Abraham's Princess

By JG Hampton

Abraham Lincoln, our sixteenth president, wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. When Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Lincoln's dressmaker, brought her namesake eight year old Lizzie to meet the president, it was a momentous occasion. He told her that she could be anything she wanted to be because of that important document which he wrote and signed; he asked her what she wanted to be; she replied: " I want to be a princess." With that famous twinkle in his eye he replied: "Well, Lizzie, if I can be president of the United States, you can certainly be a princess." She never forgot his words which proved essential to her survival when she was kidnapped and returned to slavery in New Orleans. By using her remarkable talents she saves enough money to escape. This is a must read for admirers of Abraham Lincoln and underdogs everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JG Hampton
• Release date: May 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310028502

JG Hampton

J. G. Hampton is a full time author/illustrator who graduated magna cum laude from the University of Utah as an educator who thanks to recertification requirements has accumulated enough hours for a master’s degree from Utah State University. A survivor of both a wicked mother-in-law and a wicked stepmother who stole her inheritance, she’s trying to live happily ever after despite a few evil spells during her life. Being left handed in a right handed world, she has yet to master Leonardo Da Vinci’s mirror handwriting technique, but she has mastered being a reverse image identical mirror twin who not only survived her birth as the runt of the litter, but the birthing of three daughters and over twenty literary magnum opuses in several genres. While constantly rooting for the underdogs of the world, she looks at crystal goblets and life as being half full rather than half empty. A firm believer that one must create their own magic if one is to enjoy life. She enjoys happy endings in her fiction and nonfiction musings. Enjoy her work on Smashwords

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Abraham's Princess by J.G. Hampton, Abraham's Princess by J.G. Hampton, smashwords edition 2015 read other books by J.G. Hampton: The Secret in the Garden, Abraham and Mary in Love, Confession of a Former Fairy Godmother, Abraham Lincoln and his Sons, Polygamy, was it Worth Dying For? Three Ornery Blind Mice, Pinkalotta Rose Pipsqueak in "Bully for You, The Bog Queen's Mile High Pie Fly, Haunted Tales, Halls and Toys, Charlotte and the Humongous Bat, Charlotte and the Easter Rabbit, Charlotte and the Ice Cream Factory The Snow Queen's Life and Times and the Diary of a Wimpy Czarovitch. Please respect the hard work of the author by paying for your e-books before downloading; e-books make great gifts for friends, but return to smashwords.com and pay for them before downloading.

Chapter One -Emancipation for All

The tall man dressed in a dignified black suit sat at the large walnut desk contemplating his actions. Running his long fingers through his coarse black hair and fidgeting with the collar on the shirt his wife, Mary, had lovingly made for him, he studied the document in front of him. He'd had the paper in his possession for months. Still, as he sat at his desk, he wondered: Was the timing right? He knew that he was about to lift the lid off of a malevolent Pandora's box and that he would be held responsible. Was the country ready?

Stretching his tall legs out in front of him he leaned his head backwards and reviewed in his mind the past few months since he came to Washington D.C. The fighting had been deadlier than he'd ever imagined. Not a day passed without funeral hearses carting dead soldiers home to different parts of the country. He'd had to consecrate a farmer's field in Pennsylvania for a burial ground and the thousands dead he'd seen haunted his dreams.

How tame were the jeers and the catcalls of the crowd when he'd stated in his early campaign: Negroes are almost as equal as whites. His position had been bold for the time. His opponent, Stephen A. Douglas, had called him a Negro lover. He smiled to himself. At the time he hadn't known many Negroes personally, other than his hired black woman and her husband and children. He could have counted his black acquaintances on one hand. He'd been raised in a cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky far from civilization. His pa had liked it that way and so did his ma, but then she'd died probably from a poisonous milkweed that the cow ate which got into the milk. Then his sister and he were left to fend for themselves until his pa married a widow woman and together they tried to raise him and his sister along with her offspring. Black men had been a rare sight. Yet he knew that there were basic facts of humanity shared by all mortals which were inalienable and it was his destiny to secure those rights for all men.

Since coming to Washington, he'd met black inventors, scientists, and statesmen who planned to start a college for blacks. Negro soldiers were now dying for a country in which they had no rights. Now, more than ever, he felt justified in his viewpoint on an equality of rights. If slavery wasn't wrong, nothing was wrong.

The Dred Scott decision declaring that Negroes were not to be considered citizens and should not be allowed to use the court system still rankled him. The judge hadn't even ascribed that blacks were human. That one decision had split the north and south wide apart. He hadn't agreed with the Supreme Court Justice who made that conclusion and he felt that the founding fathers wouldn't have either; even if some of them owned slaves and others bred with them.

How could any man, let alone a justice of the highest court in the free land of the United States of America come up with those ideas? It really stuck in his craw. Hadn't the man ever read the Holy Bible? He read it every morning for as long as he could remember and cherished its language. We all came from two people, Adam and Eve. That made us all brothers and sisters whether we were black, white, or polkadotted. Yet throughout time immemorial man had tried to enslave men. It was the moment for him to lead out as the sixteenth president. A peace settled over him, it was the moment to sign the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that all blacks were free. He'd worked over the wording until he was satisfied with his magnum opus. Lifting his pen he dipped it in the black ink and signed his name--Abraham Lincoln.

Chapter Two - A Clear Target

The next afternoon, Elizabeth Keckley stepped into the presidential office. Mister Lincoln, sir, she said politely. I've brought you some lunch, she said delivering his sandwiches. Your wife couldn't get away and asked me to bring it to you, sir, since I was through with the dress fitting. Elizabeth was his wife Mary's black dressmaker and a finer harder working woman, he'd never met. Mary considered the intelligent woman her best friend in Washington, D.C.

By sewing and mending vast amounts of fabric, she'd been able to earn enough money to buy her and her son George's freedom from her white master. She' continued to give any extra money she earned to the poor blacks who were streaming into the federal city with little clothing.

Why, thank you kindly, Mrs. Keckley, said the president. I do feel hungry today, usually I just eat an apple. By her side was a small black mulatto girl with bright brown eyes.

That's why your wife wants me to watch you eat every bite. You're fading away before our very eyes.."

Mrs. Keckley, I've just signed a document freeing all of your people. Now all of them will be given what you worked so hard to achieve for the past eight years.

Hallelujah, Mister Lincoln, said the handsome black woman. I consider you a modern day Moses. Well, I'm hardly that, Mrs. Keckley, but slavery needs to end so that our country can have a new beginning. He smelled the chicken sandwich with obvious delight.

Who's your little friend?

Her name's Lizzie; she's a dear friend's little daughter; she happens to be my name sake; I'm right proud of her; she's my apprentice and she's well beyond her years, even if I do say so myself.

Well, young Lizzie, he said picking the small girl up and placing her on his lap. She settled down against him comfortably and peered at the paper in front of her. The little girl looked into his gray eyes noticing everything about him: his scruffy beard, his greying side burns, his long nose, and the mole on his cheek. Inherently she trusted the tall, gentle man.

I always wanted a little daughter, but we were blessed with sons. I've got something here that I want you to see and remember. This here piece of paper says that you're free. You can be whatever you want to be from here on out. You can work for yourself and keep what you earn as wages. No master will ever tell you what to do and force you to do it from now on. This was difficult for the girl to understand; how could a mere piece of paper change her life as well as her mother's, auntie's and the rest of her race? She considered Mrs. Keckley her honorary auntie.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Lizzie?

You just said that I kin be anything didn't you? Her eyes widened as the meaning of the words registered in her mind.

I want to be a princess. said the small wisp of a girl. Lincoln laughed. The little girl smiled back at him causing her two dimples in her cheeks to pop as her brown eyes sparkled. Somehow she knew that this was a momentous occasion in her life.

"If I had a little daughter, I'd want her to be a princess; I've only been blessed with four sons, but my wife and I did want a little daughter. His large scarred hands patted her on the back.

Well, young Lizzie, remember this, if I can be the sixteenth president of the United States of America, you can be a princess. Elizabeth Keckley laughed along with him as she looked at her small niece in her coarse homespun outfit, her worn out shoes, the darned black stockings which bagged at her knees and her tightly kinked hair which she'd plaited in corn rows that morning and topped with two small bows.

You are certainly a different kind of princess than the ones living in Buckingham Palace with their queenly mother Victoria, but you're a beautiful one darling, inside and out. said her auntie grinning broadly and gazing at the girl with all the love her heart could bestow.

Is them you're two boys? asked Lizzie pointing at the two photographs on his desk. Yes, that handsome boy peering back at you is William Wallace, who is eleven years old and the younger boy is Tad. You two will have to meet; you're near the same age and he's always looking for playmates. My oldest son Bob is away getting educated in Boston.

Chapter Three - The Worth of a Soul

The next morning skinny little Lizzie woke up and made