Assassin Read Online Free PDF Page B

was sharp. I had dressed warmly in heavy stockings, a long wool skirt, and a thick shawl over my blouse.
    A lady who stood beside us complained to her husband of being cold. “Why you want to see him is beyond me,” she complained. “They say he is downright homely.”
    “I mean to see the man,” said her husband, and he took off his coat and put it over his wife’s shoulders. “We come all the way here to see him. He’s got a terrible job ahead of him, and I want to see his face, homely or no.”
    There were armed soldiers all along the street, and even more uniformed men with rifles perched in the high windows of buildings. I felt uneasy seeing all the guns and said so.
    “How do you suppose Lincoln feels?” Steven said. “There have been all kinds of threats to kill him, you know. There are seven states out of the union already.”
    Finally, not long before noon, we caught sight of themcoming, first soldiers on horseback and then the carriage, open so everyone could see. They sat side by side. We had always thought of Mr. Buchanan as tall, but Lincoln towered over him. Steven pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from his trouser pocket.
    “What are you doing?” I asked.
    “I want to write down things, some of what he says and all,” he told me.
    “Why?”
    “So I can study on it tonight, of course.” Steven was too kind to add, “Don’t you ever want things to think about at night?” I knew, though, that my mind, so simple compared to his, must seem a mystery to him.
    “How tall do you suppose he is?” Steven asked.
    I shrugged. “Real tall.”
    Steven scribbled, “How tall?” on his paper and stuck it back in his pocket. “If we want to hear anything, we’d better hurry,” he said then, and we began to move quickly down the street. After a few minutes Steven decided we should run. I knew my grandmother would say it was not ladylike to run on a public street, but run we did, along the edge of the street, through puddles, through crowds of people, and through groups of soldiers.
    I almost collided with a pig being chased by a boy, and Steven did run right into a small man who sold hot cider from a pushcart. The man tottered backward, but Steven grabbed him. “Excuse me, sir,” he said.
    Nothing was broken or spilled, but the man shouted,“Ruffian!” and I looked back to see him shake his fist in our direction.
    We could see the Capitol a long way before we got there. It sat on a hill, a huge white building that seemed to rise almost up into the clouds. Workmen’s scaffolds stood all about it because they were replacing the old dome with a much higher one made of cast iron. We caught sight of the rough seats that had been set up by placing lumber on barrels, but they were filled. Crowds of people stood behind the seating area.
    We stopped at the back of the crowd, but Steven was not satisfied. “We won’t hear a thing from back here,” he said. “We are going to have to work at getting up front.” He took my hand and pulled me after him. More than once, I saw him use his shoulder to force people to move far enough apart for us to slide between them. One man removed his tall hat and swatted at us with it, but we pushed on, reaching the front just before the new president was sworn into office from his place on top of the Capitol steps. We stood at the end of the third row of seats.
    “The other fellow is Chief Justice Taney,” Steven whispered.
    “Who is he?” I asked.
    Steven frowned. “You know, from the Supreme Court.” He had his paper and pencil ready.
    I did not know what the Supreme Court was, but I could tell from the frown that Steven did not want any more questions. Mr. Taney gave the oath to the new president.Both men held up their right hands. “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, “ Mr. Lincoln repeated.