Stacking the cornstalks.
The path ended at the edge of the woods, and Tom opened the gate into the Carter cornfield. Row after row of tall corn stretched away in even, straight lines. Mr. Carter was waiting.
"Ready to sign over that south field, Tom?" he asked. "A lawyer from Rockport is drawing up the papers. He is riding up with them this morning. I'll see you at dinner time."
After John Carter had gone back to his cabin, Tom and Abe set to work. Using their sharp knives, they began cutting the corn close to the ground. They stood the tall golden stalks on end, tying them together in neat shocks or bundles. By the time the sun stood directly overhead, several long rows had been cut and stacked, and John Carter was coming toward them across the field. It was noon.
Abe laid aside his knife, sat down on the rail fence, and pulled out his book. He took a piece of cornbread wrapped in a corn husk from his pocket. As he ate, he read, paying no attention to the conversation taking place a few feet away.
"Come and sit down, Tom," said Carter.
Tom sat on a tree stump. Carter was being more friendly than usual. He was carrying a gourd full of ink, which he placed on another stump. He set down a deerskin bag, which jingled pleasantly with coins. In one pocket he found a turkey-buzzard pen. From another he brought out an official-looking paper.
"Here is the deed for the south field," he explained. "Here's a pen. I'll hold the ink for you. You make your mark right here."
"I don't need to make my mark," said Tom proudly. "I know how to sign my name."
"Then hurry up and do it. Mrs. Carter has dinner ready, and I got to get back to the house."
Tom took the paper and looked at it uncertainly. "I don't sign any paper till I know what I'm signing. I want time to—to go over this careful like."
He could make out a few of the words, and that was all. But not for anything would he admit that he could not read it.
"You told me you wanted to sell," said Carter. "I said I would buy. I am keeping my part of the bargain. I even brought the money with me."
Tom's face grew red. He looked down at the paper in his hand. He glanced at Abe seated on the fence. A struggle was taking place between pride and common sense. Common sense won.
"Abe, come here," he called.
Abe went on reading.
Tom raised his voice. "Abe! When I tell you to come, I mean for you to come."
The boy looked up from his book with a start. "Yes, Pa. Did you want me?"
"Hustle over here and look at this paper. Carter is in a mighty big hurry for me to sign something I ain't had a chance to read."
"You have had plenty of time to read it," said Carter. "But if you don't want to sell, I can call the whole deal off."
Abe reached out a long arm and took the paper. He read it slowly. "Pa," he asked, "don't you aim to sell Mr. Carter just the south field?"
"You know I'm selling him just the south field," said Tom.
"Then don't sign this."
Carter picked up the money bag clanking with coins. He tossed it into the air and caught it neatly. Tom looked at it. He wanted that money! He looked at Abe.
"Why shouldn't I sign?" he asked.
"If you do, you'll be selling Mr. Carter most of your farm."
John Carter was furious. "Don't try to tell me a country jake like you can read! That paper says the south field, as plain as the nose on your face."
"It says that and a sight more, Mr. Carter," Abe drawled. "It says the north field, too. It says the east and the west fields. There wouldn't be much farm left for Pa, except the part our cabin is setting on."
A dispute between men in Pigeon Creek usually ended in a fight. Tom Lincoln doubled up his fists. "Put them up, Carter."
The two men rolled over and over in a confused tangle of arms and legs. Now Tom Lincoln was on top. Now it was John Carter. "Go it, Pa," Abe shouted from the fence. "Don't let that old skinflint get you down." After a few minutes. Carter lay on his back gasping for breath.
"Nuf!" he cried, and Tom let him scramble to his feet.
Carter began brushing himself off. "It ain't fitting to fight a neighbor," he whined, "just because of a mistake."
"Mistake nothing!" Tom snorted. "Somebody lied, and it wasn't Abe."
"I'll have a new paper made out, if you like," said Carter.
Tom looked at him with scorn. "You ain't got enough money to buy my south field. But I'll thank you for the ten cents you owe us. Abe and I each did a half day's work."
Tom fighting.
Tom's right eye was swelling, and by the time he reached home it was closed. The bump on the side of his head was the size of a hen's egg. There was a long scratch down his cheek.
Sarah was kneeling before the fireplace, raking ashes over the potatoes that she had put in to bake. She jumped up in alarm.
"What's the matter? What happened?" she asked.
"It was like Pa said," Abe told her. "Mr. Carter is a skinflint."
Sarah took Tom by the arm and made him sit down on a stool. She touched the swollen eye with gentle fingers.
"It don't hurt much," he said.
"I reckon Mr. Carter hurts more," Abe spoke up again. "He has two black eyes."
Tom slapped his thigh and roared with laughter. "He sure does. But if it hadn't been for Abe—"
He stopped, embarrassed. Sarah was soaking a cloth in a basin of cold water. She laid it on his eye.
"What started it all?"
"You tell them, Abe," said Tom.
"That Mr. Carter ain't as smart as he thinks he is," Abe explained. "He had a paper for Pa to sign and tried to make out it was for just the south field. And do you know what, Mamma? When Pa asked me to read it, why, it was for almost our whole farm."
"You don't mean to tell me!" said Sarah.
"Carter said he'd have a new paper made out. But I told him," Tom added with a touch of pride, "I could do without his money."
"Good for you!" Sarah said, beaming. "Don't you fret. We'll squeak through somehow. But what if you had signed that paper? The farm would have been sold right out from under us. I reckon we can feel mighty proud of Abe."
"Well," Tom admitted, "it didn't hurt that he knew how to read. When did you say Mr. Swaney aims to start his school?"
"Right after harvest," said Abe before his stepmother had a chance to answer.
Tom ignored him and went on talking to his wife. "Now, mind you, Sairy, I ain't saying Abe needs any more eddication. I ain't saying it is fitting a son should know more'n his pa. But if you think the young ones should go to this new school for a spell, I won't say no."
He rose and stalked out of the cabin. Then he came back and stuck his head in at the door.
"Mind you, Abe, you forget to do your chores just one time, and that schoolmaster won't be seeing you again."
"Come back in and sit down, Tom," said Sarah. "Supper is nearly ready. Besides, Abe has something that needs saying."
Abe looked at his stepmother in surprise. Then he looked at his father. "I'm much obliged, Pa," he said.
The children reciting poems.
After a few weeks at Master Swaney's school, Abe had to stop and go to work again. When he was seventeen, he had a chance to attend another school kept by Azel Dorsey. Nearly every Friday afternoon there were special exercises and the scholars spoke pieces. For the final program on the last day of school, the boys had built a platform outside the log schoolhouse. Parents, brothers and sisters, and friends found seats on fallen logs and on the grass. They listened proudly as, one by one, the children came forward and each recited a poem or a speech.
Master Dorsey walked to the front of the platform. He held up his hand for silence. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we come to the last number on our program. Twenty-five years ago Thomas Jefferson became President of these United States. We shall now hearthe speech he made that day. Abraham Lincoln will recite it for us."
Sarah Lincoln, from under her pink sunbonnet, stole a glance at Tom. "I hope that Abe does well," she whispered.
Abe did do well. He forgot that he was growing too fast, that his hands were too big, and that his trousers were too short. For a few minutes he made his audience forget it. Master Dorsey seemed to swell with pride. If that boy lives, he thought, he is going to be a noted man some day. Elizabeth Crawford, sitting in the front row, remembered what he had said about being President. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that Thomas Jefferson was speaking. When Abe finished and made an awkward bow, she joined in the hearty burst of applause.
"Do you know where he got that piece?" she asked her husband in a low voice. "FromThe Kentucky Preceptor, one of the books you loaned him. It makes a body feel good to think we helped him. Look at Mrs. Lincoln! She couldn't be more pleased if Abe was her own son."
Sarah waited to walk home with him. "I was mighty proud of you today," she said. "Why, what's the matter? You look mighty down-in-the-mouth for a boy who spoke his piece so well on the last day."
"I was thinking that this is the last day," he answered. "The last day I'll ever go to school, most likely."
"Well, you're seventeen now."
"Yes, I'm seventeen, and I ain't had a year's schooling all told. I can't even talk proper. I forget and say 'ain't' though I know it ain't—I mean isn't right."
"It seems to me you're educating yourself with all those books you read," said Sarah cheerfully.
"I've already read all the books for miles around. Besides, I want to see places. I can't help it, Ma, I want to get away."
Sarah looked at him fondly. She wished that she could find some way to help him.
Abe found ways to help himself. He was never to go to school again, but he could walk to Rockport to attend trials in the log courthouse. He liked to listen to the lawyers argue their cases. Sometimes he would write down what they said on a piece of paper. Now and then he had a chance to borrow a book that he had not read before from some new settler. He read the old books over and over again. He liked to read the newspapers to which Mr. Gentry, Allen's father, subscribed. The papers told what was going on in the big world outside of Pigeon Creek.
James Gentry owned the log store at the crossroads, where the little town, Gentryville, had grown up. His partner, William Jones, was one of Abe's best friends, and Abe spent nearly every evening at the store. It became the favorite meeting place for the men and boys who lived close by.
"Howdy, Abe!" Everyone seemed to be saying it at once when he came in.
"The Louisville paper came today," William Jones might add. "Here you are! The fellows have been waiting for you to holler out the news."
Abe reads the newspaper out loud.
Abe sat on the counter, swinging his long legs, as he read the newspaper out loud. The men sat quietly, except when William got up to throw another log on the fire or to light another candle. Aberead on and on. After he finished the paper, they talked about what he had read. They argued about many things from politics to religion. They always wanted to know what Abe thought. Many times they stayed until nearly midnight listening to him.
One evening, not long after Abe's nineteenth birthday, he walked home from the store in great excitement. He had been very sad since his sister Sally had died in January, but tonight he seemed more cheerful. Sarah looked up to find him standing in the doorway.
"What do you think has happened, Ma?" he asked. "I am going to New Orleans."
"How come, Abe?"
Sarah knew that prosperous farmers sometimes loaded their corn and other farm products on big flatboats. These flatboats were floated down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where the cargoes were sold. But the Lincolns raised only enough for their own use. They never had anything left over to sell. Nor could they afford to build a flatboat for the long trip down the rivers.
"How come?" Sarah asked again.
Abe seized her around the waist and danced her across the floor. She was out of breath but laughing when he let her go.
"Allen Gentry is taking a cargo of farm truck down to New Orleans to sell," he explained. "His pa has hired me to help on the flatboat. Mr. Gentry will pay me eight dollars a month. I reckon Pa will be pleased about that."
Abe himself was pleased because he was going to see something of the world. New Orleans was seven hundred miles away. It was a big and important city. Sarah was pleased because this was the chance that Abe had been wanting.
He had grown so tall that she had to throw back her head to look up at him. "I'm right glad for you," she said.
A trip down the river.
To a boy brought up in the backwoods, the trip down the rivers was one long adventure. Abe sat at the forward oar, guiding the big flatboat through the calm, blue waters of the Ohio, while Allen cooked supper on deck. Afterwards Abe told stories.
After they had reached the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio emptied into the yellow waters of the Mississippi, there was little time for stories. The boys never knew what to expect next. One minute the river would be quiet and calm. The next it would rise in the fury of a sudden storm. The waves rose in a yellow flood that poured over the deck. Allen at the back oar, Abe at the front oar, had a hard time keeping the big flatboat from turning over.
At the end of each day, the boys tied up the boat at some placealong the shore. One night after they had gone to sleep, several robbers crept on board. Abe and Allen awoke just in time. After a long, hard fight, the robbers turned and fled.
Danger make the river trip more exciting.
These dangers only made their adventures seem more exciting. It was exciting, too, to be a part of the traffic of the river. They saw many other flatboats like their own. The biggest thrill was in watching the steamboats, with giant paddle wheels that turned the water into foam. Their decks were painted a gleaming white, and their brass rails shone in the sun. No wonder they were called "floating palaces," thought Abe. Sometimes passengers standing by the rail waved to the boys.
Each day of their journey brought gentler breezes, warmer weather. Cottonwood and magnolia trees grew on the low swampy banks of both shores. The boys passed cotton fields, where gangs of Negro slaves were at work. Some of them were singing as they bent to pick the snowy white balls of cotton. A snatch of song came floating over the water:
"Oh, brother, don't get weary,Oh, brother, don't get weary,Oh, brother, don't get weary,We're waiting for the Lord."
Abe leaned on his oar.
Abe leaned on his oar to listen. A few minutes later he pointed to a big house with tall white pillars in the middle of a beautiful garden.
"Nice little cabin those folks have," he said drily. "Don't recollect seeing anything like that up in Pigeon Creek."
"Why, Abe, you haven't seen anything yet. Just wait till you get to New Orleans."
This was Allen's second trip, and he was eager to show Abe the sights. A few days later they were walking along the New Orleans waterfront. Ships from many different countries were tied up at the wharves. Negro slaves were rolling bales of cotton onto a steamboat. Other Negroes, toting huge baskets on their heads, passed by. Sailors from many lands, speaking strange tongues, rubbed elbows with fur trappers dressed in buckskins from the far Northwest. A cotton planter in a white suit glanced at the two youths from Pigeon Creek. He seemed amused. Abe looked down at his homespun blue jeans. He had not realized that all young men did not wear them.
"Reckon we do look different from some of the folks down here," he said, as he and Allen turned into a narrow street.
Here there were more people—always more people. The public square was crowded. Abe gazed in awe at the Cathedral. This tallSpanish church, with its two graceful towers, was so different from the log meeting house that the Lincolns attended.
Nor was there anything back in Pigeon Creek like the tall plaster houses faded by time and weather into warm tones of pink and lavender and yellow. The balconies, or porches, on the upper floors had wrought iron railings, of such delicate design that they looked like iron lace.
Once the boys paused before a wrought iron gate. At the end of a long passageway they could see a courtyard where flowers bloomed and a fountain splashed in the sunshine. Abe turned to watch a handsome carriage roll by over the cobblestones. He looked down the street toward the river, which sheltered ships from all over the world.
"All this makes me feel a little like Sinbad," he said, "but I reckon even Sinbad never visited New Orleans. I sure do like it here."
But soon Abe began to see other sights that made him sick at heart. He and Allen passed a warehouse where slaves were being sold at auction. A crowd had gathered inside. Several Negroes were standing on a platform called an auction block. One by one they stepped forward. A man called an auctioneer asked in a loud voice, "What am I offered? Who will make the first bid?"
"Five hundred," called one man.
"Six hundred," called another.
The bids mounted higher. Each slave was sold to the man who bid, or offered to pay, the most money. One field hand and his wife were sold to different bidders. There were tears in the woman's dark eyes as he was led away. She knew that she would never see her husband again.
"Let's get out of here," said Abe. "I can't stand any more."
They walked back to their own flatboat tied up at one of the wharves. Allen got supper, but Abe could not eat.
"Don't look like that," said Allen. "Many of the folks down hereinherited their slaves, same as their land. Slavery ain't their fault."
"I never said it was anybody's fault—at least not anybody who's living now. But it just ain't right for one man to own another."
"Well, stop worrying. There's nothing you can do about it."
"Maybe not," said Abe gloomily, "but I'm mighty glad there aren't any slaves in Indiana."
Allen stayed on in New Orleans for several days to sell his cargo. It brought a good price. He then sold his flatboat, which would be broken up and used for lumber. Flatboats could not travel upstream. He and Abe would either have to walk back to Indiana, or they could take a steamboat.
"We'd better not walk, carrying all this money," said Allen. "Pretty lonely country going home. We might get robbed."
The steamboat trip was a piece of good fortune that Abe had not expected. He enjoyed talking with the other passengers. The speed at which they traveled seemed a miracle. It had taken the boys a month to make the trip downstream by flatboat. They were returning upstream in little more than a week. They were standing together by the rail when the cabins of Rockport, perched on a high wooded bluff, came into view.
"It sure was good of your pa to give me this chance," said Abe. "I've seen some sights I wish I hadn't, but the trip has done me good. Sort of stretched my eyes and ears! Stretched me all over—inside, I mean." He laughed. "I don't need any stretching on the outside."
Allen looked at his tall friend. They had been together most of the time. They had talked with the same people, visited the same places, seen the same sights. Already Allen was beginning to forget them. Now that he was almost home, it was as if he had never been away. But Abe seemed different. Somehow he had changed.
"I can't figure it out," Allen told him. "You don't seem the same."
"Maybe I'm not," said Abe. "I keep thinking about some of the things I saw."
A letter arrived from John Hanks.
The Lincolns were leaving Pigeon Creek. One day a letter had arrived from John Hanks, a cousin, who had gone to Illinois to live. The soil was richer there, the letter said. Why didn't Tom come, too, and bring his family? He would find it easier to make a living. Even the name of the river near John's home had a pleasant sound. It was called the Sangamon—an Indian word meaning "plenty to eat."
"We're going," Tom decided. "I'm going to sell this farm and buy another. Do you want to come with us, Abe?"
Two years had passed since Abe's return from New Orleans. Two years of hard work. Two years of looking forward to his next birthday. He was nearly twenty-one and could leave home if he wanted to.
"Well, Pa—" he hesitated.
Sarah was watching him, waiting for his answer.
"I'll come with you," said Abe. "I'll stay long enough to help you get the new farm started."
There were thirteen people in the Lincoln party: Tom and Sarah, Abe and Johnny, Betsy and Dennis Hanks who had been married for several years, Mathilda and her husband, and two sets of children. They made the journey in three big wagons, traveling over frozen roads and crossing icy streams. After two weeks they came to John Hanks' home on the prairies of Illinois. He made them welcome, then took them to see the place that he had selected for their farm. In the cold winter light it looked almost as desolate as Pigeon Creek had looked fourteen years before. Tom Lincoln was beginning all over again.
This time he had more help. John Hanks had a great pile of logs split and ready to be used for their new cabin. Abe was now able to do a man's work. After the cabin was finished, he split enough rails to build a fence around the farm. Some of the new neighbors hired him to split logs for them.
The following spring, he was offered other work that he liked much better. A man named Denton Offut was building a flatboat, which he planned to float down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. He hired Abe to help with the cargo. The two young men became friends. When Abe returned home after the long voyage, he had news for Sarah.
"Ma," he said, "Denton is fixing to start a store up in New Salem. That's a village on the Sangamon River. He wants me to be his clerk."
Sarah said nothing for a moment. If Abe went away to stay, the cabin would seem mighty lonesome. She would miss him terribly. But she wanted him to do whatever was best for him.
"Mr. Offut said he'd pay me fifteen dollars a month," Abe added.
That was more money than he had ever earned, thought Sarah. And now that he was over twenty-one, he could keep his wages for himself. "I reckon you'll be leaving soon," she said aloud.
"Yes, Ma, I will." Telling her was harder than Abe had expected. "It is high time that I start out on my own."
Sarah set to work to get his clothes ready. He was wearing his only pair of jeans, and there wasn't much else for him to take. She washed his shirts and the extra pair of socks that she had knit for him. He wrapped these up in a big cloth and tied the bundle to the end of a long stick. The next morning he was up early. After he told the rest of the family good-by, Sarah walked with him to the gate.
Abe thrust the stick with his bundle over his shoulder. He had looked forward to starting out on his own—and now he was scared. Almost as scared as he had felt on that cold winter afternoon when his new mother had first arrived in Pigeon Creek. Because she had believed in him, he had started believing in himself. Her faith in him was still shining in her eyes as she looked up at him and tried to smile.
He gave her a quick hug and hurried down the path.
It was a long, long walk to New Salem, where Abe arrived on a hot summer day in 1831. This village, on a high bluff overlooking the Sangamon River, was bigger than Gentryville, bigger even than Rockport. As he wandered up and down the one street, bordered on both sides by a row of neat log houses, he counted more than twenty-five buildings. There were several stores, and he could see the mill down by the river.
Abe sets off for New Salem.
He pushed his way through a crowd that had gathered before one of the houses. A worried-looking man, about ten years older thanAbe, sat behind a table on the little porch. He was writing in a big book.
"Howdy, Mister," said Abe. "What is all the excitement about?"
"This is election day," the man replied, "and I am the clerk in charge. That is, I'm one of the clerks."
He stopped to write down the name of one of the men who stood in line. He wrote the names of several other voters in his big book before he had a chance to talk to Abe again. Then he explained that the other clerk who was supposed to help him was sick.
"I'm mighty busy," he went on. "Say listen, stranger, do you know how to write?"
"I can make a few rabbit tracks," Abe said, grinning.
"Maybe I can hire you to help me keep a record of the votes." The man rose and shook hands. "My name is Mentor Graham."
By evening the younger man and the older one had become good friends. Mr. Graham was a schoolmaster, and he promised to help Abe with his studies. Soon Abe began to make other friends. Jack Kelso took him fishing. Abe did not care much about fishing, but he liked to hear Jack recite poetry by Robert Burns and William Shakespeare. They were Jack's favorite poets, and they became Abe's favorites, too.
At the Rutledge Tavern, where Abe lived for a while, he met the owner's daughter, Ann Rutledge. Ann was sweet and pretty, with a glint of sunshine in her hair. They took long walks beside the river. It was easy to talk to Ann, and Abe told her some of his secret hopes. She thought that he was going to be a great man some day.
Her father, James Rutledge, also took an interest in him. Abe was invited to join the New Salem Debating Society. The first time that he got up to talk, the other members expected him to spend the time telling funny stories. Instead he made a serious speech—and a very good one.
"That young man has more than wit and fun in his head," Mr. Rutledge told his wife that night.
Abe liked to make speeches, but he knew that he did not always speak correctly. One morning he was having breakfast at Mentor Graham's house. "I have a notion to study English grammar," he said.
"If you expect to go before the public," Mentor answered, "I think it the best thing you can do."
"If I had a grammar, I would commence now."
Mentor thought for a moment. "There is no one in town who owns a grammar," he said finally. "But Mr. Vaner out in the country has one. He might lend you his copy."
Abe got up from the table and walked six miles to the Vaner farm. When he returned, he carried an open book in his hands. He was studying grammar as he walked.
Meanwhile he worked as a clerk in Denton Offut's store. Customers could buy all sorts of things there—tools and nails, needles and thread, mittens and calico, and tallow for making candles. One day a woman bought several yards of calico. After she left, Abe discovered that he had charged her six cents too much. That evening he walked six miles to give her the money. He was always doing things like that, and people began to call him "Honest Abe."
Denton was so proud of his clerk that he could not help boasting. "Abe is the smartest man in the United States," he said. "Yes, and he can beat any man in the country running, jumping, or wrastling."
A bunch of young roughnecks lived a few miles away in another settlement called Clary Grove. "That Denton Offut talks too much with his mouth," they said angrily. They did not mind Abe being called smart. But they declared that no one could "out-wrastle" their leader, Jack Armstrong. One day they rushed into the store and dared Abe to fight with Jack.
Abe laid down the book that he had been reading. "I don't hold with wooling and pulling," he said. "But if you want to fight, come on outside."
The Clary Grove boys soon realized that Denton's clerk was agood wrestler. Jack, afraid that he was going to lose the fight, stepped on Abe's foot with the sharp heel of his boot. The sudden pain made Abe angry. The next thing that Jack knew he was being shaken back and forth until his teeth rattled. Then he was lying flat on his back in the dust.
Jack's friends let out a howl of rage. Several of them rushed at Abe, all trying to fight him at the same time. He stood with his back against the store, his fists doubled up. He dared them to come closer. Jack picked himself up.
"Stop it, fellows," he said. "I was beaten in a fair fight. If you ask me, this Abe Lincoln is the cleverest fellow that ever broke into the settlement."
From then on Jack was one of Abe's best friends.
A short time later Abe enlisted as a soldier in the Black Hawk War to help drive the Indians out of Illinois. The Clary Grove boys were in his company, and Abe was elected captain. Before his company had a chance to do any fighting, Blackhawk was captured in another part of Illinois and the war was over.
When Abe came back to New Salem, he found himself out of a job. Denton Offut had left. The store had "winked out." Later, Abe and another young man, William Berry, decided to become partners. They borrowed money and started a store of their own.
One day a wagon piled high with furniture stopped out in front. A man jumped down and explained that he and his family were moving West. The wagon was too crowded, and he had a barrel of odds and ends that he wanted to sell. Abe, always glad to oblige, agreed to pay fifty cents for it. Later, when he opened it, he had a wonderful surprise.
The barrel contained a set of famous law books. He had seen those same books in Mr. Pitcher's law office in Rockport. Now that he owned a set of his own, he could read it any time he wished. Customers coming into the store usually found Abe lying on the counter, his nose buried in one of the new books. The more he read, the more interested he became.
Perhaps he spent too much time reading, instead of attending to business. William Berry was lazy, and not a very satisfactory partner. The store of Lincoln and Berry did so little business that it had to close. The partners were left with many debts to pay. Then Berry died, and "Honest Abe" announced that he would pay all of the debts himself, no matter how long it took.
For a while he was postmaster. A man on horseback brought the mail twice a week, and there were so few letters that Abe often carried them around in his hat until he could deliver them. He liked the job because it gave him a chance to read the newspapers to which the people in New Salem subscribed. But the pay was small, and he had to do all sorts of odd Jobs to earn enough to eat. On many days he would have gone hungry if Jack Armstrong and his wife, Hannah, had not invited him to dinner. When work was scarce he stayed with them two or three weeks at a time.
He knew that he had to find a way to earn more money, and he decided to study surveying. It was a hard subject, but he borrowed some books and read them carefully. He studied so hard that in six weeks' time he took his first job as a surveyor.
Sometimes when he was measuring a farm or laying out a new road, he would be gone for several weeks. People miles from New Salem knew who Abe Lincoln was. They laughed at him because he was so tall and awkward. They thought it funny that his trousers were always too short. But they also laughed at his jokes, and they liked him. He made so many new friends that he decided to be a candidate for the Illinois legislature.
One day during the campaign he had a long talk with Major John T. Stuart. Major Stuart had been Abe's commander in the Black Hawk War. He was now a lawyer in Springfield, a larger town twenty miles away.
"Why don't you study law?" he asked.
Abe pursed his lips. "I'd sure like to," he drawled; then added with a grin: "But I don't know if I have enough sense."
Major Stuart paid no attention to this last remark. "You have been reading law for pleasure," he went on. "Now go at it in earnest. I'll lend you the books you need."
This was a chance that Abe could not afford to miss. Every few days he walked or rode on horseback to Springfield to borrow another volume. Sometimes he read forty pages on the way home. He was twenty-five years old, and there was no time to waste.
Meanwhile he was making many speeches. He asked the voters in his part of Illinois to elect him to the legislature which made the laws for the state. They felt that "Honest Abe" was a man to be trusted and he was elected.
Late in November Abe boarded the stagecoach for the ride to Vandalia, then the capital of the state. He looked very dignified in a new suit and high plug hat. In the crowd that gathered to tell him good-by, he could see many of his friends. There stood Coleman Smoot who had lent him money to buy his new clothes. Farther back he could see Mr. Rutledge and Ann, Hannah and Jack Armstrong, Mentor Graham, and others who had encouraged and helped him. And now he was on his way to represent them in the legislature. There was a chorus of "Good-by, Abe."
Then, like an echo, the words came again in Ann's high, sweet voice: "Good-by, Abe!" He leaned far out the window and waved.
He was thinking of Ann as the coach rolled over the rough road. He was thinking also of Sarah. If only she could see him now, he thought, as he glanced at the new hat resting on his knee.
Abe in the coach.
Abe on horseback.
The Legislature met for several weeks at a time. Between sessions, Abe worked at various jobs in New Salem and read his law books. Most of his studying was done early in the morning and late at night. He still found time to see a great deal of Ann Rutledge, and something of her gentle sweetness was to live on forever in his heart. After Ann died, he tried to forget his grief by studying harder than ever.
The year that he was twenty-eight he took his examination, and was granted a lawyer's license. He decided to move to Springfield, which had recently been made the capital of the state.
It was a cold March day when he rode into this thriving little town. He hitched his horse to the hitching rack in the public square and entered one of the stores. Joshua Speed, the owner, a young man about Abe's age, looked up with a friendly smile.
"Howdy, Abe," he said. "So you are going to be one of us?"
"I reckon so," Abe answered. "Say, Speed, I just bought myself a bedstead. How much would it cost me for a mattress and some pillows and blankets?"
Joshua took a pencil from behind his ear. He did some figuring on a piece of paper. "I can fix you up for about seventeen dollars."
Abe felt the money in his pocket. He had only seven dollars. His horse was borrowed, and he was still a thousand dollars in debt. Joshua saw that he was disappointed. He had heard Abe make speeches, and Abe was called one of the most promising young men in the legislature. Joshua liked him and wanted to know him better.
"Why don't you stay with me, until you can do better?" he suggested. "I have a room over the store and a bed big enough for two."
A grin broke over Abe's homely features. "Good!" he said. "Where is it?"
"You'll find some stairs over there behind that pile of barrels. Go on up and make yourself at home."
Abe enjoyed living with Joshua Speed, and he enjoyed living in Springfield. He soon became as popular as he had once been in Pigeon Creek and in New Salem. As the months and years went by, more and more people came to him whenever they needed a lawyer to advise them. For a long time he was poor, but little by little he paid off his debts. With his first big fee he bought a quarter section of land for his stepmother who had been so good to him.
The part of his work that Abe liked best was "riding the circuit." In the spring and again in the fall, he saddled Old Buck, his horse, and set out with a judge and several other lawyers to visit some of the towns close by. These towns "on the circuit" were too small to have law courts of their own. In each town the lawyers argued the cases and the judge settled the disputes that had come up during the past six months.
After supper they liked to gather at the inn to listen to Abe tell funny stories. "I laughed until I shook my ribs loose," said one dignified judge.
The other lawyers often teased Abe. "You ought to charge your clients more money," they said, "or you will always be as poor as Job's turkey."
One evening they held a mock trial. Abe was accused of charging such small fees that the other lawyers could not charge as much as they should. The judge looked as solemn as he did at a real trial.
"You are guilty of an awful crime against the pockets of your brother lawyers," he said severely. "I hereby sentence you to pay a fine."
There was a shout of laughter. "I'll pay the fine," said Abe good-naturedly. "But my own firm is never going to be known as Catchem & Cheatem."
Meanwhile a young lady named Mary Todd had come to Springfield to live. Her father was a rich and important man in Kentucky. Mary was pretty and well educated. Abe was a little afraid of her, but one night at a party he screwed up his courage to ask her for a dance.
Abe dances with Mary.
"Miss Todd," he said, "I would like to dance with you the worst way."
As he swept her around the dance floor, he bumped into other couples. He stepped on her toes. "Mr. Lincoln," said Mary, as she limped over to a chair, "you did dance with me the worst way—the very worst."
She did not mind that he was not a good dancer. As she looked up into Abe's homely face, she decided that he had a great future ahead of him. She remembered something she had once said as a little girl: "When I grow up, I want to marry a man who will be President of the United States."
Abe was not the only one who liked Mary Todd. Among the other young men who came to see her was another lawyer, Stephen A. Douglas. He was no taller than Mary herself, but he had such a large head and shoulders that he had been nicknamed "the Little Giant." He was handsome, and rich, and brilliant. His friends thought that he might be President some day.
"No," said Mary, "Abe Lincoln has the better chance to succeed."
Anyway, Abe was the man she loved. The next year they were married.
"I mean to make him President of the United States," she wrote to a friend in Kentucky. "You will see that, as I always told you, I will yet be the President's wife."
At first Mary thought that her dream was coming true. In 1846 Abe was elected a member of the United States Congress in Washington. He had made a good start as a political leader, and she was disappointed when he did not run for a second term. Back he came to Springfield to practice law again. By 1854 there were three lively boys romping through the rooms of the comfortable white house that he had bought for his family. Robert was eleven, Willie was four, and Tad was still a baby. The neighbors used to smile to see Lawyer Lincoln walking down the street carrying Tad on his shoulders, while Willie clung to his coattails. The boys adored their father.
Mary did, too, but she wished that Abe would be more dignified. He sat reading in his shirt sleeves, and he got down on the floor to play with the boys. His wife did not think that was any way for a successful lawyer to act. It also worried her that he was no longer interested in politics.
And then something happened that neither Mary nor Abe had ever expected. Their old friend, Stephen A. Douglas, who was now a Senator in Washington, suggested a new law. Thousands of settlers were going West to live, and in time they would form new states. The new law would make it possible for the people in each new state to own slaves, if most of the voters wanted to.
Abraham Lincoln was so aroused and indignant that he almost forgot his law practice. He traveled around Illinois making speeches. There were no laws against having slaves in the South, but slavery must be kept out of territory that was still free, he said. The new states should be places "for poor people to go to better their condition." Not only that, but it was wrong for one man to own another. Terribly wrong.
"If the Negro is a man," he told one audience, "then my ancient faith teaches me that all men are created equal."
Perhaps he was thinking of the first time he had visited a slave market. He was remembering the words in the Declaration of Independence that had thrilled him as a boy.
Two years later Abraham Lincoln was asked to be a candidate for the United States Senate. He would be running against Douglas. Abe wanted very much to be a Senator. Even more he wanted to keep slavery out of the new states. Taking part in the political campaign would give him a chance to say the things that he felt so deeply.
"I am convinced I am good enough for it," he told a friend, "but in spite of it all I am saying to myself every day, 'It is too big a thing for you; you will never get it.' Mary insists, however, that I am going to be Senator and President of the United States, too."
Perhaps it was his wife's faith in him that gave him the courageto try. Never was there a more exciting campaign. Never had the people of Illinois been so stirred as during that hot summer of 1858. A series of debates was held in seven different towns. The two candidates—Douglas, "the little Giant," and "Old Abe, the Giant Killer," as his friends called him—argued about slavery. People came from miles around to hear them.
On the day of a debate, an open platform for the speakers was decorated with red-white-and-blue bunting. Flags flew from the housetops. When Senator Douglas arrived at the railroad station, his friends and admirers met him with a brass band. He drove to his hotel in a fine carriage.
Abe had admirers, too. Sometimes a long procession met him at the station. Then Abe would be embarrassed. He did not like what he called "fizzlegigs and fireworks." But he laughed when his friends in one town drove him to his hotel in a hay wagon. This was their way of making fun of Douglas and his fine manners.
Senator Douglas was an eloquent orator. While he was talking, some of Abe's friends would worry. Would Old Abe be able to answer? Would he be able to hold his own? Then Abe would unfold his long legs and stand up. "The Giant Killer" towered so high above "the Little Giant" that a titter ran through the crowd.
When he came to the serious part of his speech, there was silence. His voice reached to the farthest corners of the crowd, as he reminded them what slavery really meant. He summed it up in a few words: "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it."
Both men worked hard to be elected. And Douglas won. "I feel like the boy," said Abe, "who stubbed his toe. It hurts too bad to laugh, and I am too big to cry."
All of those who loved him—Mary, his wife, in her neat white house; Sarah, his stepmother, in her little cabin, more than a hundred miles away; and his many friends—were disappointed. But not for long. The part he took in the Lincoln-Douglas debates made his name known throughout the United States.
Abe Lincoln's chance was coming.