abby thought. Waiting to see what happens at our school tomorrow.
“Terrible show,” Mr. Douglass said. “Put on the basketball game.”
Abby flipped to the game. “Dad,” she said, “what’s the big deal about history?”
“I’d be out of a job without it.”
Abby hadn’t thought of that.
Doc walked in from the kitchen with a bag of chips. “She means, why do we have to know it?”
“You don’t have to,” Mr. Douglass said. “That’s just something we tell kids. But knowing history makes you smarter, helps you understand the world better. Mostly, it’s just fun.”
“Kids say it’s …” Abby lowered her voice to a whisper, “boring.”
“Some shows are boring, some books,” Mr. Douglass said. “But history is just stories. Surprising, sad, funny, gross stories. Set in all different times and places. What’s boring about that? Haven’t you read about Lincoln in school?”
“Not so much,” Abby said.
Mr. Douglass smiled. He loved any excuse to talk about history. “Well, Lincoln ran for president in 1860, right? The country was bitterly divided, mainly over the issue of slavery. About four million African Americans were living in slavery in the Southern states.”
“And Lincoln was against slavery?” Doc asked.
“He knew it was wrong,” Mr. Douglass said. “But he thought it would take a long time to get rid of it. His goal was to stop slavery from spreading to new states. Most of what’s now the western United States hadn’t been made into states yet. Should slavery be allowed there? Lincoln said no. Voters in the South said yes. Of course, enslaved people couldn’t vote. Or women, either.”
“What?” Abby asked. “Why not?”
“That was the law.”
“That’s not fair!”
“No,” their dad said, “but listen.”
“He’s in teacher mode,” Doc whispered. “There’s no stopping him.”
And there really wasn’t.
“Lincoln won the election, but Southern leaders wouldn’t accept him as president. They chose to drop out of the United States and form their own government.
“But Lincoln was ready to fight to hold the country together—that fight was the Civil War. Lincoln made mistakes, sure, like hiring some lousy generals. But he also did great things, like the Emancipation Proclamation—”
Doc slapped himself on the forehead.
“That’s what I was trying to think of!” he said. “When we were talking with Lincoln today. I knew he signed something good.”
Mr. Douglass turned to his son.
“So the Emancipation thing,” Doc said. “What’d it do, again?”
“Proclamation,” Mr. Douglass said. “It set the goal of freeing all enslaved people in the Confederate States. Up to this point, the Civil War had been about saving the Union. After the Emancipation Proclamation, the goal was to save the Union and end slavery. And let’s not forget Lincoln’s speeches, his beautiful dreams for our country!”
Mr. Douglass leaped from the couch, sending homework flying. “This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom!” he roared. “And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth!”
“Nice,” Doc said.
“Gettysburg Address,” Mr. Douglass said.
“Did he tell jokes?” Abby asked.
“Bad ones, I think,” he said. “I’ll find you guys a good Lincoln book.”
But that could be a problem. How could there be a good book about a guy who just sits in a chair?
Doc and Abby looked at each other. They’d lived together long enough to read each other’s minds. We have one chance to persuade Lincoln to go back to work. One last chance.