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+Project Gutenberg's The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln, by Wayne Whipple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln
+
+Author: Wayne Whipple
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2007 [EBook #22925]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Story of
+Young Abraham Lincoln
+
+By
+
+WAYNE WHIPPLE
+
+Author of The Story of the American Flag, The Story of the Liberty Bell,
+The Story of the White House, The Story of Young George Washington, the
+Story of Young Benjamin Franklin, etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+       INTRODUCTION                                       9
+
+    I. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FOREFATHERS                     15
+
+   II. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER AND MOTHER               24
+
+  III. THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER                    33
+
+   IV. LEARNING TO WORK                                  40
+
+    V. LOSING HIS MOTHER                                 52
+
+   VI. SCHOOL DAYS NOW AND THEN.                         62
+
+  VII. ABE AND THE NEIGHBORS                             77
+
+ VIII. MOVING TO ILLINOIS                                94
+
+   IX. STARTING OUT FOR HIMSELF                         102
+
+    X. CLERKING AND WORKING                             115
+
+   XI. POLITICS, WAR, STOREKEEPING, AND STUDYING LAW    126
+
+  XII. BUYING AND KEEPING A STORE                       140
+
+ XIII. THE YOUNG LEGISLATOR IN LOVE.                    147
+
+  XIV. MOVING TO SPRINGFIELD                            162
+
+   XV. LINCOLN & HERNDON                                184
+
+  XVI. HIS KINDNESS OF HEART                            194
+
+ XVII. WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABRAHAM
+         LINCOLN AND HIS STEPBROTHER                    208
+
+XVIII. HOW EMANCIPATION CAME TO PASS                    215
+
+  XIX. THE GLORY OF GETTYSBURG                          226
+
+   XX. "NO END OF A BOY"                                234
+
+  XXI. LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN, PATRIOT                  248
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+LINCOLN FROM NEW AND UNUSUAL SOURCES
+
+
+The boy or girl who reads to-day may know more about the real Lincoln
+than his own children knew. The greatest President's son, Robert
+Lincoln, discussing a certain incident in their life in the White House,
+remarked to the writer, with a smile full of meaning:
+
+"I believe you know more about our family matters than I do!"
+
+This is because "all the world loves a lover"--and Abraham Lincoln loved
+everybody. With all his brain and brawn, his real greatness was in his
+heart. He has been called "the Great-Heart of the White House," and
+there is little doubt that more people have heard about him than there
+are who have read of the original "Great-Heart" in "The Pilgrim's
+Progress."
+
+Indeed, it is safe to say that more millions in the modern world are
+acquainted with the story of the rise of Abraham Lincoln from a poorly
+built log cabin to the highest place among "the seats of the mighty,"
+than are familiar with the Bible story of Joseph who arose and stood
+next to the throne of the Pharaohs.
+
+Nearly every year, especially since the Lincoln Centennial, 1909,
+something new has been added to the universal knowledge of one of the
+greatest, if not _the_ greatest man who ever lived his life in the
+world. Not only those who "knew Lincoln," but many who only "saw him
+once" or shook hands with him, have been called upon to tell what they
+saw him do or heard him say. So hearty was his kindness toward everybody
+that the most casual remark of his seems to be charged with deep human
+affection--"the touch of Nature" which has made "the whole world kin" to
+him.
+
+He knew just how to sympathize with every one. The people felt this,
+without knowing why, and recognized it in every deed or word or touch,
+so that those who have once felt the grasp of his great warm hand seem
+to have been drawn into the strong circuit of "Lincoln fellowship," and
+were enabled, as if by "the laying on of hands," to speak of him ever
+after with a deep and tender feeling.
+
+There are many such people who did not rush into print with their
+observations and experiences. Their Lincoln memories seemed too sacred
+to scatter far and wide. Some of them have yielded, with real
+reluctance, in relating all for publication in THE STORY OF YOUNG
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN only because they wished their recollections to benefit
+the rising generation.
+
+Several of these modest folk have shed true light on important phases
+and events in Lincoln's life history. For instance, there has been much
+discussion concerning Lincoln's Gettysburg Address--where was it
+written, and did he deliver it from notes?
+
+Now, fifty years after that great occasion, comes a distinguished
+college professor who unconsciously settles the whole dispute, whether
+Lincoln held his notes in his right hand or his left--if he used them at
+all!--while making his immortal "little speech." To a group of veterans
+of the Grand Army of the Republic he related, casually, what he saw
+while a college student at Gettysburg, after working his way through the
+crowd of fifteen thousand people to the front of the platform on that
+memorable day. From this point of vantage he saw and heard everything,
+and there is no gainsaying the vivid memories of his first
+impressions--how the President held the little pages in both hands
+straight down before him, swinging his tall form to right, to left and
+to the front again as he emphasized the now familiar closing words,
+"_of_ the people--_by_ the people--_for_ the people--shall not perish
+from the earth."
+
+Such data have been gathered from various sources and are here given for
+the first time in a connected life-story. Several corrections of stories
+giving rise to popular misconceptions have been supplied by Robert,
+Lincoln's only living son. One of these is the true version of "Bob's"
+losing the only copy of his father's first inaugural address. Others
+were furnished by two aged Illinois friends who were acquainted with
+"Abe" before he became famous. One of these explained, without knowing
+it, a question which has puzzled several biographers--how a young man of
+Lincoln's shrewd intelligence could have been guilty of such a
+misdemeanor, as captain in the Black Hawk War, as to make it necessary
+for his superior officer to deprive him of his sword for a single day.
+
+A new story is told by a dear old lady, who did not wish her name
+given, about herself when she was a little girl, when a "drove of
+lawyers riding the old Eighth Judicial District of Illinois," came to
+drink from a famous cold spring on her father's premises. She described
+the uncouth dress of a tall young man, asking her father who he was, and
+he replied with a laugh, "Oh, that's Abe Lincoln."
+
+One day in their rounds, as the lawyers came through the front gate, a
+certain judge, whose name the narrator refused to divulge, knocked down
+with his cane her pet doll, which was leaning against the fence. The
+little girl cried over this contemptuous treatment of her "child."
+
+Young Lawyer Lincoln, seeing it all, sprang in and quickly picked up the
+fallen doll. Brushing off the dust with his great awkward hand he said,
+soothingly, to the wounded little mother-heart:
+
+"There now, little Black Eyes, don't cry. Your baby's alive. See, she
+isn't hurt a bit!"
+
+That tall young man never looked uncouth to her after that. It was this
+same old lady who told the writer that Lawyer Lincoln wore a new suit of
+clothes for the first time on the very day that he performed the
+oft-described feat of rescuing a helpless hog from a great deep hole in
+the road, and plastered his new clothes with mud to the great merriment
+of his legal friends. This well-known incident occurred not far from her
+father's place near Paris, Illinois.
+
+These and many other new and corrected incidents are now collected for
+THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in addition to the best of
+everything suitable that was known before--as the highest patriotic
+service which the writer can render to the young people of the United
+States of America.
+
+                                                       WAYNE WHIPPLE.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF
+YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FOREFATHERS
+
+
+Lincoln's grandfather, for whom he was named Abraham, was a distant
+cousin to Daniel Boone. The Boones and the Lincolns had intermarried for
+generations. The Lincolns were of good old English stock. When he was
+President, Abraham Lincoln, who had never given much attention to the
+family pedigree, said that the history of his family was well described
+by a single line in Gray's "Elegy":
+
+"The short and simple annals of the poor."
+
+Yet Grandfather Abraham was wealthy for his day. He accompanied Boone
+from Virginia to Kentucky and lost his life there. He had sacrificed
+part of his property to the pioneer spirit within him, and, with the
+killing of their father, his family lost the rest. They were "land
+poor" in the wilderness of the "Dark-and-Bloody-Ground"--the meaning of
+the Indian name, "Ken-tuc-kee."
+
+Grandfather Lincoln had built a solid log cabin and cleared a field or
+two around it, near the Falls of the Ohio, about where Louisville now
+stands. But, in the Summer of 1784, the tragic day dawned upon the
+Lincolns which has come to many a pioneer family in Kentucky and
+elsewhere. His son Thomas told this story to his children:
+
+
+HOW INDIANS KILLED "GRANDFATHER LINCOLN"
+
+"My father--your grandfather, Abraham Lincoln--come over the mountains
+from Virginia with his cousin, Dan'l Boone. He was rich for them times,
+as he had property worth seventeen thousand dollars; but Mr. Boone he
+told Father he could make a good deal more by trappin' and tradin' with
+the Injuns for valuable pelts, or fur skins.
+
+"You know, Dan'l Boone he had lived among the Injuns. He was a sure shot
+with the rifle so's he could beat the redskins at their own game. They
+took him a prisoner oncet, and instead of killin' him, they was about
+ready to make him chief--he pretended all the while as how he'd like
+that--when he got away from 'em. He was such a good fellow that them
+Injuns admired his shrewdness, and they let him do about what he
+pleased. So he thought they'd let Father alone.
+
+"Well, your grandfather was a Quaker, you see, and believed in treatin'
+them red devils well--like William Penn done, you know. He was a man for
+peace and quiet, and everything was goin' smooth with the tribes of what
+we called the Beargrass Country, till one day, when he and my brothers,
+Mordecai--'Mord' was a big fellow for his age--and Josiah, a few years
+younger--was out in the clearin' with the oxen, haulin' logs down to the
+crick. I went along too, but I didn't help much--for I was only six.
+
+"Young as I was, I remember what happened that day like it was only
+yesterday. It come like a bolt out of the blue. We see Father drop like
+he was shot--for he _was_ shot! Then I heard the crack of a rifle and I
+saw a puff of smoke floatin' out o' the bushes.
+
+"Injuns!" gasps Mord, and starts on the run for the house--to get his
+gun. Josiah, he starts right off in the opposite direction to the
+Beargrass fort--we called it a fort, but it was nothin' but a stockade.
+The way we boys scattered was like a brood o' young turkeys, or
+pa'tridges, strikin' for cover when the old one is shot. I knowed I'd
+ought to run too, but I didn't want to leave my father layin' there on
+the ground. Seemed like I'd ought to woke him up so he could run too.
+Yet I didn't feel like touchin' him. I think I must 'a' knowed he was
+dead.
+
+"While I was standin' still, starin' like the oxen, not knowin' what to
+do, a big Injun come out o' the brush, with a big knife in his hand. I
+knowed what he was goin' to do--skelp my father! I braced up to 'im to
+keep 'im away, an' he jist laffed at me. I never think what the devil
+looks like without seein' that red demon with his snaky black eyes,
+grinnin' at me!
+
+
+TOM LINCOLN CHASED BY INDIANS
+
+"He picked me up like I was a baby an set me on the sawlog, an' was
+turnin' back to skelp Father, when--biff!--another gun-crack--and Mr.
+Big Indian he drops jist like your grandfather did, only he wriggles and
+squirms around, bitin' the dust--like a big snake for all the world!
+
+"I was standin' there, kind o' dazed, watchin' another puff o' white
+smoke, comin' out between two logs in the side of our house. Then I
+knowed 'Mord' had shot my Injun. He had run in, got the gun down off'n
+the wall, an' peekin' out through a crack, he sees that Injun takin'
+hold o' me. Waitin' till the ol' demon turns away, so's not to hit me,
+'Mord' he aims at a silver dangler on Mr. Injun's breast and makes him
+drop in his tracks like I said. Your Uncle 'Mord' he was a sure
+shot--like Cousin Dan'l Boone.
+
+"Then I hears the most blood-curdlin' yells, and a lot o' red devils
+jump out o' the bushes an' come for me brandishin' their tomahawks an'
+skelpin' knives. It was like hell broke loose. They had been watchin'
+an', of course, 'twas all right to kill Father, but when 'Mord' killed
+one o' their bucks, that made a big difference. I had sense enough left
+to run for the house with them Injuns after me. Seemed like I couldn't
+run half as fast as usual, but I must 'a' made purty good time, from
+what 'Mord' an' Mother said afterward.
+
+"He said one was ahead o' the rest an' had his tomahawk raised to brain
+me with it when--bing!--an' 'Mord' fetches _him_ down like he did the
+fellow that was goin' to skelp Father. That made the others mad an' they
+took after me, but 'Mord' he drops the head one jist when he's goin' to
+hit me. But all I knowed at the time was that them red devils was
+a-chasin' me, and I'd got to 'leg it' for dear life!
+
+"When I gits near enough to the house, I hears Mother and 'Mord'
+hollerin' to make me run faster and go to the door, for Mother had it
+open jist wide enough to reach out an' snatch me in--when the third
+Injun was stoopin' to grab me, but 'Mord' makes him bite the dust like
+the others.
+
+"My, but wasn't them Injuns mad! Some of 'em sneaked around behind the
+house--they had to give 'Mord's' gun a wide berth to git there!--but he
+could only protect the front--and was a-settin' fire to our cabin to
+smoke us out or roast us alive, jist when the soldiers come with Josiah
+from the fort and saved our lives. Then the Injuns made 'emselves
+scurce--but they druv off the oxen and all our other stock.
+
+
+"MORD" LINCOLN, INDIAN FIGHTER
+
+"That was the breaking up of our family. None of us boys was old enough
+to take Father's place, an' Mother she was afraid to live there alone.
+Accordin' to the laws o' Virginia--Kentucky belonged to Virginia
+then--the oldest son got all the proputty, so 'Mord' he gets it all. He
+was welcome to it too, for he was the only one of us that could take
+care of it. 'Mord' he wasn't satisfied with killin' a few Injuns that
+day to revenge Father's death. He made a business of shootin' 'em on
+sight--a reg'lar Injun stalker! He couldn't see that he was jist as
+savage as the worst Injun, to murder 'em without waitin' to see whether
+Mr. Injun was a friend or a foe.
+
+"Oncet when I told 'im there was good an' bad red men like they wuz good
+an' bad white men, he said I might jist as well say 'good _devil_' as
+'good Injun!' He says 'the only good Injun's the dead Injun!'
+
+"Well, the settlers must 'a' 'greed with 'Mord,' for they made him
+sheriff o' the county--he was sech a good shot, too--an' they 'lected
+him to the Legislatur' after Kentucky come in as a State. He stood high
+in the county. Folks didn't mind his shootin' an' Injun or two, more or
+less, when he got the chancet. They all looked on redskins like they
+was catamounts an' other pesky varmints.
+
+"Your grandmother Lincoln an' Josiah an' me moved over into Washington
+County, but she had hard scrabblin' to git a livin'. Josiah he stayed
+with her, an' between him an' 'Mord,' they helped her along, but I had
+to git out and scratch for a livin'. From the time I was ten I was hired
+out to work for my 'keep,' an' anything else I could git. I knocked
+aroun' the country, doin' this, that an' t'other thing till I picked up
+carpenterin' o' Joseph Hanks, a cousin o' mine, an' there I met his
+sister Nancy, an' that's how she come to be your mother--an' 'bout how I
+come to be your father, too!"
+
+Little is known today of Mordecai Lincoln, and there would be less
+interest in poor Thomas if he had not become the father of Abraham
+Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Mordecai Lincoln
+was a joker and humorist. One who knew him well said of him:
+
+"He was a man of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to
+look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look
+excited in me the disposition to laugh, and that was 'Artemus Ward.'
+
+"Mordecai was quite a story-teller, and in this Abe resembled his 'Uncle
+Mord,' as we called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a
+woman, and to the last degree charitable and benevolent.
+
+"Abe Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion
+remarked, 'I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all the
+talents of the family.'"
+
+In a letter about his family history, just before he was nominated for
+the presidency, Abraham Lincoln wrote:
+
+"My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished
+families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother was of a
+family of the name of Hanks. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,
+emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 2,
+where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians--not in battle, but
+by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His
+ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County,
+Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of
+the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of
+Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai,
+Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
+
+"My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he
+grew up, literally without education."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER AND MOTHER
+
+
+While Thomas Lincoln was living with a farmer and doing odd jobs of
+carpentering, he met Nancy Hanks, a tall, slender woman, with dark skin,
+dark brown hair and small, deep-set gray eyes. She had a full forehead,
+a sharp, angular face and a sad expression. Yet her disposition was
+generally cheerful. For her backwoods advantages she was considered well
+educated. She read well and could write, too. It is stated that Nancy
+Hanks taught Thomas Lincoln to write his own name. Thomas was
+twenty-eight and Nancy twenty-three when their wedding day came.
+Christopher Columbus Graham, when almost one hundred years old, gave
+the following description of the marriage feast of the Lincoln bride
+and groom:
+
+"I am one of the two living men who can prove that Abraham Lincoln, or
+Linkhorn, as the family was miscalled, was born in lawful wedlock, for I
+saw Thomas Lincoln marry Nancy Hanks on the 12th day of June, 1806. I
+was hunting roots for my medicine and just went to the wedding to get a
+good supper and got it.
+
+"Tom Lincoln was a carpenter, and a good one for those days, when a
+cabin was built mainly with the ax, and not a nail or a bolt or hinge in
+it, only leathers and pins to the doors, and no glass, except in watches
+and spectacles and bottles. Tom had the best set of tools in what was
+then and is now Washington County.
+
+"Jesse Head, the good Methodist minister that married them, was also a
+carpenter or cabinet maker by trade, and as he was then a neighbor, they
+were good friends.
+
+"While you pin me down to facts, I will say that I saw Nancy Hanks
+Lincoln at her wedding, a fresh-looking girl, I should say over twenty.
+Tom was a respectable mechanic and could choose, and she was treated
+with respect.
+
+"I was at the infare, too, given by John H. Parrott, her guardian, and
+only girls with money had guardians appointed by the court. We had bear
+meat; venison; wild turkey and ducks' eggs, wild and tame--so common
+that you could buy them at two bits a bushel; maple sugar, swung on a
+string, to bite off for coffee; syrup in big gourds, peach and honey; a
+sheep that the two families barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in
+a pit, and covered with green boughs to keep the juices in. Our table
+was of the puncheons cut from solid logs, and the next day they were the
+floor of the new cabin."
+
+Thomas Lincoln took his bride to live in a little log cabin in a
+Kentucky settlement--not a village or hardly a hamlet--called
+Elizabethtown. He evidently thought this place would be less lonesome
+for his wife, while he was away hunting and carpentering, than the
+lonely farm he had purchased in Hardin County, about fourteen miles
+away. There was so little carpentering or cabinet making to do that he
+could make a better living by farming or hunting. Thomas was very fond
+of shooting and as he was a fine marksman he could provide game for the
+table, and other things which are considered luxuries to-day, such as
+furs and skins needed for the primitive wearing apparel of the
+pioneers. A daughter was born to the young couple at Elizabethtown, whom
+they named Sarah.
+
+Dennis Hanks, a cousin of Nancy, lived near the Lincolns in the early
+days of their married life, and gave Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson this
+description of their early life together:
+
+"Looks didn't count them days, nohow. It was stren'th an' work an'
+daredevil. A lazy man or a coward was jist pizen, an' a spindlin' feller
+had to stay in the settlemints. The clearin's hadn't no use fur him. Tom
+was strong, an' he wasn't lazy nor afeer'd o' nothin', but he was kind
+o' shif'less--couldn't git nothin' ahead, an' didn't keer putickalar.
+Lots o' them kind o' fellers in 'arly days, 'druther hunt and fish, an'
+I reckon they had their use. They killed off the varmints an' made it
+safe fur other fellers to go into the woods with an ax.
+
+"When Nancy married Tom he was workin' in a carpenter shop. It wasn't
+Tom's fault he couldn't make a livin' by his trade. Thar was sca'cely
+any money in that kentry. Every man had to do his own tinkerin', an'
+keep everlastin'ly at work to git enough to eat. So Tom tuk up some
+land. It was mighty ornery land, but it was the best Tom could git,
+when he hadn't much to trade fur it.
+
+"Pore? We was all pore, them days, but the Lincolns was porer than
+anybody. Choppin' trees an' grubbin' roots an' splittin' rails an'
+huntin' an' trappin' didn't leave Tom no time. It was all he could do to
+git his fambly enough to eat and to kiver 'em. Nancy was turrible
+ashamed o' the way they lived, but she knowed Tom was doin' his best,
+an' she wa'n't the pesterin' kind. She was purty as a pictur' an' smart
+as you'd find 'em anywhere. She could read an' write. The Hankses was
+some smarter'n the Lincolns. Tom thought a heap o' Nancy, an' he was as
+good to her as he knowed how. He didn't drink or swear or play cyards or
+fight, an' them was drinkin', cussin', quarrelsome days. Tom was
+popylar, an' he could lick a bully if he had to. He jist couldn't git
+ahead, somehow."
+
+
+"NANCY'S BOY BABY"
+
+Evidently Elizabethtown failed to furnish Thomas Lincoln a living wage
+from carpentering, for he moved with his young wife and his baby girl to
+a farm on Nolen Creek, fourteen miles away. The chief attraction of the
+so-called farm was a fine spring of water bubbling up in the shade of a
+small grove. From this spring the place came to be known as "Rock Spring
+Farm." It was a barren spot and the cabin on it was a rude and primitive
+sort of home for a carpenter and joiner to occupy. It contained but a
+single room, with only one window and one door. There was a wide
+fireplace in the big chimney which was built outside. But that rude hut
+became the home of "the greatest American."
+
+Abraham Lincoln was born to poverty and privation, but he was never a
+pauper. His hardships were those of many other pioneers, the wealthiest
+of whom suffered greater privations than the poorest laboring man has to
+endure to-day.
+
+After his nomination to the presidency, Mr. Lincoln gave to Mr. Hicks, a
+portrait painter, this memorandum of his birth:
+
+        "I was born February 12, 1809, in then Hardin
+        County, Kentucky, at a point within the now
+        county of Larue, a mile or a mile and a half
+        from where Hodgen's mill now is. My parents
+        being dead, and my memory not serving, I know
+        no means of identifying the precise locality.
+        It was on Nolen Creek.
+
+                                                "A. LINCOLN.
+        "JUNE 14, 1860."
+
+The exact spot was identified after his death, and the house was found
+standing many years later. The logs were removed to Chicago, for the
+World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893, and the cabin was reconstructed
+and exhibited there and elsewhere in the United States. The materials
+were taken back to their original site, and a fine marble structure now
+encloses the precious relics of the birthplace of "the first American,"
+as Lowell calls Lincoln in his great "Commemoration Ode."
+
+Cousin Dennis Hanks gives the following quaint description of "Nancy's
+boy baby," as reported by Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson in her little book on
+"Lincoln's Boyhood."
+
+"Tom an' Nancy lived on a farm about two miles from us, when Abe was
+born. I ricollect Tom comin' over to our house one cold mornin' in
+Feb'uary an' sayin' kind o' slow, 'Nancy's got a boy baby.'
+
+"Mother got flustered an' hurried up 'er work to go over to look after
+the little feller, but I didn't have nothin' to wait fur, so I cut an'
+run the hull two mile to see my new cousin.
+
+"You bet I was tickled to death. Babies wasn't as common as blackberries
+in the woods o' Kaintucky. Mother come over an' washed him an' put a
+yaller flannel petticoat on him, an' cooked some dried berries with wild
+honey fur Nancy, an' slicked things up an' went home. An' that's all the
+nuss'n either of 'em got.
+
+"I rolled up in a b'ar skin an' slep' by the fireplace that night, so's
+I could see the little feller when he cried an' Tom had to get up an'
+tend to him. Nancy let me hold him purty soon. Folks often ask me if Abe
+was a good lookin' baby. Well, now, he looked just like any other baby,
+at fust--like red cherry pulp squeezed dry. An' he didn't improve none
+as he growed older. Abe never was much fur looks. I ricollect how Tom
+joked about Abe's long legs when he was toddlin' round the cabin. He
+growed out o' his clothes faster'n Nancy could make 'em.
+
+"But he was mighty good comp'ny, solemn as a papoose, but interested in
+everything. An' he always did have fits o' cuttin' up. I've seen him
+when he was a little feller, settin' on a stool, starin' at a visitor.
+All of a sudden he'd bu'st out laughin' fit to kill. If he told us what
+he was laughin' at, half the time we couldn't see no joke.
+
+"Abe never give Nancy no trouble after he could walk excep' to keep him
+in clothes. Most o' the time he went bar'foot. Ever wear a wet buckskin
+glove? Them moccasins wasn't no putection ag'inst the wet. Birch bark
+with hickory bark soles, strapped on over yarn socks, beat buckskin all
+holler, fur snow. Abe'n me got purty handy contrivin' things that way.
+An' Abe was right out in the woods about as soon's he was weaned,
+fishin' in the creek, settin' traps fur rabbits an' muskrats, goin' on
+coon-hunts with Tom an' me an' the dogs, follerin' up bees to find
+bee-trees, an' drappin' corn fur his pappy. Mighty interestin' life fur
+a boy, but thar was a good many chances he wouldn't live to grow up."
+
+When little Abe was four years old his father and mother moved from Rock
+Spring Farm to a better place on Knob Creek, a few miles to the
+northeast of the farm where he was born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER
+
+
+At Knob Creek the boy began to go to an "A B C" school. His first
+teacher was Zachariah Riney. Of course, there were no regular schools in
+the backwoods then. When a man who "knew enough" happened to come along,
+especially if he had nothing else to do, he tried to teach the children
+of the pioneers in a poor log schoolhouse. It is not likely that little
+Abe went to school more than a few weeks at this time, for he never had
+a year's schooling in his life. There was another teacher afterward at
+Knob Creek--a man named Caleb Hazel. Little is known of either of these
+teachers except that he taught little Abe Lincoln. If their pupil had
+not become famous the men and their schools would never have been
+mentioned in history.
+
+An old man, named Austin Gollaher, used to like to tell of the days when
+he and little Abe went to school together. He said:
+
+"Abe was an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress
+in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster than any of his schoolmates.
+Though so young, he studied very hard."
+
+Although Nancy Lincoln insisted on sending the children to school, when
+there was any, she had a large share in Abe's early education, just as
+she had taught his father to write his own name. She told them Bible
+stories and such others as she had picked up in her barren, backwoods
+life. She and her husband were too religious to believe in telling their
+children fairy tales.
+
+The best thing of all was the reading of "The Pilgrim's Progress" during
+the long Winter evenings, after the wood was brought in and Father Tom
+had set his traps and done his other work for the night. Nancy's voice
+was low, with soft, southern tones and accents. Tom and the children
+enjoyed the story of Christian's pilgrimage from the City of Destruction
+to the Celestial City the more because of her love for the story she was
+reading to them, as they lay on bearskin rugs before the blazing fire.
+
+Abe was only six, but he was a thoughtful boy. He tried to think of some
+way to show his gratitude to his mother for giving them so much
+pleasure. While out gathering sticks and cutting wood for the big
+fireplace, a happy thought came to him--he would cut off some spicewood
+branches, hack them up on a log, and secrete them behind the cabin.
+Then, when the mother was ready to read again, and Sarah and the father
+were sitting and lying before the fire, he brought in the hidden
+branches and threw them on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of
+the others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood boughs not only added
+to the brightness of the scene but filled the whole house with the
+"sweet smelling savour" of a little boy's love and gratitude.
+
+No one can fathom the pleasure of that precious memory throughout those
+four lives, as the story of Great Heart and Christiana followed
+Christian along the path that "shineth more and more unto the perfect
+day." While the father and sister were delighted with the crackle,
+sparkle and pleasant aroma of the bits of spicewood, as Abe tossed them
+upon the fire, no one could appreciate the thoughtful act of the boy so
+much as his mother. It would be strange if her eyes did not fill, as she
+read to her fascinated family, but that was not the sort of thing the
+fondest mother could speak of.
+
+Little did Nancy dream that, in reading to her son of the devotion of
+Great Heart to his charges, she was fostering a spirit in her little son
+that would help him make the noble pilgrimage from their hovel to the
+highest home in the land, where another President of the United States
+would refer to him as "the Great Heart of the White House." If any one
+could have looked ahead fifty years to see all this, and could have told
+Nancy Hanks Lincoln, she would not have believed it. After her own life
+of toil and hardship it would have seemed to her "too good to be true."
+But in the centuries following the humble yet beautiful career of "the
+Backwoods Boy" from the hut to the White House, history keeps the whole
+world saying with bated breath, "the half was never told!"
+
+
+AN OLD MAN'S STORY OF SAVING ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LIFE
+
+Austin Gollaher, grown to manhood, still living in his old log cabin
+near the Lincoln house in Knob Creek nearly twenty years after
+Lincoln's assassination, and gave the following account of an adventure
+he had with the little Lincoln boy:
+
+"I once saved Lincoln's life. We had been going to school together one
+year; but the next year we had no school, because there were so few
+scholars to attend, there being only about twenty in the school the year
+before.
+
+"Consequently Abe and I had not much to do; but, as we did not go to
+school and our mothers were strict with us, we did not get to see each
+other very often. One Sunday morning my mother waked me up early, saying
+she was going to see Mrs. Lincoln, and that I could go along. Glad of
+the chance, I was soon dressed and ready to go. After my mother and I
+got there, Abe and I played all through the day.
+
+"While we were wandering up and down the little stream called Knob
+Creek, Abe said: 'Right up there'--pointing to the east--'we saw a covey
+of partridges yesterday. Let's go over.' The stream was too wide for us
+to jump across. Finally we saw a foot-log, and decided to try it. It was
+narrow, but Abe said, 'Let's coon it.'
+
+"I went first and reached the other side all right. Abe went about half
+way across, when he got scared and began trembling. I hollered to him,
+'Don't look down nor up nor sideways, but look right at me and hold on
+tight!' But he fell off into the creek, and, as the water was about
+seven or eight feet deep (I could not swim, and neither could Abe), I
+knew it would do no good for me to go in after him.
+
+"So I got a stick--a long water sprout--and held it out to him. He came
+up, grabbing with both hands, and I put the stick into his hands. He
+clung to it, and I pulled him out on the bank, almost dead. I got him by
+the arms and shook him well, and then I rolled him on the ground, when
+the water poured out of his mouth.
+
+"He was all right very soon. We promised each other that we would never
+tell anybody about it, and never did for years. I never told any one of
+it till after Lincoln was killed."
+
+Abraham Lincoln's parents were religious in their simple way. The boy
+was brought up to believe in the care of the Father in Heaven over the
+affairs of this life. The family attended camp meetings and preaching
+services, which were great events, because few and far between, in those
+primitive days. Abe used afterward to get his playmates together and
+preach to them in a way that sometimes frightened them and made them
+cry.
+
+No doubt young Lincoln learned more that was useful to him in after life
+from the wandering preachers of his day than he did of his teachers
+during the few months that he was permitted to go to school. But his
+best teacher was his mother. She would have been proud to have her boy
+grow up to be a traveling minister or exhorter, like Peter Cartwright,
+"the backwoods preacher."
+
+Nancy Hanks Lincoln "builded better than she knew." She would have been
+satisfied with a cabin life for her son. She little knew that by her own
+life and teaching she was raising up the greatest man of his age, and
+one of the grandest men in all history, to become the ruler of the
+greatest nation that the world has ever seen. She did her duty by her
+little boy and he honored her always during her life and afterward. No
+wonder he once exclaimed when he thought of her:
+
+"All I am or hope to be I owe to my sainted mother."
+
+And out of her poor, humble life, that devoted woman
+
+"Gave us Lincoln and never knew!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LEARNING TO WORK
+
+
+The little Lincoln boy learned to help his father and mother as soon as
+he could, picking berries, dropping seeds and carrying water for the men
+to drink. The farm at Knob Creek seems to have been a little more
+fertile than the other two places on which his father had chosen to
+live.
+
+Once while living in the White House, President Lincoln was asked if he
+could remember his "old Kentucky home." He replied with considerable
+feeling:
+
+"I remember that old home very well. Our farm was composed of three
+fields. It lay in the valley, surrounded by high hills and deep gorges.
+Sometimes, when there came a big rain in the hills, the water would come
+down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing I
+remember of doing there was one Saturday afternoon; the other boys
+planted the corn in what we called the big field--it contained seven
+acres--and I dropped the pumpkin seed. I dropped two seeds in every
+other row and every other hill. The next Sunday morning there came a big
+rain in the hills--it did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water,
+coming through the gorges, washed the ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and
+all, clear off the field!"
+
+Although this was the last thing Lincoln could remember doing on that
+farm, it is not at all likely that it was the last thing he did there,
+for Thomas Lincoln was not the man to plant corn in a field he was about
+to leave. (The Lincolns moved away in the fall.)
+
+Another baby boy was born at Knob Creek farm; a puny, pathetic little
+stranger. When this baby was about three years old, the father had to
+use his skill as a cabinet maker in making a tiny coffin, and the
+Lincoln family wept over a lonely little grave in the wilderness.
+
+About this time Abe began to learn lessons in practical patriotism. Once
+when Mr. Lincoln was asked what he could remember of the War of 1812, he
+replied:
+
+"Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish
+which I was taking home. I met a soldier on the road, and, having been
+told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish."
+
+An old man, Major Alexander Sympson, who lived not far from the Lincolns
+at this period, left this description of "a mere spindle of a boy," in
+one of his earliest attempts to defend himself against odds, while
+waiting at the neighboring mill while a grist was being ground.
+
+"He was the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and awkward-appearing,
+homeliest and worst-dressed of any in the crowd. So superlatively
+wretched a butt could not hope to look on long unmolested. He was
+attacked one day as he stood near a tree by a larger boy with others at
+his back. But the crowd was greatly astonished when little Lincoln
+soundly thrashed the first, the second, and third boy in succession; and
+then, placing his back against the tree, he defied the whole crowd, and
+told them they were a lot of cowards."
+
+Evidently Father Tom, who enjoyed quite a reputation as a wrestler, had
+give the small boy a few lessons in "the manly art of self-defense."
+
+Meanwhile the little brother and sister were learning still better
+things at their mother's knee, alternately hearing and reading stories
+from the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," "Æsop's Fables," "Robinson
+Crusoe," and other books, common now, but rare enough in the backwoods
+in those days.
+
+There were hard times, even in the wilderness of Kentucky, after the War
+of 1812. Slavery was spreading, and Thomas and Nancy Lincoln heartily
+hated that "relic of barbarism." To avoid witnessing its wrongs which
+made it harder for self-respecting white men to rise above the class
+referred to with contempt in the South as "poor white trash," Tom
+Lincoln determined to move farther north and west--and deeper into the
+wilds.
+
+It is sometimes stated that Abraham Lincoln belonged to the indolent
+class known as "poor whites," but this is not true. Shiftless and
+improvident though his father was, he had no use for that class of white
+slaves, who seemed to fall even lower than the blacks.
+
+There was trouble, too, about the title to much of the land in Kentucky,
+while Indiana offered special inducements to settlers in that new
+territory.
+
+In his carpenter work, Thomas Lincoln had learned how to build a
+flatboat, and had made at least one trip to New Orleans on a craft
+which he himself had put together. So, when he finally decided in the
+fall of 1816 to emigrate to Indiana, he at once began to build another
+boat, which he launched on the Rolling Fork, at the mouth of Knob Creek,
+about half a mile from his own cabin. He traded his farm for what
+movable property he could get, and loaded his raft with that and his
+carpenter tools. Waving good-bye to his wife and two children, he
+floated down the Rolling Fork, Salt River, and out into the Ohio River,
+which proved too rough for his shaky craft, and it soon went to pieces.
+
+After fishing up the carpenter tools and most of his other effects, he
+put together a crazy raft which held till he landed at Thompson's Ferry,
+Perry County, in Southern Indiana. Here he unloaded his raft, left his
+valuables in the care of a settler named Posey and journeyed on foot
+through the woods to find a good location. After trudging about sixteen
+miles, blazing a trail, he found a situation which suited him well
+enough, he thought. Then he walked all the way back to the Kentucky home
+they were about to leave.
+
+He found his wife, with Sarah, aged nine, and Abraham, aged seven, ready
+to migrate with him to a newer wilderness. The last thing Nancy Lincoln
+had done before leaving their old home was to take the brother and
+sister for a farewell visit to the grave of "the little boy that died."
+
+
+OVER IN INDIANA
+
+The place the father had selected for their home was a beautiful spot.
+They could build their cabin on a little hill, sloping gently down on
+all sides. The soil was excellent, but there was one serious
+drawback--there was no water fit to drink within a mile! Thomas Lincoln
+had neglected to observe this most important point while he was
+prospecting. His wife, or even little Abe, would have had more common
+sense. That was one reason why Thomas Lincoln, though a good man, who
+tried hard enough at times, was always poor and looked down upon by his
+thrifty neighbors.
+
+Instead of taking his wife and children down the three streams by boat,
+as he had gone, the father borrowed two horses of a neighbor and "packed
+through to Posey's," where he had left his carpenter tools and the other
+property he had saved from the wreck of his raft. Abe and Sarah must
+have enjoyed the journey, especially camping out every night on the
+way. The father's skill as a marksman furnished them with tempting
+suppers and breakfasts of wild game.
+
+On the horses they packed their bedding and the cooking utensils they
+needed while on the journey, and for use after their arrival at the new
+home. This stock was not large, for it consisted only of "one oven and
+lid, one skillet and lid, and some tinware."
+
+After they came to Posey's, Thomas Lincoln hired a wagon and loaded it
+with the effects he had left there, as well as the bedding and the
+cooking things they had brought with them on the two horses. It was a
+rough wagon ride, jolting over stumps, logs, and roots of trees. An
+earlier settler had cut out a path for a few miles, but the rest of the
+way required many days, for the father had to cut down trees to make a
+rough road wide enough for the wagon to pass. It is not likely that Abe
+and Sarah minded the delays, for children generally enjoy new
+experiences of that sort. As for their mother, she was accustomed to all
+such hardships; she had learned to take life as it came and make the
+best of it.
+
+Nancy Lincoln needed all her Christian fortitude in that Indiana
+home--if such a place could be called a home. At last they reached the
+chosen place, in the "fork" made by Little Pigeon Creek emptying into
+Big Pigeon Creek, about a mile and a half from a settlement which was
+afterward called Gentryville.
+
+As it was late in the fall, Thomas Lincoln decided not to wait to cut
+down big trees and hew logs for a cabin, so he built a "half-faced
+camp," or shed enclosed on three sides, for his family to live in that
+winter. As this shed was made of saplings and poles, he put an ax in
+Abe's hands, and the seven-year-old boy helped his father build their
+first "home" in Indiana. It was Abe's first experience in the work that
+afterward made him famous as "the rail splitter." It was with the ax, as
+it were, that he hewed his way to the White House and became President
+of the United States.
+
+Of course, little Abe Lincoln had no idea of the White House then. He
+may never have heard of "the President's Palace," as it used to be
+called--for the White House was then a gruesome, blackened ruin, burned
+by the British in the War of 1812. President Madison was living in a
+rented house nearby, while the Executive Mansion was being restored.
+The blackened stone walls, left standing after the fire, were _painted
+white_, and on that account the President's mansion came to be known as
+"the White House."
+
+Little Abe, without a thought of his great future, was getting ready for
+it by hacking away at poles and little trees and helping his father in
+the very best way he knew. It was not long, then, before the "half-faced
+camp" was ready for his mother and sister to move into.
+
+Then there was the water question. Dennis Hanks afterward said: "Tom
+Lincoln riddled his land like a honeycomb" trying to find good water. In
+the fall and winter they caught rainwater or melted snow and strained
+it, but that was not very healthful at best. So Abe and Sarah had to go
+a mile to a spring and carry all the water they needed to drink, and,
+when there had been no rain for a long time, all the water they used for
+cooking and washing had to be brought from there, too.
+
+When warmer weather came, after their "long and dreary winter" of
+shivering in that poor shed, the "camp" did not seem so bad. Thomas
+Lincoln soon set about building a warmer and more substantial cabin. Abe
+was now eight years old, and had had some practice in the use of the
+ax, so he was able to help his father still more by cutting and hewing
+larger logs for the new cabin. They got it ready for the family to move
+into before cold weather set in again.
+
+They had to make their own furniture also. The table and chairs were
+made of "puncheon," or slabs of wood, with holes bored under each corner
+to stick the legs in. Their bedsteads were poles fitted into holes bored
+in logs in the walls of the cabin, and the protruding ends supported by
+poles or stakes driven into the ground, for Tom Lincoln had not yet laid
+the puncheon floor of their cabin. Abe's bed was a pile of dry leaves
+laid in one corner of the loft to which he climbed by means of a ladder
+of pegs driven into the wall, instead of stairs.
+
+Their surroundings were such as to delight the heart of a couple of
+care-free children. The forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts
+and sugar-maple trees, growing close together and free from underbrush.
+Now and then there was an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where
+the wild animals came to drink and disport themselves. Game was
+plentiful--deer, bears, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all
+kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for hunting, promised good
+things for the family to eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare
+earth floor, and deerskin curtains for the still open door and window.
+There were fish in the streams and wild fruits and nuts of many kinds to
+be found in the woods during the summer and fall. For a long time the
+corn for the "corndodgers" which they baked in the ashes, had to be
+ground by pounding, or in primitive hand-mills. Potatoes were about the
+only vegetable raised in large quantities, and pioneer families often
+made the whole meal of roasted potatoes. Once when his father had "asked
+the blessing" over an ashy heap of this staple, Abe remarked that they
+were "mighty poor blessings!"
+
+But there were few complaints. They were all accustomed to that way of
+living, and they enjoyed the free and easy life of the forest. Their
+only reason for complaint was because they had been compelled to live in
+an open shed all winter, and because there was no floor to cover the
+damp ground in their new cabin--no oiled paper for their one window, and
+no door swinging in the single doorway--yet the father was carpenter and
+cabinet maker! There is no record that Nancy Lincoln, weak and ailing
+though she was, demurred even at such needless privations.
+
+About the only reference to this period of their life that has been
+preserved for us was in an odd little sketch in which Mr. Lincoln wrote
+of himself as "he."
+
+"A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of
+his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and
+Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and
+killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger
+game."
+
+Though shooting was the principal sport of the youth and their fathers
+in Lincoln's younger days, Abe was too kind to inflict needless
+suffering upon any of God's creatures. He had real religion in his
+loving heart. Even as a boy he seemed to know that
+
+        "He prayeth best who loveth best
+           All things both great and small;
+         For the dear God that loveth us,
+          He made and loveth all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LOSING HIS MOTHER
+
+
+In the fall of 1817, when the Lincoln family had moved from the shed
+into the rough log cabin, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow came and occupied the
+"darned little half-faced camp," as Dennis Hanks called it. Betsy
+Sparrow was the aunt who had brought up Nancy Hanks, and she was now a
+foster-mother to Dennis, her nephew. Dennis became the constant
+companion of the two Lincoln children. He has told most of the stories
+that are known of this sad time in the Lincoln boy's life.
+
+The two families had lived there for nearly a year when Thomas and Betsy
+Sparrow were both seized with a terrible disease known to the settlers
+as the "milk-sick" because it attacked the cattle. The stricken uncle
+and aunt died, early in October, within a few days of each other. While
+his wife was ill with the same dread disease, Thomas Lincoln was at
+work, cutting down trees and ripping boards out of the logs with a long
+whipsaw with a handle at each end, which little Abe had to help him use.
+It was a sorrowful task for the young lad, for Abe must have known that
+he would soon be helping his father make his mother's coffin. They
+buried the Sparrows under the trees "without benefit of clergy," for
+ministers came seldom to that remote region.
+
+Nancy Lincoln did not long survive the devoted aunt and uncle. She had
+suffered too much from exposure and privation to recover her strength
+when she was seized by the strange malady. One who was near her during
+her last illness wrote, long afterward:
+
+"She struggled on, day by day, like the patient Christian woman she was.
+Abe and his sister Sarah waited on their mother, and did the little jobs
+and errands required of them. There was no physician nearer than
+thirty-five miles.
+
+"The mother knew that she was going to die, and called the children to
+her bedside. She was very weak and the boy and girl leaned over her
+while she gave them her dying message. Placing her feeble hand on little
+Abe's head, she told him to be kind and good to his father and sister.
+
+"'Be good to one another,' she said to them both. While expressing her
+hope that they might live, as she had taught them to live, in the love
+of their kindred and the service of God, Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed from
+the miserable surroundings of her poor life on earth to the brightness
+of the Beyond, on the seventh day after she was taken sick."
+
+To the motherless boy the thought of his blessed mother being buried
+without any religious service whatever added a keen pang to the
+bitterness of his lot. Dennis Hanks once told how eagerly Abe learned to
+write:
+
+"Sometimes he would write with a piece of charcoal, or the p'int of a
+burnt stick, on the fence or floor. We got a little paper at the country
+town, and I made ink out of blackberry juice, briar root and a little
+copperas in it. It was black, but the copperas would eat the paper after
+a while. I made his first pen out of a turkey-buzzard feather. We hadn't
+no geese them days--to make good pens of goose quills."
+
+As soon as he was able Abe Lincoln wrote his first letter. It was
+addressed to Parson Elkin, the Baptist preacher, who had sometimes
+stayed over night with the family when they lived in Kentucky, to ask
+that elder to come and preach a sermon over his mother's grave. It had
+been a long struggle to learn to write "good enough for a
+preacher"--especially for a small boy who is asking such a favor of a
+man as "high and mighty" as a minister of the Gospel seemed to him.
+
+It was a heartbroken plea, but the lad did not realize it. It was a
+short, straightforward note, but the good preacher's eyes filled with
+tears as he read it.
+
+The great undertaking was not finished when the letter was written. The
+postage was a large matter for a little boy. It cost sixpence (equal to
+twelve-and-a-half cents today) to send a letter a short distance--up to
+thirty miles. Some letters required twenty-five cents--equal to fifty in
+modern money. Sometimes, when the sender could not advance the postage,
+the receiver had to pay it before the letter could be opened and read.
+On this account letters were almost as rare and as expensive as
+telegrams are today. When the person getting a letter could not pay the
+postage, it was returned to the writer, who had to pay double to get it
+back.
+
+In those days one person could annoy another and put him to expense by
+writing him and forcing him to pay the postage--then when the letter
+was opened, it was found to be full of abuse, thus making a man pay for
+insults to himself!
+
+There was a great general who had suffered in this way, so he made a
+rule that he would receive no letters unless the postage was prepaid.
+One day there came to his address a long envelope containing what seemed
+to be an important document. But it was not stamped, and the servant had
+been instructed not to receive that kind of mail. So it was returned to
+the sender. When it came back it was discovered that it had been mailed
+by mistake without a stamp. That letter announced to General Zachary
+Taylor that he had been nominated by a great convention as candidate for
+President of the United States!
+
+All this seems very strange now that a letter can be sent around the
+world for a few cents. Besides, the mails did not go often and were
+carried on horseback. For a long time one half-sick old man carried the
+mail on a good-for-nothing horse, once a week, between New York and
+Philadelphia, though they were the largest cities in the country.
+
+So it was many months before Abe received an answer to his letter.
+Elder Elkin may have been away from home on one of the long circuits
+covered by pioneer preachers. As the days and weeks went by without the
+lad's receiving any reply he was filled with misgivings lest he had
+imposed upon the good man's former friendship.
+
+At last the answer came and poor Abe's anxiety was turned to joy. The
+kind elder not only said he would come, but he also named the Sunday
+when it would be, so that the Lincoln family could invite all their
+friends from far and near to the postponed service--for it often
+happened in this new country that the funeral could not take place for
+months after the burial.
+
+It was late in the following Summer, nearly a year after Nancy's death,
+that the devoted minister came. The word had gone out to all the region
+round about. It was the religious event of the season. Hundreds of
+people of all ages came from twenty miles around on horseback--a father,
+mother and two children on one horse--also in oxcarts, and on foot. They
+sat in groups in the wagons, and on the green grass, as at the feeding
+of the multitudes in the time of the Christ. But these people brought
+their own refreshments as if it were a picnic.
+
+They talked together in low, solemn tones while waiting for the poor
+little funeral procession to march out from the Lincoln cabin to the
+grass-covered grave. Pioneer etiquette required the formalities of a
+funeral. Elder Elkin was followed by the widowed husband, with Abraham
+and Sarah and poor Cousin Dennis, also bereaved of his foster-parents,
+and now a member of the Lincoln family.
+
+There were tender hearts behind those hardened faces, and tears
+glistened on the tanned cheeks of many in that motley assemblage of
+eager listeners, while the good elder was paying the last tribute of
+earth to the sweet and patient memory of his departed friend of other
+days.
+
+The words of the man of God, telling that assembled multitude what a
+lovely and devoted girl and woman his mother had been, gave sweet and
+solemn joy to the soul of the little Lincoln boy. It was all for her
+dear sake, and she was, of all women, worthy of this sacred respect. As
+he gazed around on the weeping people, he thought of the hopes and fears
+of the months that had passed since he wrote his first letter to bring
+this about.
+
+"God bless my angel mother!" burst from his lonely lips--"how glad I am
+I've learned to write!"
+
+
+THE COMING OF ANOTHER MOTHER
+
+All that a young girl of twelve could do, assisted by a willing brother
+of ten, was done by Sarah and Abraham Lincoln to make that desolate
+cabin a home for their lonesome father, and for cousin Dennis Hanks,
+whose young life had been twice darkened by a double bereavement. But
+"what is home without a mother?" Thomas Lincoln, missing the balance and
+inspiration of a patient wife, became more and more restless, and, after
+a year, wandered back again to his former homes and haunts in Kentucky.
+
+While visiting Elizabethtown he saw a former sweetheart, the Sally Bush
+of younger days, now Mrs. Daniel Johnston, widow of the county jailer
+who had recently died, leaving three children and considerable property,
+for that time and place. Thomas renewed his suit and won the pitying
+heart of Sarah Johnston, and according to the story of the county clerk:
+
+"The next morning, December 2, 1819, I issued the license, and the same
+day they were married, bundled up, and started for home."
+
+Imagine the glad surprise of the three children who had been left at
+home for weeks, when they saw a smart, covered wagon, drawn by four
+horses, driven up before the cabin door one bright winter day, and their
+father, active and alert, spring out and assist a pleasant-looking woman
+and three children to alight! Then they were told that this woman was to
+be their mother and they had two more sisters and another brother!
+
+To the poor forlorn Lincoln children and their still more desolate
+cousin, it seemed too good to be true. They quickly learned the names of
+their new brother and sisters. The Johnston children were called John,
+Sarah and Matilda, so Sarah Lincoln's name was promptly changed to Nancy
+for her dead mother, as there were two Sarahs already in the combined
+family.
+
+Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln lost no time in taking poor Abe and
+Nancy Lincoln to her great motherly heart, as if they were her own. They
+were dirty, for they had been neglected, ill-used and deserted. She
+washed their wasted bodies clean and dressed them in nice warm clothing
+provided for her own children, till she, as she expressed it, "made
+them look more human."
+
+Dennis Hanks told afterward of the great difference the stepmother made
+in their young lives:
+
+"In fact, in a few weeks all had changed; and where everything had been
+wanting, all was snug and comfortable. She was a woman of great energy,
+of remarkable good sense, very industrious and saving, also very neat
+and tidy in her person and manners. She took an especial liking for
+young Abe. Her love for him was warmly returned, and continued to the
+day of his death. But few children love their parents as he loved his
+stepmother. She dressed him up in entire new clothes, and from that time
+on he appeared to lead a new life. He was encouraged by her to study,
+and a wish on his part was gratified when it could be done. The two sets
+of children got along finely together, as if they all had been the
+children of the same parents."
+
+Dennis also referred to the "large supply of household goods" the new
+mother brought with her:
+
+"One fine bureau (worth $40), one table, one set of chairs, one large
+clothes chest, cooking utensils, knives, forks, bedding and other
+articles."
+
+It must have been a glorious day when such a splendid array of household
+furniture was carried into the rude cabin of Thomas Lincoln. But best of
+all, the new wife had sufficient tact and force of will to induce her
+good-hearted but shiftless husband to lay a floor, put in a window, and
+hang a door to protect his doubled family from the cold. It was about
+Christmas time, and the Lincoln children, as they nestled in warm beds
+for the first time in their lives, must have thanked their second mother
+from the bottoms of their grateful hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SCHOOL DAYS NOW AND THEN
+
+
+Lincoln once wrote, in a letter to a friend, about his early teachers in
+Indiana:
+
+"He (father) removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County,
+Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the
+State came into the Union. It was a wild region with many bears and
+other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some
+schools, so-called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher
+beside readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three (simple
+proportion). If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to
+sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was
+absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education."
+
+Abe's first teacher in Indiana, however, was Hazel Dorsey. The school
+house was built of rough, round logs. The chimney was made of poles well
+covered with clay. The windows were spaces cut in the logs, and covered
+with greased paper. But Abe was determined to learn. He and his sister
+thought nothing of walking four miles a day through snow, rain and mud.
+"Nat" Grigsby, who afterward married the sister, spoke in glowing terms
+of Abe's few school days:
+
+"He was always at school early, and attended to his studies. He lost no
+time at home, and when not at work was at his books. He kept up his
+studies on Sunday, and carried his books with him to work, so that he
+might read when he rested from labor."
+
+Thomas Lincoln had no use for "eddication," as he called it. "It will
+spile the boy," he kept saying. He--the father--had got along better
+without going to school, and why should Abe have a better education than
+his father? He thought Abe's studious habits were due to "pure laziness,
+jest to git shet o' workin'." So, whenever there was the slightest
+excuse, he took Abe out of school and set him to work at home or for one
+of the neighbors, while he himself went hunting or loafed about the
+house.
+
+This must have been very trying to a boy as hungry to learn as Abe
+Lincoln was. His new mother saw and sympathized with him, and in her
+quiet way, managed to get the boy started to school, for a few weeks at
+most. For some reason Hazel Dorsey stopped "keeping" the school, and
+there was a long "vacation" for all the children. But a new man, Andrew
+Crawford, came and settled near Gentryville. Having nothing better to do
+at first, he was urged to reopen the school.
+
+One evening Abe came in from his work and his stepmother greeted him
+with:
+
+"Another chance for you to go to school."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That man Crawford that moved in a while ago is to begin school next
+week, and two miles and back every day will be just about enough for you
+to walk to keep your legs limber."
+
+The tactful wife accomplished it somehow and Abe started off to school
+with Nancy, and a light heart. A neighbor described him as he appeared
+in Crawford's school, as "long, wiry and strong, while his big feet and
+hands, and the length of his legs and arms, were out of all proportion
+to his small trunk and head. His complexion was swarthy, and his skin
+shriveled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin breeches,
+linsey-woolsey shirt, and a coonskin cap. The breeches hung close to his
+legs, but were far from meeting the tops of his shoes, exposing 'twelve
+inches of shinbone, sharp, blue and narrow.'"
+
+"Yet," said Nat Grigsby, "he was always in good health, never sick, and
+had an excellent constitution."
+
+
+HELPING KATE ROBY SPELL
+
+Andrew Crawford must have been an unusual man, for he tried to teach
+"manners" in his backwoods school! Spelling was considered a great
+accomplishment. Abe shone as a speller in school and at the
+spelling-matches. One day, evidently during a period when young Lincoln
+was kept from school to do some outside work for his father, he appeared
+at the window when the class in spelling was on the floor. The word
+"defied" was given out and several pupils had misspelled it. Kate Roby,
+the pretty girl of the village, was stammering over it. "D-e-f," said
+Kate, then she hesitated over the next letter. Abe pointed to his eye
+and winked significantly. The girl took the hint and went on glibly
+"i-e-d," and "went up head."
+
+
+"I DID IT!"
+
+There was a buck's head nailed over the school house door. It proved a
+temptation to young Lincoln, who was tall enough to reach it easily. One
+day the schoolmaster discovered that one horn was broken and he demanded
+to know who had done the damage. There was silence and a general denial
+till Abe spoke up sturdily:
+
+"I did it. I did not mean to do it, but I hung on it--and it broke!"
+The other boys thought Abe was foolish to "own up" till he had to--but
+that was his way.
+
+It is doubtful if Abe Lincoln owned an arithmetic. He had a copybook,
+made by himself, in which he entered tables of weights and measures and
+"sums" he had to do. Among these was a specimen of schoolboy doggerel:
+
+        "Abraham Lincoln,
+           His hand and pen,
+         He will be good--
+           But God knows when!"
+
+In another place he wrote some solemn reflections on the value of time:
+
+        "Time, what an empty vapor 'tis,
+           And days, how swift they are!
+         Swift as an Indian arrow--
+           Fly on like a shooting star.
+         The present moment, just, is here,
+           Then slides away in haste,
+         That we can never say they're ours,
+           But only say they're past."
+
+As he grew older his handwriting improved and he was often asked to "set
+copies" for other boys to follow. In the book of a boy named
+Richardson, he wrote this prophetic couplet:
+
+        "Good boys who to their books apply
+         Will all be great men by and by."
+
+
+A "MOTHER'S BOY"--HIS FOOD AND CLOTHING
+
+Dennis Hanks related of his young companion: "As far as food and
+clothing were concerned, the boy had plenty--such as it
+was--'corndodgers,' bacon and game, some fish and wild fruits. We had
+very little wheat flour. The nearest mill was eighteen miles. A hoss
+mill it was, with a plug (old horse) pullin' a beam around; and Abe used
+to say his dog could stand and eat the flour as fast as it was made,
+_and then be ready for supper_!
+
+"For clothing he had jeans. He was grown before he wore all-wool pants.
+It was a new country, and he was a raw boy, rather a bright and likely
+lad; but the big world seemed far ahead of him. We were all slow-goin'
+folks. But he had the stuff of greatness in him. He got his rare sense
+and sterling principles from both parents. But Abe's kindliness, humor,
+love of humanity, hatred of slavery, all came from his mother. I am
+free to say Abe was a 'mother's boy.'"
+
+Dennis used to like to tell of Abe's earliest ventures in the fields of
+literature: "His first readin' book was Webster's speller. Then he got
+hold of a book--I can't rickilect the name. It told about a feller, a
+nigger or suthin', that sailed a flatboat up to a rock, and the rock was
+magnetized and drawed the nails out of his boat, an' he got a duckin',
+or drownded, or suthin', I forget now. (This book, of course, was 'The
+Arabian Nights.') Abe would lay on the floor with a chair under his
+head, and laugh over them stories by the hour. I told him they was
+likely lies from end to end; but he learned to read right well in them."
+
+His stock of books was small, but they were the right kind--the Bible,
+"The Pilgrim's Progress," Æsop's Fables, "Robinson Crusoe," a history of
+the United States, and the Statutes of Indiana. This last was a strange
+book for a boy to read, but Abe pored over it as eagerly as a lad to-day
+might read "The Three Guardsmen," or "The Hound of the Baskervilles." He
+made notes of what he read with his turkey-buzzard pen and brier-root
+ink. If he did not have these handy, he would write with a piece of
+charcoal or the charred end of a stick, on a board, or on the under side
+of a chair or bench. He used the wooden fire shovel for a slate, shaving
+it off clean when both sides were full of figures. When he got hold of
+paper enough to make a copy-book he would go about transferring his
+notes from boards, beams, under sides of the chairs and the table, and
+from all the queer places he had put them down, on the spur of the
+moment.
+
+Besides the books he had at hand, he borrowed all he could get, often
+walking many miles for a book, until, as he once told a friend, he "read
+through every book he had ever heard of in that country, for a circuit
+of fifty miles"--quite a circulating library!
+
+
+"THE BEGINNING OF LOVE"
+
+"The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." It must have been about
+this time that the lad had the following experience, which he himself
+related to a legal friend, with his chair tilted back and his knees
+"cocked up" in the manner described by Cousin John Hanks:
+
+"Did you ever write out a story in your mind? I did when I was little
+codger. One day a wagon with a lady and two girls and a man broke down
+near us, and while they were fixing up, they cooked in our kitchen. The
+woman had books and read us stories, and they were the first of the kind
+I ever heard. I took a great fancy to one of the girls; and when they
+were gone I thought of her a good deal, and one day, when I was sitting
+out in the sun by the house, I wrote out a story in my mind.
+
+"I thought I took my father's horse and followed the wagon, and finally
+I found it, and they were surprised to see me.
+
+"I talked with the girl and persuaded her to elope with me; and that
+night I put her on my horse and we started off across the prairie. After
+several hours we came to a camp; and when we rode up we found it was one
+we had left a few hours before and went in.
+
+"The next night we tried again, and the same thing happened--the horse
+came back to the same place; and then we concluded we ought not to
+elope. I stayed until I had persuaded her father that he ought to give
+her to me.
+
+"I always meant to write that story out and publish it, and I began
+once; but I concluded it was not much of a story.
+
+"But I think that was the beginning of love with me."
+
+
+HOW ABE CAME TO OWN WEEMS'S "LIFE OF WASHINGTON"
+
+Abe's chief delight, if permitted to do so, was to lie in the shade of
+some inviting tree and read. He liked to lie on his stomach before the
+fire at night, and often read as long as this flickering light lasted.
+He sometimes took a book to bed to read as soon as the morning light
+began to come through the chinks between the logs beside his bed. He
+once placed a book between the logs to have it handy in the morning, and
+a storm came up and soaked it with dirty water from the "mud-daubed"
+mortar, plastered between the logs of the cabin.
+
+The book happened to be Weems's "Life of Washington." Abe was in a sad
+dilemma. What could he say to the owner of the book, which he had
+borrowed from the meanest man in the neighborhood, Josiah Crawford, who
+was so unpopular that he went by the nickname of "Old Blue Nose"?
+
+The only course was to show the angry owner his precious volume, warped
+and stained as it was, and offer to do anything he could to repay him.
+
+"Abe," said "Old Blue Nose," with bloodcurdling friendliness, "bein' as
+it's you, Abe, I won't be hard on you. You jest come over and pull
+fodder for me, and the book is yours."
+
+"All right," said Abe, his deep-set eyes twinkling in spite of himself
+at the thought of owning the story of the life of the greatest of
+heroes, "how much fodder?"
+
+"Wal," said old Josiah, "that book's worth seventy-five cents, at least.
+You kin earn twenty-five cents a day--that will make three days. You
+come and pull all you can in three days and you may have the book."
+
+That was an exorbitant price, even if the book were new, but Abe was at
+the old man's mercy. He realized this, and made the best of a bad
+bargain. He cheerfully did the work for a man who was mean enough to
+take advantage of his misfortune. He comforted himself with the thought
+that he would be the owner of the precious "Life of Washington." Long
+afterward, in a speech before the New Jersey Legislature, on his way to
+Washington to be inaugurated, like Washington, as President of the
+United States, he referred to this strange book.
+
+
+"THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH"
+
+One morning, on his way to work, with an ax on his shoulder, his
+stepsister, Matilda Johnston, though forbidden by her mother to follow
+Abe, crept after him, and with a cat-like spring landed between his
+shoulders and pressed her sharp knees into the small of his back.
+
+Taken unawares, Abe staggered backward and ax and girl fell to the
+ground together. The sharp implement cut her ankle badly, and
+mischievous Matilda shrieked with fright and pain when she saw the blood
+gushing from the wound. Young Lincoln tore a sleeve from his shirt to
+bandage the gash and bound up the ankle as well as he could. Then he
+tried to teach the still sobbing girl a lesson.
+
+"'Tilda," he said gently, "I'm surprised. Why did you disobey mother?"
+
+Matilda only wept silently, and the lad went on, "What are you going to
+tell mother about it?"
+
+"Tell her I did it with the ax," sobbed the young girl. "That will be
+the truth, too."
+
+"Yes," said Abe severely, "that's the truth, but not _all_ the truth.
+You just tell the whole truth, 'Tilda, and trust mother for the rest."
+
+Matilda went limping home and told her mother the whole story, and the
+good woman was so sorry for her that, as the girl told Abe that evening,
+"she didn't even scold me."
+
+
+"BOUNDING A THOUGHT--NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND WEST"
+
+Abe sometimes heard things in the simple conversation of friends that
+disturbed him because they seemed beyond his comprehension. He said of
+this:
+
+"I remember how, when a child, I used to get irritated when any one
+talked to me in a way I couldn't understand.
+
+"I do not think I ever got angry with anything else in my life; but that
+always disturbed my temper--and has ever since.
+
+"I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors
+talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the
+night walking up and down, trying to make out what was the exact
+meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings.
+
+"I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got on such a hunt for
+an idea; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I
+had repeated it over and over, and had put in language plain enough, as
+I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.
+
+"This was a kind of a passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am
+never easy now when I am bounding a thought, till I have bounded it
+east, and bounded it west, and bounded it north, and bounded it south."
+
+
+HIGH PRAISE FROM HIS STEPMOTHER
+
+Not long before her death, Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, called
+upon Mrs. Sarah Lincoln to collect material for a "Life of Lincoln" he
+was preparing to write. This was the best of all the things she related
+of her illustrious stepson:
+
+"I can say what scarcely one mother in a thousand can say, Abe never
+gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance,
+to do anything I asked him. His mind and mine seemed to run together.
+
+"I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys, but I
+must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or
+expect to see."
+
+"Charity begins at home"--and so do truth and honesty. Abraham Lincoln
+could not have become so popular all over the world on account of his
+honest kindheartedness if he had not been loyal, obedient and loving
+toward those at home. Popularity, also, "begins at home." A mean,
+disagreeable, dishonest boy may become a king, because he was "to the
+manner born." But only a good, kind, honest man, considerate of others,
+can be elected President of the United States.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ABE AND THE NEIGHBORS
+
+
+"PREACHING" AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
+
+Nat Grigsby stated once that writing compositions was not required by
+Schoolmaster Crawford, but "Abe took it up on his own account," and his
+first essay was against cruelty to animals.
+
+The boys of the neighborhood made a practice of catching terrapins and
+laying live coals on their backs. Abe caught a group of them at this
+cruel sport one day, and rushed to the relief of the helpless turtle.
+Snatching the shingle that one of the boys was using to handle the
+coals, he brushed them off the turtle's shell, and with angry tears in
+his eyes, proceeded to use it on one of the offenders, while he called
+the rest a lot of cowards.
+
+One day his stepbrother, John Johnston, according to his sister Matilda,
+"caught a terrapin, brought it to the place where Abe was 'preaching,'
+threw it against a tree and crushed its shell." Abe then preached
+against cruelty to animals, contending that "an ant's life is as sweet
+to it as ours is to us."
+
+
+ROUGHLY DISCIPLINED FOR BEING "FORWARD"
+
+Abe was compelled to leave school on the slightest pretext to work for
+the neighbors. He was so big and strong--attaining his full height at
+seventeen--that his services were more in demand than those of his
+stepbrother, John Johnston, or of Cousin Dennis. Abe was called lazy
+because the neighbors shared the idea of Thomas Lincoln, that his
+reading and studying were only a pretext for shirking. Yet he was never
+so idle as either Dennis Hanks or John Johnston, who were permitted to
+go hunting or fishing with Tom Lincoln, while Abe stayed out of school
+to do the work that one of the three older men should have done.
+
+Abe's father was kinder in many ways to his stepchildren than he was to
+his own son. This may have been due to the fact that he did not wish to
+be thought "partial" to his own child. No doubt Abe was "forward." He
+liked to take part in any discussion, and sometimes he broke into the
+conversation when his opinion had not been asked. Besides, he got into
+arguments with his fellow-laborers, and wasted the time belonging to his
+employer.
+
+One day, according to Dennis, they were all working together in the
+field, when a man rode up on horseback and asked a question. Abe was the
+first to mount the fence to answer the stranger and engage him in
+conversation. To teach his son better "manners" in the presence of his
+"superiors," Thomas Lincoln struck Abe a heavy blow which knocked him
+backward off the fence, and silenced him for a time.
+
+Of course, every one present laughed at Abe's discomfiture, and the
+neighbors approved of Thomas Lincoln's rude act as a matter of
+discipline. In their opinion Abe Lincoln was getting altogether too
+smart. While they enjoyed his homely wit and good nature, they did not
+like to admit that he was in any way their superior. A visitor to
+Springfield, Ill., will even now find some of Lincoln's old neighbors
+eager to say "there were a dozen smarter men in this city than Lincoln"
+when he "happened to get nominated for the presidency!"
+
+
+SPORTS AND PASTIMES
+
+Abe was "hail fellow, well met" everywhere. The women comprehended his
+true greatness before the men did so. There was a rough gallantry about
+him, which, though lacking in "polish," was true, "heart-of-oak"
+politeness. He wished every one well. His whole life passed with "malice
+toward none, with charity for all."
+
+When he "went out evenings" Abe Lincoln took the greatest pains to make
+everybody comfortable and happy. He was sure to bring in the biggest
+backlog and make the brightest fire. He read "the funniest fortunes" for
+the young people from the sparks as they flew up the chimney. He was the
+best helper in paring the apples, shelling the corn and cracking the
+nuts for the evening's refreshments.
+
+When he went to spelling school, after the first few times, he was not
+allowed to take part in the spelling match because everybody knew that
+the side that "chose first" would get Abe Lincoln and he always "spelled
+down." But he went just the same and had a good time himself if he could
+add to the enjoyment of the rest.
+
+He went swimming, warm evenings, with the boys, and ran races, jumped
+and wrestled at noon-times, which was supposed to be given up to eating
+and resting. He was "the life" of the husking-bee and barn raising, and
+was always present, often as a judge because of his humor, fairness and
+tact, at horse races. He engaged heartily in every kind of "manly sport"
+which did not entail unnecessary suffering upon helpless animals.
+
+Coon hunting, however, was an exception. The coon was a pest and a
+plague to the farmer, so it should be got rid of. He once told the
+following story:
+
+
+THE LITTLE YELLOW "COON DOG"
+
+"My father had a little yellow house dog which invariably gave the alarm
+if we boys undertook to slip away unobserved after night had set in--as
+we sometimes did--to go coon hunting. One night my brother, John
+Johnston, and I, with the usual complement of boys required for a
+successful coon hunt, took the insignificant little cur with us.
+
+"We located the coveted coon, killed him, and then in a sporting vein,
+sewed the coon skin on the little dog.
+
+"It struggled vigorously during the operation of sewing on, and when
+released made a bee-line for home. Some larger dogs on the way, scenting
+coon, tracked the little animal home and apparently mistaking him for a
+real coon, speedily demolished him. The next morning, father found,
+lying in his yard, the lifeless remains of yellow 'Joe,' with strong
+circumstantial evidence, in the form of fragments of coon skin, against
+us.
+
+"Father was much incensed at his death, but as John and I, scantily
+protected from the morning wind, stood shivering in the doorway, we felt
+assured that little yellow Joe would never again be able to sound the
+alarm of another coon hunt."
+
+
+THE "CHIN FLY" AS AN INCENTIVE TO WORK
+
+While he was President, Mr. Lincoln told Henry J. Raymond, the founder
+of the New York _Times_, the following story of an experience he had
+about this time, while working with his stepbrother in a cornfield:
+
+"Raymond," said he, "you were brought up on a farm, were you not? Then
+you know what a 'chin fly' is. My brother and I were plowing corn once,
+I driving the horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on
+one occasion he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs,
+could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow I
+found an enormous chin fly fastened upon the horse and I knocked it off.
+My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn't want the
+old horse bitten in that way.
+
+"'Why,' said my brother,'that's all that made him go.'"
+
+"Now if Mr. Chase (the Secretary of the Treasury) has a presidential
+'chin fly' biting him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will only
+make his department go."
+
+
+"OLD BLUE NOSE'S" HIRED MAN
+
+It seemed to be the "irony of fate" that Abe should have to work for
+"Old Blue Nose" as a farm hand. But the lad liked Mrs. Crawford, and
+Lincoln's sister Nancy lived there, at the same time, as
+maid-of-all-work. Another attraction, the Crawford family was rich, in
+Abe's eyes, in possessing several books, which he was glad of the chance
+to read.
+
+Mrs. Crawford told many things about young Lincoln that might otherwise
+have been lost. She said "Abe was very polite, in his awkward way,
+taking off his hat to me and bowing. He was a sensitive lad, never
+coming where he was not wanted. He was tender and kind--like his sister.
+
+"He liked to hang around and gossip and joke with the women. After he
+had wasted too much time this way, he would exclaim:
+
+"'Well, this won't buy the child a coat,' and the long-legged hired boy
+would stride away and catch up with the others."
+
+One day when he was asked to kill a hog, Abe answered promptly that he
+had never done that, "but if you'll risk the hog, I'll risk myself!"
+
+Mrs. Crawford told also about "going to meeting" in those primitive
+days:
+
+"At that time we thought it nothing to go eight or ten miles. The ladies
+did not stop for the want of a shawl or riding dress, or horses. In the
+winter time they would put on their husbands' old overcoats, wrap up
+their little ones, and take two or three of them on their beasts, while
+their husbands would walk.
+
+"In winter time they would hold church in some of the neighbors' houses.
+At such times they were always treated with the utmost kindness; a
+basket of apples, or turnips--apples were scarce in those days--was set
+out. Sometimes potatoes were used for a 'treat.' In old Mr. Linkhorn's
+(Lincoln's) house a plate of potatoes, washed and pared nicely, was
+handed around."
+
+
+FEATS OF STRENGTH
+
+Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood, both in body and in mind.
+The neighbors, who failed to mark his mental growth, were greatly
+impressed with his physical strength. The Richardson family, with whom
+Abe seemed to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous tales of
+his prowess, some of which may have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr.
+Richardson declared that the young man could carry as heavy a load as
+"three ordinary men." He saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken
+house, made up of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at
+least six hundred if not much more."
+
+When the Richardsons were building their corn-crib, Abe saw three or
+four men getting ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on
+"sticks" between them. Watching his chance, he coolly stepped in,
+shouldered all the timbers at once and walked off alone with them,
+carrying them to the place desired. He performed these feats off-hand,
+smiling down in undisguised pleasure as the men around him expressed
+their amazement. It seemed to appeal to his sense of humor as well as
+his desire to help others out of their difficulties.
+
+Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of Abe: "He could strike, with a
+maul, a heavier blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper
+into wood than any man I ever saw."
+
+Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard Abe working in the woods
+alone, felling trees, you would think three men, at least, were at work
+there--the trees came crashing down so fast.
+
+On one occasion after he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the
+farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured,
+Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a
+number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking
+their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by
+the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying
+there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness
+of his heart, exclaimed:
+
+"Aw, let him alone, Abe. 'Twon't do him no good. He's made his bed, let
+him lay in it!"
+
+The rest laughed--for the "bed" was freezing mud. But Abe could see no
+humor in the situation. The man might be run over, or freeze to death.
+To abandon any human being in such a plight seemed too monstrous to him.
+The other young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging their shoulders
+and shaking their heads--"Poor Abe!--he's a hopeless case," and left
+Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on
+which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried,
+again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At
+last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the
+mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile
+to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the
+old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe gave him "a good talking
+to," and the unfortunate man is said to have been so deeply impressed by
+the young man's kindness that he heeded the temperance lecture and never
+again risked his life as he had done that night. When the old man told
+John Hanks of Abe's Herculean effort to save him, he added:
+
+"It was mighty clever in Abe Lincoln to tote me to a warm fire that cold
+night."
+
+
+IN JONES' STORE
+
+While Abe was working for the farmers round about his father's farm he
+spent many of his evenings in Jones' grocery "talking politics" and
+other things with the men, who also gathered there. Mr. Jones took a
+Louisville paper, which young Lincoln read eagerly. Slavery was a live
+political topic then, and Abe soon acquired quite a reputation as a
+stump orator.
+
+As he read the "Indiana Statutes" he was supposed to "know more law than
+the constable." In fact, his taste for the law was so pronounced at that
+early age that he went, sometimes, fifteen miles to Boonville, as a
+spectator in the county court. Once he heard a lawyer of ability, named
+Breckinridge, defend an accused murderer there. It was a great plea; the
+tall country boy knew it and, pushing through the crowd, reached out his
+long, coatless arm to congratulate the lawyer, who looked at the awkward
+youth in amazement and passed on without acknowledging Abe's compliment.
+The two men met again in Washington, more than thirty years later, under
+very different circumstances.
+
+But there were things other than politics discussed at the country
+store, and Abe Lincoln often raised a laugh at the expense of some
+braggart or bully. There was "Uncle Jimmy" Larkins, who posed as the
+hero of his own stories. In acknowledgment of Abe's authority as a
+judge of horse flesh, "Uncle Jimmy" was boasting of his horse's
+superiority in a recent fox chase. But young Lincoln seemed to pay no
+heed. Larkins repeated:
+
+"Abe, I've got the best horse in the world; he won the race and never
+drew a long breath."
+
+Young Lincoln still appeared not to be paying attention. "Uncle Jimmy"
+persisted. He was bound to make Abe hear. He reiterated:
+
+"I say, Abe, I have got the best horse in the world; after all that
+running he never drew a long breath."
+
+"Well, Larkins," drawled young Lincoln, "why don't you tell us how many
+_short_ breaths he drew." The laugh was on the boastful and discomfited
+Larkins.
+
+
+TRYING TO TEACH ASTRONOMY TO A YOUNG GIRL
+
+Abe's efforts were not always so well received, for he was sometimes
+misunderstood. The neighbors used to think the Lincoln boy was secretly
+in love with Kate Roby, the pretty girl he had helped out of a dilemma
+in the spelling class. Several years after that episode, Abe and Kate
+were sitting on a log, about sunset, talking:
+
+"Abe," said Kate, "the sun's goin' down."
+
+"Reckon not," Abe answered, "we're coming up, that's all."
+
+"Don't you s'pose I got eyes?"
+
+"Yes, I know you have; but it's the earth that goes round. The sun
+stands as still as a tree. When we're swung round so we can't see it any
+more, the light's cut off and we call it night."
+
+"What a fool you are, Abe Lincoln!" exclaimed Kate, who was not to blame
+for her ignorance, for astronomy had never been taught in Crawford's
+school.
+
+
+THE EARLY DEATH OF SISTER NANCY
+
+While brother and sister were working for "Old Blue Nose," Aaron
+Grigsby, "Nat's" brother, was "paying attention" to Nancy Lincoln. They
+were soon married. Nancy was only eighteen. When she was nineteen Mrs.
+Aaron Grigsby died. Her love for Abe had almost amounted to idolatry. In
+some ways she resembled him. He, in turn, was deeply devoted to his only
+sister.
+
+The family did not stay long at Pigeon Creek after the loss of Nancy,
+who was buried, not beside her mother, but with the Grigsbys in the
+churchyard of the old Pigeon Creek meeting-house.
+
+
+EARNING HIS FIRST DOLLAR
+
+Much as Abraham Lincoln had "worked out" as a hired man, his father kept
+the money, as he had a legal right to do, not giving the boy any of the
+results of his hard labor, for, strong as he was, his pay was only
+twenty-five or thirty cents a day. Abe accepted this as right and
+proper. He never complained of it.
+
+After he became President, Lincoln told his Secretary of State the
+following story of the first dollar he ever had for his own:
+
+"Seward," he said, "did you ever hear how I earned my first dollar?"
+"No," replied Seward. "Well," said he, "I was about eighteen years of
+age . . . and had constructed a flatboat. . . . A steamer was going down
+the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the western streams, and
+the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings they had to
+go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and taking them on board. I
+was contemplating my new boat, and wondering whether I could make it
+stronger or improve it in any part, when two men with trunks came down
+to the shore in carriages, and looking at the different boats, singled
+out mine, and asked:
+
+"'Who owns this?'
+
+"I answered modestly, 'I do.'
+
+"'Will you,' said one of them, 'take us and our trunks out to the
+steamer?'
+
+"'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have a chance of earning
+something, and supposed that they would give me a couple of 'bits.' The
+trunks were put in my boat, the passengers seated themselves on them,
+and I sculled them out to the steamer. They got on board, and I lifted
+the trunks and put them on deck. The steamer was moving away when I
+called out:
+
+"'You have forgotten to pay me.'
+
+"Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on
+the bottom of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up
+the money. You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days
+it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my
+life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in
+less than a day--that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was a more
+hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MOVING TO ILLINOIS
+
+
+"FOLLOWING THE RIVER"
+
+Thomas Lincoln had become restless again. Fourteen years was a long time
+for him to live in one place. Abe was seven years old when they came
+over from Kentucky, and he was now nearly twenty-one. During that time
+Thomas had lost his wife, Nancy, and his only daughter, who bore her
+mother's name. While the land he had chosen was fertile enough, the want
+of water had always been a sad drawback. The desire to try his fortunes
+in a newer country had taken possession of him.
+
+John Hanks had gone to Illinois, and had written back that everything
+was more favorable there for making a living. Thomas Lincoln had not
+been successful in Indiana. His children's prospects seemed to be
+against them. After working as a hired hand on the surrounding farms,
+Abe had served for a time as a ferryman, and, working by the river, had
+learned to build the boat with which he had earned his first dollar.
+
+As George Washington longed to go to sea, Abraham Lincoln seems to have
+yearned to "follow the river." He tried to hire out as deck hand, but
+his age was against him. He soon had a chance to go "down river" to New
+Orleans, with his friend, Allen Gentry, the son of the man for whom
+Gentryville was named. Allen afterward married Kate Roby. A flatboat
+belonging to Allen's father was loaded with bacon and other farm
+merchandise for the southern market. Allen went in charge of the
+expedition, and young Lincoln was engaged as "bow hand." They started in
+April, 1828. There was nothing to do but steer the unwieldy craft with
+the current. The flatboat was made to float down stream only. It was to
+be broken up at New Orleans and sold for lumber.
+
+The two young men from Indiana made the trip without incident until they
+came to the plantation of Madame Duchesne, six miles from Baton Rouge,
+where they moored their raft for the night. There they heard the
+stealthy footsteps of midnight marauders on board.
+
+Young Gentry was first aroused. He sprang up and found a gang of
+lawless negroes on deck, evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so
+many of them could easily cow or handle the two white men.
+
+"Bring the guns, Abe!" shouted Allen. "Shoot them!" Abraham Lincoln was
+among them, brandishing a club--they had no guns. The negroes were
+frightened not only by the fierce, commanding form of their tall
+adversary, but also by his giant strength. The two white men routed the
+whole black crew, but Abraham Lincoln received a wound in the encounter,
+and bore the scar of it to his dying day.
+
+The trip required about three months, going and returning, and the two
+adventurers from Gentryville came back in June, with good stories of
+their experiences to tell in Jones' store.
+
+Not long after this Thomas Lincoln, in response to an urgent invitation
+from John Hanks, decided to move to Illinois. It took a long time, after
+gathering in the fall crops, for Thomas Lincoln to have a "vandoo" and
+sell his corn and hogs. As for selling his farm, it had never really
+belonged to him. He simply turned it over to Mr. Gentry, who held a
+mortgage on it. It was February, 1830, before the pioneer wagon got
+under way. The emigrant family consisted of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah,
+his wife, Abraham, and John Johnston; Sarah and Matilda Johnston were
+both married, and, with their husbands, a young man named Hall and
+Dennis Hanks, formed the rest of the party. The women rode with their
+household goods in a great covered cart drawn by two yoke of oxen.
+
+
+A TRAVELING PEDDLER
+
+Merchant Jones, for whom Abe had worked that fall and winter, after his
+return from New Orleans, sold the young man a pack of "notions" to
+peddle along the road to Illinois. "A set of knives and forks," related
+Mr. Jones' son afterward, "was the largest item on the bill. The other
+items were needles, pins, thread, buttons, and other little domestic
+necessities. When the Lincolns reached their new home, Abraham wrote
+back to my father stating that he had doubled his money on his purchases
+by selling them along the road. Unfortunately we did not keep that
+letter, not thinking how highly we would prize it afterward."
+
+In the early days of his presidency, an international problem came
+before the cabinet which reminded Mr. Lincoln of an experience he had on
+this journey, so he told the several secretaries this story:
+
+"The situation just now reminds me of a fix I got into some thirty years
+ago when I was peddling 'notions' on the way from Indiana to Illinois. I
+didn't have a large stock, but I charged large prices and I made money.
+Perhaps you don't see what I am driving at.
+
+"Just before we left Indiana and were crossing into Illinois we came
+across a small farmhouse full of children. These ranged in age from
+seventeen years to seventeen months, and were all in tears. The mother
+of the family was red-headed and red-faced, and the whip she held in her
+right hand led to the inference that she had been chastising her brood.
+The father of the family, a meek-looking, mild-mannered, tow-headed
+chap, was standing at the front door--to all appearances waiting his
+turn!
+
+"I thought there wasn't much use in asking the head of that house if she
+wanted any 'notions.' She was too busy. It was evident that an
+insurrection had been in progress, but it was pretty well quelled when I
+got there. She saw me when I came up, and from her look I thought she
+surmised that I intended to interfere. Advancing to the doorway--roughly
+pushing her husband aside--she demanded my business.
+
+"'Nothing, ma'am,' I answered as gently as possible. 'I merely dropped
+in, as I came along, to see how things were going.'
+
+"'Well, you needn't wait,' she said in an irritated way; 'there's
+trouble here, and lots of it, too, but I kin manage my own affairs
+without the help of outsiders. This is jest a family row, but I'll teach
+these brats their places if I hev to lick the hide off every one of
+them. I don't do much talking, but I run this house, an' I don't want no
+one sneakin' round tryin' to find out how I do it either.'
+
+"That's the case here with us. We must let the other nations know that
+we propose to settle our family row in our own way, an' teach these
+brats (the seceding States) their places, and, like the old woman, we
+don't want any 'sneakin' round' by other countries, that would like to
+find out how we are going to do it either."
+
+
+"WINNING A DOG'S GRATITUDE"
+
+Abe strode along in the mud, driving the four oxen much of the time,
+for the houses he could visit with his peddler's pack were few and far
+between. A dog belonging to one of the family--an insignificant little
+cur--fell behind. After the oxen had floundered through the mud, snow
+and ice of a prairie stream, they discovered that the animal was
+missing. The other men of the party thought they could now get rid of
+the little nuisance, and even the women were anxious, as the hour was
+late, to go on and find a place to camp for the night. To turn back with
+the clumsy ox-team and lumbering emigrant wagon was out of the question.
+
+Abraham gave the whip to one of the other men and turned back to see if
+he could discern the dog anywhere. He discovered it running up and down
+on the other bank of the river, in great distress, for the swift current
+was filled with floating ice and the poor little creature was afraid to
+make the attempt to swim across. After whistling in vain to encourage
+the dog to try if it would, the tender-hearted youth went to its rescue.
+Referring to the incident himself afterward, he said:
+
+"I could not endure the idea of abandoning even a dog. Pulling off shoes
+and socks, I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned with the
+shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other
+evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure I
+had undergone."
+
+
+SPLITTING THE HISTORIC RAILS
+
+After two weary weeks of floundering through muddy prairies and jolting
+over rough forest roads, now and then fording swollen and dangerous
+streams, the Lincolns were met near Decatur, Illinois, by Cousin John
+Hanks, and given a hearty welcome. John had chosen a spot not far from
+his own home, and had the logs all ready to build a cabin for the
+newcomers. Besides young Abe, with the strength of three, there were
+five men in the party, so they were able to erect their first home in
+Illinois without asking the help of the neighbors, as was customary for
+a "raising" of that kind.
+
+Nicolay and Hay, President Lincoln's private secretaries, in their great
+life of their chief, gave the following account of the splitting of the
+rails which afterward became the talk of the civilized world:
+
+"Without the assistance of John Hanks he plowed fifteen acres, and
+split, from the tall walnut trees of the primeval forest, enough rails
+to surround them with a fence. Little did either dream, while engaged in
+this work, that the day would come when the appearance of John Hanks in
+a public meeting with two of these rails on his shoulder, would
+electrify a State convention, and kindle throughout the country a
+contagious and passionate enthusiasm whose results would reach to
+endless generations."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+STARTING OUT FOR HIMSELF
+
+
+HIS FATHER AND HIS "FREEDOM SUIT"
+
+According to his own account, Abe had made about thirty dollars as a
+peddler, besides bearing the brunt of the labor of the journey, though
+there were four grown men in the combined family. As he had passed his
+twenty-first birthday on the road, he really had the right to claim
+these profits as his own. His father, who had, for ten years, exacted
+Abraham's meager, hard-earned wages, should at least have given the boy
+a part of that thirty dollars for a "freedom suit" of clothes, as was
+the custom then.
+
+But neither Thomas Lincoln nor his son seems to have thought of such a
+thing. Instead of entertaining resentment, Abraham stayed by, doing all
+he could to make his father and stepmother comfortable before he left
+them altogether. Mrs. Lincoln had two daughters and sons-in-law, besides
+John Johnston, so Abe might easily have excused himself from looking
+after the welfare of his parents. Though his father had seemed to favor
+his stepchildren in preference to his own son, Mrs. Lincoln had been
+"like an own mother to him," and he never ceased to show his gratitude
+by being "like an own son to her."
+
+The first work Abe did in that neighborhood was to split a thousand
+rails for a pair of trousers, at the rate of four hundred rails per yard
+of "brown jeans dyed with walnut bark." The young man's breeches cost
+him about four hundred rails more than they would if he had been a man
+of ordinary height.
+
+But Abraham hovered about, helping clear a little farm, and making the
+cabin comfortable while he was earning his own "freedom suit." He saw
+the spring planting done and that a garden was made for his stepmother
+before he went out of ready reach of the old people.
+
+One special reason Thomas Lincoln had for leaving Indiana was to get
+away from "the milksick." But the fall of 1830 was a very bad season in
+Illinois for chills and fever. The father and, in fact, nearly the whole
+family left at home suffered so much from malaria that they were
+thoroughly discouraged. The interior of their little cabin was a sorry
+sight--Thomas and his wife were both afflicted at once, and one married
+daughter was almost as ill. They were all so sick that Thomas Lincoln
+registered a shaky but vehement resolve that as soon as they could
+travel they would "git out o' thar!" He had been so determined to move
+to Illinois that no persuasion could induce him to give up the project,
+therefore his disappointment was the more keen and bitter.
+
+The first winter the Lincolns spent in Illinois was memorable for its
+severity. It is still spoken of in that region as "the winter of the big
+snow." Cattle and sheep froze to death or died of exposure and
+starvation.
+
+
+BUILDING THE FLATBOAT
+
+Early in the spring after "the big snow," John Hanks, Lincoln and John
+Johnston met Denton Offutt, a man who was to wield an influence on the
+life of young Lincoln. Offutt engaged the three to take a load of
+produce and other merchandise to New Orleans to sell. John Hanks, the
+most reliable member of the Hanks family, gave the following account of
+the way he managed to bring Abe and his stepbrother into the
+transaction: "He wanted me to go badly but I waited before answering. I
+hunted up Abe, and I introduced him and John Johnston, his stepbrother,
+to Offutt. After some talk we at last made an engagement with Offutt at
+fifty cents a day and sixty dollars to make the trip to New Orleans. Abe
+and I came down the Sangamon River in a canoe in March, 1831, and landed
+at what is now called Jamestown, five miles east of Springfield."
+
+Denton Offutt spent so much time drinking in a tavern at the village of
+Springfield that the flatboat was not ready when the trio arrived to
+take it and its cargo down the river. Their employer met them on their
+arrival with profuse apologies, and the three men were engaged to build
+the boat and load it up for the journey.
+
+During the four weeks required to build the raft, the men of that
+neighborhood became acquainted with young Lincoln. A man named John Roll
+has given this description of Abe's appearance at that time:
+
+"He was a tall, gaunt young man, dressed in a suit of blue homespun,
+consisting of a roundabout jacket, waistcoat, and breeches which came to
+within about three inches of his feet. The latter were encased in
+rawhide boots, into the tops of which, most of the time, his pantaloons
+were stuffed. He wore a soft felt hat which had once been black, but
+now, as its owner dryly remarked, 'was sunburned until it was a combine
+of colors.'"
+
+There was a sawmill in Sangamontown, and it was the custom for the "men
+folks" of the neighborhood to assemble near it at noon and in the
+evening, and sit on a peeled log which had been rolled out for the
+purpose. Young Lincoln soon joined this group and at once became a great
+favorite because of his stories and jokes. His stories were so funny
+that "whenever he'd end 'em up in his unexpected way the boys on the log
+would whoop and roll off." In this way the log was polished smooth as
+glass, and came to be known in the neighborhood as "Abe's log."
+
+A traveling juggler came one day while the boat was building and gave an
+exhibition in the house of one of the neighbors. This magician asked for
+Abe's hat to cook eggs in. Lincoln hesitated, but gave this explanation
+for his delay: "It was out of respect for the eggs--not care for my
+hat!"
+
+
+ABE LINCOLN SAVES THREE LIVES
+
+While they were at work on the flatboat the humorous young stranger from
+Indiana became the hero of a thrilling adventure, described as follows
+by John Roll, who was an eye witness to the whole scene:
+
+"It was the spring following 'the winter of the deep snow.' Walter
+Carman, John Seamon, myself, and at times others of the Carman boys, had
+helped Abe in building the boat, and when we had finished we went to
+work to make a dug-out, or canoe, to be used as a small boat with the
+flat. We found a suitable log about an eighth of a mile up the river,
+and with our axes went to work under Lincoln's direction. The river was
+very high, fairly 'booming.' After the dug-out was ready to launch we
+took it to the edge of the water, and made ready to 'let her go,' when
+Walter Carman and John Seamon jumped in as the boat struck the water,
+each one anxious to be the first to get a ride. As they shot out from
+the shore they found they were unable to make any headway against the
+strong current. Carman had the paddle, and Seamon was in the stern of
+the boat. Lincoln shouted to them to head up-stream and 'work back to
+shore,' but they found themselves powerless against the stream. At last
+they began to pull for the wreck of an old flatboat, the first ever
+built on the Sangamon, which had sunk and gone to pieces, leaving one of
+the stanchions sticking above the water. Just as they reached it Seamon
+made a grab, and caught hold of the stanchion, when the canoe capsized,
+leaving Seamon clinging to the old timber and throwing Carman into the
+stream. It carried him down with the speed of a mill-race. Lincoln
+raised his voice above the roar of the flood, and yelled to Carman to
+swim for an elm tree which stood almost in the channel, which the action
+of the water had changed.
+
+"Carman, being a good swimmer, succeeded in catching a branch, and
+pulled himself up out of the water, which was very cold, and had almost
+chilled him to death; and there he sat, shivering and chattering in the
+tree.
+
+"Lincoln, seeing Carman safe, called out to Seamon to let go the
+stanchion and swim for the tree. With some hesitation he obeyed, and
+struck out, while Lincoln cheered and directed him from the bank. As
+Seamon neared the tree he made one grab for a branch, and, missing it,
+went under the water. Another desperate lunge was successful, and he
+climbed up beside Carman.
+
+"Things were pretty exciting now, for there were two men in the tree,
+and the boat gone. It was a cold, raw April day, and there was great
+danger of the men becoming benumbed and falling back into the water.
+Lincoln called out to them to keep their spirits up and he would save
+them.
+
+"The village had been alarmed by this time, and many people had come
+down to the bank. Lincoln procured a rope and tied it to a log. He
+called all hands to come and help roll the log into the water, and,
+after this had been done, he, with the assistance of several others,
+towed it some distance up the stream. A daring young fellow by the name
+of 'Jim' Dorell then took his seat on the end of the log, and it was
+pushed out into the current, with the expectation that it would be
+carried down stream against the tree where Seamon and Carman were.
+
+"The log was well directed, and went straight to the tree; but Jim, in
+his impatience to help his friends, fell a victim to his good
+intentions. Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised himself off the
+log, which was swept from under him by the raging waters and he soon
+joined the other victims upon their forlorn perch.
+
+"The excitement on the shore increased, and almost the whole population
+of the village gathered on the river bank. Lincoln had the log pulled up
+the stream, and, securing another piece of rope, called to the men in
+the tree to catch it if they could when he should reach the tree. He
+then straddled the log himself, and gave the word to push out into the
+stream. When he dashed into the tree he threw the rope over the stump of
+a broken limb, and let it play until he broke the speed of the log, and
+gradually drew it back to the tree, holding it there until the three now
+nearly frozen men had climbed down and seated themselves astride. He
+then gave orders to the people on shore to hold fast to the end of the
+rope which was tied to the log, and leaving his rope in the tree he
+turned the log adrift. The force of the current, acting against the taut
+rope, swung the log around against the bank and all 'on board' were
+saved.
+
+"The excited people who had watched the dangerous expedition with
+alternate hope and fear, now broke into cheers for Abe Lincoln, and
+praises for his brave act. This adventure made quite a hero of him along
+the Sangamon, and the people never tired of telling of the exploit."
+
+
+"DOWN THE RIVER"
+
+The launching of that flatboat was made a feast-day in the neighborhood.
+Denton Offutt, its proprietor, was invited to break away from the
+"Buckhorn" tavern at Springfield to witness the ceremonies, which, of
+course, took a political turn. There was much speech-making, but Andrew
+Jackson and the Whig leaders were equally praised.
+
+The boat had been loaded with pork in barrels, corn, and hogs, and it
+slid into the Sangamon River, then overflowing with the spring "fresh,"
+with a big splash.
+
+The three sturdy navigators, accompanied by Offutt himself, floated away
+in triumph from the waving crowd on the bank.
+
+The first incident in the voyage occurred the 19th of April, at
+Rutledge's mill dam at New Salem, where the boat stranded and "hung"
+there a day and a night.
+
+
+HOW ABE GOT THE FLATBOAT OVER THE DAM
+
+New Salem was destined to fill an important place in the life of Abraham
+Lincoln. One who became well acquainted with him described him as the
+New Salemites first saw him, "wading round on Rutledge's dam with his
+trousers rolled up nine feet, more or less."
+
+One of the crew gave this account of their mode of operations to get the
+stranded raft over the dam:
+
+"We unloaded the boat--that is, we transferred the goods from our boat
+to a borrowed one. We then rolled the barrels forward; Lincoln bored a
+hole in the end (projecting) over the dam; the water which had leaked in
+ran out then and we slid over."
+
+Offutt's enthusiasm over Abe's simple method of surmounting this great
+obstacle was boundless. A crowd had gathered on a hillside to watch
+Lincoln's operations.
+
+
+AN IMPROBABLE PROPHECY
+
+For the novelty of the thing, John Hanks claimed to have taken young
+Lincoln to a "voodoo" negress. She is said to have become excited in
+reading the future of the tall, thin young man, saying to him, "You will
+be President, and all the negroes will be free." This story probably
+originated long afterward, when the strange prophecy had already come
+true--though fortune tellers often inform young men who come to them
+that they will be Presidents some day. That such a woman could read the
+Emancipation Proclamation in that young man's future is not at all
+likely.
+
+Another story is told of Abraham Lincoln's second visit to New Orleans
+that is more probable, but even this is not certain to have happened
+exactly as related. The young northerner doubtless saw negroes in
+chains, and his spirit, like that of his father and mother, rebelled
+against this inhumanity. There is little doubt that in such sights, as
+one of his companions related, "Slavery ran the iron into him then and
+there."
+
+
+"I'LL HIT IT HARD!"
+
+But the story goes that the three young fellows--Hanks, Johnston and
+Lincoln--went wandering about the city, and passed a slave market, where
+a comely young mulatto girl was offered to the highest bidder. They saw
+prospective purchasers examine the weeping girl's teeth, pinch her flesh
+and pull her about as they would a cow or a horse. The whole scene was
+so revolting that Lincoln recoiled from it with horror and hatred,
+saying to his two companions, "Boys, let's get away from this. If ever I
+get a chance to hit that thing"--meaning slavery--"_I'll hit it hard_!"
+
+In June the four men took passage up the river on a steamboat for the
+return trip. At St. Louis, Offutt got off to purchase stock for a store
+he proposed to open in New Salem, where he planned to place young
+Lincoln in charge.
+
+
+WRESTLING WITH THE COUNTY CHAMPION
+
+The other three started on foot to reach their several homes in
+Illinois. Abe improved the opportunity to visit his father's family in
+Coles County, where Thomas Lincoln had removed as soon as he was able
+to leave their first Illinois home near Decatur.
+
+Abe's reputation as a wrestler had preceded him and the Coles County
+Champion, Daniel Needham, came and challenged the tall visitor to a
+friendly contest. Young Lincoln laughingly accepted and threw Needham
+twice. The crestfallen wrestler's pride was deeply hurt, and he found it
+hard to give up beaten.
+
+"Lincoln," said he, "you have thrown me twice, but you can't whip me."
+
+Abe laughed again and replied:
+
+"Needham, are you satisfied that I can throw you? If you are not, and
+must be convinced through a thrashing, I will do that, too--_for your
+sake_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CLERKING AND WORKING
+
+
+HE COULD "MAKE A FEW RABBIT TRACKS"
+
+It was in August, 1831, that Abraham Lincoln appeared in the village of
+New Salem, Illinois. Neither Denton Offutt nor his merchandise had
+arrived as promised. While paying the penalty of the punctual man--by
+waiting for the tardy one--he seemed to the villagers to be loafing. But
+Abraham Lincoln was no loafer. He always found something useful and
+helpful to do. This time there was a local election, and one of the
+clerks had not appeared to perform his duties. A New Salem woman wrote
+of Lincoln's first act in the village:
+
+"My father, Mentor Graham, was on that day, as usual, appointed to be a
+clerk, and Mr. McNamee, who was to be the other, was sick and failed to
+come. They were looking around for a man to fill his place when my
+father noticed Mr. Lincoln and asked if he could write. He answered that
+he could 'make a few rabbit tracks.'"
+
+
+PILOTING A FAMILY FLATBOAT
+
+A few days after the election the young stranger, who had become known
+by this time as the hero of the flatboat on Rutledge's dam four months
+before, found employment as a pilot. A citizen, Dr. Nelson, was about to
+emigrate to Texas. The easiest and best mode of travel in those days
+was by flatboat down the river. He had loaded all his household goods
+and movable property on his "private conveyance" and was looking about
+for a "driver." Young Lincoln, still waiting, unemployed, offered his
+services and took the Nelson family down the Sangamon River--a more
+difficult task in August than in April, when the water was high on
+account of the spring rains. But the young pilot proceeded cautiously
+down the shallow stream, and reached Beardstown, on the Illinois River,
+where he was "discharged" and walked back over the hills to New Salem.
+
+
+ANNOYED BY THE HIGH PRAISES OF HIS EMPLOYER
+
+Denton Offutt and his stock for the store arrived at last, and Lincoln
+soon had a little store opened for business. A country store seemed too
+small for a clerk of such astounding abilities, so the too enthusiastic
+employer bought Cameron's mill with the dam on which Lincoln had already
+distinguished himself, and made the clerk manager of the whole business.
+
+This was not enough. Offutt sounded the praises of the new clerk to all
+comers. He claimed that Abraham Lincoln "knew more than any man in the
+United States." As Mr. Offutt had never shown that he knew enough
+himself to prove this statement, the neighbors began to resent such rash
+claims. In addition, Offutt boasted that Abe could "beat the county"
+running, jumping and wrestling. Here was something the new clerk could
+prove, if true, so his employer's statement was promptly challenged.
+
+When a strange man came to the village to live, even though no one
+boasted of his prowess, he was likely to suffer at the hands of the
+rougher element of the place. It was a sort of rude initiation into
+their society. These ceremonies were conducted with a savage sense of
+humor by a gang of rowdies known as the "Clary's Grove Boys," of whom
+the "best fighter" was Jack Armstrong.
+
+Sometimes "the Boys" nailed up a stranger in a hogshead and it was
+rolled down hill. Sometimes he was ingeniously insulted, or made to
+fight in self-defense, and beaten black and blue by the whole gang. They
+seemed not to be hampered by delicate notions of fair play in their
+actions toward a stranger. They "picked on him," as chickens, dogs and
+wolves do upon a newcomer among them.
+
+So when young Lincoln heard his employer bragging about his brain and
+brawn he was sufficiently acquainted with backwoods nature to know that
+it boded no good to him. Even then "he knew how to bide his time," and
+turned it to good account, for he had a good chance, shortly to show the
+metal that was in him.
+
+"The Boys" called and began to banter with the long-legged clerk in the
+new store. This led to a challenge and comparison of strength and
+prowess between young Lincoln and Jack Armstrong. Abe accepted the
+gauntlet with an alacrity that pleased the crowd, especially the chief
+of the bully "Boys," who expected an easy victory. But Jack was
+surprised to find that the stranger was his match--yes, more than his
+match. Others of "the Boys" saw this, also, and began to interfere by
+tripping Abe and trying to help their champion by unfair means.
+
+This made young Lincoln angry. Putting forth all his strength, he seized
+Armstrong by the throat and "nearly choked the exuberant life out of
+him." When "the Boys" saw the stranger shaking their "best fighter" as
+if he were a mere child, their enmity gave place to admiration; and when
+Abe had thrown Jack Armstrong upon the ground, in his wrath, as a lion
+would throw a dog that had been set upon him, and while the strong
+stranger stood there, with his back to the wall, challenging the whole
+gang, with deep-set eyes blazing with indignation, they acknowledged him
+as their conqueror, and declared that "Abe Lincoln is the cleverest
+fellow that ever broke into the settlement."
+
+The initiation was over, and young Lincoln's triumph complete. From that
+day "the Clary's Grove Boys" were his staunch supporters and defenders,
+and his employer was allowed to go on bragging about his wonderful clerk
+without hindrance.
+
+
+GIVING ANOTHER BULLY "A DOSE OF SMARTWEED"
+
+A bumptious stranger came into the store one day and tried to pick a
+quarrel with the tall clerk. To this end he used language offensive to
+several women who were there trading. Lincoln quietly asked the fellow
+to desist as there were "ladies present." The bully considered this an
+admission that the clerk was afraid of him, so he began to swear and use
+more offensive language than before. As this was too much for Abraham's
+patience, he whispered to the fellow that if he would keep quiet till
+the ladies went out, he (Lincoln) would go and "have it out."
+
+After the women went, the man became violently abusive. Young Lincoln
+calmly went outside with him, saying: "I see you must be whipped and I
+suppose I will have to do it." With this he seized the insolent fellow
+and made short work of him. Throwing the man on the ground, Lincoln sat
+on him, and, with his long arms, gathered a handful of "smartweed" which
+grew around them. He then rubbed it into the bully's eyes until he
+roared with pain. An observer of this incident said afterward:
+
+"Lincoln did all this without a particle of anger, and when the job was
+finished he went immediately for water, washed his victim's face and did
+everything he could to alleviate the man's distress. The upshot of the
+matter was that the fellow became his life-long friend, and was a better
+man from that day."
+
+
+HOW HE MADE HIS FELLOW CLERK GIVE UP GAMBLING
+
+Lincoln's morals were unusually good for that time and place. Smoking,
+chewing, drinking, swearing and gambling were almost universal among
+his associates. Offutt hired a young man, William G. Greene, after the
+purchase of the mill. This assistant first told many of the stories, now
+so well known, concerning Abe at this period of his career:
+
+Young Greene was, like most of the young men in New Salem, addicted to
+petty gambling. He once related how Lincoln induced him to quit the
+habit. Abe said to him one day:
+
+"Billy, you ought to stop gambling with Estep." Billy made a lame
+excuse:
+
+"I'm ninety cents behind, and I can't quit until I win it back."
+
+"I'll help you get that back," urged Lincoln, "if you'll promise me you
+won't gamble any more."
+
+The youth reflected a moment and made the required promise. Lincoln
+continued:
+
+"Here are some good hats, and you need a new one. Now, when Estep comes
+again, you draw him on by degrees, and finally bet him one of these hats
+that I can lift a forty-gallon barrel of whisky and take a drink out of
+the bunghole."
+
+Billy agreed, and the two clerks chuckled as they fixed the barrel so
+that the bunghole would come in the right place to win the bet, though
+the thing seemed impossible to Greene himself. Estep appeared in due
+time, and after long parleying and bantering the wager was laid. Lincoln
+then squatted before the barrel, lifted one end up on one knee, then
+raised the other end on to the other knee, bent over, and by a Herculean
+effort, actually succeeded in taking a drink from the bunghole--though
+he spat it out immediately. "That was the only time," said Greene long
+afterward, "that I ever saw Abraham Lincoln take a drink of liquor of
+any kind." This was the more remarkable, as whisky was served on all
+occasions--even passed around with refreshments at religious meetings,
+according to Mrs. Josiah Crawford, the woman for whom Abe and Nancy had
+worked as hired help. Much as Abe disapproved of drinking, he considered
+that "the end justified the means" employed to break his fellow clerk of
+the gambling habit.
+
+
+HOW HE WON THE NAME OF "HONEST ABE"
+
+Abe Lincoln could not endure the thought of cheating any one, even
+though it had been done unintentionally. One day a woman bought a bill
+of goods in Offutt's store amounting to something over two dollars. She
+paid Abe the money and went away satisfied. That night, on going over
+the sales of the day, Abe found that he had charged the woman six and
+one-fourth cents too much. After closing the store, though it was late,
+he could not go home to supper or to bed till he had restored that
+sixpence to its proper owner. She lived more than two miles away, but
+that did not matter to Abe Lincoln. When he had returned the money to
+the astonished woman he walked back to the village with a long step and
+a light heart, content with doing his duty.
+
+Another evening, as he was closing the store, a woman came in for a
+half-pound of tea. He weighed it out for her and took the pay. But early
+next morning, when he came to "open up," he found the four-ounce weight
+instead of the eight-ounce on the scales, and inferred that he had given
+that woman only half as much tea as he had taken the money for. Of
+course, the woman would never know the difference, and it meant walking
+several miles and back, but the honest clerk weighed out another quarter
+pound of tea, locked the store and took that long walk before breakfast.
+As a "constitutional" it must have been a benefit to his health, for it
+satisfied his sensitive conscience and soothed his tender heart to "make
+good" in that way.
+
+Drink and misdirected enthusiasm interfered with Denton Offutt's
+success. After about a year in New Salem he "busted up," as the
+neighbors expressed it, and left his creditors in the lurch. Among them
+was the clerk he had boasted so much about. For a short time Abe Lincoln
+needed a home, and found a hearty welcome with Jack Armstrong, the best
+fighter of Clary's Grove!
+
+J. G. Holland wrote, in his "Life of Abraham Lincoln," of the young
+man's progress during his first year in New Salem:
+
+"The year that Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's store was one of great
+advance. He had made new and valuable acquaintances, read many books,
+won multitudes of friends, and become ready for a step further in
+advance. Those who could appreciate brains respected him, and those
+whose ideas of a man related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was
+while he was performing the work of the store that he acquired the
+nickname, 'Honest Abe'--a characterization that he never dishonored, an
+abbreviation that he never outgrew. He was everybody's friend, the
+best-natured, the most sensible, the best-informed, the most modest and
+unassuming, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best fellow in
+all New Salem and the region round about."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+POLITICS, WAR, STOREKEEPING AND STUDYING LAW
+
+
+STUDYING GRAMMAR FIRST
+
+By "a step still further in advance" Dr. Holland must have meant the
+young clerk's going into politics. He had made many friends in New
+Salem, and they reflected back his good-will by urging him to run for
+the State Legislature. Before doing this he consulted Mentor Graham, the
+village schoolmaster, with whom he had worked as election clerk when he
+first came to the place. Abe could read, write and cipher, but he felt
+that if he should succeed in politics, he would disgrace his office and
+himself by not speaking and writing English correctly.
+
+The schoolmaster advised: "If you expect to go before the public in any
+capacity, I think the best thing you can do is to study English
+grammar."
+
+"If I had a grammar I would commence now," sighed Abe.
+
+Mr. Graham thought one could be found at Vaner's, only six miles away.
+So Abe got up and started for it as fast as he could stride. In an
+incredibly short time he returned with a copy of Kirkham's Grammar, and
+set to work upon it at once. Sometimes he would steal away into the
+woods, where he could study "out loud" if he desired. He kept up his old
+habit of sitting up nights to read, and as lights were expensive, the
+village cooper allowed him to stay in his shop, where he burned the
+shavings and studied by the blaze as he had done in Indiana, after every
+one else had gone to bed. So it was not long before young Lincoln, with
+the aid of Schoolmaster Graham, had mastered the principles of English
+grammar, and felt himself better equipped to enter politics and public
+life. Some of his rivals, however, did not trouble themselves about
+speaking and writing correctly.
+
+
+GOING INTO POLITICS
+
+James Rutledge, a "substantial" citizen, and the former owner of
+Rutledge's mill and dam, was the president of the New Salem debating
+club. Young Lincoln joined this society, and when he first rose to
+speak, everybody began to smile in anticipation of a funny story, but
+Abe proceeded to discuss the question before the house in very good
+form. He was awkward in his movements and gestures at first, and amused
+those present by thrusting his unwieldy hands deep into his pockets, but
+his arguments were so well-put and forcible that all who heard him were
+astonished.
+
+Mr. Rutledge, that night after Abe's maiden effort at the lyceum, told
+his wife:
+
+"There is more in Abe Lincoln's head than mere wit and fun. He is
+already a fine speaker. All he needs is culture to fit him for a high
+position in public life."
+
+But there were occasions enough where something besides culture was
+required. A man who was present and heard Lincoln's first real stump
+speech describes his appearance and actions in the following picturesque
+language:
+
+"He wore a mixed jean coat, clawhammer style, short in the sleeves and
+bob-tail--in fact, it was so short in the tail that he could not sit
+upon it--flax and tow linen pantaloons, and a straw hat. I think he wore
+a vest, but do not remember how it looked. He wore pot metal (top)
+boots.
+
+"His maiden effort on the stump was a speech on the occasion of a public
+sale at Pappyville, a village eleven miles from Springfield. After the
+sale was over and speechmaking had begun, a fight--a 'general fight' as
+one of the bystanders relates--ensued, and Lincoln, noticing one of his
+friends about to succumb to the attack of an infuriated ruffian,
+interposed to prevent it. He did so most effectually. Hastily descending
+from the rude platform, he edged his way through the crowd, and seizing
+the bully by the neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him by means
+of his great strength and long arms, as one witness stoutly insists,
+'twelve feet away.' Returning to the stand, and throwing aside his hat,
+he inaugurated his campaign with the following brief and juicy
+declaration:
+
+"'Fellow-Citizens: I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham
+Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate
+for the Legislature. My politics are "short and sweet" like the old
+woman's dance. I am in favor of national bank. I am in favor of the
+internal improvement system, and a high protective tariff. These are my
+sentiments and political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if
+not, it will be all the same.'"
+
+The only requirement for a candidate for the Illinois Legislature in
+1832 was that he should announce his "sentiments." This Lincoln did,
+according to custom, in a circular of about two thousand words,
+rehearsing his experiences on the Sangamon River and in the community of
+New Salem. For a youth who had just turned twenty-three, who had never
+been to school a year in his life, who had no political training, and
+had never made a political speech, it was a bold and dignified document,
+closing as follows:
+
+"Considering the great degree of modesty which should always attend
+youth, it is probable I have already been presuming more than becomes
+me. However, upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as
+I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them, but,
+holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right
+than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be
+erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.
+
+"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether this is true
+or not, I can say for one, that I have no other so great as that of
+being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of
+their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet
+to be developed. I am young and unknown to many of you. I was born, and
+have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy
+or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown
+exclusively upon the independent voters of the country; and, if elected,
+they will have conferred a favor on me for which I shall be unremitting
+in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall
+see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with
+disappointments to be very much chagrined."
+
+
+"CAPTAIN LINCOLN"
+
+Lincoln had hardly launched in his first political venture when, in
+April, 1832, a messenger arrived in New Salem with the announcement from
+Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, that the Sacs and other hostile tribes,
+led by Black Hawk, had invaded the northern part of the State, spreading
+terror among the white settlers in that region. The governor called upon
+those who were willing to help in driving back the Indians to report at
+Beardstown, on the Illinois River, within a week.
+
+Lincoln and other Sangamon County men went at once to Richmond where a
+company was formed. The principal candidate for captain was a man named
+Kirkpatrick, who had treated Lincoln shabbily when Abe, in one of the
+odd jobs he had done in that region, worked in Kirkpatrick's sawmill.
+The employer had agreed to buy his hired man a cant-hook for handling
+the heavy logs. As there was a delay in doing this, Lincoln told him he
+would handle the logs without the cant-hook if Kirkpatrick would pay him
+the two dollars that implement would cost. The employer promised to do
+this, but never gave him the money.
+
+So when Lincoln saw that Kirkpatrick was a candidate for the captaincy,
+he said to Greene, who had worked with him in Offutt's store:
+
+"Bill, I believe I can make Kirkpatrick pay me that two dollars he owes
+me on the cant-hook now. I guess I'll run against him for captain."
+
+Therefore Abe Lincoln announced himself as a candidate. The vote was
+taken in an odd way. It was announced that when the men heard the
+command to march, each should go and stand by the man he wished to have
+for captain. The command was given. At the word, "March," three-fourths
+of the company rallied round Abe Lincoln. More than twenty-five years
+afterward, when Lincoln was a candidate for the presidency of the United
+States, he referred to himself in the third person in describing this
+incident, saying that he was elected "to his own surprise," and "he says
+he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much
+satisfaction."
+
+
+IGNORANCE OF MILITARY TACTICS
+
+But Lincoln was a "raw hand" at military tactics. He used to enjoy
+telling of his ignorance and the expedients adopted in giving his
+commands to the company. Once when he was marching, twenty men abreast,
+across a field it became necessary to pass through a narrow gateway into
+the next field. He said:
+
+"I could not, for the life of me, remember the word for getting the
+company _endwise_ so that it could go through the gate; so, as we came
+near the gate, I shouted, 'This company is dismissed for two minutes,
+when it will fall in again on the other side of the fence.'"
+
+
+A HISTORIC MYSTERY EXPLAINED
+
+Captain Lincoln had his sword taken from him for shooting within limits.
+Many have wondered that a man of Lincoln's intelligence should have been
+guilty of this stupid infraction of ordinary army regulations.
+Biographers of Lincoln puzzled over this until the secret was explained
+by William Turley Baker, of Bolivia, Ill., at the Lincoln Centenary in
+Springfield. All unconscious of solving a historic mystery, "Uncle
+Billy" Baker related the following story which explains that the
+shooting was purely accidental:
+
+"My father was roadmaster general in the Black Hawk War. Lincoln used to
+come often to our house and talk it all over with father, when I was a
+boy, and I've heard them laugh over their experiences in that war. The
+best joke of all was this: Father received orders one day to throw log
+bridges over a certain stream the army had to cross. He felled some
+tall, slim black walnuts--the only ones he could find there--and the
+logs were so smooth and round that they were hard to walk on any time.
+This day it rained and made them very slippery. Half of the soldiers
+fell into the stream and got a good ducking. Captain Lincoln was one of
+those that tumbled in. He just laughed and scrambled out as quick as he
+could. He always made the best of everything like that.
+
+"Well, that evening when the company came to camp, some of them had dog
+tents--just a big canvas sheet--and the boys laughed to see Lincoln
+crawl under one of them little tents. He was so long that his head and
+hands and feet stuck out on all sides. The boys said he looked just like
+a big terrapin. After he had got himself stowed away for the night, he
+remembered that he hadn't cleaned his pistol, after he fell into the
+creek.
+
+"So he backed out from under his canvas shell and started to clean it
+out. It was what was called a bulldog pistol, because it had a blunt,
+short muzzle. Abe's forefinger was long enough to use as a ramrod for
+it. But before he began operations he snapped the trigger and, to his
+astonishment, the thing went off!
+
+"Pretty soon an orderly came along in great haste, yellin', 'Who did
+that?--Who fired that shot?' Some of the men tried to send the orderly
+along about his business, making believe the report was heard further
+on, but Lincoln he wouldn't stand for no such deception, spoken or
+unspoken. 'I did it,' says he, beginning to explain how it happened.
+
+"You see, his legs was so blamed long, and he must have landed on his
+feet, in the creek, and got out of the water without his pistol getting
+wet, 'way up there in his weskit!
+
+"But he had to pay the penalty just the same, for they took his sword
+away from him for several days. You see, he was a captain and ought to
+'a' set a good example in military discipline."
+
+
+HOW CAPTAIN LINCOLN SAVED AN INDIAN'S LIFE
+
+One day an old "friendly Indian" came into camp with a "talking paper"
+or pass from the "big white war chief." The men, with the pioneer idea
+that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," were for stringing him up.
+The poor old red man protested and held the general's letter before
+their eyes.
+
+"Me good Injun," he kept saying, "white war chief say me good Injun.
+Look--talking paper--see!"
+
+"Get out! It's a forgery! Shoot him! String him up!" shouted the
+soldiers angrily.
+
+This noise brought Captain Lincoln out of his tent. At a glance he saw
+what they were about to do. He jumped in among them, shouting
+indignantly:
+
+"Stand back, all of you! For shame! I'll fight you all, one after the
+other, just as you come. Take it out on me if you can, but you shan't
+hurt this poor old Indian. When a man comes to me for help, he's going
+to get it, if I have to lick all Sangamon County to give it to him."
+
+The three months for which the men were enlisted soon expired, and
+Lincoln's captaincy also ended. But he re-enlisted as a private, and
+remained in the ranks until the end of the war, which found him in
+Wisconsin, hundreds of miles from New Salem. He and a few companions
+walked home, as there were not many horses to be had. Lincoln enlivened
+the long tramp with his fund of stories and jokes.
+
+It is sometimes asserted that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis met at
+this early day, as officers in the Black Hawk War, but this statement
+is not founded on fact, for young Lieutenant Davis was absent on a
+furlough and could not have encountered the tall captain from the
+Sangamon then, as many would like to believe.
+
+Lincoln always referred to the Black Hawk War as a humorous adventure.
+He made a funny speech in Congress describing some of his experiences in
+this campaign in which he did not take part in a battle, nor did he even
+catch sight of a hostile Indian.
+
+
+AGAIN A RIVER PILOT
+
+Abe was still out of work. Just before he enlisted he piloted the
+_Talisman_, a steamboat which had come up the Sangamon on a trial trip,
+in which the speed of the boat averaged four miles an hour. At that time
+the wildest excitement prevailed. The coming of the _Talisman_ up their
+little river was hailed with grand demonstrations and much
+speech-making. Every one expected the Government to spend millions of
+dollars to make the Sangamon navigable, and even New Salem (which is not
+now to be found on the map) was to become a flourishing city, in the
+hopeful imaginings of its few inhabitants. Lincoln, being a candidate,
+naturally "took the fever," and shared the delirium that prevailed. He
+could hardly have done otherwise, even if he had been so disposed. This
+was before the days of railroads, and the commerce and prosperity of the
+country depended on making the smaller streams navigable. Lincoln
+received forty dollars, however, for his services as pilot. The
+_Talisman_, instead of establishing a river connection with the
+Mississippi River cities, never came back. She was burned at the wharf
+in St. Louis, and the navigation of the poor little Sangamon, which was
+only a shallow creek, was soon forgotten.
+
+
+LINCOLN'S ONLY DEFEAT BY A DIRECT VOTE
+
+When Abe returned from the war he had no steady employment. On this
+account, especially, he must have been deeply disappointed to be
+defeated in the election which took place within two weeks after his
+arrival. His patriotism had been stronger than his political sagacity.
+If he had stayed at home to help himself to the Legislature he might
+have been elected, though he was then a comparative stranger in the
+county. One of the four representatives chosen was Peter Cartwright, the
+backwoods preacher.
+
+Lincoln afterward mentioned that this was the only time he was ever
+defeated by a direct vote of the people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BUYING AND KEEPING A STORE
+
+
+After making what he considered a bad beginning politically, young
+Lincoln was on the lookout for a "business chance." One came to him in a
+peculiar way. A man named Radford had opened a store in New Salem.
+Possessing neither the strength nor the sagacity and tact of Abe
+Lincoln, he was driven out of business by the Clary's Grove Boys, who
+broke his store fixtures and drank his liquors. In his fright Radford
+was willing to sell out at almost any price and take most of his pay in
+promissory notes. He was quickly accommodated. Through William G. Greene
+a transfer was made at once from Reuben Radford to William Berry and
+Abraham Lincoln. Berry had $250 in cash and made the first payment. In a
+few hours after a violent visit from those ruffians from Clary's Grove
+Berry and Lincoln had formed a partnership and were the nominal owners
+of a country store.
+
+The new firm soon absorbed the stock and business of another firm, James
+and Rowan Herndon, who had previously acquired the stock and debts of
+the predecessors in their business, and all these obligations were
+passed on with the goods of both the Radford and Herndon stores to
+"Honest Abe."
+
+The senior partner of the firm of Berry & Lincoln was devoted to the
+whisky which was found in the inventory of the Radford stock, and the
+junior partner was given over to the study of a set of "Blackstone's
+Commentaries," text-books which all lawyers have to study, that came
+into his possession in a peculiar way, as Candidate Lincoln told an
+artist who was painting his portrait in 1860:
+
+"One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my
+store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He
+asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his
+wagon, and which contained nothing of special value. I did not want it,
+but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for
+it. Without further examination I put it away in the store and forgot
+all about it.
+
+"Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and
+emptying it on the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom
+of the rubbish a complete set of 'Blackstone's Commentaries.' I began to
+read those famous works. I had plenty of time; for during the long
+summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers
+were few and far between. The more I read the more intensely interested
+I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I
+read until I devoured them."
+
+With one partner drinking whisky and the other devouring "Blackstone,"
+it was not surprising that the business "winked out," as Lincoln
+whimsically expressed it, leaving the conscientious junior partner
+saddled with the obligations of the former owners of two country stores,
+and owing an amount so large that Lincoln often referred to it as "the
+national debt." William Berry, the senior partner, who was equally
+responsible, "drank himself to death," leaving Lincoln alone to pay all
+the debts.
+
+According to the custom and conscience of the time, the insolvent young
+merchant was under no obligation whatever to pay liabilities contracted
+by the other men, but Lincoln could never be induced even to compromise
+any of the accounts the others had gone off and left him to settle.
+"Honest Abe" paid the last cent of his "national debt" nearly twenty
+years later, after much toil, self-denial and hardship.
+
+
+POSTMASTER LINCOLN AND JACK ARMSTRONG'S FAMILY
+
+Again out of employment, Abe was forced to accept the hospitality of his
+friends of whom he now had a large number. While in business with Berry
+he received the appointment as postmaster. The pay of the New Salem post
+office was not large, but Lincoln, always longing for news and
+knowledge, had the privilege of reading the newspapers which passed
+through his hands. He took so much pains in delivering the letters and
+papers that came into his charge as postmaster that he anticipated the
+"special delivery" and "rural free delivery" features of the postal
+service of the present day.
+
+
+"A. LINCOLN, DEPUTY SURVEYOR"
+
+Later John Calhoun, the county surveyor, sent word to Lincoln that he
+would appoint him deputy surveyor of the county if he would accept the
+position. The young man, greatly astonished, went to Springfield to call
+on Calhoun and see if the story could be true. Calhoun knew that Lincoln
+was utterly ignorant of surveying, but told him he might take time to
+study up. As soon as Lincoln was assured that the appointment did not
+involve any political obligation--for Calhoun was a Jackson Democrat,
+and Lincoln was already a staunch Whig--he procured a copy of Flint and
+Gibson's "Surveying" and went to work with a will. With the aid of
+Mentor Graham, and studying day and night, he mastered the subject and
+reported to Calhoun in six weeks. The county surveyor was astounded, but
+when Lincoln gave ample proofs of his ability to do field work, the
+chief surveyor appointed him a deputy and assigned him to the northern
+part of Sangamon County.
+
+Deputy Surveyor Lincoln had to run deeper in debt for a horse and
+surveying instruments in order to do this new work. Although he made
+three dollars a day at it--a large salary for that time--and board and
+expenses were cheap, he was unable to make money fast enough to satisfy
+one creditor who was pushing him to pay one of the old debts left by the
+failure of Berry & Lincoln. This man sued Lincoln and, getting judgment,
+seized the deputy's horse and instruments. This was like "killing the
+goose that laid the golden egg." Lincoln was in despair. But a friend,
+as a surprise, bought in the horse and instruments for one hundred and
+twenty dollars and presented them to the struggling surveyor.
+
+President Lincoln, many years afterward, generously repaid this man,
+"Uncle Jimmy" Short, for his friendly act in that hour of need.
+
+Lincoln's reputation as a story teller and wrestler had spread so that
+when it became known that he was to survey a tract in a certain district
+the whole neighborhood turned out and held a sort of picnic. Men and
+boys stood ready to "carry chain," drive stakes, blaze trees, or work
+for the popular deputy in any capacity--just to hear his funny stories
+and odd jokes. They had foot races, wrestling matches and other
+athletic sports, in which the surveyor sometimes took part.
+
+But Lincoln's honesty was as manifest in "running his lines" as in his
+weights and measures while he was a clerk and storekeeper. In whatever
+he attempted he did his best. He had that true genius, which is defined
+as "the ability to take pains." With all his jokes and fun Abraham
+Lincoln was deeply in earnest. Careless work in making surveys involved
+the landholders of that part of the country in endless disputes and
+going to law about boundaries. But Lincoln's surveys were recognized as
+correct always, so that, although he had mastered the science in six
+weeks, lawyers and courts had such confidence in his skill, as well as
+his honesty, that his record as to a certain corner or line was accepted
+as the true verdict and that ended the dispute.
+
+
+ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE
+
+Hampered though he was by unjust debts and unreasonable creditors,
+Postmaster and Surveyor Lincoln gained an honorable reputation
+throughout the county, so that when he ran for the State Legislature,
+in 1834, he was elected by a creditable majority.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE YOUNG LEGISLATOR IN LOVE
+
+
+SMOOT'S RESPONSIBILITY
+
+Paying his debts had kept Lincoln so poor that, though he had been
+elected to the Legislature, he was not properly clothed or equipped to
+make himself presentable as the people's representative at the State
+capital, then located at Vandalia. One day he went with a friend to call
+on an older acquaintance, named Smoot, who was almost as dry a joker as
+himself, but Smoot had more of this world's goods than the young
+legislator-elect. Lincoln began at once to chaff his friend.
+
+"Smoot," said he, "did you vote for me?"
+
+"I did that very thing," answered Smoot.
+
+"Well," said Lincoln with a wink, "that makes you responsible. You must
+lend me the money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent
+appearance in the Legislature."
+
+"How much do you want?" asked Smoot.
+
+"About two hundred dollars, I reckon."
+
+For friendship's sake and for the honor of Sangamon County the young
+representative received the money at once.
+
+
+ANN RUTLEDGE--"LOVED AND LOST"
+
+Abe Lincoln's new suit of clothes made him look still more handsome in
+the eyes of Ann, the daughter of the proprietor of Rutledge's Tavern,
+where Abe was boarding at that time. She was a beautiful girl who had
+been betrothed to a young man named McNamar, who was said to have
+returned to New York State to care for his dying father and look after
+the family estate. It began to leak out that this young man was going
+about under an assumed name and certain suspicious circumstances came to
+light. But Ann, though she loved the young legislator, still clung to
+her promise and the man who had proved false to her. As time went on,
+though she was supposed to be betrothed to Mr. Lincoln, the treatment
+she had received from the recreant lover preyed upon her mind so that
+she fell into a decline in the summer of 1835, about a year after her
+true lover's election to the Legislature.
+
+William O. Stoddard, one of the President's private secretaries, has
+best told the story of the young lover's despair over the loss of his
+first love:
+
+"It is not known precisely when Ann Rutledge told her suitor that her
+heart was his, but early in 1835 it was publicly known that they were
+solemnly betrothed. Even then the scrupulous maiden waited for the
+return of the absent McNamar, that she might be formally released from
+the obligation to him which he had so recklessly forfeited. Her friends
+argued with her that she was carrying her scruples too far, and at last,
+as neither man nor letter came, she permitted it to be understood that
+she would marry Abraham Lincoln as soon as his legal studies should be
+completed.
+
+"That was a glorious summer for him; the brightest, sweetest, most
+hopeful he yet had known. It was also the fairest time he was ever to
+see; for even now, as the golden days came and went, they brought an
+increasing shadow on their wings. It was a shadow that was not to pass
+away. Little by little came indications that the health of Ann Rutledge
+had suffered under the prolonged strain to which she had been subjected.
+Her sensitive nature had been strung to too high a tension and the
+chords of her life were beginning to give way.
+
+"There were those of her friends who said that she died of a broken
+heart, but the doctors called it 'brain fever.'
+
+"On the 25th of August, 1835, just before the summer died, she passed
+away from earth. But she never faded from the heart of Abraham
+Lincoln. . . . In her early grave was buried the best hope he ever knew,
+and the shadow of that great darkness was never entirely lifted from
+him.
+
+"A few days before Ann's death a message from her brought her betrothed
+to her bedside, and they were left alone. No one ever knew what passed
+between them in the endless moments of that last sad farewell; but
+Lincoln left the house with inexpressible agony written upon his face.
+He had been to that hour a man of marvelous poise and self-control, but
+the pain he now struggled with grew deeper and more deep, until, when
+they came and told him she was dead, his heart and will, and even his
+brain itself gave way. He was utterly without help or the knowledge of
+possible help in this world or beyond it. He was frantic for a time,
+seeming even to lose the sense of his own identity, and all New Salem
+said that he was insane. He piteously moaned and raved:
+
+"'I never can be reconciled to have the snow, rain, and storms beat upon
+her grave.'
+
+"His best friends seemed to have lost their influence over him, . . . all
+but one; for Bowling Green . . . managed to entice the poor fellow to his
+own home, a short distance from the village, there to keep watch and
+ward over him until the fury of his sorrow should wear away. There were
+well-grounded fears lest he might do himself some injury, and the watch
+was vigilantly kept.
+
+"In a few weeks reason again obtained the mastery, and it was safe to
+let him return to his studies and his work. He could indeed work again,
+and he could once more study law, for there was a kind of relief in
+steady occupation and absorbing toil, but he was not, could not ever be
+the same man. . . .
+
+"Lincoln had been fond of poetry from boyhood, and had gradually made
+himself familiar with large parts of Shakespeare's plays and the works
+of other great writers. He now discovered, in a strange collection of
+verses, the one poem which seemed best to express the morbid, troubled,
+sore condition of his mind, . . . the lines by William Knox, beginning:
+
+        "'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
+         Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
+         A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
+         He passeth from life to his rest in the grave:'"
+
+
+"THE LONG NINE" AND THE REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD
+
+Two years was the term for which Lincoln was elected to the Legislature.
+The year following the death of Ann Rutledge he threw himself into a
+vigorous campaign for re-election. He had found much to do at Vandalia.
+The greatest thing was the proposed removal of the State capital to
+Springfield. In this enterprise he had the co-operation of a group of
+tall men, known as "the Long Nine," of whom he was the tallest and came
+to be the leader.
+
+Lincoln announced his second candidacy in this brief, informal letter in
+the county paper:
+
+
+                            "NEW SALEM, June 13, 1836.
+
+        "TO THE EDITOR OR THE JOURNAL:
+
+        "In your paper of last Saturday I see a
+        communication over the signature of 'Many
+        Voters' in which the candidates who are
+        announced in the _Journal_ are called upon to
+        'show their hands.'
+
+        "Agreed. Here's mine:
+
+        "I go in for all sharing the privileges of the
+        government who assist in bearing its burdens.
+        Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to
+        the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear
+        arms (by no means excluding females).
+
+        "If elected, I shall consider the whole people
+        of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that
+        oppose as those that support me.
+
+        "While acting as their Representative, I shall
+        be governed by their will on all subjects upon
+        which I have the means of knowing what their
+        will is; and upon all others I shall do what my
+        own judgment teaches me will best advance
+        their interests. Whether elected or not, I go
+        for distributing the proceeds of public lands
+        to the several States to enable our State, in
+        common with others, to dig canals and construct
+        railroads without borrowing and paying interest
+        on it.
+
+        "If alive on the first Monday in November, I
+        shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.
+
+                            "Very respectfully,
+                                       "A. LINCOLN."
+
+The earliest railroads in the United States had been built during the
+five years just preceding this announcement, the first one of all, only
+thirteen miles long, near Baltimore, in 1831. It is interesting to
+observe the enthusiasm with which the young frontier politician caught
+the progressive idea, and how quickly the minds of the people turned
+from impossible river "improvements" to the grand possibilities of
+railway transportation.
+
+Many are the stories of the remarkable Sangamon campaign in 1836. Rowan
+Herndon, Abe's fellow pilot and storekeeper, told the following:
+
+
+WINNING VOTES, WIELDING THE "CRADLE" IN A WHEAT FIELD
+
+"Abraham came to my house, near Island Grove, during harvest. There were
+some thirty men in the field. He got his dinner and went out into the
+field, where the men were at work. I gave him an introduction, and the
+boys said that they could not vote for a man unless he could take a
+hand.
+
+"'Well, boys,' said he, 'if that is all, I am sure of your votes' He
+took the 'cradle' and led all the way round with perfect ease. The boys
+were satisfied, and I don't think he lost a vote in the crowd.
+
+"The next day there was speaking at Berlin. He went from my house with
+Dr. Barnett, who had asked me who this man Lincoln was. I told him that
+he was a candidate for the Legislature. He laughed and said:
+
+"'Can't the party raise any better material than that?'
+
+"I said, 'Go to-morrow and hear him before you pronounce judgment.'
+
+"When he came back I said, 'Doctor, what do you say now?'
+
+"'Why, sir,' said he, 'he is a perfect "take-in." He knows more than
+all of them put together.'"
+
+
+TALKED TO A WOMAN WHILE HIS RIVAL MILKED
+
+Young Lincoln happened to call to speak to a leading farmer in the
+district, and found his rival, a Democratic candidate, there on the same
+errand. The farmer was away from home, so each of the candidates did his
+best to gain the good-will of the farmer's "better half," who was on her
+way to milk the cow. The Democrat seized the pail and insisted on doing
+the work for her. Lincoln did not make the slightest objection, but
+improved the opportunity thus given to chat with their hostess. This he
+did so successfully that when his rival had finished the unpleasant
+task, the only acknowledgment he received was a profusion of thanks from
+the woman for the opportunity he had given her of having "_such a
+pleasant talk with Mr. Lincoln_!"
+
+
+HOW THE LIGHTNING STRUCK FORQUER, IN SPITE OF HIS LIGHTNING-ROD
+
+Abe distinguished himself in his first political speech at Springfield,
+the county seat. A leading citizen there, George Forquer, was accused
+of changing his political opinions to secure a certain government
+position; he also had his fine residence protected by the first
+lightning-rod ever seen in that part of the country.
+
+The contest was close and exciting. There were seven Democratic and
+seven Whig candidates for the lower branch of the Legislature. Forquer,
+though not a candidate, asked to be heard in reply to young Lincoln,
+whom he proceeded to attack in a sneering overbearing way, ridiculing
+the young man's appearance, dress, manners and so on. Turning to Lincoln
+who then stood within a few feet of him, Forquer announced his intention
+in these words: "This young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry
+that the task devolves upon me."
+
+The "Clary's Grove Boys," who attended the meeting in a body--or a
+gang!--could hardly be restrained from arising in their might and
+smiting the pompous Forquer, hip and thigh.
+
+But their hero, with pale face and flashing eyes, smiled as he shook his
+head at them, and calmly answered the insulting speech of his opponent.
+Among other things he said:
+
+"The gentleman commenced his speech by saying 'this young man,' alluding
+to me, 'must be taken down.' I am not so young in years as I am in the
+tricks and trades of a politician, but"--pointing at Forquer--"live long
+or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my
+politics, and with the change receive an office worth three thousand
+dollars a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my
+house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"
+
+This stroke blasted Forquer's political prospects forever, and satisfied
+the Clary's Grove Boys that it was even better than all the things they
+would have done to him.
+
+
+ABE LINCOLN AS A "BLOATED ARISTOCRAT"
+
+On another occasion Lincoln's wit suddenly turned the tables on an
+abusive opponent. One of the Democratic orators was Colonel Dick Taylor,
+a dapper, but bombastic little man, who rode in his carriage, and
+dressed richly. But, politically, he boasted of belonging to the
+Democrats, "the bone and sinew, the hard-fisted yeomanry of the land,"
+and sneered at those "rag barons," those Whig aristocrats, the "silk
+stocking gentry!" As Abe Lincoln, the leading Whig present, was dressed
+in Kentucky jeans, coarse boots, a checkered shirt without a collar or
+necktie, and an old slouch hat, Colonel Taylor's attack on the "bloated
+Whig aristocracy" sounded rather absurd.
+
+Once the colonel made a gesture so violent that it tore his vest open
+and exposed his elegant shirt ruffles, his gold watch-fob, his seals and
+other ornaments to the view of all. Before Taylor, in his embarrassment,
+could adjust his waistcoat, Lincoln stepped to the front exclaiming:
+
+"Behold the hard-fisted Democrat! Look at this specimen of 'bone and
+sinew'--and here, gentlemen," laying his big work-bronzed hand on his
+heart and bowing obsequiously--"here, at your service, is your
+'aristocrat!' Here is one of your 'silk stocking gentry!'" Then
+spreading out his great bony hands he continued, "Here is your 'rag
+baron' with his lily-white hands. Yes, I suppose I am, according to my
+friend Taylor, a 'bloated aristocrat!'"
+
+The contrast was so ludicrous, and Abe had quoted the speaker's stock
+phrases with such a marvelous mimicry that the crowd burst into a roar,
+and Colonel Dick Taylor's usefulness as a campaign speaker was at an
+end.
+
+Small wonder, then, that young Lincoln's wit, wisdom and power of
+ridicule made him known in that campaign as one of the greatest orators
+in the State, or that he was elected by such an astonishing plurality
+that the county, which had always been strongly Democratic, elected Whig
+representatives that year.
+
+After Herculean labors "the Long Nine" succeeded in having the State
+capital removed from Vandalia to Springfield. This move added greatly to
+the influence and renown of its "prime mover," Abraham Lincoln, who was
+feasted and "toasted" by the people of Springfield and by politicians
+all over the State. After reading "Blackstone" during his political
+campaigns, young Lincoln fell in again with Major John T. Stuart, whom
+he had met in the Black Hawk War, and who gave him helpful advice and
+lent him other books that he might "read law."
+
+
+THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST
+
+Although he had no idea of it at the time, Abraham Lincoln took part in
+a grander movement than the removal of a State capital. Resolutions were
+adopted in the Legislature in favor of slavery and denouncing the hated
+"abolitionists"--or people who spoke and wrote for the abolition of
+slavery. It required true heroism for a young man thus to stand out
+against the legislators of his State, but Abe Lincoln seems to have
+thought little of that. The hatred of the people for any one who opposed
+slavery was very bitter. Lincoln found one man, named Stone, who was
+willing to sign a protest against the resolutions favoring slavery,
+which read as follows:
+
+        "Resolutions upon the subject of domestic
+        slavery having passed both branches of the
+        General Assembly at its present session, the
+        undersigned hereby protest against the passage
+        of the same.
+
+        "They believe that the institution of slavery
+        is founded on both injustice and bad policy.
+        [After several statements of their belief
+        concerning the powers of Congress, the protest
+        closed as follows:]
+
+        "The difference between their opinions and
+        those contained in the said resolution is their
+        reason for entering this protest.
+
+
+                                         "DAN STONE,
+                                         "A. LINCOLN."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MOVING TO SPRINGFIELD
+
+
+New Salem could no longer give young Lincoln scope for his growing power
+and influence. Within a few weeks after the Lincoln-Stone protest, late
+in March, 1837, after living six years in the little village which held
+so much of life and sorrow for him, Abe sold his surveying compass,
+marking-pins, chain and pole, packed all his effects into his
+saddle-bags, borrowed a horse of his good friend "Squire" Bowling Green,
+and reluctantly said good-bye to his friends there. It is a strange fact
+that New Salem ceased to exist within a year from the day "Honest Abe"
+left it. Even its little post office was discontinued by the Government.
+
+Henry C. Whitney, who was associated with Lincoln in those early days,
+describes Abe's modest entry into the future State capital, with all his
+possessions in a pair of saddle-bags, and calling at the store of Joshua
+F. Speed, overlooking "the square," in the following dialogue:
+
+Speed--"Hello, Abe, just from Salem?"
+
+Lincoln--"Howdy, Speed! Yes, this is my first show-up."
+
+Speed--"So you are to be one of us?"
+
+Lincoln--"I reckon so, if you will let me take pot luck with you."
+
+Speed--"All right, Abe; it's better than Salem."
+
+Lincoln--"I've been to Gorman's and got a single bedstead; now you
+figure out what it will cost for a tick, blankets and so forth."
+
+Speed (after figuring)--"Say, seventeen dollars or so."
+
+Lincoln (countenance paling)--"I had no _idea_ it would cost half that,
+and I--I can't pay it; but if you can wait on me till Christmas, and I
+make anything, I'll pay; if I don't, I can't."
+
+Speed--"I can do better than that; upstairs I sleep in a bed big enough
+for two, and you just come and sleep with me till you can do better."
+
+Lincoln (brightening)--"Good, where is it?"
+
+Speed--"Upstairs behind that pile of barrels--turn to the right when you
+go up."
+
+Lincoln (returning joyously)--"Well, Speed, I've moved!"
+
+
+STUART & LINCOLN
+
+Major Stuart had grown so thoroughly interested in Lincoln, approving
+the diligence with which the young law student applied himself to the
+books which he had lent him, that, after his signal success in bringing
+about the removal of the State capital to Springfield, the older man
+invited the younger to go into partnership with him.
+
+Abe had been admitted to the bar the year before, and had practiced law
+in a small way before Squire Bowling Green in New Salem. Greatly
+flattered by the offer of such a man, Abe gladly accepted, and soon
+after his arrival in Springfield this sign, which thrilled the junior
+partner's whole being, appeared in front of an office near the square:
+
+         ------------------------------
+        |    STUART & LINCOLN          |
+        | ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW             |
+         ------------------------------
+
+
+"I NEVER USE ANYONE'S MONEY BUT MY OWN"
+
+After a while Lincoln left Speed's friendly loft and slept on a lounge
+in the law office, keeping his few effects in the little old-fashioned
+trunk pushed out of sight under his couch.
+
+One day an agent of the Post Office Department came in and asked if
+Abraham Lincoln could be found there. Abe arose and, reaching out his
+hand, said that was his name. The agent then stated his business; he had
+come to collect a balance due the Post Office Department since the
+closing of the post office at New Salem.
+
+The young ex-postmaster looked puzzled for a moment, and a friend, who
+happened to be present, hastened to his rescue with, "Lincoln, if you
+are in need of money, let us help you."
+
+Abe made no reply, but, pulling out his little old trunk, he asked the
+agent how much he owed. The man stated the amount, and he, opening the
+trunk, took out an old cotton cloth containing coins, which he handed to
+the official without counting, and it proved to be the exact sum
+required, over seventeen dollars, evidently the very pieces of money Abe
+had received while acting as postmaster years before!
+
+After the department agent had receipted for the money and had gone out,
+Mr. Lincoln quietly remarked:
+
+"I never use anyone's money but my own."
+
+
+DROPS THROUGH THE CEILING TO DEMAND FREE SPEECH
+
+Stuart & Lincoln's office was, for a time, over a court room, which was
+used evenings as a hall. There was a square opening in the ceiling of
+the court room, covered by a trap door in the room overhead where
+Lincoln slept. One night there was a promiscuous crowd in the hall, and
+Lincoln's friend, E. D. Baker, was delivering a political harangue.
+Becoming somewhat excited Baker made an accusation against a well-known
+newspaper in Springfield, and the remark was resented by several in the
+audience.
+
+"Pull him down!" yelled one of them as they came up to the platform
+threatening Baker with personal violence. There was considerable
+confusion which might become a riot.
+
+Just at this juncture the spectators were astonished to see a pair of
+long legs dangling from the ceiling and Abraham Lincoln dropped upon the
+platform. Seizing the water pitcher he took his stand beside the
+speaker, and brandished it, his face ablaze with indignation.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, when the confusion had subsided, "let us not
+disgrace the age and the country in which we live. This is a land where
+freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and
+ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him and no man
+shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it." Lincoln had opened
+the trap door in his room and silently watched the proceedings until he
+saw that his presence was needed below. Then he dropped right into the
+midst of the fray, and defended his friend and the right of free speech
+at the same time.
+
+
+DEFENDING THE DEFENSELESS
+
+A widow came to Mr. Lincoln and told him how an attorney had charged her
+an exorbitant fee for collecting her pension. Such cases filled him with
+righteous wrath. He cared nothing for "professional etiquette," if it
+permitted the swindling of a poor woman. Going directly to the greedy
+lawyer, he forced him to refund to the widow all that he had charged in
+excess of a fair fee for his services, or he would start proceedings at
+once to prevent the extortionate attorney from practicing law any longer
+at the Springfield bar.
+
+If a negro had been wronged in any way, Lawyer Lincoln was the only
+attorney in Springfield who dared to appear in his behalf, for he always
+did so at great risk to his political standing. Sometimes he appeared in
+defense of fugitive slaves, or negroes who had been freed or had run
+away from southern or "slave" States where slavery prevailed to gain
+liberty in "free" States in which slavery was not allowed. Lawyer
+Lincoln did all this at the risk of making himself very unpopular with
+his fellow-attorneys and among the people at large, the greater part of
+whom were then in favor of permitting those who wished to own, buy and
+sell negroes as slaves.
+
+Lincoln always sympathized with the poor and down-trodden. He could not
+bear to charge what his fellow-lawyers considered a fair price for the
+amount of work and time spent on a case. He often advised those who came
+to him to settle their disputes without going to law. Once he told a man
+he would charge him a large fee if he had to try the case, but if the
+parties in the dispute settled their difficulty without going into court
+he would furnish them all the legal advice they needed free of charge.
+Here is some excellent counsel Lawyer Lincoln gave, in later life, in
+an address to a class of young attorneys:
+
+"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever
+you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often the real
+loser--in fees, expenses and waste of time. As a peacemaker a lawyer has
+a superior opportunity of becoming a good man. There will always be
+enough business. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be
+found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who
+habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in
+titles whereon to stir up strife and put money in his pocket. A moral
+tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men
+out of it."
+
+
+YOUNG LAWYER LINCOLN OFFERS TO PAY HALF THE DAMAGES
+
+A wagonmaker in Mechanicsville, near Springfield, was sued on account of
+a disputed bill. The other side had engaged the best lawyer in the
+place. The cartwright saw that his own attorney would be unable to
+defend the case well. So, when the day of the trial arrived he sent his
+son-in-law to Springfield to bring Mr. Lincoln to save the day for him
+if possible. He said to the messenger:
+
+"Son, you've just got time. Take this letter to my young friend, Abe
+Lincoln, and bring him back in the buggy to appear in the case. Guess
+he'll come if he can."
+
+The young man from Mechanicsville found the lawyer in the street playing
+"knucks" with a troop of children and laughing heartily at the fun they
+were all having. When the note was handed to him, Lincoln said:
+
+"All right, wait a minute," and the game soon ended amid peals of
+laughter. Then the young lawyer jumped into the buggy. On the way back
+Mr. Lincoln told his companion such funny stories that the young man,
+convulsed with laughter, was unable to drive. The horse, badly broken,
+upset them into a ditch, smashing the vehicle.
+
+"You stay behind and look after the buggy," said the lawyer. "I'll walk
+on."
+
+He came, with long strides, into the court room just in time for the
+trial and won the case for the wagonmaker.
+
+"What am I to pay you?" asked the client delighted.
+
+"I hope you won't think ten or fifteen dollars too much," said the young
+attorney, "and I'll pay half the hire of the buggy and half the cost of
+repairing it."
+
+
+LAWYER LINCOLN AND MARY OWENS
+
+About the time Mr. Lincoln was admitted to the bar, Miss Mary Owens, a
+bright and beautiful young woman from Kentucky, came to visit her
+married sister near New Salem. The sister had boasted that she was going
+to "make a match" between her sister and Lawyer Lincoln. The newly
+admitted attorney smiled indulgently at all this banter until he began
+to consider himself under obligations to marry Miss Owens if that young
+lady proved willing.
+
+After he went to live in Springfield, with no home but his office, he
+wrote the young lady a long, discouraging letter, of which this is a
+part:
+
+
+        "I am thinking of what we said about your
+        coming to live in Springfield. I am afraid you
+        would not be satisfied. There is a great deal
+        of flourishing about in carriages here, which
+        it would be your doom to see without sharing
+        it. You would have to be poor without the means
+        of hiding your poverty. Do you believe that you
+        could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may
+        cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so,
+        it is my intention to do all in my power to
+        make her happy and contented, and there is
+        nothing I can imagine that could make me more
+        unhappy than to fail in that effort. I know I
+        should be much happier with you than the way I
+        am, provided I saw no sign of discontent in
+        you.
+
+        "I much wish you would think seriously before
+        you decide. What I have said, I will most
+        positively abide by, provided you wish it. You
+        have not been accustomed to hardship, and it
+        may be more severe than you now imagine. I know
+        you are capable of thinking correctly on any
+        subject, and if you deliberate maturely upon
+        this before you decide, then I am willing to
+        abide by your decision.
+
+                                 "Yours, etc.,
+                                            "LINCOLN."
+
+For a love letter this was nearly as cold and formal as a legal
+document. Miss Owens could see well enough that Lawyer Lincoln was not
+much in love with her, and she let him know, as kindly as she could,
+that she was not disposed to cast her lot for life with an enforced
+lover, as he had proved himself to be. She afterward confided to a
+friend that "Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make
+up the chain of a woman's happiness."
+
+
+THE EARLY RIVALRY BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS
+
+Soon after Mr. Lincoln came to Springfield he met Stephen A. Douglas, a
+brilliant little man from Vermont. The two seemed naturally to take
+opposing sides of every question. They were opposite in every way.
+Lincoln was tall, angular and awkward. Douglas was small, round and
+graceful--he came to be known as "the Little Giant." Douglas was a
+Democrat and favored slavery. Lincoln was a Whig, and strongly opposed
+that dark institution. Even in petty discussions in Speed's store, the
+two men seemed to gravitate to opposite sides. A little later they were
+rivals for the hand of the same young woman.
+
+One night, in a convivial company, Mr. Douglas's attention was directed
+to the fact that Mr. Lincoln neither smoked nor drank. Considering this
+a reflection upon his own habits, the little man sneered:
+
+"What, Mr. Lincoln, are you a temperance man?"
+
+"No," replied Lincoln with a smile full of meaning, "I'm not exactly a
+temperance man, but I am temperate in this, to wit:--I _don't drink_!"
+
+In spite of this remark, Mr. Lincoln _was_ an ardent temperance man. One
+Washington's birthday he delivered a temperance address before the
+Washingtonian Society of Springfield, on "Charity in Temperance Reform,"
+in which he made a strong comparison between the drink habit and black
+slavery.
+
+
+LOGAN & LINCOLN
+
+In 1841 the partnership between Stuart and Lincoln was dissolved and the
+younger man became a member of the firm of Logan & Lincoln. This was
+considered a long step in advance for the young lawyer, as Judge Stephen
+T. Logan was known as one of the leading lawyers in the State. From
+this senior partner he learned to make the thorough study of his cases
+that characterized his work throughout his later career.
+
+While in partnership with Logan, Mr. Lincoln was helping a young fellow
+named "Billy" Herndon, a clerk in his friend Speed's store, advising him
+in his law studies and promising to give the youth a place in his own
+office as soon as young Herndon should be fitted to fill it.
+
+
+WHAT LINCOLN DID WITH HIS FIRST FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR FEE
+
+During the interim between two partnerships, after he had left Major
+Stuart, and before he went into the office with Logan, Mr. Lincoln
+conducted a case alone. He worked very hard and made a brilliant success
+of it, winning the verdict and a five hundred dollar fee. When an old
+lawyer friend called on him, Lincoln had the money spread out on the
+table counting it over.
+
+"Look here, judge," said the young lawyer. "See what a heap of money
+I've got from that case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never
+in my life had so much money all at once!"
+
+Then his manner changed, and crossing his long arms on the table he
+said:
+
+"I have got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and
+fifty I would go and buy a quarter section (160 acres) of land and give
+it to my old stepmother."
+
+The friend offered to lend him the two hundred and fifty dollars needed.
+While drawing up the necessary papers, the old judge gave the young
+lawyer this advice:
+
+"Lincoln, I wouldn't do it quite that way. Your stepmother is getting
+old, and, in all probability, will not live many years. I would settle
+the property upon her for use during her lifetime, to revert to you upon
+her death."
+
+"I shall do no such thing," Lincoln replied with deep feeling. "It is a
+poor return, at best, for all the good woman's devotion to me, and there
+is not going to be any half-way business about it."
+
+The dutiful stepson did as he planned. Some years later he was obliged
+to write to John Johnston, his stepmother's son, appealing to him not to
+try to induce his mother to sell the land lest the old woman should lose
+the support he had provided for her in her declining years.
+
+
+IN LOVE WITH A BELLE FROM LEXINGTON
+
+Lincoln's popularity in Sangamon County, always increasing, was greatly
+strengthened by the part he had taken in the removal of the capital to
+Springfield, which was the county seat as well as the State capital. So
+he was returned to the Legislature, now held in Springfield, time after
+time, without further effort on his part. He was looked upon as a young
+man with a great future. While he was in the office with Major Stuart
+that gentleman's cousin, Miss Mary Todd, a witty, accomplished young
+lady from Lexington, Kentucky, came to Springfield to visit her sister,
+wife of Ninian W. Edwards, one of the "Long Nine" in the State Assembly.
+
+Miss Todd was brilliant and gay, a society girl--in every way the
+opposite of Mr. Lincoln--and he was charmed with everything she said and
+did. Judge Douglas was one of her numerous admirers, and it is said that
+the Louisville belle was so flattered by his attentions that she was in
+doubt, for a time, which suitor to accept. She was an ambitious young
+woman, having boasted from girlhood that she would one day be mistress
+of the White House.
+
+To all appearances Douglas was the more likely to fulfill Miss Todd's
+high ambition. He was a society man, witty in conversation, popular with
+women as well as with men, and had been to Congress, so he had a
+national reputation, while Lincoln's was only local, or at most confined
+to Sangamon County and the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois.
+
+But Mr. Douglas was already addicted to drink, and Miss Todd saw
+doubtless that he could not go on long at the rapid pace he was keeping
+up. It is often said that she was in favor of slavery, as some of her
+relatives who owned slaves, years later, entered the Confederate ranks
+to fight against the Union. But the remarkable fact that she finally
+chose Lincoln shows that her sympathies were against slavery, and she
+thus cut herself off from several members of her own family. With a
+woman's intuition she saw the true worth of Abraham Lincoln, and before
+long they were understood to be engaged.
+
+But the young lawyer, after his recent experience with Mary Owens,
+distrusted his ability to make any woman happy--much less the belle from
+Louisville, so brilliant, vivacious, well educated and exacting. He
+seemed to grow morbidly conscious of his shortcomings, and she was
+high-strung. A misunderstanding arose, and, between such exceptional
+natures, "the course of true love never did run smooth."
+
+Their engagement, if they were actually betrothed, was broken, and the
+lawyer-lover was plunged in deep melancholy. He wrote long, morbid
+letters to his friend Speed, who had returned to Kentucky, and had
+recently married there. Lincoln even went to Louisville to visit the
+Speeds, hoping that the change of scene and friendly sympathies and
+counsel would revive his health and spirits.
+
+In one of his letters Lincoln bemoaned his sad fate and referred to "the
+fatal 1st of January," probably the date when his engagement or "the
+understanding" with Mary Todd was broken. From this expression, one of
+Lincoln's biographers elaborated a damaging fiction, stating that
+Lincoln and his affianced were to have been married that day, that the
+wedding supper was ready, that the bride was all dressed for the
+ceremony, the guests assembled--but the melancholy bridegroom failed to
+come to his own wedding!
+
+If such a thing had happened in a little town like Springfield in those
+days, the guests would have told of it, and everybody would have
+gossiped about it. It would have been a nine days' wonder, and such a
+great joker as Lincoln would "never have heard the last of it."
+
+
+THE STRANGE EVENTS LEADING UP TO LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE
+
+After Lincoln's return from visiting the Speeds in Louisville, he threw
+himself into politics again, not, however, in his own behalf. He
+declined to be a candidate again for the State Legislature, in which he
+had served four consecutive terms, covering a period of eight years. He
+engaged enthusiastically in the "Log Cabin" campaign of 1840, when the
+country went for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," which means that General
+William Henry Harrison, the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, and John
+Tyler were elected President and Vice-President of the United States.
+
+In 1842 the young lawyer had so far recovered from bodily illness and
+mental unhappiness as to write more cheerful letters to his friend Speed
+of which two short extracts follow:
+
+"It seems to me that I should have been entirely happy but for the
+never-absent idea that there is one (Miss Todd) still unhappy whom I
+have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I cannot but
+reproach myself for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She
+accompanied a large party on the railroad cars to Jacksonville last
+Monday, and at her return spoke, so I heard of it, of having 'enjoyed
+the trip exceedingly.' God be praised for that."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You will see by the last _Sangamon Journal_ that I made a temperance
+speech on the 22d of February, which I claim that Fanny and you shall
+read as an act of charity toward me; for I cannot learn that anybody has
+read it or is likely to. Fortunately it is not long, and I shall deem it
+a sufficient compliance with my request if one of you listens while the
+other reads it."
+
+Early the following summer Lincoln wrote for the _Sangamon Journal_ a
+humorous criticism of State Auditor Shields, a vain and "touchy" little
+man. This was in the form of a story and signed by "Rebecca of the Lost
+Townships." The article created considerable amusement and might have
+passed unnoticed by the conceited little auditor if it had not been
+followed by another, less humorous, but more personal and satirical,
+signed in the same way, but the second communication was written by two
+mischievous (if not malicious) girls--Mary Todd and her friend, Julia
+Jayne. This stinging attack made Shields wild with rage, and he demanded
+the name of the writer of it. Lincoln told the editor to give Shields
+_his_ name as if he had written both contributions and thus protect the
+two young ladies. The auditor then challenged the lawyer to fight a
+duel. Lincoln, averse to dueling, chose absurd weapons, imposed
+ridiculous conditions and tried to treat the whole affair as a huge
+joke. When the two came face to face, explanations became possible and
+the ludicrous duel was avoided. Lincoln's conduct throughout this
+humiliating affair plainly showed that, while Shields would gladly have
+killed _him_, he had no intention of injuring the man who had challenged
+him.
+
+Mary Todd's heart seems to have softened toward the young man who was
+willing to risk his life for her sake, and the pair, after a long and
+miserable misunderstanding on both sides, were happily married on the
+4th of November, 1842. Their wedding ceremony was the first ever
+performed in Springfield by the use of the Episcopal ritual.
+
+When one of the guests, bluff old Judge Tom Brown, saw the bridegroom
+placing the ring on Miss Todd's finger, and repeating after the
+minister, "With this ring"--"I thee wed"--"and with all"--"my worldly
+goods"--"I thee endow"--he exclaimed, in a stage whisper:
+
+"Grace to Goshen, Lincoln, the statute fixes all that!"
+
+In a letter to Speed, not long after this event, the happy bridegroom
+wrote:
+
+"We are not keeping house but boarding at the Globe Tavern, which is
+very well kept now by a widow lady of the name of Beck. Our rooms are
+the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, and boarding only costs four
+dollars a week (for the two). I most heartily wish you and your family
+will not fail to come. Just let us know the time, a week in advance, and
+we will have a room prepared for you and we'll all be merry together for
+a while."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+LINCOLN & HERNDON
+
+
+YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR LINCOLN
+
+Lincoln remained in the office with Judge Logan about four years,
+dissolving partnership in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself in
+behalf of young William H. Herndon, who, after Speed's removal to
+Kentucky, had gone to college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man seemed
+to be made of the right kind of metal, was industrious, and agreeable,
+and Mr. Lincoln looked forward to the time when he could have "Billy"
+with him in a business of his own.
+
+Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct which women often possess,
+opposed her husband's taking Bill Herndon into partnership. While the
+young man was honest and capable enough, he was neither brilliant nor
+steady. He contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's
+business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not yet paid off "the national debt"
+largely due to his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems
+rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's admonitions. But
+young Herndon seems always to have exercised a strange fascination over
+his older friend and partner.
+
+While yet in partnership with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln went into the
+national campaign of 1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana for
+Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted.
+
+Before this campaign Lincoln had written to Mr. Speed:
+
+"We had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint
+delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me, and got the
+delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my
+attempts to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so that in
+getting Baker the nomination I shall be fixed like a fellow who is made
+a groomsman to a fellow that has cut him out, and is marrying his own
+dear 'gal.'"
+
+Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the nomination for Governor of
+Illinois, and declined the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme
+confidence in her husband's ability, tried to make him more
+self-seeking in his political efforts. He visited his old home in
+Indiana, making several speeches in that part of the State. It was
+fourteen years after he and all the family had removed to Illinois. One
+of his speeches was delivered from the door of a harness shop near
+Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter Schoolhouse." After this
+address he drove home with Mr. Josiah Crawford--"Old Blue Nose" for whom
+he had "pulled fodder" to pay an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of
+Washington," and in whose house his sister and he had lived as hired
+girl and hired man. He delighted the old friends by asking about
+everybody, and being interested in the "old swimming-hole," Jones's
+grocery where he had often argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old
+mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr. Baldwin, had told him some
+of his best stories, and where he once started in to learn the
+blacksmith's trade. He went around and called on all his former
+acquaintances who were still living in the neighborhood. His memories
+were so vivid and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long poem about
+this, from which the following are three stanzas:
+
+        "My childhood's home I see again
+           And sadden with the view;
+         And still, as memory crowds the brain,
+           There's pleasure in it, too.
+
+        "Ah, Memory! thou midway world
+           'Twixt earth and paradise,
+         Where things decayed and loved ones lost
+           In dreamy shadows rise.
+
+        "And freed from all that's earthy, vile,
+           Seems hallowed, pure and bright,
+         Like scenes in some enchanted isle,
+           All bathed in liquid light."
+
+
+TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT
+
+As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time away from Springfield he felt
+that he needed a younger assistant to "keep office" and look after his
+cases in the different courts. He should not have made "Billy" Herndon
+an equal partner, but he did so, though the young man had neither the
+ability nor experience to earn anything like half the income of the
+office. If Herndon had kept sober and done his best he might have made
+some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who treated him like a
+foster-father, was trying to do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the
+sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's absences by going on
+sprees with several dissipated young men about town.
+
+
+WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE
+
+A Springfield gentleman relates the following story which shows Lawyer
+Lincoln's business methods, his unwillingness to charge much for his
+legal services; and his great longing to save his young partner from the
+clutches of drink:
+
+"My father," said the neighbor, "was in business, facing the square, not
+far from the Court House. He had an account with a man who seemed to be
+doing a good, straight business for years, but the fellow disappeared
+one night, owing father about $1000. Time went on and father got no
+trace of the vanished debtor. He considered the account as good as lost.
+
+"But one day, in connection with other business, he told Mr. Lincoln he
+would give him half of what he could recover of that bad debt. The tall
+attorney's deep gray eyes twinkled as he said, 'One-half of nought is
+nothing. I'm neither a shark nor a shyster, Mr. Man. If I should collect
+it, I would accept only my regular percentage.'
+
+"'But I mean it,' father said earnestly. 'I should consider it as good
+as finding money in the street.'
+
+"'And "the finder will be liberally rewarded," eh?' said Mr. Lincoln
+with a laugh.
+
+"'Yes,' my father replied, 'that's about the size of it; and I'm glad if
+you understand it. The members of the bar here grumble because you
+charge too little for your professional services, and I'm willing to do
+my share toward educating you in the right direction.'
+
+"'Well, seein' as it's you,' said Mr. Lincoln with a whimsical smile,
+'considering that you're such an intimate friend, I'd do it for _twice_
+as much as I'd charge a _total stranger_! Is that satisfactory?'
+
+"'I should not be satisfied with giving you less than half the gross
+amount collected--in this case,' my father insisted. 'I don't see why
+you are so loath to take what is your due, Mr. Lincoln. You have a
+family to support and will have to provide for the future of several
+boys. They need money and are as worthy of it as any other man's wife
+and sons.'
+
+"Mr. Lincoln put out his big bony hand as if to ward off a blow,
+exclaiming in a pained tone:
+
+"'That isn't it, Mr. Man. That isn't it. I yield to no man in love to my
+wife and babies, and I provide enough for them. Most of those who bring
+their cases to me need the money more than I do. Other lawyers rob them.
+They act like a pack of wolves. They have no mercy. So when a needy
+fellow comes to me in his trouble--sometimes it's a poor widow--I can't
+take much from them. I'm not much of a Shylock. I always try to get them
+to settle it without going into court. I tell them if they will make it
+up among themselves I won't charge them anything.'
+
+"'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said father with a laugh, 'if they were all like
+you there would be no need of lawyers.'
+
+"'Well,' exclaimed Lawyer Lincoln with a quizzical inflection which
+meant much. 'Look out for the millennium, Mr. Man--still, as a great
+favor, I'll charge you a fat fee if I ever find that fellow and can get
+anything out of him. But that's like promising to give you half of the
+first dollar I find floating up the Sangamon on a grindstone, isn't it?
+I'll take a big slice, though, out of the grindstone itself, if you say
+so,' and the tall attorney went out with the peculiar laugh that
+afterward became world-famous.
+
+"Not long afterward, while in Bloomington, out on the circuit, Mr.
+Lincoln ran across the man who had disappeared from Springfield 'between
+two days,' carrying on an apparently prosperous business under an
+assumed name. Following the man to his office and managing to talk with
+him alone, the lawyer, by means of threats, made the man go right to the
+bank and draw out the whole thousand then. It meant payment in full or
+the penitentiary. The man understood it and went white as a sheet. In
+all his sympathy for the poor and needy, Mr. Lincoln had no pity on the
+flourishing criminal. Money could not purchase the favor of Lincoln.
+
+"Well, I hardly know which half of that thousand dollars father was
+gladder to get, but I honestly believe he was more pleased on Mr.
+Lincoln's account than on his own.
+
+"'Let me give you your five hundred dollars before I change my mind,' he
+said to the attorney.
+
+"'One hundred dollars is all I'll take out of that,' Mr. Lincoln replied
+emphatically. 'It was no trouble, and--and I haven't earned even that
+much.'
+
+"'But Mr. Lincoln,' my father demurred, 'you promised to take half.'
+
+"'Yes, but you got my word under false pretenses, as it were. Neither of
+us had the least idea I would collect the bill even if I ever found the
+fellow.'
+
+"As he would not accept more than one hundred dollars that day, father
+wouldn't give him any of the money due, for fear the too scrupulous
+attorney would give him a receipt in full for collecting. Finally, Mr.
+Lincoln went away after yielding enough to say he might accept two
+hundred and fifty dollars sometime in a pinch of some sort.
+
+"The occasion was not long delayed--but it was not because of illness or
+any special necessity in his own family. His young partner, 'Billy'
+Herndon, had been carousing with several of his cronies in a saloon
+around on Fourth Street, and the gang had broken mirrors, decanters and
+other things in their drunken spree. The proprietor, tired of such work,
+had had them all arrested.
+
+"Mr. Lincoln, always alarmed when Billy failed to appear at the usual
+hour in the morning, went in search of him, and found him and his
+partners in distress, locked up in the calaboose. The others were
+helpless, unable to pay or to promise to pay for any of the damages, so
+it devolved on Mr. Lincoln to raise the whole two hundred and fifty
+dollars the angry saloon keeper demanded.
+
+"He came into our office out of breath and said sheepishly:
+
+"'I reckon I can use that two-fifty now.'
+
+"'Check or currency?' asked father.
+
+"'Currency, if you've got it handy.'
+
+"'Give Mr. Lincoln two hundred and fifty dollars,' father called to a
+clerk in the office.
+
+"There was a moment's pause, during which my father refrained from
+asking any questions, and Mr. Lincoln was in no mood to give
+information. As soon as the money was brought, the tall attorney seized
+the bills and stalked out without counting it or saying anything but
+'Thankee, Mr. Man,' and hurried diagonally across the square toward the
+Court House, clutching the precious banknotes in his bony talons.
+
+"Father saw him cross the street so fast that the tails of his long coat
+stood out straight behind; then go up the Court House steps, two at a
+time, and disappear.
+
+"We learned afterward what he did with the money. Of course, Bill
+Herndon was penitent and promised to mend his ways, and, of course, Mr.
+Lincoln believed him. He took the money very much against his will, even
+against his principles--thinking it might save his junior partner from
+the drunkard's grave. But the heart of Abraham Lincoln was hoping
+against hope."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HIS KINDNESS OF HEART
+
+
+PUTTING TWO YOUNG BIRDS BACK IN THE NEST
+
+Mr. Lincoln's tender-heartedness was the subject of much amusement among
+his fellow attorneys. One day, while out riding with several friends,
+they missed Lincoln. One of them, having heard the distressed cries of
+two young birds that had fallen from the nest, surmised that this had
+something to do with Mr. Lincoln's disappearance. The man was right.
+Lincoln had hitched his horse and climbed the fence into the thicket
+where the fledglings were fluttering on the ground in great fright. He
+caught the young birds and tenderly carried them about until he found
+their nest. Climbing the tree he put the birdlings back where they
+belonged. After an hour Mr. Lincoln caught up with his companions, who
+laughed at him for what they called his "childishness." He answered them
+earnestly:
+
+"Gentlemen, you may laugh, but I could not have slept tonight if I had
+not saved those little birds. The mother's cries and theirs would have
+rung in my ears."
+
+
+LAWYER LINCOLN, IN A NEW SUIT OF CLOTHES, RESCUING A PIG STUCK IN THE
+MUD
+
+Lawyer Lincoln rode from one county-seat to another, on the Eighth
+Judicial Circuit of Illinois, either on the back of a raw-boned horse,
+or in a rickety buggy drawn by the same old "crowbait," as his legal
+friends called the animal. The judge and lawyers of the several courts
+traveled together and whiled away the time chatting and joking. Of
+course, Abraham Lincoln was in great demand because of his unfailing
+humor.
+
+One day he appeared in a new suit of clothes. This was such a rare
+occurrence that the friends made remarks about it. The garments did not
+fit him very well, and the others felt in duty bound to "say things"
+which were anything but complimentary.
+
+As they rode along through the mud they were making Lincoln the butt of
+their gibes. He was not like most jokers, for he could take as well as
+give, while he could "give as good as he got."
+
+In the course of their "chaffing" they came to a spot about four miles
+from Paris, Illinois, where they saw a pig stuck in the mud and
+squealing lustily. The men all laughed at the poor animal and its absurd
+plight.
+
+"Poor piggy!" exclaimed Mr. Lincoln impulsively. "Let's get him out of
+that."
+
+The others jeered at the idea. "You'd better do it. You're dressed for
+the job!" exclaimed one.
+
+"Return to your wallow!" laughed another, pointing in great glee to the
+wallowing hog and the mudhole.
+
+Lincoln looked at the pig, at the deep mud, then down at his new
+clothes. Ruefully he rode on with them for some time. But the cries of
+the helpless animal rang in his ears. He could endure it no longer.
+Lagging behind the rest, he waited until they had passed a bend in the
+road. Then he turned and rode back as fast as his poor old horse could
+carry him through the mud. Dismounting, he surveyed the ground. The pig
+had struggled until it was almost buried in the mire, and was now too
+exhausted to move. After studying the case as if it were a problem in
+civil engineering, he took some rails off the fence beside the road.
+Building a platform of rails around the now exhausted hog, then taking
+one rail for a lever and another for a fulcrum, he began gently to pry
+the fat, helpless creature out of the sticky mud. In doing this he
+plastered his new suit from head to foot, but he did not care, as long
+as he could save that pig!
+
+"Now, piggy-wig," he said. "It's you and me for it. You do your part and
+I'll get you out. Now--'one-two-_three_--_up-a-daisy_!'"
+
+He smiled grimly as he thought of the jeers and sneers that would be
+hurled at him if his friends had stayed to watch him at this work.
+
+After long and patient labor he succeeded in loosening the hog and
+coaxing it to make the attempt to get free. At last, the animal was
+made to see that it could get out. Making one violent effort it wallowed
+away and started for the nearest farmhouse, grunting and flopping its
+ears as it went.
+
+Lawyer Lincoln looked ruefully down at his clothes, then placed all the
+rails back on the fence as he had found them.
+
+He had to ride the rest of the day alone, for he did not wish to appear
+before his comrades until the mud on his suit had dried so that it could
+be brushed off. That night, when they saw him at the tavern, they asked
+him what he had been doing all day, eying his clothes with suspicious
+leers and grins. He had to admit that he could not bear to leave that
+hog to die, and tried to excuse his tender-heartedness to them by
+adding: "Farmer Jones's children might have had to go barefoot all
+Winter if he had lost a valuable hog like that!"
+
+
+"BEING ELECTED TO CONGRESS HAS NOT PLEASED ME AS MUCH AS I EXPECTED"
+
+In 1846 Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress, defeating the Rev.
+Peter Cartwright, the famous backwoods preacher, who was elected to the
+State Legislature fourteen years before, the first time Lincoln was a
+candidate and the only time he was ever defeated by popular vote.
+Cartwright had made a vigorous canvass, telling the people that Lincoln
+was "an aristocrat and an atheist." But, though they had a great respect
+for Peter Cartwright and his preaching, the people did not believe all
+that he said against Lincoln, and they elected him. Shortly after this
+he wrote again to Speed:
+
+        "You, no doubt, assign the suspension of our
+        correspondence to the true philosophic cause;
+        though it must be confessed by both of us that
+        this is a rather cold reason for allowing such
+        a friendship as ours to die out by degrees.
+
+        "Being elected to Congress, though I am very
+        grateful to our friends for having done it, has
+        not pleased me as much as I expected."
+
+In the same letter he imparted to his friend some information which
+seems to have been much more interesting to him than being elected to
+Congress:
+
+        "We have another boy, born the 10th of March
+        (1846). He is very much such a child as Bob was
+        at his age, rather of a longer order. Bob is
+        'short and low,' and I expect always will be.
+        He talks very plainly, almost as plainly as
+        anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes
+        fear he is one of the little rare-ripe sort
+        that are smarter at five than ever after.
+
+        "Since I began this letter, a messenger came to
+        tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached
+        the house his mother had found him and had him
+        whipped, and by now very likely he has run away
+        again!
+
+                                    "As ever yours,
+                                             "A. LINCOLN."
+
+The new baby mentioned in this letter was Edward, who died in 1850,
+before his fourth birthday. "Bob," or Robert, the eldest of the
+Lincoln's four children, was born in 1843. William, born in 1850, died
+in the White House. The youngest was born in 1853, after the death of
+Thomas Lincoln, so he was named for his grandfather, but he was known
+only by his nickname, "Tad." "Little Tad" was his father's constant
+companion during the terrible years of the Civil War, especially after
+Willie's death, in 1862. "Tad" became "the child of the nation." He died
+in Chicago, July 10, 1871, at the age of eighteen, after returning from
+Europe with his widowed mother and his brother Robert. Robert has served
+his country as Secretary of War and Ambassador to the English court, and
+is recognized as a leader in national affairs.
+
+When Lincoln was sent to the national House of Representatives, Douglas
+was elected to the Senate for the first time. Lincoln was the only Whig
+from Illinois. This shows his great personal popularity. Daniel Webster
+was then living in the national capital, and Congressman Lincoln stopped
+once at Ashland, Ky., on his way to Washington to visit the idol of the
+Whigs, Henry Clay.
+
+As soon as Lincoln was elected, an editor wrote to ask him for a
+biographical sketch of himself for the "Congressional Directory." This
+is all Mr. Lincoln wrote--in a blank form sent for the purpose:
+
+"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.
+
+"Education defective.
+
+"Profession, lawyer.
+
+"Military service, captain of volunteers in Black Hawk War.
+
+"Offices held: Postmaster at a very small office; four times a member of
+the Illinois Legislature, and elected to the lower House of the next
+Congress."
+
+Mr. Lincoln was in Congress while the Mexican War was in progress, and
+there was much discussion over President Polk's action in declaring that
+war.
+
+As Mrs. Lincoln was obliged to stay in Springfield to care for her two
+little boys, Congressman Lincoln lived in a Washington boarding-house.
+He soon gained the reputation of telling the best stories at the
+capital. He made a humorous speech on General Cass, comparing the
+general's army experiences with his own in the Black Hawk War. He also
+drafted a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which was
+never brought to a vote. Most of his care seems to have been for Billy
+Herndon, who wrote complaining letters to him about the "old men" in
+Springfield who were always trying to "keep the young men down." Here
+are two of Mr. Lincoln's replies:
+
+
+        "WASHINGTON, June 22, 1848.
+
+        "DEAR WILLIAM:
+
+        "Judge how heart-rending it was to come to my
+        room and find and read your discouraging letter
+        of the 15th. Now, as to the young men, you must
+        not wait to be brought forward by the older
+        men. For instance, do you suppose that I would
+        ever have got into notice if I had waited to be
+        hunted up and pushed forward by older men?"
+
+        "DEAR WILLIAM:
+
+        "Your letter was received last night. The
+        subject of that letter is exceedingly painful
+        to me; and I cannot but think that there is
+        some mistake in your impression of the motives
+        of the old men. Of course I cannot demonstrate
+        what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure
+        I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly
+        know what to say. The way for a young man to
+        rise is to improve himself every way he can,
+        never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder
+        him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and
+        jealousy never did keep any man in any
+        situation. There may be sometimes ungenerous
+        attempts to keep a young man down; and they
+        will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be
+        diverted from its true channel to brood over
+        the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if
+        this feeling has not injured every person you
+        have ever known to fall into it.
+
+        "Now in what I have said, I am sure you will
+        suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would
+        save you from a fatal error. You have been a
+        laborious, studious young man. You are far
+        better informed on almost all subjects than I
+        have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable
+        object, unless you allow your mind to be
+        improperly directed. I have somewhat the
+        advantage of you in the world's experience,
+        merely by being older; and it is this that
+        induces me to advise.
+
+                         "Your friend, as ever,
+                                       "A. LINCOLN."
+
+
+LAST DAYS OF THOMAS LINCOLN
+
+Mr. Lincoln did not allow his name to be used as a candidate for
+re-election, as there were other men in the congressional district who
+deserved the honor of going to Washington as much as he. On his way home
+from Washington, after the last session of the Thirtieth Congress, he
+visited New England, where he made a few speeches, and stopped at
+Niagara Falls, which impressed him so strongly that he wrote a lecture
+on the subject.
+
+After returning home he made a flying visit to Washington to enter his
+patent steamboat, equipped so that it would navigate shallow western
+rivers. This boat, he told a friend, "would go where the ground is a
+little damp." The model of Lincoln's steamboat is one of the sights of
+the Patent Office to this day.
+
+After Mr. Lincoln had settled down to his law business, permanently, as
+he hoped, his former fellow-clerk, William G. Greene, having business in
+Coles County, went to "Goosenest Prairie" to call on Abe's father and
+stepmother, who still lived in a log cabin. Thomas Lincoln received his
+son's friend very hospitably. During the young man's visit, the father
+reverted to the old subject, his disapproval of his son's wasting his
+time in study. He said:
+
+"I s'pose Abe's still a-foolin' hisself with eddication. I tried to stop
+it, but he's got that fool _idee_ in his head an' it can't be got out.
+Now I haint got no eddication, but I git along better than if I had."
+
+Not long after this, in 1851, Abraham learned that his father was very
+ill. As he could not leave Springfield then, he wrote to his stepbrother
+(for Thomas Lincoln could not read) the following comforting letter to
+be read to his father:
+
+"I sincerely hope father may recover his health; but at all events, tell
+him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and merciful
+Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the
+fall of the sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not
+forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that, if we
+could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would be more painful than
+pleasant, but if it is his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyful
+meeting with the loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us,
+through the mercy of God, hope ere long to join them."
+
+Thomas Lincoln died that year, at the age of seventy-three.
+
+
+A KIND BUT MASTERFUL LETTER TO HIS STEPBROTHER
+
+After his father's death Abraham Lincoln had, on several occasions, to
+protect his stepmother against the schemes of her own lazy,
+good-for-nothing son. Here is one of the letters written, at this time,
+to his stepbrother, John Johnston:
+
+"DEAR BROTHER: I hear that you were anxious to sell the land where you
+live, and move to Missouri. What can you do in Missouri better than
+here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise
+corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than
+here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no
+better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to
+work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from
+place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year, and
+what you really want is to sell the land, get the money and spend it.
+Part with the land you have and, my life upon it, you will never own a
+spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will
+spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink
+and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought.
+
+"Now, I feel that it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of
+foolery. I feel it is so even on your own account, and particularly on
+mother's account.
+
+"Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it in any
+unkindness. I write it in order, if possible, to get you to face the
+truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away
+your time. Your thousand pretenses deceive nobody but yourself. Go to
+work is the only cure for your case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND HIS STEPBROTHER
+
+
+These letters show the wide difference between the real lives of two
+boys brought up in the same surroundings, and under similar conditions.
+The advantages were in John Johnston's favor. He and Dennis Hanks never
+rose above the lower level of poverty and ignorance. John was looked
+down upon by the poor illiterates around him as a lazy, good-for-nothing
+fellow, and Dennis Hanks was known to be careless about telling the
+truth.
+
+In speaking of the early life of Abe's father and mother, Dennis threw
+in the remark that "the Hankses was some smarter than the Lincolns." It
+was not "smartness" that made Abe Lincoln grow to be a greater man than
+Dennis Hanks. There are men in Springfield to-day who say, "There were a
+dozen smarter men in this town than Mr. Lincoln when he happened to be
+nominated, and peculiar conditions prevailing at that time brought about
+his election to the presidency!"
+
+True greatness is made of goodness rather than smartness. Abraham
+Lincoln was honest with himself while a boy and a man, and it was
+"Honest Abe" who became President of the United States. The people loved
+him for his big heart--because he loved them more than he loved himself
+and they knew it. In his second inaugural address as President he used
+this expression: "With malice toward none, with charity for all." This
+was not a new thought, but it was full of meaning to the country because
+little Abe Lincoln had _lived_ that idea all his life, with his own
+family, his friends, acquaintances, and employers. He became the most
+beloved man in the world, in his own or any other time, because he
+himself loved everybody.
+
+Mrs. Crawford, the wife of "Old Blue Nose," used to laugh at the very
+idea of Abe Lincoln ever becoming President. Lincoln often said to her:
+"I'll get ready and the time will come." He got ready in his father's
+log hut and when the door of opportunity opened he walked right into the
+White House. He "made himself at home" there, because he had only to go
+on in the same way after he became the "servant of the people" that he
+had followed when he was "Old Blue Nose's" hired boy and man.
+
+
+ONE PARTNER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, THE OTHER IN THE POOR HOUSE
+
+Then there was William H. Herndon, known to the world only because he
+happened to be "Lincoln's law partner." His advantages were superior to
+Lincoln's. And far more than that, he had his great partner's help to
+push him forward and upward. But "poor Billy" had an unfortunate
+appetite. He could not deny himself, though it always made him ashamed
+and miserable. It dragged him down, down from "the President's partner"
+to the gutter. That was not all. When he asked his old partner to give
+him a government appointment which he had, for years, been making
+himself wholly unworthy to fill, President Lincoln, much as he had loved
+Billy all along, could not give it to him. It grieved Mr. Lincoln's
+great heart to refuse Billy anything. But Herndon did not blame himself
+for all that. He spent the rest of his wretched life in bitterness and
+spite--avenging himself on his noble benefactor by putting untruths into
+the "Life of Lincoln" he was able to write because Abraham Lincoln,
+against the advice of his wife and friends, had insisted on keeping him
+close to his heart. It is a terrible thing--that spirit of spite! Among
+many good and true things he _had_ to say about his fatherly law
+partner, he poisoned the good name of Abraham Lincoln in the minds of
+millions, by writing stealthy slander about Lincoln's mother and wife,
+and made many people believe that the most religious of men at heart was
+an infidel (because he himself was one!), that Mr. Lincoln sometimes
+acted from unworthy and unpatriotic motives, and that he failed to come
+to his own wedding. If these things had been true it would have been
+wrong to publish them to the prejudice of a great man's good name--then
+how much more wicked to invent and spread broadcast falsehoods which
+hurt the heart and injure the mind of the whole world--just to spite the
+memory of the best friend a man ever had!
+
+The fate of the firm of Lincoln & Herndon shows in a striking way how
+the world looks upon the heart that hates and the heart that loves, for
+the hateful junior partner died miserably in an almshouse, but the
+senior was crowned with immortal martyrdom in the White House.
+
+
+THE RIVAL FOR LOVE AND HONORS
+
+Stephen A. Douglas, "the Little Giant," who had been a rival for the
+hand of the fascinating Mary Todd, was also Lincoln's chief opponent in
+politics. Douglas was small and brilliant; used to society ways, he
+seemed always to keep ahead of his tall, uncouth, plodding competitor.
+After going to Congress, Mr. Lincoln was encouraged to aspire even
+higher, so, ten years later, he became a candidate for the Senate.
+Slavery was then the burning question, and Douglas seemed naturally to
+fall upon the opposite side, favoring and justifying it in every way he
+could.
+
+Douglas was then a member of the Senate, but the opposing party
+nominated Lincoln to succeed him, while "the Little Giant" had been
+renominated to succeed himself. Douglas sneered at his tall opponent,
+trying to "damn him with faint praise" by referring to him as "a kind,
+amiable and intelligent gentleman." Mr. Lincoln challenged the Senator
+to discuss the issues of the hour in a series of debates.
+
+Douglas was forced, very much against his will, to accept, and the
+debates took place in seven towns scattered over the State of Illinois,
+from August 21st to October 15th, 1858. Lincoln had announced his belief
+that "a house divided against itself cannot stand;" therefore the United
+States could not long exist "half slave and half free."
+
+"The Little Giant" drove from place to place in great style, traveling
+with an escort of influential friends. These discussions, known in
+history as the "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," rose to national importance
+while they were in progress, by attracting the attention, in the
+newspapers, of voters all over the country. They were attended, on an
+average, by ten thousand persons each, both men being accompanied by
+bands and people carrying banners and what Mr. Lincoln called
+"fizzlegigs and fireworks."
+
+Some of the banners were humorous.
+
+         ------------------------
+        |                        |
+        |  Abe the Giant-Killer  |
+        |                        |
+         ------------------------
+
+was one. Another read:
+
+         -----------------------------------------------------------
+        |                                                           |
+        |  Westward the Star of Empire takes its way;               |
+        |The girls link on to Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay. |
+        |                                                           |
+         -----------------------------------------------------------
+
+At the first debate Lincoln took off his linen duster and, handing it to
+a bystander, said:
+
+"Hold my coat while I stone Stephen!"
+
+In the course of these debates Lincoln propounded questions for Mr.
+Douglas to answer. Brilliant as "the Little Giant" was, he was not
+shrewd enough to defend himself from the shafts of his opponent's wit
+and logic. So he fell into Lincoln's trap.
+
+"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he may be Senator, but he can never be
+President. I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred
+of this."
+
+This prophecy proved true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+HOW EMANCIPATION CAME TO PASS
+
+
+When Abraham Lincoln was a small boy he began to show the keenest
+sympathy for the helpless and oppressed. The only time he betrayed anger
+as a child was, as you already have learned, when he saw the other boys
+hurting a mud-turtle. In his first school "composition," on "Cruelty to
+Animals," his stepsister remembers this sentence: "An ant's life is as
+sweet to it as ours is to us."
+
+As you have read on an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong
+boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to
+a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and
+sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other
+fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless,
+rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a
+drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the
+poor creature the terrible slavery of which he was the victim. Thus Abe
+helped him throw off the shackles of drink and made a man of him.
+
+
+BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE
+
+As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the drink habit was a sort of
+human slavery. He delivered an address before the Washingtonian
+(Temperance) Society in which he compared white slavery with black, in
+which he said:
+
+"And when the victory shall be complete--when there shall be neither a
+slave nor a drunkard on the earth--how proud the title of that land
+which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those
+revolutions that have ended in that victory."
+
+This address was delivered on Washington's Birthday, 1842. The closing
+words throb with young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:
+
+"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of
+Washington; we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the
+mightiest name of earth, long since the mightiest in the cause of civil
+liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is
+expected. It cannot be. To add to the brightness of the sun or glory to
+the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In
+solemn awe we pronounce the name and, in its naked, deathless splendor,
+leave it shining on."
+
+It was young Lincoln's patriotic love for George Washington which did so
+much to bring about, in time, a double emancipation from white slavery
+and black.
+
+Once, as President, he said to a boy who had just signed the temperance
+pledge:
+
+"Now, Sonny, keep that pledge and it will be the best act of your life."
+
+President Lincoln was true and consistent in his temperance principles.
+In March, 1864, he went by steamboat with his wife and "Little Tad," to
+visit General Grant at his headquarters at City Point, Virginia.
+
+When asked how he was, during the reception which followed his arrival
+there, the President said, as related by General Horace Porter:
+
+"'I am not feeling very well. I got pretty badly shaken up on the bay
+coming down, and am not altogether over it yet.'
+
+"'Let me send for a bottle of champagne for you, Mr. President,' said a
+staff-officer, 'that's the best remedy I know of for sea-sickness.'
+
+"'No, no, my young friend,' replied the President, 'I've seen many a
+man in my time seasick ashore from drinking that very article.'
+
+"That was the last time any one screwed up sufficient courage to offer
+him wine."
+
+
+"THE UNDER DOG"
+
+Some people are kinder to dumb animals--is it _because_ they are
+dumb?--than to their relatives. Many are the stories of Lincoln's
+tenderness to beasts and birds. But his kindness did not stop there, nor
+with his brothers and sisters in white. He recognized his close
+relationship with the black man, and the bitterest name his enemies
+called him--worse in their minds than "fool," "clown," "imbecile" or
+"gorilla"--was a "Black Republican." That terrible phobia against the
+negro only enlisted Abraham Lincoln's sympathies the more. He appeared
+in court in behalf of colored people, time and again. The more bitter
+the hatred and oppression of others, the more they needed his
+sympathetic help, the more certain they were to receive it.
+
+"My sympathies are with the under dog," said Mr. Lincoln, one day,
+"though it is often that dog that starts the fuss."
+
+The fact that the poor fellow may have brought the trouble upon himself
+did not make him forfeit Abraham Lincoln's sympathy. That was only a
+good lesson to him to "Look out and do better next time!"
+
+
+THE QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION
+
+After he went to Washington, President Lincoln was between two fires.
+One side wanted the slaves freed whether the Union was broken up or not.
+They could not see that declaring them free would have but little
+effect, if the government could not "back up" such a declaration.
+
+The other party did not wish the matter tampered with, as cheap labor
+was necessary for raising cotton, sugar and other products on which the
+living of millions of people depended.
+
+The extreme Abolitionists, who wished slavery abolished, whether or no,
+sent men to tell the President that if he did not free the slaves he was
+a coward and a turncoat, and they would withhold their support from the
+Government and the Army.
+
+Delegations of Abolitionists from all over the North arrived almost
+daily from different cities to urge, coax and threaten the President.
+They did not know that he was trying to keep the Border States of
+Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri from seceding. If Maryland alone had
+gone out of the Union, Washington, the national capital, would have been
+surrounded and forced to surrender.
+
+Besides, at this time, the armies of the North were losing nearly all
+the battles.
+
+To declare all the slaves down South freed, when the Government could
+not enforce such a statement and could not even win a battle, would be
+absurd. To one committee the President said: "If I issued a proclamation
+of emancipation now it would be like the Pope's bull (or decree) against
+the comet!"
+
+A delegation of Chicago ministers came to beg Mr. Lincoln to free the
+slaves. He patiently explained to them that his declaring them free
+would not make them free. These men seemed to see the point and were
+retiring, disappointed, when one of them returned to him and whispered
+solemnly:
+
+"What you have said to us, Mr. President, compels me to say to you in
+reply that it is a message from our divine Master, through me,
+commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage that the slave may go
+free!"
+
+"Now, isn't that strange?" the President replied instantly. "Here I am,
+studying this question, day and night, and God has placed it upon me,
+too. Don't you think it's rather odd that He should send such a message
+by way of that awful wicked city of Chicago?"
+
+The ministers were shocked at such an answer from the President of the
+United States. They could not know, for Mr. Lincoln dared not tell them,
+that he had the Emancipation Proclamation in his pocket waiting for a
+Federal victory before he could issue it!
+
+
+THE PROCLAMATION
+
+Then, came the news of Antietam, a terrible battle, but gained by the
+Northern arms. At last the time had come to announce the freeing of the
+slaves that they might help in winning their liberties. The President
+had not held a meeting of his Cabinet for some time. He thought of the
+occasion when, as a young man he went on a flatboat trip to New Orleans
+and saw, for the first, the horrors of negro slavery, and said to his
+companions:
+
+"If ever I get a chance to hit that thing I'll hit it hard!"
+
+Now the "chance to hit that thing"--the inhuman monster of human
+slavery--had come, and he was going to "hit it hard."
+
+He called the Cabinet together. Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War,
+has described the scene:
+
+"On the 22nd of September, 1862, I had a sudden and peremptory call to a
+Cabinet meeting at the White House. I went immediately and found the
+historic War Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln assembled, every member being
+present. The President hardly noticed me as I came in. He was reading a
+book of some kind which seemed to amuse him. It was a little book. He
+finally turned to us and said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, did you ever read anything from "Artemus Ward?" Let me read
+you a chapter that is very funny.'
+
+"Not a member of the Cabinet smiled; as for myself, I was angry, and
+looked to see what the President meant. It seemed to me like buffoonery.
+He, however, concluded to read us a chapter from 'Artemus Ward,' which
+he did with great deliberation. Having finished, he laughed heartily,
+without a member of the Cabinet joining in the laughter.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'let's have another chapter.'
+
+"I was considering whether I should rise and leave the meeting abruptly,
+when he threw the book down, heaved a long sigh, and said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon
+me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this
+medicine as much as I do.'
+
+"He then put his hand in his tall hat that sat upon the table, and
+pulled out a little paper. Turning to the members of the Cabinet, he
+said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, I have called you here upon very important business. I have
+prepared a little paper of much significance. I have made up my mind
+that this paper is to issue; that the time is come when it should issue;
+that the people are ready for it to issue.
+
+"'It is due to my Cabinet that you should be the first to hear and know
+of it, and if any of you have any suggestions to make as to the form of
+this paper or its composition, I shall be glad to hear them. But the
+paper is to issue.'
+
+"And, to my astonishment, he read the Emancipation Proclamation of that
+date, which was to take effect the first of January following."
+
+Secretary Stanton continued: "I have always tried to be calm, but I
+think I lost my calmness for a moment, and with great enthusiasm I
+arose, approached the President, extended my hand and said:
+
+"'Mr. President, if the reading of chapters of "Artemus Ward" is a
+prelude to such a deed as this, the book should be filed among the
+archives of the nation, and the author should be canonized. Henceforth I
+see the light and the country is saved.'
+
+"And all said 'Amen!'
+
+"And Lincoln said to me in a droll way, just as I was leaving, 'Stanton,
+it would have been too early last Spring.'
+
+"And as I look back upon it, I think the President was right."
+
+It was a fitting fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence, which
+proclaimed that:
+
+"All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
+certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the
+pursuit of happiness."
+
+That Declaration young Abe Lincoln first read in the Gentryville
+constable's copy of the "Statutes of Indiana."
+
+At noon on the first of January, 1863, William H. Seward, Secretary of
+State, with his son Frederick, called at the White House with the
+Emancipation document to be signed by the President. It was just after
+the regular New Year's Day reception.
+
+Mr. Lincoln seated himself at his table, took up the pen, dipped it in
+the ink, held the pen a moment, then laid it down. After waiting a while
+he went through the same movements as before. Turning to his Secretary
+of State, he said, to explain his hesitation:
+
+"I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this morning, and my arm
+is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history, it will be for
+this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign
+the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say:
+
+"'He hesitated.'"
+
+Turning back to the table, he took the pen again and wrote, deliberately
+and firmly, the "Abraham Lincoln" with which the world is now familiar.
+Looking up at the Sewards, father and son, he smiled and said, with a
+sigh of relief:
+
+"_That will do!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE GLORY OF GETTYSBURG
+
+
+THE BATTLE
+
+The Battle of Gettysburg, which raged through July 1st, 2nd and 3d,
+1863, was called the "high water mark" of the Civil War, and one of the
+"fifteen decisive battles" of history. It was decisive because General
+Robert E. Lee, with his brave army, was driven back from Gettysburg,
+Pennsylvania. If Lee had been victorious there, he might have destroyed
+Philadelphia and New York. By such a brilliant stroke he could have
+surrounded and captured Baltimore and Washington. This would have
+changed the grand result of the war.
+
+In point of numbers, bravery and genius, the battle of Gettysburg was
+the greatest that had ever been fought up to that time. Glorious as this
+was, the greatest glory of Gettysburg lay in the experiences and
+utterances of one man, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
+of America.
+
+It came at a terrible time in the progress of the war, when everything
+seemed to be going against the Union. There had been four disastrous
+defeats--twice at Bull Run, followed by Fredericksburg and
+Chancellorsville. Even the battle of Antietam, accounted victory enough
+for the President to issue his Emancipation Proclamation, proved to be a
+drawn battle, with terrific losses on both sides. Lee was driven back
+from Maryland then, it is true, but he soon won the great battles of
+Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and had made his way north into
+Pennsylvania.
+
+The night after the battle of Chancellorsville (fought May 2nd and 3d,
+1863), was the darkest in the history of the Civil War. President
+Lincoln walked the floor the whole night long, crying out in his
+anguish, "O what will the country say!"
+
+To fill the decimated ranks of the army, the Government had resorted to
+the draft, which roused great opposition in the North and provoked
+foolish, unreasoning riots in New York City.
+
+After winning the battle of Gettysburg, which the President hoped would
+end the war, General Meade, instead of announcing that he had captured
+the Confederate army, stated that he had "driven the invaders from our
+soil." Mr. Lincoln fell on his knees and, covering his face with his
+great, strong hands, cried out in tones of agony:
+
+"'Driven the invaders from our soil!' My God, is that all?"
+
+But Lincoln's spirits were bound to rise. Believing he was "on God's
+side," he felt that the cause of Right could not lose, for the Lord
+would save His own.
+
+The next day, July 4th, 1863, came the surrender of Vicksburg, the
+stronghold of the great West. Chastened joy began to cover his gaunt and
+pallid features, and the light of hope shone again in his deep, gray
+eyes.
+
+Calling on General Sickles, in a Washington hospital--for the general
+had lost a leg on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg--the
+President was asked why he believed that victory would be given the
+Federal forces at Gettysburg.
+
+"I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up there,
+when everybody seemed panic-stricken, and nobody could tell what was
+going to happen, I went to my room one day and locked the door, and got
+down on my knees before Almighty God, and prayed to him mightily for
+victory at Gettysburg. I told Him this was His war, and our cause His
+cause, but that we couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or
+Chancellorsville. And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God
+that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him.
+And He _did_, and I _will_!"
+
+The President's call on General Sickles was on the Sunday after the
+three-days' battle of Gettysburg, before the arrival of the gunboat at
+Cairo, Illinois, with the glad tidings from Vicksburg, which added new
+luster to the patriotic joy of Independence Day. The telegraph wires had
+been so generally cut on all sides of Vicksburg that the news was sent
+to Cairo and telegraphed to Washington. In proof that his faith even
+included the Mississippi blockade he went on:
+
+"Besides, I have been praying over Vicksburg also, and believe our
+Heavenly Father is going to give us victory there, too, because we need
+it, in order to bisect the Confederacy, and let 'the Father of Waters
+flow unvexed to the sea.'"
+
+
+THE ADDRESS
+
+Not long after the conflict at Gettysburg a movement was on foot to
+devote a large part of that battle-ground to a national cemetery.
+
+The Hon. Edward Everett, prominent in national and educational affairs,
+and the greatest living orator, was invited to deliver the grand
+oration. The President was asked, if he could, to come and make a few
+dedicatory remarks, but Mr. Everett was to be the chief speaker of the
+occasion.
+
+The Sunday before the 19th of November, 1863, the date of the
+dedication, the President went with his friend Noah Brooks to Gardner's
+gallery, in Washington, where he had promised to sit for his photograph.
+While there he showed Mr. Brooks a proof of Everett's oration which had
+been sent to him. As this printed address covered two newspaper pages,
+Mr. Lincoln struck an attitude and quoted from a speech by Daniel
+Webster:
+
+"Solid men of Boston, make no long orations!" and burst out laughing.
+When Mr. Brooks asked about _his_ speech for that occasion, Mr. Lincoln
+replied: "I've got it written, but not licked into shape yet. It's
+short, _short_, SHORT!"
+
+During the forenoon of the 18th, Secretary John Hay was anxious lest the
+President be late for the special Presidential train, which was to leave
+at noon for Gettysburg.
+
+"Don't worry, John," said Mr. Lincoln. "I'm like the man who was going
+to be hung, and saw the crowds pushing and hurrying past the cart in
+which he was being taken to the place of execution. He called out to
+them: 'Don't hurry, boys. There won't be anything going on till I get
+there!'"
+
+When the train stopped, on the way to Gettysburg, a little girl on the
+platform held up a bouquet to Mr. Lincoln, lisping: "Flowerth for the
+Prethident."
+
+He reached out, took her up and kissed her, saying:
+
+"You're a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into
+perpetual beauty and goodness."
+
+About noon on the 19th of November, the distinguished party arrived in a
+procession and took seats on the platform erected for the exercises. The
+President was seated in a rocking-chair placed there for him. There
+were fifteen thousand people waiting, some of whom had been standing in
+the sun for hours. It was a warm day and a Quaker woman near the
+platform fainted. An alarm was given and the unconscious woman was in
+danger of being crushed.
+
+The President sprang to the edge of the staging and called out:
+
+"Here, let me get hold of that lady."
+
+With a firm, strong grasp he extricated her from the crush and seated
+her in his rocking-chair. When that modest woman "came to," she saw
+fifteen thousand pairs of eyes watching her while the President of the
+United States was fanning her tenderly.
+
+This was too much for her. She gasped:
+
+"I feel--better--now. I want to go--back to--my husband!"
+
+"Now, my dear lady," said Mr. Lincoln. "You are all right here. I had an
+awful time pulling you up out of there, and I couldn't stick you back
+again!"
+
+A youth who stood near the platform in front of the President says that,
+while Mr. Everett was orating, Mr. Lincoln took his "little speech," as
+he called it, out of his pocket, and conned it over like a schoolboy
+with a half-learned lesson. The President had put the finishing touches
+on it that morning. As it was expected that the President would make a
+few offhand remarks, no one seems to have noticed its simple grandeur
+until it was printed in the newspapers.
+
+Yet Mr. Lincoln was interrupted four or five times during the two
+minutes by applause. The fact that the President was speaking was
+sufficient, no matter what he said. The people would have applauded
+Abraham Lincoln if he had merely recited the multiplication table! When
+he finished, they gave "three times three cheers" for the President of
+the United States, and three cheers for each of the State Governors
+present.
+
+That afternoon there was a patriotic service in one of the churches
+which the President decided to attend. Taking Secretary Seward with him,
+he called on an old cobbler named John Burns, of whose courage in the
+battle of Gettysburg Mr. Lincoln had just heard. Those who planned the
+dedication did not think the poor cobbler was of much account. The old
+hero, now known through Bret Harte's poem, "John Burns of Gettysburg,"
+had the pride and joy of having all the village and visitors see him
+march to the church between President Lincoln and Secretary Seward. This
+simple act was "just like Lincoln!" He honored Gettysburg in thus
+honoring one of its humblest citizens. It was Abraham Lincoln's tribute
+to the patriotism of the dear "common people" whom he said "God must
+love."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"NO END OF A BOY"
+
+
+"THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN" would be incomplete without some
+insight into the perfect boyishness of the President of the United
+States. When the cares of State and the horrors of war had made his
+homely yet beautiful face pallid and seamed, till it became a sensitive
+map of the Civil War, it was said that the only times the President was
+ever happy were when he was playing with little Tad.
+
+He used to carry the boy on his shoulder or "pick-a-back," cantering
+through the spacious rooms of the Executive Mansion, both yelling like
+Comanches. The little boy was lonely after Willie died, and the father's
+heart yearned over the only boy left at home, for Robert was at Harvard
+until near the close of the war, when he went to the front as an aide to
+General Grant. So little Tad was his father's most constant companion
+and the President became the boy's only playfellow. Mr. Lincoln, with a
+heart as full of faith as a little child's, had always lived in deep
+sympathy with the children, and this feeling was intensified toward his
+own offspring.
+
+When Abe Lincoln was living in New Salem he distinguished himself by
+caring for the little children--a thing beneath the dignity of the other
+young men of the settlement.
+
+Hannah Armstrong, wife of the Clary's Grove bully, whom Abe had to
+"lick" to a finish in order to establish himself on a solid basis in New
+Salem society, told how friendly their relations became after the
+thrashing he gave her husband:
+
+"Abe would come to our house, drink milk, eat mush, cornbread and
+butter, bring the children candy and rock the cradle." (This seemed a
+strange thing to her.) "He would nurse babies--do anything to
+accommodate anybody."
+
+
+HOW HE REPAID THE ARMSTRONGS' KINDNESS
+
+The Armstrong baby, Willie, grew to be a youth of wrong habits, and was
+nicknamed "Duff." He was drawn, one afternoon, into a bad quarrel with
+another rough young man, named Metzker, who was brutally beaten. In the
+evening a vicious young man, named Morris, joined the row and the lad
+was struck on the head and died without telling who had dealt the fatal
+blow. The blame was thrown upon "Duff" Armstrong, who was arrested.
+Illinois law preventing him from testifying in his own behalf.
+
+When Lawyer Lincoln heard of the case, he wrote as follows:
+
+
+                      "SPRINGFIELD, ILL., September, 1857.
+
+        "DEAR MRS. ARMSTRONG:
+
+        "I have just heard of your deep affliction, and
+        the arrest of your son for murder.
+
+        "I can hardly believe that he can be capable of
+        the crime alleged against him.
+
+        "It does not seem possible. I am anxious that
+        he should be given a fair trial, at any rate;
+        and gratitude for your long-continued kindness
+        to me in adverse circumstances prompts me to
+        offer my humble services gratuitously in his
+        behalf.
+
+        "It will afford me an opportunity to requite,
+        in a small degree, the favors I received at
+        your hand, and that of your lamented husband,
+        when your roof afforded me a grateful shelter,
+        without money and without price.
+
+                                    "Yours truly,
+                                           "A. LINCOLN."
+
+The feeling in the neighborhood where the crime was committed was so
+intense that it was decided that it must be taken over to the next
+county to secure a fair trial. Lawyer Lincoln was on hand to defend the
+son of his old friend.
+
+Besides those who testified to the bad character of the young prisoner,
+one witness, named Allen, testified that he saw "Duff" Armstrong strike
+the blow which killed Metzker.
+
+"Couldn't you be mistaken about this?" asked Mr. Lincoln. "What time did
+you see it?"
+
+"Between nine and ten o'clock that night."
+
+"Are you certain that you saw the prisoner strike the blow?--Be
+careful--remember--you are under oath!"
+
+"I am sure. There is no doubt about it."
+
+"But wasn't it dark at that hour?"
+
+"No, the moon was shining bright."
+
+"Then you say there was a moon and it was not dark."
+
+"Yes, it was light enough for me to see him hit Metzker on the head."
+
+"Now I want you to be very careful. I understand you to say the murder
+was committed about half past nine o'clock, and there was a bright moon
+at the time?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the witness positively.
+
+"Very well. That is all."
+
+Then Lawyer Lincoln produced an almanac showing that there was no moon
+that night till the early hours of the morning.
+
+"This witness has perjured himself," he said, "and his whole story is a
+lie."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Duff" Armstrong was promptly acquitted. The tears of that widowed
+mother and the gratitude of the boy he had rocked were the best sort of
+pay to Lawyer Lincoln for an act of kindness and life-saving.
+
+
+"JUST WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE WHOLE WORLD!"
+
+A Springfield neighbor used to say that it was almost a habit with Mr.
+Lincoln to carry his children about on his shoulders. Indeed, the man
+said he seldom saw the tall lawyer go by without one or both boys
+perched on high or tugging at the tails of his long coat. This neighbor
+relates that he was attracted to the door of his own house one day by a
+great noise of crying children, and saw Mr. Lincoln passing with the two
+boys in their usual position, and both were howling lustily.
+
+"Why, Mr. Lincoln, what's the matter?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+"Just what's the matter with the whole world," the lawyer replied
+coolly. "I've got three walnuts, and each wants two."
+
+
+THE "BUCKING" CHESS BOARD
+
+Several years later Judge Treat, of Springfield was playing chess with
+Mr. Lincoln in his law office when Tad came in to call his father to
+supper. The boy, impatient at the delay of the slow and silent game,
+tried to break it up by a flank movement against the chess board, but
+the attacks were warded off, each time, by his father's long arms.
+
+The child disappeared, and when the two players had begun to believe
+they were to be permitted to end the game in peace, the table suddenly
+"bucked" and the board and chessmen were sent flying all over the floor.
+
+Judge Treat was much vexed, and expressed impatience, not hesitating to
+tell Mr. Lincoln that the boy ought to be punished severely.
+
+Mr. Lincoln replied, as he gently took down his hat to go home to
+supper:
+
+"Considering the position of your pieces, judge, at the time of the
+upheaval, I think you have no reason to complain."
+
+
+WHEN TAD GOT A SPANKING
+
+Yet, indulgent as he was, there were some things Mr. Lincoln would not
+allow even his youngest child to do. An observer who saw the
+President-elect and his family in their train on the way to Washington
+to take the helm of State, relates that little Tad amused himself by
+raising the car window an inch or two and trying, by shutting it down
+suddenly, to catch the fingers of the curious boys outside who were
+holding themselves up by their hands on the window sill of the car to
+catch sight of the new President and his family.
+
+The President-elect, who had to go out to the platform to make a little
+speech to a crowd at nearly every stop, noticed Tad's attempts to pinch
+the boys' fingers. He spoke sharply to his son and commanded him to stop
+that. Tad obeyed for a time, but his father, catching him at the same
+trick again, leaned over, and taking the little fellow across his knee,
+gave him a good, sound spanking, exclaiming as he did so:
+
+"Why do you want to mash those boys' fingers?"
+
+
+THE TRUE STORY OF BOB'S LOSING THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS
+
+Mr. Lincoln was always lenient when the offense was against himself. The
+Hon. Robert Todd Lincoln, the only living son of the great President,
+tells how the satchel containing his father's inaugural address was lost
+for a time. Some writers have related the story of this loss, stating
+that it all happened at Harrisburg, and telling how the President-elect
+discovered a bag like his own, and on opening it found only a pack of
+greasy cards, a bottle of whisky and a soiled paper collar. Also that
+Mr. Lincoln was "reminded" of a cheap, ill-fitting story--but none of
+these things really took place.
+
+Here is the true story, as related to the writer by Robert Lincoln
+himself:
+
+"My father had confided to me the care of the satchel containing his
+inaugural address. It was lost for a little while during the stay of our
+party at the old Bates House in Indianapolis. When we entered the hotel
+I set the bag down with the other luggage, which was all removed to a
+room back of the clerk's desk.
+
+"As soon as I missed the valise I went right to father, in great
+distress of mind. He ordered a search made. We were naturally much
+alarmed, for it was the only copy he had of his inaugural address, which
+he had carefully written before leaving Springfield. Of course, he added
+certain parts after reaching Washington. The missing bag was soon found
+in a safe place.
+
+"Instead of taking out the precious manuscript and stuffing it into his
+own pocket, father handed it right back to me, saying:
+
+"'There, Bob, see if you can't take better care of it this time'--and
+you may be sure I was true to the trust he placed in me. Why, I hardly
+let that precious gripsack get out of my sight during my waking hours
+all the rest of the long roundabout journey to Washington."
+
+
+THE TERRIBLE LONELINESS AFTER WILLIE DIED
+
+The death of Willie, who was nearly three years older than Tad, early in
+1862, during their first year in the White House, nearly broke his
+father's heart. It was said that Mr. Lincoln never recovered from that
+bereavement. It made him yearn the more tenderly over his youngest son
+who sadly missed the brother who had been his constant companion.
+
+It was natural for a lad who was so much indulged to take advantage of
+his freedom. Tad had a slight impediment in his speech which made the
+street urchins laugh at him, and even cabinet members, because they
+could not understand him, considered him a little nuisance. So Tad,
+though known as "the child of the nation," and greatly beloved and
+petted by those who knew him for a lovable affectionate child, found
+himself alone in a class by himself, and against all classes of people.
+
+
+TURNING THE HOSE ON HIGH OFFICIALS
+
+He illustrated this spirit one day by getting hold of the hose and
+turning it on some dignified State officials, several army officers, and
+finally on a soldier on guard who was ordered to charge and take
+possession of that water battery. Although that little escapade appealed
+to the President's sense of humor, for he himself liked nothing better
+than to take generals and pompous officials down "a peg or two," Tad got
+well spanked for the havoc he wrought that day.
+
+
+BREAKING INTO A CABINET MEETING
+
+The members of the President's cabinet had reason to be annoyed by the
+boy's frequent interruptions. He seemed to have the right of way
+wherever his father happened to be. No matter if Senator Sumner or
+Secretary Stanton was discussing some weighty matter of State or war, if
+Tad came in, his father turned from the men of high estate to minister
+to the wants of his little boy. He did it to get rid of him, for of
+course he knew Tad would raise such a racket that no one could talk or
+think till _his_ wants were disposed of.
+
+
+AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ON THE COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT FOR TAD AND HIS BOY
+FRIENDS
+
+A story is told of the boy's interruption of a council of war. This
+habit of Tad's enraged Secretary Stanton, whose horror of the boy was
+similar to that of an elephant for a mouse. The President was giving his
+opinion on a certain piece of strategy which he thought the general in
+question might carry out--when a great noise was heard out in the hall,
+followed by a number of sharp raps on the door of the cabinet room.
+
+Strategy, war, everything was, for the moment forgotten by the
+President, whose wan face assumed an expression of unusual pleasure,
+while he gathered up his great, weary length from different parts of the
+room as he had half lain, sprawling about, across and around his chair
+and the great table.
+
+"That's Tad," he exclaimed, "I wonder what that boy wants now." On his
+way to open the door, Mr. Lincoln explained that those knocks had just
+been adopted by the boy and himself, as part of the telegraph system,
+and that he was obliged to let the lad in--"for it wouldn't do to go
+back on the code now," he added, half in apology for permitting such a
+sudden break in their deliberations.
+
+When the door was opened, Tad, with flushed face and sparkling eyes,
+sprang in and threw his arms around his father's neck. The President
+straightened up and embraced the boy with an expression of happiness
+never seen on his face except while playing with his little son.
+
+Mr. Lincoln turned, with the boy still in his arms, to explain that he
+and Tad had agreed upon this telegraphic code to prevent the lad from
+bursting in upon them without warning. The members of the cabinet looked
+puzzled or disgusted, as though they failed to see that several
+startling raps could be any better than having Tad break in with a whoop
+or a wail, as had been the boy's custom.
+
+
+ISSUING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER ON PETER FOR PIE
+
+The boy raised a question of right. He had besieged Peter, the colored
+steward, demanding that a dinner be served to several urchins he had
+picked up outside--two of whom were sons of soldiers. Peter had
+protested that he "had other fish to fry" just then.
+
+The President recognized at once that this was a case for diplomacy.
+Turning to various members of the cabinet, he called on each to
+contribute from his store of wisdom, what would be best to do in a case
+of such vast importance. Tad looked on in wonder as his father set the
+great machinery of government in motion to make out a commissary order
+on black Peter, which would force that astonished servant to deliver
+certain pieces of pie and other desired eatables to Tad, for himself and
+his boy friends.
+
+At last an "order" was prepared by the Chief Executive of the United
+States directing "The Commissary Department of the Presidential
+Residence to issue rations to Lieutenant Tad Lincoln and his five
+associates, two of whom are the sons of soldiers in the Army of the
+Potomac."
+
+With an expression of deep gravity and a solemn flourish, the President
+tendered this Commissary Order to the lieutenant, his son, saying as he
+presented the document:
+
+"I reckon Peter will _have_ to come to time now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN, PATRIOT
+
+
+There was no more sturdy little patriot in the whole country than
+Lieutenant Tad Lincoln, "the child of the nation," nor had the President
+of the United States a more devoted admirer and follower than his own
+small son. A word from his father would melt the lad to tears and
+submission, or bring him out of a nervous tantrum with his small round
+face wreathed with smiles, and a chuckling in his throat of "Papa-day,
+my papa-day!" No one knew exactly what the boy meant by papa-day. It was
+his pet name for the dearest man on earth, and it was his only way of
+expressing the greatest pleasure his boyish heart was able to hold. It
+was the "sweetest word ever heard" by the war-burdened, crushed and
+sorrowing soul of the broken-hearted President of the United States.
+
+Mr. Lincoln took his youngest son with him everywhere--on his great
+mission to Fortress Monroe, and they--"the long and the short of it,"
+the soldiers said--marched hand in hand through the streets of fallen
+Richmond. The understanding between the man and the boy was so complete
+and sacred, that some acts which seemed to outsiders absurd and
+ill-fitting, became perfectly right and proper when certain unknown
+facts were taken into account.
+
+
+WAVING THE "STARS AND BARS" OUT OF A WHITE HOUSE WINDOW
+
+For instance, one night, during an enthusiastic serenade at the White
+House, after a great victory of the northern armies, when the President
+had been out and made a happy speech in response to the congratulations
+he had received, everybody was horrified to see the Confederate "Stars
+and Bars" waving frantically from an upper window with shouts followed
+by shrieks as old Edward, the faithful colored servant, pulled in the
+flag and the boy who was guilty of the mischief.
+
+"That was little Tad!" exclaimed some one in the crowd. Many laughed,
+but some spectators thought the boy ought to be punished for such a
+treasonable outbreak on the part of a President's boy in a soldier's
+uniform.
+
+"If he don't know any better than that," said one man, "he should be
+taught better. It's an insult to the North and the President ought to
+stop it and apologize, too."
+
+
+"BOYS IN BLUE" AND "BOYS IN GRAY"
+
+But little Tad understood his father's spirit better than the crowd did.
+He knew that the President's love was not confined to "the Boys in
+Blue," but that his heart went out also to "the Boys in Gray." The
+soldiers were all "boys" to him. They knew he loved them. They said
+among themselves: "He cares for us. He takes our part. We will fight for
+him; yes, we will die for him."
+
+And a large part of the common soldier's patriotism was this
+heart-response of "the boys" to the great "boy" in the White House. That
+was the meaning of their song as they trooped to the front at his call:
+
+        "We are coming, Father Abraham;
+         Three hundred thousand more."
+
+Little Tad saw plenty of evidences of his father's love for the younger
+soldiers--the real boys of the army. Going always with the President, he
+had heard his "Papa-day" say of several youths condemned to be shot for
+sleeping at their post or some like offense:
+
+"That boy is worth more above ground than under;" or, "A live boy can
+serve his country better than a dead one."
+
+"Give the boys a chance," was Abraham Lincoln's motto. He hadn't had
+much of a chance himself and he wanted all other boys to have a fair
+show. His own father had been too hard with him, and he was going to
+make it up to all the other boys he could reach. This passion for doing
+good to others began in the log cabin when he had no idea he could ever
+be exercising his loving kindness in the Executive Mansion--the Home of
+the Nation. "With malice toward none, with charity for all," was the
+rule of his life in the backwoods as well as in the National Capital.
+
+And "the Boys in Gray" were his "boys," too, but they didn't understand,
+so they had wandered away--they were a little wayward, but he would win
+them back. The great chivalrous South has learned, since those bitter,
+ruinous days, that Abraham Lincoln was the best friend the South then
+had in the North. Tad had seen his father show great tenderness to all
+the "boys" he met in the gray uniform, but the President had few
+opportunities to show his tenderness to the South--though there was a
+secret pigeonhole in his desk stuffed full of threats of assassination.
+He was not afraid of death--indeed, he was glad to die if it would do
+his "boys" and the country any good. But it hurt him deep in his heart
+to know that some of his beloved children misunderstood him so that they
+were willing to kill him!
+
+It was no one's bullet which made Abraham Lincoln a martyr. All his life
+he had shown the spirit of love which was willing to give his very life
+if it could save or help others.
+
+All these things little Tad could not have explained, but they were
+inbred into the deep understanding of the big father and the small son
+who were living in the White House as boys together.
+
+
+MR. LINCOLN'S LAST SPEECH AND HOW TAD HELPED
+
+A few days after the war ended at Appomattox, a great crowd came to the
+White House to serenade the President. It was Tuesday evening, April 11,
+1865. Mr. Lincoln had written a short address for the occasion. The
+times were so out of joint and every word was so important that the
+President could not trust himself to speak off-hand.
+
+A friend stepped out on the northern portico with him to hold the candle
+by which Mr. Lincoln was to read his speech. Little Tad was with his
+father, as usual, and when the President had finished reading a page of
+his manuscript he let it flutter down, like a leaf, or a big white
+butterfly, for Tad to catch. When the pages came too slowly the boy
+pulled his father's coat-tail, piping up in a muffled, excited tone:
+
+"Give me 'nother paper, Papa-day."
+
+To the few in the front of the crowd who witnessed this little by-play
+it seemed ridiculous that the President of the United States should
+allow any child to behave like that and hamper him while delivering a
+great address which would wield a national, if not world-wide influence.
+But little Tad did not trouble his father in the least. It was a part of
+the little game they were constantly playing together.
+
+The address opened with these words:
+
+        "FELLOW-CITIZENS: We meet this evening not in
+        sorrow, but gladness of heart. The evacuation
+        of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender
+        of the principal insurgent army (at Appomattox)
+        give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose
+        joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the
+        midst of this, however, He from whom all
+        blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call
+        for national thanksgiving is being prepared and
+        will be duly promulgated."
+
+
+"GIVE US 'DIXIE,' BOYS!"
+
+Then he went on outlining a policy of peace and friendship toward the
+South--showing a spirit far higher and more advanced than that of the
+listening crowd. On concluding his address and bidding the assembled
+multitude good night, he turned to the serenading band and shouted
+joyously:
+
+"Give us 'Dixie,' boys; play 'Dixie.' We have a right to that tune now."
+
+There was a moment of silence. Some of the people gasped, as they had
+done when they saw Tad waving the Confederate flag at the window. But
+the band, loyal even to a mere whim (as they then thought it) of "Father
+Abraham," started the long-forbidden tune, and the President, bowing,
+retired, with little Tad, within the White House. Those words, "Give us
+'Dixie,' boys," were President Lincoln's last public utterance.
+
+As Mr. Lincoln came in through the door after speaking to the crowd,
+Mrs. Lincoln--who had been, with a group of friends, looking on from
+within--exclaimed to him:
+
+"You must not be so careless. Some one could easily have shot you while
+you were speaking there--and you know they are threatening your life!"
+
+The President smiled at his wife, through a look of inexpressible pain
+and sadness, and shrugged his great shoulders, but "still he answered
+not a word."
+
+
+THE SEPARATION OF THE TWO "BOYS"
+
+At a late hour Good Friday night, that same week, little Tad came in
+alone at a basement door of the White House from the National Theater,
+where he knew the manager, and some of the company, had made a great pet
+of him. He had often gone there alone or with his tutor. How he had
+heard the terrible news from Ford's Theater is not known, but he came up
+the lower stairway with heartrending cries like a wounded animal.
+Seeing Thomas Pendel, the faithful doorkeeper, he wailed from his
+breaking heart:
+
+"Tom Pen, Tom Pen, they have killed Papa-day! They have killed my
+Papa-day!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the funeral the little fellow was more lonely than ever. It was
+hard to have his pony burned up in the stable. It was harder still to
+lose Brother Willie, his constant companion, and now his mother was
+desperately ill, and his father had been killed. Tad, of course, could
+not comprehend why any one could be so cruel and wicked as to wish to
+murder his darling Papa-day, who loved every one so!
+
+He wandered through the empty rooms, aching with loneliness, murmuring
+softly to himself:
+
+"Papa-day, where's my Papa-day. I'm tired--tired of playing alone. I
+want to play together. Please, Papa-day, come back and play with your
+little Tad."
+
+Young though he was he could not sleep long at night. His sense of
+loneliness penetrated his dreams. Sometimes he would chuckle and gurgle
+in an ecstacy, as he had done when riding on his father's back, romping
+through the stately rooms. He would throw his arm about the neck of the
+doorkeeper or lifeguard who had lain down beside him to console the boy
+and try to get him to sleep. When the man spoke to comfort him, Tad
+would find out his terrible mistake, that his father was not with him.
+
+Then he would wail again in the bitterness of his disappointment:
+
+"Papa-day, where's my Papa-day?"
+
+"Your papa's gone 'way off"--said his companion, his voice breaking with
+emotion--"gone to heaven."
+
+Tad opened his eyes wide with wonder. "Is Papa-day happy in heaven?" he
+asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm sure he's happy there, Taddie dear; now go to sleep."
+
+"Papa-day's happy. I'm glad--_so_ glad!"--sighed the little boy--"for
+Papa-day never was happy here."
+
+Then he fell into his first sweet sleep since that terrible night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"GIVE THE BOYS A CHANCE"
+
+The fond-hearted little fellow went abroad with his mother a few years
+after the tragedy that broke both their lives. By a surgical operation,
+and by struggling manfully, he had corrected the imperfection in his
+speech. But the heart of little Tad had been broken. While still a lad
+he joined his fond father in the Beyond.
+
+"Give the boys a chance," had amounted to a passion with Abraham
+Lincoln, yet through great wickedness and sad misunderstandings his own
+little son was robbed of this great boon. Little Tad had been denied the
+one chance he sorely needed for his very existence. For this, as for all
+the inequities the great heart of the White House was prepared. His
+spirit had shone through his whole life as if in letters of living fire:
+
+"With malice toward none; with charity for all."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+ALTEMUS BOOKS
+
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+        for Twentieth Century Boys and Girls
+
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+
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+
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Dick Prescott, Dan Dalzell, Tom Reade, and the other members of Dick &
+Co. are always found in the forefront of things--in scholarship,
+athletics, and in school-boy fun. Small wonder that this series has made
+such a hit with the boys of America.
+
+        1. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS OF GRIDLEY; or, Dick
+        and Co. Start Things Moving.
+
+        2. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS SNOWBOUND; or, Dick
+        and Co. at Winter Sports.
+
+        3. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS IN THE WOODS; or,
+        Dick and Co. Trail Fun and Knowledge.
+
+        4. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS IN SUMMER ATHLETICS;
+        or, Dick and Co. Make Their Fame Secure.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+This series of stories, based on the actual doings of High School boys,
+teems with incidents in athletics and school-boy fun. The real
+Americanism of Dick Prescott and his chums will excite the admiration of
+every reader.
+
+        1. THE HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMEN; or, Dick and Co.'s
+        First Year Pranks and Sports.
+
+        2. THE HIGH SCHOOL PITCHER; or, Dick and Co. on
+        the Gridley Diamond.
+
+        3. THE HIGH SCHOOL LEFT END; or, Dick and Co.
+        Grilling on the Football Gridiron.
+
+        4. THE HIGH SCHOOL CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM; or,
+        Dick and Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard.
+
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+
+THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS VACATION SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Outdoor sports are the keynote of these volumes. Boys will alternately
+thrill and chuckle over these splendid narratives of the further
+adventures of Dick Prescott and his chums.
+
+        1. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' CANOE CLUB; or, Dick
+        and Co.'s Rivals on Lake Pleasant.
+
+        2. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS IN SUMMER CAMP; or, The
+        Dick Prescott Six Training for the Gridley
+        Eleven.
+
+        3. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' FISHING TRIP; or, Dick
+        and Co. in the Wilderness.
+
+        4. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' TRAINING HIKE; or,
+        Dick and Co. Making Themselves "Hard as Nails."
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG ENGINEERS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton meet every requirement as young civil
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+determination overcome all obstacles.
+
+        1. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN COLORADO; or, At
+        Railroad Building in Earnest.
+
+        2. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN ARIZONA; or, Laying
+        Tracks on the "Man-Killer" Quicksand.
+
+        3. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN NEVADA; or, Seeking
+        Fortune on the Turn of a Pick.
+
+        4. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN MEXICO; or, Fighting
+        the Mine Swindlers.
+
+        5. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS ON THE GULF; or, The
+        Dread Mystery of the Million-Dollar Breakwater.
+
+
+
+
+THE ANNAPOLIS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell proved their mettle at the U. S. Naval
+Academy and gave promise of what might be expected of them in the great
+war that was even at that moment hovering over the world.
+
+        1. DAVE DARRIN'S FIRST YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Two Plebe Midshipmen at the U. S. Naval
+        Academy.
+
+        2. DAVE DARRIN'S SECOND YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters."
+
+        3. DAVE DARRIN'S THIRD YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen.
+
+        4. DAVE DARRIN'S FOURTH YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Headed for Graduation and the Big Cruise.
+
+
+
+
+THE WEST POINT SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes are not human wonders, but a pair of
+average bright American boys who had a hard enough time working their
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+
+        1. DICK PRESCOTT'S FIRST YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Two Chums in the Cadet Gray.
+
+        2. DICK PRESCOTT'S SECOND YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life.
+
+        3. DICK PRESCOTT'S THIRD YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Standing Firm for Flag and Honor.
+
+        4. DICK PRESCOTT'S FOURTH YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps.
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLESHIP BOYS SERIES
+
+By FRANK GEE PATCHIN
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Inspiring adventure, moving incidents over the seven seas, and in the
+air above them; fighting the Huns from the decks of sinking ships, and
+coming to grief above the clouds; strange peoples and still stranger
+experiences, are some of the things that the readers of this series will
+live when they cruise with Dan Davis and Sam Hickey. Mr. Patchin has
+lived every phase of the life he writes about, and his stories truly
+depict life in the various branches of the navy--stories that glow with
+the spirit of patriotism that has made the American navy what it proved
+itself to be in the world war.
+
+        1. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS AT SEA; or, Two
+        Apprentices in Uncle Sam's Navy.
+
+        2. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS' FIRST STEP UPWARD; or,
+        Winning Their Grades as Petty Officers.
+
+        3. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN FOREIGN SERVICE; or,
+        Earning New Ratings in European Seas.
+
+        4. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN THE TROPICS; or,
+        Upholding the American Flag in a Honduras
+        Revolution.
+
+        5. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS UNDER FIRE; or, The Dash
+        for the Besieged Kam Shau Mission.
+
+        6. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN THE WARDROOM; or,
+        Winning Their Commissions as Line Officers.
+
+        7. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS WITH THE ADRIATIC
+        CHASERS; or, Blocking the Path of the Undersea
+        Raiders.
+
+        8. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS ON SKY PATROL; or,
+        Fighting the Hun from Above the Clouds.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOYS OF THE ARMY SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These stimulating stories are among the best of their class that have
+ever been written. They breathe the life and spirit of our army of
+today, and in which Uncle Sam's Boys fought with a courage and devotion
+excelled by none in the world war. There is no better way to instil
+patriotism in the coming generation than by placing in the hands of
+juvenile readers books in which a romantic atmosphere is thrown around
+the boys of the army with thrilling plots that boys love. The books of
+this series tell in story form the life of a soldier from the rookie
+stage until he has qualified for an officer's commission, and, among
+other things, present a true picture of the desperate days in fighting
+the Huns.
+
+        1. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE RANKS; or, Two
+        Recruits in the United States Army.
+
+        2. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON FIELD DUTY; or, Winning
+        Corporals' Chevrons.
+
+        3. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS SERGEANTS; or, Handling
+        Their First Real Commands.
+
+        4. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE PHILIPPINES; or,
+        Following the Flag Against the Moros.
+
+        5. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON THEIR METTLE; or, A
+        Chance to Win Officers' Commissions.
+
+        6. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS LIEUTENANTS; or, Serving
+        Old Glory as Line Officers.
+
+        7. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS WITH PERSHING; or, Dick
+        Prescott at Grips with the Boche.
+
+        8. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS SMASH THE GERMANS; or,
+        Helping the Allies Wind Up the Great World War.
+
+
+
+
+DAVE DARRIN SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No more efficient officers ever paced the deck of a man-o'-war than Dave
+Darrin and Dan Dalzell. The last two volumes chronicle the experiences
+of Dave and Dan in the great war.
+
+        1. DAVE DARRIN AT VERA CRUZ; or, Fighting With
+        the U. S. Navy in Mexico.
+
+        2. DAVE DARRIN ON MEDITERRANEAN SERVICE; or,
+        With Dan Dalzell on European Duty.
+
+        3. DAVE DARRIN'S SOUTH AMERICAN CRUISE; or, Two
+        Innocent Young Naval Tools of an Infamous
+        Conspiracy.
+
+        4. DAVE DARRIN ON THE ASIATIC STATION; or,
+        Winning Lieutenants' Commissions on the
+        Admiral's Flagship.
+
+        5. DAVE DARRIN AND THE GERMAN SUBMARINES; or,
+        Making a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters.
+
+        6. DAVE DARRIN AFTER THE MINE LAYERS; or,
+        Hitting the Enemy a Hard Naval Blow.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+If the United States had not entered the war many things might have
+happened to America. No liberty-loving American boy can afford to miss
+reading these books.
+
+        1. THE INVASION OF THE UNITED STATES; or, Uncle
+        Sam's Boys at the Capture of Boston.
+
+        2. IN THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK; or, Uncle Sam's
+        Boys in the Desperate Struggle for the
+        Metropolis.
+
+        3. AT THE DEFENSE OF PITTSBURGH; or, The
+        Struggle to Save America's "Fighting Steel"
+        Supply.
+
+        4. MAKING THE LAST STAND FOR OLD GLORY; or,
+        Uncle Sam's Boys in the Last Frantic Drive.
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Bright and sparkling as the waters over which the Motor Boat Boys sail.
+Once cast off for a cruise with these hardy young fresh-water navigators
+the reader will not ask to be "put ashore" until the home port has
+finally been made. Manliness and pluck are reflected on every page; the
+plots are ingenious, the action swift, and the interest always tense.
+There is neither a yawn in a paragraph nor a dull moment in a chapter in
+this stirring series. No boy or girl will willingly lay down a volume of
+it until "the end." The stories also embody much useful information
+about the operation and handling of small power boats.
+
+        1. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OF THE KENNEBEC; or, The
+        Secret of Smugglers' Island.
+
+        2. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT NANTUCKET; or, The
+        Mystery of the Dunstan Heir.
+
+        3. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OFF LONG ISLAND; or, A
+        Daring Marine Game at Racing Speed.
+
+        4. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND THE WIRELESS; or,
+        The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise.
+
+        5. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB IN FLORIDA; or, Laying
+        the Ghost of Alligator Swamp.
+
+        6. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT THE GOLDEN GATE; or,
+        A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog.
+
+        7. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB ON THE GREAT LAKES; or,
+        The Flying Dutchman of the Big Fresh Water.
+
+
+
+
+THE SUBMARINE BOYS SERIES
+
+By VICTOR G. DURHAM
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A voyage in an undersea boat! What boy has not done so time and again in
+his youthful dreams? The Submarine Boys did it in reality, diving into
+the dark depths of the sea, then, like Father Neptune, rising dripping
+from the deep to sunlight and safety. Yet it was not all easy sailing
+for the Submarine Boys, for these hardy young "undersea pirates"
+experienced a full measure of excitement and had their share of thrills,
+as all who sail under the surface of the seas are certain to do. The
+author knows undersea boats, and the reader who voyages with him may
+look forward to an instructive as well as lively cruise.
+
+        1. THE SUBMARINE BOYS ON DUTY; or, Life on a
+        Diving Torpedo Boat.
+
+        2. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' TRIAL TRIP; or, "Making
+        Good" as Young Experts.
+
+        3. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE MIDDIES; or, The
+        Prize Detail at Annapolis.
+
+        4. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SPIES; or,
+        Dodging the Sharks of the Deep.
+
+        5. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' LIGHTNING CRUISE; or,
+        The Young Kings of the Deep.
+
+        6. THE SUBMARINE BOYS FOR THE FLAG; or, Deeding
+        Their Lives to Uncle Sam.
+
+        7. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SMUGGLERS; or,
+        Breaking Up the New Jersey Customs Frauds.
+
+        8. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' SECRET MISSION; or,
+        Beating an Ambassador's Game.
+
+
+
+
+THE PONY RIDER BOYS SERIES
+
+By FRANK GEE PATCHIN
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This unusual and popular series tells vividly the story of four
+adventure-loving lads, who, with their guardian, spent their summer
+vacations in the saddle in search of recreation and healthful adventure.
+Long journeys over mountain, through the fastness of primitive forest
+and across burning desert, lead them into the wild places of their
+native land as well as into many strange and exciting experiences. There
+is not a dull moment in the series.
+
+        1. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The
+        Secret of the Lost Claim.
+
+        2. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN TEXAS; or, The Veiled
+        Riddle of the Plains.
+
+        3. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN MONTANA; or, The
+        Mystery of the Old Custer Trail.
+
+        4. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE OZARKS; or, The
+        Secret of Ruby Mountain.
+
+        5. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ALKALI; or,
+        Finding a Key to the Desert Maze.
+
+        6. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW MEXICO; or, The
+        End of the Silver Trail.
+
+        7. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON; or,
+        The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch.
+
+        8. THE PONY RIDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS;
+        or, On the Trail of the Border Bandits.
+
+        9. THE PONY RIDER BOYS ON THE BLUE RIDGE; or, A
+        Lucky Find in the Carolina Mountains.
+
+        10. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW ENGLAND; or, An
+        Exciting Quest in the Maine Wilderness.
+
+        11. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN LOUISIANA; or,
+        Following the Game Trails in the Canebrake.
+
+        12. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN ALASKA; or, The Gold
+        Diggers of Taku Pass.
+
+
+
+
+THE CIRCUS BOYS SERIES
+
+By EDGAR B. P. DARLINGTON
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No call to the heart of the youth of America finds a readier response
+than the call of the billowing canvas, the big red wagons, the crash of
+the circus band and the trill of the ringmaster's whistle. It is a call
+that captures the imagination of old and young alike, and so do the
+books of this series capture and enthrall the reader, for they were
+written by one who, besides wielding a master pen, has followed the
+sawdust trail from coast to coast, who knows the circus people and the
+sturdy manliness of those who do and dare for the entertainment of
+millions of circus-goers when the grass is green. Mr. Darlington paints
+a true picture of the circus life.
+
+        1. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE FLYING RINGS; or,
+        Making the Start in the Sawdust Life.
+
+        2. THE CIRCUS BOYS ACROSS THE CONTINENT; or,
+        Winning New Laurels on the Tanbark.
+
+        3. THE CIRCUS BOYS IN DIXIE LAND; or, Winning
+        the Plaudits of the Sunny South.
+
+        4. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE MISSISSIPPI; or,
+        Afloat with the Big Show on the Big River.
+
+        5. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE PLAINS; or, The Young
+        Advance Agents Ahead of the Show.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+
+
+
+THE MADGE MORTON SERIES
+
+By AMY D. V. CHALMERS
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+The heroines of these stories are four girls, who with enthusiasm for
+outdoor life, transformed a dilapidated canal boat into a pretty
+floating summer home. They christened the craft "The Merry Maid" and
+launched it on the shore of Chesapeake Bay. The stories are full of fun
+and adventure, with not a dull moment anywhere.
+
+
+        1. MADGE MORTON--CAPTAIN OF THE MERRY MAID.
+        2. MADGE MORTON'S SECRET.
+        3. MADGE MORTON'S TRUST.
+        4. MADGE MORTON'S VICTORY.
+
+
+
+
+THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS SERIES
+
+By JANET ALDRIDGE
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Four clever girls go hiking around the country and meet with many
+thrilling and provoking adventures. These stories pulsate with the
+atmosphere of outdoor life.
+
+        1. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS UNDER CANVAS; or, Fun
+        and Frolic in the Summer Camp.
+
+        2. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ACROSS COUNTRY; or,
+        The Young Pathfinders on a Summer Hike.
+
+        3. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS AFLOAT; or, The
+        Stormy Cruise of the Red Rover.
+
+        4. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS IN THE HILLS; or, The
+        Missing Pilot of the White Mountains.
+
+        5. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS BY THE SEA; or, The
+        Loss of the Lonesome Bar.
+
+        6. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ON THE TENNIS COURTS;
+        or, Winning Out in the Big Tournament.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS SERIES
+
+By LAURA DENT CRANE
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Girls as well as boys love wholesome adventure, a wealth of which is
+found in many forms and in many scenes in the volumes of this series.
+
+        1. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT; or,
+        Watching the Summer Parade.
+
+        2. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS IN THE BERKSHIRES; or,
+        The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail.
+
+        3. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS ALONG THE HUDSON; or,
+        Fighting Fire in Sleepy Hollow.
+
+        4. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT CHICAGO; or, Winning
+        Out Against Heavy Odds.
+
+        5. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT PALM BEACH; or,
+        Proving Their Mettle Under Southern Skies.
+
+        6. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT WASHINGTON; or,
+        Checkmating the Plots of Foreign Spies.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The scenes, episodes, and adventures through which Grace Harlowe and her
+intimate chums pass in the course of these stories are pictured with a
+vivacity that at once takes the young feminine captive.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE'S PLEBE YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL;
+        or, The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen
+        Girls.
+
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE'S SOPHOMORE YEAR AT HIGH
+        SCHOOL; or, The Record of the Girl Chums in
+        Work and Athletics.
+
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE'S JUNIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL;
+        or, Fast Friends in the Sororities.
+
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE'S SENIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL;
+        or, The Parting of the Ways.
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLEGE GIRLS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Every school and college girl will recognize that the account of Grace
+Harlowe's experiences at Overton College is true to life.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE'S FIRST YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE'S SECOND YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE'S THIRD YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE'S FOURTH YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        5. GRACE HARLOWE'S RETURN TO OVERTON CAMPUS.
+        6. GRACE HARLOWE'S PROBLEM.
+        7. GRACE HARLOWE'S GOLDEN SUMMER.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Grace Harlowe went with the Overton College Red Cross Unit to France,
+there to serve her country by aiding the American fighting forces.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS.
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE.
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY.
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE U. S. TROOPS IN THE ARGONNE.
+        5. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE YANKEE SHOCK BOYS AT ST. QUENTIN.
+        6. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY ON THE RHINE.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERLAND RIDERS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Grace Harlowe and her friends seek adventure on the mountain trails and
+in the wilder sections of their homeland, after their return from
+service in France.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE OLD
+        APACHE TRAIL.
+
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE GREAT
+        AMERICAN DESERT.
+
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE
+        KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS.
+
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE GREAT
+        NORTH WOODS.
+
+        5. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE HIGH
+        SIERRAS.
+
+        6. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE
+        YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.
+
+        7. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE BLACK
+        HILLS.
+
+        8. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AT CIRCLE O
+        RANCH.
+
+        9. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE
+        BORDER GUERRILLAS.
+
+        10. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE LOST
+        RIVER TRAIL.
+
+
+
+
+ALTEMUS' NEW ILLUSTRATED YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A series of choice literature for children, selected from the best and
+most popular works. Printed on fine paper from large type, with numerous
+illustrations in color and black and white, by the most famous artists,
+making the most attractive series of juvenile classics before the
+public.
+
+        Fine English Cloth, Handsome New Original Designs
+                    PRICE, 75 Cents Each
+
+        THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 70 illustrations.
+        ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 42 illustrations.
+        THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE.
+            50 illustrations.
+        BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 46 illustrations.
+        A CHILD'S STORY OF THE BIBLE. 72 illustrations.
+        A CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. 49 illustrations.
+        ÆSOP'S FABLES. 62 illustrations.
+        SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. 50 illustrations.
+        THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. By Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated.
+        GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. 50 illustrations.
+        MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES, JINGLES, AND FAIRY TALES. 234
+            illustrations.
+        WOOD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 80 illustrations.
+        BLACK BEAUTY. By Anna Sewell. 50 illustrations.
+        ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. 130 illustrations.
+
+
+
+
+WEE BOOKS FOR WEE FOLKS
+
+For little hands to fondle and for mother to read aloud. Every ounce of
+them will give a ton of joy.
+
+
+WEE BOOKS FOR WEE FOLKS SERIES
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY TALES.
+        MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY RHYMES.
+        A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES. Robert Louis Stevenson.
+        THE FOOLISH FOX.
+        THREE LITTLE PIGS.
+        THE ROBBER KITTEN.
+        LITTLE BLACK SAMBO.
+        THE LITTLE SMALL RED HEN.
+        THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
+        THE LITTLE WISE CHICKEN THAT KNEW IT ALL.
+        THE FOUR LITTLE PIGS THAT DIDN'T HAVE ANY MOTHER.
+        THE LITTLE PUPPY THAT WANTED TO KNOW TOO MUCH.
+        THE COCK, THE MOUSE AND THE LITTLE RED HEN.
+        GRUNTY GRUNTS AND SMILEY SMILE--INDOORS.
+        GRUNTY GRUNTS AND SMILEY SMILE--OUTDOORS.
+        I DON'T WANT TO WEAR COATS AND THINGS.
+        I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BED.
+        LITTLE SALLIE MANDY.
+        JIMMY SLIDERLEGS.
+        SLOVENLY BETSY.
+        LITTLE BLACK SAMBO AND THE BABY ELEPHANT.
+
+
+WEE FOLKS BIBLE STORIES SERIES
+
+        WEE FOLKS STORIES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. In Words of
+            One Syllable.
+        WEE FOLKS STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. In Words of
+            One Syllable.
+        WEE FOLKS LIFE OF CHRIST.
+        WEE FOLKS BIBLE A B C BOOK.
+        LITTLE PRAYERS FOR LITTLE LIPS.
+
+
+THE WISH FAIRY SERIES
+
+        THE WISH FAIRY OF THE SUNSHINE AND SHADOW FOREST.
+        THE WISH FAIRY AND DEWY DEAR.
+
+        PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS.    PRICE, 50c. EACH
+
+
+
+
+WEE FOLKS PETER RABBIT SERIES
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+        THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT.
+        HOW PETER RABBIT WENT TO SEA.
+        PETER RABBIT AT THE FARM.
+        PETER RABBIT'S CHRISTMAS.
+        PETER RABBIT'S EASTER.
+        WHEN PETER RABBIT WENT TO SCHOOL.
+        PETER RABBIT'S BIRTHDAY.
+        PETER RABBIT GOES A-VISITING.
+        PETER RABBIT AND JACK-THE-JUMPER.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE LITTLE BOY.
+        PETER RABBIT AND LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE OLD WITCH WOMAN.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE BIG BROWN BEAR.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE TINYBITS.
+        WHEN PETER RABBIT WENT A-FISHING.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE TWO TERRIBLE FOXES.
+
+WEE FOLKS CINDERELLA SERIES
+
+        THE WONDERFUL STORY OF CINDERELLA.
+        THE STORY OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.
+        THE OLDTIME STORY OF THE THREE BEARS.
+        THE OLD, OLD STORY OF POOR COCK ROBIN.
+        CHICKEN LITTLE.
+        PUSS IN BOOTS.
+        THREE LITTLE KITTENS THAT LOST THEIR MITTENS.
+        JACK THE GIANT KILLER.
+        JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK.
+        TOM THUMB.
+
+
+LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN SERIES
+
+        LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN.
+        LITTLE LAMBIE LAMBKIN.
+        LITTLE MOUSIE MOUSIEKIN.
+        LITTLE DEARIE DEER.
+        LITTLE SQUIRRELIE SQUIRRELIEKIN.
+        OLD RED REYNARD THE FOX.
+        HOOTIE TOOTS OF HOLLOW TREE.
+        FLAPSY FLOPPER OF THE FARM YARD.
+
+        PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS. PRICE,    50c. EACH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 87, "afer" changed to "after" (occasion after he)
+
+Page 126, "Store Keeping" changed to "Storekeeping" (War, Storekeeping,
+and)
+
+Page 127, "sort" changed to "short" (incredibly short time)
+
+Page 156, "disinguished" changed to "distinguished" (Abe disinguished
+himself)
+
+Page 174, "befor" changed to "before" (temperance address before)
+
+Page 174, duplicate word "the" removed. Original text read:
+
+    the the Washingtonian Society of Springfield
+
+Page 198, duplicate word "the" removed. Original text read:
+
+    until the the mud on
+
+Page 220, "solemly" changed to "solemnly" (whispered solemnly)
+
+Page 245, "boys" changed to "boy" (boy wants now)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln, by 
+Wayne Whipple
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln, by Wayne Whipple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln
+
+Author: Wayne Whipple
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2007 [EBook #22925]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Front Matter">
+<tr><td align='left'><img src="images/cover.jpg" width="253" height="400" alt="Cover" title="Cover" />
+</td><td align='left'><img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="332" height="375" alt="Abraham Lincoln" title="" />
+</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<h1>The Story of<br />
+Young Abraham Lincoln</h1>
+
+<h3>By</h3>
+
+<h2>WAYNE WHIPPLE</h2>
+
+<div class='center'>Author of The Story of the American Flag, The Story of the<br />
+Liberty Bell, The Story of the White House, The Story<br />
+of Young George Washington, the Story of<br />
+Young Benjamin Franklin, etc.<br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+Illustrated<br />
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+P H I L A D E L P H I A<br />
+
+HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY</div>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class='center'><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1915, <span class="smcap">by Howard E. Altemus</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1918, <span class="smcap">by Howard E. Altemus</span><br />
+
+<br /><br /><br /><br />
+<span class="smcap"><small>Printed in the<br />
+United States of America</small></span></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'><span class="smcap">Chapter</span></td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Page</span></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln's Forefathers</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln's Father and Mother</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Boy Lincoln's Best Teacher</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Learning to Work</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Losing His Mother</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_52">52</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">School Days Now and Then</span>.</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Abe and the Neighbors</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Moving to Illinois</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Starting Out for Himself</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_102">102</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Clerking and Working</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Politics, War, Storekeeping, and Studying Law</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Buying and Keeping a Store</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Young Legislator in Love</span>.</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Moving to Springfield</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lincoln &amp; Herndon</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">His Kindness of Heart</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">What Made the Difference Between Abraham Lincoln and His Stepbrother</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_208">208</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XVIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">How Emancipation Came to Pass</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Glory of Gettysburg</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XX.</td><td align='left'>"<span class="smcap">No End of a Boy</span>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XXI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Lieutenant Tad Lincoln, Patriot</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Lincoln From New and Unusual Sources</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The boy or girl who reads to-day may know
+more about the real Lincoln than his own children
+knew. The greatest President's son, Robert
+Lincoln, discussing a certain incident in their
+life in the White House, remarked to the writer,
+with a smile full of meaning:</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you know more about our family
+matters than I do!"</p>
+
+<p>This is because "all the world loves a lover"&mdash;and
+Abraham Lincoln loved everybody. With
+all his brain and brawn, his real greatness was
+in his heart. He has been called "the Great-Heart
+of the White House," and there is little
+doubt that more people have heard about him
+than there are who have read of the original
+"Great-Heart" in "The Pilgrim's Progress."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, it is safe to say that more millions in
+the modern world are acquainted with the story
+of the rise of Abraham Lincoln from a poorly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+built log cabin to the highest place among "the
+seats of the mighty," than are familiar with the
+Bible story of Joseph who arose and stood next
+to the throne of the Pharaohs.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly every year, especially since the Lincoln
+Centennial, 1909, something new has been
+added to the universal knowledge of one of the
+greatest, if not <i>the</i> greatest man who ever lived
+his life in the world. Not only those who "knew
+Lincoln," but many who only "saw him once" or
+shook hands with him, have been called upon to
+tell what they saw him do or heard him say. So
+hearty was his kindness toward everybody that
+the most casual remark of his seems to be
+charged with deep human affection&mdash;"the touch
+of Nature" which has made "the whole world
+kin" to him.</p>
+
+<p>He knew just how to sympathize with every
+one. The people felt this, without knowing why,
+and recognized it in every deed or word or touch,
+so that those who have once felt the grasp of his
+great warm hand seem to have been drawn into
+the strong circuit of "Lincoln fellowship," and
+were enabled, as if by "the laying on of hands,"
+to speak of him ever after with a deep and tender
+feeling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There are many such people who did not rush
+into print with their observations and experiences.
+Their Lincoln memories seemed too sacred
+to scatter far and wide. Some of them have
+yielded, with real reluctance, in relating all for
+publication in <span class="smcap">The Story of Young Abraham
+Lincoln</span> only because they wished their recollections
+to benefit the rising generation.</p>
+
+<p>Several of these modest folk have shed true
+light on important phases and events in Lincoln's
+life history. For instance, there has been
+much discussion concerning Lincoln's Gettysburg
+Address&mdash;where was it written, and did he
+deliver it from notes?</p>
+
+<p>Now, fifty years after that great occasion,
+comes a distinguished college professor who unconsciously
+settles the whole dispute, whether
+Lincoln held his notes in his right hand or his
+left&mdash;if he used them at all!&mdash;while making his
+immortal "little speech." To a group of veterans
+of the Grand Army of the Republic he related,
+casually, what he saw while a college student
+at Gettysburg, after working his way
+through the crowd of fifteen thousand people to
+the front of the platform on that memorable
+day. From this point of vantage he saw and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
+heard everything, and there is no gainsaying the
+vivid memories of his first impressions&mdash;how the
+President held the little pages in both hands
+straight down before him, swinging his tall form
+to right, to left and to the front again as he emphasized
+the now familiar closing words, "<i>of</i> the
+people&mdash;<i>by</i> the people&mdash;<i>for</i> the people&mdash;shall not
+perish from the earth."</p>
+
+<p>Such data have been gathered from various
+sources and are here given for the first time in a
+connected life-story. Several corrections of
+stories giving rise to popular misconceptions
+have been supplied by Robert, Lincoln's only living
+son. One of these is the true version of
+"Bob's" losing the only copy of his father's first
+inaugural address. Others were furnished by
+two aged Illinois friends who were acquainted
+with "Abe" before he became famous. One of
+these explained, without knowing it, a question
+which has puzzled several biographers&mdash;how a
+young man of Lincoln's shrewd intelligence
+could have been guilty of such a misdemeanor,
+as captain in the Black Hawk War, as to make it
+necessary for his superior officer to deprive him
+of his sword for a single day.</p>
+
+<p>A new story is told by a dear old lady, who did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
+not wish her name given, about herself when she
+was a little girl, when a "drove of lawyers riding
+the old Eighth Judicial District of Illinois,"
+came to drink from a famous cold spring on her
+father's premises. She described the uncouth
+dress of a tall young man, asking her father who
+he was, and he replied with a laugh, "Oh, that's
+Abe Lincoln."</p>
+
+<p>One day in their rounds, as the lawyers came
+through the front gate, a certain judge, whose
+name the narrator refused to divulge, knocked
+down with his cane her pet doll, which was leaning
+against the fence. The little girl cried over
+this contemptuous treatment of her "child."</p>
+
+<p>Young Lawyer Lincoln, seeing it all, sprang in
+and quickly picked up the fallen doll. Brushing
+off the dust with his great awkward hand he
+said, soothingly, to the wounded little mother-heart:</p>
+
+<p>"There now, little Black Eyes, don't cry.
+Your baby's alive. See, she isn't hurt a bit!"</p>
+
+<p>That tall young man never looked uncouth to
+her after that. It was this same old lady who
+told the writer that Lawyer Lincoln wore a new
+suit of clothes for the first time on the very day
+that he performed the oft-described feat of rescuing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
+a helpless hog from a great deep hole in
+the road, and plastered his new clothes with mud
+to the great merriment of his legal friends. This
+well-known incident occurred not far from her
+father's place near Paris, Illinois.</p>
+
+<p>These and many other new and corrected incidents
+are now collected for <span class="smcap">The Story Of
+Young Abraham Lincoln</span>, in addition to the
+best of everything suitable that was known before&mdash;as
+the highest patriotic service which the
+writer can render to the young people of the
+United States of America.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span class="smcap">Wayne Whipple</span>.<br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>THE STORY OF<br />
+YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln's Forefathers</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>Lincoln's grandfather, for whom he was
+named Abraham, was a distant cousin to Daniel
+Boone. The Boones and the Lincolns had intermarried
+for generations. The Lincolns were of
+good old English stock. When he was President,
+Abraham Lincoln, who had never given
+much attention to the family pedigree, said that
+the history of his family was well described by
+a single line in Gray's "Elegy":</p>
+
+<p>"The short and simple annals of the poor."</p>
+
+<p>Yet Grandfather Abraham was wealthy for
+his day. He accompanied Boone from Virginia
+to Kentucky and lost his life there. He had sacrificed
+part of his property to the pioneer spirit
+within him, and, with the killing of their father,
+his family lost the rest. They were "land poor"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
+in the wilderness of the "Dark-and-Bloody-Ground"&mdash;the
+meaning of the Indian name,
+"Ken-tuc-kee."</p>
+
+<p>Grandfather Lincoln had built a solid log
+cabin and cleared a field or two around it, near
+the Falls of the Ohio, about where Louisville
+now stands. But, in the Summer of 1784, the
+tragic day dawned upon the Lincolns which has
+come to many a pioneer family in Kentucky and
+elsewhere. His son Thomas told this story to his
+children:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW INDIANS KILLED "GRANDFATHER LINCOLN"</div>
+
+<p>"My father&mdash;your grandfather, Abraham
+Lincoln&mdash;come over the mountains from Virginia
+with his cousin, Dan'l Boone. He was
+rich for them times, as he had property worth
+seventeen thousand dollars; but Mr. Boone he
+told Father he could make a good deal more
+by trappin' and tradin' with the Injuns for valuable
+pelts, or fur skins.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Dan'l Boone he had lived among
+the Injuns. He was a sure shot with the rifle
+so's he could beat the redskins at their own game.
+They took him a prisoner oncet, and instead of
+killin' him, they was about ready to make him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
+chief&mdash;he pretended all the while as how he'd
+like that&mdash;when he got away from 'em. He was
+such a good fellow that them Injuns admired
+his shrewdness, and they let him do about what
+he pleased. So he thought they'd let Father
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your grandfather was a Quaker, you
+see, and believed in treatin' them red devils well&mdash;like
+William Penn done, you know. He was a
+man for peace and quiet, and everything was
+goin' smooth with the tribes of what we called
+the Beargrass Country, till one day, when he
+and my brothers, Mordecai&mdash;'Mord' was a big
+fellow for his age&mdash;and Josiah, a few years
+younger&mdash;was out in the clearin' with the oxen,
+haulin' logs down to the crick. I went along too,
+but I didn't help much&mdash;for I was only six.</p>
+
+<p>"Young as I was, I remember what happened
+that day like it was only yesterday. It come like
+a bolt out of the blue. We see Father drop like
+he was shot&mdash;for he <i>was</i> shot! Then I heard the
+crack of a rifle and I saw a puff of smoke floatin'
+out o' the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>"Injuns!" gasps Mord, and starts on the run
+for the house&mdash;to get his gun. Josiah, he starts
+right off in the opposite direction to the Beargrass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
+fort&mdash;we called it a fort, but it was nothin'
+but a stockade. The way we boys scattered was
+like a brood o' young turkeys, or pa'tridges,
+strikin' for cover when the old one is shot. I
+knowed I'd ought to run too, but I didn't want
+to leave my father layin' there on the ground.
+Seemed like I'd ought to woke him up so he
+could run too. Yet I didn't feel like touchin'
+him. I think I must 'a' knowed he was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"While I was standin' still, starin' like the
+oxen, not knowin' what to do, a big Injun come
+out o' the brush, with a big knife in his hand.
+I knowed what he was goin' to do&mdash;skelp my
+father! I braced up to 'im to keep 'im away,
+an' he jist laffed at me. I never think what the
+devil looks like without seein' that red demon
+with his snaky black eyes, grinnin' at me!</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />TOM LINCOLN CHASED BY INDIANS</div>
+
+<p>"He picked me up like I was a baby an set
+me on the sawlog, an' was turnin' back to skelp
+Father, when&mdash;biff!&mdash;another gun-crack&mdash;and
+Mr. Big Indian he drops jist like your grandfather
+did, only he wriggles and squirms around,
+bitin' the dust&mdash;like a big snake for all the
+world!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was standin' there, kind o' dazed, watchin'
+another puff o' white smoke, comin' out between
+two logs in the side of our house. Then
+I knowed 'Mord' had shot my Injun. He had
+run in, got the gun down off'n the wall, an'
+peekin' out through a crack, he sees that Injun
+takin' hold o' me. Waitin' till the ol' demon
+turns away, so's not to hit me, 'Mord' he aims
+at a silver dangler on Mr. Injun's breast and
+makes him drop in his tracks like I said. Your
+Uncle 'Mord' he was a sure shot&mdash;like Cousin
+Dan'l Boone.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I hears the most blood-curdlin' yells,
+and a lot o' red devils jump out o' the bushes
+an' come for me brandishin' their tomahawks
+an' skelpin' knives. It was like hell broke
+loose. They had been watchin' an', of course,
+'twas all right to kill Father, but when 'Mord'
+killed one o' their bucks, that made a big difference.
+I had sense enough left to run for the
+house with them Injuns after me. Seemed like
+I couldn't run half as fast as usual, but I must
+'a' made purty good time, from what 'Mord' an'
+Mother said afterward.</p>
+
+<p>"He said one was ahead o' the rest an' had
+his tomahawk raised to brain me with it when&mdash;bing!&mdash;an'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
+'Mord' fetches <i>him</i> down like he
+did the fellow that was goin' to skelp Father.
+That made the others mad an' they took after
+me, but 'Mord' he drops the head one jist when
+he's goin' to hit me. But all I knowed at the
+time was that them red devils was a-chasin' me,
+and I'd got to 'leg it' for dear life!</p>
+
+<p>"When I gits near enough to the house, I
+hears Mother and 'Mord' hollerin' to make me
+run faster and go to the door, for Mother had it
+open jist wide enough to reach out an' snatch
+me in&mdash;when the third Injun was stoopin' to
+grab me, but 'Mord' makes him bite the dust
+like the others.</p>
+
+<p>"My, but wasn't them Injuns mad! Some
+of 'em sneaked around behind the house&mdash;they
+had to give 'Mord's' gun a wide berth to git
+there!&mdash;but he could only protect the front&mdash;and
+was a-settin' fire to our cabin to smoke us out
+or roast us alive, jist when the soldiers come
+with Josiah from the fort and saved our lives.
+Then the Injuns made 'emselves scurce&mdash;but
+they druv off the oxen and all our other stock.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"MORD" LINCOLN, INDIAN FIGHTER</div>
+
+<p>"That was the breaking up of our family.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
+None of us boys was old enough to take Father's
+place, an' Mother she was afraid to live there
+alone. Accordin' to the laws o' Virginia&mdash;Kentucky
+belonged to Virginia then&mdash;the oldest son
+got all the proputty, so 'Mord' he gets it all. He
+was welcome to it too, for he was the only one
+of us that could take care of it. 'Mord' he
+wasn't satisfied with killin' a few Injuns that
+day to revenge Father's death. He made a business
+of shootin' 'em on sight&mdash;a reg'lar Injun
+stalker! He couldn't see that he was jist as
+savage as the worst Injun, to murder 'em without
+waitin' to see whether Mr. Injun was a
+friend or a foe.</p>
+
+<p>"Oncet when I told 'im there was good an'
+bad red men like they wuz good an' bad white
+men, he said I might jist as well say 'good <i>devil</i>'
+as 'good Injun!' He says 'the only good Injun's
+the dead Injun!'</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the settlers must 'a' 'greed with
+'Mord,' for they made him sheriff o' the county&mdash;he
+was sech a good shot, too&mdash;an' they
+'lected him to the Legislatur' after Kentucky
+come in as a State. He stood high in the county.
+Folks didn't mind his shootin' an' Injun or two,
+more or less, when he got the chancet. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+all looked on redskins like they was catamounts
+an' other pesky varmints.</p>
+
+<p>"Your grandmother Lincoln an' Josiah an'
+me moved over into Washington County, but
+she had hard scrabblin' to git a livin'. Josiah
+he stayed with her, an' between him an' 'Mord,'
+they helped her along, but I had to git out and
+scratch for a livin'. From the time I was ten
+I was hired out to work for my 'keep,' an' anything
+else I could git. I knocked aroun' the
+country, doin' this, that an' t'other thing till I
+picked up carpenterin' o' Joseph Hanks, a
+cousin o' mine, an' there I met his sister Nancy,
+an' that's how she come to be your mother&mdash;an'
+'bout how I come to be your father, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Little is known today of Mordecai Lincoln,
+and there would be less interest in poor Thomas
+if he had not become the father of Abraham
+Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United
+States. Mordecai Lincoln was a joker and humorist.
+One who knew him well said of him:</p>
+
+<p>"He was a man of great drollery, and it would
+almost make you laugh to look at him. I never
+saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look
+excited in me the disposition to laugh, and that
+was 'Artemus Ward.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mordecai was quite a story-teller, and in
+this Abe resembled his 'Uncle Mord,' as we
+called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted
+as a woman, and to the last degree charitable
+and benevolent.</p>
+
+<p>"Abe Lincoln had a very high opinion of his
+uncle, and on one occasion remarked, 'I have
+often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all
+the talents of the family.'"</p>
+
+<p>In a letter about his family history, just before
+he was nominated for the presidency, Abraham
+Lincoln wrote:</p>
+
+<p>"My parents were both born in Virginia, of
+undistinguished families&mdash;second families, perhaps
+I should say. My mother was of a family
+of the name of Hanks. My paternal grandfather,
+Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham
+County, Virginia, to Kentucky about
+1781 or 2, where, a year or two later, he was
+killed by Indians&mdash;not in battle, but by stealth,
+when he was laboring to open a farm in the
+forest. His ancestors, who were Quakers, went
+to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania.
+An effort to identify them with the New England
+family of the same name ended in nothing
+more definite than a similarity of Christian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
+names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi,
+Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.</p>
+
+<p>"My father, at the death of his father, was but
+six years of age; and he grew up, literally without
+education."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Abraham Lincoln's Father and Mother</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>While Thomas Lincoln was living with a
+farmer and doing odd jobs of carpentering, he
+met Nancy Hanks, a tall, slender woman, with
+dark skin, dark brown hair and small, deep-set
+gray eyes. She had a full forehead, a sharp,
+angular face and a sad expression. Yet her disposition
+was generally cheerful. For her backwoods
+advantages she was considered well educated.
+She read well and could write, too. It is
+stated that Nancy Hanks taught Thomas Lincoln
+to write his own name. Thomas was twenty-eight
+and Nancy twenty-three when their wedding
+day came. Christopher Columbus Graham,
+when almost one hundred years old, gave the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
+following description of the marriage feast of
+the Lincoln bride and groom:</p>
+
+<p>"I am one of the two living men who can
+prove that Abraham Lincoln, or Linkhorn, as
+the family was miscalled, was born in lawful
+wedlock, for I saw Thomas Lincoln marry
+Nancy Hanks on the 12th day of June, 1806. I
+was hunting roots for my medicine and just went
+to the wedding to get a good supper and got it.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom Lincoln was a carpenter, and a good
+one for those days, when a cabin was built
+mainly with the ax, and not a nail or a bolt or
+hinge in it, only leathers and pins to the doors,
+and no glass, except in watches and spectacles
+and bottles. Tom had the best set of tools in
+what was then and is now Washington County.</p>
+
+<p>"Jesse Head, the good Methodist minister
+that married them, was also a carpenter or cabinet
+maker by trade, and as he was then a neighbor,
+they were good friends.</p>
+
+<p>"While you pin me down to facts, I will say
+that I saw Nancy Hanks Lincoln at her wedding,
+a fresh-looking girl, I should say over twenty.
+Tom was a respectable mechanic and could
+choose, and she was treated with respect.</p>
+
+<p>"I was at the infare, too, given by John H.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
+Parrott, her guardian, and only girls with
+money had guardians appointed by the court.
+We had bear meat; venison; wild turkey and
+ducks' eggs, wild and tame&mdash;so common that
+you could buy them at two bits a bushel; maple
+sugar, swung on a string, to bite off for coffee;
+syrup in big gourds, peach and honey; a sheep
+that the two families barbecued whole over coals
+of wood burned in a pit, and covered with green
+boughs to keep the juices in. Our table was of
+the puncheons cut from solid logs, and the next
+day they were the floor of the new cabin."</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Lincoln took his bride to live in a
+little log cabin in a Kentucky settlement&mdash;not a
+village or hardly a hamlet&mdash;called Elizabethtown.
+He evidently thought this place would be
+less lonesome for his wife, while he was away
+hunting and carpentering, than the lonely farm
+he had purchased in Hardin County, about fourteen
+miles away. There was so little carpentering
+or cabinet making to do that he could make
+a better living by farming or hunting. Thomas
+was very fond of shooting and as he was a fine
+marksman he could provide game for the table,
+and other things which are considered luxuries
+to-day, such as furs and skins needed for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+primitive wearing apparel of the pioneers. A
+daughter was born to the young couple at Elizabethtown,
+whom they named Sarah.</p>
+
+<p>Dennis Hanks, a cousin of Nancy, lived near
+the Lincolns in the early days of their married
+life, and gave Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson this description
+of their early life together:</p>
+
+<p>"Looks didn't count them days, nohow. It
+was stren'th an' work an' daredevil. A lazy
+man or a coward was jist pizen, an' a spindlin'
+feller had to stay in the settlemints. The
+clearin's hadn't no use fur him. Tom was
+strong, an' he wasn't lazy nor afeer'd o' nothin',
+but he was kind o' shif'less&mdash;couldn't git nothin'
+ahead, an' didn't keer putickalar. Lots o' them
+kind o' fellers in 'arly days, 'druther hunt and
+fish, an' I reckon they had their use. They
+killed off the varmints an' made it safe fur other
+fellers to go into the woods with an ax.</p>
+
+<p>"When Nancy married Tom he was workin'
+in a carpenter shop. It wasn't Tom's fault he
+couldn't make a livin' by his trade. Thar was
+sca'cely any money in that kentry. Every man
+had to do his own tinkerin', an' keep everlastin'ly
+at work to git enough to eat. So Tom tuk
+up some land. It was mighty ornery land, but it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
+was the best Tom could git, when he hadn't
+much to trade fur it.</p>
+
+<p>"Pore? We was all pore, them days, but the
+Lincolns was porer than anybody. Choppin'
+trees an' grubbin' roots an' splittin' rails an'
+huntin' an' trappin' didn't leave Tom no time.
+It was all he could do to git his fambly enough
+to eat and to kiver 'em. Nancy was turrible
+ashamed o' the way they lived, but she knowed
+Tom was doin' his best, an' she wa'n't the pesterin'
+kind. She was purty as a pictur' an' smart
+as you'd find 'em anywhere. She could read an'
+write. The Hankses was some smarter'n the
+Lincolns. Tom thought a heap o' Nancy, an' he
+was as good to her as he knowed how. He didn't
+drink or swear or play cyards or fight, an' them
+was drinkin', cussin', quarrelsome days. Tom
+was popylar, an' he could lick a bully if he had
+to. He jist couldn't git ahead, somehow."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"NANCY'S BOY BABY"</div>
+
+<p>Evidently Elizabethtown failed to furnish
+Thomas Lincoln a living wage from carpentering,
+for he moved with his young wife and his
+baby girl to a farm on Nolen Creek, fourteen
+miles away. The chief attraction of the so-called<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
+farm was a fine spring of water bubbling up in
+the shade of a small grove. From this spring
+the place came to be known as "Rock Spring
+Farm." It was a barren spot and the cabin on
+it was a rude and primitive sort of home for a
+carpenter and joiner to occupy. It contained
+but a single room, with only one window and
+one door. There was a wide fireplace in the big
+chimney which was built outside. But that rude
+hut became the home of "the greatest American."</p>
+
+<p>Abraham Lincoln was born to poverty and
+privation, but he was never a pauper. His hardships
+were those of many other pioneers, the
+wealthiest of whom suffered greater privations
+than the poorest laboring man has to endure to-day.</p>
+
+<p>After his nomination to the presidency, Mr.
+Lincoln gave to Mr. Hicks, a portrait painter,
+this memorandum of his birth:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I was born February 12, 1809, in
+then Hardin County, Kentucky, at a
+point within the now county of Larue, a
+mile or a mile and a half from where
+Hodgen's mill now is. My parents being
+dead, and my memory not serving, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
+know no means of identifying the precise
+locality. It was on Nolen Creek.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln.</span><br /></div>
+"<span class="smcap">June</span> 14, 1860."<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>The exact spot was identified after his death,
+and the house was found standing many years
+later. The logs were removed to Chicago, for
+the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893, and
+the cabin was reconstructed and exhibited there
+and elsewhere in the United States. The materials
+were taken back to their original site,
+and a fine marble structure now encloses the
+precious relics of the birthplace of "the first
+American," as Lowell calls Lincoln in his great
+"Commemoration Ode."</p>
+
+<p>Cousin Dennis Hanks gives the following
+quaint description of "Nancy's boy baby," as
+reported by Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson in her little
+book on "Lincoln's Boyhood."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom an' Nancy lived on a farm about two
+miles from us, when Abe was born. I ricollect
+Tom comin' over to our house one cold mornin'
+in Feb'uary an' sayin' kind o' slow, 'Nancy's
+got a boy baby.'</p>
+
+<p>"Mother got flustered an' hurried up 'er work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
+to go over to look after the little feller, but I
+didn't have nothin' to wait fur, so I cut an' run
+the hull two mile to see my new cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I was tickled to death. Babies
+wasn't as common as blackberries in the woods
+o' Kaintucky. Mother come over an' washed him
+an' put a yaller flannel petticoat on him, an'
+cooked some dried berries with wild honey fur
+Nancy, an' slicked things up an' went home.
+An' that's all the nuss'n either of 'em got.</p>
+
+<p>"I rolled up in a b'ar skin an' slep' by the fireplace
+that night, so's I could see the little feller
+when he cried an' Tom had to get up an' tend
+to him. Nancy let me hold him purty soon.
+Folks often ask me if Abe was a good lookin'
+baby. Well, now, he looked just like any other
+baby, at fust&mdash;like red cherry pulp squeezed dry.
+An' he didn't improve none as he growed older.
+Abe never was much fur looks. I ricollect how
+Tom joked about Abe's long legs when he was
+toddlin' round the cabin. He growed out o' his
+clothes faster'n Nancy could make 'em.</p>
+
+<p>"But he was mighty good comp'ny, solemn as
+a papoose, but interested in everything. An' he
+always did have fits o' cuttin' up. I've seen him
+when he was a little feller, settin' on a stool,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
+starin' at a visitor. All of a sudden he'd bu'st
+out laughin' fit to kill. If he told us what he
+was laughin' at, half the time we couldn't see no
+joke.</p>
+
+<p>"Abe never give Nancy no trouble after he
+could walk excep' to keep him in clothes. Most
+o' the time he went bar'foot. Ever wear a wet
+buckskin glove? Them moccasins wasn't no
+putection ag'inst the wet. Birch bark with hickory
+bark soles, strapped on over yarn socks,
+beat buckskin all holler, fur snow. Abe'n me
+got purty handy contrivin' things that way. An'
+Abe was right out in the woods about as soon's
+he was weaned, fishin' in the creek, settin' traps
+fur rabbits an' muskrats, goin' on coon-hunts
+with Tom an' me an' the dogs, follerin' up bees
+to find bee-trees, an' drappin' corn fur his
+pappy. Mighty interestin' life fur a boy, but
+thar was a good many chances he wouldn't live
+to grow up."</p>
+
+<p>When little Abe was four years old his father
+and mother moved from Rock Spring Farm to
+a better place on Knob Creek, a few miles to
+the northeast of the farm where he was born.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Boy Lincoln's Best Teacher</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>At Knob Creek the boy began to go to an
+"A B C" school. His first teacher was Zachariah
+Riney. Of course, there were no regular
+schools in the backwoods then. When a man
+who "knew enough" happened to come along,
+especially if he had nothing else to do, he tried
+to teach the children of the pioneers in a poor
+log schoolhouse. It is not likely that little Abe
+went to school more than a few weeks at this
+time, for he never had a year's schooling in his
+life. There was another teacher afterward at
+Knob Creek&mdash;a man named Caleb Hazel. Little
+is known of either of these teachers except that
+he taught little Abe Lincoln. If their pupil had
+not become famous the men and their schools
+would never have been mentioned in history.</p>
+
+<p>An old man, named Austin Gollaher, used to
+like to tell of the days when he and little Abe
+went to school together. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Abe was an unusually bright boy at school,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
+and made splendid progress in his studies. Indeed,
+he learned faster than any of his schoolmates.
+Though so young, he studied very
+hard."</p>
+
+<p>Although Nancy Lincoln insisted on sending
+the children to school, when there was any, she
+had a large share in Abe's early education, just
+as she had taught his father to write his own
+name. She told them Bible stories and such
+others as she had picked up in her barren, backwoods
+life. She and her husband were too religious
+to believe in telling their children fairy
+tales.</p>
+
+<p>The best thing of all was the reading of "The
+Pilgrim's Progress" during the long Winter
+evenings, after the wood was brought in and
+Father Tom had set his traps and done his other
+work for the night. Nancy's voice was low, with
+soft, southern tones and accents. Tom and the
+children enjoyed the story of Christian's pilgrimage
+from the City of Destruction to the Celestial
+City the more because of her love for the
+story she was reading to them, as they lay on
+bearskin rugs before the blazing fire.</p>
+
+<p>Abe was only six, but he was a thoughtful
+boy. He tried to think of some way to show his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
+gratitude to his mother for giving them so much
+pleasure. While out gathering sticks and cutting
+wood for the big fireplace, a happy thought
+came to him&mdash;he would cut off some spicewood
+branches, hack them up on a log, and secrete
+them behind the cabin. Then, when the mother
+was ready to read again, and Sarah and the
+father were sitting and lying before the fire, he
+brought in the hidden branches and threw them
+on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of the
+others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood
+boughs not only added to the brightness of the
+scene but filled the whole house with the "sweet
+smelling savour" of a little boy's love and gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>No one can fathom the pleasure of that precious
+memory throughout those four lives, as the
+story of Great Heart and Christiana followed
+Christian along the path that "shineth more and
+more unto the perfect day." While the father
+and sister were delighted with the crackle, sparkle
+and pleasant aroma of the bits of spicewood,
+as Abe tossed them upon the fire, no one could
+appreciate the thoughtful act of the boy so much
+as his mother. It would be strange if her eyes
+did not fill, as she read to her fascinated family,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
+but that was not the sort of thing the fondest
+mother could speak of.</p>
+
+<p>Little did Nancy dream that, in reading to her
+son of the devotion of Great Heart to his
+charges, she was fostering a spirit in her little
+son that would help him make the noble pilgrimage
+from their hovel to the highest home in
+the land, where another President of the United
+States would refer to him as "the Great Heart
+of the White House." If any one could have
+looked ahead fifty years to see all this, and could
+have told Nancy Hanks Lincoln, she would not
+have believed it. After her own life of toil and
+hardship it would have seemed to her "too good
+to be true." But in the centuries following the
+humble yet beautiful career of "the Backwoods
+Boy" from the hut to the White House, history
+keeps the whole world saying with bated breath,
+"the half was never told!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />AN OLD MAN'S STORY OF SAVING ABRAHAM
+LINCOLN'S LIFE</div>
+
+<p>Austin Gollaher, grown to manhood, still
+living in his old log cabin near the Lincoln
+house in Knob Creek nearly twenty years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
+after Lincoln's assassination, and gave the following
+account of an adventure he had with the
+little Lincoln boy:</p>
+
+<p>"I once saved Lincoln's life. We had been
+going to school together one year; but the next
+year we had no school, because there were so few
+scholars to attend, there being only about twenty
+in the school the year before.</p>
+
+<p>"Consequently Abe and I had not much to do;
+but, as we did not go to school and our mothers
+were strict with us, we did not get to see each
+other very often. One Sunday morning my
+mother waked me up early, saying she was going
+to see Mrs. Lincoln, and that I could go along.
+Glad of the chance, I was soon dressed and ready
+to go. After my mother and I got there, Abe and
+I played all through the day.</p>
+
+<p>"While we were wandering up and down the
+little stream called Knob Creek, Abe said: 'Right
+up there'&mdash;pointing to the east&mdash;'we saw a covey
+of partridges yesterday. Let's go over.' The
+stream was too wide for us to jump across.
+Finally we saw a foot-log, and decided to try it.
+It was narrow, but Abe said, 'Let's coon it.'</p>
+
+<p>"I went first and reached the other side all
+right. Abe went about half way across, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
+he got scared and began trembling. I hollered
+to him, 'Don't look down nor up nor sideways,
+but look right at me and hold on tight!' But he
+fell off into the creek, and, as the water was about
+seven or eight feet deep (I could not swim, and
+neither could Abe), I knew it would do no good
+for me to go in after him.</p>
+
+<p>"So I got a stick&mdash;a long water sprout&mdash;and
+held it out to him. He came up, grabbing with
+both hands, and I put the stick into his hands.
+He clung to it, and I pulled him out on the bank,
+almost dead. I got him by the arms and shook
+him well, and then I rolled him on the ground,
+when the water poured out of his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"He was all right very soon. We promised
+each other that we would never tell anybody
+about it, and never did for years. I never told
+any one of it till after Lincoln was killed."</p>
+
+<p>Abraham Lincoln's parents were religious in
+their simple way. The boy was brought up to
+believe in the care of the Father in Heaven over
+the affairs of this life. The family attended
+camp meetings and preaching services, which
+were great events, because few and far between,
+in those primitive days. Abe used afterward to
+get his playmates together and preach to them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
+in a way that sometimes frightened them and
+made them cry.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt young Lincoln learned more that was
+useful to him in after life from the wandering
+preachers of his day than he did of his teachers
+during the few months that he was permitted to
+go to school. But his best teacher was his
+mother. She would have been proud to have her
+boy grow up to be a traveling minister or exhorter,
+like Peter Cartwright, "the backwoods
+preacher."</p>
+
+<p>Nancy Hanks Lincoln "builded better than
+she knew." She would have been satisfied with
+a cabin life for her son. She little knew that by
+her own life and teaching she was raising up the
+greatest man of his age, and one of the grandest
+men in all history, to become the ruler of the
+greatest nation that the world has ever seen. She
+did her duty by her little boy and he honored her
+always during her life and afterward. No wonder
+he once exclaimed when he thought of her:</p>
+
+<p>"All I am or hope to be I owe to my sainted
+mother."</p>
+
+<p>And out of her poor, humble life, that devoted
+woman</p>
+
+<p>"Gave us Lincoln and never knew!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Learning to Work</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>The little Lincoln boy learned to help his
+father and mother as soon as he could, picking
+berries, dropping seeds and carrying water for
+the men to drink. The farm at Knob Creek
+seems to have been a little more fertile than the
+other two places on which his father had chosen
+to live.</p>
+
+<p>Once while living in the White House, President
+Lincoln was asked if he could remember his
+"old Kentucky home." He replied with considerable
+feeling:</p>
+
+<p>"I remember that old home very well. Our
+farm was composed of three fields. It lay in the
+valley, surrounded by high hills and deep gorges.
+Sometimes, when there came a big rain in the
+hills, the water would come down through the
+gorges and spread all over the farm. The last
+thing I remember of doing there was one Saturday
+afternoon; the other boys planted the corn
+in what we called the big field&mdash;it contained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
+seven acres&mdash;and I dropped the pumpkin seed.
+I dropped two seeds in every other row and every
+other hill. The next Sunday morning there
+came a big rain in the hills&mdash;it did not rain a
+drop in the valley, but the water, coming through
+the gorges, washed the ground, corn, pumpkin
+seeds and all, clear off the field!"</p>
+
+<p>Although this was the last thing Lincoln could
+remember doing on that farm, it is not at all
+likely that it was the last thing he did there, for
+Thomas Lincoln was not the man to plant corn
+in a field he was about to leave. (The Lincolns
+moved away in the fall.)</p>
+
+<p>Another baby boy was born at Knob Creek
+farm; a puny, pathetic little stranger. When
+this baby was about three years old, the father
+had to use his skill as a cabinet maker in making
+a tiny coffin, and the Lincoln family wept over a
+lonely little grave in the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>About this time Abe began to learn lessons in
+practical patriotism. Once when Mr. Lincoln
+was asked what he could remember of the War
+of 1812, he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day
+and caught a little fish which I was taking home.
+I met a soldier on the road, and, having been told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
+at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I
+gave him my fish."</p>
+
+<p>An old man, Major Alexander Sympson, who
+lived not far from the Lincolns at this period,
+left this description of "a mere spindle of a
+boy," in one of his earliest attempts to defend
+himself against odds, while waiting at the neighboring
+mill while a grist was being ground.</p>
+
+<p>"He was the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth
+and awkward-appearing, homeliest and
+worst-dressed of any in the crowd. So superlatively
+wretched a butt could not hope to look on
+long unmolested. He was attacked one day as he
+stood near a tree by a larger boy with others at
+his back. But the crowd was greatly astonished
+when little Lincoln soundly thrashed the first,
+the second, and third boy in succession; and then,
+placing his back against the tree, he defied the
+whole crowd, and told them they were a lot of
+cowards."</p>
+
+<p>Evidently Father Tom, who enjoyed quite a
+reputation as a wrestler, had give the small boy
+a few lessons in "the manly art of self-defense."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the little brother and sister were
+learning still better things at their mother's
+knee, alternately hearing and reading stories<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>
+from the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress,"
+"&AElig;sop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," and
+other books, common now, but rare enough in the
+backwoods in those days.</p>
+
+<p>There were hard times, even in the wilderness
+of Kentucky, after the War of 1812. Slavery
+was spreading, and Thomas and Nancy Lincoln
+heartily hated that "relic of barbarism." To
+avoid witnessing its wrongs which made it
+harder for self-respecting white men to rise
+above the class referred to with contempt in the
+South as "poor white trash," Tom Lincoln determined
+to move farther north and west&mdash;and
+deeper into the wilds.</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes stated that Abraham Lincoln
+belonged to the indolent class known as "poor
+whites," but this is not true. Shiftless and improvident
+though his father was, he had no use
+for that class of white slaves, who seemed to fall
+even lower than the blacks.</p>
+
+<p>There was trouble, too, about the title to much
+of the land in Kentucky, while Indiana offered
+special inducements to settlers in that new territory.</p>
+
+<p>In his carpenter work, Thomas Lincoln had
+learned how to build a flatboat, and had made at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
+least one trip to New Orleans on a craft which
+he himself had put together. So, when he finally
+decided in the fall of 1816 to emigrate to Indiana,
+he at once began to build another boat, which he
+launched on the Rolling Fork, at the mouth of
+Knob Creek, about half a mile from his own
+cabin. He traded his farm for what movable
+property he could get, and loaded his raft with
+that and his carpenter tools. Waving good-bye
+to his wife and two children, he floated down the
+Rolling Fork, Salt River, and out into the Ohio
+River, which proved too rough for his shaky
+craft, and it soon went to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>After fishing up the carpenter tools and most
+of his other effects, he put together a crazy raft
+which held till he landed at Thompson's Ferry,
+Perry County, in Southern Indiana. Here he
+unloaded his raft, left his valuables in the care of
+a settler named Posey and journeyed on foot
+through the woods to find a good location. After
+trudging about sixteen miles, blazing a trail, he
+found a situation which suited him well enough,
+he thought. Then he walked all the way back to
+the Kentucky home they were about to leave.</p>
+
+<p>He found his wife, with Sarah, aged nine, and
+Abraham, aged seven, ready to migrate with him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
+to a newer wilderness. The last thing Nancy
+Lincoln had done before leaving their old home
+was to take the brother and sister for a farewell
+visit to the grave of "the little boy that died."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />OVER IN INDIANA</div>
+
+<p>The place the father had selected for their
+home was a beautiful spot. They could build
+their cabin on a little hill, sloping gently down
+on all sides. The soil was excellent, but there
+was one serious drawback&mdash;there was no water
+fit to drink within a mile! Thomas Lincoln had
+neglected to observe this most important point
+while he was prospecting. His wife, or even little
+Abe, would have had more common sense. That
+was one reason why Thomas Lincoln, though a
+good man, who tried hard enough at times, was
+always poor and looked down upon by his thrifty
+neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of taking his wife and children down
+the three streams by boat, as he had gone, the
+father borrowed two horses of a neighbor and
+"packed through to Posey's," where he had left
+his carpenter tools and the other property he
+had saved from the wreck of his raft. Abe and
+Sarah must have enjoyed the journey, especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span>
+camping out every night on the way. The
+father's skill as a marksman furnished them
+with tempting suppers and breakfasts of wild
+game.</p>
+
+<p>On the horses they packed their bedding and
+the cooking utensils they needed while on the
+journey, and for use after their arrival at the
+new home. This stock was not large, for it consisted
+only of "one oven and lid, one skillet and
+lid, and some tinware."</p>
+
+<p>After they came to Posey's, Thomas Lincoln
+hired a wagon and loaded it with the effects he
+had left there, as well as the bedding and the
+cooking things they had brought with them on
+the two horses. It was a rough wagon ride, jolting
+over stumps, logs, and roots of trees. An
+earlier settler had cut out a path for a few miles,
+but the rest of the way required many days, for
+the father had to cut down trees to make a rough
+road wide enough for the wagon to pass. It is
+not likely that Abe and Sarah minded the delays,
+for children generally enjoy new experiences of
+that sort. As for their mother, she was accustomed
+to all such hardships; she had learned to
+take life as it came and make the best of it.</p>
+
+<p>Nancy Lincoln needed all her Christian fortitude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
+in that Indiana home&mdash;if such a place could
+be called a home. At last they reached the
+chosen place, in the "fork" made by Little
+Pigeon Creek emptying into Big Pigeon Creek,
+about a mile and a half from a settlement which
+was afterward called Gentryville.</p>
+
+<p>As it was late in the fall, Thomas Lincoln decided
+not to wait to cut down big trees and hew
+logs for a cabin, so he built a "half-faced camp,"
+or shed enclosed on three sides, for his family to
+live in that winter. As this shed was made of
+saplings and poles, he put an ax in Abe's hands,
+and the seven-year-old boy helped his father
+build their first "home" in Indiana. It was
+Abe's first experience in the work that afterward
+made him famous as "the rail splitter." It was
+with the ax, as it were, that he hewed his way to
+the White House and became President of the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, little Abe Lincoln had no idea of the
+White House then. He may never have heard of
+"the President's Palace," as it used to be called&mdash;for
+the White House was then a gruesome,
+blackened ruin, burned by the British in the War
+of 1812. President Madison was living in a
+rented house nearby, while the Executive Mansion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
+was being restored. The blackened stone
+walls, left standing after the fire, were <i>painted
+white</i>, and on that account the President's mansion
+came to be known as "the White House."</p>
+
+<p>Little Abe, without a thought of his great future,
+was getting ready for it by hacking away
+at poles and little trees and helping his father in
+the very best way he knew. It was not long, then,
+before the "half-faced camp" was ready for his
+mother and sister to move into.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was the water question. Dennis
+Hanks afterward said: "Tom Lincoln riddled his
+land like a honeycomb" trying to find good
+water. In the fall and winter they caught rainwater
+or melted snow and strained it, but that
+was not very healthful at best. So Abe and Sarah
+had to go a mile to a spring and carry all the
+water they needed to drink, and, when there had
+been no rain for a long time, all the water they
+used for cooking and washing had to be brought
+from there, too.</p>
+
+<p>When warmer weather came, after their "long
+and dreary winter" of shivering in that poor
+shed, the "camp" did not seem so bad. Thomas
+Lincoln soon set about building a warmer and
+more substantial cabin. Abe was now eight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
+years old, and had had some practice in the use
+of the ax, so he was able to help his father still
+more by cutting and hewing larger logs for the
+new cabin. They got it ready for the family to
+move into before cold weather set in again.</p>
+
+<p>They had to make their own furniture also.
+The table and chairs were made of "puncheon,"
+or slabs of wood, with holes bored under each
+corner to stick the legs in. Their bedsteads were
+poles fitted into holes bored in logs in the walls
+of the cabin, and the protruding ends supported
+by poles or stakes driven into the ground, for
+Tom Lincoln had not yet laid the puncheon floor
+of their cabin. Abe's bed was a pile of dry
+leaves laid in one corner of the loft to which he
+climbed by means of a ladder of pegs driven into
+the wall, instead of stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Their surroundings were such as to delight
+the heart of a couple of care-free children. The
+forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts and
+sugar-maple trees, growing close together and
+free from underbrush. Now and then there was
+an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where
+the wild animals came to drink and disport
+themselves. Game was plentiful&mdash;deer, bears,
+pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
+kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for
+hunting, promised good things for the family to
+eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare earth
+floor, and deerskin curtains for the still open
+door and window. There were fish in the
+streams and wild fruits and nuts of many kinds
+to be found in the woods during the summer and
+fall. For a long time the corn for the "corndodgers"
+which they baked in the ashes, had to
+be ground by pounding, or in primitive hand-mills.
+Potatoes were about the only vegetable
+raised in large quantities, and pioneer families
+often made the whole meal of roasted potatoes.
+Once when his father had "asked the blessing"
+over an ashy heap of this staple, Abe remarked
+that they were "mighty poor blessings!"</p>
+
+<p>But there were few complaints. They were
+all accustomed to that way of living, and they
+enjoyed the free and easy life of the forest.
+Their only reason for complaint was because
+they had been compelled to live in an open shed
+all winter, and because there was no floor to
+cover the damp ground in their new cabin&mdash;no
+oiled paper for their one window, and no door
+swinging in the single doorway&mdash;yet the father
+was carpenter and cabinet maker! There is no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
+record that Nancy Lincoln, weak and ailing
+though she was, demurred even at such needless
+privations.</p>
+
+<p>About the only reference to this period of
+their life that has been preserved for us was in
+an odd little sketch in which Mr. Lincoln wrote
+of himself as "he."</p>
+
+<p>"A few days before the completion of his
+eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock
+of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin,
+and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside,
+shot through a crack and killed one of them. He
+has never since pulled a trigger on any larger
+game."</p>
+
+<p>Though shooting was the principal sport of
+the youth and their fathers in Lincoln's younger
+days, Abe was too kind to inflict needless suffering
+upon any of God's creatures. He had real
+religion in his loving heart. Even as a boy he
+seemed to know that</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"He prayeth best who loveth best<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">All things both great and small;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">For the dear God that loveth us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">He made and loveth all."</span><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Losing his Mother</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>In the fall of 1817, when the Lincoln family
+had moved from the shed into the rough log
+cabin, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow came and occupied
+the "darned little half-faced camp," as
+Dennis Hanks called it. Betsy Sparrow was
+the aunt who had brought up Nancy Hanks, and
+she was now a foster-mother to Dennis, her
+nephew. Dennis became the constant companion
+of the two Lincoln children. He has told
+most of the stories that are known of this sad
+time in the Lincoln boy's life.</p>
+
+<p>The two families had lived there for nearly a
+year when Thomas and Betsy Sparrow were
+both seized with a terrible disease known to the
+settlers as the "milk-sick" because it attacked
+the cattle. The stricken uncle and aunt died,
+early in October, within a few days of each
+other. While his wife was ill with the same dread
+disease, Thomas Lincoln was at work, cutting
+down trees and ripping boards out of the logs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
+with a long whipsaw with a handle at each end,
+which little Abe had to help him use. It was a
+sorrowful task for the young lad, for Abe must
+have known that he would soon be helping his
+father make his mother's coffin. They buried the
+Sparrows under the trees "without benefit of
+clergy," for ministers came seldom to that remote
+region.</p>
+
+<p>Nancy Lincoln did not long survive the devoted
+aunt and uncle. She had suffered too
+much from exposure and privation to recover
+her strength when she was seized by the strange
+malady. One who was near her during her last
+illness wrote, long afterward:</p>
+
+<p>"She struggled on, day by day, like the patient
+Christian woman she was. Abe and his
+sister Sarah waited on their mother, and did the
+little jobs and errands required of them. There
+was no physician nearer than thirty-five miles.</p>
+
+<p>"The mother knew that she was going to die,
+and called the children to her bedside. She was
+very weak and the boy and girl leaned over her
+while she gave them her dying message. Placing
+her feeble hand on little Abe's head, she told
+him to be kind and good to his father and sister.</p>
+
+<p>"'Be good to one another,' she said to them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
+both. While expressing her hope that they
+might live, as she had taught them to live, in the
+love of their kindred and the service of God,
+Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed from the miserable
+surroundings of her poor life on earth to
+the brightness of the Beyond, on the seventh day
+after she was taken sick."</p>
+
+<p>To the motherless boy the thought of his
+blessed mother being buried without any religious
+service whatever added a keen pang to
+the bitterness of his lot. Dennis Hanks once
+told how eagerly Abe learned to write:</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes he would write with a piece of
+charcoal, or the p'int of a burnt stick, on the
+fence or floor. We got a little paper at the
+country town, and I made ink out of blackberry
+juice, briar root and a little copperas in it. It
+was black, but the copperas would eat the paper
+after a while. I made his first pen out of a turkey-buzzard
+feather. We hadn't no geese them
+days&mdash;to make good pens of goose quills."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he was able Abe Lincoln wrote his
+first letter. It was addressed to Parson Elkin,
+the Baptist preacher, who had sometimes stayed
+over night with the family when they lived in
+Kentucky, to ask that elder to come and preach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
+a sermon over his mother's grave. It had been
+a long struggle to learn to write "good enough
+for a preacher"&mdash;especially for a small boy who
+is asking such a favor of a man as "high and
+mighty" as a minister of the Gospel seemed to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a heartbroken plea, but the lad did not
+realize it. It was a short, straightforward note,
+but the good preacher's eyes filled with tears as
+he read it.</p>
+
+<p>The great undertaking was not finished when
+the letter was written. The postage was a large
+matter for a little boy. It cost sixpence (equal
+to twelve-and-a-half cents today) to send a letter
+a short distance&mdash;up to thirty miles. Some
+letters required twenty-five cents&mdash;equal to fifty
+in modern money. Sometimes, when the sender
+could not advance the postage, the receiver had
+to pay it before the letter could be opened and
+read. On this account letters were almost as
+rare and as expensive as telegrams are today.
+When the person getting a letter could not pay
+the postage, it was returned to the writer, who
+had to pay double to get it back.</p>
+
+<p>In those days one person could annoy another
+and put him to expense by writing him and forcing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
+him to pay the postage&mdash;then when the letter
+was opened, it was found to be full of abuse, thus
+making a man pay for insults to himself!</p>
+
+<p>There was a great general who had suffered
+in this way, so he made a rule that he would
+receive no letters unless the postage was prepaid.
+One day there came to his address a long
+envelope containing what seemed to be an important
+document. But it was not stamped, and
+the servant had been instructed not to receive
+that kind of mail. So it was returned to the
+sender. When it came back it was discovered
+that it had been mailed by mistake without a
+stamp. That letter announced to General Zachary
+Taylor that he had been nominated by a
+great convention as candidate for President of
+the United States!</p>
+
+<p>All this seems very strange now that a letter
+can be sent around the world for a few cents.
+Besides, the mails did not go often and were carried
+on horseback. For a long time one half-sick
+old man carried the mail on a good-for-nothing
+horse, once a week, between New York and
+Philadelphia, though they were the largest cities
+in the country.</p>
+
+<p>So it was many months before Abe received an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
+answer to his letter. Elder Elkin may have been
+away from home on one of the long circuits covered
+by pioneer preachers. As the days and
+weeks went by without the lad's receiving any
+reply he was filled with misgivings lest he had
+imposed upon the good man's former friendship.</p>
+
+<p>At last the answer came and poor Abe's anxiety
+was turned to joy. The kind elder not only
+said he would come, but he also named the Sunday
+when it would be, so that the Lincoln family
+could invite all their friends from far and near
+to the postponed service&mdash;for it often happened
+in this new country that the funeral could not
+take place for months after the burial.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the following Summer, nearly
+a year after Nancy's death, that the devoted
+minister came. The word had gone out to all
+the region round about. It was the religious
+event of the season. Hundreds of people of all
+ages came from twenty miles around on horseback&mdash;a father,
+mother and two children on one
+horse&mdash;also in oxcarts, and on foot. They sat in
+groups in the wagons, and on the green grass, as
+at the feeding of the multitudes in the time of
+the Christ. But these people brought their own
+refreshments as if it were a picnic.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They talked together in low, solemn tones
+while waiting for the poor little funeral procession
+to march out from the Lincoln cabin to
+the grass-covered grave. Pioneer etiquette required
+the formalities of a funeral. Elder Elkin
+was followed by the widowed husband, with
+Abraham and Sarah and poor Cousin Dennis,
+also bereaved of his foster-parents, and now a
+member of the Lincoln family.</p>
+
+<p>There were tender hearts behind those hardened
+faces, and tears glistened on the tanned
+cheeks of many in that motley assemblage of
+eager listeners, while the good elder was paying
+the last tribute of earth to the sweet and patient
+memory of his departed friend of other days.</p>
+
+<p>The words of the man of God, telling that assembled
+multitude what a lovely and devoted
+girl and woman his mother had been, gave sweet
+and solemn joy to the soul of the little Lincoln
+boy. It was all for her dear sake, and she was,
+of all women, worthy of this sacred respect. As
+he gazed around on the weeping people, he
+thought of the hopes and fears of the months
+that had passed since he wrote his first letter
+to bring this about.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless my angel mother!" burst from his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
+lonely lips&mdash;"how glad I am I've learned to
+write!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE COMING OF ANOTHER MOTHER</div>
+
+<p>All that a young girl of twelve could do, assisted
+by a willing brother of ten, was done by
+Sarah and Abraham Lincoln to make that desolate
+cabin a home for their lonesome father, and
+for cousin Dennis Hanks, whose young life had
+been twice darkened by a double bereavement.
+But "what is home without a mother?"
+Thomas Lincoln, missing the balance and inspiration
+of a patient wife, became more and
+more restless, and, after a year, wandered back
+again to his former homes and haunts in Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>While visiting Elizabethtown he saw a former
+sweetheart, the Sally Bush of younger days,
+now Mrs. Daniel Johnston, widow of the county
+jailer who had recently died, leaving three children
+and considerable property, for that time
+and place. Thomas renewed his suit and won
+the pitying heart of Sarah Johnston, and according
+to the story of the county clerk:</p>
+
+<p>"The next morning, December 2, 1819, I issued
+the license, and the same day they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
+married, bundled up, and started for home."</p>
+
+<p>Imagine the glad surprise of the three children
+who had been left at home for weeks, when
+they saw a smart, covered wagon, drawn by four
+horses, driven up before the cabin door one
+bright winter day, and their father, active and
+alert, spring out and assist a pleasant-looking
+woman and three children to alight! Then
+they were told that this woman was to be their
+mother and they had two more sisters and another
+brother!</p>
+
+<p>To the poor forlorn Lincoln children and their
+still more desolate cousin, it seemed too good to
+be true. They quickly learned the names of
+their new brother and sisters. The Johnston
+children were called John, Sarah and Matilda,
+so Sarah Lincoln's name was promptly changed
+to Nancy for her dead mother, as there were two
+Sarahs already in the combined family.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln lost no
+time in taking poor Abe and Nancy Lincoln to
+her great motherly heart, as if they were her
+own. They were dirty, for they had been
+neglected, ill-used and deserted. She washed
+their wasted bodies clean and dressed them in
+nice warm clothing provided for her own children,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
+till she, as she expressed it, "made them
+look more human."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis Hanks told afterward of the great
+difference the stepmother made in their young
+lives:</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, in a few weeks all had changed; and
+where everything had been wanting, all was
+snug and comfortable. She was a woman of
+great energy, of remarkable good sense, very industrious
+and saving, also very neat and tidy in
+her person and manners. She took an especial
+liking for young Abe. Her love for him was
+warmly returned, and continued to the day of
+his death. But few children love their parents
+as he loved his stepmother. She dressed him up
+in entire new clothes, and from that time on he
+appeared to lead a new life. He was encouraged
+by her to study, and a wish on his part was
+gratified when it could be done. The two sets of
+children got along finely together, as if they all
+had been the children of the same parents."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis also referred to the "large supply of
+household goods" the new mother brought with
+her:</p>
+
+<p>"One fine bureau (worth $40), one table, one
+set of chairs, one large clothes chest, cooking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
+utensils, knives, forks, bedding and other
+articles."</p>
+
+<p>It must have been a glorious day when such a
+splendid array of household furniture was carried
+into the rude cabin of Thomas Lincoln.
+But best of all, the new wife had sufficient tact
+and force of will to induce her good-hearted but
+shiftless husband to lay a floor, put in a window,
+and hang a door to protect his doubled family
+from the cold. It was about Christmas time,
+and the Lincoln children, as they nestled in
+warm beds for the first time in their lives, must
+have thanked their second mother from the bottoms
+of their grateful hearts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">School Days Now and Then</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>Lincoln once wrote, in a letter to a friend,
+about his early teachers in Indiana:</p>
+
+<p>"He (father) removed from Kentucky to what
+is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth
+year. We reached our new home about the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
+the State came into the Union. It was a wild
+region with many bears and other wild animals
+still in the woods. There I grew up. There
+were some schools, so-called; but no qualification
+was ever required of a teacher beside
+readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of
+Three (simple proportion). If a straggler supposed
+to understand Latin happened to sojourn
+in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a
+wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite
+ambition for education."</p>
+
+<p>Abe's first teacher in Indiana, however, was
+Hazel Dorsey. The school house was built of
+rough, round logs. The chimney was made of
+poles well covered with clay. The windows were
+spaces cut in the logs, and covered with greased
+paper. But Abe was determined to learn. He
+and his sister thought nothing of walking four
+miles a day through snow, rain and mud. "Nat"
+Grigsby, who afterward married the sister,
+spoke in glowing terms of Abe's few school
+days:</p>
+
+<p>"He was always at school early, and attended
+to his studies. He lost no time at home, and
+when not at work was at his books. He kept up
+his studies on Sunday, and carried his books<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
+with him to work, so that he might read when
+he rested from labor."</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Lincoln had no use for "eddication,"
+as he called it. "It will spile the boy," he kept
+saying. He&mdash;the father&mdash;had got along better
+without going to school, and why should Abe
+have a better education than his father? He
+thought Abe's studious habits were due to "pure
+laziness, jest to git shet o' workin'." So, whenever
+there was the slightest excuse, he took Abe
+out of school and set him to work at home or for
+one of the neighbors, while he himself went
+hunting or loafed about the house.</p>
+
+<p>This must have been very trying to a boy as
+hungry to learn as Abe Lincoln was. His new
+mother saw and sympathized with him, and in
+her quiet way, managed to get the boy started
+to school, for a few weeks at most. For some
+reason Hazel Dorsey stopped "keeping" the
+school, and there was a long "vacation" for all
+the children. But a new man, Andrew Crawford,
+came and settled near Gentryville. Having
+nothing better to do at first, he was urged to
+reopen the school.</p>
+
+<p>One evening Abe came in from his work and
+his stepmother greeted him with:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Another chance for you to go to school."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"That man Crawford that moved in a while
+ago is to begin school next week, and two miles
+and back every day will be just about enough
+for you to walk to keep your legs limber."</p>
+
+<p>The tactful wife accomplished it somehow and
+Abe started off to school with Nancy, and a light
+heart. A neighbor described him as he appeared
+in Crawford's school, as "long, wiry and
+strong, while his big feet and hands, and the
+length of his legs and arms, were out of all
+proportion to his small trunk and head. His complexion
+was swarthy, and his skin shriveled and
+yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin
+breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a coonskin
+cap. The breeches hung close to his legs, but
+were far from meeting the tops of his shoes,
+exposing 'twelve inches of shinbone, sharp, blue
+and narrow.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet," said Nat Grigsby, "he was always in
+good health, never sick, and had an excellent constitution."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HELPING KATE ROBY SPELL</div>
+
+<p>Andrew Crawford must have been an unusual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
+man, for he tried to teach "manners" in his
+backwoods school! Spelling was considered a
+great accomplishment. Abe shone as a speller
+in school and at the spelling-matches. One day,
+evidently during a period when young Lincoln
+was kept from school to do some outside work
+for his father, he appeared at the window when
+the class in spelling was on the floor. The word
+"defied" was given out and several pupils had
+misspelled it. Kate Roby, the pretty girl of the
+village, was stammering over it. "D-e-f," said
+Kate, then she hesitated over the next letter.
+Abe pointed to his eye and winked significantly.
+The girl took the hint and went on glibly
+"i-e-d," and "went up head."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"I DID IT!"</div>
+
+<p>There was a buck's head nailed over the
+school house door. It proved a temptation to
+young Lincoln, who was tall enough to reach it
+easily. One day the schoolmaster discovered
+that one horn was broken and he demanded to
+know who had done the damage. There was
+silence and a general denial till Abe spoke up
+sturdily:</p>
+
+<p>"I did it. I did not mean to do it, but I hung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
+on it&mdash;and it broke!" The other boys thought
+Abe was foolish to "own up" till he had to&mdash;but
+that was his way.</p>
+
+<p>It is doubtful if Abe Lincoln owned an
+arithmetic. He had a copybook, made by himself, in
+which he entered tables of weights and
+measures and "sums" he had to do. Among these
+was a specimen of schoolboy doggerel:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Abraham Lincoln,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">His hand and pen,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He will be good&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">But God knows when!"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>In another place he wrote some solemn
+reflections on the value of time:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Time, what an empty vapor 'tis,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And days, how swift they are!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Swift as an Indian arrow&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Fly on like a shooting star.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">The present moment, just, is here,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Then slides away in haste,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">That we can never say they're ours,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">But only say they're past."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>As he grew older his handwriting improved
+and he was often asked to "set copies" for other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
+boys to follow. In the book of a boy named
+Richardson, he wrote this prophetic couplet:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"Good boys who to their books apply<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Will all be great men by and by."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />A "MOTHER'S BOY"&mdash;HIS FOOD AND CLOTHING</div>
+
+<p>Dennis Hanks related of his young companion:
+"As far as food and clothing were concerned,
+the boy had plenty&mdash;such as it was&mdash;'corndodgers,'
+bacon and game, some fish and
+wild fruits. We had very little wheat flour.
+The nearest mill was eighteen miles. A hoss
+mill it was, with a plug (old horse) pullin' a
+beam around; and Abe used to say his dog could
+stand and eat the flour as fast as it was made,
+<i>and then be ready for supper!</i></p>
+
+<p>"For clothing he had jeans. He was grown
+before he wore all-wool pants. It was a new
+country, and he was a raw boy, rather a bright
+and likely lad; but the big world seemed far
+ahead of him. We were all slow-goin' folks.
+But he had the stuff of greatness in him. He
+got his rare sense and sterling principles from
+both parents. But Abe's kindliness, humor,
+love of humanity, hatred of slavery, all came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>
+from his mother. I am free to say Abe was a
+'mother's boy.'"</p>
+
+<p>Dennis used to like to tell of Abe's earliest
+ventures in the fields of literature: "His first
+readin' book was Webster's speller. Then he
+got hold of a book&mdash;I can't rickilect the name.
+It told about a feller, a nigger or suthin', that
+sailed a flatboat up to a rock, and the rock was
+magnetized and drawed the nails out of his boat,
+an' he got a duckin', or drownded, or suthin', I
+forget now. (This book, of course, was 'The
+Arabian Nights.') Abe would lay on the floor
+with a chair under his head, and laugh over
+them stories by the hour. I told him they was
+likely lies from end to end; but he learned to
+read right well in them."</p>
+
+<p>His stock of books was small, but they were
+the right kind&mdash;the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress,"
+&AElig;sop's Fables, "Robinson Crusoe," a
+history of the United States, and the Statutes
+of Indiana. This last was a strange book for a
+boy to read, but Abe pored over it as eagerly as
+a lad to-day might read "The Three Guardsmen,"
+or "The Hound of the Baskervilles."
+He made notes of what he read with his turkey-buzzard
+pen and brier-root ink. If he did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
+have these handy, he would write with a piece of
+charcoal or the charred end of a stick, on a
+board, or on the under side of a chair or bench.
+He used the wooden fire shovel for a slate, shaving
+it off clean when both sides were full of figures.
+When he got hold of paper enough to
+make a copy-book he would go about transferring
+his notes from boards, beams, under sides
+of the chairs and the table, and from all the
+queer places he had put them down, on the spur
+of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the books he had at hand, he borrowed
+all he could get, often walking many miles for
+a book, until, as he once told a friend, he "read
+through every book he had ever heard of in that
+country, for a circuit of fifty miles"&mdash;quite a
+circulating library!</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"THE BEGINNING OF LOVE"</div>
+
+<p>"The thoughts of youth are long, long
+thoughts." It must have been about this time
+that the lad had the following experience, which
+he himself related to a legal friend, with his
+chair tilted back and his knees "cocked
+up" in the manner described by Cousin John
+Hanks:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever write out a story in your mind?
+I did when I was little codger. One day a wagon
+with a lady and two girls and a man broke down
+near us, and while they were fixing up, they
+cooked in our kitchen. The woman had books
+and read us stories, and they were the first of
+the kind I ever heard. I took a great fancy to
+one of the girls; and when they were gone I
+thought of her a good deal, and one day, when
+I was sitting out in the sun by the house, I wrote
+out a story in my mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I took my father's horse and followed
+the wagon, and finally I found it, and
+they were surprised to see me.</p>
+
+<p>"I talked with the girl and persuaded her to
+elope with me; and that night I put her on my
+horse and we started off across the prairie.
+After several hours we came to a camp; and
+when we rode up we found it was one we had
+left a few hours before and went in.</p>
+
+<p>"The next night we tried again, and the same
+thing happened&mdash;the horse came back to the
+same place; and then we concluded we ought not
+to elope. I stayed until I had persuaded her
+father that he ought to give her to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I always meant to write that story out and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
+publish it, and I began once; but I concluded it
+was not much of a story.</p>
+
+<p>"But I think that was the beginning of love
+with me."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW ABE CAME TO OWN WEEMS'S "LIFE OF
+WASHINGTON"</div>
+
+<p>Abe's chief delight, if permitted to do so, was
+to lie in the shade of some inviting tree and
+read. He liked to lie on his stomach before the
+fire at night, and often read as long as this flickering
+light lasted. He sometimes took a book
+to bed to read as soon as the morning light began
+to come through the chinks between the logs beside
+his bed. He once placed a book between
+the logs to have it handy in the morning, and a
+storm came up and soaked it with dirty water
+from the "mud-daubed" mortar, plastered between
+the logs of the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The book happened to be Weems's "Life of
+Washington." Abe was in a sad dilemma.
+What could he say to the owner of the book,
+which he had borrowed from the meanest man
+in the neighborhood, Josiah Crawford, who was
+so unpopular that he went by the nickname of
+"Old Blue Nose"?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The only course was to show the angry owner
+his precious volume, warped and stained as it
+was, and offer to do anything he could to repay
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Abe," said "Old Blue Nose," with bloodcurdling
+friendliness, "bein' as it's you, Abe, I
+won't be hard on you. You jest come over and
+pull fodder for me, and the book is yours."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Abe, his deep-set eyes twinkling
+in spite of himself at the thought of owning
+the story of the life of the greatest of heroes,
+"how much fodder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wal," said old Josiah, "that book's worth
+seventy-five cents, at least. You kin earn twenty-five
+cents a day&mdash;that will make three days.
+You come and pull all you can in three days and
+you may have the book."</p>
+
+<p>That was an exorbitant price, even if the book
+were new, but Abe was at the old man's mercy.
+He realized this, and made the best of a bad bargain.
+He cheerfully did the work for a man who
+was mean enough to take advantage of his misfortune.
+He comforted himself with the
+thought that he would be the owner of the
+precious "Life of Washington." Long afterward,
+in a speech before the New Jersey Legislature,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
+on his way to Washington to be inaugurated,
+like Washington, as President of the
+United States, he referred to this strange book.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE
+TRUTH"</div>
+
+<p>One morning, on his way to work, with an ax
+on his shoulder, his stepsister, Matilda Johnston,
+though forbidden by her mother to follow
+Abe, crept after him, and with a cat-like spring
+landed between his shoulders and pressed her
+sharp knees into the small of his back.</p>
+
+<p>Taken unawares, Abe staggered backward
+and ax and girl fell to the ground together. The
+sharp implement cut her ankle badly, and mischievous
+Matilda shrieked with fright and pain
+when she saw the blood gushing from the wound.
+Young Lincoln tore a sleeve from his shirt to
+bandage the gash and bound up the ankle as
+well as he could. Then he tried to teach the still
+sobbing girl a lesson.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tilda," he said gently, "I'm surprised.
+Why did you disobey mother?"</p>
+
+<p>Matilda only wept silently, and the lad went
+on, "What are you going to tell mother about
+it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tell her I did it with the ax," sobbed the
+young girl. "That will be the truth, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Abe severely, "that's the truth,
+but not <i>all</i> the truth. You just tell the whole
+truth, 'Tilda, and trust mother for the rest."</p>
+
+<p>Matilda went limping home and told her
+mother the whole story, and the good woman was
+so sorry for her that, as the girl told Abe that
+evening, "she didn't even scold me."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"BOUNDING A THOUGHT&mdash;NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND
+WEST"</div>
+
+<p>Abe sometimes heard things in the simple
+conversation of friends that disturbed him because
+they seemed beyond his comprehension.
+He said of this:</p>
+
+<p>"I remember how, when a child, I used to get
+irritated when any one talked to me in a way I
+couldn't understand.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think I ever got angry with anything
+else in my life; but that always disturbed
+my temper&mdash;and has ever since.</p>
+
+<p>"I can remember going to my little bedroom,
+after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening
+with my father, and spending no small part of
+the night walking up and down, trying to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
+out what was the exact meaning of some of
+their, to me, dark sayings.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not sleep, although I tried to, when
+I got on such a hunt for an idea; and when I
+thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I
+had repeated it over and over, and had put in
+language plain enough, as I thought, for any
+boy I knew to comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>"This was a kind of a passion with me, and
+it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now
+when I am bounding a thought, till I have
+bounded it east, and bounded it west, and
+bounded it north, and bounded it south."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HIGH PRAISE FROM HIS STEPMOTHER</div>
+
+<p>Not long before her death, Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's
+law partner, called upon Mrs. Sarah Lincoln
+to collect material for a "Life of Lincoln"
+he was preparing to write. This was the best of
+all the things she related of her illustrious stepson:</p>
+
+<p>"I can say what scarcely one mother in a
+thousand can say, Abe never gave me a cross
+word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance,
+to do anything I asked him. His
+mind and mine seemed to run together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe.
+Both were good boys, but I must say, both now
+being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw
+or expect to see."</p>
+
+<p>"Charity begins at home"&mdash;and so do truth
+and honesty. Abraham Lincoln could not have
+become so popular all over the world on account
+of his honest kindheartedness if he had not been
+loyal, obedient and loving toward those at home.
+Popularity, also, "begins at home." A mean,
+disagreeable, dishonest boy may become a king,
+because he was "to the manner born." But only
+a good, kind, honest man, considerate of others,
+can be elected President of the United States.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Abe and the Neighbors</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"PREACHING" AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS</div>
+
+<p>Nat Grigsby stated once that writing compositions
+was not required by Schoolmaster Crawford,
+but "Abe took it up on his own account,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
+and his first essay was against cruelty to animals.</p>
+
+<p>The boys of the neighborhood made a practice
+of catching terrapins and laying live coals on
+their backs. Abe caught a group of them at this
+cruel sport one day, and rushed to the relief of
+the helpless turtle. Snatching the shingle that
+one of the boys was using to handle the coals, he
+brushed them off the turtle's shell, and with
+angry tears in his eyes, proceeded to use it on
+one of the offenders, while he called the rest a
+lot of cowards.</p>
+
+<p>One day his stepbrother, John Johnston, according
+to his sister Matilda, "caught a terrapin,
+brought it to the place where Abe was
+'preaching,' threw it against a tree and crushed
+its shell." Abe then preached against cruelty to
+animals, contending that "an ant's life is as
+sweet to it as ours is to us."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ROUGHLY DISCIPLINED FOR BEING "FORWARD"</div>
+
+<p>Abe was compelled to leave school on the
+slightest pretext to work for the neighbors. He
+was so big and strong&mdash;attaining his full height
+at seventeen&mdash;that his services were more in demand
+than those of his stepbrother, John Johnston,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
+or of Cousin Dennis. Abe was called lazy
+because the neighbors shared the idea of
+Thomas Lincoln, that his reading and studying
+were only a pretext for shirking. Yet he was
+never so idle as either Dennis Hanks or John
+Johnston, who were permitted to go hunting or
+fishing with Tom Lincoln, while Abe stayed out
+of school to do the work that one of the three
+older men should have done.</p>
+
+<p>Abe's father was kinder in many ways to his
+stepchildren than he was to his own son. This
+may have been due to the fact that he did not
+wish to be thought "partial" to his own child.
+No doubt Abe was "forward." He liked to
+take part in any discussion, and sometimes he
+broke into the conversation when his opinion
+had not been asked. Besides, he got into arguments
+with his fellow-laborers, and wasted the
+time belonging to his employer.</p>
+
+<p>One day, according to Dennis, they were all
+working together in the field, when a man rode
+up on horseback and asked a question. Abe was
+the first to mount the fence to answer the
+stranger and engage him in conversation. To
+teach his son better "manners" in the presence
+of his "superiors," Thomas Lincoln struck Abe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
+a heavy blow which knocked him backward off
+the fence, and silenced him for a time.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, every one present laughed at Abe's
+discomfiture, and the neighbors approved of
+Thomas Lincoln's rude act as a matter of discipline.
+In their opinion Abe Lincoln was getting
+altogether too smart. While they enjoyed
+his homely wit and good nature, they did not
+like to admit that he was in any way their superior.
+A visitor to Springfield, Ill., will
+even now find some of Lincoln's old neighbors
+eager to say "there were a dozen smarter men
+in this city than Lincoln" when he "happened
+to get nominated for the presidency!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />SPORTS AND PASTIMES</div>
+
+<p>Abe was "hail fellow, well met" everywhere.
+The women comprehended his true greatness
+before the men did so. There was a rough gallantry
+about him, which, though lacking in
+"polish," was true, "heart-of-oak" politeness.
+He wished every one well. His whole life passed
+with "malice toward none, with charity for
+all."</p>
+
+<p>When he "went out evenings" Abe Lincoln
+took the greatest pains to make everybody comfortable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
+and happy. He was sure to bring in the
+biggest backlog and make the brightest fire. He
+read "the funniest fortunes" for the young
+people from the sparks as they flew up the chimney.
+He was the best helper in paring the
+apples, shelling the corn and cracking the nuts
+for the evening's refreshments.</p>
+
+<p>When he went to spelling school, after the first
+few times, he was not allowed to take part in the
+spelling match because everybody knew that the
+side that "chose first" would get Abe Lincoln
+and he always "spelled down." But he went
+just the same and had a good time himself if he
+could add to the enjoyment of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>He went swimming, warm evenings, with the
+boys, and ran races, jumped and wrestled at
+noon-times, which was supposed to be given up
+to eating and resting. He was "the life" of the
+husking-bee and barn raising, and was always
+present, often as a judge because of his humor,
+fairness and tact, at horse races. He engaged
+heartily in every kind of "manly sport" which
+did not entail unnecessary suffering upon helpless
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>Coon hunting, however, was an exception.
+The coon was a pest and a plague to the farmer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
+so it should be got rid of. He once told the following
+story:</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE LITTLE YELLOW "COON DOG"</div>
+
+<p>"My father had a little yellow house dog
+which invariably gave the alarm if we boys undertook
+to slip away unobserved after night had
+set in&mdash;as we sometimes did&mdash;to go coon hunting.
+One night my brother, John Johnston, and
+I, with the usual complement of boys required
+for a successful coon hunt, took the insignificant
+little cur with us.</p>
+
+<p>"We located the coveted coon, killed him, and
+then in a sporting vein, sewed the coon skin on
+the little dog.</p>
+
+<p>"It struggled vigorously during the operation
+of sewing on, and when released made a bee-line
+for home. Some larger dogs on the way, scenting coon,
+tracked the little animal home and apparently
+mistaking him for a real coon, speedily
+demolished him. The next morning, father
+found, lying in his yard, the lifeless remains of
+yellow 'Joe,' with strong circumstantial evidence,
+in the form of fragments of coon skin,
+against us.</p>
+
+<p>"Father was much incensed at his death, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
+as John and I, scantily protected from the morning
+wind, stood shivering in the doorway, we
+felt assured that little yellow Joe would never
+again be able to sound the alarm of another
+coon hunt."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE "CHIN FLY" AS AN INCENTIVE TO WORK</div>
+
+<p>While he was President, Mr. Lincoln told
+Henry J. Raymond, the founder of the New
+York <i>Times</i>, the following story of an experience
+he had about this time, while working with
+his stepbrother in a cornfield:</p>
+
+<p>"Raymond," said he, "you were brought up
+on a farm, were you not? Then you know what
+a 'chin fly' is. My brother and I were plowing
+corn once, I driving the horse and he holding
+the plow. The horse was lazy, but on one occasion
+he rushed across the field so that I, with my
+long legs, could scarcely keep pace with him.
+On reaching the end of the furrow I found an
+enormous chin fly fastened upon the horse and
+I knocked it off. My brother asked me what I
+did that for. I told him I didn't want the old
+horse bitten in that way.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why,' said my brother,'that's all that
+made him go.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now if Mr. Chase (the Secretary of the
+Treasury) has a presidential 'chin fly' biting
+him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will only
+make his department go."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"OLD BLUE NOSE'S" HIRED MAN</div>
+
+<p>It seemed to be the "irony of fate" that Abe
+should have to work for "Old Blue Nose" as a
+farm hand. But the lad liked Mrs. Crawford,
+and Lincoln's sister Nancy lived there, at the
+same time, as maid-of-all-work. Another attraction,
+the Crawford family was rich, in Abe's
+eyes, in possessing several books, which he was
+glad of the chance to read.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crawford told many things about young
+Lincoln that might otherwise have been lost.
+She said "Abe was very polite, in his awkward
+way, taking off his hat to me and bowing. He
+was a sensitive lad, never coming where he was
+not wanted. He was tender and kind&mdash;like his
+sister.</p>
+
+<p>"He liked to hang around and gossip and joke
+with the women. After he had wasted too much
+time this way, he would exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, this won't buy the child a coat,'
+and the long-legged hired boy would stride<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
+away and catch up with the others."</p>
+
+<p>One day when he was asked to kill a hog, Abe
+answered promptly that he had never done that,
+"but if you'll risk the hog, I'll risk myself!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crawford told also about "going to meeting"
+in those primitive days:</p>
+
+<p>"At that time we thought it nothing to go
+eight or ten miles. The ladies did not stop for
+the want of a shawl or riding dress, or horses.
+In the winter time they would put on their husbands'
+old overcoats, wrap up their little ones,
+and take two or three of them on their beasts,
+while their husbands would walk.</p>
+
+<p>"In winter time they would hold church in
+some of the neighbors' houses. At such times
+they were always treated with the utmost kindness;
+a basket of apples, or turnips&mdash;apples
+were scarce in those days&mdash;was set out. Sometimes
+potatoes were used for a 'treat.' In old
+Mr. Linkhorn's (Lincoln's) house a plate of potatoes,
+washed and pared nicely, was handed
+around."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />FEATS OF STRENGTH</div>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood,
+both in body and in mind. The neighbors,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
+who failed to mark his mental growth, were
+greatly impressed with his physical strength.
+The Richardson family, with whom Abe seemed
+to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous
+tales of his prowess, some of which may
+have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr. Richardson
+declared that the young man could carry
+as heavy a load as "three ordinary men." He
+saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken
+house, made up of poles pinned together, and
+covered, that weighed at least six hundred if not
+much more."</p>
+
+<p>When the Richardsons were building their
+corn-crib, Abe saw three or four men getting
+ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on
+"sticks" between them. Watching his chance,
+he coolly stepped in, shouldered all the timbers
+at once and walked off alone with them, carrying
+them to the place desired. He performed
+these feats off-hand, smiling down in undisguised
+pleasure as the men around him expressed
+their amazement. It seemed to appeal
+to his sense of humor as well as his desire to help
+others out of their difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of
+Abe: "He could strike, with a maul, a heavier<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
+blow than any other man. He could sink an ax
+deeper into wood than any man I ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard
+Abe working in the woods alone, felling trees,
+you would think three men, at least, were at
+work there&mdash;the trees came crashing down so
+fast.</p>
+
+<p>On one occasion <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'afer'">after</ins> he had been threshing
+wheat for Mr. Turnham, the farmer-constable
+whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had
+devoured, Lincoln was walking back, late at
+night from Gentryville, where he and a number
+of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths
+were picking their way along the frozen road,
+they saw a dark object on the ground by the
+roadside. They found it to be an old sot they
+knew too well lying there, dead drunk. Lincoln
+stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness of
+his heart, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, let him alone, Abe. 'Twon't do him no
+good. He's made his bed, let him lay in it!"</p>
+
+<p>The rest laughed&mdash;for the "bed" was freezing
+mud. But Abe could see no humor in the situation.
+The man might be run over, or freeze to
+death. To abandon any human being in such a
+plight seemed too monstrous to him. The other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
+young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging
+their shoulders and shaking their heads&mdash;"Poor
+Abe!&mdash;he's a hopeless case," and left Lincoln
+to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He
+had no beast on which to carry the dead weight
+of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried,
+again and again, to arouse to a sense of the
+predicament he was in. At last the young man
+took up the apparently lifeless body of the mud-covered
+man in his strong arms, and carried him
+a quarter of a mile to a deserted cabin, where
+he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the
+old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe
+gave him "a good talking to," and the unfortunate
+man is said to have been so deeply impressed
+by the young man's kindness that he
+heeded the temperance lecture and never again
+risked his life as he had done that night. When
+the old man told John Hanks of Abe's Herculean
+effort to save him, he added:</p>
+
+<p>"It was mighty clever in Abe Lincoln to tote
+me to a warm fire that cold night."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />IN JONES' STORE</div>
+
+<p>While Abe was working for the farmers round
+about his father's farm he spent many of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
+evenings in Jones' grocery "talking politics"
+and other things with the men, who also gathered
+there. Mr. Jones took a Louisville paper,
+which young Lincoln read eagerly. Slavery was
+a live political topic then, and Abe soon acquired
+quite a reputation as a stump orator.</p>
+
+<p>As he read the "Indiana Statutes" he was
+supposed to "know more law than the constable."
+In fact, his taste for the law was so
+pronounced at that early age that he went,
+sometimes, fifteen miles to Boonville, as a spectator
+in the county court. Once he heard a lawyer of
+ability, named Breckinridge, defend an accused
+murderer there. It was a great plea; the tall
+country boy knew it and, pushing through the
+crowd, reached out his long, coatless arm to
+congratulate the lawyer, who looked at the
+awkward youth in amazement and passed on without
+acknowledging Abe's compliment. The two
+men met again in Washington, more than thirty
+years later, under very different circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>But there were things other than politics
+discussed at the country store, and Abe Lincoln
+often raised a laugh at the expense of some
+braggart or bully. There was "Uncle Jimmy"
+Larkins, who posed as the hero of his own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
+stories. In acknowledgment of Abe's authority
+as a judge of horse flesh, "Uncle Jimmy" was
+boasting of his horse's superiority in a recent
+fox chase. But young Lincoln seemed to pay
+no heed. Larkins repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"Abe, I've got the best horse in the world;
+he won the race and never drew a long breath."</p>
+
+<p>Young Lincoln still appeared not to be paying
+attention. "Uncle Jimmy" persisted. He
+was bound to make Abe hear. He reiterated:</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Abe, I have got the best horse in the
+world; after all that running he never drew a
+long breath."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Larkins," drawled young Lincoln,
+"why don't you tell us how many <i>short</i> breaths
+he drew." The laugh was on the boastful and
+discomfited Larkins.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />TRYING TO TEACH ASTRONOMY TO A YOUNG GIRL</div>
+
+<p>Abe's efforts were not always so well received,
+for he was sometimes misunderstood. The
+neighbors used to think the Lincoln boy was secretly
+in love with Kate Roby, the pretty girl he
+had helped out of a dilemma in the spelling class.
+Several years after that episode, Abe and Kate
+were sitting on a log, about sunset, talking:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Abe," said Kate, "the sun's goin' down."</p>
+
+<p>"Reckon not," Abe answered, "we're coming
+up, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you s'pose I got eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know you have; but it's the earth that
+goes round. The sun stands as still as a tree.
+When we're swung round so we can't see it any
+more, the light's cut off and we call it night."</p>
+
+<p>"What a fool you are, Abe Lincoln!" exclaimed
+Kate, who was not to blame for her ignorance,
+for astronomy had never been taught in
+Crawford's school.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE EARLY DEATH OF SISTER NANCY</div>
+
+<p>While brother and sister were working for
+"Old Blue Nose," Aaron Grigsby, "Nat's"
+brother, was "paying attention" to Nancy Lincoln.
+They were soon married. Nancy was only
+eighteen. When she was nineteen Mrs. Aaron
+Grigsby died. Her love for Abe had almost
+amounted to idolatry. In some ways she resembled
+him. He, in turn, was deeply devoted
+to his only sister.</p>
+
+<p>The family did not stay long at Pigeon Creek
+after the loss of Nancy, who was buried, not beside
+her mother, but with the Grigsbys in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
+churchyard of the old Pigeon Creek meeting-house.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />EARNING HIS FIRST DOLLAR</div>
+
+<p>Much as Abraham Lincoln had "worked out"
+as a hired man, his father kept the money, as he
+had a legal right to do, not giving the boy any of
+the results of his hard labor, for, strong as he
+was, his pay was only twenty-five or thirty cents
+a day. Abe accepted this as right and proper.
+He never complained of it.</p>
+
+<p>After he became President, Lincoln told his
+Secretary of State the following story of the
+first dollar he ever had for his own:</p>
+
+<p>"Seward," he said, "did you ever hear how I
+earned my first dollar?" "No," replied Seward.
+"Well," said he, "I was about eighteen years of
+age .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. and had constructed a flatboat.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+A steamer was going down the river. We have,
+you know, no wharves on the western streams,
+and the custom was, if passengers were at any
+of the landings they had to go out in a boat, the
+steamer stopping and taking them on board. I
+was contemplating my new boat, and wondering
+whether I could make it stronger or improve it
+in any part, when two men with trunks came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+down to the shore in carriages, and looking at
+the different boats, singled out mine, and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"'Who owns this?'</p>
+
+<p>"I answered modestly, 'I do.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you,' said one of them, 'take us and
+our trunks out to the steamer?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have
+a chance of earning something, and supposed
+that they would give me a couple of 'bits.' The
+trunks were put in my boat, the passengers
+seated themselves on them, and I sculled them
+out to the steamer. They got on board, and I
+lifted the trunks and put them on deck. The
+steamer was moving away when I called out:</p>
+
+<p>"'You have forgotten to pay me.'</p>
+
+<p>"Each of them took from his pocket a silver
+half-dollar and threw it on the bottom of my
+boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I
+picked up the money. You may think it was a
+very little thing, and in these days it seems to
+me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident
+in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, a
+poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day&mdash;that
+by honest work I had earned a dollar. I
+was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from
+that time."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Moving to Illinois</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"FOLLOWING THE RIVER"</div>
+
+<p>Thomas Lincoln had become restless again.
+Fourteen years was a long time for him to live
+in one place. Abe was seven years old when
+they came over from Kentucky, and he was now
+nearly twenty-one. During that time Thomas
+had lost his wife, Nancy, and his only daughter,
+who bore her mother's name. While the land he
+had chosen was fertile enough, the want of water
+had always been a sad drawback. The desire to
+try his fortunes in a newer country had taken
+possession of him.</p>
+
+<p>John Hanks had gone to Illinois, and had
+written back that everything was more favorable
+there for making a living. Thomas Lincoln
+had not been successful in Indiana. His
+children's prospects seemed to be against them.
+After working as a hired hand on the surrounding
+farms, Abe had served for a time as a ferryman,
+and, working by the river, had learned to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
+build the boat with which he had earned his first
+dollar.</p>
+
+<p>As George Washington longed to go to sea,
+Abraham Lincoln seems to have yearned to
+"follow the river." He tried to hire out as
+deck hand, but his age was against him. He
+soon had a chance to go "down river" to New
+Orleans, with his friend, Allen Gentry, the son
+of the man for whom Gentryville was named.
+Allen afterward married Kate Roby. A flatboat
+belonging to Allen's father was loaded with
+bacon and other farm merchandise for the
+southern market. Allen went in charge of the
+expedition, and young Lincoln was engaged as
+"bow hand." They started in April, 1828.
+There was nothing to do but steer the unwieldy
+craft with the current. The flatboat was made
+to float down stream only. It was to be broken
+up at New Orleans and sold for lumber.</p>
+
+<p>The two young men from Indiana made the
+trip without incident until they came to the
+plantation of Madame Duchesne, six miles from
+Baton Rouge, where they moored their raft for
+the night. There they heard the stealthy footsteps
+of midnight marauders on board.</p>
+
+<p>Young Gentry was first aroused. He sprang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
+up and found a gang of lawless negroes on deck,
+evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so
+many of them could easily cow or handle the two
+white men.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring the guns, Abe!" shouted Allen.
+"Shoot them!" Abraham Lincoln was among
+them, brandishing a club&mdash;they had no guns.
+The negroes were frightened not only by the
+fierce, commanding form of their tall adversary,
+but also by his giant strength. The two white
+men routed the whole black crew, but Abraham
+Lincoln received a wound in the encounter, and
+bore the scar of it to his dying day.</p>
+
+<p>The trip required about three months, going
+and returning, and the two adventurers from
+Gentryville came back in June, with good
+stories of their experiences to tell in Jones'
+store.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after this Thomas Lincoln, in response
+to an urgent invitation from John
+Hanks, decided to move to Illinois. It took a
+long time, after gathering in the fall crops, for
+Thomas Lincoln to have a "vandoo" and sell his
+corn and hogs. As for selling his farm, it had
+never really belonged to him. He simply turned
+it over to Mr. Gentry, who held a mortgage on it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
+It was February, 1830, before the pioneer wagon
+got under way. The emigrant family consisted
+of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah, his wife, Abraham,
+and John Johnston; Sarah and Matilda
+Johnston were both married, and, with their
+husbands, a young man named Hall and Dennis
+Hanks, formed the rest of the party. The
+women rode with their household goods in a
+great covered cart drawn by two yoke of oxen.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />A TRAVELING PEDDLER</div>
+
+<p>Merchant Jones, for whom Abe had worked
+that fall and winter, after his return from New
+Orleans, sold the young man a pack of "notions"
+to peddle along the road to Illinois. "A
+set of knives and forks," related Mr. Jones'
+son afterward, "was the largest item on the bill.
+The other items were needles, pins, thread, buttons,
+and other little domestic necessities. When
+the Lincolns reached their new home, Abraham
+wrote back to my father stating that he had
+doubled his money on his purchases by selling
+them along the road. Unfortunately we did not
+keep that letter, not thinking how highly we
+would prize it afterward."</p>
+
+<p>In the early days of his presidency, an international<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
+problem came before the cabinet which
+reminded Mr. Lincoln of an experience he had
+on this journey, so he told the several secretaries
+this story:</p>
+
+<p>"The situation just now reminds me of a fix
+I got into some thirty years ago when I was
+peddling 'notions' on the way from Indiana to
+Illinois. I didn't have a large stock, but I
+charged large prices and I made money. Perhaps
+you don't see what I am driving at.</p>
+
+<p>"Just before we left Indiana and were crossing
+into Illinois we came across a small farmhouse
+full of children. These ranged in age
+from seventeen years to seventeen months, and
+were all in tears. The mother of the family was
+red-headed and red-faced, and the whip she held
+in her right hand led to the inference that she
+had been chastising her brood. The father of
+the family, a meek-looking, mild-mannered, tow-headed
+chap, was standing at the front door&mdash;to
+all appearances waiting his turn!</p>
+
+<p>"I thought there wasn't much use in asking
+the head of that house if she wanted any 'notions.'
+She was too busy. It was evident that
+an insurrection had been in progress, but it was
+pretty well quelled when I got there. She saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+me when I came up, and from her look I thought
+she surmised that I intended to interfere. Advancing
+to the doorway&mdash;roughly pushing her
+husband aside&mdash;she demanded my business.</p>
+
+<p>"'Nothing, ma'am,' I answered as gently as
+possible. 'I merely dropped in, as I came along,
+to see how things were going.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, you needn't wait,' she said in an irritated
+way; 'there's trouble here, and lots of it,
+too, but I kin manage my own affairs without
+the help of outsiders. This is jest a family row,
+but I'll teach these brats their places if I hev to
+lick the hide off every one of them. I don't do
+much talking, but I run this house, an' I don't
+want no one sneakin' round tryin' to find out
+how I do it either.'</p>
+
+<p>"That's the case here with us. We must let
+the other nations know that we propose to settle
+our family row in our own way, an' teach these
+brats (the seceding States) their places, and,
+like the old woman, we don't want any 'sneakin'
+round' by other countries, that would like to find
+out how we are going to do it either."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"WINNING A DOG'S GRATITUDE"</div>
+
+<p>Abe strode along in the mud, driving the four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
+oxen much of the time, for the houses he could
+visit with his peddler's pack were few and far
+between. A dog belonging to one of the family&mdash;an
+insignificant little cur&mdash;fell behind. After
+the oxen had floundered through the mud, snow
+and ice of a prairie stream, they discovered that
+the animal was missing. The other men of the
+party thought they could now get rid of the
+little nuisance, and even the women were
+anxious, as the hour was late, to go on and find a
+place to camp for the night. To turn back with
+the clumsy ox-team and lumbering emigrant
+wagon was out of the question.</p>
+
+<p>Abraham gave the whip to one of the other
+men and turned back to see if he could discern
+the dog anywhere. He discovered it running up
+and down on the other bank of the river, in
+great distress, for the swift current was filled
+with floating ice and the poor little creature was
+afraid to make the attempt to swim across.
+After whistling in vain to encourage the dog to
+try if it would, the tender-hearted youth went
+to its rescue. Referring to the incident himself
+afterward, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I could not endure the idea of abandoning
+even a dog. Pulling off shoes and socks, I waded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
+across the stream and triumphantly returned
+with the shivering animal under my arm. His
+frantic leaps of joy and other evidences of a
+dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure
+I had undergone."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />SPLITTING THE HISTORIC RAILS</div>
+
+<p>After two weary weeks of floundering through
+muddy prairies and jolting over rough forest
+roads, now and then fording swollen and dangerous
+streams, the Lincolns were met near Decatur,
+Illinois, by Cousin John Hanks, and
+given a hearty welcome. John had chosen a
+spot not far from his own home, and had the
+logs all ready to build a cabin for the newcomers.
+Besides young Abe, with the strength
+of three, there were five men in the party, so
+they were able to erect their first home in Illinois
+without asking the help of the neighbors, as was
+customary for a "raising" of that kind.</p>
+
+<p>Nicolay and Hay, President Lincoln's private
+secretaries, in their great life of their chief, gave
+the following account of the splitting of the rails
+which afterward became the talk of the civilized
+world:</p>
+
+<p>"Without the assistance of John Hanks he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
+plowed fifteen acres, and split, from the tall
+walnut trees of the primeval forest, enough rails
+to surround them with a fence. Little did
+either dream, while engaged in this work, that
+the day would come when the appearance of
+John Hanks in a public meeting with two of
+these rails on his shoulder, would electrify a
+State convention, and kindle throughout the
+country a contagious and passionate enthusiasm
+whose results would reach to endless generations."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Starting Out for Himself</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HIS FATHER AND HIS "FREEDOM SUIT"</div>
+
+<p>According to his own account, Abe had made
+about thirty dollars as a peddler, besides bearing
+the brunt of the labor of the journey, though
+there were four grown men in the combined
+family. As he had passed his twenty-first birthday
+on the road, he really had the right to claim
+these profits as his own. His father, who had,
+for ten years, exacted Abraham's meager, hard-earned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
+wages, should at least have given the boy
+a part of that thirty dollars for a "freedom suit"
+of clothes, as was the custom then.</p>
+
+<p>But neither Thomas Lincoln nor his son seems
+to have thought of such a thing. Instead of entertaining
+resentment, Abraham stayed by, doing
+all he could to make his father and stepmother
+comfortable before he left them altogether.
+Mrs. Lincoln had two daughters and
+sons-in-law, besides John Johnston, so Abe
+might easily have excused himself from looking
+after the welfare of his parents. Though his
+father had seemed to favor his stepchildren in
+preference to his own son, Mrs. Lincoln had
+been "like an own mother to him," and he never
+ceased to show his gratitude by being "like an
+own son to her."</p>
+
+<p>The first work Abe did in that neighborhood
+was to split a thousand rails for a pair of trousers,
+at the rate of four hundred rails per yard
+of "brown jeans dyed with walnut bark." The
+young man's breeches cost him about four hundred
+rails more than they would if he had been
+a man of ordinary height.</p>
+
+<p>But Abraham hovered about, helping clear a
+little farm, and making the cabin comfortable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
+while he was earning his own "freedom suit."
+He saw the spring planting done and that a
+garden was made for his stepmother before he
+went out of ready reach of the old people.</p>
+
+<p>One special reason Thomas Lincoln had for
+leaving Indiana was to get away from "the
+milksick." But the fall of 1830 was a very bad
+season in Illinois for chills and fever. The
+father and, in fact, nearly the whole family left
+at home suffered so much from malaria that they
+were thoroughly discouraged. The interior of
+their little cabin was a sorry sight&mdash;Thomas and
+his wife were both afflicted at once, and one married
+daughter was almost as ill. They were all so
+sick that Thomas Lincoln registered a shaky but
+vehement resolve that as soon as they could
+travel they would "git out o' thar!" He had
+been so determined to move to Illinois that no
+persuasion could induce him to give up the project,
+therefore his disappointment was the more
+keen and bitter.</p>
+
+<p>The first winter the Lincolns spent in Illinois
+was memorable for its severity. It is still
+spoken of in that region as "the winter of the
+big snow." Cattle and sheep froze to death or
+died of exposure and starvation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />BUILDING THE FLATBOAT</div>
+
+<p>Early in the spring after "the big snow,"
+John Hanks, Lincoln and John Johnston met
+Denton Offutt, a man who was to wield an influence
+on the life of young Lincoln. Offutt engaged
+the three to take a load of produce and
+other merchandise to New Orleans to sell. John
+Hanks, the most reliable member of the Hanks
+family, gave the following account of the way
+he managed to bring Abe and his stepbrother
+into the transaction: "He wanted me to go badly
+but I waited before answering. I hunted up
+Abe, and I introduced him and John Johnston,
+his stepbrother, to Offutt. After some talk we
+at last made an engagement with Offutt at fifty
+cents a day and sixty dollars to make the trip to
+New Orleans. Abe and I came down the Sangamon
+River in a canoe in March, 1831, and landed
+at what is now called Jamestown, five miles east
+of Springfield."</p>
+
+<p>Denton Offutt spent so much time drinking
+in a tavern at the village of Springfield that the
+flatboat was not ready when the trio arrived to
+take it and its cargo down the river. Their employer
+met them on their arrival with profuse
+apologies, and the three men were engaged to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
+build the boat and load it up for the journey.</p>
+
+<p>During the four weeks required to build the
+raft, the men of that neighborhood became acquainted
+with young Lincoln. A man named
+John Roll has given this description of Abe's
+appearance at that time:</p>
+
+<p>"He was a tall, gaunt young man, dressed in
+a suit of blue homespun, consisting of a roundabout
+jacket, waistcoat, and breeches which
+came to within about three inches of his feet.
+The latter were encased in rawhide boots, into
+the tops of which, most of the time, his pantaloons
+were stuffed. He wore a soft felt hat
+which had once been black, but now, as its owner
+dryly remarked, 'was sunburned until it was a
+combine of colors.'"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sawmill in Sangamontown, and
+it was the custom for the "men folks" of the
+neighborhood to assemble near it at noon and in
+the evening, and sit on a peeled log which had
+been rolled out for the purpose. Young Lincoln
+soon joined this group and at once became
+a great favorite because of his stories and jokes.
+His stories were so funny that "whenever he'd
+end 'em up in his unexpected way the boys on
+the log would whoop and roll off." In this way<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
+the log was polished smooth as glass, and came
+to be known in the neighborhood as "Abe's
+log."</p>
+
+<p>A traveling juggler came one day while the
+boat was building and gave an exhibition in the
+house of one of the neighbors. This magician
+asked for Abe's hat to cook eggs in. Lincoln
+hesitated, but gave this explanation for his delay:
+"It was out of respect for the eggs&mdash;not
+care for my hat!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ABE LINCOLN SAVES THREE LIVES</div>
+
+<p>While they were at work on the flatboat the
+humorous young stranger from Indiana became
+the hero of a thrilling adventure, described as
+follows by John Roll, who was an eye witness
+to the whole scene:</p>
+
+<p>"It was the spring following 'the winter of
+the deep snow.' Walter Carman, John Seamon,
+myself, and at times others of the Carman boys,
+had helped Abe in building the boat, and when
+we had finished we went to work to make a dug-out,
+or canoe, to be used as a small boat with the
+flat. We found a suitable log about an eighth
+of a mile up the river, and with our axes went to
+work under Lincoln's direction. The river was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>
+very high, fairly 'booming.' After the dug-out
+was ready to launch we took it to the edge of the
+water, and made ready to 'let her go,' when
+Walter Carman and John Seamon jumped in as
+the boat struck the water, each one anxious to
+be the first to get a ride. As they shot out from
+the shore they found they were unable to make
+any headway against the strong current. Carman
+had the paddle, and Seamon was in the
+stern of the boat. Lincoln shouted to them to
+head up-stream and 'work back to shore,' but
+they found themselves powerless against the
+stream. At last they began to pull for the wreck
+of an old flatboat, the first ever built on the Sangamon,
+which had sunk and gone to pieces, leaving
+one of the stanchions sticking above the
+water. Just as they reached it Seamon made a
+grab, and caught hold of the stanchion, when the
+canoe capsized, leaving Seamon clinging to the
+old timber and throwing Carman into the
+stream. It carried him down with the speed of
+a mill-race. Lincoln raised his voice above the
+roar of the flood, and yelled to Carman to swim
+for an elm tree which stood almost in the channel,
+which the action of the water had changed.</p>
+
+<p>"Carman, being a good swimmer, succeeded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
+in catching a branch, and pulled himself up out
+of the water, which was very cold, and had almost
+chilled him to death; and there he sat, shivering
+and chattering in the tree.</p>
+
+<p>"Lincoln, seeing Carman safe, called out to
+Seamon to let go the stanchion and swim for the
+tree. With some hesitation he obeyed, and
+struck out, while Lincoln cheered and directed
+him from the bank. As Seamon neared the tree
+he made one grab for a branch, and, missing it,
+went under the water. Another desperate lunge
+was successful, and he climbed up beside Carman.</p>
+
+<p>"Things were pretty exciting now, for there
+were two men in the tree, and the boat gone. It
+was a cold, raw April day, and there was great
+danger of the men becoming benumbed and falling
+back into the water. Lincoln called out to
+them to keep their spirits up and he would save
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"The village had been alarmed by this time,
+and many people had come down to the bank.
+Lincoln procured a rope and tied it to a log. He
+called all hands to come and help roll the log into
+the water, and, after this had been done, he, with
+the assistance of several others, towed it some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
+distance up the stream. A daring young fellow
+by the name of 'Jim' Dorell then took his seat on
+the end of the log, and it was pushed out into the
+current, with the expectation that it would be
+carried down stream against the tree where Seamon
+and Carman were.</p>
+
+<p>"The log was well directed, and went straight
+to the tree; but Jim, in his impatience to help
+his friends, fell a victim to his good intentions.
+Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised
+himself off the log, which was swept from under
+him by the raging waters and he soon joined the
+other victims upon their forlorn perch.</p>
+
+<p>"The excitement on the shore increased, and
+almost the whole population of the village gathered
+on the river bank. Lincoln had the log
+pulled up the stream, and, securing another
+piece of rope, called to the men in the tree to
+catch it if they could when he should reach the
+tree. He then straddled the log himself, and
+gave the word to push out into the stream.
+When he dashed into the tree he threw the rope
+over the stump of a broken limb, and let it play
+until he broke the speed of the log, and gradually
+drew it back to the tree, holding it there
+until the three now nearly frozen men had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
+climbed down and seated themselves astride.
+He then gave orders to the people on shore to
+hold fast to the end of the rope which was tied
+to the log, and leaving his rope in the tree he
+turned the log adrift. The force of the current,
+acting against the taut rope, swung the log
+around against the bank and all 'on board' were
+saved.</p>
+
+<p>"The excited people who had watched the
+dangerous expedition with alternate hope and
+fear, now broke into cheers for Abe Lincoln,
+and praises for his brave act. This adventure
+made quite a hero of him along the Sangamon,
+and the people never tired of telling of the exploit."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"DOWN THE RIVER"</div>
+
+<p>The launching of that flatboat was made a
+feast-day in the neighborhood. Denton Offutt,
+its proprietor, was invited to break away from
+the "Buckhorn" tavern at Springfield to witness
+the ceremonies, which, of course, took a political
+turn. There was much speech-making,
+but Andrew Jackson and the Whig leaders were
+equally praised.</p>
+
+<p>The boat had been loaded with pork in barrels,
+corn, and hogs, and it slid into the Sangamon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+River, then overflowing with the spring "fresh,"
+with a big splash.</p>
+
+<p>The three sturdy navigators, accompanied by
+Offutt himself, floated away in triumph from
+the waving crowd on the bank.</p>
+
+<p>The first incident in the voyage occurred the
+19th of April, at Rutledge's mill dam at New
+Salem, where the boat stranded and "hung"
+there a day and a night.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW ABE GOT THE FLATBOAT OVER THE DAM</div>
+
+<p>New Salem was destined to fill an important
+place in the life of Abraham Lincoln. One who
+became well acquainted with him described him
+as the New Salemites first saw him, "wading
+round on Rutledge's dam with his trousers
+rolled up nine feet, more or less."</p>
+
+<p>One of the crew gave this account of their
+mode of operations to get the stranded raft over
+the dam:</p>
+
+<p>"We unloaded the boat&mdash;that is, we transferred
+the goods from our boat to a borrowed
+one. We then rolled the barrels forward; Lincoln
+bored a hole in the end (projecting) over
+the dam; the water which had leaked in ran out
+then and we slid over."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Offutt's enthusiasm over Abe's simple method
+of surmounting this great obstacle was boundless.
+A crowd had gathered on a hillside to
+watch Lincoln's operations.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />AN IMPROBABLE PROPHECY</div>
+
+<p>For the novelty of the thing, John Hanks
+claimed to have taken young Lincoln to a
+"voodoo" negress. She is said to have become
+excited in reading the future of the tall, thin
+young man, saying to him, "You will be President,
+and all the negroes will be free." This
+story probably originated long afterward, when
+the strange prophecy had already come true&mdash;though
+fortune tellers often inform young men
+who come to them that they will be Presidents
+some day. That such a woman could read the
+Emancipation Proclamation in that young
+man's future is not at all likely.</p>
+
+<p>Another story is told of Abraham Lincoln's
+second visit to New Orleans that is more probable,
+but even this is not certain to have happened
+exactly as related. The young northerner
+doubtless saw negroes in chains, and his spirit,
+like that of his father and mother, rebelled
+against this inhumanity. There is little doubt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>
+that in such sights, as one of his companions related,
+"Slavery ran the iron into him then and there."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"I'LL HIT IT HARD!"</div>
+
+<p>But the story goes that the three young fellows&mdash;Hanks,
+Johnston and Lincoln&mdash;went wandering
+about the city, and passed a slave market,
+where a comely young mulatto girl was offered to
+the highest bidder. They saw prospective purchasers
+examine the weeping girl's teeth, pinch
+her flesh and pull her about as they would a cow
+or a horse. The whole scene was so revolting that
+Lincoln recoiled from it with horror and hatred,
+saying to his two companions, "Boys, let's get
+away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that
+thing"&mdash;meaning slavery&mdash;"<i>I'll hit it hard!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>In June the four men took passage up the river
+on a steamboat for the return trip. At St. Louis,
+Offutt got off to purchase stock for a store he
+proposed to open in New Salem, where he
+planned to place young Lincoln in charge.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />WRESTLING WITH THE COUNTY CHAMPION</div>
+
+<p>The other three started on foot to reach their
+several homes in Illinois. Abe improved the opportunity
+to visit his father's family in Coles<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
+County, where Thomas Lincoln had removed as
+soon as he was able to leave their first Illinois
+home near Decatur.</p>
+
+<p>Abe's reputation as a wrestler had preceded
+him and the Coles County Champion, Daniel
+Needham, came and challenged the tall visitor
+to a friendly contest. Young Lincoln laughingly
+accepted and threw Needham twice. The
+crestfallen wrestler's pride was deeply hurt, and
+he found it hard to give up beaten.</p>
+
+<p>"Lincoln," said he, "you have thrown me
+twice, but you can't whip me."</p>
+
+<p>Abe laughed again and replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Needham, are you satisfied that I can throw
+you? If you are not, and must be convinced
+through a thrashing, I will do that, too&mdash;<i>for
+your sake!</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Clerking and Working</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HE COULD "MAKE A FEW RABBIT TRACKS"</div>
+
+<p>It was in August, 1831, that Abraham Lincoln
+appeared in the village of New Salem, Illinois.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>
+Neither Denton Offutt nor his merchandise
+had arrived as promised. While paying
+the penalty of the punctual man&mdash;by waiting for
+the tardy one&mdash;he seemed to the villagers to be
+loafing. But Abraham Lincoln was no loafer.
+He always found something useful and helpful
+to do. This time there was a local election, and
+one of the clerks had not appeared to perform
+his duties. A New Salem woman wrote of Lincoln's
+first act in the village:</p>
+
+<p>"My father, Mentor Graham, was on that day,
+as usual, appointed to be a clerk, and Mr. McNamee,
+who was to be the other, was sick and
+failed to come. They were looking around for
+a man to fill his place when my father noticed
+Mr. Lincoln and asked if he could write. He
+answered that he could 'make a few rabbit
+tracks.'"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />PILOTING A FAMILY FLATBOAT</div>
+
+<p>A few days after the election the young
+stranger, who had become known by this time
+as the hero of the flatboat on Rutledge's dam
+four months before, found employment as a
+pilot. A citizen, Dr. Nelson, was about to emigrate
+to Texas. The easiest and best mode of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
+travel in those days was by flatboat down the
+river. He had loaded all his household goods
+and movable property on his "private conveyance"
+and was looking about for a "driver."
+Young Lincoln, still waiting, unemployed, offered
+his services and took the Nelson family
+down the Sangamon River&mdash;a more difficult
+task in August than in April, when the water
+was high on account of the spring rains. But
+the young pilot proceeded cautiously down the
+shallow stream, and reached Beardstown, on the
+Illinois River, where he was "discharged" and
+walked back over the hills to New Salem.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ANNOYED BY THE HIGH PRAISES OF HIS EMPLOYER</div>
+
+<p>Denton Offutt and his stock for the store arrived
+at last, and Lincoln soon had a little store
+opened for business. A country store seemed
+too small for a clerk of such astounding abilities,
+so the too enthusiastic employer bought Cameron's
+mill with the dam on which Lincoln had
+already distinguished himself, and made the
+clerk manager of the whole business.</p>
+
+<p>This was not enough. Offutt sounded the
+praises of the new clerk to all comers. He
+claimed that Abraham Lincoln "knew more than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
+any man in the United States." As Mr. Offutt
+had never shown that he knew enough himself
+to prove this statement, the neighbors began to
+resent such rash claims. In addition, Offutt
+boasted that Abe could "beat the county" running,
+jumping and wrestling. Here was something
+the new clerk could prove, if true, so his
+employer's statement was promptly challenged.</p>
+
+<p>When a strange man came to the village to
+live, even though no one boasted of his prowess,
+he was likely to suffer at the hands of the
+rougher element of the place. It was a sort of
+rude initiation into their society. These ceremonies
+were conducted with a savage sense of
+humor by a gang of rowdies known as the
+"Clary's Grove Boys," of whom the "best
+fighter" was Jack Armstrong.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes "the Boys" nailed up a stranger
+in a hogshead and it was rolled down hill. Sometimes
+he was ingeniously insulted, or made to
+fight in self-defense, and beaten black and blue
+by the whole gang. They seemed not to be
+hampered by delicate notions of fair play in
+their actions toward a stranger. They "picked
+on him," as chickens, dogs and wolves do upon a
+newcomer among them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So when young Lincoln heard his employer
+bragging about his brain and brawn he was sufficiently
+acquainted with backwoods nature to
+know that it boded no good to him. Even then
+"he knew how to bide his time," and turned it to
+good account, for he had a good chance, shortly
+to show the metal that was in him.</p>
+
+<p>"The Boys" called and began to banter with
+the long-legged clerk in the new store. This led
+to a challenge and comparison of strength and
+prowess between young Lincoln and Jack Armstrong.
+Abe accepted the gauntlet with an alacrity
+that pleased the crowd, especially the chief
+of the bully "Boys," who expected an easy victory.
+But Jack was surprised to find that the
+stranger was his match&mdash;yes, more than his
+match. Others of "the Boys" saw this, also, and
+began to interfere by tripping Abe and trying to
+help their champion by unfair means.</p>
+
+<p>This made young Lincoln angry. Putting
+forth all his strength, he seized Armstrong by
+the throat and "nearly choked the exuberant
+life out of him." When "the Boys" saw the
+stranger shaking their "best fighter" as if he
+were a mere child, their enmity gave place to
+admiration; and when Abe had thrown Jack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>
+Armstrong upon the ground, in his wrath, as a
+lion would throw a dog that had been set upon
+him, and while the strong stranger stood there,
+with his back to the wall, challenging the whole
+gang, with deep-set eyes blazing with indignation,
+they acknowledged him as their conqueror,
+and declared that "Abe Lincoln is the cleverest
+fellow that ever broke into the settlement."</p>
+
+<p>The initiation was over, and young Lincoln's
+triumph complete. From that day "the Clary's
+Grove Boys" were his staunch supporters and
+defenders, and his employer was allowed to go
+on bragging about his wonderful clerk without
+hindrance.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />GIVING ANOTHER BULLY "A DOSE OF SMARTWEED"</div>
+
+<p>A bumptious stranger came into the store one
+day and tried to pick a quarrel with the tall
+clerk. To this end he used language offensive to
+several women who were there trading. Lincoln
+quietly asked the fellow to desist as there
+were "ladies present." The bully considered
+this an admission that the clerk was afraid of
+him, so he began to swear and use more offensive
+language than before. As this was too much for
+Abraham's patience, he whispered to the fellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
+that if he would keep quiet till the ladies went
+out, he (Lincoln) would go and "have it out."</p>
+
+<p>After the women went, the man became violently
+abusive. Young Lincoln calmly went outside
+with him, saying: "I see you must be
+whipped and I suppose I will have to do it."
+With this he seized the insolent fellow and made
+short work of him. Throwing the man on the
+ground, Lincoln sat on him, and, with his long
+arms, gathered a handful of "smartweed" which
+grew around them. He then rubbed it into the
+bully's eyes until he roared with pain. An observer
+of this incident said afterward:</p>
+
+<p>"Lincoln did all this without a particle of
+anger, and when the job was finished he went
+immediately for water, washed his victim's face
+and did everything he could to alleviate the
+man's distress. The upshot of the matter was
+that the fellow became his life-long friend, and
+was a better man from that day."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW HE MADE HIS FELLOW CLERK GIVE UP
+GAMBLING</div>
+
+<p>Lincoln's morals were unusually good for that
+time and place. Smoking, chewing, drinking,
+swearing and gambling were almost universal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+among his associates. Offutt hired a young
+man, William G. Greene, after the purchase of
+the mill. This assistant first told many of the
+stories, now so well known, concerning Abe at
+this period of his career:</p>
+
+<p>Young Greene was, like most of the young
+men in New Salem, addicted to petty gambling.
+He once related how Lincoln induced him to quit
+the habit. Abe said to him one day:</p>
+
+<p>"Billy, you ought to stop gambling with
+Estep." Billy made a lame excuse:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ninety cents behind, and I can't quit
+until I win it back."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help you get that back," urged Lincoln,
+"if you'll promise me you won't gamble any
+more."</p>
+
+<p>The youth reflected a moment and made the
+required promise. Lincoln continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Here are some good hats, and you need a
+new one. Now, when Estep comes again, you
+draw him on by degrees, and finally bet him one
+of these hats that I can lift a forty-gallon barrel
+of whisky and take a drink out of the bunghole."</p>
+
+<p>Billy agreed, and the two clerks chuckled as
+they fixed the barrel so that the bunghole would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
+come in the right place to win the bet, though
+the thing seemed impossible to Greene himself.
+Estep appeared in due time, and after long parleying
+and bantering the wager was laid. Lincoln
+then squatted before the barrel, lifted one
+end up on one knee, then raised the other end
+on to the other knee, bent over, and by a Herculean
+effort, actually succeeded in taking a drink
+from the bunghole&mdash;though he spat it out immediately.
+"That was the only time," said Greene
+long afterward, "that I ever saw Abraham Lincoln
+take a drink of liquor of any kind." This
+was the more remarkable, as whisky was served
+on all occasions&mdash;even passed around with refreshments
+at religious meetings, according to
+Mrs. Josiah Crawford, the woman for whom Abe
+and Nancy had worked as hired help. Much as
+Abe disapproved of drinking, he considered that
+"the end justified the means" employed to break
+his fellow clerk of the gambling habit.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW HE WON THE NAME OF "HONEST ABE"</div>
+
+<p>Abe Lincoln could not endure the thought of
+cheating any one, even though it had been done
+unintentionally. One day a woman bought a
+bill of goods in Offutt's store amounting to something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+over two dollars. She paid Abe the money
+and went away satisfied. That night, on going
+over the sales of the day, Abe found that he had
+charged the woman six and one-fourth cents too
+much. After closing the store, though it was
+late, he could not go home to supper or to bed
+till he had restored that sixpence to its proper
+owner. She lived more than two miles away, but
+that did not matter to Abe Lincoln. When he
+had returned the money to the astonished woman
+he walked back to the village with a long
+step and a light heart, content with doing his
+duty.</p>
+
+<p>Another evening, as he was closing the store, a
+woman came in for a half-pound of tea. He
+weighed it out for her and took the pay. But
+early next morning, when he came to "open up,"
+he found the four-ounce weight instead of the
+eight-ounce on the scales, and inferred that he
+had given that woman only half as much tea as
+he had taken the money for. Of course, the
+woman would never know the difference, and it
+meant walking several miles and back, but the
+honest clerk weighed out another quarter pound
+of tea, locked the store and took that long walk
+before breakfast. As a "constitutional" it must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>
+have been a benefit to his health, for it satisfied
+his sensitive conscience and soothed his tender
+heart to "make good" in that way.</p>
+
+<p>Drink and misdirected enthusiasm interfered
+with Denton Offutt's success. After about a
+year in New Salem he "busted up," as the neighbors
+expressed it, and left his creditors in the
+lurch. Among them was the clerk he had
+boasted so much about. For a short time Abe
+Lincoln needed a home, and found a hearty welcome
+with Jack Armstrong, the best fighter of
+Clary's Grove!</p>
+
+<p>J. G. Holland wrote, in his "Life of Abraham
+Lincoln," of the young man's progress during
+his first year in New Salem:</p>
+
+<p>"The year that Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's
+store was one of great advance. He had made
+new and valuable acquaintances, read many
+books, won multitudes of friends, and become
+ready for a step further in advance. Those who
+could appreciate brains respected him, and those
+whose ideas of a man related to his muscles were
+devoted to him. It was while he was performing
+the work of the store that he acquired the nickname,
+'Honest Abe'&mdash;a characterization that he
+never dishonored, an abbreviation that he never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
+outgrew. He was everybody's friend, the best-natured,
+the most sensible, the best-informed, the
+most modest and unassuming, the kindest,
+gentlest, roughest, strongest, best fellow in all
+New Salem and the region round about."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Politics, War, <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Store Keeping'">Storekeeping</ins> and Studying
+Law</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />STUDYING GRAMMAR FIRST</div>
+
+<p>By "a step still further in advance" Dr. Holland
+must have meant the young clerk's going
+into politics. He had made many friends in New
+Salem, and they reflected back his good-will by
+urging him to run for the State Legislature.
+Before doing this he consulted Mentor Graham,
+the village schoolmaster, with whom he had
+worked as election clerk when he first came to
+the place. Abe could read, write and cipher,
+but he felt that if he should succeed in politics,
+he would disgrace his office and himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
+by not speaking and writing English correctly.</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster advised: "If you expect to
+go before the public in any capacity, I think the
+best thing you can do is to study English grammar."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had a grammar I would commence now,"
+sighed Abe.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Graham thought one could be found at
+Vaner's, only six miles away. So Abe got up
+and started for it as fast as he could stride. In
+an incredibly <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'sort'">short</ins> time he returned with a copy
+of Kirkham's Grammar, and set to work upon it
+at once. Sometimes he would steal away into
+the woods, where he could study "out loud" if he
+desired. He kept up his old habit of sitting up
+nights to read, and as lights were expensive, the
+village cooper allowed him to stay in his shop,
+where he burned the shavings and studied by the
+blaze as he had done in Indiana, after every one
+else had gone to bed. So it was not long before
+young Lincoln, with the aid of Schoolmaster
+Graham, had mastered the principles of English
+grammar, and felt himself better equipped to
+enter politics and public life. Some of his rivals,
+however, did not trouble themselves about speaking
+and writing correctly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />GOING INTO POLITICS</div>
+
+<p>James Rutledge, a "substantial" citizen, and
+the former owner of Rutledge's mill and dam,
+was the president of the New Salem debating
+club. Young Lincoln joined this society, and
+when he first rose to speak, everybody began to
+smile in anticipation of a funny story, but Abe
+proceeded to discuss the question before the
+house in very good form. He was awkward in his
+movements and gestures at first, and amused
+those present by thrusting his unwieldy hands
+deep into his pockets, but his arguments were so
+well-put and forcible that all who heard him were
+astonished.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rutledge, that night after Abe's maiden
+effort at the lyceum, told his wife:</p>
+
+<p>"There is more in Abe Lincoln's head than
+mere wit and fun. He is already a fine speaker.
+All he needs is culture to fit him for a high position
+in public life."</p>
+
+<p>But there were occasions enough where something
+besides culture was required. A man
+who was present and heard Lincoln's first real
+stump speech describes his appearance and actions
+in the following picturesque language:</p>
+
+<p>"He wore a mixed jean coat, clawhammer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
+style, short in the sleeves and bob-tail&mdash;in fact,
+it was so short in the tail that he could not sit
+upon it&mdash;flax and tow linen pantaloons, and a
+straw hat. I think he wore a vest, but do not remember
+how it looked. He wore pot metal (top)
+boots.</p>
+
+<p>"His maiden effort on the stump was a speech
+on the occasion of a public sale at Pappyville, a
+village eleven miles from Springfield. After the
+sale was over and speechmaking had begun, a
+fight&mdash;a 'general fight' as one of the bystanders
+relates&mdash;ensued, and Lincoln, noticing one
+of his friends about to succumb to the attack of
+an infuriated ruffian, interposed to prevent it.
+He did so most effectually. Hastily descending
+from the rude platform, he edged his way
+through the crowd, and seizing the bully by the
+neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him by
+means of his great strength and long arms, as
+one witness stoutly insists, 'twelve feet away.'
+Returning to the stand, and throwing aside his
+hat, he inaugurated his campaign with the following
+brief and juicy declaration:</p>
+
+<p>"'Fellow-Citizens: I presume you all know
+who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I
+have been solicited by many friends to become a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>
+candidate for the Legislature. My politics are
+"short and sweet" like the old woman's dance.
+I am in favor of national bank. I am in favor
+of the internal improvement system, and a high
+protective tariff. These are my sentiments and
+political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful;
+if not, it will be all the same.'"</p>
+
+<p>The only requirement for a candidate for the
+Illinois Legislature in 1832 was that he should
+announce his "sentiments." This Lincoln did,
+according to custom, in a circular of about two
+thousand words, rehearsing his experiences on
+the Sangamon River and in the community of
+New Salem. For a youth who had just turned
+twenty-three, who had never been to school a
+year in his life, who had no political training,
+and had never made a political speech, it was a
+bold and dignified document, closing as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Considering the great degree of modesty
+which should always attend youth, it is probable
+I have already been presuming more than becomes
+me. However, upon the subjects of which
+I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought.
+I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them,
+but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better
+only sometimes to be right than at all times to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
+wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be
+erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.</p>
+
+<p>"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition.
+Whether this is true or not, I can say for
+one, that I have no other so great as that of being
+truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering
+myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall
+succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet to be
+developed. I am young and unknown to many
+of you. I was born, and have ever remained in
+the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy
+or popular relations or friends to recommend
+me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent
+voters of the country; and, if elected,
+they will have conferred a favor on me for which
+I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate.
+But if the good people in their wisdom
+shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have
+been too familiar with disappointments to be
+very much chagrined."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"CAPTAIN LINCOLN"</div>
+
+<p>Lincoln had hardly launched in his first political
+venture when, in April, 1832, a messenger
+arrived in New Salem with the announcement
+from Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
+Sacs and other hostile tribes, led by Black Hawk,
+had invaded the northern part of the State,
+spreading terror among the white settlers in that
+region. The governor called upon those who
+were willing to help in driving back the Indians
+to report at Beardstown, on the Illinois River,
+within a week.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln and other Sangamon County men
+went at once to Richmond where a company was
+formed. The principal candidate for captain
+was a man named Kirkpatrick, who had treated
+Lincoln shabbily when Abe, in one of the odd
+jobs he had done in that region, worked in Kirkpatrick's
+sawmill. The employer had agreed to
+buy his hired man a cant-hook for handling the
+heavy logs. As there was a delay in doing this,
+Lincoln told him he would handle the logs without
+the cant-hook if Kirkpatrick would pay him
+the two dollars that implement would cost. The
+employer promised to do this, but never gave him
+the money.</p>
+
+<p>So when Lincoln saw that Kirkpatrick was a
+candidate for the captaincy, he said to Greene,
+who had worked with him in Offutt's store:</p>
+
+<p>"Bill, I believe I can make Kirkpatrick pay
+me that two dollars he owes me on the cant-hook<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
+now. I guess I'll run against him for captain."</p>
+
+<p>Therefore Abe Lincoln announced himself as
+a candidate. The vote was taken in an odd way.
+It was announced that when the men heard the
+command to march, each should go and stand by
+the man he wished to have for captain. The command
+was given. At the word, "March," three-fourths
+of the company rallied round Abe Lincoln.
+More than twenty-five years afterward,
+when Lincoln was a candidate for the presidency
+of the United States, he referred to himself in
+the third person in describing this incident, saying
+that he was elected "to his own surprise,"
+and "he says he has not since had any success in
+life which gave him so much satisfaction."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />IGNORANCE OF MILITARY TACTICS</div>
+
+<p>But Lincoln was a "raw hand" at military
+tactics. He used to enjoy telling of his ignorance
+and the expedients adopted in giving his
+commands to the company. Once when he was
+marching, twenty men abreast, across a field it
+became necessary to pass through a narrow gateway
+into the next field. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I could not, for the life of me, remember the
+word for getting the company <i>endwise</i> so that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>
+could go through the gate; so, as we came near
+the gate, I shouted, 'This company is dismissed
+for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the
+other side of the fence.'"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />A HISTORIC MYSTERY EXPLAINED</div>
+
+<p>Captain Lincoln had his sword taken from
+him for shooting within limits. Many have wondered
+that a man of Lincoln's intelligence should
+have been guilty of this stupid infraction of ordinary
+army regulations. Biographers of Lincoln
+puzzled over this until the secret was explained
+by William Turley Baker, of Bolivia, Ill., at the
+Lincoln Centenary in Springfield. All unconscious
+of solving a historic mystery, "Uncle
+Billy" Baker related the following story which
+explains that the shooting was purely accidental:</p>
+
+<p>"My father was roadmaster general in the
+Black Hawk War. Lincoln used to come often
+to our house and talk it all over with father,
+when I was a boy, and I've heard them laugh
+over their experiences in that war. The best
+joke of all was this: Father received orders one
+day to throw log bridges over a certain stream
+the army had to cross. He felled some tall, slim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
+black walnuts&mdash;the only ones he could find there&mdash;and
+the logs were so smooth and round that
+they were hard to walk on any time. This day it
+rained and made them very slippery. Half of
+the soldiers fell into the stream and got a good
+ducking. Captain Lincoln was one of those that
+tumbled in. He just laughed and scrambled out
+as quick as he could. He always made the best
+of everything like that.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that evening when the company came
+to camp, some of them had dog tents&mdash;just a big
+canvas sheet&mdash;and the boys laughed to see Lincoln
+crawl under one of them little tents. He was
+so long that his head and hands and feet stuck
+out on all sides. The boys said he looked just
+like a big terrapin. After he had got himself
+stowed away for the night, he remembered that
+he hadn't cleaned his pistol, after he fell into
+the creek.</p>
+
+<p>"So he backed out from under his canvas
+shell and started to clean it out. It was what
+was called a bulldog pistol, because it had a
+blunt, short muzzle. Abe's forefinger was long
+enough to use as a ramrod for it. But before he
+began operations he snapped the trigger and, to
+his astonishment, the thing went off!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Pretty soon an orderly came along in great
+haste, yellin', 'Who did that?&mdash;Who fired that
+shot?' Some of the men tried to send the orderly
+along about his business, making believe
+the report was heard further on, but Lincoln he
+wouldn't stand for no such deception, spoken
+or unspoken. 'I did it,' says he, beginning to
+explain how it happened.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, his legs was so blamed long, and
+he must have landed on his feet, in the creek, and
+got out of the water without his pistol getting
+wet, 'way up there in his weskit!</p>
+
+<p>"But he had to pay the penalty just the same,
+for they took his sword away from him for several
+days. You see, he was a captain and ought
+to 'a' set a good example in military discipline."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW CAPTAIN LINCOLN SAVED AN INDIAN'S LIFE</div>
+
+<p>One day an old "friendly Indian" came into
+camp with a "talking paper" or pass from the
+"big white war chief." The men, with the
+pioneer idea that "the only good Indian is a
+dead Indian," were for stringing him up. The
+poor old red man protested and held the general's
+letter before their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Me good Injun," he kept saying, "white war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
+chief say me good Injun. Look&mdash;talking paper&mdash;see!"</p>
+
+<p>"Get out! It's a forgery! Shoot him! String
+him up!" shouted the soldiers angrily.</p>
+
+<p>This noise brought Captain Lincoln out of his
+tent. At a glance he saw what they were about
+to do. He jumped in among them, shouting indignantly:</p>
+
+<p>"Stand back, all of you! For shame! I'll
+fight you all, one after the other, just as you
+come. Take it out on me if you can, but you
+shan't hurt this poor old Indian. When a man
+comes to me for help, he's going to get it, if I
+have to lick all Sangamon County to give it to
+him."</p>
+
+<p>The three months for which the men were enlisted
+soon expired, and Lincoln's captaincy also
+ended. But he re-enlisted as a private, and remained
+in the ranks until the end of the war,
+which found him in Wisconsin, hundreds of
+miles from New Salem. He and a few companions
+walked home, as there were not many
+horses to be had. Lincoln enlivened the long
+tramp with his fund of stories and jokes.</p>
+
+<p>It is sometimes asserted that Abraham Lincoln
+and Jefferson Davis met at this early day,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
+as officers in the Black Hawk War, but this
+statement is not founded on fact, for young
+Lieutenant Davis was absent on a furlough and
+could not have encountered the tall captain from
+the Sangamon then, as many would like to believe.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln always referred to the Black Hawk
+War as a humorous adventure. He made a
+funny speech in Congress describing some of his
+experiences in this campaign in which he did
+not take part in a battle, nor did he even catch
+sight of a hostile Indian.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />AGAIN A RIVER PILOT</div>
+
+<p>Abe was still out of work. Just before he enlisted
+he piloted the <i>Talisman</i>, a steamboat
+which had come up the Sangamon on a trial
+trip, in which the speed of the boat averaged
+four miles an hour. At that time the wildest excitement
+prevailed. The coming of the <i>Talisman</i>
+up their little river was hailed with grand
+demonstrations and much speech-making.
+Every one expected the Government to spend
+millions of dollars to make the Sangamon navigable,
+and even New Salem (which is not now to
+be found on the map) was to become a flourishing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
+city, in the hopeful imaginings of its few
+inhabitants. Lincoln, being a candidate, naturally
+"took the fever," and shared the delirium
+that prevailed. He could hardly have done
+otherwise, even if he had been so disposed. This
+was before the days of railroads, and the commerce
+and prosperity of the country depended
+on making the smaller streams navigable. Lincoln
+received forty dollars, however, for his services
+as pilot. The <i>Talisman</i>, instead of establishing
+a river connection with the Mississippi
+River cities, never came back. She was burned
+at the wharf in St. Louis, and the navigation of
+the poor little Sangamon, which was only a shallow
+creek, was soon forgotten.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />LINCOLN'S ONLY DEFEAT BY A DIRECT VOTE</div>
+
+<p>When Abe returned from the war he had no
+steady employment. On this account, especially,
+he must have been deeply disappointed to
+be defeated in the election which took place
+within two weeks after his arrival. His patriotism
+had been stronger than his political sagacity.
+If he had stayed at home to help himself to
+the Legislature he might have been elected,
+though he was then a comparative stranger in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>
+the county. One of the four representatives
+chosen was Peter Cartwright, the backwoods
+preacher.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln afterward mentioned that this was
+the only time he was ever defeated by a direct
+vote of the people.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Buying and Keeping a Store</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>After making what he considered a bad beginning
+politically, young Lincoln was on the
+lookout for a "business chance." One came to
+him in a peculiar way. A man named Radford
+had opened a store in New Salem. Possessing
+neither the strength nor the sagacity and tact of
+Abe Lincoln, he was driven out of business by
+the Clary's Grove Boys, who broke his store fixtures
+and drank his liquors. In his fright
+Radford was willing to sell out at almost any
+price and take most of his pay in promissory
+notes. He was quickly accommodated. Through
+William G. Greene a transfer was made at once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
+from Reuben Radford to William Berry and
+Abraham Lincoln. Berry had $250 in cash and
+made the first payment. In a few hours after a
+violent visit from those ruffians from Clary's
+Grove Berry and Lincoln had formed a partnership
+and were the nominal owners of a country
+store.</p>
+
+<p>The new firm soon absorbed the stock and
+business of another firm, James and Rowan
+Herndon, who had previously acquired the stock
+and debts of the predecessors in their business,
+and all these obligations were passed on with the
+goods of both the Radford and Herndon stores
+to "Honest Abe."</p>
+
+<p>The senior partner of the firm of Berry &amp;
+Lincoln was devoted to the whisky which was
+found in the inventory of the Radford stock,
+and the junior partner was given over to the
+study of a set of "Blackstone's Commentaries,"
+text-books which all lawyers have to study, that
+came into his possession in a peculiar way, as
+Candidate Lincoln told an artist who was painting
+his portrait in 1860:</p>
+
+<p>"One day a man who was migrating to the
+West drove up in front of my store with a
+wagon which contained his family and household<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
+plunder. He asked me if I would buy an
+old barrel for which he had no room in his
+wagon, and which contained nothing of special
+value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I
+bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar
+for it. Without further examination I put it
+away in the store and forgot all about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Some time after, in overhauling things, I
+came upon the barrel, and emptying it on the
+floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom
+of the rubbish a complete set of 'Blackstone's
+Commentaries.' I began to read those
+famous works. I had plenty of time; for during
+the long summer days, when the farmers were
+busy with their crops, my customers were few
+and far between. The more I read the more intensely
+interested I became. Never in my whole
+life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I
+read until I devoured them."</p>
+
+<p>With one partner drinking whisky and the
+other devouring "Blackstone," it was not surprising
+that the business "winked out," as Lincoln
+whimsically expressed it, leaving the conscientious
+junior partner saddled with the obligations
+of the former owners of two country
+stores, and owing an amount so large that Lincoln<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
+often referred to it as "the national debt."
+William Berry, the senior partner, who was
+equally responsible, "drank himself to death,"
+leaving Lincoln alone to pay all the debts.</p>
+
+<p>According to the custom and conscience of the
+time, the insolvent young merchant was under
+no obligation whatever to pay liabilities contracted
+by the other men, but Lincoln could
+never be induced even to compromise any of the
+accounts the others had gone off and left him to
+settle. "Honest Abe" paid the last cent of his
+"national debt" nearly twenty years later, after
+much toil, self-denial and hardship.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />POSTMASTER LINCOLN AND JACK ARMSTRONG'S
+FAMILY</div>
+
+<p>Again out of employment, Abe was forced to
+accept the hospitality of his friends of whom he
+now had a large number. While in business
+with Berry he received the appointment as postmaster.
+The pay of the New Salem post office
+was not large, but Lincoln, always longing for
+news and knowledge, had the privilege of reading
+the newspapers which passed through his
+hands. He took so much pains in delivering the
+letters and papers that came into his charge as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
+postmaster that he anticipated the "special delivery"
+and "rural free delivery" features of
+the postal service of the present day.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"A. LINCOLN, DEPUTY SURVEYOR"</div>
+
+<p>Later John Calhoun, the county surveyor,
+sent word to Lincoln that he would appoint him
+deputy surveyor of the county if he would accept
+the position. The young man, greatly astonished,
+went to Springfield to call on Calhoun
+and see if the story could be true. Calhoun knew
+that Lincoln was utterly ignorant of surveying,
+but told him he might take time to study up. As
+soon as Lincoln was assured that the
+appointment did not involve any political obligation&mdash;for
+Calhoun was a Jackson Democrat, and
+Lincoln was already a staunch Whig&mdash;he procured
+a copy of Flint and Gibson's "Surveying" and
+went to work with a will. With the aid of
+Mentor Graham, and studying day and night, he
+mastered the subject and reported to Calhoun in
+six weeks. The county surveyor was astounded,
+but when Lincoln gave ample proofs of his ability
+to do field work, the chief surveyor appointed
+him a deputy and assigned him to the northern
+part of Sangamon County.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Deputy Surveyor Lincoln had to run deeper
+in debt for a horse and surveying instruments in
+order to do this new work. Although he made
+three dollars a day at it&mdash;a large salary for that
+time&mdash;and board and expenses were cheap, he
+was unable to make money fast enough to satisfy
+one creditor who was pushing him to pay one of
+the old debts left by the failure of Berry &amp; Lincoln.
+This man sued Lincoln and, getting judgment,
+seized the deputy's horse and instruments.
+This was like "killing the goose that laid the
+golden egg." Lincoln was in despair. But a
+friend, as a surprise, bought in the horse and
+instruments for one hundred and twenty dollars
+and presented them to the struggling surveyor.</p>
+
+<p>President Lincoln, many years afterward,
+generously repaid this man, "Uncle Jimmy"
+Short, for his friendly act in that hour of need.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln's reputation as a story teller and
+wrestler had spread so that when it became
+known that he was to survey a tract in a certain
+district the whole neighborhood turned out and
+held a sort of picnic. Men and boys stood ready
+to "carry chain," drive stakes, blaze trees, or
+work for the popular deputy in any capacity&mdash;just
+to hear his funny stories and odd jokes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
+They had foot races, wrestling matches and other
+athletic sports, in which the surveyor sometimes
+took part.</p>
+
+<p>But Lincoln's honesty was as manifest in
+"running his lines" as in his weights and measures
+while he was a clerk and storekeeper. In
+whatever he attempted he did his best. He had
+that true genius, which is defined as "the ability
+to take pains." With all his jokes and fun Abraham
+Lincoln was deeply in earnest. Careless
+work in making surveys involved the landholders
+of that part of the country in endless disputes
+and going to law about boundaries. But
+Lincoln's surveys were recognized as correct always,
+so that, although he had mastered the science
+in six weeks, lawyers and courts had such
+confidence in his skill, as well as his honesty,
+that his record as to a certain corner or line was
+accepted as the true verdict and that ended the
+dispute.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE</div>
+
+<p>Hampered though he was by unjust debts and
+unreasonable creditors, Postmaster and Surveyor
+Lincoln gained an honorable reputation
+throughout the county, so that when he ran for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>
+the State Legislature, in 1834, he was elected by
+a creditable majority.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Young Legislator in Love</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />SMOOT'S RESPONSIBILITY</div>
+
+<p>Paying his debts had kept Lincoln so poor
+that, though he had been elected to the Legislature,
+he was not properly clothed or equipped
+to make himself presentable as the people's representative
+at the State capital, then located at
+Vandalia. One day he went with a friend to
+call on an older acquaintance, named Smoot,
+who was almost as dry a joker as himself, but
+Smoot had more of this world's goods than the
+young legislator-elect. Lincoln began at once to
+chaff his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Smoot," said he, "did you vote for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did that very thing," answered Smoot.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Lincoln with a wink, "that
+makes you responsible. You must lend me the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
+money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to
+make a decent appearance in the Legislature."</p>
+
+<p>"How much do you want?" asked Smoot.</p>
+
+<p>"About two hundred dollars, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>For friendship's sake and for the honor of
+Sangamon County the young representative received
+the money at once.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ANN RUTLEDGE&mdash;"LOVED AND LOST"</div>
+
+<p>Abe Lincoln's new suit of clothes made him
+look still more handsome in the eyes of Ann, the
+daughter of the proprietor of Rutledge's Tavern,
+where Abe was boarding at that time. She
+was a beautiful girl who had been betrothed to
+a young man named McNamar, who was said to
+have returned to New York State to care for his
+dying father and look after the family estate.
+It began to leak out that this young man was
+going about under an assumed name and certain
+suspicious circumstances came to light. But
+Ann, though she loved the young legislator, still
+clung to her promise and the man who had
+proved false to her. As time went on, though
+she was supposed to be betrothed to Mr. Lincoln,
+the treatment she had received from the recreant
+lover preyed upon her mind so that she fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
+into a decline in the summer of 1835, about a
+year after her true lover's election to the Legislature.</p>
+
+<p>William O. Stoddard, one of the President's
+private secretaries, has best told the story of the
+young lover's despair over the loss of his first
+love:</p>
+
+<p>"It is not known precisely when Ann Rutledge
+told her suitor that her heart was his, but
+early in 1835 it was publicly known that they
+were solemnly betrothed. Even then the scrupulous
+maiden waited for the return of the absent
+McNamar, that she might be formally released
+from the obligation to him which he had so recklessly
+forfeited. Her friends argued with her
+that she was carrying her scruples too far, and
+at last, as neither man nor letter came, she permitted
+it to be understood that she would marry
+Abraham Lincoln as soon as his legal studies
+should be completed.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a glorious summer for him; the
+brightest, sweetest, most hopeful he yet had
+known. It was also the fairest time he was ever
+to see; for even now, as the golden days came
+and went, they brought an increasing shadow on
+their wings. It was a shadow that was not to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>
+pass away. Little by little came indications that
+the health of Ann Rutledge had suffered under
+the prolonged strain to which she had been subjected.
+Her sensitive nature had been strung
+to too high a tension and the chords of her life
+were beginning to give way.</p>
+
+<p>"There were those of her friends who said
+that she died of a broken heart, but the doctors
+called it 'brain fever.'</p>
+
+<p>"On the 25th of August, 1835, just before the
+summer died, she passed away from earth. But
+she never faded from the heart of Abraham Lincoln.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.
+In her early grave was buried the
+best hope he ever knew, and the shadow of that
+great darkness was never entirely lifted from
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"A few days before Ann's death a message
+from her brought her betrothed to her bedside,
+and they were left alone. No one ever knew
+what passed between them in the endless moments
+of that last sad farewell; but Lincoln left
+the house with inexpressible agony written upon
+his face. He had been to that hour a man of
+marvelous poise and self-control, but the pain he
+now struggled with grew deeper and more deep,
+until, when they came and told him she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
+dead, his heart and will, and even his brain itself
+gave way. He was utterly without help or the
+knowledge of possible help in this world or
+beyond it. He was frantic for a time, seeming
+even to lose the sense of his own identity, and all
+New Salem said that he was insane. He piteously
+moaned and raved:</p>
+
+<p>"'I never can be reconciled to have the snow,
+rain, and storms beat upon her grave.'</p>
+
+<p>"His best friends seemed to have lost their
+influence over him, .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. all but one; for
+Bowling Green .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. managed to entice the
+poor fellow to his own home, a short distance
+from the village, there to keep watch and ward
+over him until the fury of his sorrow should
+wear away. There were well-grounded fears
+lest he might do himself some injury, and the
+watch was vigilantly kept.</p>
+
+<p>"In a few weeks reason again obtained the
+mastery, and it was safe to let him return to his
+studies and his work. He could indeed work
+again, and he could once more study law, for
+there was a kind of relief in steady occupation
+and absorbing toil, but he was not, could not ever
+be the same man.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>"Lincoln had been fond of poetry from boyhood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
+and had gradually made himself familiar
+with large parts of Shakespeare's plays and the
+works of other great writers. He now discovered,
+in a strange collection of verses, the one
+poem which seemed best to express the morbid,
+troubled, sore condition of his mind, .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. the
+lines by William Knox, beginning:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">He passeth from life to his rest in the grave:'"</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />"THE LONG NINE" AND THE REMOVAL TO
+SPRINGFIELD</div>
+
+<p>Two years was the term for which Lincoln was
+elected to the Legislature. The year following
+the death of Ann Rutledge he threw himself into
+a vigorous campaign for re-election. He had
+found much to do at Vandalia. The greatest
+thing was the proposed removal of the State
+capital to Springfield. In this enterprise he had
+the co-operation of a group of tall men, known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
+as "the Long Nine," of whom he was the tallest
+and came to be the leader.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln announced his second candidacy in
+this brief, informal letter in the county paper:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">New Salem</span>, June 13, 1836.<br /></div>
+
+<span class="smcap">"To the Editor or the Journal:</span><br />
+
+
+<p>"In your paper of last Saturday I
+see a communication over the signature
+of 'Many Voters' in which the candidates
+who are announced in the <i>Journal</i>
+are called upon to 'show their hands.'</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed. Here's mine:</p>
+
+<p>"I go in for all sharing the privileges
+of the government who assist in
+bearing its burdens. Consequently, I
+go for admitting all whites to the right
+of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms
+(by no means excluding females).</p>
+
+<p>"If elected, I shall consider the
+whole people of Sangamon my constituents,
+as well those that oppose as
+those that support me.</p>
+
+<p>"While acting as their Representative,
+I shall be governed by their will
+on all subjects upon which I have the
+means of knowing what their will is;
+and upon all others I shall do what my
+own judgment teaches me will best advance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
+their interests. Whether elected
+or not, I go for distributing the proceeds
+of public lands to the several
+States to enable our State, in common
+with others, to dig canals and construct
+railroads without borrowing and paying
+interest on it.</p>
+
+<p>"If alive on the first Monday in November,
+I shall vote for Hugh L.
+White for President.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">"Very respectfully,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln.</span>"<br /></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The earliest railroads in the United States
+had been built during the five years just preceding
+this announcement, the first one of all, only
+thirteen miles long, near Baltimore, in 1831. It
+is interesting to observe the enthusiasm with
+which the young frontier politician caught the
+progressive idea, and how quickly the minds of
+the people turned from impossible river "improvements"
+to the grand possibilities of railway
+transportation.</p>
+
+<p>Many are the stories of the remarkable Sangamon
+campaign in 1836. Rowan Herndon,
+Abe's fellow pilot and storekeeper, told the following:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />WINNING VOTES, WIELDING THE "CRADLE" IN A
+WHEAT FIELD</div>
+
+<p>"Abraham came to my house, near Island
+Grove, during harvest. There were some thirty
+men in the field. He got his dinner and went out
+into the field, where the men were at work. I
+gave him an introduction, and the boys said that
+they could not vote for a man unless he could
+take a hand.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, boys,' said he, 'if that is all, I am sure
+of your votes' He took the 'cradle' and led all
+the way round with perfect ease. The boys were
+satisfied, and I don't think he lost a vote in the
+crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"The next day there was speaking at Berlin.
+He went from my house with Dr. Barnett, who
+had asked me who this man Lincoln was. I told
+him that he was a candidate for the Legislature.
+He laughed and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Can't the party raise any better material
+than that?'</p>
+
+<p>"I said, 'Go to-morrow and hear him before
+you pronounce judgment.'</p>
+
+<p>"When he came back I said, 'Doctor, what do
+you say now?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Why, sir,' said he, 'he is a perfect "take-in."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
+He knows more than all of them put together.'"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />TALKED TO A WOMAN WHILE HIS RIVAL MILKED</div>
+
+<p>Young Lincoln happened to call to speak to a
+leading farmer in the district, and found his
+rival, a Democratic candidate, there on the same
+errand. The farmer was away from home, so
+each of the candidates did his best to gain the
+good-will of the farmer's "better half," who was
+on her way to milk the cow. The Democrat
+seized the pail and insisted on doing the work
+for her. Lincoln did not make the slightest objection,
+but improved the opportunity thus given
+to chat with their hostess. This he did so successfully
+that when his rival had finished the
+unpleasant task, the only acknowledgment he
+received was a profusion of thanks from the
+woman for the opportunity he had given her of
+having "<i>such a pleasant talk with Mr. Lincoln!</i>"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW THE LIGHTNING STRUCK FORQUER, IN SPITE OF
+HIS LIGHTNING-ROD</div>
+
+<p>Abe <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'disinguished'">distinguished</ins> himself in his first political
+speech at Springfield, the county seat. A leading
+citizen there, George Forquer, was accused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>
+of changing his political opinions to secure a certain
+government position; he also had his fine
+residence protected by the first lightning-rod
+ever seen in that part of the country.</p>
+
+<p>The contest was close and exciting. There
+were seven Democratic and seven Whig candidates
+for the lower branch of the Legislature.
+Forquer, though not a candidate, asked to be
+heard in reply to young Lincoln, whom he proceeded
+to attack in a sneering overbearing way,
+ridiculing the young man's appearance, dress,
+manners and so on. Turning to Lincoln who
+then stood within a few feet of him, Forquer announced
+his intention in these words: "This
+young man must be taken down, and I am truly
+sorry that the task devolves upon me."</p>
+
+<p>The "Clary's Grove Boys," who attended the
+meeting in a body&mdash;or a gang!&mdash;could hardly be
+restrained from arising in their might and smiting
+the pompous Forquer, hip and thigh.</p>
+
+<p>But their hero, with pale face and flashing
+eyes, smiled as he shook his head at them, and
+calmly answered the insulting speech of his opponent.
+Among other things he said:</p>
+
+<p>"The gentleman commenced his speech by saying
+'this young man,' alluding to me, 'must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
+taken down.' I am not so young in years as I
+am in the tricks and trades of a politician, but"&mdash;pointing
+at Forquer&mdash;"live long or die young,
+I would rather die now than, like the gentleman,
+change my politics, and with the change receive
+an office worth three thousand dollars a year,
+and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod
+over my house to protect a guilty conscience
+from an offended God!"</p>
+
+<p>This stroke blasted Forquer's political prospects
+forever, and satisfied the Clary's Grove
+Boys that it was even better than all the things
+they would have done to him.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ABE LINCOLN AS A "BLOATED ARISTOCRAT"</div>
+
+<p>On another occasion Lincoln's wit suddenly
+turned the tables on an abusive opponent. One
+of the Democratic orators was Colonel Dick
+Taylor, a dapper, but bombastic little man, who
+rode in his carriage, and dressed richly. But,
+politically, he boasted of belonging to the Democrats,
+"the bone and sinew, the hard-fisted yeomanry
+of the land," and sneered at those "rag
+barons," those Whig aristocrats, the "silk stocking
+gentry!" As Abe Lincoln, the leading Whig
+present, was dressed in Kentucky jeans, coarse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
+boots, a checkered shirt without a collar or necktie,
+and an old slouch hat, Colonel Taylor's attack
+on the "bloated Whig aristocracy" sounded
+rather absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Once the colonel made a gesture so violent that
+it tore his vest open and exposed his elegant shirt
+ruffles, his gold watch-fob, his seals and other
+ornaments to the view of all. Before Taylor, in
+his embarrassment, could adjust his waistcoat,
+Lincoln stepped to the front exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"Behold the hard-fisted Democrat! Look at
+this specimen of 'bone and sinew'&mdash;and here,
+gentlemen," laying his big work-bronzed hand
+on his heart and bowing obsequiously&mdash;"here, at
+your service, is your 'aristocrat!' Here is one
+of your 'silk stocking gentry!'" Then spreading
+out his great bony hands he continued, "Here is
+your 'rag baron' with his lily-white hands. Yes,
+I suppose I am, according to my friend Taylor,
+a 'bloated aristocrat!'"</p>
+
+<p>The contrast was so ludicrous, and Abe had
+quoted the speaker's stock phrases with such a
+marvelous mimicry that the crowd burst into a
+roar, and Colonel Dick Taylor's usefulness as a
+campaign speaker was at an end.</p>
+
+<p>Small wonder, then, that young Lincoln's wit,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>
+wisdom and power of ridicule made him known
+in that campaign as one of the greatest orators
+in the State, or that he was elected by such an
+astonishing plurality that the county, which had
+always been strongly Democratic, elected Whig
+representatives that year.</p>
+
+<p>After Herculean labors "the Long Nine" succeeded
+in having the State capital removed from
+Vandalia to Springfield. This move added
+greatly to the influence and renown of its "prime
+mover," Abraham Lincoln, who was feasted and
+"toasted" by the people of Springfield and by
+politicians all over the State. After reading
+"Blackstone" during his political campaigns,
+young Lincoln fell in again with Major John T.
+Stuart, whom he had met in the Black Hawk
+War, and who gave him helpful advice and lent
+him other books that he might "read law."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST</div>
+
+<p>Although he had no idea of it at the time,
+Abraham Lincoln took part in a grander movement
+than the removal of a State capital. Resolutions
+were adopted in the Legislature in favor
+of slavery and denouncing the hated "abolitionists"&mdash;or
+people who spoke and wrote for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>
+abolition of slavery. It required true heroism
+for a young man thus to stand out against the
+legislators of his State, but Abe Lincoln seems
+to have thought little of that. The hatred of the
+people for any one who opposed slavery was very
+bitter. Lincoln found one man, named Stone,
+who was willing to sign a protest against the
+resolutions favoring slavery, which read as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic
+slavery having passed both
+branches of the General Assembly at
+its present session, the undersigned
+hereby protest against the passage of
+the same.</p>
+
+<p>"They believe that the institution of
+slavery is founded on both injustice
+and bad policy. [After several statements
+of their belief concerning the
+powers of Congress, the protest closed
+as follows:]</p>
+
+<p>"The difference between their opinions
+and those contained in the said
+resolution is their reason for entering
+this protest.</p>
+
+
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">Dan Stone,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln."</span><br />
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Moving to Springfield</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>New Salem could no longer give young Lincoln
+scope for his growing power and influence.
+Within a few weeks after the Lincoln-Stone protest,
+late in March, 1837, after living six years in
+the little village which held so much of life and
+sorrow for him, Abe sold his surveying compass,
+marking-pins, chain and pole, packed all his effects
+into his saddle-bags, borrowed a horse of
+his good friend "Squire" Bowling Green, and
+reluctantly said good-bye to his friends there. It
+is a strange fact that New Salem ceased to exist
+within a year from the day "Honest Abe" left
+it. Even its little post office was discontinued by
+the Government.</p>
+
+<p>Henry C. Whitney, who was associated with
+Lincoln in those early days, describes Abe's modest
+entry into the future State capital, with all
+his possessions in a pair of saddle-bags, and calling
+at the store of Joshua F. Speed, overlooking
+"the square," in the following dialogue:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Speed&mdash;"Hello, Abe, just from Salem?"</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln&mdash;"Howdy, Speed! Yes, this is my
+first show-up."</p>
+
+<p>Speed&mdash;"So you are to be one of us?"</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln&mdash;"I reckon so, if you will let me take
+pot luck with you."</p>
+
+<p>Speed&mdash;"All right, Abe; it's better than
+Salem."</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln&mdash;"I've been to Gorman's and got a
+single bedstead; now you figure out what it will
+cost for a tick, blankets and so forth."</p>
+
+<p>Speed (after figuring)&mdash;"Say, seventeen dollars
+or so."</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln (countenance paling)&mdash;"I had no <i>idea</i>
+it would cost half that, and I&mdash;I can't pay it; but
+if you can wait on me till Christmas, and I make
+anything, I'll pay; if I don't, I can't."</p>
+
+<p>Speed&mdash;"I can do better than that; upstairs I
+sleep in a bed big enough for two, and you just
+come and sleep with me till you can do better."</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln (brightening)&mdash;"Good, where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>Speed&mdash;"Upstairs behind that pile of barrels&mdash;turn
+to the right when you go up."</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln (returning joyously)&mdash;"Well, Speed,
+I've moved!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />STUART &amp; LINCOLN</div>
+
+<p>Major Stuart had grown so thoroughly interested
+in Lincoln, approving the diligence with
+which the young law student applied himself to
+the books which he had lent him, that, after his
+signal success in bringing about the removal of
+the State capital to Springfield, the older man
+invited the younger to go into partnership with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Abe had been admitted to the bar the year before,
+and had practiced law in a small way before
+Squire Bowling Green in New Salem.
+Greatly flattered by the offer of such a man, Abe
+gladly accepted, and soon after his arrival in
+Springfield this sign, which thrilled the junior
+partner's whole being, appeared in front of an
+office near the square:</p>
+
+<div class='bbox2'>
+<div class='center'>STUART &amp; LINCOLN<br />
+<span class="smcap">Attorneys-at-Law</span><br /></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />"I NEVER USE ANYONE'S MONEY BUT MY OWN"</div>
+
+<p>After a while Lincoln left Speed's friendly
+loft and slept on a lounge in the law office, keeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
+his few effects in the little old-fashioned
+trunk pushed out of sight under his couch.</p>
+
+<p>One day an agent of the Post Office Department
+came in and asked if Abraham Lincoln
+could be found there. Abe arose and, reaching
+out his hand, said that was his name. The agent
+then stated his business; he had come to collect
+a balance due the Post Office Department since
+the closing of the post office at New Salem.</p>
+
+<p>The young ex-postmaster looked puzzled for
+a moment, and a friend, who happened to be
+present, hastened to his rescue with, "Lincoln,
+if you are in need of money, let us help you."</p>
+
+<p>Abe made no reply, but, pulling out his little
+old trunk, he asked the agent how much he owed.
+The man stated the amount, and he, opening the
+trunk, took out an old cotton cloth containing
+coins, which he handed to the official without
+counting, and it proved to be the exact sum required,
+over seventeen dollars, evidently the
+very pieces of money Abe had received while
+acting as postmaster years before!</p>
+
+<p>After the department agent had receipted for
+the money and had gone out, Mr. Lincoln quietly
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"I never use anyone's money but my own."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />DROPS THROUGH THE CEILING TO DEMAND FREE
+SPEECH</div>
+
+<p>Stuart &amp; Lincoln's office was, for a time, over
+a court room, which was used evenings as a hall.
+There was a square opening in the ceiling of the
+court room, covered by a trap door in the room
+overhead where Lincoln slept. One night there
+was a promiscuous crowd in the hall, and
+Lincoln's friend, E. D. Baker, was delivering
+a political harangue. Becoming somewhat
+excited Baker made an accusation against
+a well-known newspaper in Springfield, and
+the remark was resented by several in the audience.</p>
+
+<p>"Pull him down!" yelled one of them as they
+came up to the platform threatening Baker with
+personal violence. There was considerable confusion
+which might become a riot.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this juncture the spectators were
+astonished to see a pair of long legs dangling
+from the ceiling and Abraham Lincoln dropped
+upon the platform. Seizing the water pitcher
+he took his stand beside the speaker, and
+brandished it, his face ablaze with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, when the confusion
+had subsided, "let us not disgrace the age and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
+the country in which we live. This is a land
+where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr.
+Baker has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted
+to do so. I am here to protect him and no
+man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent
+it." Lincoln had opened the trap door in
+his room and silently watched the proceedings
+until he saw that his presence was needed below.
+Then he dropped right into the midst of the fray,
+and defended his friend and the right of free
+speech at the same time.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />DEFENDING THE DEFENSELESS</div>
+
+<p>A widow came to Mr. Lincoln and told him
+how an attorney had charged her an exorbitant
+fee for collecting her pension. Such cases filled
+him with righteous wrath. He cared nothing for
+"professional etiquette," if it permitted the
+swindling of a poor woman. Going directly to
+the greedy lawyer, he forced him to refund to
+the widow all that he had charged in excess of a
+fair fee for his services, or he would start proceedings
+at once to prevent the extortionate attorney
+from practicing law any longer at the
+Springfield bar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If a negro had been wronged in any way, Lawyer
+Lincoln was the only attorney in Springfield
+who dared to appear in his behalf, for he
+always did so at great risk to his political standing.
+Sometimes he appeared in defense of fugitive
+slaves, or negroes who had been freed or had
+run away from southern or "slave" States
+where slavery prevailed to gain liberty in "free"
+States in which slavery was not allowed. Lawyer
+Lincoln did all this at the risk of making
+himself very unpopular with his fellow-attorneys
+and among the people at large, the greater
+part of whom were then in favor of permitting
+those who wished to own, buy and sell negroes as
+slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln always sympathized with the poor
+and down-trodden. He could not bear to charge
+what his fellow-lawyers considered a fair price
+for the amount of work and time spent on a
+case. He often advised those who came to him
+to settle their disputes without going to law.
+Once he told a man he would charge him a large
+fee if he had to try the case, but if the parties in
+the dispute settled their difficulty without going
+into court he would furnish them all the legal
+advice they needed free of charge. Here is some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>
+excellent counsel Lawyer Lincoln gave, in later
+life, in an address to a class of young attorneys:</p>
+
+<p>"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors
+to compromise whenever you can. Point
+out to them how the nominal winner is often the
+real loser&mdash;in fees, expenses and waste of time.
+As a peacemaker a lawyer has a superior opportunity
+of becoming a good man. There will always
+be enough business. Never stir up litigation.
+A worse man can scarcely be found than
+one who does this. Who can be more nearly a
+fiend than he who habitually overhauls the
+register of deeds in search of defects in titles
+whereon to stir up strife and put money in his
+pocket. A moral tone ought to be infused into
+the profession which should drive such men out
+of it."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />YOUNG LAWYER LINCOLN OFFERS TO PAY HALF THE
+DAMAGES</div>
+
+<p>A wagonmaker in Mechanicsville, near
+Springfield, was sued on account of a disputed
+bill. The other side had engaged the best lawyer
+in the place. The cartwright saw that his own
+attorney would be unable to defend the case well.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
+So, when the day of the trial arrived he sent his
+son-in-law to Springfield to bring Mr. Lincoln
+to save the day for him if possible. He said to
+the messenger:</p>
+
+<p>"Son, you've just got time. Take this letter
+to my young friend, Abe Lincoln, and bring him
+back in the buggy to appear in the case. Guess
+he'll come if he can."</p>
+
+<p>The young man from Mechanicsville found the
+lawyer in the street playing "knucks" with a
+troop of children and laughing heartily at the
+fun they were all having. When the note was
+handed to him, Lincoln said:</p>
+
+<p>"All right, wait a minute," and the game soon
+ended amid peals of laughter. Then the young
+lawyer jumped into the buggy. On the way
+back Mr. Lincoln told his companion such funny
+stories that the young man, convulsed with
+laughter, was unable to drive. The horse, badly
+broken, upset them into a ditch, smashing the
+vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>"You stay behind and look after the buggy,"
+said the lawyer. "I'll walk on."</p>
+
+<p>He came, with long strides, into the court
+room just in time for the trial and won the case
+for the wagonmaker.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What am I to pay you?" asked the client delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you won't think ten or fifteen dollars
+too much," said the young attorney, "and I'll
+pay half the hire of the buggy and half the cost
+of repairing it."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />LAWYER LINCOLN AND MARY OWENS</div>
+
+<p>About the time Mr. Lincoln was admitted to
+the bar, Miss Mary Owens, a bright and beautiful
+young woman from Kentucky, came to visit
+her married sister near New Salem. The sister
+had boasted that she was going to "make a
+match" between her sister and Lawyer Lincoln.
+The newly admitted attorney smiled indulgently
+at all this banter until he began to consider himself
+under obligations to marry Miss Owens if
+that young lady proved willing.</p>
+
+<p>After he went to live in Springfield, with no
+home but his office, he wrote the young lady a
+long, discouraging letter, of which this is a part:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I am thinking of what we said about
+your coming to live in Springfield. I
+am afraid you would not be satisfied.
+There is a great deal of flourishing
+about in carriages here, which it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
+be your doom to see without sharing it.
+You would have to be poor without the
+means of hiding your poverty. Do you
+believe that you could bear that patiently?
+Whatever woman may cast
+her lot with mine, should any ever do
+so, it is my intention to do all in my
+power to make her happy and contented,
+and there is nothing I can
+imagine that could make me more unhappy
+than to fail in that effort. I
+know I should be much happier with
+you than the way I am, provided I saw
+no sign of discontent in you.</p>
+
+<p>"I much wish you would think seriously
+before you decide. What I have
+said, I will most positively abide by,
+provided you wish it. You have not
+been accustomed to hardship, and it
+may be more severe than you now
+imagine. I know you are capable of
+thinking correctly on any subject, and
+if you deliberate maturely upon this
+before you decide, then I am willing to
+abide by your decision.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">"Yours, etc.,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">Lincoln</span>."<br />
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>For a love letter this was nearly as cold and
+formal as a legal document. Miss Owens could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>
+see well enough that Lawyer Lincoln was not
+much in love with her, and she let him know, as
+kindly as she could, that she was not disposed to
+cast her lot for life with an enforced lover, as he
+had proved himself to be. She afterward confided
+to a friend that "Mr. Lincoln was deficient
+in those little links which make up the chain of
+a woman's happiness."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE EARLY RIVALRY BETWEEN LINCOLN AND
+DOUGLAS</div>
+
+<p>Soon after Mr. Lincoln came to Springfield he
+met Stephen A. Douglas, a brilliant little man
+from Vermont. The two seemed naturally to
+take opposing sides of every question. They
+were opposite in every way. Lincoln was tall,
+angular and awkward. Douglas was small,
+round and graceful&mdash;he came to be known as
+"the Little Giant." Douglas was a Democrat
+and favored slavery. Lincoln was a Whig, and
+strongly opposed that dark institution. Even in
+petty discussions in Speed's store, the two men
+seemed to gravitate to opposite sides. A little
+later they were rivals for the hand of the same
+young woman.</p>
+
+<p>One night, in a convivial company, Mr. Douglas's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
+attention was directed to the fact that Mr.
+Lincoln neither smoked nor drank. Considering
+this a reflection upon his own habits, the little
+man sneered:</p>
+
+<p>"What, Mr. Lincoln, are you a temperance
+man?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Lincoln with a smile full of
+meaning, "I'm not exactly a temperance man,
+but I am temperate in this, to wit:&mdash;I <i>don't
+drink!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of this remark, Mr. Lincoln <i>was</i> an
+ardent temperance man. One Washington's
+birthday he delivered a temperance address <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'befor'">before</ins>
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'the the'">the</ins> Washingtonian Society of Springfield,
+on "Charity in Temperance Reform," in
+which he made a strong comparison between the
+drink habit and black slavery.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />LOGAN &amp; LINCOLN</div>
+
+<p>In 1841 the partnership between Stuart and
+Lincoln was dissolved and the younger man became
+a member of the firm of Logan &amp; Lincoln.
+This was considered a long step in advance for
+the young lawyer, as Judge Stephen T. Logan
+was known as one of the leading lawyers in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
+State. From this senior partner he learned to
+make the thorough study of his cases that
+characterized his work throughout his later
+career.</p>
+
+<p>While in partnership with Logan, Mr. Lincoln
+was helping a young fellow named "Billy"
+Herndon, a clerk in his friend Speed's store, advising
+him in his law studies and promising to
+give the youth a place in his own office as soon as
+young Herndon should be fitted to fill it.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />WHAT LINCOLN DID WITH HIS FIRST FIVE HUNDRED
+DOLLAR FEE</div>
+
+<p>During the interim between two partnerships,
+after he had left Major Stuart, and before he
+went into the office with Logan, Mr. Lincoln conducted
+a case alone. He worked very hard and
+made a brilliant success of it, winning the verdict
+and a five hundred dollar fee. When an old lawyer
+friend called on him, Lincoln had the money
+spread out on the table counting it over.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, judge," said the young lawyer.
+"See what a heap of money I've got from that
+case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why,
+I never in my life had so much money all at
+once!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then his manner changed, and crossing his
+long arms on the table he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have got just five hundred dollars; if it
+were only seven hundred and fifty I would go
+and buy a quarter section (160 acres) of land
+and give it to my old stepmother."</p>
+
+<p>The friend offered to lend him the two hundred
+and fifty dollars needed. While drawing up
+the necessary papers, the old judge gave the
+young lawyer this advice:</p>
+
+<p>"Lincoln, I wouldn't do it quite that way.
+Your stepmother is getting old, and, in all probability,
+will not live many years. I would settle
+the property upon her for use during her lifetime,
+to revert to you upon her death."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do no such thing," Lincoln replied
+with deep feeling. "It is a poor return, at best,
+for all the good woman's devotion to me, and
+there is not going to be any half-way business
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>The dutiful stepson did as he planned. Some
+years later he was obliged to write to John
+Johnston, his stepmother's son, appealing to
+him not to try to induce his mother to sell the
+land lest the old woman should lose the support
+he had provided for her in her declining years.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />IN LOVE WITH A BELLE FROM LEXINGTON</div>
+
+<p>Lincoln's popularity in Sangamon County, always
+increasing, was greatly strengthened by
+the part he had taken in the removal of the capital
+to Springfield, which was the county seat as
+well as the State capital. So he was returned to
+the Legislature, now held in Springfield, time
+after time, without further effort on his part.
+He was looked upon as a young man with a great
+future. While he was in the office with Major
+Stuart that gentleman's cousin, Miss Mary
+Todd, a witty, accomplished young lady from
+Lexington, Kentucky, came to Springfield to
+visit her sister, wife of Ninian W. Edwards, one
+of the "Long Nine" in the State Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Todd was brilliant and gay, a society girl&mdash;in
+every way the opposite of Mr. Lincoln&mdash;and
+he was charmed with everything she said
+and did. Judge Douglas was one of her numerous
+admirers, and it is said that the Louisville
+belle was so flattered by his attentions that she
+was in doubt, for a time, which suitor to accept.
+She was an ambitious young woman, having
+boasted from girlhood that she would one day be
+mistress of the White House.</p>
+
+<p>To all appearances Douglas was the more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>
+likely to fulfill Miss Todd's high ambition. He
+was a society man, witty in conversation, popular
+with women as well as with men, and had
+been to Congress, so he had a national reputation,
+while Lincoln's was only local, or at most
+confined to Sangamon County and the Eighth
+Judicial Circuit of Illinois.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Douglas was already addicted to
+drink, and Miss Todd saw doubtless that he
+could not go on long at the rapid pace he was
+keeping up. It is often said that she was in
+favor of slavery, as some of her relatives who
+owned slaves, years later, entered the Confederate
+ranks to fight against the Union. But the
+remarkable fact that she finally chose Lincoln
+shows that her sympathies were against slavery,
+and she thus cut herself off from several members
+of her own family. With a woman's intuition
+she saw the true worth of Abraham Lincoln,
+and before long they were understood to be engaged.</p>
+
+<p>But the young lawyer, after his recent experience
+with Mary Owens, distrusted his ability to
+make any woman happy&mdash;much less the belle
+from Louisville, so brilliant, vivacious, well educated
+and exacting. He seemed to grow morbidly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
+conscious of his shortcomings, and she was
+high-strung. A misunderstanding arose, and,
+between such exceptional natures, "the course of
+true love never did run smooth."</p>
+
+<p>Their engagement, if they were actually betrothed,
+was broken, and the lawyer-lover was
+plunged in deep melancholy. He wrote long,
+morbid letters to his friend Speed, who had returned
+to Kentucky, and had recently married
+there. Lincoln even went to Louisville to visit
+the Speeds, hoping that the change of scene and
+friendly sympathies and counsel would revive
+his health and spirits.</p>
+
+<p>In one of his letters Lincoln bemoaned his sad
+fate and referred to "the fatal 1st of January,"
+probably the date when his engagement or "the
+understanding" with Mary Todd was broken.
+From this expression, one of Lincoln's biographers
+elaborated a damaging fiction, stating that
+Lincoln and his affianced were to have been married
+that day, that the wedding supper was
+ready, that the bride was all dressed for the ceremony,
+the guests assembled&mdash;but the melancholy
+bridegroom failed to come to his own wedding!</p>
+
+<p>If such a thing had happened in a little town<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
+like Springfield in those days, the guests would
+have told of it, and everybody would have gossiped
+about it. It would have been a nine days'
+wonder, and such a great joker as Lincoln would
+"never have heard the last of it."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE STRANGE EVENTS LEADING UP TO LINCOLN'S
+MARRIAGE</div>
+
+<p>After Lincoln's return from visiting the
+Speeds in Louisville, he threw himself into politics
+again, not, however, in his own behalf. He
+declined to be a candidate again for the State
+Legislature, in which he had served four consecutive
+terms, covering a period of eight years.
+He engaged enthusiastically in the "Log Cabin"
+campaign of 1840, when the country went for
+"Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," which means that
+General William Henry Harrison, the hero of
+the battle of Tippecanoe, and John Tyler were
+elected President and Vice-President of the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>In 1842 the young lawyer had so far recovered
+from bodily illness and mental unhappiness as
+to write more cheerful letters to his friend
+Speed of which two short extracts follow:</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that I should have been entirely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>
+happy but for the never-absent idea that
+there is one (Miss Todd) still unhappy whom I
+have contributed to make so. That still kills my
+soul. I cannot but reproach myself for even
+wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She
+accompanied a large party on the railroad cars
+to Jacksonville last Monday, and at her return
+spoke, so I heard of it, of having 'enjoyed the
+trip exceedingly.' God be praised for that."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"You will see by the last <i>Sangamon Journal</i>
+that I made a temperance speech on the 22d of
+February, which I claim that Fanny and you
+shall read as an act of charity toward me; for I
+cannot learn that anybody has read it or is likely
+to. Fortunately it is not long, and I shall deem
+it a sufficient compliance with my request if one
+of you listens while the other reads it."</p>
+
+<p>Early the following summer Lincoln wrote for
+the <i>Sangamon Journal</i> a humorous criticism of
+State Auditor Shields, a vain and "touchy"
+little man. This was in the form of a story and
+signed by "Rebecca of the Lost Townships."
+The article created considerable amusement and
+might have passed unnoticed by the conceited
+little auditor if it had not been followed by another,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
+less humorous, but more personal and
+satirical, signed in the same way, but the second
+communication was written by two mischievous
+(if not malicious) girls&mdash;Mary Todd and her
+friend, Julia Jayne. This stinging attack made
+Shields wild with rage, and he demanded the
+name of the writer of it. Lincoln told the editor
+to give Shields <i>his</i> name as if he had written both
+contributions and thus protect the two young
+ladies. The auditor then challenged the lawyer
+to fight a duel. Lincoln, averse to dueling, chose
+absurd weapons, imposed ridiculous conditions
+and tried to treat the whole affair as a huge joke.
+When the two came face to face, explanations
+became possible and the ludicrous duel was
+avoided. Lincoln's conduct throughout this humiliating
+affair plainly showed that, while
+Shields would gladly have killed <i>him</i>, he had no
+intention of injuring the man who had challenged
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Todd's heart seems to have softened
+toward the young man who was willing to risk
+his life for her sake, and the pair, after a long
+and miserable misunderstanding on both sides,
+were happily married on the 4th of November,
+1842. Their wedding ceremony was the first ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
+performed in Springfield by the use of the Episcopal
+ritual.</p>
+
+<p>When one of the guests, bluff old Judge Tom
+Brown, saw the bridegroom placing the ring on
+Miss Todd's finger, and repeating after the minister,
+"With this ring"&mdash;"I thee wed"&mdash;"and
+with all"&mdash;"my worldly goods"&mdash;"I thee endow"&mdash;he
+exclaimed, in a stage whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"Grace to Goshen, Lincoln, the statute fixes
+all that!"</p>
+
+<p>In a letter to Speed, not long after this event,
+the happy bridegroom wrote:</p>
+
+<p>"We are not keeping house but boarding at
+the Globe Tavern, which is very well kept now
+by a widow lady of the name of Beck. Our rooms
+are the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, and
+boarding only costs four dollars a week (for the
+two). I most heartily wish you and your family
+will not fail to come. Just let us know the time,
+a week in advance, and we will have a room prepared
+for you and we'll all be merry together for
+a while."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Lincoln &amp; Herndon</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR
+LINCOLN</div>
+
+<p>Lincoln remained in the office with Judge
+Logan about four years, dissolving partnership
+in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself
+in behalf of young William H. Herndon, who,
+after Speed's removal to Kentucky, had gone to
+college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man
+seemed to be made of the right kind of metal, was
+industrious, and agreeable, and Mr. Lincoln
+looked forward to the time when he could have
+"Billy" with him in a business of his own.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct
+which women often possess, opposed her husband's
+taking Bill Herndon into partnership.
+While the young man was honest and capable
+enough, he was neither brilliant nor steady. He
+contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's
+business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not
+yet paid off "the national debt" largely due to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems
+rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's
+admonitions. But young Herndon seems always
+to have exercised a strange fascination over his
+older friend and partner.</p>
+
+<p>While yet in partnership with Judge Logan,
+Mr. Lincoln went into the national campaign of
+1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana
+for Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted.</p>
+
+<p>Before this campaign Lincoln had written to
+Mr. Speed:</p>
+
+<p>"We had a meeting of the Whigs of the
+county here last Monday to appoint delegates to
+a district convention; and Baker beat me, and
+got the delegation instructed to go for him. The
+meeting, in spite of my attempts to decline it,
+appointed me one of the delegates, so that in getting
+Baker the nomination I shall be fixed like a
+fellow who is made a groomsman to a fellow
+that has cut him out, and is marrying his own
+dear 'gal.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the
+nomination for Governor of Illinois, and declined
+the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme
+confidence in her husband's ability, tried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
+to make him more self-seeking in his political efforts.
+He visited his old home in Indiana, making
+several speeches in that part of the State. It
+was fourteen years after he and all the family
+had removed to Illinois. One of his speeches was
+delivered from the door of a harness shop near
+Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter
+Schoolhouse." After this address he drove
+home with Mr. Josiah Crawford&mdash;"Old Blue
+Nose" for whom he had "pulled fodder" to pay
+an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of Washington,"
+and in whose house his sister and he
+had lived as hired girl and hired man. He delighted
+the old friends by asking about everybody,
+and being interested in the "old swimming-hole,"
+Jones's grocery where he had often
+argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old
+mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr.
+Baldwin, had told him some of his best stories,
+and where he once started in to learn the blacksmith's
+trade. He went around and called on all
+his former acquaintances who were still living in
+the neighborhood. His memories were so vivid
+and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long
+poem about this, from which the following are
+three stanzas:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"My childhood's home I see again<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">And sadden with the view;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">And still, as memory crowds the brain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">There's pleasure in it, too.</span><br />
+<br />
+"Ah, Memory! thou midway world<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">'Twixt earth and paradise,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Where things decayed and loved ones lost</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">In dreamy shadows rise.</span><br />
+<br />
+"And freed from all that's earthy, vile,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Seems hallowed, pure and bright,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Like scenes in some enchanted isle,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">All bathed in liquid light."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT</div>
+
+<p>As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time
+away from Springfield he felt that he needed a
+younger assistant to "keep office" and look after
+his cases in the different courts. He should not
+have made "Billy" Herndon an equal partner,
+but he did so, though the young man had neither
+the ability nor experience to earn anything like
+half the income of the office. If Herndon had
+kept sober and done his best he might have made
+some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who
+treated him like a foster-father, was trying to
+do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
+sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's
+absences by going on sprees with several dissipated
+young men about town.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE</div>
+
+<p>A Springfield gentleman relates the following
+story which shows Lawyer Lincoln's business
+methods, his unwillingness to charge much for
+his legal services; and his great longing to save
+his young partner from the clutches of drink:</p>
+
+<p>"My father," said the neighbor, "was in business,
+facing the square, not far from the Court
+House. He had an account with a man who
+seemed to be doing a good, straight business for
+years, but the fellow disappeared one night,
+owing father about $1000. Time went on and
+father got no trace of the vanished debtor. He
+considered the account as good as lost.</p>
+
+<p>"But one day, in connection with other business,
+he told Mr. Lincoln he would give him half
+of what he could recover of that bad debt. The
+tall attorney's deep gray eyes twinkled as he
+said, 'One-half of nought is nothing. I'm
+neither a shark nor a shyster, Mr. Man. If I
+should collect it, I would accept only my regular
+percentage.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'But I mean it,' father said earnestly. 'I
+should consider it as good as finding money in
+the street.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And "the finder will be liberally rewarded,"
+eh?' said Mr. Lincoln with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes,' my father replied, 'that's about the
+size of it; and I'm glad if you understand it.
+The members of the bar here grumble because
+you charge too little for your professional services,
+and I'm willing to do my share toward educating
+you in the right direction.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, seein' as it's you,' said Mr. Lincoln
+with a whimsical smile, 'considering that you're
+such an intimate friend, I'd do it for <i>twice</i> as
+much as I'd charge a <i>total stranger!</i> Is that
+satisfactory?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I should not be satisfied with giving you
+less than half the gross amount collected&mdash;in
+this case,' my father insisted. 'I don't see why
+you are so loath to take what is your due, Mr.
+Lincoln. You have a family to support and will
+have to provide for the future of several boys.
+They need money and are as worthy of it as any
+other man's wife and sons.'</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lincoln put out his big bony hand as if
+to ward off a blow, exclaiming in a pained tone:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'That isn't it, Mr. Man. That isn't it. I
+yield to no man in love to my wife and babies,
+and I provide enough for them. Most of those
+who bring their cases to me need the money more
+than I do. Other lawyers rob them. They act
+like a pack of wolves. They have no mercy. So
+when a needy fellow comes to me in his trouble&mdash;sometimes
+it's a poor widow&mdash;I can't take
+much from them. I'm not much of a Shylock.
+I always try to get them to settle it without going
+into court. I tell them if they will make it
+up among themselves I won't charge them anything.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said father with a
+laugh, 'if they were all like you there would be
+no need of lawyers.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' exclaimed Lawyer Lincoln with a
+quizzical inflection which meant much. 'Look
+out for the millennium, Mr. Man&mdash;still, as a
+great favor, I'll charge you a fat fee if I ever
+find that fellow and can get anything out of him.
+But that's like promising to give you half of the
+first dollar I find floating up the Sangamon on a
+grindstone, isn't it? I'll take a big slice, though,
+out of the grindstone itself, if you say so,' and
+the tall attorney went out with the peculiar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
+laugh that afterward became world-famous.</p>
+
+<p>"Not long afterward, while in Bloomington,
+out on the circuit, Mr. Lincoln ran across the
+man who had disappeared from Springfield 'between
+two days,' carrying on an apparently
+prosperous business under an assumed name.
+Following the man to his office and managing to
+talk with him alone, the lawyer, by means of
+threats, made the man go right to the bank and
+draw out the whole thousand then. It meant
+payment in full or the penitentiary. The man
+understood it and went white as a sheet. In all
+his sympathy for the poor and needy, Mr. Lincoln
+had no pity on the flourishing criminal.
+Money could not purchase the favor of Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hardly know which half of that thousand
+dollars father was gladder to get, but I
+honestly believe he was more pleased on Mr.
+Lincoln's account than on his own.</p>
+
+<p>"'Let me give you your five hundred dollars
+before I change my mind,' he said to the attorney.</p>
+
+<p>"'One hundred dollars is all I'll take out of
+that,' Mr. Lincoln replied emphatically. 'It was
+no trouble, and&mdash;and I haven't earned even that
+much.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'But Mr. Lincoln,' my father demurred,
+'you promised to take half.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, but you got my word under false pretenses,
+as it were. Neither of us had the least
+idea I would collect the bill even if I ever found
+the fellow.'</p>
+
+<p>"As he would not accept more than one hundred
+dollars that day, father wouldn't give him
+any of the money due, for fear the too scrupulous
+attorney would give him a receipt in full for
+collecting. Finally, Mr. Lincoln went away
+after yielding enough to say he might accept two
+hundred and fifty dollars sometime in a pinch
+of some sort.</p>
+
+<p>"The occasion was not long delayed&mdash;but it
+was not because of illness or any special necessity
+in his own family. His young partner,
+'Billy' Herndon, had been carousing with several
+of his cronies in a saloon around on Fourth
+Street, and the gang had broken mirrors, decanters
+and other things in their drunken spree.
+The proprietor, tired of such work, had had
+them all arrested.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lincoln, always alarmed when Billy
+failed to appear at the usual hour in the morning,
+went in search of him, and found him and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
+his partners in distress, locked up in the calaboose.
+The others were helpless, unable to pay
+or to promise to pay for any of the damages, so
+it devolved on Mr. Lincoln to raise the whole
+two hundred and fifty dollars the angry saloon
+keeper demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"He came into our office out of breath and
+said sheepishly:</p>
+
+<p>"'I reckon I can use that two-fifty now.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Check or currency?' asked father.</p>
+
+<p>"'Currency, if you've got it handy.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Give Mr. Lincoln two hundred and fifty
+dollars,' father called to a clerk in the office.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a moment's pause, during which
+my father refrained from asking any questions,
+and Mr. Lincoln was in no mood to give information.
+As soon as the money was brought, the tall
+attorney seized the bills and stalked out without
+counting it or saying anything but 'Thankee,
+Mr. Man,' and hurried diagonally across the
+square toward the Court House, clutching the
+precious banknotes in his bony talons.</p>
+
+<p>"Father saw him cross the street so fast that
+the tails of his long coat stood out straight behind;
+then go up the Court House steps, two at
+a time, and disappear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We learned afterward what he did with the
+money. Of course, Bill Herndon was penitent
+and promised to mend his ways, and, of course,
+Mr. Lincoln believed him. He took the money
+very much against his will, even against his
+principles&mdash;thinking it might save his junior
+partner from the drunkard's grave. But the
+heart of Abraham Lincoln was hoping against
+hope."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">His Kindness of Heart</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />PUTTING TWO YOUNG BIRDS BACK IN THE NEST</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln's tender-heartedness was the
+subject of much amusement among his fellow
+attorneys. One day, while out riding with several
+friends, they missed Lincoln. One of them,
+having heard the distressed cries of two young
+birds that had fallen from the nest, surmised
+that this had something to do with Mr. Lincoln's
+disappearance. The man was right. Lincoln
+had hitched his horse and climbed the fence into
+the thicket where the fledglings were fluttering<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
+on the ground in great fright. He caught the
+young birds and tenderly carried them about
+until he found their nest. Climbing the tree he
+put the birdlings back where they belonged.
+After an hour Mr. Lincoln caught up with his
+companions, who laughed at him for what they
+called his "childishness." He answered them
+earnestly:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, you may laugh, but I could not
+have slept tonight if I had not saved those little
+birds. The mother's cries and theirs would have
+rung in my ears."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />LAWYER LINCOLN, IN A NEW SUIT OF CLOTHES,
+RESCUING A PIG STUCK IN THE MUD</div>
+
+<p>Lawyer Lincoln rode from one county-seat
+to another, on the Eighth Judicial Circuit of
+Illinois, either on the back of a raw-boned horse,
+or in a rickety buggy drawn by the same old
+"crowbait," as his legal friends called the animal.
+The judge and lawyers of the several
+courts traveled together and whiled away the
+time chatting and joking. Of course, Abraham
+Lincoln was in great demand because of his unfailing
+humor.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>One day he appeared in a new suit of clothes.
+This was such a rare occurrence that the friends
+made remarks about it. The garments did not
+fit him very well, and the others felt in duty
+bound to "say things" which were anything but
+complimentary.</p>
+
+<p>As they rode along through the mud they were
+making Lincoln the butt of their gibes. He was
+not like most jokers, for he could take as well
+as give, while he could "give as good as he got."</p>
+
+<p>In the course of their "chaffing" they came to
+a spot about four miles from Paris, Illinois,
+where they saw a pig stuck in the mud and
+squealing lustily. The men all laughed at the
+poor animal and its absurd plight.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor piggy!" exclaimed Mr. Lincoln impulsively.
+"Let's get him out of that."</p>
+
+<p>The others jeered at the idea. "You'd better
+do it. You're dressed for the job!" exclaimed
+one.</p>
+
+<p>"Return to your wallow!" laughed another,
+pointing in great glee to the wallowing hog and
+the mudhole.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln looked at the pig, at the deep mud,
+then down at his new clothes. Ruefully he rode
+on with them for some time. But the cries of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
+helpless animal rang in his ears. He could endure
+it no longer. Lagging behind the rest, he
+waited until they had passed a bend in the road.
+Then he turned and rode back as fast as his poor
+old horse could carry him through the mud.
+Dismounting, he surveyed the ground. The pig
+had struggled until it was almost buried in the
+mire, and was now too exhausted to move. After
+studying the case as if it were a problem in civil
+engineering, he took some rails off the fence beside
+the road. Building a platform of rails
+around the now exhausted hog, then taking one
+rail for a lever and another for a fulcrum, he
+began gently to pry the fat, helpless creature out
+of the sticky mud. In doing this he plastered
+his new suit from head to foot, but he did not
+care, as long as he could save that pig!</p>
+
+<p>"Now, piggy-wig," he said. "It's you and
+me for it. You do your part and I'll get you out.
+Now&mdash;'one-two-<i>three</i>&mdash;<i>up-a-daisy!</i>'"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled grimly as he thought of the jeers
+and sneers that would be hurled at him if his
+friends had stayed to watch him at this work.</p>
+
+<p>After long and patient labor he succeeded in
+loosening the hog and coaxing it to make the
+attempt to get free. At last, the animal was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
+made to see that it could get out. Making one
+violent effort it wallowed away and started for
+the nearest farmhouse, grunting and flopping its
+ears as it went.</p>
+
+<p>Lawyer Lincoln looked ruefully down at his
+clothes, then placed all the rails back on the
+fence as he had found them.</p>
+
+<p>He had to ride the rest of the day alone, for
+he did not wish to appear before his comrades
+until <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'the the'">the</ins> mud on his suit had dried so that it
+could be brushed off. That night, when they
+saw him at the tavern, they asked him what he
+had been doing all day, eying his clothes with
+suspicious leers and grins. He had to admit that
+he could not bear to leave that hog to die, and
+tried to excuse his tender-heartedness to them
+by adding: "Farmer Jones's children might
+have had to go barefoot all Winter if he had lost
+a valuable hog like that!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"BEING ELECTED TO CONGRESS HAS NOT PLEASED
+ME AS MUCH AS I EXPECTED"</div>
+
+<p>In 1846 Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress,
+defeating the Rev. Peter Cartwright, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
+famous backwoods preacher, who was elected to
+the State Legislature fourteen years before, the
+first time Lincoln was a candidate and the only
+time he was ever defeated by popular vote.
+Cartwright had made a vigorous canvass, telling
+the people that Lincoln was "an aristocrat and
+an atheist." But, though they had a great respect
+for Peter Cartwright and his preaching,
+the people did not believe all that he said against
+Lincoln, and they elected him. Shortly after
+this he wrote again to Speed:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"You, no doubt, assign the suspension
+of our correspondence to the true
+philosophic cause; though it must be
+confessed by both of us that this is a
+rather cold reason for allowing such a
+friendship as ours to die out by degrees.</p>
+
+<p>"Being elected to Congress, though I
+am very grateful to our friends for
+having done it, has not pleased me as
+much as I expected."</p></div>
+
+<p>In the same letter he imparted to his friend
+some information which seems to have been
+much more interesting to him than being elected
+to Congress:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We have another boy, born the 10th
+of March (1846). He is very much
+such a child as Bob was at his age,
+rather of a longer order. Bob is 'short
+and low,' and I expect always will be.
+He talks very plainly, almost as plainly
+as anybody. He is quite smart enough.
+I sometimes fear he is one of the little
+rare-ripe sort that are smarter at five
+than ever after.</p>
+
+<p>"Since I began this letter, a messenger
+came to tell me Bob was lost; but
+by the time I reached the house his
+mother had found him and had him
+whipped, and by now very likely he has
+run away again!</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">"As ever yours,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln.</span>"<br /></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The new baby mentioned in this letter was
+Edward, who died in 1850, before his fourth
+birthday. "Bob," or Robert, the eldest of the
+Lincoln's four children, was born in 1843. William,
+born in 1850, died in the White House. The
+youngest was born in 1853, after the death of
+Thomas Lincoln, so he was named for his grandfather,
+but he was known only by his nickname,
+"Tad." "Little Tad" was his father's constant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
+companion during the terrible years of the Civil
+War, especially after Willie's death, in 1862.
+"Tad" became "the child of the nation." He
+died in Chicago, July 10, 1871, at the age of
+eighteen, after returning from Europe with his
+widowed mother and his brother Robert. Robert
+has served his country as Secretary of War
+and Ambassador to the English court, and is
+recognized as a leader in national affairs.</p>
+
+<p>When Lincoln was sent to the national House
+of Representatives, Douglas was elected to the
+Senate for the first time. Lincoln was the only
+Whig from Illinois. This shows his great personal
+popularity. Daniel Webster was then living
+in the national capital, and Congressman
+Lincoln stopped once at Ashland, Ky., on his
+way to Washington to visit the idol of the
+Whigs, Henry Clay.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Lincoln was elected, an editor
+wrote to ask him for a biographical sketch of
+himself for the "Congressional Directory."
+This is all Mr. Lincoln wrote&mdash;in a blank form
+sent for the purpose:</p>
+
+<p>"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County,
+Kentucky.</p>
+
+<p>"Education defective.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Profession, lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Military service, captain of volunteers in
+Black Hawk War.</p>
+
+<p>"Offices held: Postmaster at a very small
+office; four times a member of the Illinois Legislature,
+and elected to the lower House of the
+next Congress."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln was in Congress while the Mexican
+War was in progress, and there was much
+discussion over President Polk's action in declaring
+that war.</p>
+
+<p>As Mrs. Lincoln was obliged to stay in Springfield
+to care for her two little boys, Congressman
+Lincoln lived in a Washington boarding-house.
+He soon gained the reputation of telling
+the best stories at the capital. He made a humorous
+speech on General Cass, comparing the
+general's army experiences with his own in the
+Black Hawk War. He also drafted a bill to
+abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,
+which was never brought to a vote. Most of his
+care seems to have been for Billy Herndon, who
+wrote complaining letters to him about the "old
+men" in Springfield who were always trying to
+"keep the young men down." Here are two of
+Mr. Lincoln's replies:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">Washington</span>, June 22, 1848.<br />
+</div>
+
+"<span class="smcap">Dear William</span>:<br />
+
+<p>"Judge how heart-rending it was to
+come to my room and find and read
+your discouraging letter of the 15th.
+Now, as to the young men, you must not
+wait to be brought forward by the older
+men. For instance, do you suppose
+that I would ever have got into notice if
+I had waited to be hunted up and
+pushed forward by older men?"</p>
+
+<br />"<span class="smcap">Dear William</span>:<br />
+
+<p>"Your letter was received last night.
+The subject of that letter is exceedingly
+painful to me; and I cannot but think
+that there is some mistake in your impression
+of the motives of the old men.
+Of course I cannot demonstrate what I
+say; but I was young once, and I am
+sure I was never ungenerously thrust
+back. I hardly know what to say. The
+way for a young man to rise is to improve
+himself every way he can, never
+suspecting that anybody wishes to
+hinder him. Allow me to assure you
+that suspicion and jealousy never did
+keep any man in any situation. There
+may be sometimes ungenerous attempts
+to keep a young man down; and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>
+will succeed, too, if he allows his mind
+to be diverted from its true channel to
+brood over the attempted injury. Cast
+about, and see if this feeling has not
+injured every person you have ever
+known to fall into it.</p>
+
+<p>"Now in what I have said, I am sure
+you will suspect nothing but sincere
+friendship. I would save you from a
+fatal error. You have been a laborious,
+studious young man. You are far better
+informed on almost all subjects
+than I have ever been. You cannot fail
+in any laudable object, unless you allow
+your mind to be improperly directed.
+I have somewhat the advantage of you
+in the world's experience, merely by
+being older; and it is this that induces
+me to advise.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">"Your friend, as ever,</span><br />
+"A. <span class="smcap">Lincoln</span>."<br />
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />LAST DAYS OF THOMAS LINCOLN</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln did not allow his name to be used
+as a candidate for re-election, as there were
+other men in the congressional district who deserved
+the honor of going to Washington as
+much as he. On his way home from Washington,
+after the last session of the Thirtieth Congress,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>
+he visited New England, where he made a
+few speeches, and stopped at Niagara Falls,
+which impressed him so strongly that he wrote a
+lecture on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>After returning home he made a flying visit to
+Washington to enter his patent steamboat,
+equipped so that it would navigate shallow western
+rivers. This boat, he told a friend, "would
+go where the ground is a little damp." The
+model of Lincoln's steamboat is one of the sights
+of the Patent Office to this day.</p>
+
+<p>After Mr. Lincoln had settled down to his law
+business, permanently, as he hoped, his former
+fellow-clerk, William G. Greene, having business
+in Coles County, went to "Goosenest Prairie"
+to call on Abe's father and stepmother, who
+still lived in a log cabin. Thomas Lincoln received
+his son's friend very hospitably. During
+the young man's visit, the father reverted to the
+old subject, his disapproval of his son's wasting
+his time in study. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"I s'pose Abe's still a-foolin' hisself with
+eddication. I tried to stop it, but he's got that
+fool <i>idee</i> in his head an' it can't be got out. Now
+I haint got no eddication, but I git along better
+than if I had."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Not long after this, in 1851, Abraham learned
+that his father was very ill. As he could not
+leave Springfield then, he wrote to his stepbrother
+(for Thomas Lincoln could not read)
+the following comforting letter to be read to his
+father:</p>
+
+<p>"I sincerely hope father may recover his
+health; but at all events, tell him to remember to
+call upon and confide in our great and merciful
+Maker, who will not turn away from him in any
+extremity. He notes the fall of the sparrow, and
+numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not
+forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him.
+Say to him that, if we could meet now, it is
+doubtful whether it would be more painful than
+pleasant, but if it is his lot to go now, he will
+soon have a joyful meeting with the loved ones
+gone before, and where the rest of us, through
+the mercy of God, hope ere long to join them."</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Lincoln died that year, at the age of
+seventy-three.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />A KIND BUT MASTERFUL LETTER TO HIS
+STEPBROTHER</div>
+
+<p>After his father's death Abraham Lincoln
+had, on several occasions, to protect his stepmother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
+against the schemes of her own lazy,
+good-for-nothing son. Here is one of the letters
+written, at this time, to his stepbrother, John
+Johnston:</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Brother</span>: I hear that you were anxious
+to sell the land where you live, and move to
+Missouri. What can you do in Missouri better
+than here? Is the land any richer? Can you
+there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat
+and oats without work? Will anybody there,
+any more than here, do your work for you? If
+you intend to go to work, there is no better place
+than right where you are; if you do not intend
+to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere.
+Squirming and crawling about from place to
+place can do no good. You have raised no crop
+this year, and what you really want is to sell the
+land, get the money and spend it. Part with the
+land you have and, my life upon it, you will
+never own a spot big enough to bury you in.
+Half you will get for the land you will spend in
+moving to Missouri, and the other half you will
+eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land
+will be bought.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I feel that it is my duty to have no hand
+in such a piece of foolery. I feel it is so even on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
+your own account, and particularly on mother's
+account.</p>
+
+<p>"Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do
+not write it in any unkindness. I write it in
+order, if possible, to get you to face the truth,
+which truth is, you are destitute because you
+have idled away your time. Your thousand pretenses
+deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work
+is the only cure for your case."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">What Made the Difference Between Abraham
+Lincoln and His Stepbrother</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>These letters show the wide difference between
+the real lives of two boys brought up in
+the same surroundings, and under similar conditions.
+The advantages were in John Johnston's
+favor. He and Dennis Hanks never rose
+above the lower level of poverty and ignorance.
+John was looked down upon by the
+poor illiterates around him as a lazy, good-for-nothing
+fellow, and Dennis Hanks was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>
+known to be careless about telling the truth.</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of the early life of Abe's father
+and mother, Dennis threw in the remark that
+"the Hankses was some smarter than the Lincolns."
+It was not "smartness" that made Abe
+Lincoln grow to be a greater man than Dennis
+Hanks. There are men in Springfield to-day
+who say, "There were a dozen smarter men in
+this town than Mr. Lincoln when he happened
+to be nominated, and peculiar conditions prevailing
+at that time brought about his election
+to the presidency!"</p>
+
+<p>True greatness is made of goodness rather
+than smartness. Abraham Lincoln was honest
+with himself while a boy and a man, and it was
+"Honest Abe" who became President of the
+United States. The people loved him for his big
+heart&mdash;because he loved them more than he loved
+himself and they knew it. In his second inaugural
+address as President he used this expression:
+"With malice toward none, with charity
+for all." This was not a new thought, but it
+was full of meaning to the country because little
+Abe Lincoln had <i>lived</i> that idea all his life, with
+his own family, his friends, acquaintances, and
+employers. He became the most beloved man in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
+the world, in his own or any other time, because
+he himself loved everybody.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Crawford, the wife of "Old Blue Nose,"
+used to laugh at the very idea of Abe Lincoln
+ever becoming President. Lincoln often said to
+her: "I'll get ready and the time will come."
+He got ready in his father's log hut and when
+the door of opportunity opened he walked right
+into the White House. He "made himself at
+home" there, because he had only to go on in
+the same way after he became the "servant of
+the people" that he had followed when he was
+"Old Blue Nose's" hired boy and man.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ONE PARTNER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, THE OTHER IN
+THE POOR HOUSE</div>
+
+<p>Then there was William H. Herndon, known
+to the world only because he happened to be
+"Lincoln's law partner." His advantages were
+superior to Lincoln's. And far more than that,
+he had his great partner's help to push him forward
+and upward. But "poor Billy" had an
+unfortunate appetite. He could not deny himself,
+though it always made him ashamed and
+miserable. It dragged him down, down from
+"the President's partner" to the gutter. That<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
+was not all. When he asked his old partner to
+give him a government appointment which he
+had, for years, been making himself wholly unworthy
+to fill, President Lincoln, much as he had
+loved Billy all along, could not give it to him.
+It grieved Mr. Lincoln's great heart to refuse
+Billy anything. But Herndon did not blame
+himself for all that. He spent the rest of his
+wretched life in bitterness and spite&mdash;avenging
+himself on his noble benefactor by putting untruths
+into the "Life of Lincoln" he was able to
+write because Abraham Lincoln, against the advice
+of his wife and friends, had insisted on
+keeping him close to his heart. It is a terrible
+thing&mdash;that spirit of spite! Among many good
+and true things he <i>had</i> to say about his fatherly
+law partner, he poisoned the good name of Abraham
+Lincoln in the minds of millions, by writing
+stealthy slander about Lincoln's mother and
+wife, and made many people believe that the
+most religious of men at heart was an infidel
+(because he himself was one!), that Mr. Lincoln
+sometimes acted from unworthy and unpatriotic
+motives, and that he failed to come to his own
+wedding. If these things had been true it would
+have been wrong to publish them to the prejudice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
+of a great man's good name&mdash;then how
+much more wicked to invent and spread broadcast
+falsehoods which hurt the heart and injure
+the mind of the whole world&mdash;just to spite the
+memory of the best friend a man ever had!</p>
+
+<p>The fate of the firm of Lincoln &amp; Herndon
+shows in a striking way how the world looks
+upon the heart that hates and the heart that
+loves, for the hateful junior partner died miserably
+in an almshouse, but the senior was crowned
+with immortal martyrdom in the White House.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE RIVAL FOR LOVE AND HONORS</div>
+
+<p>Stephen A. Douglas, "the Little Giant," who
+had been a rival for the hand of the fascinating
+Mary Todd, was also Lincoln's chief opponent in
+politics. Douglas was small and brilliant; used
+to society ways, he seemed always to keep ahead
+of his tall, uncouth, plodding competitor. After
+going to Congress, Mr. Lincoln was encouraged
+to aspire even higher, so, ten years later, he became
+a candidate for the Senate. Slavery was
+then the burning question, and Douglas seemed
+naturally to fall upon the opposite side, favoring
+and justifying it in every way he could.</p>
+
+<p>Douglas was then a member of the Senate,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>
+but the opposing party nominated Lincoln to
+succeed him, while "the Little Giant" had been
+renominated to succeed himself. Douglas
+sneered at his tall opponent, trying to "damn
+him with faint praise" by referring to him as "a
+kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman." Mr.
+Lincoln challenged the Senator to discuss the
+issues of the hour in a series of debates.</p>
+
+<p>Douglas was forced, very much against his
+will, to accept, and the debates took place in
+seven towns scattered over the State of Illinois,
+from August 21st to October 15th, 1858. Lincoln
+had announced his belief that "a house divided
+against itself cannot stand;" therefore the
+United States could not long exist "half slave
+and half free."</p>
+
+<p>"The Little Giant" drove from place to place
+in great style, traveling with an escort of influential
+friends. These discussions, known in
+history as the "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," rose
+to national importance while they were in progress,
+by attracting the attention, in the newspapers,
+of voters all over the country. They
+were attended, on an average, by ten thousand
+persons each, both men being accompanied by
+bands and people carrying banners and what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
+Mr. Lincoln called "fizzlegigs and fireworks."</p>
+
+<p>Some of the banners were humorous.</p>
+
+<div class='bbox2'>
+<div class='center'>Abe the Giant-Killer</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='unindent'>was one. Another read:</div>
+
+<div class='bbox'>
+
+Westward the Star of Empire takes its way;<br />
+The girls link on to Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay.
+</div>
+
+<p>At the first debate Lincoln took off his linen
+duster and, handing it to a bystander, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Hold my coat while I stone Stephen!"</p>
+
+<p>In the course of these debates Lincoln propounded
+questions for Mr. Douglas to answer.
+Brilliant as "the Little Giant" was, he was not
+shrewd enough to defend himself from the
+shafts of his opponent's wit and logic. So he
+fell into Lincoln's trap.</p>
+
+<p>"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he may be
+Senator, but he can never be President. I am
+after larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth
+a hundred of this."</p>
+
+<p>This prophecy proved true.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">How Emancipation Came to Pass</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>When Abraham Lincoln was a small boy he
+began to show the keenest sympathy for the
+helpless and oppressed. The only time he betrayed
+anger as a child was, as you already have
+learned, when he saw the other boys hurting a
+mud-turtle. In his first school "composition,"
+on "Cruelty to Animals," his stepsister remembers
+this sentence: "An ant's life is as sweet to
+it as ours is to us."</p>
+
+<p>As you have read on an earlier page, when
+Abe grew to be a big, strong boy he saved a
+drunken man from freezing in the mud, by
+carrying him to a cabin, building a fire, and
+spent the rest of the night warming and sobering
+him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to
+the fate the other fellows thought he deserved,
+Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless, rescued
+a fellow-being not only from mud and cold
+but also from a drunkard's grave. For that tall
+lad's love and mercy revealed to the poor creature
+the terrible slavery of which he was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
+victim. Thus Abe helped him throw off the
+shackles of drink and made a man of him.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE</div>
+
+<p>As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the
+drink habit was a sort of human slavery. He
+delivered an address before the Washingtonian
+(Temperance) Society in which he compared
+white slavery with black, in which he said:</p>
+
+<p>"And when the victory shall be complete&mdash;when
+there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard
+on the earth&mdash;how proud the title of that
+land which may truly claim to be the birthplace
+and the cradle of both those revolutions that
+have ended in that victory."</p>
+
+<p>This address was delivered on Washington's
+Birthday, 1842. The closing words throb with
+young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:</p>
+
+<p>"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary
+of the birth of Washington; we are met to
+celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest
+name of earth, long since the mightiest in the
+cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral
+reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected.
+It cannot be. To add to the brightness
+of the sun or glory to the name of Washington<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
+is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In
+solemn awe we pronounce the name and, in its
+naked, deathless splendor, leave it shining on."</p>
+
+<p>It was young Lincoln's patriotic love for
+George Washington which did so much to bring
+about, in time, a double emancipation from
+white slavery and black.</p>
+
+<p>Once, as President, he said to a boy who had
+just signed the temperance pledge:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Sonny, keep that pledge and it will be
+the best act of your life."</p>
+
+<p>President Lincoln was true and consistent in
+his temperance principles. In March, 1864, he
+went by steamboat with his wife and "Little
+Tad," to visit General Grant at his headquarters
+at City Point, Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>When asked how he was, during the reception
+which followed his arrival there, the President
+said, as related by General Horace Porter:</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not feeling very well. I got pretty
+badly shaken up on the bay coming down, and
+am not altogether over it yet.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Let me send for a bottle of champagne for
+you, Mr. President,' said a staff-officer, 'that's
+the best remedy I know of for sea-sickness.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, no, my young friend,' replied the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
+President, 'I've seen many a man in my time
+seasick ashore from drinking that very article.'</p>
+
+<p>"That was the last time any one screwed up
+sufficient courage to offer him wine."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"THE UNDER DOG"</div>
+
+<p>Some people are kinder to dumb animals&mdash;is
+it <i>because</i> they are dumb?&mdash;than to their relatives.
+Many are the stories of Lincoln's tenderness
+to beasts and birds. But his kindness
+did not stop there, nor with his brothers and sisters
+in white. He recognized his close relationship
+with the black man, and the bitterest name
+his enemies called him&mdash;worse in their minds
+than "fool," "clown," "imbecile" or "gorilla"&mdash;was
+a "Black Republican." That terrible
+phobia against the negro only enlisted Abraham
+Lincoln's sympathies the more. He appeared in
+court in behalf of colored people, time and again.
+The more bitter the hatred and oppression of
+others, the more they needed his sympathetic
+help, the more certain they were to receive it.</p>
+
+<p>"My sympathies are with the under dog,"
+said Mr. Lincoln, one day, "though it is often
+that dog that starts the fuss."</p>
+
+<p>The fact that the poor fellow may have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+brought the trouble upon himself did not make
+him forfeit Abraham Lincoln's sympathy. That
+was only a good lesson to him to "Look out and
+do better next time!"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION</div>
+
+<p>After he went to Washington, President Lincoln
+was between two fires. One side wanted the
+slaves freed whether the Union was broken up
+or not. They could not see that declaring them
+free would have but little effect, if the government
+could not "back up" such a declaration.</p>
+
+<p>The other party did not wish the matter tampered
+with, as cheap labor was necessary for
+raising cotton, sugar and other products on
+which the living of millions of people depended.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme Abolitionists, who wished slavery
+abolished, whether or no, sent men to tell the
+President that if he did not free the slaves he
+was a coward and a turncoat, and they would
+withhold their support from the Government
+and the Army.</p>
+
+<p>Delegations of Abolitionists from all over the
+North arrived almost daily from different cities
+to urge, coax and threaten the President. They
+did not know that he was trying to keep the Border<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
+States of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri
+from seceding. If Maryland alone had gone out
+of the Union, Washington, the national capital,
+would have been surrounded and forced to surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, at this time, the armies of the North
+were losing nearly all the battles.</p>
+
+<p>To declare all the slaves down South freed,
+when the Government could not enforce such a
+statement and could not even win a battle,
+would be absurd. To one committee the President
+said: "If I issued a proclamation of emancipation
+now it would be like the Pope's bull
+(or decree) against the comet!"</p>
+
+<p>A delegation of Chicago ministers came to beg
+Mr. Lincoln to free the slaves. He patiently explained
+to them that his declaring them free
+would not make them free. These men seemed
+to see the point and were retiring, disappointed,
+when one of them returned to him and whispered
+<ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'solemly'">solemnly</ins>:</p>
+
+<p>"What you have said to us, Mr. President,
+compels me to say to you in reply that it is a
+message from our divine Master, through me,
+commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage
+that the slave may go free!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now, isn't that strange?" the President replied
+instantly. "Here I am, studying this
+question, day and night, and God has placed it
+upon me, too. Don't you think it's rather odd
+that He should send such a message by way of
+that awful wicked city of Chicago?"</p>
+
+<p>The ministers were shocked at such an answer
+from the President of the United States.
+They could not know, for Mr. Lincoln dared not
+tell them, that he had the Emancipation Proclamation
+in his pocket waiting for a Federal
+victory before he could issue it!</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE PROCLAMATION</div>
+
+<p>Then, came the news of Antietam, a terrible
+battle, but gained by the Northern arms. At
+last the time had come to announce the freeing
+of the slaves that they might help in winning
+their liberties. The President had not held a
+meeting of his Cabinet for some time. He
+thought of the occasion when, as a young man
+he went on a flatboat trip to New Orleans and
+saw, for the first, the horrors of negro slavery,
+and said to his companions:</p>
+
+<p>"If ever I get a chance to hit that thing I'll
+hit it hard!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Now the "chance to hit that thing"&mdash;the inhuman
+monster of human slavery&mdash;had come,
+and he was going to "hit it hard."</p>
+
+<p>He called the Cabinet together. Edwin M.
+Stanton, the Secretary of War, has described
+the scene:</p>
+
+<p>"On the 22nd of September, 1862, I had a sudden
+and peremptory call to a Cabinet meeting
+at the White House. I went immediately and
+found the historic War Cabinet of Abraham
+Lincoln assembled, every member being present.
+The President hardly noticed me as I came
+in. He was reading a book of some kind which
+seemed to amuse him. It was a little book. He
+finally turned to us and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, did you ever read anything
+from "Artemus Ward?" Let me read you a
+chapter that is very funny.'</p>
+
+<p>"Not a member of the Cabinet smiled; as for
+myself, I was angry, and looked to see what the
+President meant. It seemed to me like buffoonery.
+He, however, concluded to read us a
+chapter from 'Artemus Ward,' which he did
+with great deliberation. Having finished, he
+laughed heartily, without a member of the Cabinet
+joining in the laughter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Well,' he said, 'let's have another chapter.'</p>
+
+<p>"I was considering whether I should rise and
+leave the meeting abruptly, when he threw the
+book down, heaved a long sigh, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With
+the fearful strain that is upon me night and day,
+if I did not laugh I should die, and you need
+this medicine as much as I do.'</p>
+
+<p>"He then put his hand in his tall hat that sat
+upon the table, and pulled out a little paper.
+Turning to the members of the Cabinet, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen, I have called you here upon
+very important business. I have prepared a little
+paper of much significance. I have made up
+my mind that this paper is to issue; that the
+time is come when it should issue; that the people
+are ready for it to issue.</p>
+
+<p>"'It is due to my Cabinet that you should be
+the first to hear and know of it, and if any of
+you have any suggestions to make as to the form
+of this paper or its composition, I shall be glad
+to hear them. But the paper is to issue.'</p>
+
+<p>"And, to my astonishment, he read the Emancipation
+Proclamation of that date, which was
+to take effect the first of January following."</p>
+
+<p>Secretary Stanton continued: "I have always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
+tried to be calm, but I think I lost my calmness
+for a moment, and with great enthusiasm I
+arose, approached the President, extended my
+hand and said:</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. President, if the reading of chapters
+of "Artemus Ward" is a prelude to such a deed
+as this, the book should be filed among the archives
+of the nation, and the author should be
+canonized. Henceforth I see the light and the
+country is saved.'</p>
+
+<p>"And all said 'Amen!'</p>
+
+<p>"And Lincoln said to me in a droll way, just
+as I was leaving, 'Stanton, it would have been
+too early last Spring.'</p>
+
+<p>"And as I look back upon it, I think the President
+was right."</p>
+
+<p>It was a fitting fulfillment of the Declaration
+of Independence, which proclaimed that:</p>
+
+<p>"All men are created equal; that they are endowed
+by their Creator with certain unalienable
+rights; that among these are life, liberty and the
+pursuit of happiness."</p>
+
+<p>That Declaration young Abe Lincoln first
+read in the Gentryville constable's copy of the
+"Statutes of Indiana."</p>
+
+<p>At noon on the first of January, 1863, William<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
+H. Seward, Secretary of State, with his son
+Frederick, called at the White House with the
+Emancipation document to be signed by the
+President. It was just after the regular New
+Year's Day reception.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln seated himself at his table, took
+up the pen, dipped it in the ink, held the pen a
+moment, then laid it down. After waiting a
+while he went through the same movements as
+before. Turning to his Secretary of State, he
+said, to explain his hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock
+this morning, and my arm is almost paralyzed.
+If my name ever goes into history, it will be for
+this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand
+trembles when I sign the Proclamation, all who
+examine the document hereafter will say:</p>
+
+<p>"'He hesitated.'"</p>
+
+<p>Turning back to the table, he took the pen
+again and wrote, deliberately and firmly, the
+"Abraham Lincoln" with which the world is
+now familiar. Looking up at the Sewards,
+father and son, he smiled and said, with a sigh
+of relief:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That will do!</i>"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Glory of Gettysburg</span></h3>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE BATTLE</div>
+
+<p>The Battle of Gettysburg, which raged
+through July 1st, 2nd and 3d, 1863, was called
+the "high water mark" of the Civil War, and
+one of the "fifteen decisive battles" of history.
+It was decisive because General Robert E. Lee,
+with his brave army, was driven back from Gettysburg,
+Pennsylvania. If Lee had been victorious
+there, he might have destroyed Philadelphia
+and New York. By such a brilliant stroke
+he could have surrounded and captured Baltimore
+and Washington. This would have
+changed the grand result of the war.</p>
+
+<p>In point of numbers, bravery and genius, the
+battle of Gettysburg was the greatest that had
+ever been fought up to that time. Glorious as
+this was, the greatest glory of Gettysburg lay
+in the experiences and utterances of one man,
+Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
+States of America.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It came at a terrible time in the progress of
+the war, when everything seemed to be going
+against the Union. There had been four disastrous
+defeats&mdash;twice at Bull Run, followed by
+Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Even the
+battle of Antietam, accounted victory enough
+for the President to issue his Emancipation
+Proclamation, proved to be a drawn battle, with
+terrific losses on both sides. Lee was driven
+back from Maryland then, it is true, but he soon
+won the great battles of Fredericksburg and
+Chancellorsville, and had made his way north
+into Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p>The night after the battle of Chancellorsville
+(fought May 2nd and 3d, 1863), was the darkest
+in the history of the Civil War. President Lincoln
+walked the floor the whole night long, crying
+out in his anguish, "O what will the country
+say!"</p>
+
+<p>To fill the decimated ranks of the army, the
+Government had resorted to the draft, which
+roused great opposition in the North and provoked
+foolish, unreasoning riots in New York
+City.</p>
+
+<p>After winning the battle of Gettysburg, which
+the President hoped would end the war, General<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
+Meade, instead of announcing that he had captured
+the Confederate army, stated that he had
+"driven the invaders from our soil." Mr. Lincoln
+fell on his knees and, covering his face with
+his great, strong hands, cried out in tones of
+agony:</p>
+
+<p>"'Driven the invaders from our soil!' My
+God, is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>But Lincoln's spirits were bound to rise. Believing
+he was "on God's side," he felt that the
+cause of Right could not lose, for the Lord would
+save His own.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, July 4th, 1863, came the surrender
+of Vicksburg, the stronghold of the great
+West. Chastened joy began to cover his gaunt
+and pallid features, and the light of hope shone
+again in his deep, gray eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Calling on General Sickles, in a Washington
+hospital&mdash;for the general had lost a leg on the
+second day of the battle of Gettysburg&mdash;the
+President was asked why he believed that victory
+would be given the Federal forces at Gettysburg.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of
+your campaign up there, when everybody seemed
+panic-stricken, and nobody could tell what was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
+going to happen, I went to my room one day and
+locked the door, and got down on my knees before
+Almighty God, and prayed to him mightily
+for victory at Gettysburg. I told Him this was
+His war, and our cause His cause, but that
+we couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or
+Chancellorsville. And I then and there made a
+solemn vow to Almighty God that if He would
+stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand
+by Him. And He <i>did</i>, and I <i>will!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The President's call on General Sickles was
+on the Sunday after the three-days' battle of
+Gettysburg, before the arrival of the gunboat at
+Cairo, Illinois, with the glad tidings from Vicksburg,
+which added new luster to the patriotic
+joy of Independence Day. The telegraph wires
+had been so generally cut on all sides of Vicksburg
+that the news was sent to Cairo and telegraphed
+to Washington. In proof that his faith
+even included the Mississippi blockade he went
+on:</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, I have been praying over Vicksburg
+also, and believe our Heavenly Father is going
+to give us victory there, too, because we need it,
+in order to bisect the Confederacy, and let 'the
+Father of Waters flow unvexed to the sea.'"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE ADDRESS</div>
+
+<p>Not long after the conflict at Gettysburg a
+movement was on foot to devote a large part of
+that battle-ground to a national cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. Edward Everett, prominent in national
+and educational affairs, and the greatest
+living orator, was invited to deliver the grand
+oration. The President was asked, if he could,
+to come and make a few dedicatory remarks, but
+Mr. Everett was to be the chief speaker of the
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The Sunday before the 19th of November,
+1863, the date of the dedication, the President
+went with his friend Noah Brooks to Gardner's
+gallery, in Washington, where he had promised
+to sit for his photograph. While there he
+showed Mr. Brooks a proof of Everett's oration
+which had been sent to him. As this printed
+address covered two newspaper pages, Mr. Lincoln
+struck an attitude and quoted from a
+speech by Daniel Webster:</p>
+
+<p>"Solid men of Boston, make no long orations!"
+and burst out laughing. When Mr.
+Brooks asked about <i>his</i> speech for that occasion,
+Mr. Lincoln replied: "I've got it written, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
+not licked into shape yet. It's short, <i>short</i>,
+<span class="smcap">short</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>During the forenoon of the 18th, Secretary
+John Hay was anxious lest the President be late
+for the special Presidential train, which was to
+leave at noon for Gettysburg.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry, John," said Mr. Lincoln. "I'm
+like the man who was going to be hung, and saw
+the crowds pushing and hurrying past the cart in
+which he was being taken to the place of execution.
+He called out to them: 'Don't hurry,
+boys. There won't be anything going on till I
+get there!'"</p>
+
+<p>When the train stopped, on the way to Gettysburg,
+a little girl on the platform held up a
+bouquet to Mr. Lincoln, lisping: "Flowerth for
+the Prethident."</p>
+
+<p>He reached out, took her up and kissed her,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"You're a sweet little rosebud yourself. I
+hope your life will open into perpetual beauty
+and goodness."</p>
+
+<p>About noon on the 19th of November, the distinguished
+party arrived in a procession and
+took seats on the platform erected for the exercises.
+The President was seated in a rocking-chair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
+placed there for him. There were fifteen
+thousand people waiting, some of whom had
+been standing in the sun for hours. It was a
+warm day and a Quaker woman near the platform
+fainted. An alarm was given and the unconscious
+woman was in danger of being crushed.</p>
+
+<p>The President sprang to the edge of the staging
+and called out:</p>
+
+<p>"Here, let me get hold of that lady."</p>
+
+<p>With a firm, strong grasp he extricated her
+from the crush and seated her in his rocking-chair.
+When that modest woman "came to,"
+she saw fifteen thousand pairs of eyes watching
+her while the President of the United States
+was fanning her tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for her. She gasped:</p>
+
+<p>"I feel&mdash;better&mdash;now. I want to go&mdash;back to&mdash;my
+husband!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, my dear lady," said Mr. Lincoln.
+"You are all right here. I had an awful time
+pulling you up out of there, and I couldn't stick
+you back again!"</p>
+
+<p>A youth who stood near the platform in front
+of the President says that, while Mr. Everett
+was orating, Mr. Lincoln took his "little
+speech," as he called it, out of his pocket, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
+conned it over like a schoolboy with a half-learned
+lesson. The President had put the finishing
+touches on it that morning. As it was
+expected that the President would make a few
+offhand remarks, no one seems to have noticed
+its simple grandeur until it was printed in the
+newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Mr. Lincoln was interrupted four or five
+times during the two minutes by applause. The
+fact that the President was speaking was sufficient,
+no matter what he said. The people
+would have applauded Abraham Lincoln if he
+had merely recited the multiplication table!
+When he finished, they gave "three times three
+cheers" for the President of the United States,
+and three cheers for each of the State Governors
+present.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon there was a patriotic service
+in one of the churches which the President decided
+to attend. Taking Secretary Seward with
+him, he called on an old cobbler named John
+Burns, of whose courage in the battle of Gettysburg
+Mr. Lincoln had just heard. Those who
+planned the dedication did not think the poor
+cobbler was of much account. The old hero, now
+known through Bret Harte's poem, "John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
+Burns of Gettysburg," had the pride and joy of
+having all the village and visitors see him march
+to the church between President Lincoln and
+Secretary Seward. This simple act was "just
+like Lincoln!" He honored Gettysburg in thus
+honoring one of its humblest citizens. It was
+Abraham Lincoln's tribute to the patriotism of
+the dear "common people" whom he said "God
+must love."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>"<span class="smcap">No End of a Boy</span>"</h3>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln</span>"
+would be incomplete without some insight into
+the perfect boyishness of the President of the
+United States. When the cares of State and the
+horrors of war had made his homely yet beautiful
+face pallid and seamed, till it became a sensitive
+map of the Civil War, it was said that the
+only times the President was ever happy were
+when he was playing with little Tad.</p>
+
+<p>He used to carry the boy on his shoulder or
+"pick-a-back," cantering through the spacious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
+rooms of the Executive Mansion, both yelling
+like Comanches. The little boy was lonely after
+Willie died, and the father's heart yearned over
+the only boy left at home, for Robert was at Harvard
+until near the close of the war, when he went
+to the front as an aide to General Grant. So
+little Tad was his father's most constant companion
+and the President became the boy's only
+playfellow. Mr. Lincoln, with a heart as full of
+faith as a little child's, had always lived in
+deep sympathy with the children, and this
+feeling was intensified toward his own offspring.</p>
+
+<p>When Abe Lincoln was living in New Salem
+he distinguished himself by caring for the little
+children&mdash;a thing beneath the dignity of the
+other young men of the settlement.</p>
+
+<p>Hannah Armstrong, wife of the Clary's Grove
+bully, whom Abe had to "lick" to a finish in
+order to establish himself on a solid basis in
+New Salem society, told how friendly their relations
+became after the thrashing he gave her
+husband:</p>
+
+<p>"Abe would come to our house, drink milk,
+eat mush, cornbread and butter, bring the children
+candy and rock the cradle." (This seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>
+a strange thing to her.) "He would nurse babies&mdash;do
+anything to accommodate anybody."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />HOW HE REPAID THE ARMSTRONGS' KINDNESS</div>
+
+<p>The Armstrong baby, Willie, grew to be a
+youth of wrong habits, and was nicknamed
+"Duff." He was drawn, one afternoon, into a
+bad quarrel with another rough young man,
+named Metzker, who was brutally beaten. In
+the evening a vicious young man, named Morris,
+joined the row and the lad was struck on the
+head and died without telling who had dealt the
+fatal blow. The blame was thrown upon "Duff"
+Armstrong, who was arrested. Illinois law preventing
+him from testifying in his own behalf.</p>
+
+<p>When Lawyer Lincoln heard of the case, he
+wrote as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">Springfield, Ill.</span>, September, 1857.<br /></div>
+
+"<span class="smcap">Dear Mrs. Armstrong:</span><br />
+
+<p>"I have just heard of your deep
+affliction, and the arrest of your son for
+murder.</p>
+
+<p>"I can hardly believe that he can be capable
+of the crime alleged against him.</p>
+
+<p>"It does not seem possible. I am
+anxious that he should be given a fair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+trial, at any rate; and gratitude for
+your long-continued kindness to me in
+adverse circumstances prompts me to
+offer my humble services gratuitously
+in his behalf.</p>
+
+<p>"It will afford me an opportunity to
+requite, in a small degree, the favors
+I received at your hand, and that of
+your lamented husband, when your
+roof afforded me a grateful shelter,
+without money and without price.</p>
+
+<div class='right'>
+<span style="margin-right: 3em;">"Yours truly,</span><br />
+"<span class="smcap">A. Lincoln.</span>"<br />
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The feeling in the neighborhood where the
+crime was committed was so intense that it was
+decided that it must be taken over to the next
+county to secure a fair trial. Lawyer Lincoln
+was on hand to defend the son of his old friend.</p>
+
+<p>Besides those who testified to the bad character
+of the young prisoner, one witness, named
+Allen, testified that he saw "Duff" Armstrong
+strike the blow which killed Metzker.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you be mistaken about this?" asked
+Mr. Lincoln. "What time did you see it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Between nine and ten o'clock that night."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you certain that you saw the prisoner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+strike the blow?&mdash;Be careful&mdash;remember&mdash;you
+are under oath!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure. There is no doubt about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But wasn't it dark at that hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, the moon was shining bright."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you say there was a moon and it was
+not dark."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was light enough for me to see him
+hit Metzker on the head."</p>
+
+<p>"Now I want you to be very careful. I understand
+you to say the murder was committed
+about half past nine o'clock, and there was a
+bright moon at the time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said the witness positively.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. That is all."</p>
+
+<p>Then Lawyer Lincoln produced an almanac
+showing that there was no moon that night till
+the early hours of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"This witness has perjured himself," he said,
+"and his whole story is a lie."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Duff" Armstrong was promptly acquitted.
+The tears of that widowed mother and the
+gratitude of the boy he had rocked were the best<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
+sort of pay to Lawyer Lincoln for an act of kindness
+and life-saving.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"JUST WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE WHOLE WORLD!"</div>
+
+<p>A Springfield neighbor used to say that it was
+almost a habit with Mr. Lincoln to carry his
+children about on his shoulders. Indeed, the
+man said he seldom saw the tall lawyer go by
+without one or both boys perched on high or tugging
+at the tails of his long coat. This neighbor
+relates that he was attracted to the door of his
+own house one day by a great noise of crying
+children, and saw Mr. Lincoln passing with the
+two boys in their usual position, and both were
+howling lustily.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Lincoln, what's the matter?" he
+asked in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what's the matter with the whole
+world," the lawyer replied coolly. "I've got
+three walnuts, and each wants two."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE "BUCKING" CHESS BOARD</div>
+
+<p>Several years later Judge Treat, of Springfield
+was playing chess with Mr. Lincoln in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>
+law office when Tad came in to call his father to
+supper. The boy, impatient at the delay of the
+slow and silent game, tried to break it up by a
+flank movement against the chess board, but the
+attacks were warded off, each time, by his
+father's long arms.</p>
+
+<p>The child disappeared, and when the two
+players had begun to believe they were to be permitted
+to end the game in peace, the table suddenly
+"bucked" and the board and chessmen
+were sent flying all over the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Treat was much vexed, and expressed
+impatience, not hesitating to tell Mr. Lincoln
+that the boy ought to be punished severely.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln replied, as he gently took down
+his hat to go home to supper:</p>
+
+<p>"Considering the position of your pieces,
+judge, at the time of the upheaval, I think you
+have no reason to complain."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />WHEN TAD GOT A SPANKING</div>
+
+<p>Yet, indulgent as he was, there were some
+things Mr. Lincoln would not allow even his
+youngest child to do. An observer who saw the
+President-elect and his family in their train on
+the way to Washington to take the helm of State,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
+relates that little Tad amused himself by raising
+the car window an inch or two and trying, by
+shutting it down suddenly, to catch the fingers
+of the curious boys outside who were holding
+themselves up by their hands on the window sill
+of the car to catch sight of the new President
+and his family.</p>
+
+<p>The President-elect, who had to go out to the
+platform to make a little speech to a crowd at
+nearly every stop, noticed Tad's attempts to
+pinch the boys' fingers. He spoke sharply to his
+son and commanded him to stop that. Tad
+obeyed for a time, but his father, catching him
+at the same trick again, leaned over, and taking
+the little fellow across his knee, gave him a good,
+sound spanking, exclaiming as he did so:</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you want to mash those boys' fingers?"</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE TRUE STORY OF BOB'S LOSING THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln was always lenient when the offense
+was against himself. The Hon. Robert
+Todd Lincoln, the only living son of the great
+President, tells how the satchel containing his
+father's inaugural address was lost for a time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
+Some writers have related the story of this loss,
+stating that it all happened at Harrisburg, and
+telling how the President-elect discovered a bag
+like his own, and on opening it found only a
+pack of greasy cards, a bottle of whisky and a
+soiled paper collar. Also that Mr. Lincoln was
+"reminded" of a cheap, ill-fitting story&mdash;but
+none of these things really took place.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the true story, as related to the writer
+by Robert Lincoln himself:</p>
+
+<p>"My father had confided to me the care of the
+satchel containing his inaugural address. It was
+lost for a little while during the stay of our party
+at the old Bates House in Indianapolis. When
+we entered the hotel I set the bag down with the
+other luggage, which was all removed to a room
+back of the clerk's desk.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as I missed the valise I went right
+to father, in great distress of mind. He ordered
+a search made. We were naturally much
+alarmed, for it was the only copy he had of his
+inaugural address, which he had carefully written
+before leaving Springfield. Of course, he
+added certain parts after reaching Washington.
+The missing bag was soon found in a safe place.</p>
+
+<p>"Instead of taking out the precious manuscript<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
+and stuffing it into his own pocket, father
+handed it right back to me, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"'There, Bob, see if you can't take better care
+of it this time'&mdash;and you may be sure I was true
+to the trust he placed in me. Why, I hardly let
+that precious gripsack get out of my sight during
+my waking hours all the rest of the long
+roundabout journey to Washington."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE TERRIBLE LONELINESS AFTER WILLIE DIED</div>
+
+<p>The death of Willie, who was nearly three
+years older than Tad, early in 1862, during their
+first year in the White House, nearly broke his
+father's heart. It was said that Mr. Lincoln
+never recovered from that bereavement. It
+made him yearn the more tenderly over his
+youngest son who sadly missed the brother who
+had been his constant companion.</p>
+
+<p>It was natural for a lad who was so much indulged
+to take advantage of his freedom. Tad
+had a slight impediment in his speech which
+made the street urchins laugh at him, and even
+cabinet members, because they could not understand
+him, considered him a little nuisance. So
+Tad, though known as "the child of the nation,"
+and greatly beloved and petted by those who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
+knew him for a lovable affectionate child, found
+himself alone in a class by himself, and against
+all classes of people.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />TURNING THE HOSE ON HIGH OFFICIALS</div>
+
+<p>He illustrated this spirit one day by getting
+hold of the hose and turning it on some dignified
+State officials, several army officers, and finally
+on a soldier on guard who was ordered to charge
+and take possession of that water battery. Although
+that little escapade appealed to the President's
+sense of humor, for he himself liked
+nothing better than to take generals and pompous
+officials down "a peg or two," Tad got well
+spanked for the havoc he wrought that day.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />BREAKING INTO A CABINET MEETING</div>
+
+<p>The members of the President's cabinet had
+reason to be annoyed by the boy's frequent interruptions.
+He seemed to have the right of
+way wherever his father happened to be. No
+matter if Senator Sumner or Secretary Stanton
+was discussing some weighty matter of State or
+war, if Tad came in, his father turned from the
+men of high estate to minister to the wants of his
+little boy. He did it to get rid of him, for of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
+course he knew Tad would raise such a racket
+that no one could talk or think till <i>his</i> wants
+were disposed of.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ON THE COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT
+FOR TAD AND HIS BOY FRIENDS</div>
+
+<p>A story is told of the boy's interruption of a
+council of war. This habit of Tad's enraged
+Secretary Stanton, whose horror of the boy was
+similar to that of an elephant for a mouse. The
+President was giving his opinion on a certain
+piece of strategy which he thought the general
+in question might carry out&mdash;when a great noise
+was heard out in the hall, followed by a number
+of sharp raps on the door of the cabinet room.</p>
+
+<p>Strategy, war, everything was, for the moment
+forgotten by the President, whose wan face
+assumed an expression of unusual pleasure,
+while he gathered up his great, weary length
+from different parts of the room as he had half
+lain, sprawling about, across and around his
+chair and the great table.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Tad," he exclaimed, "I wonder what
+that <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'boys'">boy</ins> wants now." On his way to open the
+door, Mr. Lincoln explained that those knocks
+had just been adopted by the boy and himself, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
+part of the telegraph system, and that he was
+obliged to let the lad in&mdash;"for it wouldn't do to
+go back on the code now," he added, half in
+apology for permitting such a sudden break in
+their deliberations.</p>
+
+<p>When the door was opened, Tad, with flushed
+face and sparkling eyes, sprang in and threw his
+arms around his father's neck. The President
+straightened up and embraced the boy with an
+expression of happiness never seen on his face
+except while playing with his little son.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln turned, with the boy still in his
+arms, to explain that he and Tad had agreed
+upon this telegraphic code to prevent the lad
+from bursting in upon them without warning.
+The members of the cabinet looked puzzled or
+disgusted, as though they failed to see that several
+startling raps could be any better than having
+Tad break in with a whoop or a wail, as had
+been the boy's custom.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />ISSUING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER ON PETER FOR PIE</div>
+
+<p>The boy raised a question of right. He had
+besieged Peter, the colored steward, demanding
+that a dinner be served to several urchins he had
+picked up outside&mdash;two of whom were sons of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
+soldiers. Peter had protested that he "had
+other fish to fry" just then.</p>
+
+<p>The President recognized at once that this was
+a case for diplomacy. Turning to various members
+of the cabinet, he called on each to contribute
+from his store of wisdom, what would be
+best to do in a case of such vast importance.
+Tad looked on in wonder as his father set the
+great machinery of government in motion to
+make out a commissary order on black Peter,
+which would force that astonished servant to deliver
+certain pieces of pie and other desired eatables
+to Tad, for himself and his boy friends.</p>
+
+<p>At last an "order" was prepared by the Chief
+Executive of the United States directing "The
+Commissary Department of the Presidential
+Residence to issue rations to Lieutenant Tad
+Lincoln and his five associates, two of whom are
+the sons of soldiers in the Army of the Potomac."</p>
+
+<p>With an expression of deep gravity and a solemn
+flourish, the President tendered this Commissary
+Order to the lieutenant, his son, saying
+as he presented the document:</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon Peter will <i>have</i> to come to time
+now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Lieutenant Tad Lincoln, Patriot</span></h3>
+
+
+<p>There was no more sturdy little patriot in the
+whole country than Lieutenant Tad Lincoln,
+"the child of the nation," nor had the President
+of the United States a more devoted admirer
+and follower than his own small son. A word
+from his father would melt the lad to tears and
+submission, or bring him out of a nervous tantrum
+with his small round face wreathed with
+smiles, and a chuckling in his throat of "Papa-day,
+my papa-day!" No one knew exactly what
+the boy meant by papa-day. It was his pet name
+for the dearest man on earth, and it was his only
+way of expressing the greatest pleasure his boyish
+heart was able to hold. It was the "sweetest
+word ever heard" by the war-burdened, crushed
+and sorrowing soul of the broken-hearted President
+of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lincoln took his youngest son with him
+everywhere&mdash;on his great mission to Fortress
+Monroe, and they&mdash;"the long and the short of
+it," the soldiers said&mdash;marched hand in hand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>
+through the streets of fallen Richmond. The
+understanding between the man and the boy was
+so complete and sacred, that some acts which
+seemed to outsiders absurd and ill-fitting, became
+perfectly right and proper when certain
+unknown facts were taken into account.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />WAVING THE "STARS AND BARS" OUT OF A WHITE
+HOUSE WINDOW</div>
+
+<p>For instance, one night, during an enthusiastic
+serenade at the White House, after a great
+victory of the northern armies, when the President
+had been out and made a happy speech in
+response to the congratulations he had received,
+everybody was horrified to see the Confederate
+"Stars and Bars" waving frantically from an
+upper window with shouts followed by shrieks
+as old Edward, the faithful colored servant,
+pulled in the flag and the boy who was guilty of
+the mischief.</p>
+
+<p>"That was little Tad!" exclaimed some one in
+the crowd. Many laughed, but some spectators
+thought the boy ought to be punished for such a
+treasonable outbreak on the part of a President's
+boy in a soldier's uniform.</p>
+
+<p>"If he don't know any better than that," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
+one man, "he should be taught better. It's an
+insult to the North and the President ought to
+stop it and apologize, too."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"BOYS IN BLUE" AND "BOYS IN GRAY"</div>
+
+<p>But little Tad understood his father's spirit
+better than the crowd did. He knew that the
+President's love was not confined to "the Boys
+in Blue," but that his heart went out also to "the
+Boys in Gray." The soldiers were all "boys" to
+him. They knew he loved them. They said
+among themselves: "He cares for us. He takes
+our part. We will fight for him; yes, we will die
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>And a large part of the common soldier's patriotism
+was this heart-response of "the boys"
+to the great "boy" in the White House. That
+was the meaning of their song as they trooped to
+the front at his call:</p>
+
+<div class='poem'>
+"We are coming, Father Abraham;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Three hundred thousand more."</span><br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Little Tad saw plenty of evidences of his
+father's love for the younger soldiers&mdash;the real
+boys of the army. Going always with the President,
+he had heard his "Papa-day" say of several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
+youths condemned to be shot for sleeping at
+their post or some like offense:</p>
+
+<p>"That boy is worth more above ground than
+under;" or, "A live boy can serve his country
+better than a dead one."</p>
+
+<p>"Give the boys a chance," was Abraham Lincoln's
+motto. He hadn't had much of a chance
+himself and he wanted all other boys to have a
+fair show. His own father had been too hard
+with him, and he was going to make it up to all
+the other boys he could reach. This passion for
+doing good to others began in the log cabin when
+he had no idea he could ever be exercising his
+loving kindness in the Executive Mansion&mdash;the
+Home of the Nation. "With malice toward
+none, with charity for all," was the rule of his
+life in the backwoods as well as in the National
+Capital.</p>
+
+<p>And "the Boys in Gray" were his "boys," too,
+but they didn't understand, so they had wandered
+away&mdash;they were a little wayward, but he
+would win them back. The great chivalrous
+South has learned, since those bitter, ruinous
+days, that Abraham Lincoln was the best friend
+the South then had in the North. Tad had seen
+his father show great tenderness to all the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
+"boys" he met in the gray uniform, but the
+President had few opportunities to show his
+tenderness to the South&mdash;though there was a secret
+pigeonhole in his desk stuffed full of threats
+of assassination. He was not afraid of death&mdash;indeed,
+he was glad to die if it would do his
+"boys" and the country any good. But it hurt
+him deep in his heart to know that some of his
+beloved children misunderstood him so that they
+were willing to kill him!</p>
+
+<p>It was no one's bullet which made Abraham
+Lincoln a martyr. All his life he had shown the
+spirit of love which was willing to give his very
+life if it could save or help others.</p>
+
+<p>All these things little Tad could not have explained,
+but they were inbred into the deep understanding
+of the big father and the small son
+who were living in the White House as boys together.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />MR. LINCOLN'S LAST SPEECH AND HOW TAD HELPED</div>
+
+<p>A few days after the war ended at Appomattox,
+a great crowd came to the White House to
+serenade the President. It was Tuesday evening,
+April 11, 1865. Mr. Lincoln had written a
+short address for the occasion. The times were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
+so out of joint and every word was so important
+that the President could not trust himself to
+speak off-hand.</p>
+
+<p>A friend stepped out on the northern portico
+with him to hold the candle by which Mr. Lincoln
+was to read his speech. Little Tad was with
+his father, as usual, and when the President had
+finished reading a page of his manuscript he let
+it flutter down, like a leaf, or a big white butterfly,
+for Tad to catch. When the pages came too
+slowly the boy pulled his father's coat-tail, piping
+up in a muffled, excited tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Give me 'nother paper, Papa-day."</p>
+
+<p>To the few in the front of the crowd who witnessed
+this little by-play it seemed ridiculous
+that the President of the United States should
+allow any child to behave like that and hamper
+him while delivering a great address which
+would wield a national, if not world-wide influence.
+But little Tad did not trouble his father
+in the least. It was a part of the little game they
+were constantly playing together.</p>
+
+<p>The address opened with these words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Fellow-Citizens</span>: We meet this
+evening not in sorrow, but gladness of
+heart. The evacuation of Petersburg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>
+and Richmond, and the surrender of
+the principal insurgent army (at Appomattox)
+give hope of a righteous
+and speedy peace whose joyous expression
+cannot be restrained. In the midst
+of this, however, He from whom all
+blessings flow must not be forgotten. A
+call for national thanksgiving is being
+prepared and will be duly promulgated."</p></div>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />"GIVE US 'DIXIE,' BOYS!"</div>
+
+<p>Then he went on outlining a policy of peace
+and friendship toward the South&mdash;showing a
+spirit far higher and more advanced than that of
+the listening crowd. On concluding his address
+and bidding the assembled multitude good night,
+he turned to the serenading band and shouted
+joyously:</p>
+
+<p>"Give us 'Dixie,' boys; play 'Dixie.' We have
+a right to that tune now."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of silence. Some of the
+people gasped, as they had done when they saw
+Tad waving the Confederate flag at the window.
+But the band, loyal even to a mere whim (as they
+then thought it) of "Father Abraham," started
+the long-forbidden tune, and the President, bowing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
+retired, with little Tad, within the White
+House. Those words, "Give us 'Dixie,' boys,"
+were President Lincoln's last public utterance.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Lincoln came in through the door after
+speaking to the crowd, Mrs. Lincoln&mdash;who had
+been, with a group of friends, looking on from
+within&mdash;exclaimed to him:</p>
+
+<p>"You must not be so careless. Some one could
+easily have shot you while you were speaking
+there&mdash;and you know they are threatening your
+life!"</p>
+
+<p>The President smiled at his wife, through a
+look of inexpressible pain and sadness, and
+shrugged his great shoulders, but "still he answered
+not a word."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE SEPARATION OF THE TWO "BOYS"</div>
+
+<p>At a late hour Good Friday night, that same
+week, little Tad came in alone at a basement door
+of the White House from the National Theater,
+where he knew the manager, and some of the
+company, had made a great pet of him. He had
+often gone there alone or with his tutor. How
+he had heard the terrible news from Ford's
+Theater is not known, but he came up the lower
+stairway with heartrending cries like a wounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
+animal. Seeing Thomas Pendel, the faithful
+doorkeeper, he wailed from his breaking heart:</p>
+
+<p>"Tom Pen, Tom Pen, they have killed Papa-day!
+They have killed my Papa-day!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>After the funeral the little fellow was more
+lonely than ever. It was hard to have his pony
+burned up in the stable. It was harder still to
+lose Brother Willie, his constant companion,
+and now his mother was desperately ill, and his
+father had been killed. Tad, of course, could not
+comprehend why any one could be so cruel and
+wicked as to wish to murder his darling Papa-day,
+who loved every one so!</p>
+
+<p>He wandered through the empty rooms,
+aching with loneliness, murmuring softly to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Papa-day, where's my Papa-day. I'm tired&mdash;tired
+of playing alone. I want to play together.
+Please, Papa-day, come back and play
+with your little Tad."</p>
+
+<p>Young though he was he could not sleep long
+at night. His sense of loneliness penetrated his
+dreams. Sometimes he would chuckle and
+gurgle in an ecstacy, as he had done when riding
+on his father's back, romping through the stately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
+rooms. He would throw his arm about the neck
+of the doorkeeper or lifeguard who had lain
+down beside him to console the boy and try to get
+him to sleep. When the man spoke to comfort
+him, Tad would find out his terrible mistake,
+that his father was not with him.</p>
+
+<p>Then he would wail again in the bitterness of
+his disappointment:</p>
+
+<p>"Papa-day, where's my Papa-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your papa's gone 'way off"&mdash;said his companion,
+his voice breaking with emotion&mdash;"gone
+to heaven."</p>
+
+<p>Tad opened his eyes wide with wonder. "Is
+Papa-day happy in heaven?" he asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, I'm sure he's happy there, Taddie
+dear; now go to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa-day's happy. I'm glad&mdash;<i>so</i> glad!"&mdash;sighed
+the little boy&mdash;"for Papa-day never was
+happy here."</p>
+
+<p>Then he fell into his first sweet sleep since that
+terrible night.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />GIVE THE BOYS A CHANCE"</div>
+
+<p>The fond-hearted little fellow went abroad
+with his mother a few years after the tragedy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
+that broke both their lives. By a surgical operation,
+and by struggling manfully, he had corrected
+the imperfection in his speech. But the
+heart of little Tad had been broken. While still
+a lad he joined his fond father in the Beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"Give the boys a chance," had amounted to a
+passion with Abraham Lincoln, yet through
+great wickedness and sad misunderstandings his
+own little son was robbed of this great boon.
+Little Tad had been denied the one chance he
+sorely needed for his very existence. For this,
+as for all the inequities the great heart of the
+White House was prepared. His spirit had
+shone through his whole life as if in letters of
+living fire:</p>
+
+<p>"With malice toward none; with charity for
+all."</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'><br />THE END</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Altemus Books</span></h2>
+
+<div class='center'>
+The Best and Least Expensive Books<br />
+for Twentieth Century Boys and Girls<br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 25%;' />
+
+
+
+
+<h2>BOOKS FOR BOYS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 106px;">
+<img src="images/ad1grammar.png" width="106" height="150" alt="The Grammar School Boys of Gridley" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+
+
+<p>Dick Prescott, Dan Dalzell, Tom Reade, and
+the other members of Dick &amp; Co. are always
+found in the forefront of things&mdash;in scholarship,
+athletics, and in school-boy fun. Small wonder
+that this series has made such a hit with the
+boys of America.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS OF
+GRIDLEY; or, Dick and Co. Start Things
+Moving.</div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS SNOWBOUND;
+or, Dick and Co. at Winter
+Sports.</div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS IN THE
+WOODS; or, Dick and Co. Trail Fun and
+Knowledge.</div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS IN
+SUMMER ATHLETICS; or, Dick and
+Co. Make Their Fame Secure.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>This series of stories, based on the actual doings of High School boys,
+teems with incidents in athletics and school-boy fun. The real Americanism
+of Dick Prescott and his chums will excite the admiration of every
+reader.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMEN; or, Dick and Co.'s First Year
+Pranks and Sports.</div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE HIGH SCHOOL PITCHER; or, Dick and Co. on the Gridley
+Diamond.</div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE HIGH SCHOOL LEFT END; or, Dick and Co. Grilling on the
+Football Gridiron.</div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE HIGH SCHOOL CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM; or, Dick and Co.
+Leading the Athletic Vanguard.</div>
+
+<div class='center'>Sold by all Booksellers or Sent Postpaid on Receipt of Price.</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class='center'>
+HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY<br />
+1326-1336 Vine Street,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; PHILADELPHIA, PA.<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS VACATION<br />
+SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 109px;">
+<img src="images/ad2high.png" width="109" height="150" alt="The High School Boys Canoe Club" title="" />
+</div>
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+
+
+<p>Outdoor sports are the keynote of
+these volumes. Boys will alternately
+thrill and chuckle over these splendid
+narratives of the further adventures of
+Dick Prescott and his chums.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' CANOE
+CLUB; or, Dick and Co.'s Rivals on Lake
+Pleasant.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS IN SUMMER
+CAMP; or, The Dick Prescott Six Training
+for the Gridley Eleven.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' FISHING TRIP; or, Dick and Co.
+in the Wilderness.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' TRAINING HIKE; or, Dick and Co.
+Making Themselves "Hard as Nails."</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE YOUNG ENGINEERS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton meet every requirement
+as young civil engineers with pick, shovel, and pluck, and with
+resourcefulness and determination overcome all obstacles.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN COLORADO; or, At Railroad Building
+in Earnest.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN ARIZONA; or, Laying Tracks on
+the "Man-Killer" Quicksand.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN NEVADA; or, Seeking Fortune on
+the Turn of a Pick.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN MEXICO; or, Fighting the Mine
+Swindlers.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS ON THE GULF; or, The Dread Mystery
+of the Million-Dollar Breakwater.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE ANNAPOLIS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 105px;">
+<img src="images/ad3dave.png" width="105" height="150" alt="Dave Darrin&#39;s First Year at Annapolis" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell proved
+their mettle at the U. S. Naval Academy
+and gave promise of what might be expected
+of them in the great war that
+was even at that moment hovering over
+the world.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. DAVE DARRIN'S FIRST YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS;
+or, Two Plebe Midshipmen at
+the U. S. Naval Academy.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. DAVE DARRIN'S SECOND YEAR AT
+ANNAPOLIS; or, Two Midshipmen as
+Naval Academy "Youngsters."<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. DAVE DARRIN'S THIRD YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or, Leaders of
+the Second Class Midshipmen.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. DAVE DARRIN'S FOURTH YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or, Headed
+for Graduation and the Big Cruise.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE WEST POINT SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes are not human wonders,
+but a pair of average bright American boys who had a hard
+enough time working their way through West Point. Their
+experiences will inspire all other American boys.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. DICK PRESCOTT'S FIRST YEAR AT WEST POINT; or, Two
+Chums in the Cadet Gray.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. DICK PRESCOTT'S SECOND YEAR AT WEST POINT; or, Finding
+the Glory of the Soldier's Life.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. DICK PRESCOTT'S THIRD YEAR AT WEST POINT; or, Standing
+Firm for Flag and Honor.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. DICK PRESCOTT'S FOURTH YEAR AT WEST POINT; or, Ready
+to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BATTLESHIP BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By FRANK GEE PATCHIN</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 102px;">
+<img src="images/ad4battleship.png" width="102" height="150" alt="The Battleship Boys at Sea" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Inspiring adventure, moving incidents
+over the seven seas, and in the air
+above them; fighting the Huns from the
+decks of sinking ships, and coming to
+grief above the clouds; strange peoples
+and still stranger experiences, are some
+of the things that the readers of this
+series will live when they cruise with
+Dan Davis and Sam Hickey. Mr. Patchin
+has lived every phase of the life he
+writes about, and his stories truly depict
+life in the various branches of the
+navy&mdash;stories that glow with the spirit
+of patriotism that has made the American navy what it proved
+itself to be in the world war.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS AT SEA; or, Two Apprentices in Uncle
+Sam's Navy.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS' FIRST STEP UPWARD; or, Winning
+Their Grades as Petty Officers.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN FOREIGN SERVICE; or, Earning
+New Ratings in European Seas.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN THE TROPICS; or, Upholding the
+American Flag in a Honduras Revolution.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS UNDER FIRE; or, The Dash for the
+Besieged Kam Shau Mission.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN THE WARDROOM; or, Winning
+Their Commissions as Line Officers.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">7. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS WITH THE ADRIATIC CHASERS; or,
+Blocking the Path of the Undersea Raiders.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">8. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS ON SKY PATROL; or, Fighting the Hun
+from Above the Clouds.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BOYS OF THE ARMY SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 107px;">
+<img src="images/ad5army.png" width="107" height="150" alt="Uncle Sam&#39;s Boys in the Ranks" title="" />
+</div><div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+
+
+<p>These stimulating stories are among
+the best of their class that have ever
+been written. They breathe the life and
+spirit of our army of today, and in
+which Uncle Sam's Boys fought with a
+courage and devotion excelled by none
+in the world war. There is no better
+way to instil patriotism in the coming
+generation than by placing in the hands
+of juvenile readers books in which a
+romantic atmosphere is thrown around
+the boys of the army with thrilling
+plots that boys love. The books of this
+series tell in story form the life of a soldier from the rookie
+stage until he has qualified for an officer's commission, and,
+among other things, present a true picture of the desperate
+days in fighting the Huns.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE RANKS; or, Two Recruits in the
+United States Army.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON FIELD DUTY; or, Winning Corporals'
+Chevrons.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS SERGEANTS; or, Handling Their First
+Real Commands.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE PHILIPPINES; or, Following the
+Flag Against the Moros.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON THEIR METTLE; or, A Chance to Win
+Officers' Commissions.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS LIEUTENANTS; or, Serving Old Glory
+as Line Officers.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">7. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS WITH PERSHING; or, Dick Prescott at
+Grips with the Boche.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">8. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS SMASH THE GERMANS; or, Helping the
+Allies Wind Up the Great World War.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>DAVE DARRIN SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 108px;">
+<img src="images/ad6daved.png" width="108" height="150" alt="Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>No more efficient officers ever paced
+the deck of a man-o'-war than Dave Darrin
+and Dan Dalzell. The last two volumes
+chronicle the experiences of Dave
+and Dan in the great war.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. DAVE DARRIN AT VERA CRUZ; or, Fighting
+With the U. S. Navy in Mexico.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. DAVE DARRIN ON MEDITERRANEAN
+SERVICE; or, With Dan Dalzell on European
+Duty.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. DAVE DARRIN'S SOUTH AMERICAN
+CRUISE; or, Two Innocent Young Naval
+Tools of an Infamous Conspiracy.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. DAVE DARRIN ON THE ASIATIC STATION; or, Winning Lieutenants'
+Commissions on the Admiral's Flagship.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. DAVE DARRIN AND THE GERMAN SUBMARINES; or, Making
+a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. DAVE DARRIN AFTER THE MINE LAYERS; or, Hitting the
+Enemy a Hard Naval Blow.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE CONQUEST OF THE UNITED<br />
+STATES SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>If the United States had not entered the war many things
+might have happened to America. No liberty-loving American
+boy can afford to miss reading these books.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE INVASION OF THE UNITED STATES; or, Uncle Sam's Boys
+at the Capture of Boston.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. IN THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK; or, Uncle Sam's Boys in the
+Desperate Struggle for the Metropolis.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. AT THE DEFENSE OF PITTSBURGH; or, The Struggle to Save
+America's "Fighting Steel" Supply.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. MAKING THE LAST STAND FOR OLD GLORY; or, Uncle Sam's
+Boys in the Last Frantic Drive.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By H. IRVING HANCOCK</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 107px;">
+<img src="images/ad7motorboat.png" width="107" height="150" alt="The Motor-Boat Club of Kennebec" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Bright and sparkling as the waters
+over which the Motor Boat Boys sail.
+Once cast off for a cruise with these
+hardy young fresh-water navigators
+the reader will not ask to be "put
+ashore" until the home port has finally
+been made. Manliness and pluck are
+reflected on every page; the plots are
+ingenious, the action swift, and the interest
+always tense. There is neither
+a yawn in a paragraph nor a dull moment
+in a chapter in this stirring
+series. No boy or girl will willingly
+lay down a volume of it until "the end." The stories also embody
+much useful information about the operation and handling
+of small power boats.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OF THE KENNEBEC; or, The Secret
+of Smugglers' Island.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT NANTUCKET; or, The Mystery of
+the Dunstan Heir.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OFF LONG ISLAND; or, A Daring
+Marine Game at Racing Speed.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND THE WIRELESS; or, The Dot,
+Dash and Dare Cruise.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB IN FLORIDA; or, Laying the Ghost
+of Alligator Swamp.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT THE GOLDEN GATE; or, A
+Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">7. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB ON THE GREAT LAKES; or, The
+Flying Dutchman of the Big Fresh Water.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE SUBMARINE BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By VICTOR G. DURHAM</h3>
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 108px;">
+<img src="images/ad8sub.png" width="108" height="150" alt="The Submarine Boys for the Flag" title="" />
+</div>
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+
+
+<p>A voyage in an undersea boat! What
+boy has not done so time and again in
+his youthful dreams? The Submarine
+Boys did it in reality, diving into the
+dark depths of the sea, then, like Father
+Neptune, rising dripping from the deep
+to sunlight and safety. Yet it was not
+all easy sailing for the Submarine Boys,
+for these hardy young "undersea pirates"
+experienced a full measure of excitement
+and had their share of thrills,
+as all who sail under the surface of the
+seas are certain to do. The author
+knows undersea boats, and the reader who voyages with him
+may look forward to an instructive as well as lively cruise.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE SUBMARINE BOYS ON DUTY; or, Life on a Diving Torpedo
+Boat.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' TRIAL TRIP; or, "Making Good" as
+Young Experts.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE MIDDIES; or, The Prize Detail
+at Annapolis.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SPIES; or, Dodging the
+Sharks of the Deep.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' LIGHTNING CRUISE; or, The Young
+Kings of the Deep.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. THE SUBMARINE BOYS FOR THE FLAG; or, Deeding Their Lives
+to Uncle Sam.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">7. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SMUGGLERS; or, Breaking
+Up the New Jersey Customs Frauds.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">8. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' SECRET MISSION; or, Beating an Ambassador's
+Game.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE PONY RIDER BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By FRANK GEE PATCHIN</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 107px;">
+<img src="images/ad9pony.png" width="107" height="150" alt="The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>This unusual and popular series
+tells vividly the story of four adventure-loving
+lads, who, with their
+guardian, spent their summer vacations
+in the saddle in search of
+recreation and healthful adventure.
+Long journeys over mountain,
+through the fastness of primitive
+forest and across burning desert,
+lead them into the wild places of
+their native land as well as into
+many strange and exciting experiences.
+There is not a dull moment
+in the series.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The Secret of
+the Lost Claim.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN TEXAS; or, The Veiled Riddle of
+the Plains.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN MONTANA; or, The Mystery of
+the Old Custer Trail.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE OZARKS; or, The Secret of
+Ruby Mountain.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ALKALI; or, Finding a Key
+to the Desert Maze.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW MEXICO; or, The End of
+the Silver Trail.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">7. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON; or, The
+Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">8. THE PONY RIDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS; or,
+On the Trail of the Border Bandits.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">9. THE PONY RIDER BOYS ON THE BLUE RIDGE; or, A Lucky
+Find in the Carolina Mountains.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">10. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW ENGLAND; or, An Exciting
+Quest in the Maine Wilderness.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">11. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN LOUISIANA; or, Following the
+Game Trails in the Canebrake.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">12. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN ALASKA; or, The Gold Diggers of
+Taku Pass.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE CIRCUS BOYS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By EDGAR B. P. DARLINGTON</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 107px;">
+<img src="images/ad10circus.png" width="107" height="150" alt="The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>No call to the heart of the youth of
+America finds a readier response than the
+call of the billowing canvas, the big red
+wagons, the crash of the circus band and
+the trill of the ringmaster's whistle. It
+is a call that captures the imagination of
+old and young alike, and so do the books
+of this series capture and enthrall the
+reader, for they were written by one who,
+besides wielding a master pen, has followed
+the sawdust trail from coast to
+coast, who knows the circus people and
+the sturdy manliness of those who do
+and dare for the entertainment of millions
+of circus-goers when the grass is
+green. Mr. Darlington paints a true picture of the circus life.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE FLYING RINGS; or, Making the
+Start in the Sawdust Life.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE CIRCUS BOYS ACROSS THE CONTINENT; or, Winning
+New Laurels on the Tanbark.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE CIRCUS BOYS IN DIXIE LAND; or, Winning the Plaudits of
+the Sunny South.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE MISSISSIPPI; or, Afloat with the
+Big Show on the Big River.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE PLAINS; or, The Young Advance
+Agents Ahead of the Show.<br /><br /></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BOOKS FOR GIRLS</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MADGE MORTON SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By AMY D. V. CHALMERS</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>The heroines of these stories are four girls, who with enthusiasm
+for outdoor life, transformed a dilapidated canal
+boat into a pretty floating summer home. They christened
+the craft "The Merry Maid" and launched it on the shore of
+Chesapeake Bay. The stories are full of fun and adventure,
+with not a dull moment anywhere.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Madge Morton Books">
+<tr><td align='left'>1. MADGE MORTON&mdash;CAPTAIN OF THE MERRY MAID.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. MADGE MORTON'S SECRET.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. MADGE MORTON'S TRUST.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. MADGE MORTON'S VICTORY.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By JANET ALDRIDGE</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 110px;">
+<img src="images/ad11meadowbrook.png" width="110" height="150" alt="The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Four clever girls go hiking around
+the country and meet with many thrilling
+and provoking adventures. These
+stories pulsate with the atmosphere of
+outdoor life.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS UNDER
+CANVAS; or, Fun and Frolic in the Summer
+Camp.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ACROSS
+COUNTRY; or, The Young Pathfinders
+on a Summer Hike.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS AFLOAT;
+or, The Stormy Cruise of the Red Rover.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS IN THE HILLS; or, The Missing
+Pilot of the White Mountains.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS BY THE SEA; or, The Loss of the
+Lonesome Bar.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ON THE TENNIS COURTS; or,
+Winning Out in the Big Tournament.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By LAURA DENT CRANE</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>Girls as well as boys love wholesome adventure, a wealth
+of which is found in many forms and in many scenes in the
+volumes of this series.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT; or, Watching the Summer
+Parade.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS IN THE BERKSHIRES; or, The
+Ghost of Lost Man's Trail.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS ALONG THE HUDSON; or, Fighting
+Fire in Sleepy Hollow.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT CHICAGO; or, Winning Out
+Against Heavy Odds.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">5. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT PALM BEACH; or, Proving Their
+Mettle Under Southern Skies.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">6. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT WASHINGTON; or, Checkmating
+the Plots of Foreign Spies.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 102px;">
+<img src="images/ad12grace.png" width="102" height="150" alt="Grace Harlowe&#39;s Plebe Year at High School" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>The scenes, episodes, and adventures
+through which Grace Harlowe and her
+intimate chums pass in the course of
+these stories are pictured with a vivacity
+that at once takes the young feminine
+captive.</p>
+
+<div class="hang1">1. GRACE HARLOWE'S PLEBE YEAR AT
+HIGH SCHOOL; or, The Merry Doings of
+the Oakdale Freshmen Girls.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">2. GRACE HARLOWE'S SOPHOMORE YEAR
+AT HIGH SCHOOL; or, The Record of the
+Girl Chums in Work and Athletics.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">3. GRACE HARLOWE'S JUNIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL; or,
+Fast Friends in the Sororities.<br /><br /></div>
+
+<div class="hang1">4. GRACE HARLOWE'S SENIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL; or,
+The Parting of the Ways.</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE COLLEGE GIRLS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>Every school and college girl will recognize that the account
+of Grace Harlowe's experiences at Overton College is
+true to life.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="The College Girls Series">
+<tr><td align='left'>1. GRACE HARLOWE'S FIRST YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. GRACE HARLOWE'S SECOND YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. GRACE HARLOWE'S THIRD YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. GRACE HARLOWE'S FOURTH YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. GRACE HARLOWE'S RETURN TO OVERTON CAMPUS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. GRACE HARLOWE'S PROBLEM.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7. GRACE HARLOWE'S GOLDEN SUMMER.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS<br />
+SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 106px;">
+<img src="images/ad13graceoverseas.png" width="106" height="150" alt="Grace Harlowe Overseas" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>Grace Harlowe went with the Overton
+College Red Cross Unit to France,
+there to serve her country by aiding
+the American fighting forces.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Grace Harlowe Overseas Series">
+<tr><td align='left'>1. GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE U. S. TROOPS IN THE ARGONNE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE YANKEE SHOCK BOYS AT ST. QUENTIN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY ON THE RHINE.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERLAND<br />
+RIDERS SERIES</h2>
+
+<h3>By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.</h3>
+
+<div class='center'>PRICE, $1.00 EACH</div>
+
+<p>Grace Harlowe and her friends seek adventure on the
+mountain trails and in the wilder sections of their homeland,
+after their return from service in France.</p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERLAND RIDERS SERIES">
+<tr><td align='left'>1. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE OLD APACHE TRAIL.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE GREA NORTH WOODS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE HIGH SIERRAS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE BLACK HILLS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AT CIRCLE O RANCH.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE BORDER GUERRILLAS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE LOST RIVER TRAIL.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ALTEMUS' NEW ILLUSTRATED<br />
+YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY</h2>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 116px;">
+<img src="images/ad14young.png" width="116" height="150" alt="Black Beauty" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>A series of choice literature for children,
+selected from the best and most popular
+works. Printed on fine paper from large type,
+with numerous illustrations in color and black
+and white, by the most famous artists, making
+the most attractive series of juvenile classics
+before the public.</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+Fine English Cloth, Handsome New Original Designs<br />
+PRICE, 75 Cents Each<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 70 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 42 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE. 50 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 46 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>A CHILD'S STORY OF THE BIBLE. 72 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>A CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. 49 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>&AElig;SOP'S FABLES. 62 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. 50 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. By Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p>GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. 50 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES, JINGLES, AND FAIRY TALES. 234 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>WOOD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 80 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>BLACK BEAUTY. By Anna Sewell. 50 illustrations.</p>
+
+<p>ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. 130 illustrations.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>WEE BOOKS FOR WEE FOLKS</h2>
+
+<p>For little hands to fondle and for mother to read aloud.
+Every ounce of them will give a ton of joy.</p>
+
+
+<h3>WEE BOOKS FOR WEE FOLKS SERIES</h3>
+
+<div class="figright" style="width: 115px;">
+<img src="images/ad15wee.png" width="115" height="150" alt="A Child&#39;s Garden of Verses" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p>MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY TALES.</p>
+
+<p>MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY RHYMES.</p>
+
+<p>A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES. Robert Louis Stevenson.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOOLISH FOX.</p>
+
+<p>THREE LITTLE PIGS.</p>
+
+<p>THE ROBBER KITTEN.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE BLACK SAMBO.</p>
+
+<p>THE LITTLE SMALL RED HEN.</p>
+
+<p>THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.</p>
+
+<p>THE LITTLE WISE CHICKEN THAT KNEW IT ALL.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOUR LITTLE PIGS THAT DIDN'T HAVE ANY MOTHER.</p>
+
+<p>THE LITTLE PUPPY THAT WANTED TO KNOW TOO MUCH.</p>
+
+<p>THE COCK, THE MOUSE AND THE LITTLE RED HEN.</p>
+
+<p>GRUNTY GRUNTS AND SMILEY SMILE&mdash;INDOORS.</p>
+
+<p>GRUNTY GRUNTS AND SMILEY SMILE&mdash;OUTDOORS.</p>
+
+<p>I DON'T WANT TO WEAR COATS AND THINGS.</p>
+
+<p>I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BED.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE SALLIE MANDY.</p>
+
+<p>JIMMY SLIDERLEGS.</p>
+
+<p>SLOVENLY BETSY.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE BLACK SAMBO AND THE BABY ELEPHANT.</p>
+
+
+<h3>WEE FOLKS BIBLE STORIES SERIES</h3>
+
+<p>WEE FOLKS STORIES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. In Words
+of One Syllable.</p>
+
+<p>WEE FOLKS STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. In Words
+of One Syllable.</p>
+
+<p>WEE FOLKS LIFE OF CHRIST.</p>
+
+<p>WEE FOLKS BIBLE A B C BOOK.</p>
+
+<p>LITTLE PRAYERS FOR LITTLE LIPS.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE WISH FAIRY SERIES</h3>
+
+<p>THE WISH FAIRY OF THE SUNSHINE AND SHADOW FOREST.</p>
+
+<p>THE WISH FAIRY AND DEWY DEAR.</p>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; PRICE, 50c. EACH<br />
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>WEE FOLKS PETER RABBIT SERIES</h2>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 115px;">
+<img src="images/ad16weerabbit.png" width="115" height="150" alt="Peter Rabbit at the Farm" title="" />
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="WEE FOLKS PETER RABBIT SERIES">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>HOW PETER RABBIT WENT TO SEA.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AT THE FARM.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT'S CHRISTMAS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT'S EASTER.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>WHEN PETER RABBIT WENT TO SCHOOL.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT'S BIRTHDAY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT GOES A-VISITING.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND JACK-THE-JUMPER.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND THE LITTLE BOY.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND THE OLD WITCH WOMAN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND THE BIG BROWN BEAR.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND THE TINYBITS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>WHEN PETER RABBIT WENT A-FISHING.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PETER RABBIT AND THE TWO TERRIBLE FOXES.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<h3>WEE FOLKS CINDERELLA SERIES</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="WEE FOLKS CINDERELLA SERIES">
+<tr><td align='left'>THE WONDERFUL STORY OF CINDERELLA.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE STORY OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE OLDTIME STORY OF THE THREE BEARS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THE OLD, OLD STORY OF POOR COCK ROBIN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>CHICKEN LITTLE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>PUSS IN BOOTS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>THREE LITTLE KITTENS THAT LOST THEIR MITTENS.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>JACK THE GIANT KILLER.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>TOM THUMB.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<h3>LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN SERIES</h3>
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN SERIES">
+<tr><td align='left'>LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>LITTLE LAMBIE LAMBKIN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>LITTLE MOUSIE MOUSIEKIN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>LITTLE DEARIE DEER.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>LITTLE SQUIRRELIE SQUIRRELIEKIN.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>OLD RED REYNARD THE FOX.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>HOOTIE TOOTS OF HOLLOW TREE.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>FLAPSY FLOPPER OF THE FARM YARD.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<div class='center'><br /><br />
+PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; PRICE, 50c. EACH<br />
+</div>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3>
+<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln, by 
+Wayne Whipple
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln, by Wayne Whipple
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln
+
+Author: Wayne Whipple
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2007 [EBook #22925]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+The Story of
+Young Abraham Lincoln
+
+By
+
+WAYNE WHIPPLE
+
+Author of The Story of the American Flag, The Story of the Liberty Bell,
+The Story of the White House, The Story of Young George Washington, the
+Story of Young Benjamin Franklin, etc.
+
+Illustrated
+
+PHILADELPHIA
+
+HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                                PAGE
+
+       INTRODUCTION                                       9
+
+    I. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FOREFATHERS                     15
+
+   II. ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER AND MOTHER               24
+
+  III. THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER                    33
+
+   IV. LEARNING TO WORK                                  40
+
+    V. LOSING HIS MOTHER                                 52
+
+   VI. SCHOOL DAYS NOW AND THEN.                         62
+
+  VII. ABE AND THE NEIGHBORS                             77
+
+ VIII. MOVING TO ILLINOIS                                94
+
+   IX. STARTING OUT FOR HIMSELF                         102
+
+    X. CLERKING AND WORKING                             115
+
+   XI. POLITICS, WAR, STOREKEEPING, AND STUDYING LAW    126
+
+  XII. BUYING AND KEEPING A STORE                       140
+
+ XIII. THE YOUNG LEGISLATOR IN LOVE.                    147
+
+  XIV. MOVING TO SPRINGFIELD                            162
+
+   XV. LINCOLN & HERNDON                                184
+
+  XVI. HIS KINDNESS OF HEART                            194
+
+ XVII. WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABRAHAM
+         LINCOLN AND HIS STEPBROTHER                    208
+
+XVIII. HOW EMANCIPATION CAME TO PASS                    215
+
+  XIX. THE GLORY OF GETTYSBURG                          226
+
+   XX. "NO END OF A BOY"                                234
+
+  XXI. LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN, PATRIOT                  248
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+LINCOLN FROM NEW AND UNUSUAL SOURCES
+
+
+The boy or girl who reads to-day may know more about the real Lincoln
+than his own children knew. The greatest President's son, Robert
+Lincoln, discussing a certain incident in their life in the White House,
+remarked to the writer, with a smile full of meaning:
+
+"I believe you know more about our family matters than I do!"
+
+This is because "all the world loves a lover"--and Abraham Lincoln loved
+everybody. With all his brain and brawn, his real greatness was in his
+heart. He has been called "the Great-Heart of the White House," and
+there is little doubt that more people have heard about him than there
+are who have read of the original "Great-Heart" in "The Pilgrim's
+Progress."
+
+Indeed, it is safe to say that more millions in the modern world are
+acquainted with the story of the rise of Abraham Lincoln from a poorly
+built log cabin to the highest place among "the seats of the mighty,"
+than are familiar with the Bible story of Joseph who arose and stood
+next to the throne of the Pharaohs.
+
+Nearly every year, especially since the Lincoln Centennial, 1909,
+something new has been added to the universal knowledge of one of the
+greatest, if not _the_ greatest man who ever lived his life in the
+world. Not only those who "knew Lincoln," but many who only "saw him
+once" or shook hands with him, have been called upon to tell what they
+saw him do or heard him say. So hearty was his kindness toward everybody
+that the most casual remark of his seems to be charged with deep human
+affection--"the touch of Nature" which has made "the whole world kin" to
+him.
+
+He knew just how to sympathize with every one. The people felt this,
+without knowing why, and recognized it in every deed or word or touch,
+so that those who have once felt the grasp of his great warm hand seem
+to have been drawn into the strong circuit of "Lincoln fellowship," and
+were enabled, as if by "the laying on of hands," to speak of him ever
+after with a deep and tender feeling.
+
+There are many such people who did not rush into print with their
+observations and experiences. Their Lincoln memories seemed too sacred
+to scatter far and wide. Some of them have yielded, with real
+reluctance, in relating all for publication in THE STORY OF YOUNG
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN only because they wished their recollections to benefit
+the rising generation.
+
+Several of these modest folk have shed true light on important phases
+and events in Lincoln's life history. For instance, there has been much
+discussion concerning Lincoln's Gettysburg Address--where was it
+written, and did he deliver it from notes?
+
+Now, fifty years after that great occasion, comes a distinguished
+college professor who unconsciously settles the whole dispute, whether
+Lincoln held his notes in his right hand or his left--if he used them at
+all!--while making his immortal "little speech." To a group of veterans
+of the Grand Army of the Republic he related, casually, what he saw
+while a college student at Gettysburg, after working his way through the
+crowd of fifteen thousand people to the front of the platform on that
+memorable day. From this point of vantage he saw and heard everything,
+and there is no gainsaying the vivid memories of his first
+impressions--how the President held the little pages in both hands
+straight down before him, swinging his tall form to right, to left and
+to the front again as he emphasized the now familiar closing words,
+"_of_ the people--_by_ the people--_for_ the people--shall not perish
+from the earth."
+
+Such data have been gathered from various sources and are here given for
+the first time in a connected life-story. Several corrections of stories
+giving rise to popular misconceptions have been supplied by Robert,
+Lincoln's only living son. One of these is the true version of "Bob's"
+losing the only copy of his father's first inaugural address. Others
+were furnished by two aged Illinois friends who were acquainted with
+"Abe" before he became famous. One of these explained, without knowing
+it, a question which has puzzled several biographers--how a young man of
+Lincoln's shrewd intelligence could have been guilty of such a
+misdemeanor, as captain in the Black Hawk War, as to make it necessary
+for his superior officer to deprive him of his sword for a single day.
+
+A new story is told by a dear old lady, who did not wish her name
+given, about herself when she was a little girl, when a "drove of
+lawyers riding the old Eighth Judicial District of Illinois," came to
+drink from a famous cold spring on her father's premises. She described
+the uncouth dress of a tall young man, asking her father who he was, and
+he replied with a laugh, "Oh, that's Abe Lincoln."
+
+One day in their rounds, as the lawyers came through the front gate, a
+certain judge, whose name the narrator refused to divulge, knocked down
+with his cane her pet doll, which was leaning against the fence. The
+little girl cried over this contemptuous treatment of her "child."
+
+Young Lawyer Lincoln, seeing it all, sprang in and quickly picked up the
+fallen doll. Brushing off the dust with his great awkward hand he said,
+soothingly, to the wounded little mother-heart:
+
+"There now, little Black Eyes, don't cry. Your baby's alive. See, she
+isn't hurt a bit!"
+
+That tall young man never looked uncouth to her after that. It was this
+same old lady who told the writer that Lawyer Lincoln wore a new suit of
+clothes for the first time on the very day that he performed the
+oft-described feat of rescuing a helpless hog from a great deep hole in
+the road, and plastered his new clothes with mud to the great merriment
+of his legal friends. This well-known incident occurred not far from her
+father's place near Paris, Illinois.
+
+These and many other new and corrected incidents are now collected for
+THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in addition to the best of
+everything suitable that was known before--as the highest patriotic
+service which the writer can render to the young people of the United
+States of America.
+
+                                                       WAYNE WHIPPLE.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF
+YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FOREFATHERS
+
+
+Lincoln's grandfather, for whom he was named Abraham, was a distant
+cousin to Daniel Boone. The Boones and the Lincolns had intermarried for
+generations. The Lincolns were of good old English stock. When he was
+President, Abraham Lincoln, who had never given much attention to the
+family pedigree, said that the history of his family was well described
+by a single line in Gray's "Elegy":
+
+"The short and simple annals of the poor."
+
+Yet Grandfather Abraham was wealthy for his day. He accompanied Boone
+from Virginia to Kentucky and lost his life there. He had sacrificed
+part of his property to the pioneer spirit within him, and, with the
+killing of their father, his family lost the rest. They were "land
+poor" in the wilderness of the "Dark-and-Bloody-Ground"--the meaning of
+the Indian name, "Ken-tuc-kee."
+
+Grandfather Lincoln had built a solid log cabin and cleared a field or
+two around it, near the Falls of the Ohio, about where Louisville now
+stands. But, in the Summer of 1784, the tragic day dawned upon the
+Lincolns which has come to many a pioneer family in Kentucky and
+elsewhere. His son Thomas told this story to his children:
+
+
+HOW INDIANS KILLED "GRANDFATHER LINCOLN"
+
+"My father--your grandfather, Abraham Lincoln--come over the mountains
+from Virginia with his cousin, Dan'l Boone. He was rich for them times,
+as he had property worth seventeen thousand dollars; but Mr. Boone he
+told Father he could make a good deal more by trappin' and tradin' with
+the Injuns for valuable pelts, or fur skins.
+
+"You know, Dan'l Boone he had lived among the Injuns. He was a sure shot
+with the rifle so's he could beat the redskins at their own game. They
+took him a prisoner oncet, and instead of killin' him, they was about
+ready to make him chief--he pretended all the while as how he'd like
+that--when he got away from 'em. He was such a good fellow that them
+Injuns admired his shrewdness, and they let him do about what he
+pleased. So he thought they'd let Father alone.
+
+"Well, your grandfather was a Quaker, you see, and believed in treatin'
+them red devils well--like William Penn done, you know. He was a man for
+peace and quiet, and everything was goin' smooth with the tribes of what
+we called the Beargrass Country, till one day, when he and my brothers,
+Mordecai--'Mord' was a big fellow for his age--and Josiah, a few years
+younger--was out in the clearin' with the oxen, haulin' logs down to the
+crick. I went along too, but I didn't help much--for I was only six.
+
+"Young as I was, I remember what happened that day like it was only
+yesterday. It come like a bolt out of the blue. We see Father drop like
+he was shot--for he _was_ shot! Then I heard the crack of a rifle and I
+saw a puff of smoke floatin' out o' the bushes.
+
+"Injuns!" gasps Mord, and starts on the run for the house--to get his
+gun. Josiah, he starts right off in the opposite direction to the
+Beargrass fort--we called it a fort, but it was nothin' but a stockade.
+The way we boys scattered was like a brood o' young turkeys, or
+pa'tridges, strikin' for cover when the old one is shot. I knowed I'd
+ought to run too, but I didn't want to leave my father layin' there on
+the ground. Seemed like I'd ought to woke him up so he could run too.
+Yet I didn't feel like touchin' him. I think I must 'a' knowed he was
+dead.
+
+"While I was standin' still, starin' like the oxen, not knowin' what to
+do, a big Injun come out o' the brush, with a big knife in his hand. I
+knowed what he was goin' to do--skelp my father! I braced up to 'im to
+keep 'im away, an' he jist laffed at me. I never think what the devil
+looks like without seein' that red demon with his snaky black eyes,
+grinnin' at me!
+
+
+TOM LINCOLN CHASED BY INDIANS
+
+"He picked me up like I was a baby an set me on the sawlog, an' was
+turnin' back to skelp Father, when--biff!--another gun-crack--and Mr.
+Big Indian he drops jist like your grandfather did, only he wriggles and
+squirms around, bitin' the dust--like a big snake for all the world!
+
+"I was standin' there, kind o' dazed, watchin' another puff o' white
+smoke, comin' out between two logs in the side of our house. Then I
+knowed 'Mord' had shot my Injun. He had run in, got the gun down off'n
+the wall, an' peekin' out through a crack, he sees that Injun takin'
+hold o' me. Waitin' till the ol' demon turns away, so's not to hit me,
+'Mord' he aims at a silver dangler on Mr. Injun's breast and makes him
+drop in his tracks like I said. Your Uncle 'Mord' he was a sure
+shot--like Cousin Dan'l Boone.
+
+"Then I hears the most blood-curdlin' yells, and a lot o' red devils
+jump out o' the bushes an' come for me brandishin' their tomahawks an'
+skelpin' knives. It was like hell broke loose. They had been watchin'
+an', of course, 'twas all right to kill Father, but when 'Mord' killed
+one o' their bucks, that made a big difference. I had sense enough left
+to run for the house with them Injuns after me. Seemed like I couldn't
+run half as fast as usual, but I must 'a' made purty good time, from
+what 'Mord' an' Mother said afterward.
+
+"He said one was ahead o' the rest an' had his tomahawk raised to brain
+me with it when--bing!--an' 'Mord' fetches _him_ down like he did the
+fellow that was goin' to skelp Father. That made the others mad an' they
+took after me, but 'Mord' he drops the head one jist when he's goin' to
+hit me. But all I knowed at the time was that them red devils was
+a-chasin' me, and I'd got to 'leg it' for dear life!
+
+"When I gits near enough to the house, I hears Mother and 'Mord'
+hollerin' to make me run faster and go to the door, for Mother had it
+open jist wide enough to reach out an' snatch me in--when the third
+Injun was stoopin' to grab me, but 'Mord' makes him bite the dust like
+the others.
+
+"My, but wasn't them Injuns mad! Some of 'em sneaked around behind the
+house--they had to give 'Mord's' gun a wide berth to git there!--but he
+could only protect the front--and was a-settin' fire to our cabin to
+smoke us out or roast us alive, jist when the soldiers come with Josiah
+from the fort and saved our lives. Then the Injuns made 'emselves
+scurce--but they druv off the oxen and all our other stock.
+
+
+"MORD" LINCOLN, INDIAN FIGHTER
+
+"That was the breaking up of our family. None of us boys was old enough
+to take Father's place, an' Mother she was afraid to live there alone.
+Accordin' to the laws o' Virginia--Kentucky belonged to Virginia
+then--the oldest son got all the proputty, so 'Mord' he gets it all. He
+was welcome to it too, for he was the only one of us that could take
+care of it. 'Mord' he wasn't satisfied with killin' a few Injuns that
+day to revenge Father's death. He made a business of shootin' 'em on
+sight--a reg'lar Injun stalker! He couldn't see that he was jist as
+savage as the worst Injun, to murder 'em without waitin' to see whether
+Mr. Injun was a friend or a foe.
+
+"Oncet when I told 'im there was good an' bad red men like they wuz good
+an' bad white men, he said I might jist as well say 'good _devil_' as
+'good Injun!' He says 'the only good Injun's the dead Injun!'
+
+"Well, the settlers must 'a' 'greed with 'Mord,' for they made him
+sheriff o' the county--he was sech a good shot, too--an' they 'lected
+him to the Legislatur' after Kentucky come in as a State. He stood high
+in the county. Folks didn't mind his shootin' an' Injun or two, more or
+less, when he got the chancet. They all looked on redskins like they
+was catamounts an' other pesky varmints.
+
+"Your grandmother Lincoln an' Josiah an' me moved over into Washington
+County, but she had hard scrabblin' to git a livin'. Josiah he stayed
+with her, an' between him an' 'Mord,' they helped her along, but I had
+to git out and scratch for a livin'. From the time I was ten I was hired
+out to work for my 'keep,' an' anything else I could git. I knocked
+aroun' the country, doin' this, that an' t'other thing till I picked up
+carpenterin' o' Joseph Hanks, a cousin o' mine, an' there I met his
+sister Nancy, an' that's how she come to be your mother--an' 'bout how I
+come to be your father, too!"
+
+Little is known today of Mordecai Lincoln, and there would be less
+interest in poor Thomas if he had not become the father of Abraham
+Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. Mordecai Lincoln
+was a joker and humorist. One who knew him well said of him:
+
+"He was a man of great drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to
+look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look
+excited in me the disposition to laugh, and that was 'Artemus Ward.'
+
+"Mordecai was quite a story-teller, and in this Abe resembled his 'Uncle
+Mord,' as we called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a
+woman, and to the last degree charitable and benevolent.
+
+"Abe Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion
+remarked, 'I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all the
+talents of the family.'"
+
+In a letter about his family history, just before he was nominated for
+the presidency, Abraham Lincoln wrote:
+
+"My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished
+families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother was of a
+family of the name of Hanks. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,
+emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 2,
+where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians--not in battle, but
+by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His
+ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County,
+Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of
+the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of
+Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai,
+Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
+
+"My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he
+grew up, literally without education."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER AND MOTHER
+
+
+While Thomas Lincoln was living with a farmer and doing odd jobs of
+carpentering, he met Nancy Hanks, a tall, slender woman, with dark skin,
+dark brown hair and small, deep-set gray eyes. She had a full forehead,
+a sharp, angular face and a sad expression. Yet her disposition was
+generally cheerful. For her backwoods advantages she was considered well
+educated. She read well and could write, too. It is stated that Nancy
+Hanks taught Thomas Lincoln to write his own name. Thomas was
+twenty-eight and Nancy twenty-three when their wedding day came.
+Christopher Columbus Graham, when almost one hundred years old, gave
+the following description of the marriage feast of the Lincoln bride
+and groom:
+
+"I am one of the two living men who can prove that Abraham Lincoln, or
+Linkhorn, as the family was miscalled, was born in lawful wedlock, for I
+saw Thomas Lincoln marry Nancy Hanks on the 12th day of June, 1806. I
+was hunting roots for my medicine and just went to the wedding to get a
+good supper and got it.
+
+"Tom Lincoln was a carpenter, and a good one for those days, when a
+cabin was built mainly with the ax, and not a nail or a bolt or hinge in
+it, only leathers and pins to the doors, and no glass, except in watches
+and spectacles and bottles. Tom had the best set of tools in what was
+then and is now Washington County.
+
+"Jesse Head, the good Methodist minister that married them, was also a
+carpenter or cabinet maker by trade, and as he was then a neighbor, they
+were good friends.
+
+"While you pin me down to facts, I will say that I saw Nancy Hanks
+Lincoln at her wedding, a fresh-looking girl, I should say over twenty.
+Tom was a respectable mechanic and could choose, and she was treated
+with respect.
+
+"I was at the infare, too, given by John H. Parrott, her guardian, and
+only girls with money had guardians appointed by the court. We had bear
+meat; venison; wild turkey and ducks' eggs, wild and tame--so common
+that you could buy them at two bits a bushel; maple sugar, swung on a
+string, to bite off for coffee; syrup in big gourds, peach and honey; a
+sheep that the two families barbecued whole over coals of wood burned in
+a pit, and covered with green boughs to keep the juices in. Our table
+was of the puncheons cut from solid logs, and the next day they were the
+floor of the new cabin."
+
+Thomas Lincoln took his bride to live in a little log cabin in a
+Kentucky settlement--not a village or hardly a hamlet--called
+Elizabethtown. He evidently thought this place would be less lonesome
+for his wife, while he was away hunting and carpentering, than the
+lonely farm he had purchased in Hardin County, about fourteen miles
+away. There was so little carpentering or cabinet making to do that he
+could make a better living by farming or hunting. Thomas was very fond
+of shooting and as he was a fine marksman he could provide game for the
+table, and other things which are considered luxuries to-day, such as
+furs and skins needed for the primitive wearing apparel of the
+pioneers. A daughter was born to the young couple at Elizabethtown, whom
+they named Sarah.
+
+Dennis Hanks, a cousin of Nancy, lived near the Lincolns in the early
+days of their married life, and gave Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson this
+description of their early life together:
+
+"Looks didn't count them days, nohow. It was stren'th an' work an'
+daredevil. A lazy man or a coward was jist pizen, an' a spindlin' feller
+had to stay in the settlemints. The clearin's hadn't no use fur him. Tom
+was strong, an' he wasn't lazy nor afeer'd o' nothin', but he was kind
+o' shif'less--couldn't git nothin' ahead, an' didn't keer putickalar.
+Lots o' them kind o' fellers in 'arly days, 'druther hunt and fish, an'
+I reckon they had their use. They killed off the varmints an' made it
+safe fur other fellers to go into the woods with an ax.
+
+"When Nancy married Tom he was workin' in a carpenter shop. It wasn't
+Tom's fault he couldn't make a livin' by his trade. Thar was sca'cely
+any money in that kentry. Every man had to do his own tinkerin', an'
+keep everlastin'ly at work to git enough to eat. So Tom tuk up some
+land. It was mighty ornery land, but it was the best Tom could git,
+when he hadn't much to trade fur it.
+
+"Pore? We was all pore, them days, but the Lincolns was porer than
+anybody. Choppin' trees an' grubbin' roots an' splittin' rails an'
+huntin' an' trappin' didn't leave Tom no time. It was all he could do to
+git his fambly enough to eat and to kiver 'em. Nancy was turrible
+ashamed o' the way they lived, but she knowed Tom was doin' his best,
+an' she wa'n't the pesterin' kind. She was purty as a pictur' an' smart
+as you'd find 'em anywhere. She could read an' write. The Hankses was
+some smarter'n the Lincolns. Tom thought a heap o' Nancy, an' he was as
+good to her as he knowed how. He didn't drink or swear or play cyards or
+fight, an' them was drinkin', cussin', quarrelsome days. Tom was
+popylar, an' he could lick a bully if he had to. He jist couldn't git
+ahead, somehow."
+
+
+"NANCY'S BOY BABY"
+
+Evidently Elizabethtown failed to furnish Thomas Lincoln a living wage
+from carpentering, for he moved with his young wife and his baby girl to
+a farm on Nolen Creek, fourteen miles away. The chief attraction of the
+so-called farm was a fine spring of water bubbling up in the shade of a
+small grove. From this spring the place came to be known as "Rock Spring
+Farm." It was a barren spot and the cabin on it was a rude and primitive
+sort of home for a carpenter and joiner to occupy. It contained but a
+single room, with only one window and one door. There was a wide
+fireplace in the big chimney which was built outside. But that rude hut
+became the home of "the greatest American."
+
+Abraham Lincoln was born to poverty and privation, but he was never a
+pauper. His hardships were those of many other pioneers, the wealthiest
+of whom suffered greater privations than the poorest laboring man has to
+endure to-day.
+
+After his nomination to the presidency, Mr. Lincoln gave to Mr. Hicks, a
+portrait painter, this memorandum of his birth:
+
+        "I was born February 12, 1809, in then Hardin
+        County, Kentucky, at a point within the now
+        county of Larue, a mile or a mile and a half
+        from where Hodgen's mill now is. My parents
+        being dead, and my memory not serving, I know
+        no means of identifying the precise locality.
+        It was on Nolen Creek.
+
+                                                "A. LINCOLN.
+        "JUNE 14, 1860."
+
+The exact spot was identified after his death, and the house was found
+standing many years later. The logs were removed to Chicago, for the
+World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893, and the cabin was reconstructed
+and exhibited there and elsewhere in the United States. The materials
+were taken back to their original site, and a fine marble structure now
+encloses the precious relics of the birthplace of "the first American,"
+as Lowell calls Lincoln in his great "Commemoration Ode."
+
+Cousin Dennis Hanks gives the following quaint description of "Nancy's
+boy baby," as reported by Mrs. Eleanor Atkinson in her little book on
+"Lincoln's Boyhood."
+
+"Tom an' Nancy lived on a farm about two miles from us, when Abe was
+born. I ricollect Tom comin' over to our house one cold mornin' in
+Feb'uary an' sayin' kind o' slow, 'Nancy's got a boy baby.'
+
+"Mother got flustered an' hurried up 'er work to go over to look after
+the little feller, but I didn't have nothin' to wait fur, so I cut an'
+run the hull two mile to see my new cousin.
+
+"You bet I was tickled to death. Babies wasn't as common as blackberries
+in the woods o' Kaintucky. Mother come over an' washed him an' put a
+yaller flannel petticoat on him, an' cooked some dried berries with wild
+honey fur Nancy, an' slicked things up an' went home. An' that's all the
+nuss'n either of 'em got.
+
+"I rolled up in a b'ar skin an' slep' by the fireplace that night, so's
+I could see the little feller when he cried an' Tom had to get up an'
+tend to him. Nancy let me hold him purty soon. Folks often ask me if Abe
+was a good lookin' baby. Well, now, he looked just like any other baby,
+at fust--like red cherry pulp squeezed dry. An' he didn't improve none
+as he growed older. Abe never was much fur looks. I ricollect how Tom
+joked about Abe's long legs when he was toddlin' round the cabin. He
+growed out o' his clothes faster'n Nancy could make 'em.
+
+"But he was mighty good comp'ny, solemn as a papoose, but interested in
+everything. An' he always did have fits o' cuttin' up. I've seen him
+when he was a little feller, settin' on a stool, starin' at a visitor.
+All of a sudden he'd bu'st out laughin' fit to kill. If he told us what
+he was laughin' at, half the time we couldn't see no joke.
+
+"Abe never give Nancy no trouble after he could walk excep' to keep him
+in clothes. Most o' the time he went bar'foot. Ever wear a wet buckskin
+glove? Them moccasins wasn't no putection ag'inst the wet. Birch bark
+with hickory bark soles, strapped on over yarn socks, beat buckskin all
+holler, fur snow. Abe'n me got purty handy contrivin' things that way.
+An' Abe was right out in the woods about as soon's he was weaned,
+fishin' in the creek, settin' traps fur rabbits an' muskrats, goin' on
+coon-hunts with Tom an' me an' the dogs, follerin' up bees to find
+bee-trees, an' drappin' corn fur his pappy. Mighty interestin' life fur
+a boy, but thar was a good many chances he wouldn't live to grow up."
+
+When little Abe was four years old his father and mother moved from Rock
+Spring Farm to a better place on Knob Creek, a few miles to the
+northeast of the farm where he was born.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER
+
+
+At Knob Creek the boy began to go to an "A B C" school. His first
+teacher was Zachariah Riney. Of course, there were no regular schools in
+the backwoods then. When a man who "knew enough" happened to come along,
+especially if he had nothing else to do, he tried to teach the children
+of the pioneers in a poor log schoolhouse. It is not likely that little
+Abe went to school more than a few weeks at this time, for he never had
+a year's schooling in his life. There was another teacher afterward at
+Knob Creek--a man named Caleb Hazel. Little is known of either of these
+teachers except that he taught little Abe Lincoln. If their pupil had
+not become famous the men and their schools would never have been
+mentioned in history.
+
+An old man, named Austin Gollaher, used to like to tell of the days when
+he and little Abe went to school together. He said:
+
+"Abe was an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress
+in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster than any of his schoolmates.
+Though so young, he studied very hard."
+
+Although Nancy Lincoln insisted on sending the children to school, when
+there was any, she had a large share in Abe's early education, just as
+she had taught his father to write his own name. She told them Bible
+stories and such others as she had picked up in her barren, backwoods
+life. She and her husband were too religious to believe in telling their
+children fairy tales.
+
+The best thing of all was the reading of "The Pilgrim's Progress" during
+the long Winter evenings, after the wood was brought in and Father Tom
+had set his traps and done his other work for the night. Nancy's voice
+was low, with soft, southern tones and accents. Tom and the children
+enjoyed the story of Christian's pilgrimage from the City of Destruction
+to the Celestial City the more because of her love for the story she was
+reading to them, as they lay on bearskin rugs before the blazing fire.
+
+Abe was only six, but he was a thoughtful boy. He tried to think of some
+way to show his gratitude to his mother for giving them so much
+pleasure. While out gathering sticks and cutting wood for the big
+fireplace, a happy thought came to him--he would cut off some spicewood
+branches, hack them up on a log, and secrete them behind the cabin.
+Then, when the mother was ready to read again, and Sarah and the father
+were sitting and lying before the fire, he brought in the hidden
+branches and threw them on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of
+the others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood boughs not only added
+to the brightness of the scene but filled the whole house with the
+"sweet smelling savour" of a little boy's love and gratitude.
+
+No one can fathom the pleasure of that precious memory throughout those
+four lives, as the story of Great Heart and Christiana followed
+Christian along the path that "shineth more and more unto the perfect
+day." While the father and sister were delighted with the crackle,
+sparkle and pleasant aroma of the bits of spicewood, as Abe tossed them
+upon the fire, no one could appreciate the thoughtful act of the boy so
+much as his mother. It would be strange if her eyes did not fill, as she
+read to her fascinated family, but that was not the sort of thing the
+fondest mother could speak of.
+
+Little did Nancy dream that, in reading to her son of the devotion of
+Great Heart to his charges, she was fostering a spirit in her little son
+that would help him make the noble pilgrimage from their hovel to the
+highest home in the land, where another President of the United States
+would refer to him as "the Great Heart of the White House." If any one
+could have looked ahead fifty years to see all this, and could have told
+Nancy Hanks Lincoln, she would not have believed it. After her own life
+of toil and hardship it would have seemed to her "too good to be true."
+But in the centuries following the humble yet beautiful career of "the
+Backwoods Boy" from the hut to the White House, history keeps the whole
+world saying with bated breath, "the half was never told!"
+
+
+AN OLD MAN'S STORY OF SAVING ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LIFE
+
+Austin Gollaher, grown to manhood, still living in his old log cabin
+near the Lincoln house in Knob Creek nearly twenty years after
+Lincoln's assassination, and gave the following account of an adventure
+he had with the little Lincoln boy:
+
+"I once saved Lincoln's life. We had been going to school together one
+year; but the next year we had no school, because there were so few
+scholars to attend, there being only about twenty in the school the year
+before.
+
+"Consequently Abe and I had not much to do; but, as we did not go to
+school and our mothers were strict with us, we did not get to see each
+other very often. One Sunday morning my mother waked me up early, saying
+she was going to see Mrs. Lincoln, and that I could go along. Glad of
+the chance, I was soon dressed and ready to go. After my mother and I
+got there, Abe and I played all through the day.
+
+"While we were wandering up and down the little stream called Knob
+Creek, Abe said: 'Right up there'--pointing to the east--'we saw a covey
+of partridges yesterday. Let's go over.' The stream was too wide for us
+to jump across. Finally we saw a foot-log, and decided to try it. It was
+narrow, but Abe said, 'Let's coon it.'
+
+"I went first and reached the other side all right. Abe went about half
+way across, when he got scared and began trembling. I hollered to him,
+'Don't look down nor up nor sideways, but look right at me and hold on
+tight!' But he fell off into the creek, and, as the water was about
+seven or eight feet deep (I could not swim, and neither could Abe), I
+knew it would do no good for me to go in after him.
+
+"So I got a stick--a long water sprout--and held it out to him. He came
+up, grabbing with both hands, and I put the stick into his hands. He
+clung to it, and I pulled him out on the bank, almost dead. I got him by
+the arms and shook him well, and then I rolled him on the ground, when
+the water poured out of his mouth.
+
+"He was all right very soon. We promised each other that we would never
+tell anybody about it, and never did for years. I never told any one of
+it till after Lincoln was killed."
+
+Abraham Lincoln's parents were religious in their simple way. The boy
+was brought up to believe in the care of the Father in Heaven over the
+affairs of this life. The family attended camp meetings and preaching
+services, which were great events, because few and far between, in those
+primitive days. Abe used afterward to get his playmates together and
+preach to them in a way that sometimes frightened them and made them
+cry.
+
+No doubt young Lincoln learned more that was useful to him in after life
+from the wandering preachers of his day than he did of his teachers
+during the few months that he was permitted to go to school. But his
+best teacher was his mother. She would have been proud to have her boy
+grow up to be a traveling minister or exhorter, like Peter Cartwright,
+"the backwoods preacher."
+
+Nancy Hanks Lincoln "builded better than she knew." She would have been
+satisfied with a cabin life for her son. She little knew that by her own
+life and teaching she was raising up the greatest man of his age, and
+one of the grandest men in all history, to become the ruler of the
+greatest nation that the world has ever seen. She did her duty by her
+little boy and he honored her always during her life and afterward. No
+wonder he once exclaimed when he thought of her:
+
+"All I am or hope to be I owe to my sainted mother."
+
+And out of her poor, humble life, that devoted woman
+
+"Gave us Lincoln and never knew!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+LEARNING TO WORK
+
+
+The little Lincoln boy learned to help his father and mother as soon as
+he could, picking berries, dropping seeds and carrying water for the men
+to drink. The farm at Knob Creek seems to have been a little more
+fertile than the other two places on which his father had chosen to
+live.
+
+Once while living in the White House, President Lincoln was asked if he
+could remember his "old Kentucky home." He replied with considerable
+feeling:
+
+"I remember that old home very well. Our farm was composed of three
+fields. It lay in the valley, surrounded by high hills and deep gorges.
+Sometimes, when there came a big rain in the hills, the water would come
+down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing I
+remember of doing there was one Saturday afternoon; the other boys
+planted the corn in what we called the big field--it contained seven
+acres--and I dropped the pumpkin seed. I dropped two seeds in every
+other row and every other hill. The next Sunday morning there came a big
+rain in the hills--it did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water,
+coming through the gorges, washed the ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and
+all, clear off the field!"
+
+Although this was the last thing Lincoln could remember doing on that
+farm, it is not at all likely that it was the last thing he did there,
+for Thomas Lincoln was not the man to plant corn in a field he was about
+to leave. (The Lincolns moved away in the fall.)
+
+Another baby boy was born at Knob Creek farm; a puny, pathetic little
+stranger. When this baby was about three years old, the father had to
+use his skill as a cabinet maker in making a tiny coffin, and the
+Lincoln family wept over a lonely little grave in the wilderness.
+
+About this time Abe began to learn lessons in practical patriotism. Once
+when Mr. Lincoln was asked what he could remember of the War of 1812, he
+replied:
+
+"Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish
+which I was taking home. I met a soldier on the road, and, having been
+told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish."
+
+An old man, Major Alexander Sympson, who lived not far from the Lincolns
+at this period, left this description of "a mere spindle of a boy," in
+one of his earliest attempts to defend himself against odds, while
+waiting at the neighboring mill while a grist was being ground.
+
+"He was the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and awkward-appearing,
+homeliest and worst-dressed of any in the crowd. So superlatively
+wretched a butt could not hope to look on long unmolested. He was
+attacked one day as he stood near a tree by a larger boy with others at
+his back. But the crowd was greatly astonished when little Lincoln
+soundly thrashed the first, the second, and third boy in succession; and
+then, placing his back against the tree, he defied the whole crowd, and
+told them they were a lot of cowards."
+
+Evidently Father Tom, who enjoyed quite a reputation as a wrestler, had
+give the small boy a few lessons in "the manly art of self-defense."
+
+Meanwhile the little brother and sister were learning still better
+things at their mother's knee, alternately hearing and reading stories
+from the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," "AEsop's Fables," "Robinson
+Crusoe," and other books, common now, but rare enough in the backwoods
+in those days.
+
+There were hard times, even in the wilderness of Kentucky, after the War
+of 1812. Slavery was spreading, and Thomas and Nancy Lincoln heartily
+hated that "relic of barbarism." To avoid witnessing its wrongs which
+made it harder for self-respecting white men to rise above the class
+referred to with contempt in the South as "poor white trash," Tom
+Lincoln determined to move farther north and west--and deeper into the
+wilds.
+
+It is sometimes stated that Abraham Lincoln belonged to the indolent
+class known as "poor whites," but this is not true. Shiftless and
+improvident though his father was, he had no use for that class of white
+slaves, who seemed to fall even lower than the blacks.
+
+There was trouble, too, about the title to much of the land in Kentucky,
+while Indiana offered special inducements to settlers in that new
+territory.
+
+In his carpenter work, Thomas Lincoln had learned how to build a
+flatboat, and had made at least one trip to New Orleans on a craft
+which he himself had put together. So, when he finally decided in the
+fall of 1816 to emigrate to Indiana, he at once began to build another
+boat, which he launched on the Rolling Fork, at the mouth of Knob Creek,
+about half a mile from his own cabin. He traded his farm for what
+movable property he could get, and loaded his raft with that and his
+carpenter tools. Waving good-bye to his wife and two children, he
+floated down the Rolling Fork, Salt River, and out into the Ohio River,
+which proved too rough for his shaky craft, and it soon went to pieces.
+
+After fishing up the carpenter tools and most of his other effects, he
+put together a crazy raft which held till he landed at Thompson's Ferry,
+Perry County, in Southern Indiana. Here he unloaded his raft, left his
+valuables in the care of a settler named Posey and journeyed on foot
+through the woods to find a good location. After trudging about sixteen
+miles, blazing a trail, he found a situation which suited him well
+enough, he thought. Then he walked all the way back to the Kentucky home
+they were about to leave.
+
+He found his wife, with Sarah, aged nine, and Abraham, aged seven, ready
+to migrate with him to a newer wilderness. The last thing Nancy Lincoln
+had done before leaving their old home was to take the brother and
+sister for a farewell visit to the grave of "the little boy that died."
+
+
+OVER IN INDIANA
+
+The place the father had selected for their home was a beautiful spot.
+They could build their cabin on a little hill, sloping gently down on
+all sides. The soil was excellent, but there was one serious
+drawback--there was no water fit to drink within a mile! Thomas Lincoln
+had neglected to observe this most important point while he was
+prospecting. His wife, or even little Abe, would have had more common
+sense. That was one reason why Thomas Lincoln, though a good man, who
+tried hard enough at times, was always poor and looked down upon by his
+thrifty neighbors.
+
+Instead of taking his wife and children down the three streams by boat,
+as he had gone, the father borrowed two horses of a neighbor and "packed
+through to Posey's," where he had left his carpenter tools and the other
+property he had saved from the wreck of his raft. Abe and Sarah must
+have enjoyed the journey, especially camping out every night on the
+way. The father's skill as a marksman furnished them with tempting
+suppers and breakfasts of wild game.
+
+On the horses they packed their bedding and the cooking utensils they
+needed while on the journey, and for use after their arrival at the new
+home. This stock was not large, for it consisted only of "one oven and
+lid, one skillet and lid, and some tinware."
+
+After they came to Posey's, Thomas Lincoln hired a wagon and loaded it
+with the effects he had left there, as well as the bedding and the
+cooking things they had brought with them on the two horses. It was a
+rough wagon ride, jolting over stumps, logs, and roots of trees. An
+earlier settler had cut out a path for a few miles, but the rest of the
+way required many days, for the father had to cut down trees to make a
+rough road wide enough for the wagon to pass. It is not likely that Abe
+and Sarah minded the delays, for children generally enjoy new
+experiences of that sort. As for their mother, she was accustomed to all
+such hardships; she had learned to take life as it came and make the
+best of it.
+
+Nancy Lincoln needed all her Christian fortitude in that Indiana
+home--if such a place could be called a home. At last they reached the
+chosen place, in the "fork" made by Little Pigeon Creek emptying into
+Big Pigeon Creek, about a mile and a half from a settlement which was
+afterward called Gentryville.
+
+As it was late in the fall, Thomas Lincoln decided not to wait to cut
+down big trees and hew logs for a cabin, so he built a "half-faced
+camp," or shed enclosed on three sides, for his family to live in that
+winter. As this shed was made of saplings and poles, he put an ax in
+Abe's hands, and the seven-year-old boy helped his father build their
+first "home" in Indiana. It was Abe's first experience in the work that
+afterward made him famous as "the rail splitter." It was with the ax, as
+it were, that he hewed his way to the White House and became President
+of the United States.
+
+Of course, little Abe Lincoln had no idea of the White House then. He
+may never have heard of "the President's Palace," as it used to be
+called--for the White House was then a gruesome, blackened ruin, burned
+by the British in the War of 1812. President Madison was living in a
+rented house nearby, while the Executive Mansion was being restored.
+The blackened stone walls, left standing after the fire, were _painted
+white_, and on that account the President's mansion came to be known as
+"the White House."
+
+Little Abe, without a thought of his great future, was getting ready for
+it by hacking away at poles and little trees and helping his father in
+the very best way he knew. It was not long, then, before the "half-faced
+camp" was ready for his mother and sister to move into.
+
+Then there was the water question. Dennis Hanks afterward said: "Tom
+Lincoln riddled his land like a honeycomb" trying to find good water. In
+the fall and winter they caught rainwater or melted snow and strained
+it, but that was not very healthful at best. So Abe and Sarah had to go
+a mile to a spring and carry all the water they needed to drink, and,
+when there had been no rain for a long time, all the water they used for
+cooking and washing had to be brought from there, too.
+
+When warmer weather came, after their "long and dreary winter" of
+shivering in that poor shed, the "camp" did not seem so bad. Thomas
+Lincoln soon set about building a warmer and more substantial cabin. Abe
+was now eight years old, and had had some practice in the use of the
+ax, so he was able to help his father still more by cutting and hewing
+larger logs for the new cabin. They got it ready for the family to move
+into before cold weather set in again.
+
+They had to make their own furniture also. The table and chairs were
+made of "puncheon," or slabs of wood, with holes bored under each corner
+to stick the legs in. Their bedsteads were poles fitted into holes bored
+in logs in the walls of the cabin, and the protruding ends supported by
+poles or stakes driven into the ground, for Tom Lincoln had not yet laid
+the puncheon floor of their cabin. Abe's bed was a pile of dry leaves
+laid in one corner of the loft to which he climbed by means of a ladder
+of pegs driven into the wall, instead of stairs.
+
+Their surroundings were such as to delight the heart of a couple of
+care-free children. The forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts
+and sugar-maple trees, growing close together and free from underbrush.
+Now and then there was an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where
+the wild animals came to drink and disport themselves. Game was
+plentiful--deer, bears, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all
+kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for hunting, promised good
+things for the family to eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare
+earth floor, and deerskin curtains for the still open door and window.
+There were fish in the streams and wild fruits and nuts of many kinds to
+be found in the woods during the summer and fall. For a long time the
+corn for the "corndodgers" which they baked in the ashes, had to be
+ground by pounding, or in primitive hand-mills. Potatoes were about the
+only vegetable raised in large quantities, and pioneer families often
+made the whole meal of roasted potatoes. Once when his father had "asked
+the blessing" over an ashy heap of this staple, Abe remarked that they
+were "mighty poor blessings!"
+
+But there were few complaints. They were all accustomed to that way of
+living, and they enjoyed the free and easy life of the forest. Their
+only reason for complaint was because they had been compelled to live in
+an open shed all winter, and because there was no floor to cover the
+damp ground in their new cabin--no oiled paper for their one window, and
+no door swinging in the single doorway--yet the father was carpenter and
+cabinet maker! There is no record that Nancy Lincoln, weak and ailing
+though she was, demurred even at such needless privations.
+
+About the only reference to this period of their life that has been
+preserved for us was in an odd little sketch in which Mr. Lincoln wrote
+of himself as "he."
+
+"A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of
+his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and
+Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and
+killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger
+game."
+
+Though shooting was the principal sport of the youth and their fathers
+in Lincoln's younger days, Abe was too kind to inflict needless
+suffering upon any of God's creatures. He had real religion in his
+loving heart. Even as a boy he seemed to know that
+
+        "He prayeth best who loveth best
+           All things both great and small;
+         For the dear God that loveth us,
+          He made and loveth all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LOSING HIS MOTHER
+
+
+In the fall of 1817, when the Lincoln family had moved from the shed
+into the rough log cabin, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow came and occupied the
+"darned little half-faced camp," as Dennis Hanks called it. Betsy
+Sparrow was the aunt who had brought up Nancy Hanks, and she was now a
+foster-mother to Dennis, her nephew. Dennis became the constant
+companion of the two Lincoln children. He has told most of the stories
+that are known of this sad time in the Lincoln boy's life.
+
+The two families had lived there for nearly a year when Thomas and Betsy
+Sparrow were both seized with a terrible disease known to the settlers
+as the "milk-sick" because it attacked the cattle. The stricken uncle
+and aunt died, early in October, within a few days of each other. While
+his wife was ill with the same dread disease, Thomas Lincoln was at
+work, cutting down trees and ripping boards out of the logs with a long
+whipsaw with a handle at each end, which little Abe had to help him use.
+It was a sorrowful task for the young lad, for Abe must have known that
+he would soon be helping his father make his mother's coffin. They
+buried the Sparrows under the trees "without benefit of clergy," for
+ministers came seldom to that remote region.
+
+Nancy Lincoln did not long survive the devoted aunt and uncle. She had
+suffered too much from exposure and privation to recover her strength
+when she was seized by the strange malady. One who was near her during
+her last illness wrote, long afterward:
+
+"She struggled on, day by day, like the patient Christian woman she was.
+Abe and his sister Sarah waited on their mother, and did the little jobs
+and errands required of them. There was no physician nearer than
+thirty-five miles.
+
+"The mother knew that she was going to die, and called the children to
+her bedside. She was very weak and the boy and girl leaned over her
+while she gave them her dying message. Placing her feeble hand on little
+Abe's head, she told him to be kind and good to his father and sister.
+
+"'Be good to one another,' she said to them both. While expressing her
+hope that they might live, as she had taught them to live, in the love
+of their kindred and the service of God, Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed from
+the miserable surroundings of her poor life on earth to the brightness
+of the Beyond, on the seventh day after she was taken sick."
+
+To the motherless boy the thought of his blessed mother being buried
+without any religious service whatever added a keen pang to the
+bitterness of his lot. Dennis Hanks once told how eagerly Abe learned to
+write:
+
+"Sometimes he would write with a piece of charcoal, or the p'int of a
+burnt stick, on the fence or floor. We got a little paper at the country
+town, and I made ink out of blackberry juice, briar root and a little
+copperas in it. It was black, but the copperas would eat the paper after
+a while. I made his first pen out of a turkey-buzzard feather. We hadn't
+no geese them days--to make good pens of goose quills."
+
+As soon as he was able Abe Lincoln wrote his first letter. It was
+addressed to Parson Elkin, the Baptist preacher, who had sometimes
+stayed over night with the family when they lived in Kentucky, to ask
+that elder to come and preach a sermon over his mother's grave. It had
+been a long struggle to learn to write "good enough for a
+preacher"--especially for a small boy who is asking such a favor of a
+man as "high and mighty" as a minister of the Gospel seemed to him.
+
+It was a heartbroken plea, but the lad did not realize it. It was a
+short, straightforward note, but the good preacher's eyes filled with
+tears as he read it.
+
+The great undertaking was not finished when the letter was written. The
+postage was a large matter for a little boy. It cost sixpence (equal to
+twelve-and-a-half cents today) to send a letter a short distance--up to
+thirty miles. Some letters required twenty-five cents--equal to fifty in
+modern money. Sometimes, when the sender could not advance the postage,
+the receiver had to pay it before the letter could be opened and read.
+On this account letters were almost as rare and as expensive as
+telegrams are today. When the person getting a letter could not pay the
+postage, it was returned to the writer, who had to pay double to get it
+back.
+
+In those days one person could annoy another and put him to expense by
+writing him and forcing him to pay the postage--then when the letter
+was opened, it was found to be full of abuse, thus making a man pay for
+insults to himself!
+
+There was a great general who had suffered in this way, so he made a
+rule that he would receive no letters unless the postage was prepaid.
+One day there came to his address a long envelope containing what seemed
+to be an important document. But it was not stamped, and the servant had
+been instructed not to receive that kind of mail. So it was returned to
+the sender. When it came back it was discovered that it had been mailed
+by mistake without a stamp. That letter announced to General Zachary
+Taylor that he had been nominated by a great convention as candidate for
+President of the United States!
+
+All this seems very strange now that a letter can be sent around the
+world for a few cents. Besides, the mails did not go often and were
+carried on horseback. For a long time one half-sick old man carried the
+mail on a good-for-nothing horse, once a week, between New York and
+Philadelphia, though they were the largest cities in the country.
+
+So it was many months before Abe received an answer to his letter.
+Elder Elkin may have been away from home on one of the long circuits
+covered by pioneer preachers. As the days and weeks went by without the
+lad's receiving any reply he was filled with misgivings lest he had
+imposed upon the good man's former friendship.
+
+At last the answer came and poor Abe's anxiety was turned to joy. The
+kind elder not only said he would come, but he also named the Sunday
+when it would be, so that the Lincoln family could invite all their
+friends from far and near to the postponed service--for it often
+happened in this new country that the funeral could not take place for
+months after the burial.
+
+It was late in the following Summer, nearly a year after Nancy's death,
+that the devoted minister came. The word had gone out to all the region
+round about. It was the religious event of the season. Hundreds of
+people of all ages came from twenty miles around on horseback--a father,
+mother and two children on one horse--also in oxcarts, and on foot. They
+sat in groups in the wagons, and on the green grass, as at the feeding
+of the multitudes in the time of the Christ. But these people brought
+their own refreshments as if it were a picnic.
+
+They talked together in low, solemn tones while waiting for the poor
+little funeral procession to march out from the Lincoln cabin to the
+grass-covered grave. Pioneer etiquette required the formalities of a
+funeral. Elder Elkin was followed by the widowed husband, with Abraham
+and Sarah and poor Cousin Dennis, also bereaved of his foster-parents,
+and now a member of the Lincoln family.
+
+There were tender hearts behind those hardened faces, and tears
+glistened on the tanned cheeks of many in that motley assemblage of
+eager listeners, while the good elder was paying the last tribute of
+earth to the sweet and patient memory of his departed friend of other
+days.
+
+The words of the man of God, telling that assembled multitude what a
+lovely and devoted girl and woman his mother had been, gave sweet and
+solemn joy to the soul of the little Lincoln boy. It was all for her
+dear sake, and she was, of all women, worthy of this sacred respect. As
+he gazed around on the weeping people, he thought of the hopes and fears
+of the months that had passed since he wrote his first letter to bring
+this about.
+
+"God bless my angel mother!" burst from his lonely lips--"how glad I am
+I've learned to write!"
+
+
+THE COMING OF ANOTHER MOTHER
+
+All that a young girl of twelve could do, assisted by a willing brother
+of ten, was done by Sarah and Abraham Lincoln to make that desolate
+cabin a home for their lonesome father, and for cousin Dennis Hanks,
+whose young life had been twice darkened by a double bereavement. But
+"what is home without a mother?" Thomas Lincoln, missing the balance and
+inspiration of a patient wife, became more and more restless, and, after
+a year, wandered back again to his former homes and haunts in Kentucky.
+
+While visiting Elizabethtown he saw a former sweetheart, the Sally Bush
+of younger days, now Mrs. Daniel Johnston, widow of the county jailer
+who had recently died, leaving three children and considerable property,
+for that time and place. Thomas renewed his suit and won the pitying
+heart of Sarah Johnston, and according to the story of the county clerk:
+
+"The next morning, December 2, 1819, I issued the license, and the same
+day they were married, bundled up, and started for home."
+
+Imagine the glad surprise of the three children who had been left at
+home for weeks, when they saw a smart, covered wagon, drawn by four
+horses, driven up before the cabin door one bright winter day, and their
+father, active and alert, spring out and assist a pleasant-looking woman
+and three children to alight! Then they were told that this woman was to
+be their mother and they had two more sisters and another brother!
+
+To the poor forlorn Lincoln children and their still more desolate
+cousin, it seemed too good to be true. They quickly learned the names of
+their new brother and sisters. The Johnston children were called John,
+Sarah and Matilda, so Sarah Lincoln's name was promptly changed to Nancy
+for her dead mother, as there were two Sarahs already in the combined
+family.
+
+Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln lost no time in taking poor Abe and
+Nancy Lincoln to her great motherly heart, as if they were her own. They
+were dirty, for they had been neglected, ill-used and deserted. She
+washed their wasted bodies clean and dressed them in nice warm clothing
+provided for her own children, till she, as she expressed it, "made
+them look more human."
+
+Dennis Hanks told afterward of the great difference the stepmother made
+in their young lives:
+
+"In fact, in a few weeks all had changed; and where everything had been
+wanting, all was snug and comfortable. She was a woman of great energy,
+of remarkable good sense, very industrious and saving, also very neat
+and tidy in her person and manners. She took an especial liking for
+young Abe. Her love for him was warmly returned, and continued to the
+day of his death. But few children love their parents as he loved his
+stepmother. She dressed him up in entire new clothes, and from that time
+on he appeared to lead a new life. He was encouraged by her to study,
+and a wish on his part was gratified when it could be done. The two sets
+of children got along finely together, as if they all had been the
+children of the same parents."
+
+Dennis also referred to the "large supply of household goods" the new
+mother brought with her:
+
+"One fine bureau (worth $40), one table, one set of chairs, one large
+clothes chest, cooking utensils, knives, forks, bedding and other
+articles."
+
+It must have been a glorious day when such a splendid array of household
+furniture was carried into the rude cabin of Thomas Lincoln. But best of
+all, the new wife had sufficient tact and force of will to induce her
+good-hearted but shiftless husband to lay a floor, put in a window, and
+hang a door to protect his doubled family from the cold. It was about
+Christmas time, and the Lincoln children, as they nestled in warm beds
+for the first time in their lives, must have thanked their second mother
+from the bottoms of their grateful hearts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SCHOOL DAYS NOW AND THEN
+
+
+Lincoln once wrote, in a letter to a friend, about his early teachers in
+Indiana:
+
+"He (father) removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County,
+Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home about the time the
+State came into the Union. It was a wild region with many bears and
+other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some
+schools, so-called; but no qualification was ever required of a teacher
+beside readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three (simple
+proportion). If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to
+sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was
+absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education."
+
+Abe's first teacher in Indiana, however, was Hazel Dorsey. The school
+house was built of rough, round logs. The chimney was made of poles well
+covered with clay. The windows were spaces cut in the logs, and covered
+with greased paper. But Abe was determined to learn. He and his sister
+thought nothing of walking four miles a day through snow, rain and mud.
+"Nat" Grigsby, who afterward married the sister, spoke in glowing terms
+of Abe's few school days:
+
+"He was always at school early, and attended to his studies. He lost no
+time at home, and when not at work was at his books. He kept up his
+studies on Sunday, and carried his books with him to work, so that he
+might read when he rested from labor."
+
+Thomas Lincoln had no use for "eddication," as he called it. "It will
+spile the boy," he kept saying. He--the father--had got along better
+without going to school, and why should Abe have a better education than
+his father? He thought Abe's studious habits were due to "pure laziness,
+jest to git shet o' workin'." So, whenever there was the slightest
+excuse, he took Abe out of school and set him to work at home or for one
+of the neighbors, while he himself went hunting or loafed about the
+house.
+
+This must have been very trying to a boy as hungry to learn as Abe
+Lincoln was. His new mother saw and sympathized with him, and in her
+quiet way, managed to get the boy started to school, for a few weeks at
+most. For some reason Hazel Dorsey stopped "keeping" the school, and
+there was a long "vacation" for all the children. But a new man, Andrew
+Crawford, came and settled near Gentryville. Having nothing better to do
+at first, he was urged to reopen the school.
+
+One evening Abe came in from his work and his stepmother greeted him
+with:
+
+"Another chance for you to go to school."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"That man Crawford that moved in a while ago is to begin school next
+week, and two miles and back every day will be just about enough for you
+to walk to keep your legs limber."
+
+The tactful wife accomplished it somehow and Abe started off to school
+with Nancy, and a light heart. A neighbor described him as he appeared
+in Crawford's school, as "long, wiry and strong, while his big feet and
+hands, and the length of his legs and arms, were out of all proportion
+to his small trunk and head. His complexion was swarthy, and his skin
+shriveled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin breeches,
+linsey-woolsey shirt, and a coonskin cap. The breeches hung close to his
+legs, but were far from meeting the tops of his shoes, exposing 'twelve
+inches of shinbone, sharp, blue and narrow.'"
+
+"Yet," said Nat Grigsby, "he was always in good health, never sick, and
+had an excellent constitution."
+
+
+HELPING KATE ROBY SPELL
+
+Andrew Crawford must have been an unusual man, for he tried to teach
+"manners" in his backwoods school! Spelling was considered a great
+accomplishment. Abe shone as a speller in school and at the
+spelling-matches. One day, evidently during a period when young Lincoln
+was kept from school to do some outside work for his father, he appeared
+at the window when the class in spelling was on the floor. The word
+"defied" was given out and several pupils had misspelled it. Kate Roby,
+the pretty girl of the village, was stammering over it. "D-e-f," said
+Kate, then she hesitated over the next letter. Abe pointed to his eye
+and winked significantly. The girl took the hint and went on glibly
+"i-e-d," and "went up head."
+
+
+"I DID IT!"
+
+There was a buck's head nailed over the school house door. It proved a
+temptation to young Lincoln, who was tall enough to reach it easily. One
+day the schoolmaster discovered that one horn was broken and he demanded
+to know who had done the damage. There was silence and a general denial
+till Abe spoke up sturdily:
+
+"I did it. I did not mean to do it, but I hung on it--and it broke!"
+The other boys thought Abe was foolish to "own up" till he had to--but
+that was his way.
+
+It is doubtful if Abe Lincoln owned an arithmetic. He had a copybook,
+made by himself, in which he entered tables of weights and measures and
+"sums" he had to do. Among these was a specimen of schoolboy doggerel:
+
+        "Abraham Lincoln,
+           His hand and pen,
+         He will be good--
+           But God knows when!"
+
+In another place he wrote some solemn reflections on the value of time:
+
+        "Time, what an empty vapor 'tis,
+           And days, how swift they are!
+         Swift as an Indian arrow--
+           Fly on like a shooting star.
+         The present moment, just, is here,
+           Then slides away in haste,
+         That we can never say they're ours,
+           But only say they're past."
+
+As he grew older his handwriting improved and he was often asked to "set
+copies" for other boys to follow. In the book of a boy named
+Richardson, he wrote this prophetic couplet:
+
+        "Good boys who to their books apply
+         Will all be great men by and by."
+
+
+A "MOTHER'S BOY"--HIS FOOD AND CLOTHING
+
+Dennis Hanks related of his young companion: "As far as food and
+clothing were concerned, the boy had plenty--such as it
+was--'corndodgers,' bacon and game, some fish and wild fruits. We had
+very little wheat flour. The nearest mill was eighteen miles. A hoss
+mill it was, with a plug (old horse) pullin' a beam around; and Abe used
+to say his dog could stand and eat the flour as fast as it was made,
+_and then be ready for supper_!
+
+"For clothing he had jeans. He was grown before he wore all-wool pants.
+It was a new country, and he was a raw boy, rather a bright and likely
+lad; but the big world seemed far ahead of him. We were all slow-goin'
+folks. But he had the stuff of greatness in him. He got his rare sense
+and sterling principles from both parents. But Abe's kindliness, humor,
+love of humanity, hatred of slavery, all came from his mother. I am
+free to say Abe was a 'mother's boy.'"
+
+Dennis used to like to tell of Abe's earliest ventures in the fields of
+literature: "His first readin' book was Webster's speller. Then he got
+hold of a book--I can't rickilect the name. It told about a feller, a
+nigger or suthin', that sailed a flatboat up to a rock, and the rock was
+magnetized and drawed the nails out of his boat, an' he got a duckin',
+or drownded, or suthin', I forget now. (This book, of course, was 'The
+Arabian Nights.') Abe would lay on the floor with a chair under his
+head, and laugh over them stories by the hour. I told him they was
+likely lies from end to end; but he learned to read right well in them."
+
+His stock of books was small, but they were the right kind--the Bible,
+"The Pilgrim's Progress," AEsop's Fables, "Robinson Crusoe," a history of
+the United States, and the Statutes of Indiana. This last was a strange
+book for a boy to read, but Abe pored over it as eagerly as a lad to-day
+might read "The Three Guardsmen," or "The Hound of the Baskervilles." He
+made notes of what he read with his turkey-buzzard pen and brier-root
+ink. If he did not have these handy, he would write with a piece of
+charcoal or the charred end of a stick, on a board, or on the under side
+of a chair or bench. He used the wooden fire shovel for a slate, shaving
+it off clean when both sides were full of figures. When he got hold of
+paper enough to make a copy-book he would go about transferring his
+notes from boards, beams, under sides of the chairs and the table, and
+from all the queer places he had put them down, on the spur of the
+moment.
+
+Besides the books he had at hand, he borrowed all he could get, often
+walking many miles for a book, until, as he once told a friend, he "read
+through every book he had ever heard of in that country, for a circuit
+of fifty miles"--quite a circulating library!
+
+
+"THE BEGINNING OF LOVE"
+
+"The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." It must have been about
+this time that the lad had the following experience, which he himself
+related to a legal friend, with his chair tilted back and his knees
+"cocked up" in the manner described by Cousin John Hanks:
+
+"Did you ever write out a story in your mind? I did when I was little
+codger. One day a wagon with a lady and two girls and a man broke down
+near us, and while they were fixing up, they cooked in our kitchen. The
+woman had books and read us stories, and they were the first of the kind
+I ever heard. I took a great fancy to one of the girls; and when they
+were gone I thought of her a good deal, and one day, when I was sitting
+out in the sun by the house, I wrote out a story in my mind.
+
+"I thought I took my father's horse and followed the wagon, and finally
+I found it, and they were surprised to see me.
+
+"I talked with the girl and persuaded her to elope with me; and that
+night I put her on my horse and we started off across the prairie. After
+several hours we came to a camp; and when we rode up we found it was one
+we had left a few hours before and went in.
+
+"The next night we tried again, and the same thing happened--the horse
+came back to the same place; and then we concluded we ought not to
+elope. I stayed until I had persuaded her father that he ought to give
+her to me.
+
+"I always meant to write that story out and publish it, and I began
+once; but I concluded it was not much of a story.
+
+"But I think that was the beginning of love with me."
+
+
+HOW ABE CAME TO OWN WEEMS'S "LIFE OF WASHINGTON"
+
+Abe's chief delight, if permitted to do so, was to lie in the shade of
+some inviting tree and read. He liked to lie on his stomach before the
+fire at night, and often read as long as this flickering light lasted.
+He sometimes took a book to bed to read as soon as the morning light
+began to come through the chinks between the logs beside his bed. He
+once placed a book between the logs to have it handy in the morning, and
+a storm came up and soaked it with dirty water from the "mud-daubed"
+mortar, plastered between the logs of the cabin.
+
+The book happened to be Weems's "Life of Washington." Abe was in a sad
+dilemma. What could he say to the owner of the book, which he had
+borrowed from the meanest man in the neighborhood, Josiah Crawford, who
+was so unpopular that he went by the nickname of "Old Blue Nose"?
+
+The only course was to show the angry owner his precious volume, warped
+and stained as it was, and offer to do anything he could to repay him.
+
+"Abe," said "Old Blue Nose," with bloodcurdling friendliness, "bein' as
+it's you, Abe, I won't be hard on you. You jest come over and pull
+fodder for me, and the book is yours."
+
+"All right," said Abe, his deep-set eyes twinkling in spite of himself
+at the thought of owning the story of the life of the greatest of
+heroes, "how much fodder?"
+
+"Wal," said old Josiah, "that book's worth seventy-five cents, at least.
+You kin earn twenty-five cents a day--that will make three days. You
+come and pull all you can in three days and you may have the book."
+
+That was an exorbitant price, even if the book were new, but Abe was at
+the old man's mercy. He realized this, and made the best of a bad
+bargain. He cheerfully did the work for a man who was mean enough to
+take advantage of his misfortune. He comforted himself with the thought
+that he would be the owner of the precious "Life of Washington." Long
+afterward, in a speech before the New Jersey Legislature, on his way to
+Washington to be inaugurated, like Washington, as President of the
+United States, he referred to this strange book.
+
+
+"THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH"
+
+One morning, on his way to work, with an ax on his shoulder, his
+stepsister, Matilda Johnston, though forbidden by her mother to follow
+Abe, crept after him, and with a cat-like spring landed between his
+shoulders and pressed her sharp knees into the small of his back.
+
+Taken unawares, Abe staggered backward and ax and girl fell to the
+ground together. The sharp implement cut her ankle badly, and
+mischievous Matilda shrieked with fright and pain when she saw the blood
+gushing from the wound. Young Lincoln tore a sleeve from his shirt to
+bandage the gash and bound up the ankle as well as he could. Then he
+tried to teach the still sobbing girl a lesson.
+
+"'Tilda," he said gently, "I'm surprised. Why did you disobey mother?"
+
+Matilda only wept silently, and the lad went on, "What are you going to
+tell mother about it?"
+
+"Tell her I did it with the ax," sobbed the young girl. "That will be
+the truth, too."
+
+"Yes," said Abe severely, "that's the truth, but not _all_ the truth.
+You just tell the whole truth, 'Tilda, and trust mother for the rest."
+
+Matilda went limping home and told her mother the whole story, and the
+good woman was so sorry for her that, as the girl told Abe that evening,
+"she didn't even scold me."
+
+
+"BOUNDING A THOUGHT--NORTH, SOUTH, EAST AND WEST"
+
+Abe sometimes heard things in the simple conversation of friends that
+disturbed him because they seemed beyond his comprehension. He said of
+this:
+
+"I remember how, when a child, I used to get irritated when any one
+talked to me in a way I couldn't understand.
+
+"I do not think I ever got angry with anything else in my life; but that
+always disturbed my temper--and has ever since.
+
+"I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors
+talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the
+night walking up and down, trying to make out what was the exact
+meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings.
+
+"I could not sleep, although I tried to, when I got on such a hunt for
+an idea; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I
+had repeated it over and over, and had put in language plain enough, as
+I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.
+
+"This was a kind of a passion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am
+never easy now when I am bounding a thought, till I have bounded it
+east, and bounded it west, and bounded it north, and bounded it south."
+
+
+HIGH PRAISE FROM HIS STEPMOTHER
+
+Not long before her death, Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, called
+upon Mrs. Sarah Lincoln to collect material for a "Life of Lincoln" he
+was preparing to write. This was the best of all the things she related
+of her illustrious stepson:
+
+"I can say what scarcely one mother in a thousand can say, Abe never
+gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance,
+to do anything I asked him. His mind and mine seemed to run together.
+
+"I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys, but I
+must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or
+expect to see."
+
+"Charity begins at home"--and so do truth and honesty. Abraham Lincoln
+could not have become so popular all over the world on account of his
+honest kindheartedness if he had not been loyal, obedient and loving
+toward those at home. Popularity, also, "begins at home." A mean,
+disagreeable, dishonest boy may become a king, because he was "to the
+manner born." But only a good, kind, honest man, considerate of others,
+can be elected President of the United States.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ABE AND THE NEIGHBORS
+
+
+"PREACHING" AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
+
+Nat Grigsby stated once that writing compositions was not required by
+Schoolmaster Crawford, but "Abe took it up on his own account," and his
+first essay was against cruelty to animals.
+
+The boys of the neighborhood made a practice of catching terrapins and
+laying live coals on their backs. Abe caught a group of them at this
+cruel sport one day, and rushed to the relief of the helpless turtle.
+Snatching the shingle that one of the boys was using to handle the
+coals, he brushed them off the turtle's shell, and with angry tears in
+his eyes, proceeded to use it on one of the offenders, while he called
+the rest a lot of cowards.
+
+One day his stepbrother, John Johnston, according to his sister Matilda,
+"caught a terrapin, brought it to the place where Abe was 'preaching,'
+threw it against a tree and crushed its shell." Abe then preached
+against cruelty to animals, contending that "an ant's life is as sweet
+to it as ours is to us."
+
+
+ROUGHLY DISCIPLINED FOR BEING "FORWARD"
+
+Abe was compelled to leave school on the slightest pretext to work for
+the neighbors. He was so big and strong--attaining his full height at
+seventeen--that his services were more in demand than those of his
+stepbrother, John Johnston, or of Cousin Dennis. Abe was called lazy
+because the neighbors shared the idea of Thomas Lincoln, that his
+reading and studying were only a pretext for shirking. Yet he was never
+so idle as either Dennis Hanks or John Johnston, who were permitted to
+go hunting or fishing with Tom Lincoln, while Abe stayed out of school
+to do the work that one of the three older men should have done.
+
+Abe's father was kinder in many ways to his stepchildren than he was to
+his own son. This may have been due to the fact that he did not wish to
+be thought "partial" to his own child. No doubt Abe was "forward." He
+liked to take part in any discussion, and sometimes he broke into the
+conversation when his opinion had not been asked. Besides, he got into
+arguments with his fellow-laborers, and wasted the time belonging to his
+employer.
+
+One day, according to Dennis, they were all working together in the
+field, when a man rode up on horseback and asked a question. Abe was the
+first to mount the fence to answer the stranger and engage him in
+conversation. To teach his son better "manners" in the presence of his
+"superiors," Thomas Lincoln struck Abe a heavy blow which knocked him
+backward off the fence, and silenced him for a time.
+
+Of course, every one present laughed at Abe's discomfiture, and the
+neighbors approved of Thomas Lincoln's rude act as a matter of
+discipline. In their opinion Abe Lincoln was getting altogether too
+smart. While they enjoyed his homely wit and good nature, they did not
+like to admit that he was in any way their superior. A visitor to
+Springfield, Ill., will even now find some of Lincoln's old neighbors
+eager to say "there were a dozen smarter men in this city than Lincoln"
+when he "happened to get nominated for the presidency!"
+
+
+SPORTS AND PASTIMES
+
+Abe was "hail fellow, well met" everywhere. The women comprehended his
+true greatness before the men did so. There was a rough gallantry about
+him, which, though lacking in "polish," was true, "heart-of-oak"
+politeness. He wished every one well. His whole life passed with "malice
+toward none, with charity for all."
+
+When he "went out evenings" Abe Lincoln took the greatest pains to make
+everybody comfortable and happy. He was sure to bring in the biggest
+backlog and make the brightest fire. He read "the funniest fortunes" for
+the young people from the sparks as they flew up the chimney. He was the
+best helper in paring the apples, shelling the corn and cracking the
+nuts for the evening's refreshments.
+
+When he went to spelling school, after the first few times, he was not
+allowed to take part in the spelling match because everybody knew that
+the side that "chose first" would get Abe Lincoln and he always "spelled
+down." But he went just the same and had a good time himself if he could
+add to the enjoyment of the rest.
+
+He went swimming, warm evenings, with the boys, and ran races, jumped
+and wrestled at noon-times, which was supposed to be given up to eating
+and resting. He was "the life" of the husking-bee and barn raising, and
+was always present, often as a judge because of his humor, fairness and
+tact, at horse races. He engaged heartily in every kind of "manly sport"
+which did not entail unnecessary suffering upon helpless animals.
+
+Coon hunting, however, was an exception. The coon was a pest and a
+plague to the farmer, so it should be got rid of. He once told the
+following story:
+
+
+THE LITTLE YELLOW "COON DOG"
+
+"My father had a little yellow house dog which invariably gave the alarm
+if we boys undertook to slip away unobserved after night had set in--as
+we sometimes did--to go coon hunting. One night my brother, John
+Johnston, and I, with the usual complement of boys required for a
+successful coon hunt, took the insignificant little cur with us.
+
+"We located the coveted coon, killed him, and then in a sporting vein,
+sewed the coon skin on the little dog.
+
+"It struggled vigorously during the operation of sewing on, and when
+released made a bee-line for home. Some larger dogs on the way, scenting
+coon, tracked the little animal home and apparently mistaking him for a
+real coon, speedily demolished him. The next morning, father found,
+lying in his yard, the lifeless remains of yellow 'Joe,' with strong
+circumstantial evidence, in the form of fragments of coon skin, against
+us.
+
+"Father was much incensed at his death, but as John and I, scantily
+protected from the morning wind, stood shivering in the doorway, we felt
+assured that little yellow Joe would never again be able to sound the
+alarm of another coon hunt."
+
+
+THE "CHIN FLY" AS AN INCENTIVE TO WORK
+
+While he was President, Mr. Lincoln told Henry J. Raymond, the founder
+of the New York _Times_, the following story of an experience he had
+about this time, while working with his stepbrother in a cornfield:
+
+"Raymond," said he, "you were brought up on a farm, were you not? Then
+you know what a 'chin fly' is. My brother and I were plowing corn once,
+I driving the horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on
+one occasion he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs,
+could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow I
+found an enormous chin fly fastened upon the horse and I knocked it off.
+My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn't want the
+old horse bitten in that way.
+
+"'Why,' said my brother,'that's all that made him go.'"
+
+"Now if Mr. Chase (the Secretary of the Treasury) has a presidential
+'chin fly' biting him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will only
+make his department go."
+
+
+"OLD BLUE NOSE'S" HIRED MAN
+
+It seemed to be the "irony of fate" that Abe should have to work for
+"Old Blue Nose" as a farm hand. But the lad liked Mrs. Crawford, and
+Lincoln's sister Nancy lived there, at the same time, as
+maid-of-all-work. Another attraction, the Crawford family was rich, in
+Abe's eyes, in possessing several books, which he was glad of the chance
+to read.
+
+Mrs. Crawford told many things about young Lincoln that might otherwise
+have been lost. She said "Abe was very polite, in his awkward way,
+taking off his hat to me and bowing. He was a sensitive lad, never
+coming where he was not wanted. He was tender and kind--like his sister.
+
+"He liked to hang around and gossip and joke with the women. After he
+had wasted too much time this way, he would exclaim:
+
+"'Well, this won't buy the child a coat,' and the long-legged hired boy
+would stride away and catch up with the others."
+
+One day when he was asked to kill a hog, Abe answered promptly that he
+had never done that, "but if you'll risk the hog, I'll risk myself!"
+
+Mrs. Crawford told also about "going to meeting" in those primitive
+days:
+
+"At that time we thought it nothing to go eight or ten miles. The ladies
+did not stop for the want of a shawl or riding dress, or horses. In the
+winter time they would put on their husbands' old overcoats, wrap up
+their little ones, and take two or three of them on their beasts, while
+their husbands would walk.
+
+"In winter time they would hold church in some of the neighbors' houses.
+At such times they were always treated with the utmost kindness; a
+basket of apples, or turnips--apples were scarce in those days--was set
+out. Sometimes potatoes were used for a 'treat.' In old Mr. Linkhorn's
+(Lincoln's) house a plate of potatoes, washed and pared nicely, was
+handed around."
+
+
+FEATS OF STRENGTH
+
+Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood, both in body and in mind.
+The neighbors, who failed to mark his mental growth, were greatly
+impressed with his physical strength. The Richardson family, with whom
+Abe seemed to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous tales of
+his prowess, some of which may have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr.
+Richardson declared that the young man could carry as heavy a load as
+"three ordinary men." He saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken
+house, made up of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at
+least six hundred if not much more."
+
+When the Richardsons were building their corn-crib, Abe saw three or
+four men getting ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on
+"sticks" between them. Watching his chance, he coolly stepped in,
+shouldered all the timbers at once and walked off alone with them,
+carrying them to the place desired. He performed these feats off-hand,
+smiling down in undisguised pleasure as the men around him expressed
+their amazement. It seemed to appeal to his sense of humor as well as
+his desire to help others out of their difficulties.
+
+Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of Abe: "He could strike, with a
+maul, a heavier blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper
+into wood than any man I ever saw."
+
+Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard Abe working in the woods
+alone, felling trees, you would think three men, at least, were at work
+there--the trees came crashing down so fast.
+
+On one occasion after he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the
+farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured,
+Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a
+number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking
+their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by
+the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying
+there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness
+of his heart, exclaimed:
+
+"Aw, let him alone, Abe. 'Twon't do him no good. He's made his bed, let
+him lay in it!"
+
+The rest laughed--for the "bed" was freezing mud. But Abe could see no
+humor in the situation. The man might be run over, or freeze to death.
+To abandon any human being in such a plight seemed too monstrous to him.
+The other young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging their shoulders
+and shaking their heads--"Poor Abe!--he's a hopeless case," and left
+Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on
+which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried,
+again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At
+last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the
+mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile
+to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the
+old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe gave him "a good talking
+to," and the unfortunate man is said to have been so deeply impressed by
+the young man's kindness that he heeded the temperance lecture and never
+again risked his life as he had done that night. When the old man told
+John Hanks of Abe's Herculean effort to save him, he added:
+
+"It was mighty clever in Abe Lincoln to tote me to a warm fire that cold
+night."
+
+
+IN JONES' STORE
+
+While Abe was working for the farmers round about his father's farm he
+spent many of his evenings in Jones' grocery "talking politics" and
+other things with the men, who also gathered there. Mr. Jones took a
+Louisville paper, which young Lincoln read eagerly. Slavery was a live
+political topic then, and Abe soon acquired quite a reputation as a
+stump orator.
+
+As he read the "Indiana Statutes" he was supposed to "know more law than
+the constable." In fact, his taste for the law was so pronounced at that
+early age that he went, sometimes, fifteen miles to Boonville, as a
+spectator in the county court. Once he heard a lawyer of ability, named
+Breckinridge, defend an accused murderer there. It was a great plea; the
+tall country boy knew it and, pushing through the crowd, reached out his
+long, coatless arm to congratulate the lawyer, who looked at the awkward
+youth in amazement and passed on without acknowledging Abe's compliment.
+The two men met again in Washington, more than thirty years later, under
+very different circumstances.
+
+But there were things other than politics discussed at the country
+store, and Abe Lincoln often raised a laugh at the expense of some
+braggart or bully. There was "Uncle Jimmy" Larkins, who posed as the
+hero of his own stories. In acknowledgment of Abe's authority as a
+judge of horse flesh, "Uncle Jimmy" was boasting of his horse's
+superiority in a recent fox chase. But young Lincoln seemed to pay no
+heed. Larkins repeated:
+
+"Abe, I've got the best horse in the world; he won the race and never
+drew a long breath."
+
+Young Lincoln still appeared not to be paying attention. "Uncle Jimmy"
+persisted. He was bound to make Abe hear. He reiterated:
+
+"I say, Abe, I have got the best horse in the world; after all that
+running he never drew a long breath."
+
+"Well, Larkins," drawled young Lincoln, "why don't you tell us how many
+_short_ breaths he drew." The laugh was on the boastful and discomfited
+Larkins.
+
+
+TRYING TO TEACH ASTRONOMY TO A YOUNG GIRL
+
+Abe's efforts were not always so well received, for he was sometimes
+misunderstood. The neighbors used to think the Lincoln boy was secretly
+in love with Kate Roby, the pretty girl he had helped out of a dilemma
+in the spelling class. Several years after that episode, Abe and Kate
+were sitting on a log, about sunset, talking:
+
+"Abe," said Kate, "the sun's goin' down."
+
+"Reckon not," Abe answered, "we're coming up, that's all."
+
+"Don't you s'pose I got eyes?"
+
+"Yes, I know you have; but it's the earth that goes round. The sun
+stands as still as a tree. When we're swung round so we can't see it any
+more, the light's cut off and we call it night."
+
+"What a fool you are, Abe Lincoln!" exclaimed Kate, who was not to blame
+for her ignorance, for astronomy had never been taught in Crawford's
+school.
+
+
+THE EARLY DEATH OF SISTER NANCY
+
+While brother and sister were working for "Old Blue Nose," Aaron
+Grigsby, "Nat's" brother, was "paying attention" to Nancy Lincoln. They
+were soon married. Nancy was only eighteen. When she was nineteen Mrs.
+Aaron Grigsby died. Her love for Abe had almost amounted to idolatry. In
+some ways she resembled him. He, in turn, was deeply devoted to his only
+sister.
+
+The family did not stay long at Pigeon Creek after the loss of Nancy,
+who was buried, not beside her mother, but with the Grigsbys in the
+churchyard of the old Pigeon Creek meeting-house.
+
+
+EARNING HIS FIRST DOLLAR
+
+Much as Abraham Lincoln had "worked out" as a hired man, his father kept
+the money, as he had a legal right to do, not giving the boy any of the
+results of his hard labor, for, strong as he was, his pay was only
+twenty-five or thirty cents a day. Abe accepted this as right and
+proper. He never complained of it.
+
+After he became President, Lincoln told his Secretary of State the
+following story of the first dollar he ever had for his own:
+
+"Seward," he said, "did you ever hear how I earned my first dollar?"
+"No," replied Seward. "Well," said he, "I was about eighteen years of
+age . . . and had constructed a flatboat. . . . A steamer was going down
+the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the western streams, and
+the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings they had to
+go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and taking them on board. I
+was contemplating my new boat, and wondering whether I could make it
+stronger or improve it in any part, when two men with trunks came down
+to the shore in carriages, and looking at the different boats, singled
+out mine, and asked:
+
+"'Who owns this?'
+
+"I answered modestly, 'I do.'
+
+"'Will you,' said one of them, 'take us and our trunks out to the
+steamer?'
+
+"'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have a chance of earning
+something, and supposed that they would give me a couple of 'bits.' The
+trunks were put in my boat, the passengers seated themselves on them,
+and I sculled them out to the steamer. They got on board, and I lifted
+the trunks and put them on deck. The steamer was moving away when I
+called out:
+
+"'You have forgotten to pay me.'
+
+"Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on
+the bottom of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up
+the money. You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days
+it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my
+life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in
+less than a day--that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was a more
+hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+MOVING TO ILLINOIS
+
+
+"FOLLOWING THE RIVER"
+
+Thomas Lincoln had become restless again. Fourteen years was a long time
+for him to live in one place. Abe was seven years old when they came
+over from Kentucky, and he was now nearly twenty-one. During that time
+Thomas had lost his wife, Nancy, and his only daughter, who bore her
+mother's name. While the land he had chosen was fertile enough, the want
+of water had always been a sad drawback. The desire to try his fortunes
+in a newer country had taken possession of him.
+
+John Hanks had gone to Illinois, and had written back that everything
+was more favorable there for making a living. Thomas Lincoln had not
+been successful in Indiana. His children's prospects seemed to be
+against them. After working as a hired hand on the surrounding farms,
+Abe had served for a time as a ferryman, and, working by the river, had
+learned to build the boat with which he had earned his first dollar.
+
+As George Washington longed to go to sea, Abraham Lincoln seems to have
+yearned to "follow the river." He tried to hire out as deck hand, but
+his age was against him. He soon had a chance to go "down river" to New
+Orleans, with his friend, Allen Gentry, the son of the man for whom
+Gentryville was named. Allen afterward married Kate Roby. A flatboat
+belonging to Allen's father was loaded with bacon and other farm
+merchandise for the southern market. Allen went in charge of the
+expedition, and young Lincoln was engaged as "bow hand." They started in
+April, 1828. There was nothing to do but steer the unwieldy craft with
+the current. The flatboat was made to float down stream only. It was to
+be broken up at New Orleans and sold for lumber.
+
+The two young men from Indiana made the trip without incident until they
+came to the plantation of Madame Duchesne, six miles from Baton Rouge,
+where they moored their raft for the night. There they heard the
+stealthy footsteps of midnight marauders on board.
+
+Young Gentry was first aroused. He sprang up and found a gang of
+lawless negroes on deck, evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so
+many of them could easily cow or handle the two white men.
+
+"Bring the guns, Abe!" shouted Allen. "Shoot them!" Abraham Lincoln was
+among them, brandishing a club--they had no guns. The negroes were
+frightened not only by the fierce, commanding form of their tall
+adversary, but also by his giant strength. The two white men routed the
+whole black crew, but Abraham Lincoln received a wound in the encounter,
+and bore the scar of it to his dying day.
+
+The trip required about three months, going and returning, and the two
+adventurers from Gentryville came back in June, with good stories of
+their experiences to tell in Jones' store.
+
+Not long after this Thomas Lincoln, in response to an urgent invitation
+from John Hanks, decided to move to Illinois. It took a long time, after
+gathering in the fall crops, for Thomas Lincoln to have a "vandoo" and
+sell his corn and hogs. As for selling his farm, it had never really
+belonged to him. He simply turned it over to Mr. Gentry, who held a
+mortgage on it. It was February, 1830, before the pioneer wagon got
+under way. The emigrant family consisted of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah,
+his wife, Abraham, and John Johnston; Sarah and Matilda Johnston were
+both married, and, with their husbands, a young man named Hall and
+Dennis Hanks, formed the rest of the party. The women rode with their
+household goods in a great covered cart drawn by two yoke of oxen.
+
+
+A TRAVELING PEDDLER
+
+Merchant Jones, for whom Abe had worked that fall and winter, after his
+return from New Orleans, sold the young man a pack of "notions" to
+peddle along the road to Illinois. "A set of knives and forks," related
+Mr. Jones' son afterward, "was the largest item on the bill. The other
+items were needles, pins, thread, buttons, and other little domestic
+necessities. When the Lincolns reached their new home, Abraham wrote
+back to my father stating that he had doubled his money on his purchases
+by selling them along the road. Unfortunately we did not keep that
+letter, not thinking how highly we would prize it afterward."
+
+In the early days of his presidency, an international problem came
+before the cabinet which reminded Mr. Lincoln of an experience he had on
+this journey, so he told the several secretaries this story:
+
+"The situation just now reminds me of a fix I got into some thirty years
+ago when I was peddling 'notions' on the way from Indiana to Illinois. I
+didn't have a large stock, but I charged large prices and I made money.
+Perhaps you don't see what I am driving at.
+
+"Just before we left Indiana and were crossing into Illinois we came
+across a small farmhouse full of children. These ranged in age from
+seventeen years to seventeen months, and were all in tears. The mother
+of the family was red-headed and red-faced, and the whip she held in her
+right hand led to the inference that she had been chastising her brood.
+The father of the family, a meek-looking, mild-mannered, tow-headed
+chap, was standing at the front door--to all appearances waiting his
+turn!
+
+"I thought there wasn't much use in asking the head of that house if she
+wanted any 'notions.' She was too busy. It was evident that an
+insurrection had been in progress, but it was pretty well quelled when I
+got there. She saw me when I came up, and from her look I thought she
+surmised that I intended to interfere. Advancing to the doorway--roughly
+pushing her husband aside--she demanded my business.
+
+"'Nothing, ma'am,' I answered as gently as possible. 'I merely dropped
+in, as I came along, to see how things were going.'
+
+"'Well, you needn't wait,' she said in an irritated way; 'there's
+trouble here, and lots of it, too, but I kin manage my own affairs
+without the help of outsiders. This is jest a family row, but I'll teach
+these brats their places if I hev to lick the hide off every one of
+them. I don't do much talking, but I run this house, an' I don't want no
+one sneakin' round tryin' to find out how I do it either.'
+
+"That's the case here with us. We must let the other nations know that
+we propose to settle our family row in our own way, an' teach these
+brats (the seceding States) their places, and, like the old woman, we
+don't want any 'sneakin' round' by other countries, that would like to
+find out how we are going to do it either."
+
+
+"WINNING A DOG'S GRATITUDE"
+
+Abe strode along in the mud, driving the four oxen much of the time,
+for the houses he could visit with his peddler's pack were few and far
+between. A dog belonging to one of the family--an insignificant little
+cur--fell behind. After the oxen had floundered through the mud, snow
+and ice of a prairie stream, they discovered that the animal was
+missing. The other men of the party thought they could now get rid of
+the little nuisance, and even the women were anxious, as the hour was
+late, to go on and find a place to camp for the night. To turn back with
+the clumsy ox-team and lumbering emigrant wagon was out of the question.
+
+Abraham gave the whip to one of the other men and turned back to see if
+he could discern the dog anywhere. He discovered it running up and down
+on the other bank of the river, in great distress, for the swift current
+was filled with floating ice and the poor little creature was afraid to
+make the attempt to swim across. After whistling in vain to encourage
+the dog to try if it would, the tender-hearted youth went to its rescue.
+Referring to the incident himself afterward, he said:
+
+"I could not endure the idea of abandoning even a dog. Pulling off shoes
+and socks, I waded across the stream and triumphantly returned with the
+shivering animal under my arm. His frantic leaps of joy and other
+evidences of a dog's gratitude amply repaid me for all the exposure I
+had undergone."
+
+
+SPLITTING THE HISTORIC RAILS
+
+After two weary weeks of floundering through muddy prairies and jolting
+over rough forest roads, now and then fording swollen and dangerous
+streams, the Lincolns were met near Decatur, Illinois, by Cousin John
+Hanks, and given a hearty welcome. John had chosen a spot not far from
+his own home, and had the logs all ready to build a cabin for the
+newcomers. Besides young Abe, with the strength of three, there were
+five men in the party, so they were able to erect their first home in
+Illinois without asking the help of the neighbors, as was customary for
+a "raising" of that kind.
+
+Nicolay and Hay, President Lincoln's private secretaries, in their great
+life of their chief, gave the following account of the splitting of the
+rails which afterward became the talk of the civilized world:
+
+"Without the assistance of John Hanks he plowed fifteen acres, and
+split, from the tall walnut trees of the primeval forest, enough rails
+to surround them with a fence. Little did either dream, while engaged in
+this work, that the day would come when the appearance of John Hanks in
+a public meeting with two of these rails on his shoulder, would
+electrify a State convention, and kindle throughout the country a
+contagious and passionate enthusiasm whose results would reach to
+endless generations."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+STARTING OUT FOR HIMSELF
+
+
+HIS FATHER AND HIS "FREEDOM SUIT"
+
+According to his own account, Abe had made about thirty dollars as a
+peddler, besides bearing the brunt of the labor of the journey, though
+there were four grown men in the combined family. As he had passed his
+twenty-first birthday on the road, he really had the right to claim
+these profits as his own. His father, who had, for ten years, exacted
+Abraham's meager, hard-earned wages, should at least have given the boy
+a part of that thirty dollars for a "freedom suit" of clothes, as was
+the custom then.
+
+But neither Thomas Lincoln nor his son seems to have thought of such a
+thing. Instead of entertaining resentment, Abraham stayed by, doing all
+he could to make his father and stepmother comfortable before he left
+them altogether. Mrs. Lincoln had two daughters and sons-in-law, besides
+John Johnston, so Abe might easily have excused himself from looking
+after the welfare of his parents. Though his father had seemed to favor
+his stepchildren in preference to his own son, Mrs. Lincoln had been
+"like an own mother to him," and he never ceased to show his gratitude
+by being "like an own son to her."
+
+The first work Abe did in that neighborhood was to split a thousand
+rails for a pair of trousers, at the rate of four hundred rails per yard
+of "brown jeans dyed with walnut bark." The young man's breeches cost
+him about four hundred rails more than they would if he had been a man
+of ordinary height.
+
+But Abraham hovered about, helping clear a little farm, and making the
+cabin comfortable while he was earning his own "freedom suit." He saw
+the spring planting done and that a garden was made for his stepmother
+before he went out of ready reach of the old people.
+
+One special reason Thomas Lincoln had for leaving Indiana was to get
+away from "the milksick." But the fall of 1830 was a very bad season in
+Illinois for chills and fever. The father and, in fact, nearly the whole
+family left at home suffered so much from malaria that they were
+thoroughly discouraged. The interior of their little cabin was a sorry
+sight--Thomas and his wife were both afflicted at once, and one married
+daughter was almost as ill. They were all so sick that Thomas Lincoln
+registered a shaky but vehement resolve that as soon as they could
+travel they would "git out o' thar!" He had been so determined to move
+to Illinois that no persuasion could induce him to give up the project,
+therefore his disappointment was the more keen and bitter.
+
+The first winter the Lincolns spent in Illinois was memorable for its
+severity. It is still spoken of in that region as "the winter of the big
+snow." Cattle and sheep froze to death or died of exposure and
+starvation.
+
+
+BUILDING THE FLATBOAT
+
+Early in the spring after "the big snow," John Hanks, Lincoln and John
+Johnston met Denton Offutt, a man who was to wield an influence on the
+life of young Lincoln. Offutt engaged the three to take a load of
+produce and other merchandise to New Orleans to sell. John Hanks, the
+most reliable member of the Hanks family, gave the following account of
+the way he managed to bring Abe and his stepbrother into the
+transaction: "He wanted me to go badly but I waited before answering. I
+hunted up Abe, and I introduced him and John Johnston, his stepbrother,
+to Offutt. After some talk we at last made an engagement with Offutt at
+fifty cents a day and sixty dollars to make the trip to New Orleans. Abe
+and I came down the Sangamon River in a canoe in March, 1831, and landed
+at what is now called Jamestown, five miles east of Springfield."
+
+Denton Offutt spent so much time drinking in a tavern at the village of
+Springfield that the flatboat was not ready when the trio arrived to
+take it and its cargo down the river. Their employer met them on their
+arrival with profuse apologies, and the three men were engaged to build
+the boat and load it up for the journey.
+
+During the four weeks required to build the raft, the men of that
+neighborhood became acquainted with young Lincoln. A man named John Roll
+has given this description of Abe's appearance at that time:
+
+"He was a tall, gaunt young man, dressed in a suit of blue homespun,
+consisting of a roundabout jacket, waistcoat, and breeches which came to
+within about three inches of his feet. The latter were encased in
+rawhide boots, into the tops of which, most of the time, his pantaloons
+were stuffed. He wore a soft felt hat which had once been black, but
+now, as its owner dryly remarked, 'was sunburned until it was a combine
+of colors.'"
+
+There was a sawmill in Sangamontown, and it was the custom for the "men
+folks" of the neighborhood to assemble near it at noon and in the
+evening, and sit on a peeled log which had been rolled out for the
+purpose. Young Lincoln soon joined this group and at once became a great
+favorite because of his stories and jokes. His stories were so funny
+that "whenever he'd end 'em up in his unexpected way the boys on the log
+would whoop and roll off." In this way the log was polished smooth as
+glass, and came to be known in the neighborhood as "Abe's log."
+
+A traveling juggler came one day while the boat was building and gave an
+exhibition in the house of one of the neighbors. This magician asked for
+Abe's hat to cook eggs in. Lincoln hesitated, but gave this explanation
+for his delay: "It was out of respect for the eggs--not care for my
+hat!"
+
+
+ABE LINCOLN SAVES THREE LIVES
+
+While they were at work on the flatboat the humorous young stranger from
+Indiana became the hero of a thrilling adventure, described as follows
+by John Roll, who was an eye witness to the whole scene:
+
+"It was the spring following 'the winter of the deep snow.' Walter
+Carman, John Seamon, myself, and at times others of the Carman boys, had
+helped Abe in building the boat, and when we had finished we went to
+work to make a dug-out, or canoe, to be used as a small boat with the
+flat. We found a suitable log about an eighth of a mile up the river,
+and with our axes went to work under Lincoln's direction. The river was
+very high, fairly 'booming.' After the dug-out was ready to launch we
+took it to the edge of the water, and made ready to 'let her go,' when
+Walter Carman and John Seamon jumped in as the boat struck the water,
+each one anxious to be the first to get a ride. As they shot out from
+the shore they found they were unable to make any headway against the
+strong current. Carman had the paddle, and Seamon was in the stern of
+the boat. Lincoln shouted to them to head up-stream and 'work back to
+shore,' but they found themselves powerless against the stream. At last
+they began to pull for the wreck of an old flatboat, the first ever
+built on the Sangamon, which had sunk and gone to pieces, leaving one of
+the stanchions sticking above the water. Just as they reached it Seamon
+made a grab, and caught hold of the stanchion, when the canoe capsized,
+leaving Seamon clinging to the old timber and throwing Carman into the
+stream. It carried him down with the speed of a mill-race. Lincoln
+raised his voice above the roar of the flood, and yelled to Carman to
+swim for an elm tree which stood almost in the channel, which the action
+of the water had changed.
+
+"Carman, being a good swimmer, succeeded in catching a branch, and
+pulled himself up out of the water, which was very cold, and had almost
+chilled him to death; and there he sat, shivering and chattering in the
+tree.
+
+"Lincoln, seeing Carman safe, called out to Seamon to let go the
+stanchion and swim for the tree. With some hesitation he obeyed, and
+struck out, while Lincoln cheered and directed him from the bank. As
+Seamon neared the tree he made one grab for a branch, and, missing it,
+went under the water. Another desperate lunge was successful, and he
+climbed up beside Carman.
+
+"Things were pretty exciting now, for there were two men in the tree,
+and the boat gone. It was a cold, raw April day, and there was great
+danger of the men becoming benumbed and falling back into the water.
+Lincoln called out to them to keep their spirits up and he would save
+them.
+
+"The village had been alarmed by this time, and many people had come
+down to the bank. Lincoln procured a rope and tied it to a log. He
+called all hands to come and help roll the log into the water, and,
+after this had been done, he, with the assistance of several others,
+towed it some distance up the stream. A daring young fellow by the name
+of 'Jim' Dorell then took his seat on the end of the log, and it was
+pushed out into the current, with the expectation that it would be
+carried down stream against the tree where Seamon and Carman were.
+
+"The log was well directed, and went straight to the tree; but Jim, in
+his impatience to help his friends, fell a victim to his good
+intentions. Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised himself off the
+log, which was swept from under him by the raging waters and he soon
+joined the other victims upon their forlorn perch.
+
+"The excitement on the shore increased, and almost the whole population
+of the village gathered on the river bank. Lincoln had the log pulled up
+the stream, and, securing another piece of rope, called to the men in
+the tree to catch it if they could when he should reach the tree. He
+then straddled the log himself, and gave the word to push out into the
+stream. When he dashed into the tree he threw the rope over the stump of
+a broken limb, and let it play until he broke the speed of the log, and
+gradually drew it back to the tree, holding it there until the three now
+nearly frozen men had climbed down and seated themselves astride. He
+then gave orders to the people on shore to hold fast to the end of the
+rope which was tied to the log, and leaving his rope in the tree he
+turned the log adrift. The force of the current, acting against the taut
+rope, swung the log around against the bank and all 'on board' were
+saved.
+
+"The excited people who had watched the dangerous expedition with
+alternate hope and fear, now broke into cheers for Abe Lincoln, and
+praises for his brave act. This adventure made quite a hero of him along
+the Sangamon, and the people never tired of telling of the exploit."
+
+
+"DOWN THE RIVER"
+
+The launching of that flatboat was made a feast-day in the neighborhood.
+Denton Offutt, its proprietor, was invited to break away from the
+"Buckhorn" tavern at Springfield to witness the ceremonies, which, of
+course, took a political turn. There was much speech-making, but Andrew
+Jackson and the Whig leaders were equally praised.
+
+The boat had been loaded with pork in barrels, corn, and hogs, and it
+slid into the Sangamon River, then overflowing with the spring "fresh,"
+with a big splash.
+
+The three sturdy navigators, accompanied by Offutt himself, floated away
+in triumph from the waving crowd on the bank.
+
+The first incident in the voyage occurred the 19th of April, at
+Rutledge's mill dam at New Salem, where the boat stranded and "hung"
+there a day and a night.
+
+
+HOW ABE GOT THE FLATBOAT OVER THE DAM
+
+New Salem was destined to fill an important place in the life of Abraham
+Lincoln. One who became well acquainted with him described him as the
+New Salemites first saw him, "wading round on Rutledge's dam with his
+trousers rolled up nine feet, more or less."
+
+One of the crew gave this account of their mode of operations to get the
+stranded raft over the dam:
+
+"We unloaded the boat--that is, we transferred the goods from our boat
+to a borrowed one. We then rolled the barrels forward; Lincoln bored a
+hole in the end (projecting) over the dam; the water which had leaked in
+ran out then and we slid over."
+
+Offutt's enthusiasm over Abe's simple method of surmounting this great
+obstacle was boundless. A crowd had gathered on a hillside to watch
+Lincoln's operations.
+
+
+AN IMPROBABLE PROPHECY
+
+For the novelty of the thing, John Hanks claimed to have taken young
+Lincoln to a "voodoo" negress. She is said to have become excited in
+reading the future of the tall, thin young man, saying to him, "You will
+be President, and all the negroes will be free." This story probably
+originated long afterward, when the strange prophecy had already come
+true--though fortune tellers often inform young men who come to them
+that they will be Presidents some day. That such a woman could read the
+Emancipation Proclamation in that young man's future is not at all
+likely.
+
+Another story is told of Abraham Lincoln's second visit to New Orleans
+that is more probable, but even this is not certain to have happened
+exactly as related. The young northerner doubtless saw negroes in
+chains, and his spirit, like that of his father and mother, rebelled
+against this inhumanity. There is little doubt that in such sights, as
+one of his companions related, "Slavery ran the iron into him then and
+there."
+
+
+"I'LL HIT IT HARD!"
+
+But the story goes that the three young fellows--Hanks, Johnston and
+Lincoln--went wandering about the city, and passed a slave market, where
+a comely young mulatto girl was offered to the highest bidder. They saw
+prospective purchasers examine the weeping girl's teeth, pinch her flesh
+and pull her about as they would a cow or a horse. The whole scene was
+so revolting that Lincoln recoiled from it with horror and hatred,
+saying to his two companions, "Boys, let's get away from this. If ever I
+get a chance to hit that thing"--meaning slavery--"_I'll hit it hard_!"
+
+In June the four men took passage up the river on a steamboat for the
+return trip. At St. Louis, Offutt got off to purchase stock for a store
+he proposed to open in New Salem, where he planned to place young
+Lincoln in charge.
+
+
+WRESTLING WITH THE COUNTY CHAMPION
+
+The other three started on foot to reach their several homes in
+Illinois. Abe improved the opportunity to visit his father's family in
+Coles County, where Thomas Lincoln had removed as soon as he was able
+to leave their first Illinois home near Decatur.
+
+Abe's reputation as a wrestler had preceded him and the Coles County
+Champion, Daniel Needham, came and challenged the tall visitor to a
+friendly contest. Young Lincoln laughingly accepted and threw Needham
+twice. The crestfallen wrestler's pride was deeply hurt, and he found it
+hard to give up beaten.
+
+"Lincoln," said he, "you have thrown me twice, but you can't whip me."
+
+Abe laughed again and replied:
+
+"Needham, are you satisfied that I can throw you? If you are not, and
+must be convinced through a thrashing, I will do that, too--_for your
+sake_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CLERKING AND WORKING
+
+
+HE COULD "MAKE A FEW RABBIT TRACKS"
+
+It was in August, 1831, that Abraham Lincoln appeared in the village of
+New Salem, Illinois. Neither Denton Offutt nor his merchandise had
+arrived as promised. While paying the penalty of the punctual man--by
+waiting for the tardy one--he seemed to the villagers to be loafing. But
+Abraham Lincoln was no loafer. He always found something useful and
+helpful to do. This time there was a local election, and one of the
+clerks had not appeared to perform his duties. A New Salem woman wrote
+of Lincoln's first act in the village:
+
+"My father, Mentor Graham, was on that day, as usual, appointed to be a
+clerk, and Mr. McNamee, who was to be the other, was sick and failed to
+come. They were looking around for a man to fill his place when my
+father noticed Mr. Lincoln and asked if he could write. He answered that
+he could 'make a few rabbit tracks.'"
+
+
+PILOTING A FAMILY FLATBOAT
+
+A few days after the election the young stranger, who had become known
+by this time as the hero of the flatboat on Rutledge's dam four months
+before, found employment as a pilot. A citizen, Dr. Nelson, was about to
+emigrate to Texas. The easiest and best mode of travel in those days
+was by flatboat down the river. He had loaded all his household goods
+and movable property on his "private conveyance" and was looking about
+for a "driver." Young Lincoln, still waiting, unemployed, offered his
+services and took the Nelson family down the Sangamon River--a more
+difficult task in August than in April, when the water was high on
+account of the spring rains. But the young pilot proceeded cautiously
+down the shallow stream, and reached Beardstown, on the Illinois River,
+where he was "discharged" and walked back over the hills to New Salem.
+
+
+ANNOYED BY THE HIGH PRAISES OF HIS EMPLOYER
+
+Denton Offutt and his stock for the store arrived at last, and Lincoln
+soon had a little store opened for business. A country store seemed too
+small for a clerk of such astounding abilities, so the too enthusiastic
+employer bought Cameron's mill with the dam on which Lincoln had already
+distinguished himself, and made the clerk manager of the whole business.
+
+This was not enough. Offutt sounded the praises of the new clerk to all
+comers. He claimed that Abraham Lincoln "knew more than any man in the
+United States." As Mr. Offutt had never shown that he knew enough
+himself to prove this statement, the neighbors began to resent such rash
+claims. In addition, Offutt boasted that Abe could "beat the county"
+running, jumping and wrestling. Here was something the new clerk could
+prove, if true, so his employer's statement was promptly challenged.
+
+When a strange man came to the village to live, even though no one
+boasted of his prowess, he was likely to suffer at the hands of the
+rougher element of the place. It was a sort of rude initiation into
+their society. These ceremonies were conducted with a savage sense of
+humor by a gang of rowdies known as the "Clary's Grove Boys," of whom
+the "best fighter" was Jack Armstrong.
+
+Sometimes "the Boys" nailed up a stranger in a hogshead and it was
+rolled down hill. Sometimes he was ingeniously insulted, or made to
+fight in self-defense, and beaten black and blue by the whole gang. They
+seemed not to be hampered by delicate notions of fair play in their
+actions toward a stranger. They "picked on him," as chickens, dogs and
+wolves do upon a newcomer among them.
+
+So when young Lincoln heard his employer bragging about his brain and
+brawn he was sufficiently acquainted with backwoods nature to know that
+it boded no good to him. Even then "he knew how to bide his time," and
+turned it to good account, for he had a good chance, shortly to show the
+metal that was in him.
+
+"The Boys" called and began to banter with the long-legged clerk in the
+new store. This led to a challenge and comparison of strength and
+prowess between young Lincoln and Jack Armstrong. Abe accepted the
+gauntlet with an alacrity that pleased the crowd, especially the chief
+of the bully "Boys," who expected an easy victory. But Jack was
+surprised to find that the stranger was his match--yes, more than his
+match. Others of "the Boys" saw this, also, and began to interfere by
+tripping Abe and trying to help their champion by unfair means.
+
+This made young Lincoln angry. Putting forth all his strength, he seized
+Armstrong by the throat and "nearly choked the exuberant life out of
+him." When "the Boys" saw the stranger shaking their "best fighter" as
+if he were a mere child, their enmity gave place to admiration; and when
+Abe had thrown Jack Armstrong upon the ground, in his wrath, as a lion
+would throw a dog that had been set upon him, and while the strong
+stranger stood there, with his back to the wall, challenging the whole
+gang, with deep-set eyes blazing with indignation, they acknowledged him
+as their conqueror, and declared that "Abe Lincoln is the cleverest
+fellow that ever broke into the settlement."
+
+The initiation was over, and young Lincoln's triumph complete. From that
+day "the Clary's Grove Boys" were his staunch supporters and defenders,
+and his employer was allowed to go on bragging about his wonderful clerk
+without hindrance.
+
+
+GIVING ANOTHER BULLY "A DOSE OF SMARTWEED"
+
+A bumptious stranger came into the store one day and tried to pick a
+quarrel with the tall clerk. To this end he used language offensive to
+several women who were there trading. Lincoln quietly asked the fellow
+to desist as there were "ladies present." The bully considered this an
+admission that the clerk was afraid of him, so he began to swear and use
+more offensive language than before. As this was too much for Abraham's
+patience, he whispered to the fellow that if he would keep quiet till
+the ladies went out, he (Lincoln) would go and "have it out."
+
+After the women went, the man became violently abusive. Young Lincoln
+calmly went outside with him, saying: "I see you must be whipped and I
+suppose I will have to do it." With this he seized the insolent fellow
+and made short work of him. Throwing the man on the ground, Lincoln sat
+on him, and, with his long arms, gathered a handful of "smartweed" which
+grew around them. He then rubbed it into the bully's eyes until he
+roared with pain. An observer of this incident said afterward:
+
+"Lincoln did all this without a particle of anger, and when the job was
+finished he went immediately for water, washed his victim's face and did
+everything he could to alleviate the man's distress. The upshot of the
+matter was that the fellow became his life-long friend, and was a better
+man from that day."
+
+
+HOW HE MADE HIS FELLOW CLERK GIVE UP GAMBLING
+
+Lincoln's morals were unusually good for that time and place. Smoking,
+chewing, drinking, swearing and gambling were almost universal among
+his associates. Offutt hired a young man, William G. Greene, after the
+purchase of the mill. This assistant first told many of the stories, now
+so well known, concerning Abe at this period of his career:
+
+Young Greene was, like most of the young men in New Salem, addicted to
+petty gambling. He once related how Lincoln induced him to quit the
+habit. Abe said to him one day:
+
+"Billy, you ought to stop gambling with Estep." Billy made a lame
+excuse:
+
+"I'm ninety cents behind, and I can't quit until I win it back."
+
+"I'll help you get that back," urged Lincoln, "if you'll promise me you
+won't gamble any more."
+
+The youth reflected a moment and made the required promise. Lincoln
+continued:
+
+"Here are some good hats, and you need a new one. Now, when Estep comes
+again, you draw him on by degrees, and finally bet him one of these hats
+that I can lift a forty-gallon barrel of whisky and take a drink out of
+the bunghole."
+
+Billy agreed, and the two clerks chuckled as they fixed the barrel so
+that the bunghole would come in the right place to win the bet, though
+the thing seemed impossible to Greene himself. Estep appeared in due
+time, and after long parleying and bantering the wager was laid. Lincoln
+then squatted before the barrel, lifted one end up on one knee, then
+raised the other end on to the other knee, bent over, and by a Herculean
+effort, actually succeeded in taking a drink from the bunghole--though
+he spat it out immediately. "That was the only time," said Greene long
+afterward, "that I ever saw Abraham Lincoln take a drink of liquor of
+any kind." This was the more remarkable, as whisky was served on all
+occasions--even passed around with refreshments at religious meetings,
+according to Mrs. Josiah Crawford, the woman for whom Abe and Nancy had
+worked as hired help. Much as Abe disapproved of drinking, he considered
+that "the end justified the means" employed to break his fellow clerk of
+the gambling habit.
+
+
+HOW HE WON THE NAME OF "HONEST ABE"
+
+Abe Lincoln could not endure the thought of cheating any one, even
+though it had been done unintentionally. One day a woman bought a bill
+of goods in Offutt's store amounting to something over two dollars. She
+paid Abe the money and went away satisfied. That night, on going over
+the sales of the day, Abe found that he had charged the woman six and
+one-fourth cents too much. After closing the store, though it was late,
+he could not go home to supper or to bed till he had restored that
+sixpence to its proper owner. She lived more than two miles away, but
+that did not matter to Abe Lincoln. When he had returned the money to
+the astonished woman he walked back to the village with a long step and
+a light heart, content with doing his duty.
+
+Another evening, as he was closing the store, a woman came in for a
+half-pound of tea. He weighed it out for her and took the pay. But early
+next morning, when he came to "open up," he found the four-ounce weight
+instead of the eight-ounce on the scales, and inferred that he had given
+that woman only half as much tea as he had taken the money for. Of
+course, the woman would never know the difference, and it meant walking
+several miles and back, but the honest clerk weighed out another quarter
+pound of tea, locked the store and took that long walk before breakfast.
+As a "constitutional" it must have been a benefit to his health, for it
+satisfied his sensitive conscience and soothed his tender heart to "make
+good" in that way.
+
+Drink and misdirected enthusiasm interfered with Denton Offutt's
+success. After about a year in New Salem he "busted up," as the
+neighbors expressed it, and left his creditors in the lurch. Among them
+was the clerk he had boasted so much about. For a short time Abe Lincoln
+needed a home, and found a hearty welcome with Jack Armstrong, the best
+fighter of Clary's Grove!
+
+J. G. Holland wrote, in his "Life of Abraham Lincoln," of the young
+man's progress during his first year in New Salem:
+
+"The year that Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's store was one of great
+advance. He had made new and valuable acquaintances, read many books,
+won multitudes of friends, and become ready for a step further in
+advance. Those who could appreciate brains respected him, and those
+whose ideas of a man related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was
+while he was performing the work of the store that he acquired the
+nickname, 'Honest Abe'--a characterization that he never dishonored, an
+abbreviation that he never outgrew. He was everybody's friend, the
+best-natured, the most sensible, the best-informed, the most modest and
+unassuming, the kindest, gentlest, roughest, strongest, best fellow in
+all New Salem and the region round about."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+POLITICS, WAR, STOREKEEPING AND STUDYING LAW
+
+
+STUDYING GRAMMAR FIRST
+
+By "a step still further in advance" Dr. Holland must have meant the
+young clerk's going into politics. He had made many friends in New
+Salem, and they reflected back his good-will by urging him to run for
+the State Legislature. Before doing this he consulted Mentor Graham, the
+village schoolmaster, with whom he had worked as election clerk when he
+first came to the place. Abe could read, write and cipher, but he felt
+that if he should succeed in politics, he would disgrace his office and
+himself by not speaking and writing English correctly.
+
+The schoolmaster advised: "If you expect to go before the public in any
+capacity, I think the best thing you can do is to study English
+grammar."
+
+"If I had a grammar I would commence now," sighed Abe.
+
+Mr. Graham thought one could be found at Vaner's, only six miles away.
+So Abe got up and started for it as fast as he could stride. In an
+incredibly short time he returned with a copy of Kirkham's Grammar, and
+set to work upon it at once. Sometimes he would steal away into the
+woods, where he could study "out loud" if he desired. He kept up his old
+habit of sitting up nights to read, and as lights were expensive, the
+village cooper allowed him to stay in his shop, where he burned the
+shavings and studied by the blaze as he had done in Indiana, after every
+one else had gone to bed. So it was not long before young Lincoln, with
+the aid of Schoolmaster Graham, had mastered the principles of English
+grammar, and felt himself better equipped to enter politics and public
+life. Some of his rivals, however, did not trouble themselves about
+speaking and writing correctly.
+
+
+GOING INTO POLITICS
+
+James Rutledge, a "substantial" citizen, and the former owner of
+Rutledge's mill and dam, was the president of the New Salem debating
+club. Young Lincoln joined this society, and when he first rose to
+speak, everybody began to smile in anticipation of a funny story, but
+Abe proceeded to discuss the question before the house in very good
+form. He was awkward in his movements and gestures at first, and amused
+those present by thrusting his unwieldy hands deep into his pockets, but
+his arguments were so well-put and forcible that all who heard him were
+astonished.
+
+Mr. Rutledge, that night after Abe's maiden effort at the lyceum, told
+his wife:
+
+"There is more in Abe Lincoln's head than mere wit and fun. He is
+already a fine speaker. All he needs is culture to fit him for a high
+position in public life."
+
+But there were occasions enough where something besides culture was
+required. A man who was present and heard Lincoln's first real stump
+speech describes his appearance and actions in the following picturesque
+language:
+
+"He wore a mixed jean coat, clawhammer style, short in the sleeves and
+bob-tail--in fact, it was so short in the tail that he could not sit
+upon it--flax and tow linen pantaloons, and a straw hat. I think he wore
+a vest, but do not remember how it looked. He wore pot metal (top)
+boots.
+
+"His maiden effort on the stump was a speech on the occasion of a public
+sale at Pappyville, a village eleven miles from Springfield. After the
+sale was over and speechmaking had begun, a fight--a 'general fight' as
+one of the bystanders relates--ensued, and Lincoln, noticing one of his
+friends about to succumb to the attack of an infuriated ruffian,
+interposed to prevent it. He did so most effectually. Hastily descending
+from the rude platform, he edged his way through the crowd, and seizing
+the bully by the neck and the seat of his trousers, threw him by means
+of his great strength and long arms, as one witness stoutly insists,
+'twelve feet away.' Returning to the stand, and throwing aside his hat,
+he inaugurated his campaign with the following brief and juicy
+declaration:
+
+"'Fellow-Citizens: I presume you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham
+Lincoln. I have been solicited by many friends to become a candidate
+for the Legislature. My politics are "short and sweet" like the old
+woman's dance. I am in favor of national bank. I am in favor of the
+internal improvement system, and a high protective tariff. These are my
+sentiments and political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if
+not, it will be all the same.'"
+
+The only requirement for a candidate for the Illinois Legislature in
+1832 was that he should announce his "sentiments." This Lincoln did,
+according to custom, in a circular of about two thousand words,
+rehearsing his experiences on the Sangamon River and in the community of
+New Salem. For a youth who had just turned twenty-three, who had never
+been to school a year in his life, who had no political training, and
+had never made a political speech, it was a bold and dignified document,
+closing as follows:
+
+"Considering the great degree of modesty which should always attend
+youth, it is probable I have already been presuming more than becomes
+me. However, upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as
+I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them, but,
+holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right
+than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be
+erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.
+
+"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether this is true
+or not, I can say for one, that I have no other so great as that of
+being truly esteemed of my fellow-men by rendering myself worthy of
+their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition is yet
+to be developed. I am young and unknown to many of you. I was born, and
+have ever remained in the most humble walks of life. I have no wealthy
+or popular relations or friends to recommend me. My case is thrown
+exclusively upon the independent voters of the country; and, if elected,
+they will have conferred a favor on me for which I shall be unremitting
+in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall
+see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with
+disappointments to be very much chagrined."
+
+
+"CAPTAIN LINCOLN"
+
+Lincoln had hardly launched in his first political venture when, in
+April, 1832, a messenger arrived in New Salem with the announcement from
+Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, that the Sacs and other hostile tribes,
+led by Black Hawk, had invaded the northern part of the State, spreading
+terror among the white settlers in that region. The governor called upon
+those who were willing to help in driving back the Indians to report at
+Beardstown, on the Illinois River, within a week.
+
+Lincoln and other Sangamon County men went at once to Richmond where a
+company was formed. The principal candidate for captain was a man named
+Kirkpatrick, who had treated Lincoln shabbily when Abe, in one of the
+odd jobs he had done in that region, worked in Kirkpatrick's sawmill.
+The employer had agreed to buy his hired man a cant-hook for handling
+the heavy logs. As there was a delay in doing this, Lincoln told him he
+would handle the logs without the cant-hook if Kirkpatrick would pay him
+the two dollars that implement would cost. The employer promised to do
+this, but never gave him the money.
+
+So when Lincoln saw that Kirkpatrick was a candidate for the captaincy,
+he said to Greene, who had worked with him in Offutt's store:
+
+"Bill, I believe I can make Kirkpatrick pay me that two dollars he owes
+me on the cant-hook now. I guess I'll run against him for captain."
+
+Therefore Abe Lincoln announced himself as a candidate. The vote was
+taken in an odd way. It was announced that when the men heard the
+command to march, each should go and stand by the man he wished to have
+for captain. The command was given. At the word, "March," three-fourths
+of the company rallied round Abe Lincoln. More than twenty-five years
+afterward, when Lincoln was a candidate for the presidency of the United
+States, he referred to himself in the third person in describing this
+incident, saying that he was elected "to his own surprise," and "he says
+he has not since had any success in life which gave him so much
+satisfaction."
+
+
+IGNORANCE OF MILITARY TACTICS
+
+But Lincoln was a "raw hand" at military tactics. He used to enjoy
+telling of his ignorance and the expedients adopted in giving his
+commands to the company. Once when he was marching, twenty men abreast,
+across a field it became necessary to pass through a narrow gateway into
+the next field. He said:
+
+"I could not, for the life of me, remember the word for getting the
+company _endwise_ so that it could go through the gate; so, as we came
+near the gate, I shouted, 'This company is dismissed for two minutes,
+when it will fall in again on the other side of the fence.'"
+
+
+A HISTORIC MYSTERY EXPLAINED
+
+Captain Lincoln had his sword taken from him for shooting within limits.
+Many have wondered that a man of Lincoln's intelligence should have been
+guilty of this stupid infraction of ordinary army regulations.
+Biographers of Lincoln puzzled over this until the secret was explained
+by William Turley Baker, of Bolivia, Ill., at the Lincoln Centenary in
+Springfield. All unconscious of solving a historic mystery, "Uncle
+Billy" Baker related the following story which explains that the
+shooting was purely accidental:
+
+"My father was roadmaster general in the Black Hawk War. Lincoln used to
+come often to our house and talk it all over with father, when I was a
+boy, and I've heard them laugh over their experiences in that war. The
+best joke of all was this: Father received orders one day to throw log
+bridges over a certain stream the army had to cross. He felled some
+tall, slim black walnuts--the only ones he could find there--and the
+logs were so smooth and round that they were hard to walk on any time.
+This day it rained and made them very slippery. Half of the soldiers
+fell into the stream and got a good ducking. Captain Lincoln was one of
+those that tumbled in. He just laughed and scrambled out as quick as he
+could. He always made the best of everything like that.
+
+"Well, that evening when the company came to camp, some of them had dog
+tents--just a big canvas sheet--and the boys laughed to see Lincoln
+crawl under one of them little tents. He was so long that his head and
+hands and feet stuck out on all sides. The boys said he looked just like
+a big terrapin. After he had got himself stowed away for the night, he
+remembered that he hadn't cleaned his pistol, after he fell into the
+creek.
+
+"So he backed out from under his canvas shell and started to clean it
+out. It was what was called a bulldog pistol, because it had a blunt,
+short muzzle. Abe's forefinger was long enough to use as a ramrod for
+it. But before he began operations he snapped the trigger and, to his
+astonishment, the thing went off!
+
+"Pretty soon an orderly came along in great haste, yellin', 'Who did
+that?--Who fired that shot?' Some of the men tried to send the orderly
+along about his business, making believe the report was heard further
+on, but Lincoln he wouldn't stand for no such deception, spoken or
+unspoken. 'I did it,' says he, beginning to explain how it happened.
+
+"You see, his legs was so blamed long, and he must have landed on his
+feet, in the creek, and got out of the water without his pistol getting
+wet, 'way up there in his weskit!
+
+"But he had to pay the penalty just the same, for they took his sword
+away from him for several days. You see, he was a captain and ought to
+'a' set a good example in military discipline."
+
+
+HOW CAPTAIN LINCOLN SAVED AN INDIAN'S LIFE
+
+One day an old "friendly Indian" came into camp with a "talking paper"
+or pass from the "big white war chief." The men, with the pioneer idea
+that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," were for stringing him up.
+The poor old red man protested and held the general's letter before
+their eyes.
+
+"Me good Injun," he kept saying, "white war chief say me good Injun.
+Look--talking paper--see!"
+
+"Get out! It's a forgery! Shoot him! String him up!" shouted the
+soldiers angrily.
+
+This noise brought Captain Lincoln out of his tent. At a glance he saw
+what they were about to do. He jumped in among them, shouting
+indignantly:
+
+"Stand back, all of you! For shame! I'll fight you all, one after the
+other, just as you come. Take it out on me if you can, but you shan't
+hurt this poor old Indian. When a man comes to me for help, he's going
+to get it, if I have to lick all Sangamon County to give it to him."
+
+The three months for which the men were enlisted soon expired, and
+Lincoln's captaincy also ended. But he re-enlisted as a private, and
+remained in the ranks until the end of the war, which found him in
+Wisconsin, hundreds of miles from New Salem. He and a few companions
+walked home, as there were not many horses to be had. Lincoln enlivened
+the long tramp with his fund of stories and jokes.
+
+It is sometimes asserted that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis met at
+this early day, as officers in the Black Hawk War, but this statement
+is not founded on fact, for young Lieutenant Davis was absent on a
+furlough and could not have encountered the tall captain from the
+Sangamon then, as many would like to believe.
+
+Lincoln always referred to the Black Hawk War as a humorous adventure.
+He made a funny speech in Congress describing some of his experiences in
+this campaign in which he did not take part in a battle, nor did he even
+catch sight of a hostile Indian.
+
+
+AGAIN A RIVER PILOT
+
+Abe was still out of work. Just before he enlisted he piloted the
+_Talisman_, a steamboat which had come up the Sangamon on a trial trip,
+in which the speed of the boat averaged four miles an hour. At that time
+the wildest excitement prevailed. The coming of the _Talisman_ up their
+little river was hailed with grand demonstrations and much
+speech-making. Every one expected the Government to spend millions of
+dollars to make the Sangamon navigable, and even New Salem (which is not
+now to be found on the map) was to become a flourishing city, in the
+hopeful imaginings of its few inhabitants. Lincoln, being a candidate,
+naturally "took the fever," and shared the delirium that prevailed. He
+could hardly have done otherwise, even if he had been so disposed. This
+was before the days of railroads, and the commerce and prosperity of the
+country depended on making the smaller streams navigable. Lincoln
+received forty dollars, however, for his services as pilot. The
+_Talisman_, instead of establishing a river connection with the
+Mississippi River cities, never came back. She was burned at the wharf
+in St. Louis, and the navigation of the poor little Sangamon, which was
+only a shallow creek, was soon forgotten.
+
+
+LINCOLN'S ONLY DEFEAT BY A DIRECT VOTE
+
+When Abe returned from the war he had no steady employment. On this
+account, especially, he must have been deeply disappointed to be
+defeated in the election which took place within two weeks after his
+arrival. His patriotism had been stronger than his political sagacity.
+If he had stayed at home to help himself to the Legislature he might
+have been elected, though he was then a comparative stranger in the
+county. One of the four representatives chosen was Peter Cartwright, the
+backwoods preacher.
+
+Lincoln afterward mentioned that this was the only time he was ever
+defeated by a direct vote of the people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+BUYING AND KEEPING A STORE
+
+
+After making what he considered a bad beginning politically, young
+Lincoln was on the lookout for a "business chance." One came to him in a
+peculiar way. A man named Radford had opened a store in New Salem.
+Possessing neither the strength nor the sagacity and tact of Abe
+Lincoln, he was driven out of business by the Clary's Grove Boys, who
+broke his store fixtures and drank his liquors. In his fright Radford
+was willing to sell out at almost any price and take most of his pay in
+promissory notes. He was quickly accommodated. Through William G. Greene
+a transfer was made at once from Reuben Radford to William Berry and
+Abraham Lincoln. Berry had $250 in cash and made the first payment. In a
+few hours after a violent visit from those ruffians from Clary's Grove
+Berry and Lincoln had formed a partnership and were the nominal owners
+of a country store.
+
+The new firm soon absorbed the stock and business of another firm, James
+and Rowan Herndon, who had previously acquired the stock and debts of
+the predecessors in their business, and all these obligations were
+passed on with the goods of both the Radford and Herndon stores to
+"Honest Abe."
+
+The senior partner of the firm of Berry & Lincoln was devoted to the
+whisky which was found in the inventory of the Radford stock, and the
+junior partner was given over to the study of a set of "Blackstone's
+Commentaries," text-books which all lawyers have to study, that came
+into his possession in a peculiar way, as Candidate Lincoln told an
+artist who was painting his portrait in 1860:
+
+"One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my
+store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He
+asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his
+wagon, and which contained nothing of special value. I did not want it,
+but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for
+it. Without further examination I put it away in the store and forgot
+all about it.
+
+"Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and
+emptying it on the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom
+of the rubbish a complete set of 'Blackstone's Commentaries.' I began to
+read those famous works. I had plenty of time; for during the long
+summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers
+were few and far between. The more I read the more intensely interested
+I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I
+read until I devoured them."
+
+With one partner drinking whisky and the other devouring "Blackstone,"
+it was not surprising that the business "winked out," as Lincoln
+whimsically expressed it, leaving the conscientious junior partner
+saddled with the obligations of the former owners of two country stores,
+and owing an amount so large that Lincoln often referred to it as "the
+national debt." William Berry, the senior partner, who was equally
+responsible, "drank himself to death," leaving Lincoln alone to pay all
+the debts.
+
+According to the custom and conscience of the time, the insolvent young
+merchant was under no obligation whatever to pay liabilities contracted
+by the other men, but Lincoln could never be induced even to compromise
+any of the accounts the others had gone off and left him to settle.
+"Honest Abe" paid the last cent of his "national debt" nearly twenty
+years later, after much toil, self-denial and hardship.
+
+
+POSTMASTER LINCOLN AND JACK ARMSTRONG'S FAMILY
+
+Again out of employment, Abe was forced to accept the hospitality of his
+friends of whom he now had a large number. While in business with Berry
+he received the appointment as postmaster. The pay of the New Salem post
+office was not large, but Lincoln, always longing for news and
+knowledge, had the privilege of reading the newspapers which passed
+through his hands. He took so much pains in delivering the letters and
+papers that came into his charge as postmaster that he anticipated the
+"special delivery" and "rural free delivery" features of the postal
+service of the present day.
+
+
+"A. LINCOLN, DEPUTY SURVEYOR"
+
+Later John Calhoun, the county surveyor, sent word to Lincoln that he
+would appoint him deputy surveyor of the county if he would accept the
+position. The young man, greatly astonished, went to Springfield to call
+on Calhoun and see if the story could be true. Calhoun knew that Lincoln
+was utterly ignorant of surveying, but told him he might take time to
+study up. As soon as Lincoln was assured that the appointment did not
+involve any political obligation--for Calhoun was a Jackson Democrat,
+and Lincoln was already a staunch Whig--he procured a copy of Flint and
+Gibson's "Surveying" and went to work with a will. With the aid of
+Mentor Graham, and studying day and night, he mastered the subject and
+reported to Calhoun in six weeks. The county surveyor was astounded, but
+when Lincoln gave ample proofs of his ability to do field work, the
+chief surveyor appointed him a deputy and assigned him to the northern
+part of Sangamon County.
+
+Deputy Surveyor Lincoln had to run deeper in debt for a horse and
+surveying instruments in order to do this new work. Although he made
+three dollars a day at it--a large salary for that time--and board and
+expenses were cheap, he was unable to make money fast enough to satisfy
+one creditor who was pushing him to pay one of the old debts left by the
+failure of Berry & Lincoln. This man sued Lincoln and, getting judgment,
+seized the deputy's horse and instruments. This was like "killing the
+goose that laid the golden egg." Lincoln was in despair. But a friend,
+as a surprise, bought in the horse and instruments for one hundred and
+twenty dollars and presented them to the struggling surveyor.
+
+President Lincoln, many years afterward, generously repaid this man,
+"Uncle Jimmy" Short, for his friendly act in that hour of need.
+
+Lincoln's reputation as a story teller and wrestler had spread so that
+when it became known that he was to survey a tract in a certain district
+the whole neighborhood turned out and held a sort of picnic. Men and
+boys stood ready to "carry chain," drive stakes, blaze trees, or work
+for the popular deputy in any capacity--just to hear his funny stories
+and odd jokes. They had foot races, wrestling matches and other
+athletic sports, in which the surveyor sometimes took part.
+
+But Lincoln's honesty was as manifest in "running his lines" as in his
+weights and measures while he was a clerk and storekeeper. In whatever
+he attempted he did his best. He had that true genius, which is defined
+as "the ability to take pains." With all his jokes and fun Abraham
+Lincoln was deeply in earnest. Careless work in making surveys involved
+the landholders of that part of the country in endless disputes and
+going to law about boundaries. But Lincoln's surveys were recognized as
+correct always, so that, although he had mastered the science in six
+weeks, lawyers and courts had such confidence in his skill, as well as
+his honesty, that his record as to a certain corner or line was accepted
+as the true verdict and that ended the dispute.
+
+
+ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE
+
+Hampered though he was by unjust debts and unreasonable creditors,
+Postmaster and Surveyor Lincoln gained an honorable reputation
+throughout the county, so that when he ran for the State Legislature,
+in 1834, he was elected by a creditable majority.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE YOUNG LEGISLATOR IN LOVE
+
+
+SMOOT'S RESPONSIBILITY
+
+Paying his debts had kept Lincoln so poor that, though he had been
+elected to the Legislature, he was not properly clothed or equipped to
+make himself presentable as the people's representative at the State
+capital, then located at Vandalia. One day he went with a friend to call
+on an older acquaintance, named Smoot, who was almost as dry a joker as
+himself, but Smoot had more of this world's goods than the young
+legislator-elect. Lincoln began at once to chaff his friend.
+
+"Smoot," said he, "did you vote for me?"
+
+"I did that very thing," answered Smoot.
+
+"Well," said Lincoln with a wink, "that makes you responsible. You must
+lend me the money to buy suitable clothing, for I want to make a decent
+appearance in the Legislature."
+
+"How much do you want?" asked Smoot.
+
+"About two hundred dollars, I reckon."
+
+For friendship's sake and for the honor of Sangamon County the young
+representative received the money at once.
+
+
+ANN RUTLEDGE--"LOVED AND LOST"
+
+Abe Lincoln's new suit of clothes made him look still more handsome in
+the eyes of Ann, the daughter of the proprietor of Rutledge's Tavern,
+where Abe was boarding at that time. She was a beautiful girl who had
+been betrothed to a young man named McNamar, who was said to have
+returned to New York State to care for his dying father and look after
+the family estate. It began to leak out that this young man was going
+about under an assumed name and certain suspicious circumstances came to
+light. But Ann, though she loved the young legislator, still clung to
+her promise and the man who had proved false to her. As time went on,
+though she was supposed to be betrothed to Mr. Lincoln, the treatment
+she had received from the recreant lover preyed upon her mind so that
+she fell into a decline in the summer of 1835, about a year after her
+true lover's election to the Legislature.
+
+William O. Stoddard, one of the President's private secretaries, has
+best told the story of the young lover's despair over the loss of his
+first love:
+
+"It is not known precisely when Ann Rutledge told her suitor that her
+heart was his, but early in 1835 it was publicly known that they were
+solemnly betrothed. Even then the scrupulous maiden waited for the
+return of the absent McNamar, that she might be formally released from
+the obligation to him which he had so recklessly forfeited. Her friends
+argued with her that she was carrying her scruples too far, and at last,
+as neither man nor letter came, she permitted it to be understood that
+she would marry Abraham Lincoln as soon as his legal studies should be
+completed.
+
+"That was a glorious summer for him; the brightest, sweetest, most
+hopeful he yet had known. It was also the fairest time he was ever to
+see; for even now, as the golden days came and went, they brought an
+increasing shadow on their wings. It was a shadow that was not to pass
+away. Little by little came indications that the health of Ann Rutledge
+had suffered under the prolonged strain to which she had been subjected.
+Her sensitive nature had been strung to too high a tension and the
+chords of her life were beginning to give way.
+
+"There were those of her friends who said that she died of a broken
+heart, but the doctors called it 'brain fever.'
+
+"On the 25th of August, 1835, just before the summer died, she passed
+away from earth. But she never faded from the heart of Abraham
+Lincoln. . . . In her early grave was buried the best hope he ever knew,
+and the shadow of that great darkness was never entirely lifted from
+him.
+
+"A few days before Ann's death a message from her brought her betrothed
+to her bedside, and they were left alone. No one ever knew what passed
+between them in the endless moments of that last sad farewell; but
+Lincoln left the house with inexpressible agony written upon his face.
+He had been to that hour a man of marvelous poise and self-control, but
+the pain he now struggled with grew deeper and more deep, until, when
+they came and told him she was dead, his heart and will, and even his
+brain itself gave way. He was utterly without help or the knowledge of
+possible help in this world or beyond it. He was frantic for a time,
+seeming even to lose the sense of his own identity, and all New Salem
+said that he was insane. He piteously moaned and raved:
+
+"'I never can be reconciled to have the snow, rain, and storms beat upon
+her grave.'
+
+"His best friends seemed to have lost their influence over him, . . . all
+but one; for Bowling Green . . . managed to entice the poor fellow to his
+own home, a short distance from the village, there to keep watch and
+ward over him until the fury of his sorrow should wear away. There were
+well-grounded fears lest he might do himself some injury, and the watch
+was vigilantly kept.
+
+"In a few weeks reason again obtained the mastery, and it was safe to
+let him return to his studies and his work. He could indeed work again,
+and he could once more study law, for there was a kind of relief in
+steady occupation and absorbing toil, but he was not, could not ever be
+the same man. . . .
+
+"Lincoln had been fond of poetry from boyhood, and had gradually made
+himself familiar with large parts of Shakespeare's plays and the works
+of other great writers. He now discovered, in a strange collection of
+verses, the one poem which seemed best to express the morbid, troubled,
+sore condition of his mind, . . . the lines by William Knox, beginning:
+
+        "'Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
+         Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
+         A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
+         He passeth from life to his rest in the grave:'"
+
+
+"THE LONG NINE" AND THE REMOVAL TO SPRINGFIELD
+
+Two years was the term for which Lincoln was elected to the Legislature.
+The year following the death of Ann Rutledge he threw himself into a
+vigorous campaign for re-election. He had found much to do at Vandalia.
+The greatest thing was the proposed removal of the State capital to
+Springfield. In this enterprise he had the co-operation of a group of
+tall men, known as "the Long Nine," of whom he was the tallest and came
+to be the leader.
+
+Lincoln announced his second candidacy in this brief, informal letter in
+the county paper:
+
+
+                            "NEW SALEM, June 13, 1836.
+
+        "TO THE EDITOR OR THE JOURNAL:
+
+        "In your paper of last Saturday I see a
+        communication over the signature of 'Many
+        Voters' in which the candidates who are
+        announced in the _Journal_ are called upon to
+        'show their hands.'
+
+        "Agreed. Here's mine:
+
+        "I go in for all sharing the privileges of the
+        government who assist in bearing its burdens.
+        Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to
+        the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear
+        arms (by no means excluding females).
+
+        "If elected, I shall consider the whole people
+        of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that
+        oppose as those that support me.
+
+        "While acting as their Representative, I shall
+        be governed by their will on all subjects upon
+        which I have the means of knowing what their
+        will is; and upon all others I shall do what my
+        own judgment teaches me will best advance
+        their interests. Whether elected or not, I go
+        for distributing the proceeds of public lands
+        to the several States to enable our State, in
+        common with others, to dig canals and construct
+        railroads without borrowing and paying interest
+        on it.
+
+        "If alive on the first Monday in November, I
+        shall vote for Hugh L. White for President.
+
+                            "Very respectfully,
+                                       "A. LINCOLN."
+
+The earliest railroads in the United States had been built during the
+five years just preceding this announcement, the first one of all, only
+thirteen miles long, near Baltimore, in 1831. It is interesting to
+observe the enthusiasm with which the young frontier politician caught
+the progressive idea, and how quickly the minds of the people turned
+from impossible river "improvements" to the grand possibilities of
+railway transportation.
+
+Many are the stories of the remarkable Sangamon campaign in 1836. Rowan
+Herndon, Abe's fellow pilot and storekeeper, told the following:
+
+
+WINNING VOTES, WIELDING THE "CRADLE" IN A WHEAT FIELD
+
+"Abraham came to my house, near Island Grove, during harvest. There were
+some thirty men in the field. He got his dinner and went out into the
+field, where the men were at work. I gave him an introduction, and the
+boys said that they could not vote for a man unless he could take a
+hand.
+
+"'Well, boys,' said he, 'if that is all, I am sure of your votes' He
+took the 'cradle' and led all the way round with perfect ease. The boys
+were satisfied, and I don't think he lost a vote in the crowd.
+
+"The next day there was speaking at Berlin. He went from my house with
+Dr. Barnett, who had asked me who this man Lincoln was. I told him that
+he was a candidate for the Legislature. He laughed and said:
+
+"'Can't the party raise any better material than that?'
+
+"I said, 'Go to-morrow and hear him before you pronounce judgment.'
+
+"When he came back I said, 'Doctor, what do you say now?'
+
+"'Why, sir,' said he, 'he is a perfect "take-in." He knows more than
+all of them put together.'"
+
+
+TALKED TO A WOMAN WHILE HIS RIVAL MILKED
+
+Young Lincoln happened to call to speak to a leading farmer in the
+district, and found his rival, a Democratic candidate, there on the same
+errand. The farmer was away from home, so each of the candidates did his
+best to gain the good-will of the farmer's "better half," who was on her
+way to milk the cow. The Democrat seized the pail and insisted on doing
+the work for her. Lincoln did not make the slightest objection, but
+improved the opportunity thus given to chat with their hostess. This he
+did so successfully that when his rival had finished the unpleasant
+task, the only acknowledgment he received was a profusion of thanks from
+the woman for the opportunity he had given her of having "_such a
+pleasant talk with Mr. Lincoln_!"
+
+
+HOW THE LIGHTNING STRUCK FORQUER, IN SPITE OF HIS LIGHTNING-ROD
+
+Abe distinguished himself in his first political speech at Springfield,
+the county seat. A leading citizen there, George Forquer, was accused
+of changing his political opinions to secure a certain government
+position; he also had his fine residence protected by the first
+lightning-rod ever seen in that part of the country.
+
+The contest was close and exciting. There were seven Democratic and
+seven Whig candidates for the lower branch of the Legislature. Forquer,
+though not a candidate, asked to be heard in reply to young Lincoln,
+whom he proceeded to attack in a sneering overbearing way, ridiculing
+the young man's appearance, dress, manners and so on. Turning to Lincoln
+who then stood within a few feet of him, Forquer announced his intention
+in these words: "This young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry
+that the task devolves upon me."
+
+The "Clary's Grove Boys," who attended the meeting in a body--or a
+gang!--could hardly be restrained from arising in their might and
+smiting the pompous Forquer, hip and thigh.
+
+But their hero, with pale face and flashing eyes, smiled as he shook his
+head at them, and calmly answered the insulting speech of his opponent.
+Among other things he said:
+
+"The gentleman commenced his speech by saying 'this young man,' alluding
+to me, 'must be taken down.' I am not so young in years as I am in the
+tricks and trades of a politician, but"--pointing at Forquer--"live long
+or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my
+politics, and with the change receive an office worth three thousand
+dollars a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my
+house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"
+
+This stroke blasted Forquer's political prospects forever, and satisfied
+the Clary's Grove Boys that it was even better than all the things they
+would have done to him.
+
+
+ABE LINCOLN AS A "BLOATED ARISTOCRAT"
+
+On another occasion Lincoln's wit suddenly turned the tables on an
+abusive opponent. One of the Democratic orators was Colonel Dick Taylor,
+a dapper, but bombastic little man, who rode in his carriage, and
+dressed richly. But, politically, he boasted of belonging to the
+Democrats, "the bone and sinew, the hard-fisted yeomanry of the land,"
+and sneered at those "rag barons," those Whig aristocrats, the "silk
+stocking gentry!" As Abe Lincoln, the leading Whig present, was dressed
+in Kentucky jeans, coarse boots, a checkered shirt without a collar or
+necktie, and an old slouch hat, Colonel Taylor's attack on the "bloated
+Whig aristocracy" sounded rather absurd.
+
+Once the colonel made a gesture so violent that it tore his vest open
+and exposed his elegant shirt ruffles, his gold watch-fob, his seals and
+other ornaments to the view of all. Before Taylor, in his embarrassment,
+could adjust his waistcoat, Lincoln stepped to the front exclaiming:
+
+"Behold the hard-fisted Democrat! Look at this specimen of 'bone and
+sinew'--and here, gentlemen," laying his big work-bronzed hand on his
+heart and bowing obsequiously--"here, at your service, is your
+'aristocrat!' Here is one of your 'silk stocking gentry!'" Then
+spreading out his great bony hands he continued, "Here is your 'rag
+baron' with his lily-white hands. Yes, I suppose I am, according to my
+friend Taylor, a 'bloated aristocrat!'"
+
+The contrast was so ludicrous, and Abe had quoted the speaker's stock
+phrases with such a marvelous mimicry that the crowd burst into a roar,
+and Colonel Dick Taylor's usefulness as a campaign speaker was at an
+end.
+
+Small wonder, then, that young Lincoln's wit, wisdom and power of
+ridicule made him known in that campaign as one of the greatest orators
+in the State, or that he was elected by such an astonishing plurality
+that the county, which had always been strongly Democratic, elected Whig
+representatives that year.
+
+After Herculean labors "the Long Nine" succeeded in having the State
+capital removed from Vandalia to Springfield. This move added greatly to
+the influence and renown of its "prime mover," Abraham Lincoln, who was
+feasted and "toasted" by the people of Springfield and by politicians
+all over the State. After reading "Blackstone" during his political
+campaigns, young Lincoln fell in again with Major John T. Stuart, whom
+he had met in the Black Hawk War, and who gave him helpful advice and
+lent him other books that he might "read law."
+
+
+THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST
+
+Although he had no idea of it at the time, Abraham Lincoln took part in
+a grander movement than the removal of a State capital. Resolutions were
+adopted in the Legislature in favor of slavery and denouncing the hated
+"abolitionists"--or people who spoke and wrote for the abolition of
+slavery. It required true heroism for a young man thus to stand out
+against the legislators of his State, but Abe Lincoln seems to have
+thought little of that. The hatred of the people for any one who opposed
+slavery was very bitter. Lincoln found one man, named Stone, who was
+willing to sign a protest against the resolutions favoring slavery,
+which read as follows:
+
+        "Resolutions upon the subject of domestic
+        slavery having passed both branches of the
+        General Assembly at its present session, the
+        undersigned hereby protest against the passage
+        of the same.
+
+        "They believe that the institution of slavery
+        is founded on both injustice and bad policy.
+        [After several statements of their belief
+        concerning the powers of Congress, the protest
+        closed as follows:]
+
+        "The difference between their opinions and
+        those contained in the said resolution is their
+        reason for entering this protest.
+
+
+                                         "DAN STONE,
+                                         "A. LINCOLN."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MOVING TO SPRINGFIELD
+
+
+New Salem could no longer give young Lincoln scope for his growing power
+and influence. Within a few weeks after the Lincoln-Stone protest, late
+in March, 1837, after living six years in the little village which held
+so much of life and sorrow for him, Abe sold his surveying compass,
+marking-pins, chain and pole, packed all his effects into his
+saddle-bags, borrowed a horse of his good friend "Squire" Bowling Green,
+and reluctantly said good-bye to his friends there. It is a strange fact
+that New Salem ceased to exist within a year from the day "Honest Abe"
+left it. Even its little post office was discontinued by the Government.
+
+Henry C. Whitney, who was associated with Lincoln in those early days,
+describes Abe's modest entry into the future State capital, with all his
+possessions in a pair of saddle-bags, and calling at the store of Joshua
+F. Speed, overlooking "the square," in the following dialogue:
+
+Speed--"Hello, Abe, just from Salem?"
+
+Lincoln--"Howdy, Speed! Yes, this is my first show-up."
+
+Speed--"So you are to be one of us?"
+
+Lincoln--"I reckon so, if you will let me take pot luck with you."
+
+Speed--"All right, Abe; it's better than Salem."
+
+Lincoln--"I've been to Gorman's and got a single bedstead; now you
+figure out what it will cost for a tick, blankets and so forth."
+
+Speed (after figuring)--"Say, seventeen dollars or so."
+
+Lincoln (countenance paling)--"I had no _idea_ it would cost half that,
+and I--I can't pay it; but if you can wait on me till Christmas, and I
+make anything, I'll pay; if I don't, I can't."
+
+Speed--"I can do better than that; upstairs I sleep in a bed big enough
+for two, and you just come and sleep with me till you can do better."
+
+Lincoln (brightening)--"Good, where is it?"
+
+Speed--"Upstairs behind that pile of barrels--turn to the right when you
+go up."
+
+Lincoln (returning joyously)--"Well, Speed, I've moved!"
+
+
+STUART & LINCOLN
+
+Major Stuart had grown so thoroughly interested in Lincoln, approving
+the diligence with which the young law student applied himself to the
+books which he had lent him, that, after his signal success in bringing
+about the removal of the State capital to Springfield, the older man
+invited the younger to go into partnership with him.
+
+Abe had been admitted to the bar the year before, and had practiced law
+in a small way before Squire Bowling Green in New Salem. Greatly
+flattered by the offer of such a man, Abe gladly accepted, and soon
+after his arrival in Springfield this sign, which thrilled the junior
+partner's whole being, appeared in front of an office near the square:
+
+         ------------------------------
+        |    STUART & LINCOLN          |
+        | ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW             |
+         ------------------------------
+
+
+"I NEVER USE ANYONE'S MONEY BUT MY OWN"
+
+After a while Lincoln left Speed's friendly loft and slept on a lounge
+in the law office, keeping his few effects in the little old-fashioned
+trunk pushed out of sight under his couch.
+
+One day an agent of the Post Office Department came in and asked if
+Abraham Lincoln could be found there. Abe arose and, reaching out his
+hand, said that was his name. The agent then stated his business; he had
+come to collect a balance due the Post Office Department since the
+closing of the post office at New Salem.
+
+The young ex-postmaster looked puzzled for a moment, and a friend, who
+happened to be present, hastened to his rescue with, "Lincoln, if you
+are in need of money, let us help you."
+
+Abe made no reply, but, pulling out his little old trunk, he asked the
+agent how much he owed. The man stated the amount, and he, opening the
+trunk, took out an old cotton cloth containing coins, which he handed to
+the official without counting, and it proved to be the exact sum
+required, over seventeen dollars, evidently the very pieces of money Abe
+had received while acting as postmaster years before!
+
+After the department agent had receipted for the money and had gone out,
+Mr. Lincoln quietly remarked:
+
+"I never use anyone's money but my own."
+
+
+DROPS THROUGH THE CEILING TO DEMAND FREE SPEECH
+
+Stuart & Lincoln's office was, for a time, over a court room, which was
+used evenings as a hall. There was a square opening in the ceiling of
+the court room, covered by a trap door in the room overhead where
+Lincoln slept. One night there was a promiscuous crowd in the hall, and
+Lincoln's friend, E. D. Baker, was delivering a political harangue.
+Becoming somewhat excited Baker made an accusation against a well-known
+newspaper in Springfield, and the remark was resented by several in the
+audience.
+
+"Pull him down!" yelled one of them as they came up to the platform
+threatening Baker with personal violence. There was considerable
+confusion which might become a riot.
+
+Just at this juncture the spectators were astonished to see a pair of
+long legs dangling from the ceiling and Abraham Lincoln dropped upon the
+platform. Seizing the water pitcher he took his stand beside the
+speaker, and brandished it, his face ablaze with indignation.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, when the confusion had subsided, "let us not
+disgrace the age and the country in which we live. This is a land where
+freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and
+ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him and no man
+shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it." Lincoln had opened
+the trap door in his room and silently watched the proceedings until he
+saw that his presence was needed below. Then he dropped right into the
+midst of the fray, and defended his friend and the right of free speech
+at the same time.
+
+
+DEFENDING THE DEFENSELESS
+
+A widow came to Mr. Lincoln and told him how an attorney had charged her
+an exorbitant fee for collecting her pension. Such cases filled him with
+righteous wrath. He cared nothing for "professional etiquette," if it
+permitted the swindling of a poor woman. Going directly to the greedy
+lawyer, he forced him to refund to the widow all that he had charged in
+excess of a fair fee for his services, or he would start proceedings at
+once to prevent the extortionate attorney from practicing law any longer
+at the Springfield bar.
+
+If a negro had been wronged in any way, Lawyer Lincoln was the only
+attorney in Springfield who dared to appear in his behalf, for he always
+did so at great risk to his political standing. Sometimes he appeared in
+defense of fugitive slaves, or negroes who had been freed or had run
+away from southern or "slave" States where slavery prevailed to gain
+liberty in "free" States in which slavery was not allowed. Lawyer
+Lincoln did all this at the risk of making himself very unpopular with
+his fellow-attorneys and among the people at large, the greater part of
+whom were then in favor of permitting those who wished to own, buy and
+sell negroes as slaves.
+
+Lincoln always sympathized with the poor and down-trodden. He could not
+bear to charge what his fellow-lawyers considered a fair price for the
+amount of work and time spent on a case. He often advised those who came
+to him to settle their disputes without going to law. Once he told a man
+he would charge him a large fee if he had to try the case, but if the
+parties in the dispute settled their difficulty without going into court
+he would furnish them all the legal advice they needed free of charge.
+Here is some excellent counsel Lawyer Lincoln gave, in later life, in
+an address to a class of young attorneys:
+
+"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever
+you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often the real
+loser--in fees, expenses and waste of time. As a peacemaker a lawyer has
+a superior opportunity of becoming a good man. There will always be
+enough business. Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be
+found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who
+habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in
+titles whereon to stir up strife and put money in his pocket. A moral
+tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men
+out of it."
+
+
+YOUNG LAWYER LINCOLN OFFERS TO PAY HALF THE DAMAGES
+
+A wagonmaker in Mechanicsville, near Springfield, was sued on account of
+a disputed bill. The other side had engaged the best lawyer in the
+place. The cartwright saw that his own attorney would be unable to
+defend the case well. So, when the day of the trial arrived he sent his
+son-in-law to Springfield to bring Mr. Lincoln to save the day for him
+if possible. He said to the messenger:
+
+"Son, you've just got time. Take this letter to my young friend, Abe
+Lincoln, and bring him back in the buggy to appear in the case. Guess
+he'll come if he can."
+
+The young man from Mechanicsville found the lawyer in the street playing
+"knucks" with a troop of children and laughing heartily at the fun they
+were all having. When the note was handed to him, Lincoln said:
+
+"All right, wait a minute," and the game soon ended amid peals of
+laughter. Then the young lawyer jumped into the buggy. On the way back
+Mr. Lincoln told his companion such funny stories that the young man,
+convulsed with laughter, was unable to drive. The horse, badly broken,
+upset them into a ditch, smashing the vehicle.
+
+"You stay behind and look after the buggy," said the lawyer. "I'll walk
+on."
+
+He came, with long strides, into the court room just in time for the
+trial and won the case for the wagonmaker.
+
+"What am I to pay you?" asked the client delighted.
+
+"I hope you won't think ten or fifteen dollars too much," said the young
+attorney, "and I'll pay half the hire of the buggy and half the cost of
+repairing it."
+
+
+LAWYER LINCOLN AND MARY OWENS
+
+About the time Mr. Lincoln was admitted to the bar, Miss Mary Owens, a
+bright and beautiful young woman from Kentucky, came to visit her
+married sister near New Salem. The sister had boasted that she was going
+to "make a match" between her sister and Lawyer Lincoln. The newly
+admitted attorney smiled indulgently at all this banter until he began
+to consider himself under obligations to marry Miss Owens if that young
+lady proved willing.
+
+After he went to live in Springfield, with no home but his office, he
+wrote the young lady a long, discouraging letter, of which this is a
+part:
+
+
+        "I am thinking of what we said about your
+        coming to live in Springfield. I am afraid you
+        would not be satisfied. There is a great deal
+        of flourishing about in carriages here, which
+        it would be your doom to see without sharing
+        it. You would have to be poor without the means
+        of hiding your poverty. Do you believe that you
+        could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may
+        cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so,
+        it is my intention to do all in my power to
+        make her happy and contented, and there is
+        nothing I can imagine that could make me more
+        unhappy than to fail in that effort. I know I
+        should be much happier with you than the way I
+        am, provided I saw no sign of discontent in
+        you.
+
+        "I much wish you would think seriously before
+        you decide. What I have said, I will most
+        positively abide by, provided you wish it. You
+        have not been accustomed to hardship, and it
+        may be more severe than you now imagine. I know
+        you are capable of thinking correctly on any
+        subject, and if you deliberate maturely upon
+        this before you decide, then I am willing to
+        abide by your decision.
+
+                                 "Yours, etc.,
+                                            "LINCOLN."
+
+For a love letter this was nearly as cold and formal as a legal
+document. Miss Owens could see well enough that Lawyer Lincoln was not
+much in love with her, and she let him know, as kindly as she could,
+that she was not disposed to cast her lot for life with an enforced
+lover, as he had proved himself to be. She afterward confided to a
+friend that "Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which make
+up the chain of a woman's happiness."
+
+
+THE EARLY RIVALRY BETWEEN LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS
+
+Soon after Mr. Lincoln came to Springfield he met Stephen A. Douglas, a
+brilliant little man from Vermont. The two seemed naturally to take
+opposing sides of every question. They were opposite in every way.
+Lincoln was tall, angular and awkward. Douglas was small, round and
+graceful--he came to be known as "the Little Giant." Douglas was a
+Democrat and favored slavery. Lincoln was a Whig, and strongly opposed
+that dark institution. Even in petty discussions in Speed's store, the
+two men seemed to gravitate to opposite sides. A little later they were
+rivals for the hand of the same young woman.
+
+One night, in a convivial company, Mr. Douglas's attention was directed
+to the fact that Mr. Lincoln neither smoked nor drank. Considering this
+a reflection upon his own habits, the little man sneered:
+
+"What, Mr. Lincoln, are you a temperance man?"
+
+"No," replied Lincoln with a smile full of meaning, "I'm not exactly a
+temperance man, but I am temperate in this, to wit:--I _don't drink_!"
+
+In spite of this remark, Mr. Lincoln _was_ an ardent temperance man. One
+Washington's birthday he delivered a temperance address before the
+Washingtonian Society of Springfield, on "Charity in Temperance Reform,"
+in which he made a strong comparison between the drink habit and black
+slavery.
+
+
+LOGAN & LINCOLN
+
+In 1841 the partnership between Stuart and Lincoln was dissolved and the
+younger man became a member of the firm of Logan & Lincoln. This was
+considered a long step in advance for the young lawyer, as Judge Stephen
+T. Logan was known as one of the leading lawyers in the State. From
+this senior partner he learned to make the thorough study of his cases
+that characterized his work throughout his later career.
+
+While in partnership with Logan, Mr. Lincoln was helping a young fellow
+named "Billy" Herndon, a clerk in his friend Speed's store, advising him
+in his law studies and promising to give the youth a place in his own
+office as soon as young Herndon should be fitted to fill it.
+
+
+WHAT LINCOLN DID WITH HIS FIRST FIVE HUNDRED DOLLAR FEE
+
+During the interim between two partnerships, after he had left Major
+Stuart, and before he went into the office with Logan, Mr. Lincoln
+conducted a case alone. He worked very hard and made a brilliant success
+of it, winning the verdict and a five hundred dollar fee. When an old
+lawyer friend called on him, Lincoln had the money spread out on the
+table counting it over.
+
+"Look here, judge," said the young lawyer. "See what a heap of money
+I've got from that case. Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never
+in my life had so much money all at once!"
+
+Then his manner changed, and crossing his long arms on the table he
+said:
+
+"I have got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and
+fifty I would go and buy a quarter section (160 acres) of land and give
+it to my old stepmother."
+
+The friend offered to lend him the two hundred and fifty dollars needed.
+While drawing up the necessary papers, the old judge gave the young
+lawyer this advice:
+
+"Lincoln, I wouldn't do it quite that way. Your stepmother is getting
+old, and, in all probability, will not live many years. I would settle
+the property upon her for use during her lifetime, to revert to you upon
+her death."
+
+"I shall do no such thing," Lincoln replied with deep feeling. "It is a
+poor return, at best, for all the good woman's devotion to me, and there
+is not going to be any half-way business about it."
+
+The dutiful stepson did as he planned. Some years later he was obliged
+to write to John Johnston, his stepmother's son, appealing to him not to
+try to induce his mother to sell the land lest the old woman should lose
+the support he had provided for her in her declining years.
+
+
+IN LOVE WITH A BELLE FROM LEXINGTON
+
+Lincoln's popularity in Sangamon County, always increasing, was greatly
+strengthened by the part he had taken in the removal of the capital to
+Springfield, which was the county seat as well as the State capital. So
+he was returned to the Legislature, now held in Springfield, time after
+time, without further effort on his part. He was looked upon as a young
+man with a great future. While he was in the office with Major Stuart
+that gentleman's cousin, Miss Mary Todd, a witty, accomplished young
+lady from Lexington, Kentucky, came to Springfield to visit her sister,
+wife of Ninian W. Edwards, one of the "Long Nine" in the State Assembly.
+
+Miss Todd was brilliant and gay, a society girl--in every way the
+opposite of Mr. Lincoln--and he was charmed with everything she said and
+did. Judge Douglas was one of her numerous admirers, and it is said that
+the Louisville belle was so flattered by his attentions that she was in
+doubt, for a time, which suitor to accept. She was an ambitious young
+woman, having boasted from girlhood that she would one day be mistress
+of the White House.
+
+To all appearances Douglas was the more likely to fulfill Miss Todd's
+high ambition. He was a society man, witty in conversation, popular with
+women as well as with men, and had been to Congress, so he had a
+national reputation, while Lincoln's was only local, or at most confined
+to Sangamon County and the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Illinois.
+
+But Mr. Douglas was already addicted to drink, and Miss Todd saw
+doubtless that he could not go on long at the rapid pace he was keeping
+up. It is often said that she was in favor of slavery, as some of her
+relatives who owned slaves, years later, entered the Confederate ranks
+to fight against the Union. But the remarkable fact that she finally
+chose Lincoln shows that her sympathies were against slavery, and she
+thus cut herself off from several members of her own family. With a
+woman's intuition she saw the true worth of Abraham Lincoln, and before
+long they were understood to be engaged.
+
+But the young lawyer, after his recent experience with Mary Owens,
+distrusted his ability to make any woman happy--much less the belle from
+Louisville, so brilliant, vivacious, well educated and exacting. He
+seemed to grow morbidly conscious of his shortcomings, and she was
+high-strung. A misunderstanding arose, and, between such exceptional
+natures, "the course of true love never did run smooth."
+
+Their engagement, if they were actually betrothed, was broken, and the
+lawyer-lover was plunged in deep melancholy. He wrote long, morbid
+letters to his friend Speed, who had returned to Kentucky, and had
+recently married there. Lincoln even went to Louisville to visit the
+Speeds, hoping that the change of scene and friendly sympathies and
+counsel would revive his health and spirits.
+
+In one of his letters Lincoln bemoaned his sad fate and referred to "the
+fatal 1st of January," probably the date when his engagement or "the
+understanding" with Mary Todd was broken. From this expression, one of
+Lincoln's biographers elaborated a damaging fiction, stating that
+Lincoln and his affianced were to have been married that day, that the
+wedding supper was ready, that the bride was all dressed for the
+ceremony, the guests assembled--but the melancholy bridegroom failed to
+come to his own wedding!
+
+If such a thing had happened in a little town like Springfield in those
+days, the guests would have told of it, and everybody would have
+gossiped about it. It would have been a nine days' wonder, and such a
+great joker as Lincoln would "never have heard the last of it."
+
+
+THE STRANGE EVENTS LEADING UP TO LINCOLN'S MARRIAGE
+
+After Lincoln's return from visiting the Speeds in Louisville, he threw
+himself into politics again, not, however, in his own behalf. He
+declined to be a candidate again for the State Legislature, in which he
+had served four consecutive terms, covering a period of eight years. He
+engaged enthusiastically in the "Log Cabin" campaign of 1840, when the
+country went for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too," which means that General
+William Henry Harrison, the hero of the battle of Tippecanoe, and John
+Tyler were elected President and Vice-President of the United States.
+
+In 1842 the young lawyer had so far recovered from bodily illness and
+mental unhappiness as to write more cheerful letters to his friend Speed
+of which two short extracts follow:
+
+"It seems to me that I should have been entirely happy but for the
+never-absent idea that there is one (Miss Todd) still unhappy whom I
+have contributed to make so. That still kills my soul. I cannot but
+reproach myself for even wishing to be happy while she is otherwise. She
+accompanied a large party on the railroad cars to Jacksonville last
+Monday, and at her return spoke, so I heard of it, of having 'enjoyed
+the trip exceedingly.' God be praised for that."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You will see by the last _Sangamon Journal_ that I made a temperance
+speech on the 22d of February, which I claim that Fanny and you shall
+read as an act of charity toward me; for I cannot learn that anybody has
+read it or is likely to. Fortunately it is not long, and I shall deem it
+a sufficient compliance with my request if one of you listens while the
+other reads it."
+
+Early the following summer Lincoln wrote for the _Sangamon Journal_ a
+humorous criticism of State Auditor Shields, a vain and "touchy" little
+man. This was in the form of a story and signed by "Rebecca of the Lost
+Townships." The article created considerable amusement and might have
+passed unnoticed by the conceited little auditor if it had not been
+followed by another, less humorous, but more personal and satirical,
+signed in the same way, but the second communication was written by two
+mischievous (if not malicious) girls--Mary Todd and her friend, Julia
+Jayne. This stinging attack made Shields wild with rage, and he demanded
+the name of the writer of it. Lincoln told the editor to give Shields
+_his_ name as if he had written both contributions and thus protect the
+two young ladies. The auditor then challenged the lawyer to fight a
+duel. Lincoln, averse to dueling, chose absurd weapons, imposed
+ridiculous conditions and tried to treat the whole affair as a huge
+joke. When the two came face to face, explanations became possible and
+the ludicrous duel was avoided. Lincoln's conduct throughout this
+humiliating affair plainly showed that, while Shields would gladly have
+killed _him_, he had no intention of injuring the man who had challenged
+him.
+
+Mary Todd's heart seems to have softened toward the young man who was
+willing to risk his life for her sake, and the pair, after a long and
+miserable misunderstanding on both sides, were happily married on the
+4th of November, 1842. Their wedding ceremony was the first ever
+performed in Springfield by the use of the Episcopal ritual.
+
+When one of the guests, bluff old Judge Tom Brown, saw the bridegroom
+placing the ring on Miss Todd's finger, and repeating after the
+minister, "With this ring"--"I thee wed"--"and with all"--"my worldly
+goods"--"I thee endow"--he exclaimed, in a stage whisper:
+
+"Grace to Goshen, Lincoln, the statute fixes all that!"
+
+In a letter to Speed, not long after this event, the happy bridegroom
+wrote:
+
+"We are not keeping house but boarding at the Globe Tavern, which is
+very well kept now by a widow lady of the name of Beck. Our rooms are
+the same Dr. Wallace occupied there, and boarding only costs four
+dollars a week (for the two). I most heartily wish you and your family
+will not fail to come. Just let us know the time, a week in advance, and
+we will have a room prepared for you and we'll all be merry together for
+a while."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+LINCOLN & HERNDON
+
+
+YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR LINCOLN
+
+Lincoln remained in the office with Judge Logan about four years,
+dissolving partnership in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself in
+behalf of young William H. Herndon, who, after Speed's removal to
+Kentucky, had gone to college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man seemed
+to be made of the right kind of metal, was industrious, and agreeable,
+and Mr. Lincoln looked forward to the time when he could have "Billy"
+with him in a business of his own.
+
+Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct which women often possess,
+opposed her husband's taking Bill Herndon into partnership. While the
+young man was honest and capable enough, he was neither brilliant nor
+steady. He contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's
+business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not yet paid off "the national debt"
+largely due to his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems
+rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's admonitions. But
+young Herndon seems always to have exercised a strange fascination over
+his older friend and partner.
+
+While yet in partnership with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln went into the
+national campaign of 1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana for
+Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted.
+
+Before this campaign Lincoln had written to Mr. Speed:
+
+"We had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint
+delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me, and got the
+delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my
+attempts to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so that in
+getting Baker the nomination I shall be fixed like a fellow who is made
+a groomsman to a fellow that has cut him out, and is marrying his own
+dear 'gal.'"
+
+Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the nomination for Governor of
+Illinois, and declined the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme
+confidence in her husband's ability, tried to make him more
+self-seeking in his political efforts. He visited his old home in
+Indiana, making several speeches in that part of the State. It was
+fourteen years after he and all the family had removed to Illinois. One
+of his speeches was delivered from the door of a harness shop near
+Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter Schoolhouse." After this
+address he drove home with Mr. Josiah Crawford--"Old Blue Nose" for whom
+he had "pulled fodder" to pay an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of
+Washington," and in whose house his sister and he had lived as hired
+girl and hired man. He delighted the old friends by asking about
+everybody, and being interested in the "old swimming-hole," Jones's
+grocery where he had often argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old
+mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr. Baldwin, had told him some
+of his best stories, and where he once started in to learn the
+blacksmith's trade. He went around and called on all his former
+acquaintances who were still living in the neighborhood. His memories
+were so vivid and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long poem about
+this, from which the following are three stanzas:
+
+        "My childhood's home I see again
+           And sadden with the view;
+         And still, as memory crowds the brain,
+           There's pleasure in it, too.
+
+        "Ah, Memory! thou midway world
+           'Twixt earth and paradise,
+         Where things decayed and loved ones lost
+           In dreamy shadows rise.
+
+        "And freed from all that's earthy, vile,
+           Seems hallowed, pure and bright,
+         Like scenes in some enchanted isle,
+           All bathed in liquid light."
+
+
+TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT
+
+As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time away from Springfield he felt
+that he needed a younger assistant to "keep office" and look after his
+cases in the different courts. He should not have made "Billy" Herndon
+an equal partner, but he did so, though the young man had neither the
+ability nor experience to earn anything like half the income of the
+office. If Herndon had kept sober and done his best he might have made
+some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who treated him like a
+foster-father, was trying to do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the
+sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's absences by going on
+sprees with several dissipated young men about town.
+
+
+WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE
+
+A Springfield gentleman relates the following story which shows Lawyer
+Lincoln's business methods, his unwillingness to charge much for his
+legal services; and his great longing to save his young partner from the
+clutches of drink:
+
+"My father," said the neighbor, "was in business, facing the square, not
+far from the Court House. He had an account with a man who seemed to be
+doing a good, straight business for years, but the fellow disappeared
+one night, owing father about $1000. Time went on and father got no
+trace of the vanished debtor. He considered the account as good as lost.
+
+"But one day, in connection with other business, he told Mr. Lincoln he
+would give him half of what he could recover of that bad debt. The tall
+attorney's deep gray eyes twinkled as he said, 'One-half of nought is
+nothing. I'm neither a shark nor a shyster, Mr. Man. If I should collect
+it, I would accept only my regular percentage.'
+
+"'But I mean it,' father said earnestly. 'I should consider it as good
+as finding money in the street.'
+
+"'And "the finder will be liberally rewarded," eh?' said Mr. Lincoln
+with a laugh.
+
+"'Yes,' my father replied, 'that's about the size of it; and I'm glad if
+you understand it. The members of the bar here grumble because you
+charge too little for your professional services, and I'm willing to do
+my share toward educating you in the right direction.'
+
+"'Well, seein' as it's you,' said Mr. Lincoln with a whimsical smile,
+'considering that you're such an intimate friend, I'd do it for _twice_
+as much as I'd charge a _total stranger_! Is that satisfactory?'
+
+"'I should not be satisfied with giving you less than half the gross
+amount collected--in this case,' my father insisted. 'I don't see why
+you are so loath to take what is your due, Mr. Lincoln. You have a
+family to support and will have to provide for the future of several
+boys. They need money and are as worthy of it as any other man's wife
+and sons.'
+
+"Mr. Lincoln put out his big bony hand as if to ward off a blow,
+exclaiming in a pained tone:
+
+"'That isn't it, Mr. Man. That isn't it. I yield to no man in love to my
+wife and babies, and I provide enough for them. Most of those who bring
+their cases to me need the money more than I do. Other lawyers rob them.
+They act like a pack of wolves. They have no mercy. So when a needy
+fellow comes to me in his trouble--sometimes it's a poor widow--I can't
+take much from them. I'm not much of a Shylock. I always try to get them
+to settle it without going into court. I tell them if they will make it
+up among themselves I won't charge them anything.'
+
+"'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said father with a laugh, 'if they were all like
+you there would be no need of lawyers.'
+
+"'Well,' exclaimed Lawyer Lincoln with a quizzical inflection which
+meant much. 'Look out for the millennium, Mr. Man--still, as a great
+favor, I'll charge you a fat fee if I ever find that fellow and can get
+anything out of him. But that's like promising to give you half of the
+first dollar I find floating up the Sangamon on a grindstone, isn't it?
+I'll take a big slice, though, out of the grindstone itself, if you say
+so,' and the tall attorney went out with the peculiar laugh that
+afterward became world-famous.
+
+"Not long afterward, while in Bloomington, out on the circuit, Mr.
+Lincoln ran across the man who had disappeared from Springfield 'between
+two days,' carrying on an apparently prosperous business under an
+assumed name. Following the man to his office and managing to talk with
+him alone, the lawyer, by means of threats, made the man go right to the
+bank and draw out the whole thousand then. It meant payment in full or
+the penitentiary. The man understood it and went white as a sheet. In
+all his sympathy for the poor and needy, Mr. Lincoln had no pity on the
+flourishing criminal. Money could not purchase the favor of Lincoln.
+
+"Well, I hardly know which half of that thousand dollars father was
+gladder to get, but I honestly believe he was more pleased on Mr.
+Lincoln's account than on his own.
+
+"'Let me give you your five hundred dollars before I change my mind,' he
+said to the attorney.
+
+"'One hundred dollars is all I'll take out of that,' Mr. Lincoln replied
+emphatically. 'It was no trouble, and--and I haven't earned even that
+much.'
+
+"'But Mr. Lincoln,' my father demurred, 'you promised to take half.'
+
+"'Yes, but you got my word under false pretenses, as it were. Neither of
+us had the least idea I would collect the bill even if I ever found the
+fellow.'
+
+"As he would not accept more than one hundred dollars that day, father
+wouldn't give him any of the money due, for fear the too scrupulous
+attorney would give him a receipt in full for collecting. Finally, Mr.
+Lincoln went away after yielding enough to say he might accept two
+hundred and fifty dollars sometime in a pinch of some sort.
+
+"The occasion was not long delayed--but it was not because of illness or
+any special necessity in his own family. His young partner, 'Billy'
+Herndon, had been carousing with several of his cronies in a saloon
+around on Fourth Street, and the gang had broken mirrors, decanters and
+other things in their drunken spree. The proprietor, tired of such work,
+had had them all arrested.
+
+"Mr. Lincoln, always alarmed when Billy failed to appear at the usual
+hour in the morning, went in search of him, and found him and his
+partners in distress, locked up in the calaboose. The others were
+helpless, unable to pay or to promise to pay for any of the damages, so
+it devolved on Mr. Lincoln to raise the whole two hundred and fifty
+dollars the angry saloon keeper demanded.
+
+"He came into our office out of breath and said sheepishly:
+
+"'I reckon I can use that two-fifty now.'
+
+"'Check or currency?' asked father.
+
+"'Currency, if you've got it handy.'
+
+"'Give Mr. Lincoln two hundred and fifty dollars,' father called to a
+clerk in the office.
+
+"There was a moment's pause, during which my father refrained from
+asking any questions, and Mr. Lincoln was in no mood to give
+information. As soon as the money was brought, the tall attorney seized
+the bills and stalked out without counting it or saying anything but
+'Thankee, Mr. Man,' and hurried diagonally across the square toward the
+Court House, clutching the precious banknotes in his bony talons.
+
+"Father saw him cross the street so fast that the tails of his long coat
+stood out straight behind; then go up the Court House steps, two at a
+time, and disappear.
+
+"We learned afterward what he did with the money. Of course, Bill
+Herndon was penitent and promised to mend his ways, and, of course, Mr.
+Lincoln believed him. He took the money very much against his will, even
+against his principles--thinking it might save his junior partner from
+the drunkard's grave. But the heart of Abraham Lincoln was hoping
+against hope."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+HIS KINDNESS OF HEART
+
+
+PUTTING TWO YOUNG BIRDS BACK IN THE NEST
+
+Mr. Lincoln's tender-heartedness was the subject of much amusement among
+his fellow attorneys. One day, while out riding with several friends,
+they missed Lincoln. One of them, having heard the distressed cries of
+two young birds that had fallen from the nest, surmised that this had
+something to do with Mr. Lincoln's disappearance. The man was right.
+Lincoln had hitched his horse and climbed the fence into the thicket
+where the fledglings were fluttering on the ground in great fright. He
+caught the young birds and tenderly carried them about until he found
+their nest. Climbing the tree he put the birdlings back where they
+belonged. After an hour Mr. Lincoln caught up with his companions, who
+laughed at him for what they called his "childishness." He answered them
+earnestly:
+
+"Gentlemen, you may laugh, but I could not have slept tonight if I had
+not saved those little birds. The mother's cries and theirs would have
+rung in my ears."
+
+
+LAWYER LINCOLN, IN A NEW SUIT OF CLOTHES, RESCUING A PIG STUCK IN THE
+MUD
+
+Lawyer Lincoln rode from one county-seat to another, on the Eighth
+Judicial Circuit of Illinois, either on the back of a raw-boned horse,
+or in a rickety buggy drawn by the same old "crowbait," as his legal
+friends called the animal. The judge and lawyers of the several courts
+traveled together and whiled away the time chatting and joking. Of
+course, Abraham Lincoln was in great demand because of his unfailing
+humor.
+
+One day he appeared in a new suit of clothes. This was such a rare
+occurrence that the friends made remarks about it. The garments did not
+fit him very well, and the others felt in duty bound to "say things"
+which were anything but complimentary.
+
+As they rode along through the mud they were making Lincoln the butt of
+their gibes. He was not like most jokers, for he could take as well as
+give, while he could "give as good as he got."
+
+In the course of their "chaffing" they came to a spot about four miles
+from Paris, Illinois, where they saw a pig stuck in the mud and
+squealing lustily. The men all laughed at the poor animal and its absurd
+plight.
+
+"Poor piggy!" exclaimed Mr. Lincoln impulsively. "Let's get him out of
+that."
+
+The others jeered at the idea. "You'd better do it. You're dressed for
+the job!" exclaimed one.
+
+"Return to your wallow!" laughed another, pointing in great glee to the
+wallowing hog and the mudhole.
+
+Lincoln looked at the pig, at the deep mud, then down at his new
+clothes. Ruefully he rode on with them for some time. But the cries of
+the helpless animal rang in his ears. He could endure it no longer.
+Lagging behind the rest, he waited until they had passed a bend in the
+road. Then he turned and rode back as fast as his poor old horse could
+carry him through the mud. Dismounting, he surveyed the ground. The pig
+had struggled until it was almost buried in the mire, and was now too
+exhausted to move. After studying the case as if it were a problem in
+civil engineering, he took some rails off the fence beside the road.
+Building a platform of rails around the now exhausted hog, then taking
+one rail for a lever and another for a fulcrum, he began gently to pry
+the fat, helpless creature out of the sticky mud. In doing this he
+plastered his new suit from head to foot, but he did not care, as long
+as he could save that pig!
+
+"Now, piggy-wig," he said. "It's you and me for it. You do your part and
+I'll get you out. Now--'one-two-_three_--_up-a-daisy_!'"
+
+He smiled grimly as he thought of the jeers and sneers that would be
+hurled at him if his friends had stayed to watch him at this work.
+
+After long and patient labor he succeeded in loosening the hog and
+coaxing it to make the attempt to get free. At last, the animal was
+made to see that it could get out. Making one violent effort it wallowed
+away and started for the nearest farmhouse, grunting and flopping its
+ears as it went.
+
+Lawyer Lincoln looked ruefully down at his clothes, then placed all the
+rails back on the fence as he had found them.
+
+He had to ride the rest of the day alone, for he did not wish to appear
+before his comrades until the mud on his suit had dried so that it could
+be brushed off. That night, when they saw him at the tavern, they asked
+him what he had been doing all day, eying his clothes with suspicious
+leers and grins. He had to admit that he could not bear to leave that
+hog to die, and tried to excuse his tender-heartedness to them by
+adding: "Farmer Jones's children might have had to go barefoot all
+Winter if he had lost a valuable hog like that!"
+
+
+"BEING ELECTED TO CONGRESS HAS NOT PLEASED ME AS MUCH AS I EXPECTED"
+
+In 1846 Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress, defeating the Rev.
+Peter Cartwright, the famous backwoods preacher, who was elected to the
+State Legislature fourteen years before, the first time Lincoln was a
+candidate and the only time he was ever defeated by popular vote.
+Cartwright had made a vigorous canvass, telling the people that Lincoln
+was "an aristocrat and an atheist." But, though they had a great respect
+for Peter Cartwright and his preaching, the people did not believe all
+that he said against Lincoln, and they elected him. Shortly after this
+he wrote again to Speed:
+
+        "You, no doubt, assign the suspension of our
+        correspondence to the true philosophic cause;
+        though it must be confessed by both of us that
+        this is a rather cold reason for allowing such
+        a friendship as ours to die out by degrees.
+
+        "Being elected to Congress, though I am very
+        grateful to our friends for having done it, has
+        not pleased me as much as I expected."
+
+In the same letter he imparted to his friend some information which
+seems to have been much more interesting to him than being elected to
+Congress:
+
+        "We have another boy, born the 10th of March
+        (1846). He is very much such a child as Bob was
+        at his age, rather of a longer order. Bob is
+        'short and low,' and I expect always will be.
+        He talks very plainly, almost as plainly as
+        anybody. He is quite smart enough. I sometimes
+        fear he is one of the little rare-ripe sort
+        that are smarter at five than ever after.
+
+        "Since I began this letter, a messenger came to
+        tell me Bob was lost; but by the time I reached
+        the house his mother had found him and had him
+        whipped, and by now very likely he has run away
+        again!
+
+                                    "As ever yours,
+                                             "A. LINCOLN."
+
+The new baby mentioned in this letter was Edward, who died in 1850,
+before his fourth birthday. "Bob," or Robert, the eldest of the
+Lincoln's four children, was born in 1843. William, born in 1850, died
+in the White House. The youngest was born in 1853, after the death of
+Thomas Lincoln, so he was named for his grandfather, but he was known
+only by his nickname, "Tad." "Little Tad" was his father's constant
+companion during the terrible years of the Civil War, especially after
+Willie's death, in 1862. "Tad" became "the child of the nation." He died
+in Chicago, July 10, 1871, at the age of eighteen, after returning from
+Europe with his widowed mother and his brother Robert. Robert has served
+his country as Secretary of War and Ambassador to the English court, and
+is recognized as a leader in national affairs.
+
+When Lincoln was sent to the national House of Representatives, Douglas
+was elected to the Senate for the first time. Lincoln was the only Whig
+from Illinois. This shows his great personal popularity. Daniel Webster
+was then living in the national capital, and Congressman Lincoln stopped
+once at Ashland, Ky., on his way to Washington to visit the idol of the
+Whigs, Henry Clay.
+
+As soon as Lincoln was elected, an editor wrote to ask him for a
+biographical sketch of himself for the "Congressional Directory." This
+is all Mr. Lincoln wrote--in a blank form sent for the purpose:
+
+"Born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.
+
+"Education defective.
+
+"Profession, lawyer.
+
+"Military service, captain of volunteers in Black Hawk War.
+
+"Offices held: Postmaster at a very small office; four times a member of
+the Illinois Legislature, and elected to the lower House of the next
+Congress."
+
+Mr. Lincoln was in Congress while the Mexican War was in progress, and
+there was much discussion over President Polk's action in declaring that
+war.
+
+As Mrs. Lincoln was obliged to stay in Springfield to care for her two
+little boys, Congressman Lincoln lived in a Washington boarding-house.
+He soon gained the reputation of telling the best stories at the
+capital. He made a humorous speech on General Cass, comparing the
+general's army experiences with his own in the Black Hawk War. He also
+drafted a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, which was
+never brought to a vote. Most of his care seems to have been for Billy
+Herndon, who wrote complaining letters to him about the "old men" in
+Springfield who were always trying to "keep the young men down." Here
+are two of Mr. Lincoln's replies:
+
+
+        "WASHINGTON, June 22, 1848.
+
+        "DEAR WILLIAM:
+
+        "Judge how heart-rending it was to come to my
+        room and find and read your discouraging letter
+        of the 15th. Now, as to the young men, you must
+        not wait to be brought forward by the older
+        men. For instance, do you suppose that I would
+        ever have got into notice if I had waited to be
+        hunted up and pushed forward by older men?"
+
+        "DEAR WILLIAM:
+
+        "Your letter was received last night. The
+        subject of that letter is exceedingly painful
+        to me; and I cannot but think that there is
+        some mistake in your impression of the motives
+        of the old men. Of course I cannot demonstrate
+        what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure
+        I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly
+        know what to say. The way for a young man to
+        rise is to improve himself every way he can,
+        never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder
+        him. Allow me to assure you that suspicion and
+        jealousy never did keep any man in any
+        situation. There may be sometimes ungenerous
+        attempts to keep a young man down; and they
+        will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be
+        diverted from its true channel to brood over
+        the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if
+        this feeling has not injured every person you
+        have ever known to fall into it.
+
+        "Now in what I have said, I am sure you will
+        suspect nothing but sincere friendship. I would
+        save you from a fatal error. You have been a
+        laborious, studious young man. You are far
+        better informed on almost all subjects than I
+        have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable
+        object, unless you allow your mind to be
+        improperly directed. I have somewhat the
+        advantage of you in the world's experience,
+        merely by being older; and it is this that
+        induces me to advise.
+
+                         "Your friend, as ever,
+                                       "A. LINCOLN."
+
+
+LAST DAYS OF THOMAS LINCOLN
+
+Mr. Lincoln did not allow his name to be used as a candidate for
+re-election, as there were other men in the congressional district who
+deserved the honor of going to Washington as much as he. On his way home
+from Washington, after the last session of the Thirtieth Congress, he
+visited New England, where he made a few speeches, and stopped at
+Niagara Falls, which impressed him so strongly that he wrote a lecture
+on the subject.
+
+After returning home he made a flying visit to Washington to enter his
+patent steamboat, equipped so that it would navigate shallow western
+rivers. This boat, he told a friend, "would go where the ground is a
+little damp." The model of Lincoln's steamboat is one of the sights of
+the Patent Office to this day.
+
+After Mr. Lincoln had settled down to his law business, permanently, as
+he hoped, his former fellow-clerk, William G. Greene, having business in
+Coles County, went to "Goosenest Prairie" to call on Abe's father and
+stepmother, who still lived in a log cabin. Thomas Lincoln received his
+son's friend very hospitably. During the young man's visit, the father
+reverted to the old subject, his disapproval of his son's wasting his
+time in study. He said:
+
+"I s'pose Abe's still a-foolin' hisself with eddication. I tried to stop
+it, but he's got that fool _idee_ in his head an' it can't be got out.
+Now I haint got no eddication, but I git along better than if I had."
+
+Not long after this, in 1851, Abraham learned that his father was very
+ill. As he could not leave Springfield then, he wrote to his stepbrother
+(for Thomas Lincoln could not read) the following comforting letter to
+be read to his father:
+
+"I sincerely hope father may recover his health; but at all events, tell
+him to remember to call upon and confide in our great and merciful
+Maker, who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the
+fall of the sparrow, and numbers the hairs of our heads, and He will not
+forget the dying man who puts his trust in Him. Say to him that, if we
+could meet now, it is doubtful whether it would be more painful than
+pleasant, but if it is his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyful
+meeting with the loved ones gone before, and where the rest of us,
+through the mercy of God, hope ere long to join them."
+
+Thomas Lincoln died that year, at the age of seventy-three.
+
+
+A KIND BUT MASTERFUL LETTER TO HIS STEPBROTHER
+
+After his father's death Abraham Lincoln had, on several occasions, to
+protect his stepmother against the schemes of her own lazy,
+good-for-nothing son. Here is one of the letters written, at this time,
+to his stepbrother, John Johnston:
+
+"DEAR BROTHER: I hear that you were anxious to sell the land where you
+live, and move to Missouri. What can you do in Missouri better than
+here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise
+corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than
+here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no
+better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to
+work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from
+place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year, and
+what you really want is to sell the land, get the money and spend it.
+Part with the land you have and, my life upon it, you will never own a
+spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will
+spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink
+and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought.
+
+"Now, I feel that it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of
+foolery. I feel it is so even on your own account, and particularly on
+mother's account.
+
+"Now do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it in any
+unkindness. I write it in order, if possible, to get you to face the
+truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away
+your time. Your thousand pretenses deceive nobody but yourself. Go to
+work is the only cure for your case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND HIS STEPBROTHER
+
+
+These letters show the wide difference between the real lives of two
+boys brought up in the same surroundings, and under similar conditions.
+The advantages were in John Johnston's favor. He and Dennis Hanks never
+rose above the lower level of poverty and ignorance. John was looked
+down upon by the poor illiterates around him as a lazy, good-for-nothing
+fellow, and Dennis Hanks was known to be careless about telling the
+truth.
+
+In speaking of the early life of Abe's father and mother, Dennis threw
+in the remark that "the Hankses was some smarter than the Lincolns." It
+was not "smartness" that made Abe Lincoln grow to be a greater man than
+Dennis Hanks. There are men in Springfield to-day who say, "There were a
+dozen smarter men in this town than Mr. Lincoln when he happened to be
+nominated, and peculiar conditions prevailing at that time brought about
+his election to the presidency!"
+
+True greatness is made of goodness rather than smartness. Abraham
+Lincoln was honest with himself while a boy and a man, and it was
+"Honest Abe" who became President of the United States. The people loved
+him for his big heart--because he loved them more than he loved himself
+and they knew it. In his second inaugural address as President he used
+this expression: "With malice toward none, with charity for all." This
+was not a new thought, but it was full of meaning to the country because
+little Abe Lincoln had _lived_ that idea all his life, with his own
+family, his friends, acquaintances, and employers. He became the most
+beloved man in the world, in his own or any other time, because he
+himself loved everybody.
+
+Mrs. Crawford, the wife of "Old Blue Nose," used to laugh at the very
+idea of Abe Lincoln ever becoming President. Lincoln often said to her:
+"I'll get ready and the time will come." He got ready in his father's
+log hut and when the door of opportunity opened he walked right into the
+White House. He "made himself at home" there, because he had only to go
+on in the same way after he became the "servant of the people" that he
+had followed when he was "Old Blue Nose's" hired boy and man.
+
+
+ONE PARTNER IN THE WHITE HOUSE, THE OTHER IN THE POOR HOUSE
+
+Then there was William H. Herndon, known to the world only because he
+happened to be "Lincoln's law partner." His advantages were superior to
+Lincoln's. And far more than that, he had his great partner's help to
+push him forward and upward. But "poor Billy" had an unfortunate
+appetite. He could not deny himself, though it always made him ashamed
+and miserable. It dragged him down, down from "the President's partner"
+to the gutter. That was not all. When he asked his old partner to give
+him a government appointment which he had, for years, been making
+himself wholly unworthy to fill, President Lincoln, much as he had loved
+Billy all along, could not give it to him. It grieved Mr. Lincoln's
+great heart to refuse Billy anything. But Herndon did not blame himself
+for all that. He spent the rest of his wretched life in bitterness and
+spite--avenging himself on his noble benefactor by putting untruths into
+the "Life of Lincoln" he was able to write because Abraham Lincoln,
+against the advice of his wife and friends, had insisted on keeping him
+close to his heart. It is a terrible thing--that spirit of spite! Among
+many good and true things he _had_ to say about his fatherly law
+partner, he poisoned the good name of Abraham Lincoln in the minds of
+millions, by writing stealthy slander about Lincoln's mother and wife,
+and made many people believe that the most religious of men at heart was
+an infidel (because he himself was one!), that Mr. Lincoln sometimes
+acted from unworthy and unpatriotic motives, and that he failed to come
+to his own wedding. If these things had been true it would have been
+wrong to publish them to the prejudice of a great man's good name--then
+how much more wicked to invent and spread broadcast falsehoods which
+hurt the heart and injure the mind of the whole world--just to spite the
+memory of the best friend a man ever had!
+
+The fate of the firm of Lincoln & Herndon shows in a striking way how
+the world looks upon the heart that hates and the heart that loves, for
+the hateful junior partner died miserably in an almshouse, but the
+senior was crowned with immortal martyrdom in the White House.
+
+
+THE RIVAL FOR LOVE AND HONORS
+
+Stephen A. Douglas, "the Little Giant," who had been a rival for the
+hand of the fascinating Mary Todd, was also Lincoln's chief opponent in
+politics. Douglas was small and brilliant; used to society ways, he
+seemed always to keep ahead of his tall, uncouth, plodding competitor.
+After going to Congress, Mr. Lincoln was encouraged to aspire even
+higher, so, ten years later, he became a candidate for the Senate.
+Slavery was then the burning question, and Douglas seemed naturally to
+fall upon the opposite side, favoring and justifying it in every way he
+could.
+
+Douglas was then a member of the Senate, but the opposing party
+nominated Lincoln to succeed him, while "the Little Giant" had been
+renominated to succeed himself. Douglas sneered at his tall opponent,
+trying to "damn him with faint praise" by referring to him as "a kind,
+amiable and intelligent gentleman." Mr. Lincoln challenged the Senator
+to discuss the issues of the hour in a series of debates.
+
+Douglas was forced, very much against his will, to accept, and the
+debates took place in seven towns scattered over the State of Illinois,
+from August 21st to October 15th, 1858. Lincoln had announced his belief
+that "a house divided against itself cannot stand;" therefore the United
+States could not long exist "half slave and half free."
+
+"The Little Giant" drove from place to place in great style, traveling
+with an escort of influential friends. These discussions, known in
+history as the "Lincoln-Douglas Debates," rose to national importance
+while they were in progress, by attracting the attention, in the
+newspapers, of voters all over the country. They were attended, on an
+average, by ten thousand persons each, both men being accompanied by
+bands and people carrying banners and what Mr. Lincoln called
+"fizzlegigs and fireworks."
+
+Some of the banners were humorous.
+
+         ------------------------
+        |                        |
+        |  Abe the Giant-Killer  |
+        |                        |
+         ------------------------
+
+was one. Another read:
+
+         -----------------------------------------------------------
+        |                                                           |
+        |  Westward the Star of Empire takes its way;               |
+        |The girls link on to Lincoln, their mothers were for Clay. |
+        |                                                           |
+         -----------------------------------------------------------
+
+At the first debate Lincoln took off his linen duster and, handing it to
+a bystander, said:
+
+"Hold my coat while I stone Stephen!"
+
+In the course of these debates Lincoln propounded questions for Mr.
+Douglas to answer. Brilliant as "the Little Giant" was, he was not
+shrewd enough to defend himself from the shafts of his opponent's wit
+and logic. So he fell into Lincoln's trap.
+
+"If he does that," said Lincoln, "he may be Senator, but he can never be
+President. I am after larger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hundred
+of this."
+
+This prophecy proved true.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+HOW EMANCIPATION CAME TO PASS
+
+
+When Abraham Lincoln was a small boy he began to show the keenest
+sympathy for the helpless and oppressed. The only time he betrayed anger
+as a child was, as you already have learned, when he saw the other boys
+hurting a mud-turtle. In his first school "composition," on "Cruelty to
+Animals," his stepsister remembers this sentence: "An ant's life is as
+sweet to it as ours is to us."
+
+As you have read on an earlier page, when Abe grew to be a big, strong
+boy he saved a drunken man from freezing in the mud, by carrying him to
+a cabin, building a fire, and spent the rest of the night warming and
+sobering him up. Instead of leaving the drunkard to the fate the other
+fellows thought he deserved, Abe Lincoln, through pity for the helpless,
+rescued a fellow-being not only from mud and cold but also from a
+drunkard's grave. For that tall lad's love and mercy revealed to the
+poor creature the terrible slavery of which he was the victim. Thus Abe
+helped him throw off the shackles of drink and made a man of him.
+
+
+BLACK SLAVES AND WHITE
+
+As he grew older, Abe Lincoln saw that the drink habit was a sort of
+human slavery. He delivered an address before the Washingtonian
+(Temperance) Society in which he compared white slavery with black, in
+which he said:
+
+"And when the victory shall be complete--when there shall be neither a
+slave nor a drunkard on the earth--how proud the title of that land
+which may truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both those
+revolutions that have ended in that victory."
+
+This address was delivered on Washington's Birthday, 1842. The closing
+words throb with young Lawyer Lincoln's fervent patriotism:
+
+"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birth of
+Washington; we are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the
+mightiest name of earth, long since the mightiest in the cause of civil
+liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is
+expected. It cannot be. To add to the brightness of the sun or glory to
+the name of Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In
+solemn awe we pronounce the name and, in its naked, deathless splendor,
+leave it shining on."
+
+It was young Lincoln's patriotic love for George Washington which did so
+much to bring about, in time, a double emancipation from white slavery
+and black.
+
+Once, as President, he said to a boy who had just signed the temperance
+pledge:
+
+"Now, Sonny, keep that pledge and it will be the best act of your life."
+
+President Lincoln was true and consistent in his temperance principles.
+In March, 1864, he went by steamboat with his wife and "Little Tad," to
+visit General Grant at his headquarters at City Point, Virginia.
+
+When asked how he was, during the reception which followed his arrival
+there, the President said, as related by General Horace Porter:
+
+"'I am not feeling very well. I got pretty badly shaken up on the bay
+coming down, and am not altogether over it yet.'
+
+"'Let me send for a bottle of champagne for you, Mr. President,' said a
+staff-officer, 'that's the best remedy I know of for sea-sickness.'
+
+"'No, no, my young friend,' replied the President, 'I've seen many a
+man in my time seasick ashore from drinking that very article.'
+
+"That was the last time any one screwed up sufficient courage to offer
+him wine."
+
+
+"THE UNDER DOG"
+
+Some people are kinder to dumb animals--is it _because_ they are
+dumb?--than to their relatives. Many are the stories of Lincoln's
+tenderness to beasts and birds. But his kindness did not stop there, nor
+with his brothers and sisters in white. He recognized his close
+relationship with the black man, and the bitterest name his enemies
+called him--worse in their minds than "fool," "clown," "imbecile" or
+"gorilla"--was a "Black Republican." That terrible phobia against the
+negro only enlisted Abraham Lincoln's sympathies the more. He appeared
+in court in behalf of colored people, time and again. The more bitter
+the hatred and oppression of others, the more they needed his
+sympathetic help, the more certain they were to receive it.
+
+"My sympathies are with the under dog," said Mr. Lincoln, one day,
+"though it is often that dog that starts the fuss."
+
+The fact that the poor fellow may have brought the trouble upon himself
+did not make him forfeit Abraham Lincoln's sympathy. That was only a
+good lesson to him to "Look out and do better next time!"
+
+
+THE QUESTION OF EMANCIPATION
+
+After he went to Washington, President Lincoln was between two fires.
+One side wanted the slaves freed whether the Union was broken up or not.
+They could not see that declaring them free would have but little
+effect, if the government could not "back up" such a declaration.
+
+The other party did not wish the matter tampered with, as cheap labor
+was necessary for raising cotton, sugar and other products on which the
+living of millions of people depended.
+
+The extreme Abolitionists, who wished slavery abolished, whether or no,
+sent men to tell the President that if he did not free the slaves he was
+a coward and a turncoat, and they would withhold their support from the
+Government and the Army.
+
+Delegations of Abolitionists from all over the North arrived almost
+daily from different cities to urge, coax and threaten the President.
+They did not know that he was trying to keep the Border States of
+Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri from seceding. If Maryland alone had
+gone out of the Union, Washington, the national capital, would have been
+surrounded and forced to surrender.
+
+Besides, at this time, the armies of the North were losing nearly all
+the battles.
+
+To declare all the slaves down South freed, when the Government could
+not enforce such a statement and could not even win a battle, would be
+absurd. To one committee the President said: "If I issued a proclamation
+of emancipation now it would be like the Pope's bull (or decree) against
+the comet!"
+
+A delegation of Chicago ministers came to beg Mr. Lincoln to free the
+slaves. He patiently explained to them that his declaring them free
+would not make them free. These men seemed to see the point and were
+retiring, disappointed, when one of them returned to him and whispered
+solemnly:
+
+"What you have said to us, Mr. President, compels me to say to you in
+reply that it is a message from our divine Master, through me,
+commanding you, sir, to open the doors of bondage that the slave may go
+free!"
+
+"Now, isn't that strange?" the President replied instantly. "Here I am,
+studying this question, day and night, and God has placed it upon me,
+too. Don't you think it's rather odd that He should send such a message
+by way of that awful wicked city of Chicago?"
+
+The ministers were shocked at such an answer from the President of the
+United States. They could not know, for Mr. Lincoln dared not tell them,
+that he had the Emancipation Proclamation in his pocket waiting for a
+Federal victory before he could issue it!
+
+
+THE PROCLAMATION
+
+Then, came the news of Antietam, a terrible battle, but gained by the
+Northern arms. At last the time had come to announce the freeing of the
+slaves that they might help in winning their liberties. The President
+had not held a meeting of his Cabinet for some time. He thought of the
+occasion when, as a young man he went on a flatboat trip to New Orleans
+and saw, for the first, the horrors of negro slavery, and said to his
+companions:
+
+"If ever I get a chance to hit that thing I'll hit it hard!"
+
+Now the "chance to hit that thing"--the inhuman monster of human
+slavery--had come, and he was going to "hit it hard."
+
+He called the Cabinet together. Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War,
+has described the scene:
+
+"On the 22nd of September, 1862, I had a sudden and peremptory call to a
+Cabinet meeting at the White House. I went immediately and found the
+historic War Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln assembled, every member being
+present. The President hardly noticed me as I came in. He was reading a
+book of some kind which seemed to amuse him. It was a little book. He
+finally turned to us and said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, did you ever read anything from "Artemus Ward?" Let me read
+you a chapter that is very funny.'
+
+"Not a member of the Cabinet smiled; as for myself, I was angry, and
+looked to see what the President meant. It seemed to me like buffoonery.
+He, however, concluded to read us a chapter from 'Artemus Ward,' which
+he did with great deliberation. Having finished, he laughed heartily,
+without a member of the Cabinet joining in the laughter.
+
+"'Well,' he said, 'let's have another chapter.'
+
+"I was considering whether I should rise and leave the meeting abruptly,
+when he threw the book down, heaved a long sigh, and said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon
+me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die, and you need this
+medicine as much as I do.'
+
+"He then put his hand in his tall hat that sat upon the table, and
+pulled out a little paper. Turning to the members of the Cabinet, he
+said:
+
+"'Gentlemen, I have called you here upon very important business. I have
+prepared a little paper of much significance. I have made up my mind
+that this paper is to issue; that the time is come when it should issue;
+that the people are ready for it to issue.
+
+"'It is due to my Cabinet that you should be the first to hear and know
+of it, and if any of you have any suggestions to make as to the form of
+this paper or its composition, I shall be glad to hear them. But the
+paper is to issue.'
+
+"And, to my astonishment, he read the Emancipation Proclamation of that
+date, which was to take effect the first of January following."
+
+Secretary Stanton continued: "I have always tried to be calm, but I
+think I lost my calmness for a moment, and with great enthusiasm I
+arose, approached the President, extended my hand and said:
+
+"'Mr. President, if the reading of chapters of "Artemus Ward" is a
+prelude to such a deed as this, the book should be filed among the
+archives of the nation, and the author should be canonized. Henceforth I
+see the light and the country is saved.'
+
+"And all said 'Amen!'
+
+"And Lincoln said to me in a droll way, just as I was leaving, 'Stanton,
+it would have been too early last Spring.'
+
+"And as I look back upon it, I think the President was right."
+
+It was a fitting fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence, which
+proclaimed that:
+
+"All men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with
+certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the
+pursuit of happiness."
+
+That Declaration young Abe Lincoln first read in the Gentryville
+constable's copy of the "Statutes of Indiana."
+
+At noon on the first of January, 1863, William H. Seward, Secretary of
+State, with his son Frederick, called at the White House with the
+Emancipation document to be signed by the President. It was just after
+the regular New Year's Day reception.
+
+Mr. Lincoln seated himself at his table, took up the pen, dipped it in
+the ink, held the pen a moment, then laid it down. After waiting a while
+he went through the same movements as before. Turning to his Secretary
+of State, he said, to explain his hesitation:
+
+"I have been shaking hands since nine o'clock this morning, and my arm
+is almost paralyzed. If my name ever goes into history, it will be for
+this act, and my whole soul is in it. If my hand trembles when I sign
+the Proclamation, all who examine the document hereafter will say:
+
+"'He hesitated.'"
+
+Turning back to the table, he took the pen again and wrote, deliberately
+and firmly, the "Abraham Lincoln" with which the world is now familiar.
+Looking up at the Sewards, father and son, he smiled and said, with a
+sigh of relief:
+
+"_That will do!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE GLORY OF GETTYSBURG
+
+
+THE BATTLE
+
+The Battle of Gettysburg, which raged through July 1st, 2nd and 3d,
+1863, was called the "high water mark" of the Civil War, and one of the
+"fifteen decisive battles" of history. It was decisive because General
+Robert E. Lee, with his brave army, was driven back from Gettysburg,
+Pennsylvania. If Lee had been victorious there, he might have destroyed
+Philadelphia and New York. By such a brilliant stroke he could have
+surrounded and captured Baltimore and Washington. This would have
+changed the grand result of the war.
+
+In point of numbers, bravery and genius, the battle of Gettysburg was
+the greatest that had ever been fought up to that time. Glorious as this
+was, the greatest glory of Gettysburg lay in the experiences and
+utterances of one man, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
+of America.
+
+It came at a terrible time in the progress of the war, when everything
+seemed to be going against the Union. There had been four disastrous
+defeats--twice at Bull Run, followed by Fredericksburg and
+Chancellorsville. Even the battle of Antietam, accounted victory enough
+for the President to issue his Emancipation Proclamation, proved to be a
+drawn battle, with terrific losses on both sides. Lee was driven back
+from Maryland then, it is true, but he soon won the great battles of
+Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and had made his way north into
+Pennsylvania.
+
+The night after the battle of Chancellorsville (fought May 2nd and 3d,
+1863), was the darkest in the history of the Civil War. President
+Lincoln walked the floor the whole night long, crying out in his
+anguish, "O what will the country say!"
+
+To fill the decimated ranks of the army, the Government had resorted to
+the draft, which roused great opposition in the North and provoked
+foolish, unreasoning riots in New York City.
+
+After winning the battle of Gettysburg, which the President hoped would
+end the war, General Meade, instead of announcing that he had captured
+the Confederate army, stated that he had "driven the invaders from our
+soil." Mr. Lincoln fell on his knees and, covering his face with his
+great, strong hands, cried out in tones of agony:
+
+"'Driven the invaders from our soil!' My God, is that all?"
+
+But Lincoln's spirits were bound to rise. Believing he was "on God's
+side," he felt that the cause of Right could not lose, for the Lord
+would save His own.
+
+The next day, July 4th, 1863, came the surrender of Vicksburg, the
+stronghold of the great West. Chastened joy began to cover his gaunt and
+pallid features, and the light of hope shone again in his deep, gray
+eyes.
+
+Calling on General Sickles, in a Washington hospital--for the general
+had lost a leg on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg--the
+President was asked why he believed that victory would be given the
+Federal forces at Gettysburg.
+
+"I will tell you how it was. In the pinch of your campaign up there,
+when everybody seemed panic-stricken, and nobody could tell what was
+going to happen, I went to my room one day and locked the door, and got
+down on my knees before Almighty God, and prayed to him mightily for
+victory at Gettysburg. I told Him this was His war, and our cause His
+cause, but that we couldn't stand another Fredericksburg or
+Chancellorsville. And I then and there made a solemn vow to Almighty God
+that if He would stand by our boys at Gettysburg, I would stand by Him.
+And He _did_, and I _will_!"
+
+The President's call on General Sickles was on the Sunday after the
+three-days' battle of Gettysburg, before the arrival of the gunboat at
+Cairo, Illinois, with the glad tidings from Vicksburg, which added new
+luster to the patriotic joy of Independence Day. The telegraph wires had
+been so generally cut on all sides of Vicksburg that the news was sent
+to Cairo and telegraphed to Washington. In proof that his faith even
+included the Mississippi blockade he went on:
+
+"Besides, I have been praying over Vicksburg also, and believe our
+Heavenly Father is going to give us victory there, too, because we need
+it, in order to bisect the Confederacy, and let 'the Father of Waters
+flow unvexed to the sea.'"
+
+
+THE ADDRESS
+
+Not long after the conflict at Gettysburg a movement was on foot to
+devote a large part of that battle-ground to a national cemetery.
+
+The Hon. Edward Everett, prominent in national and educational affairs,
+and the greatest living orator, was invited to deliver the grand
+oration. The President was asked, if he could, to come and make a few
+dedicatory remarks, but Mr. Everett was to be the chief speaker of the
+occasion.
+
+The Sunday before the 19th of November, 1863, the date of the
+dedication, the President went with his friend Noah Brooks to Gardner's
+gallery, in Washington, where he had promised to sit for his photograph.
+While there he showed Mr. Brooks a proof of Everett's oration which had
+been sent to him. As this printed address covered two newspaper pages,
+Mr. Lincoln struck an attitude and quoted from a speech by Daniel
+Webster:
+
+"Solid men of Boston, make no long orations!" and burst out laughing.
+When Mr. Brooks asked about _his_ speech for that occasion, Mr. Lincoln
+replied: "I've got it written, but not licked into shape yet. It's
+short, _short_, SHORT!"
+
+During the forenoon of the 18th, Secretary John Hay was anxious lest the
+President be late for the special Presidential train, which was to leave
+at noon for Gettysburg.
+
+"Don't worry, John," said Mr. Lincoln. "I'm like the man who was going
+to be hung, and saw the crowds pushing and hurrying past the cart in
+which he was being taken to the place of execution. He called out to
+them: 'Don't hurry, boys. There won't be anything going on till I get
+there!'"
+
+When the train stopped, on the way to Gettysburg, a little girl on the
+platform held up a bouquet to Mr. Lincoln, lisping: "Flowerth for the
+Prethident."
+
+He reached out, took her up and kissed her, saying:
+
+"You're a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into
+perpetual beauty and goodness."
+
+About noon on the 19th of November, the distinguished party arrived in a
+procession and took seats on the platform erected for the exercises. The
+President was seated in a rocking-chair placed there for him. There
+were fifteen thousand people waiting, some of whom had been standing in
+the sun for hours. It was a warm day and a Quaker woman near the
+platform fainted. An alarm was given and the unconscious woman was in
+danger of being crushed.
+
+The President sprang to the edge of the staging and called out:
+
+"Here, let me get hold of that lady."
+
+With a firm, strong grasp he extricated her from the crush and seated
+her in his rocking-chair. When that modest woman "came to," she saw
+fifteen thousand pairs of eyes watching her while the President of the
+United States was fanning her tenderly.
+
+This was too much for her. She gasped:
+
+"I feel--better--now. I want to go--back to--my husband!"
+
+"Now, my dear lady," said Mr. Lincoln. "You are all right here. I had an
+awful time pulling you up out of there, and I couldn't stick you back
+again!"
+
+A youth who stood near the platform in front of the President says that,
+while Mr. Everett was orating, Mr. Lincoln took his "little speech," as
+he called it, out of his pocket, and conned it over like a schoolboy
+with a half-learned lesson. The President had put the finishing touches
+on it that morning. As it was expected that the President would make a
+few offhand remarks, no one seems to have noticed its simple grandeur
+until it was printed in the newspapers.
+
+Yet Mr. Lincoln was interrupted four or five times during the two
+minutes by applause. The fact that the President was speaking was
+sufficient, no matter what he said. The people would have applauded
+Abraham Lincoln if he had merely recited the multiplication table! When
+he finished, they gave "three times three cheers" for the President of
+the United States, and three cheers for each of the State Governors
+present.
+
+That afternoon there was a patriotic service in one of the churches
+which the President decided to attend. Taking Secretary Seward with him,
+he called on an old cobbler named John Burns, of whose courage in the
+battle of Gettysburg Mr. Lincoln had just heard. Those who planned the
+dedication did not think the poor cobbler was of much account. The old
+hero, now known through Bret Harte's poem, "John Burns of Gettysburg,"
+had the pride and joy of having all the village and visitors see him
+march to the church between President Lincoln and Secretary Seward. This
+simple act was "just like Lincoln!" He honored Gettysburg in thus
+honoring one of its humblest citizens. It was Abraham Lincoln's tribute
+to the patriotism of the dear "common people" whom he said "God must
+love."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"NO END OF A BOY"
+
+
+"THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN" would be incomplete without some
+insight into the perfect boyishness of the President of the United
+States. When the cares of State and the horrors of war had made his
+homely yet beautiful face pallid and seamed, till it became a sensitive
+map of the Civil War, it was said that the only times the President was
+ever happy were when he was playing with little Tad.
+
+He used to carry the boy on his shoulder or "pick-a-back," cantering
+through the spacious rooms of the Executive Mansion, both yelling like
+Comanches. The little boy was lonely after Willie died, and the father's
+heart yearned over the only boy left at home, for Robert was at Harvard
+until near the close of the war, when he went to the front as an aide to
+General Grant. So little Tad was his father's most constant companion
+and the President became the boy's only playfellow. Mr. Lincoln, with a
+heart as full of faith as a little child's, had always lived in deep
+sympathy with the children, and this feeling was intensified toward his
+own offspring.
+
+When Abe Lincoln was living in New Salem he distinguished himself by
+caring for the little children--a thing beneath the dignity of the other
+young men of the settlement.
+
+Hannah Armstrong, wife of the Clary's Grove bully, whom Abe had to
+"lick" to a finish in order to establish himself on a solid basis in New
+Salem society, told how friendly their relations became after the
+thrashing he gave her husband:
+
+"Abe would come to our house, drink milk, eat mush, cornbread and
+butter, bring the children candy and rock the cradle." (This seemed a
+strange thing to her.) "He would nurse babies--do anything to
+accommodate anybody."
+
+
+HOW HE REPAID THE ARMSTRONGS' KINDNESS
+
+The Armstrong baby, Willie, grew to be a youth of wrong habits, and was
+nicknamed "Duff." He was drawn, one afternoon, into a bad quarrel with
+another rough young man, named Metzker, who was brutally beaten. In the
+evening a vicious young man, named Morris, joined the row and the lad
+was struck on the head and died without telling who had dealt the fatal
+blow. The blame was thrown upon "Duff" Armstrong, who was arrested.
+Illinois law preventing him from testifying in his own behalf.
+
+When Lawyer Lincoln heard of the case, he wrote as follows:
+
+
+                      "SPRINGFIELD, ILL., September, 1857.
+
+        "DEAR MRS. ARMSTRONG:
+
+        "I have just heard of your deep affliction, and
+        the arrest of your son for murder.
+
+        "I can hardly believe that he can be capable of
+        the crime alleged against him.
+
+        "It does not seem possible. I am anxious that
+        he should be given a fair trial, at any rate;
+        and gratitude for your long-continued kindness
+        to me in adverse circumstances prompts me to
+        offer my humble services gratuitously in his
+        behalf.
+
+        "It will afford me an opportunity to requite,
+        in a small degree, the favors I received at
+        your hand, and that of your lamented husband,
+        when your roof afforded me a grateful shelter,
+        without money and without price.
+
+                                    "Yours truly,
+                                           "A. LINCOLN."
+
+The feeling in the neighborhood where the crime was committed was so
+intense that it was decided that it must be taken over to the next
+county to secure a fair trial. Lawyer Lincoln was on hand to defend the
+son of his old friend.
+
+Besides those who testified to the bad character of the young prisoner,
+one witness, named Allen, testified that he saw "Duff" Armstrong strike
+the blow which killed Metzker.
+
+"Couldn't you be mistaken about this?" asked Mr. Lincoln. "What time did
+you see it?"
+
+"Between nine and ten o'clock that night."
+
+"Are you certain that you saw the prisoner strike the blow?--Be
+careful--remember--you are under oath!"
+
+"I am sure. There is no doubt about it."
+
+"But wasn't it dark at that hour?"
+
+"No, the moon was shining bright."
+
+"Then you say there was a moon and it was not dark."
+
+"Yes, it was light enough for me to see him hit Metzker on the head."
+
+"Now I want you to be very careful. I understand you to say the murder
+was committed about half past nine o'clock, and there was a bright moon
+at the time?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the witness positively.
+
+"Very well. That is all."
+
+Then Lawyer Lincoln produced an almanac showing that there was no moon
+that night till the early hours of the morning.
+
+"This witness has perjured himself," he said, "and his whole story is a
+lie."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Duff" Armstrong was promptly acquitted. The tears of that widowed
+mother and the gratitude of the boy he had rocked were the best sort of
+pay to Lawyer Lincoln for an act of kindness and life-saving.
+
+
+"JUST WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH THE WHOLE WORLD!"
+
+A Springfield neighbor used to say that it was almost a habit with Mr.
+Lincoln to carry his children about on his shoulders. Indeed, the man
+said he seldom saw the tall lawyer go by without one or both boys
+perched on high or tugging at the tails of his long coat. This neighbor
+relates that he was attracted to the door of his own house one day by a
+great noise of crying children, and saw Mr. Lincoln passing with the two
+boys in their usual position, and both were howling lustily.
+
+"Why, Mr. Lincoln, what's the matter?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+"Just what's the matter with the whole world," the lawyer replied
+coolly. "I've got three walnuts, and each wants two."
+
+
+THE "BUCKING" CHESS BOARD
+
+Several years later Judge Treat, of Springfield was playing chess with
+Mr. Lincoln in his law office when Tad came in to call his father to
+supper. The boy, impatient at the delay of the slow and silent game,
+tried to break it up by a flank movement against the chess board, but
+the attacks were warded off, each time, by his father's long arms.
+
+The child disappeared, and when the two players had begun to believe
+they were to be permitted to end the game in peace, the table suddenly
+"bucked" and the board and chessmen were sent flying all over the floor.
+
+Judge Treat was much vexed, and expressed impatience, not hesitating to
+tell Mr. Lincoln that the boy ought to be punished severely.
+
+Mr. Lincoln replied, as he gently took down his hat to go home to
+supper:
+
+"Considering the position of your pieces, judge, at the time of the
+upheaval, I think you have no reason to complain."
+
+
+WHEN TAD GOT A SPANKING
+
+Yet, indulgent as he was, there were some things Mr. Lincoln would not
+allow even his youngest child to do. An observer who saw the
+President-elect and his family in their train on the way to Washington
+to take the helm of State, relates that little Tad amused himself by
+raising the car window an inch or two and trying, by shutting it down
+suddenly, to catch the fingers of the curious boys outside who were
+holding themselves up by their hands on the window sill of the car to
+catch sight of the new President and his family.
+
+The President-elect, who had to go out to the platform to make a little
+speech to a crowd at nearly every stop, noticed Tad's attempts to pinch
+the boys' fingers. He spoke sharply to his son and commanded him to stop
+that. Tad obeyed for a time, but his father, catching him at the same
+trick again, leaned over, and taking the little fellow across his knee,
+gave him a good, sound spanking, exclaiming as he did so:
+
+"Why do you want to mash those boys' fingers?"
+
+
+THE TRUE STORY OF BOB'S LOSING THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS
+
+Mr. Lincoln was always lenient when the offense was against himself. The
+Hon. Robert Todd Lincoln, the only living son of the great President,
+tells how the satchel containing his father's inaugural address was lost
+for a time. Some writers have related the story of this loss, stating
+that it all happened at Harrisburg, and telling how the President-elect
+discovered a bag like his own, and on opening it found only a pack of
+greasy cards, a bottle of whisky and a soiled paper collar. Also that
+Mr. Lincoln was "reminded" of a cheap, ill-fitting story--but none of
+these things really took place.
+
+Here is the true story, as related to the writer by Robert Lincoln
+himself:
+
+"My father had confided to me the care of the satchel containing his
+inaugural address. It was lost for a little while during the stay of our
+party at the old Bates House in Indianapolis. When we entered the hotel
+I set the bag down with the other luggage, which was all removed to a
+room back of the clerk's desk.
+
+"As soon as I missed the valise I went right to father, in great
+distress of mind. He ordered a search made. We were naturally much
+alarmed, for it was the only copy he had of his inaugural address, which
+he had carefully written before leaving Springfield. Of course, he added
+certain parts after reaching Washington. The missing bag was soon found
+in a safe place.
+
+"Instead of taking out the precious manuscript and stuffing it into his
+own pocket, father handed it right back to me, saying:
+
+"'There, Bob, see if you can't take better care of it this time'--and
+you may be sure I was true to the trust he placed in me. Why, I hardly
+let that precious gripsack get out of my sight during my waking hours
+all the rest of the long roundabout journey to Washington."
+
+
+THE TERRIBLE LONELINESS AFTER WILLIE DIED
+
+The death of Willie, who was nearly three years older than Tad, early in
+1862, during their first year in the White House, nearly broke his
+father's heart. It was said that Mr. Lincoln never recovered from that
+bereavement. It made him yearn the more tenderly over his youngest son
+who sadly missed the brother who had been his constant companion.
+
+It was natural for a lad who was so much indulged to take advantage of
+his freedom. Tad had a slight impediment in his speech which made the
+street urchins laugh at him, and even cabinet members, because they
+could not understand him, considered him a little nuisance. So Tad,
+though known as "the child of the nation," and greatly beloved and
+petted by those who knew him for a lovable affectionate child, found
+himself alone in a class by himself, and against all classes of people.
+
+
+TURNING THE HOSE ON HIGH OFFICIALS
+
+He illustrated this spirit one day by getting hold of the hose and
+turning it on some dignified State officials, several army officers, and
+finally on a soldier on guard who was ordered to charge and take
+possession of that water battery. Although that little escapade appealed
+to the President's sense of humor, for he himself liked nothing better
+than to take generals and pompous officials down "a peg or two," Tad got
+well spanked for the havoc he wrought that day.
+
+
+BREAKING INTO A CABINET MEETING
+
+The members of the President's cabinet had reason to be annoyed by the
+boy's frequent interruptions. He seemed to have the right of way
+wherever his father happened to be. No matter if Senator Sumner or
+Secretary Stanton was discussing some weighty matter of State or war, if
+Tad came in, his father turned from the men of high estate to minister
+to the wants of his little boy. He did it to get rid of him, for of
+course he knew Tad would raise such a racket that no one could talk or
+think till _his_ wants were disposed of.
+
+
+AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ON THE COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT FOR TAD AND HIS BOY
+FRIENDS
+
+A story is told of the boy's interruption of a council of war. This
+habit of Tad's enraged Secretary Stanton, whose horror of the boy was
+similar to that of an elephant for a mouse. The President was giving his
+opinion on a certain piece of strategy which he thought the general in
+question might carry out--when a great noise was heard out in the hall,
+followed by a number of sharp raps on the door of the cabinet room.
+
+Strategy, war, everything was, for the moment forgotten by the
+President, whose wan face assumed an expression of unusual pleasure,
+while he gathered up his great, weary length from different parts of the
+room as he had half lain, sprawling about, across and around his chair
+and the great table.
+
+"That's Tad," he exclaimed, "I wonder what that boy wants now." On his
+way to open the door, Mr. Lincoln explained that those knocks had just
+been adopted by the boy and himself, as part of the telegraph system,
+and that he was obliged to let the lad in--"for it wouldn't do to go
+back on the code now," he added, half in apology for permitting such a
+sudden break in their deliberations.
+
+When the door was opened, Tad, with flushed face and sparkling eyes,
+sprang in and threw his arms around his father's neck. The President
+straightened up and embraced the boy with an expression of happiness
+never seen on his face except while playing with his little son.
+
+Mr. Lincoln turned, with the boy still in his arms, to explain that he
+and Tad had agreed upon this telegraphic code to prevent the lad from
+bursting in upon them without warning. The members of the cabinet looked
+puzzled or disgusted, as though they failed to see that several
+startling raps could be any better than having Tad break in with a whoop
+or a wail, as had been the boy's custom.
+
+
+ISSUING THE EXECUTIVE ORDER ON PETER FOR PIE
+
+The boy raised a question of right. He had besieged Peter, the colored
+steward, demanding that a dinner be served to several urchins he had
+picked up outside--two of whom were sons of soldiers. Peter had
+protested that he "had other fish to fry" just then.
+
+The President recognized at once that this was a case for diplomacy.
+Turning to various members of the cabinet, he called on each to
+contribute from his store of wisdom, what would be best to do in a case
+of such vast importance. Tad looked on in wonder as his father set the
+great machinery of government in motion to make out a commissary order
+on black Peter, which would force that astonished servant to deliver
+certain pieces of pie and other desired eatables to Tad, for himself and
+his boy friends.
+
+At last an "order" was prepared by the Chief Executive of the United
+States directing "The Commissary Department of the Presidential
+Residence to issue rations to Lieutenant Tad Lincoln and his five
+associates, two of whom are the sons of soldiers in the Army of the
+Potomac."
+
+With an expression of deep gravity and a solemn flourish, the President
+tendered this Commissary Order to the lieutenant, his son, saying as he
+presented the document:
+
+"I reckon Peter will _have_ to come to time now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LIEUTENANT TAD LINCOLN, PATRIOT
+
+
+There was no more sturdy little patriot in the whole country than
+Lieutenant Tad Lincoln, "the child of the nation," nor had the President
+of the United States a more devoted admirer and follower than his own
+small son. A word from his father would melt the lad to tears and
+submission, or bring him out of a nervous tantrum with his small round
+face wreathed with smiles, and a chuckling in his throat of "Papa-day,
+my papa-day!" No one knew exactly what the boy meant by papa-day. It was
+his pet name for the dearest man on earth, and it was his only way of
+expressing the greatest pleasure his boyish heart was able to hold. It
+was the "sweetest word ever heard" by the war-burdened, crushed and
+sorrowing soul of the broken-hearted President of the United States.
+
+Mr. Lincoln took his youngest son with him everywhere--on his great
+mission to Fortress Monroe, and they--"the long and the short of it,"
+the soldiers said--marched hand in hand through the streets of fallen
+Richmond. The understanding between the man and the boy was so complete
+and sacred, that some acts which seemed to outsiders absurd and
+ill-fitting, became perfectly right and proper when certain unknown
+facts were taken into account.
+
+
+WAVING THE "STARS AND BARS" OUT OF A WHITE HOUSE WINDOW
+
+For instance, one night, during an enthusiastic serenade at the White
+House, after a great victory of the northern armies, when the President
+had been out and made a happy speech in response to the congratulations
+he had received, everybody was horrified to see the Confederate "Stars
+and Bars" waving frantically from an upper window with shouts followed
+by shrieks as old Edward, the faithful colored servant, pulled in the
+flag and the boy who was guilty of the mischief.
+
+"That was little Tad!" exclaimed some one in the crowd. Many laughed,
+but some spectators thought the boy ought to be punished for such a
+treasonable outbreak on the part of a President's boy in a soldier's
+uniform.
+
+"If he don't know any better than that," said one man, "he should be
+taught better. It's an insult to the North and the President ought to
+stop it and apologize, too."
+
+
+"BOYS IN BLUE" AND "BOYS IN GRAY"
+
+But little Tad understood his father's spirit better than the crowd did.
+He knew that the President's love was not confined to "the Boys in
+Blue," but that his heart went out also to "the Boys in Gray." The
+soldiers were all "boys" to him. They knew he loved them. They said
+among themselves: "He cares for us. He takes our part. We will fight for
+him; yes, we will die for him."
+
+And a large part of the common soldier's patriotism was this
+heart-response of "the boys" to the great "boy" in the White House. That
+was the meaning of their song as they trooped to the front at his call:
+
+        "We are coming, Father Abraham;
+         Three hundred thousand more."
+
+Little Tad saw plenty of evidences of his father's love for the younger
+soldiers--the real boys of the army. Going always with the President, he
+had heard his "Papa-day" say of several youths condemned to be shot for
+sleeping at their post or some like offense:
+
+"That boy is worth more above ground than under;" or, "A live boy can
+serve his country better than a dead one."
+
+"Give the boys a chance," was Abraham Lincoln's motto. He hadn't had
+much of a chance himself and he wanted all other boys to have a fair
+show. His own father had been too hard with him, and he was going to
+make it up to all the other boys he could reach. This passion for doing
+good to others began in the log cabin when he had no idea he could ever
+be exercising his loving kindness in the Executive Mansion--the Home of
+the Nation. "With malice toward none, with charity for all," was the
+rule of his life in the backwoods as well as in the National Capital.
+
+And "the Boys in Gray" were his "boys," too, but they didn't understand,
+so they had wandered away--they were a little wayward, but he would win
+them back. The great chivalrous South has learned, since those bitter,
+ruinous days, that Abraham Lincoln was the best friend the South then
+had in the North. Tad had seen his father show great tenderness to all
+the "boys" he met in the gray uniform, but the President had few
+opportunities to show his tenderness to the South--though there was a
+secret pigeonhole in his desk stuffed full of threats of assassination.
+He was not afraid of death--indeed, he was glad to die if it would do
+his "boys" and the country any good. But it hurt him deep in his heart
+to know that some of his beloved children misunderstood him so that they
+were willing to kill him!
+
+It was no one's bullet which made Abraham Lincoln a martyr. All his life
+he had shown the spirit of love which was willing to give his very life
+if it could save or help others.
+
+All these things little Tad could not have explained, but they were
+inbred into the deep understanding of the big father and the small son
+who were living in the White House as boys together.
+
+
+MR. LINCOLN'S LAST SPEECH AND HOW TAD HELPED
+
+A few days after the war ended at Appomattox, a great crowd came to the
+White House to serenade the President. It was Tuesday evening, April 11,
+1865. Mr. Lincoln had written a short address for the occasion. The
+times were so out of joint and every word was so important that the
+President could not trust himself to speak off-hand.
+
+A friend stepped out on the northern portico with him to hold the candle
+by which Mr. Lincoln was to read his speech. Little Tad was with his
+father, as usual, and when the President had finished reading a page of
+his manuscript he let it flutter down, like a leaf, or a big white
+butterfly, for Tad to catch. When the pages came too slowly the boy
+pulled his father's coat-tail, piping up in a muffled, excited tone:
+
+"Give me 'nother paper, Papa-day."
+
+To the few in the front of the crowd who witnessed this little by-play
+it seemed ridiculous that the President of the United States should
+allow any child to behave like that and hamper him while delivering a
+great address which would wield a national, if not world-wide influence.
+But little Tad did not trouble his father in the least. It was a part of
+the little game they were constantly playing together.
+
+The address opened with these words:
+
+        "FELLOW-CITIZENS: We meet this evening not in
+        sorrow, but gladness of heart. The evacuation
+        of Petersburg and Richmond, and the surrender
+        of the principal insurgent army (at Appomattox)
+        give hope of a righteous and speedy peace whose
+        joyous expression cannot be restrained. In the
+        midst of this, however, He from whom all
+        blessings flow must not be forgotten. A call
+        for national thanksgiving is being prepared and
+        will be duly promulgated."
+
+
+"GIVE US 'DIXIE,' BOYS!"
+
+Then he went on outlining a policy of peace and friendship toward the
+South--showing a spirit far higher and more advanced than that of the
+listening crowd. On concluding his address and bidding the assembled
+multitude good night, he turned to the serenading band and shouted
+joyously:
+
+"Give us 'Dixie,' boys; play 'Dixie.' We have a right to that tune now."
+
+There was a moment of silence. Some of the people gasped, as they had
+done when they saw Tad waving the Confederate flag at the window. But
+the band, loyal even to a mere whim (as they then thought it) of "Father
+Abraham," started the long-forbidden tune, and the President, bowing,
+retired, with little Tad, within the White House. Those words, "Give us
+'Dixie,' boys," were President Lincoln's last public utterance.
+
+As Mr. Lincoln came in through the door after speaking to the crowd,
+Mrs. Lincoln--who had been, with a group of friends, looking on from
+within--exclaimed to him:
+
+"You must not be so careless. Some one could easily have shot you while
+you were speaking there--and you know they are threatening your life!"
+
+The President smiled at his wife, through a look of inexpressible pain
+and sadness, and shrugged his great shoulders, but "still he answered
+not a word."
+
+
+THE SEPARATION OF THE TWO "BOYS"
+
+At a late hour Good Friday night, that same week, little Tad came in
+alone at a basement door of the White House from the National Theater,
+where he knew the manager, and some of the company, had made a great pet
+of him. He had often gone there alone or with his tutor. How he had
+heard the terrible news from Ford's Theater is not known, but he came up
+the lower stairway with heartrending cries like a wounded animal.
+Seeing Thomas Pendel, the faithful doorkeeper, he wailed from his
+breaking heart:
+
+"Tom Pen, Tom Pen, they have killed Papa-day! They have killed my
+Papa-day!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the funeral the little fellow was more lonely than ever. It was
+hard to have his pony burned up in the stable. It was harder still to
+lose Brother Willie, his constant companion, and now his mother was
+desperately ill, and his father had been killed. Tad, of course, could
+not comprehend why any one could be so cruel and wicked as to wish to
+murder his darling Papa-day, who loved every one so!
+
+He wandered through the empty rooms, aching with loneliness, murmuring
+softly to himself:
+
+"Papa-day, where's my Papa-day. I'm tired--tired of playing alone. I
+want to play together. Please, Papa-day, come back and play with your
+little Tad."
+
+Young though he was he could not sleep long at night. His sense of
+loneliness penetrated his dreams. Sometimes he would chuckle and gurgle
+in an ecstacy, as he had done when riding on his father's back, romping
+through the stately rooms. He would throw his arm about the neck of the
+doorkeeper or lifeguard who had lain down beside him to console the boy
+and try to get him to sleep. When the man spoke to comfort him, Tad
+would find out his terrible mistake, that his father was not with him.
+
+Then he would wail again in the bitterness of his disappointment:
+
+"Papa-day, where's my Papa-day?"
+
+"Your papa's gone 'way off"--said his companion, his voice breaking with
+emotion--"gone to heaven."
+
+Tad opened his eyes wide with wonder. "Is Papa-day happy in heaven?" he
+asked eagerly.
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm sure he's happy there, Taddie dear; now go to sleep."
+
+"Papa-day's happy. I'm glad--_so_ glad!"--sighed the little boy--"for
+Papa-day never was happy here."
+
+Then he fell into his first sweet sleep since that terrible night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+"GIVE THE BOYS A CHANCE"
+
+The fond-hearted little fellow went abroad with his mother a few years
+after the tragedy that broke both their lives. By a surgical operation,
+and by struggling manfully, he had corrected the imperfection in his
+speech. But the heart of little Tad had been broken. While still a lad
+he joined his fond father in the Beyond.
+
+"Give the boys a chance," had amounted to a passion with Abraham
+Lincoln, yet through great wickedness and sad misunderstandings his own
+little son was robbed of this great boon. Little Tad had been denied the
+one chance he sorely needed for his very existence. For this, as for all
+the inequities the great heart of the White House was prepared. His
+spirit had shone through his whole life as if in letters of living fire:
+
+"With malice toward none; with charity for all."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+ALTEMUS BOOKS
+
+        The Best and Least Expensive Books
+        for Twentieth Century Boys and Girls
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR BOYS
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Dick Prescott, Dan Dalzell, Tom Reade, and the other members of Dick &
+Co. are always found in the forefront of things--in scholarship,
+athletics, and in school-boy fun. Small wonder that this series has made
+such a hit with the boys of America.
+
+        1. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS OF GRIDLEY; or, Dick
+        and Co. Start Things Moving.
+
+        2. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS SNOWBOUND; or, Dick
+        and Co. at Winter Sports.
+
+        3. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS IN THE WOODS; or,
+        Dick and Co. Trail Fun and Knowledge.
+
+        4. THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL BOYS IN SUMMER ATHLETICS;
+        or, Dick and Co. Make Their Fame Secure.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+This series of stories, based on the actual doings of High School boys,
+teems with incidents in athletics and school-boy fun. The real
+Americanism of Dick Prescott and his chums will excite the admiration of
+every reader.
+
+        1. THE HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMEN; or, Dick and Co.'s
+        First Year Pranks and Sports.
+
+        2. THE HIGH SCHOOL PITCHER; or, Dick and Co. on
+        the Gridley Diamond.
+
+        3. THE HIGH SCHOOL LEFT END; or, Dick and Co.
+        Grilling on the Football Gridiron.
+
+        4. THE HIGH SCHOOL CAPTAIN OF THE TEAM; or,
+        Dick and Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard.
+
+        Sold by all Booksellers or Sent Postpaid on
+        Receipt of Price.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
+        1326-1336 Vine Street,              PHILADELPHIA, PA.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS VACATION SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Outdoor sports are the keynote of these volumes. Boys will alternately
+thrill and chuckle over these splendid narratives of the further
+adventures of Dick Prescott and his chums.
+
+        1. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' CANOE CLUB; or, Dick
+        and Co.'s Rivals on Lake Pleasant.
+
+        2. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS IN SUMMER CAMP; or, The
+        Dick Prescott Six Training for the Gridley
+        Eleven.
+
+        3. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' FISHING TRIP; or, Dick
+        and Co. in the Wilderness.
+
+        4. THE HIGH SCHOOL BOYS' TRAINING HIKE; or,
+        Dick and Co. Making Themselves "Hard as Nails."
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG ENGINEERS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton meet every requirement as young civil
+engineers with pick, shovel, and pluck, and with resourcefulness and
+determination overcome all obstacles.
+
+        1. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN COLORADO; or, At
+        Railroad Building in Earnest.
+
+        2. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN ARIZONA; or, Laying
+        Tracks on the "Man-Killer" Quicksand.
+
+        3. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN NEVADA; or, Seeking
+        Fortune on the Turn of a Pick.
+
+        4. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN MEXICO; or, Fighting
+        the Mine Swindlers.
+
+        5. THE YOUNG ENGINEERS ON THE GULF; or, The
+        Dread Mystery of the Million-Dollar Breakwater.
+
+
+
+
+THE ANNAPOLIS SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell proved their mettle at the U. S. Naval
+Academy and gave promise of what might be expected of them in the great
+war that was even at that moment hovering over the world.
+
+        1. DAVE DARRIN'S FIRST YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Two Plebe Midshipmen at the U. S. Naval
+        Academy.
+
+        2. DAVE DARRIN'S SECOND YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters."
+
+        3. DAVE DARRIN'S THIRD YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen.
+
+        4. DAVE DARRIN'S FOURTH YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS; or,
+        Headed for Graduation and the Big Cruise.
+
+
+
+
+THE WEST POINT SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes are not human wonders, but a pair of
+average bright American boys who had a hard enough time working their
+way through West Point. Their experiences will inspire all other
+American boys.
+
+        1. DICK PRESCOTT'S FIRST YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Two Chums in the Cadet Gray.
+
+        2. DICK PRESCOTT'S SECOND YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life.
+
+        3. DICK PRESCOTT'S THIRD YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Standing Firm for Flag and Honor.
+
+        4. DICK PRESCOTT'S FOURTH YEAR AT WEST POINT;
+        or, Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps.
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLESHIP BOYS SERIES
+
+By FRANK GEE PATCHIN
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Inspiring adventure, moving incidents over the seven seas, and in the
+air above them; fighting the Huns from the decks of sinking ships, and
+coming to grief above the clouds; strange peoples and still stranger
+experiences, are some of the things that the readers of this series will
+live when they cruise with Dan Davis and Sam Hickey. Mr. Patchin has
+lived every phase of the life he writes about, and his stories truly
+depict life in the various branches of the navy--stories that glow with
+the spirit of patriotism that has made the American navy what it proved
+itself to be in the world war.
+
+        1. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS AT SEA; or, Two
+        Apprentices in Uncle Sam's Navy.
+
+        2. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS' FIRST STEP UPWARD; or,
+        Winning Their Grades as Petty Officers.
+
+        3. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN FOREIGN SERVICE; or,
+        Earning New Ratings in European Seas.
+
+        4. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN THE TROPICS; or,
+        Upholding the American Flag in a Honduras
+        Revolution.
+
+        5. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS UNDER FIRE; or, The Dash
+        for the Besieged Kam Shau Mission.
+
+        6. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS IN THE WARDROOM; or,
+        Winning Their Commissions as Line Officers.
+
+        7. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS WITH THE ADRIATIC
+        CHASERS; or, Blocking the Path of the Undersea
+        Raiders.
+
+        8. THE BATTLESHIP BOYS ON SKY PATROL; or,
+        Fighting the Hun from Above the Clouds.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOYS OF THE ARMY SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These stimulating stories are among the best of their class that have
+ever been written. They breathe the life and spirit of our army of
+today, and in which Uncle Sam's Boys fought with a courage and devotion
+excelled by none in the world war. There is no better way to instil
+patriotism in the coming generation than by placing in the hands of
+juvenile readers books in which a romantic atmosphere is thrown around
+the boys of the army with thrilling plots that boys love. The books of
+this series tell in story form the life of a soldier from the rookie
+stage until he has qualified for an officer's commission, and, among
+other things, present a true picture of the desperate days in fighting
+the Huns.
+
+        1. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE RANKS; or, Two
+        Recruits in the United States Army.
+
+        2. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON FIELD DUTY; or, Winning
+        Corporals' Chevrons.
+
+        3. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS SERGEANTS; or, Handling
+        Their First Real Commands.
+
+        4. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE PHILIPPINES; or,
+        Following the Flag Against the Moros.
+
+        5. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS ON THEIR METTLE; or, A
+        Chance to Win Officers' Commissions.
+
+        6. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS AS LIEUTENANTS; or, Serving
+        Old Glory as Line Officers.
+
+        7. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS WITH PERSHING; or, Dick
+        Prescott at Grips with the Boche.
+
+        8. UNCLE SAM'S BOYS SMASH THE GERMANS; or,
+        Helping the Allies Wind Up the Great World War.
+
+
+
+
+DAVE DARRIN SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No more efficient officers ever paced the deck of a man-o'-war than Dave
+Darrin and Dan Dalzell. The last two volumes chronicle the experiences
+of Dave and Dan in the great war.
+
+        1. DAVE DARRIN AT VERA CRUZ; or, Fighting With
+        the U. S. Navy in Mexico.
+
+        2. DAVE DARRIN ON MEDITERRANEAN SERVICE; or,
+        With Dan Dalzell on European Duty.
+
+        3. DAVE DARRIN'S SOUTH AMERICAN CRUISE; or, Two
+        Innocent Young Naval Tools of an Infamous
+        Conspiracy.
+
+        4. DAVE DARRIN ON THE ASIATIC STATION; or,
+        Winning Lieutenants' Commissions on the
+        Admiral's Flagship.
+
+        5. DAVE DARRIN AND THE GERMAN SUBMARINES; or,
+        Making a Clean-up of the Hun Sea Monsters.
+
+        6. DAVE DARRIN AFTER THE MINE LAYERS; or,
+        Hitting the Enemy a Hard Naval Blow.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+If the United States had not entered the war many things might have
+happened to America. No liberty-loving American boy can afford to miss
+reading these books.
+
+        1. THE INVASION OF THE UNITED STATES; or, Uncle
+        Sam's Boys at the Capture of Boston.
+
+        2. IN THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK; or, Uncle Sam's
+        Boys in the Desperate Struggle for the
+        Metropolis.
+
+        3. AT THE DEFENSE OF PITTSBURGH; or, The
+        Struggle to Save America's "Fighting Steel"
+        Supply.
+
+        4. MAKING THE LAST STAND FOR OLD GLORY; or,
+        Uncle Sam's Boys in the Last Frantic Drive.
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB SERIES
+
+By H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Bright and sparkling as the waters over which the Motor Boat Boys sail.
+Once cast off for a cruise with these hardy young fresh-water navigators
+the reader will not ask to be "put ashore" until the home port has
+finally been made. Manliness and pluck are reflected on every page; the
+plots are ingenious, the action swift, and the interest always tense.
+There is neither a yawn in a paragraph nor a dull moment in a chapter in
+this stirring series. No boy or girl will willingly lay down a volume of
+it until "the end." The stories also embody much useful information
+about the operation and handling of small power boats.
+
+        1. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OF THE KENNEBEC; or, The
+        Secret of Smugglers' Island.
+
+        2. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT NANTUCKET; or, The
+        Mystery of the Dunstan Heir.
+
+        3. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB OFF LONG ISLAND; or, A
+        Daring Marine Game at Racing Speed.
+
+        4. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AND THE WIRELESS; or,
+        The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise.
+
+        5. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB IN FLORIDA; or, Laying
+        the Ghost of Alligator Swamp.
+
+        6. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB AT THE GOLDEN GATE; or,
+        A Thrilling Capture in the Great Fog.
+
+        7. THE MOTOR BOAT CLUB ON THE GREAT LAKES; or,
+        The Flying Dutchman of the Big Fresh Water.
+
+
+
+
+THE SUBMARINE BOYS SERIES
+
+By VICTOR G. DURHAM
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A voyage in an undersea boat! What boy has not done so time and again in
+his youthful dreams? The Submarine Boys did it in reality, diving into
+the dark depths of the sea, then, like Father Neptune, rising dripping
+from the deep to sunlight and safety. Yet it was not all easy sailing
+for the Submarine Boys, for these hardy young "undersea pirates"
+experienced a full measure of excitement and had their share of thrills,
+as all who sail under the surface of the seas are certain to do. The
+author knows undersea boats, and the reader who voyages with him may
+look forward to an instructive as well as lively cruise.
+
+        1. THE SUBMARINE BOYS ON DUTY; or, Life on a
+        Diving Torpedo Boat.
+
+        2. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' TRIAL TRIP; or, "Making
+        Good" as Young Experts.
+
+        3. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE MIDDIES; or, The
+        Prize Detail at Annapolis.
+
+        4. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SPIES; or,
+        Dodging the Sharks of the Deep.
+
+        5. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' LIGHTNING CRUISE; or,
+        The Young Kings of the Deep.
+
+        6. THE SUBMARINE BOYS FOR THE FLAG; or, Deeding
+        Their Lives to Uncle Sam.
+
+        7. THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SMUGGLERS; or,
+        Breaking Up the New Jersey Customs Frauds.
+
+        8. THE SUBMARINE BOYS' SECRET MISSION; or,
+        Beating an Ambassador's Game.
+
+
+
+
+THE PONY RIDER BOYS SERIES
+
+By FRANK GEE PATCHIN
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This unusual and popular series tells vividly the story of four
+adventure-loving lads, who, with their guardian, spent their summer
+vacations in the saddle in search of recreation and healthful adventure.
+Long journeys over mountain, through the fastness of primitive forest
+and across burning desert, lead them into the wild places of their
+native land as well as into many strange and exciting experiences. There
+is not a dull moment in the series.
+
+        1. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ROCKIES; or, The
+        Secret of the Lost Claim.
+
+        2. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN TEXAS; or, The Veiled
+        Riddle of the Plains.
+
+        3. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN MONTANA; or, The
+        Mystery of the Old Custer Trail.
+
+        4. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE OZARKS; or, The
+        Secret of Ruby Mountain.
+
+        5. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE ALKALI; or,
+        Finding a Key to the Desert Maze.
+
+        6. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW MEXICO; or, The
+        End of the Silver Trail.
+
+        7. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN THE GRAND CANYON; or,
+        The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch.
+
+        8. THE PONY RIDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS;
+        or, On the Trail of the Border Bandits.
+
+        9. THE PONY RIDER BOYS ON THE BLUE RIDGE; or, A
+        Lucky Find in the Carolina Mountains.
+
+        10. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN NEW ENGLAND; or, An
+        Exciting Quest in the Maine Wilderness.
+
+        11. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN LOUISIANA; or,
+        Following the Game Trails in the Canebrake.
+
+        12. THE PONY RIDER BOYS IN ALASKA; or, The Gold
+        Diggers of Taku Pass.
+
+
+
+
+THE CIRCUS BOYS SERIES
+
+By EDGAR B. P. DARLINGTON
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+No call to the heart of the youth of America finds a readier response
+than the call of the billowing canvas, the big red wagons, the crash of
+the circus band and the trill of the ringmaster's whistle. It is a call
+that captures the imagination of old and young alike, and so do the
+books of this series capture and enthrall the reader, for they were
+written by one who, besides wielding a master pen, has followed the
+sawdust trail from coast to coast, who knows the circus people and the
+sturdy manliness of those who do and dare for the entertainment of
+millions of circus-goers when the grass is green. Mr. Darlington paints
+a true picture of the circus life.
+
+        1. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE FLYING RINGS; or,
+        Making the Start in the Sawdust Life.
+
+        2. THE CIRCUS BOYS ACROSS THE CONTINENT; or,
+        Winning New Laurels on the Tanbark.
+
+        3. THE CIRCUS BOYS IN DIXIE LAND; or, Winning
+        the Plaudits of the Sunny South.
+
+        4. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE MISSISSIPPI; or,
+        Afloat with the Big Show on the Big River.
+
+        5. THE CIRCUS BOYS ON THE PLAINS; or, The Young
+        Advance Agents Ahead of the Show.
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR GIRLS
+
+
+
+
+THE MADGE MORTON SERIES
+
+By AMY D. V. CHALMERS
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+The heroines of these stories are four girls, who with enthusiasm for
+outdoor life, transformed a dilapidated canal boat into a pretty
+floating summer home. They christened the craft "The Merry Maid" and
+launched it on the shore of Chesapeake Bay. The stories are full of fun
+and adventure, with not a dull moment anywhere.
+
+
+        1. MADGE MORTON--CAPTAIN OF THE MERRY MAID.
+        2. MADGE MORTON'S SECRET.
+        3. MADGE MORTON'S TRUST.
+        4. MADGE MORTON'S VICTORY.
+
+
+
+
+THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS SERIES
+
+By JANET ALDRIDGE
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Four clever girls go hiking around the country and meet with many
+thrilling and provoking adventures. These stories pulsate with the
+atmosphere of outdoor life.
+
+        1. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS UNDER CANVAS; or, Fun
+        and Frolic in the Summer Camp.
+
+        2. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ACROSS COUNTRY; or,
+        The Young Pathfinders on a Summer Hike.
+
+        3. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS AFLOAT; or, The
+        Stormy Cruise of the Red Rover.
+
+        4. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS IN THE HILLS; or, The
+        Missing Pilot of the White Mountains.
+
+        5. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS BY THE SEA; or, The
+        Loss of the Lonesome Bar.
+
+        6. THE MEADOW-BROOK GIRLS ON THE TENNIS COURTS;
+        or, Winning Out in the Big Tournament.
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS SERIES
+
+By LAURA DENT CRANE
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Girls as well as boys love wholesome adventure, a wealth of which is
+found in many forms and in many scenes in the volumes of this series.
+
+        1. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT NEWPORT; or,
+        Watching the Summer Parade.
+
+        2. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS IN THE BERKSHIRES; or,
+        The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail.
+
+        3. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS ALONG THE HUDSON; or,
+        Fighting Fire in Sleepy Hollow.
+
+        4. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT CHICAGO; or, Winning
+        Out Against Heavy Odds.
+
+        5. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT PALM BEACH; or,
+        Proving Their Mettle Under Southern Skies.
+
+        6. THE AUTOMOBILE GIRLS AT WASHINGTON; or,
+        Checkmating the Plots of Foreign Spies.
+
+
+
+
+THE HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The scenes, episodes, and adventures through which Grace Harlowe and her
+intimate chums pass in the course of these stories are pictured with a
+vivacity that at once takes the young feminine captive.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE'S PLEBE YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL;
+        or, The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen
+        Girls.
+
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE'S SOPHOMORE YEAR AT HIGH
+        SCHOOL; or, The Record of the Girl Chums in
+        Work and Athletics.
+
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE'S JUNIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL;
+        or, Fast Friends in the Sororities.
+
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE'S SENIOR YEAR AT HIGH SCHOOL;
+        or, The Parting of the Ways.
+
+
+
+
+THE COLLEGE GIRLS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Every school and college girl will recognize that the account of Grace
+Harlowe's experiences at Overton College is true to life.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE'S FIRST YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE'S SECOND YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE'S THIRD YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE'S FOURTH YEAR AT OVERTON COLLEGE.
+        5. GRACE HARLOWE'S RETURN TO OVERTON CAMPUS.
+        6. GRACE HARLOWE'S PROBLEM.
+        7. GRACE HARLOWE'S GOLDEN SUMMER.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Grace Harlowe went with the Overton College Red Cross Unit to France,
+there to serve her country by aiding the American fighting forces.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE OVERSEAS.
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE.
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE MARINES AT CHATEAU THIERRY.
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE U. S. TROOPS IN THE ARGONNE.
+        5. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE YANKEE SHOCK BOYS AT ST. QUENTIN.
+        6. GRACE HARLOWE WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY ON THE RHINE.
+
+
+
+
+THE GRACE HARLOWE OVERLAND RIDERS SERIES
+
+By JESSIE GRAHAM FLOWER, A. M.
+
+PRICE, $1.00 EACH
+
+Grace Harlowe and her friends seek adventure on the mountain trails and
+in the wilder sections of their homeland, after their return from
+service in France.
+
+        1. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE OLD
+        APACHE TRAIL.
+
+        2. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE GREAT
+        AMERICAN DESERT.
+
+        3. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE
+        KENTUCKY MOUNTAINEERS.
+
+        4. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE GREAT
+        NORTH WOODS.
+
+        5. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE HIGH
+        SIERRAS.
+
+        6. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE
+        YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.
+
+        7. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS IN THE BLACK
+        HILLS.
+
+        8. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AT CIRCLE O
+        RANCH.
+
+        9. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS AMONG THE
+        BORDER GUERRILLAS.
+
+        10. GRACE HARLOWE'S OVERLAND RIDERS ON THE LOST
+        RIVER TRAIL.
+
+
+
+
+ALTEMUS' NEW ILLUSTRATED YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A series of choice literature for children, selected from the best and
+most popular works. Printed on fine paper from large type, with numerous
+illustrations in color and black and white, by the most famous artists,
+making the most attractive series of juvenile classics before the
+public.
+
+        Fine English Cloth, Handsome New Original Designs
+                    PRICE, 75 Cents Each
+
+        THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 70 illustrations.
+        ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. 42 illustrations.
+        THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE.
+            50 illustrations.
+        BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 46 illustrations.
+        A CHILD'S STORY OF THE BIBLE. 72 illustrations.
+        A CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. 49 illustrations.
+        AESOP'S FABLES. 62 illustrations.
+        SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON. 50 illustrations.
+        THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. By Edward Everett Hale. Illustrated.
+        GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. 50 illustrations.
+        MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES, JINGLES, AND FAIRY TALES. 234
+            illustrations.
+        WOOD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 80 illustrations.
+        BLACK BEAUTY. By Anna Sewell. 50 illustrations.
+        ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. 130 illustrations.
+
+
+
+
+WEE BOOKS FOR WEE FOLKS
+
+For little hands to fondle and for mother to read aloud. Every ounce of
+them will give a ton of joy.
+
+
+WEE BOOKS FOR WEE FOLKS SERIES
+
+[Illustration]
+
+        MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY TALES.
+        MOTHER GOOSE NURSERY RHYMES.
+        A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES. Robert Louis Stevenson.
+        THE FOOLISH FOX.
+        THREE LITTLE PIGS.
+        THE ROBBER KITTEN.
+        LITTLE BLACK SAMBO.
+        THE LITTLE SMALL RED HEN.
+        THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
+        THE LITTLE WISE CHICKEN THAT KNEW IT ALL.
+        THE FOUR LITTLE PIGS THAT DIDN'T HAVE ANY MOTHER.
+        THE LITTLE PUPPY THAT WANTED TO KNOW TOO MUCH.
+        THE COCK, THE MOUSE AND THE LITTLE RED HEN.
+        GRUNTY GRUNTS AND SMILEY SMILE--INDOORS.
+        GRUNTY GRUNTS AND SMILEY SMILE--OUTDOORS.
+        I DON'T WANT TO WEAR COATS AND THINGS.
+        I DON'T WANT TO GO TO BED.
+        LITTLE SALLIE MANDY.
+        JIMMY SLIDERLEGS.
+        SLOVENLY BETSY.
+        LITTLE BLACK SAMBO AND THE BABY ELEPHANT.
+
+
+WEE FOLKS BIBLE STORIES SERIES
+
+        WEE FOLKS STORIES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT. In Words of
+            One Syllable.
+        WEE FOLKS STORIES FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. In Words of
+            One Syllable.
+        WEE FOLKS LIFE OF CHRIST.
+        WEE FOLKS BIBLE A B C BOOK.
+        LITTLE PRAYERS FOR LITTLE LIPS.
+
+
+THE WISH FAIRY SERIES
+
+        THE WISH FAIRY OF THE SUNSHINE AND SHADOW FOREST.
+        THE WISH FAIRY AND DEWY DEAR.
+
+        PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS.    PRICE, 50c. EACH
+
+
+
+
+WEE FOLKS PETER RABBIT SERIES
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+        THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT.
+        HOW PETER RABBIT WENT TO SEA.
+        PETER RABBIT AT THE FARM.
+        PETER RABBIT'S CHRISTMAS.
+        PETER RABBIT'S EASTER.
+        WHEN PETER RABBIT WENT TO SCHOOL.
+        PETER RABBIT'S BIRTHDAY.
+        PETER RABBIT GOES A-VISITING.
+        PETER RABBIT AND JACK-THE-JUMPER.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE LITTLE BOY.
+        PETER RABBIT AND LITTLE WHITE RABBIT.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE OLD WITCH WOMAN.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE BIG BROWN BEAR.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE TINYBITS.
+        WHEN PETER RABBIT WENT A-FISHING.
+        PETER RABBIT AND THE TWO TERRIBLE FOXES.
+
+WEE FOLKS CINDERELLA SERIES
+
+        THE WONDERFUL STORY OF CINDERELLA.
+        THE STORY OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.
+        THE OLDTIME STORY OF THE THREE BEARS.
+        THE OLD, OLD STORY OF POOR COCK ROBIN.
+        CHICKEN LITTLE.
+        PUSS IN BOOTS.
+        THREE LITTLE KITTENS THAT LOST THEIR MITTENS.
+        JACK THE GIANT KILLER.
+        JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK.
+        TOM THUMB.
+
+
+LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN SERIES
+
+        LITTLE BUNNIE BUNNIEKIN.
+        LITTLE LAMBIE LAMBKIN.
+        LITTLE MOUSIE MOUSIEKIN.
+        LITTLE DEARIE DEER.
+        LITTLE SQUIRRELIE SQUIRRELIEKIN.
+        OLD RED REYNARD THE FOX.
+        HOOTIE TOOTS OF HOLLOW TREE.
+        FLAPSY FLOPPER OF THE FARM YARD.
+
+        PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS. PRICE,    50c. EACH
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 87, "afer" changed to "after" (occasion after he)
+
+Page 126, "Store Keeping" changed to "Storekeeping" (War, Storekeeping,
+and)
+
+Page 127, "sort" changed to "short" (incredibly short time)
+
+Page 156, "disinguished" changed to "distinguished" (Abe disinguished
+himself)
+
+Page 174, "befor" changed to "before" (temperance address before)
+
+Page 174, duplicate word "the" removed. Original text read:
+
+    the the Washingtonian Society of Springfield
+
+Page 198, duplicate word "the" removed. Original text read:
+
+    until the the mud on
+
+Page 220, "solemly" changed to "solemnly" (whispered solemnly)
+
+Page 245, "boys" changed to "boy" (boy wants now)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln, by
+Wayne Whipple
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN ***
+
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