I Am Abraham by Jerome Charyn

tiny counter at McNeil & Hill. The mail piled up in pyramids at the general store, and I had to deliver letters out of my hat, stomping around until my feet were sore. But I couldn’t survive on a postmaster’s pay. I was appointed assistant land surveyor, even if I knew nothing of a surveyor’s art. I learned as best I could and bought myself a compass and surveyor’s chain. I had to wade through swamps and briar bushes to set up the simplest measurements. And soon I was surveying roads and farms and settling boundary disputes—I charged 37½ cents to survey a small town lot, but I also built fences and an occasional barn. I wrote up deeds and served on juries. I wanted to become a lawyer in the worst way, but I didn’t have the wherewithal. Whatever I did I did alone.
    I sat in on Justice Green’s court. Sometimes I acted as bailiff, or I pleaded for the plaintiff if that plaintiff had no one else to plead for him. I crept into the legal profession through the back door—that is, Justice Green’s own bench at McNeil & Hill. That’s where our court was located whenever Justice Green decided to be in session, which was as often as his mood and the weather struck him right. On rare occasions I sat in for Justice Green himself. I had no legal status. I didn’t wear any robes. I just sat in his chair.
    One of the cases on my docket was a family feud, a farmer versus his son. I could have been witnessing my own Pa and his son as a slightly younger man. This boy wasn’t a rawboned giant, but he could have been Abe Lincoln. His Pa had hired him to build a barn; they’d settled on a price. Efram the boy was called. He slaved like a dog, working beside his Pa, morning, afternoon, and night. He beveled every single board. He scratched and scraped and put up the roof, but after he was finished, his Pa said he didn’t owe him a cent, since Efram was underage. Efram broke his father’s jaw, and now the farmer was suing his son for damages.
    They stood before me on the second Tuesday in October of 1833. The farmer’s name was Obadiah. He was a man in his fifties, like Tom Lincoln, my Pa. He had Pa’s surliness, even the same rotten eye. His broken jaw must have healed up, because there wasn’t any sign of the break except for a certain blueness. It was Efram who hadn’t healed, Efram who had all the bruises. He wasn’t nearly as tall as his Pa. He shifted around in the sawdust, his shoulders slumped, like some half-wild creature who wanted to burst out of his clothes.
    “And how much in damages are you asking, Mr. Obadiah Young?”
    The farmer kept staring around the store. We had an audience of onlookers, since Justice Green’s sessions were often the best entertainment in town, much more amusing than a monster show. I noticed Annie Rutledge slouching in a chair beside John McNeil. He was combing his whiskers and staring into her eyes.
    “Five dollars,” the farmer said, holding up the fingers of one hand. “Or fifteen days of solid work.”
    He seemed satisfied with his own summation, more than satisfied. His features were positively glowing, as if caught in the blaze of a fire.
    “Efram Young, did you strike your father on the fifth day of September last?”
    The boy was as sad a specimen as I’d ever seen. He had none of his father’s glow. And he had great trouble finding his own speech. His eyes were etched in darkness, even in the light of McNeil & Hill’s lamps. He pondered with a finger near his mouth, and finally he spoke in a voice pitched as high as my own. It was like a squeal.
    “I did, Mr. Justice Lincoln.”
    I had an inclination to hold the boy’s hand. “I’m not a regular justice of the peace, Efram. I’m only sitting in for the law.”
    “Then what ought I to call you, sir?”
    “Abraham, or Mr. Lincoln. . . . And why did you strike your own father on that fore-mentioned day?”
    Again the boy withdrew into himself to find his words. It rubbed at my heart, but I dared not reveal my