Blessed are the Merciful Read Online Free

squeezed his hands. “I’ll let Uncle Sidney tell you about it.”
    Sidney knelt in front of the boy. As he told the story to Adam, Elizabeth watched the fire rise in her son’s dark eyes.
    Suddenly Adam jumped up from the couch, his fists clenched,and looked at the floor through tear-dimmed eyes. “Mr. Lincoln led this country through that awful Civil War. He … he freed the slaves. He’s done nothing but good for all of us; especially us northerners. Now the thanks he gets is a bullet in his head!”
    Sidney rose to his feet and sent a helpless glance to Elizabeth.
    Suddenly Adam whirled about. “I hate that John Wilkes Booth! I hope they catch him and shoot him!”
    Sidney laid a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I know how you feel, Adam. I want to see Booth pay to the ultimate for what he did.”
    “I’d like to be the one who tracks him down, Uncle Sidney! I’d shoot him in the stomach so he’d die real slow! I’d stand over him and laugh while he clutched his bleeding belly!”
    “Adam!” Elizabeth said. “Your hating John Booth will only dry you up on the inside. Don’t concentrate on him. Put your mind on Mr. Lincoln, and hope that he gets well.”
    The boy took a deep breath, then said, “Mr. Lincoln is tough, Mama. He might just fool the doctors and come through it.”
    Elizabeth wrapped her arms around him. “Just hang on to that hope. Maybe you’re right! Maybe Mr. Lincoln is tough enough to come through this.”
    That night, Adam Burke lay in his bed. Sleep refused to come. He thought about praying but wasn’t sure how to do it. He had heard someone pray only one time, and that was when he attended the funeral of a neighbor, and the minister had said a prayer over the grave.
    Adam threw back the covers and left his bed. Moonlight filtered into the room through the lace curtains. He stood before the pictures of Lincoln and studied each one, then began pacing from one end of the room to the other.
    “Why? Why did John Booth hate Mr. Lincoln so much that he would shoot him like that?”
    He lost track of the time and was surprised when he heard a lighttap at his door. He grabbed his robe and shrugged into it, tying the sash around his slender waist. It was Cleora. She whispered softly, “Master Adam, is you all right? I can hear you walkin’ back an’ forth from down in my room.”
    “I … I’m just so upset about Mr. Lincoln, Cleora. I don’t want him to die.”
    “Me either. He’s such a good man. All my folk down in Alabama has been slaves fo’ so many years. An’ now they ain’t slaves no mo’ ’cause Mr. Lincoln made ’em free. God bless him.”
    “Yes. God bless him.”
    “ ’Course I’s so thankful I was brought up north by my mother’s frien’s when she died, an’ yo’ mama and papa give me a job. I has truly been blessed. Adam, is there anythin’ I can do fo’ you?”
    “No, but thank you. I’ll go back to bed and try to get to sleep.”
    “Well, you’d better hurry to sleep, ’cause it’s gonna be mornin’ in ’bout two hours. G’night.”
    “Good night,” Adam whispered, quietly closing the door.
    Sunday morning arrived with a brilliant sunrise that stabbed Adam’s tired eyes as it shafted through the windows. He had not slept.
    The atmosphere at breakfast was dismal until Elizabeth said, “Now, children, I know we’re all concerned about our president, and it is right that we should be. But let’s be glad for what’s good in our lives. Papa will soon be home.”
    Her words helped to lift countenances. Elizabeth talked about how Papa always liked for her to fix a picnic lunch on Sunday afternoons in the summertime, and he would drive the family down to Boston Harbor in the horse and buggy so they could have their picnic and watch the sailboats.
    Adam and Laura remembered those happy times, but not Evelyn. This made her want her papa to come home all the more. Soon it would be summer, and she could enjoy that adventure over and over