Uncle Abe on the 14th of last February, received a valentine in the shape of a picture of the American eagle, with a financial allusion. The bird of freedom appeared to be engaged in picking up gold coin, while at the end of the bird most remote from his head there was a pile of "green-backs," into which this coin seemed to have been mysteriously transmuted.
Uncle Abe, who takes such things philosophically, and always acknowledges a palpable hit with grace and good natured cheerfulness, went to his Secretary of the Treasury, to exhibit his bird, in order that the latter might enjoy the joke with him. Mr. Chase, however, was not disposed to take the matter in the same spirit Uncle Abe did; but appeared to be much out of humor at this hieroglyphical attack upon his department of the government. In tones in which there was evidently a slight admixture of irritability, he remarked to Uncle Abe that he would like to know who had made this unwarrantable attack upon his financial management of the affairs of the nation—that he feared that some of his subordinates had got up this libel upon him, and that he would give a hundred dollars to know who had done it. Uncle Abe? whose question-asking proclivities are well known, said that the offer seemed liberal; "but, Mr. Chase," said he, "before I shall make up my mind on this subject, will you allow me to ask you one question?" "Certainly," replied the Secretary. "I merely wanted to understand," said Uncle Abe, "at which end of the bird you propose to pay?"
"'Et tu Brute?'" responded the head of the Treasury department. "If I am thus to be made the subject of ridicule, I must renew my application to be relieved from my duties as Secretary."
"O, never mind! never mind! Mr. Secretary," said Uncle Abe, "we can soon remedy all these difficulties. All we have to do, after we have suppressed this rebellion, is to turn the bird end for end, and let the gold and 'greenbacks' remain just as they are and all will come out right." The Secretary, restored to good humor, agreed not to resign unless Seward did.
"That reminds me of a little story."
Many months ago the post commander at Cairo was a certain West Point colonel of a Northwestern regiment, noted for his soldierly qualities and rigid discipline. One day he passed by the barracks and heard a group of soldiers singing the well-known street piece, "My Mary Ann." An angry shade crossed his brow, and he forthwith ordered the men to be placed in the guard-house, where they remained all night The next morning he visited them, when one ventured to ask the cause of their confinement.
"Cause enough," said the rigid colonel; "you were singing a song in derision of Mrs. Colonel B———."
The men replied by roars of laughter, and it was some time before the choler of the Colonel could be sufficiently subdued to understand that the song was an old one, and sung by half the school-boys in the land, or the risibles of the men be calmed down to learn that the colonel's wife rejoiced in the name of "Mary Ann."
Uncle Abe made the Colonel a Brigadier the moment he heard this story.
At one time Uncle Abe aspired to a position on the bench, and Mrs. Lincoln, so as to be prepared for the event, practiced the habit of calling her husband "his Honor," or "your Honor," as the case might be. Uncle Abe never, however, succeeded to the dignity of the ermine; but attending Circuit at Chicago, and stopping at the ———— Hotel, Mrs. L. accompanied her husband, as was her custom. Uncle Abe had donned a bran new pair of boots, which were anything but comfortable, and almost as uncertain as a pair of skates to a learner on the keenest of ice. Mrs. Lincoln was enjoying herself in the parlor in a chit-chat with a number of other ladies, and putting on as many airs as her provincial position in Springfield would admit, when a strange, rumbling sound disturbed the pleasant company, who rushed out to learn what was the matter. Lo and behold! there was Uncle Abe in the undignified predicament of tumbling down stairs and bumping the end of his spine upon every step. The new boots, or the swig of forty-rod which he had taken in his bed-room, had proved traitor to him. Mrs. Lincoln was nearly non-plussed, but exclaimed in a consoling voice, "Is your Honor hurt?"
"No," said Uncle Abe, sitting gracefully on the carpet, with legs spread out amidst the bevy of tittering damsels, and rubbing the seat of his trowsers, "No, my honor is not hurt but my—my—my head is!"
During the session of the Legislature of Illinois, in 1836-7, the Sangamon County delegation of nine members, became known as the "Long Nine," from the fact of their remarkable average height. In this delegation were Uncle Abe, Gen. Baker, (killed at Bull's Bluff,) N. W. Edwards, (brother-in-law of Uncle Abe, and now Captain commissary,) and some others of note in their day. A law had passed the previous session to remove the capital from Vandalia to Springfield, to be carried out as soon as a new capitol could be built. In the meantime, Gen. W. L. D. Ewing, an influential Egyptian member, made periodical efforts to repeal the law and keep the capital at Vandalia. During the session of 1837, we had a regular tilt with the "long nine," during which, whenever Uncle Abe or Gen. Baker made a point, Ewing would be saluted with the cry "smoke that!" in allusion to "long nines," a popular kind of cigars used at that day. This probably gave rise to saying, "put that in your pipe and smoke it."
Some one recently asked Uncle Abe why he didn't promote merit? "Because merit never helped promote me," said our Uncle Abe.
A committee of the enemies of Mr. Chase called on the President just after the Pomroy circular was sent forth and advised him to purify his cabinet and let Chase go. Old Abe replied that "it is not so easy a thing to let Chase go. I am situated very much as the boy was who held the bear by the hind legs. I will tell you how it was. There was a very vicious bear which, after being some time chased by a couple of boys, turned upon his pursuers. The boldest of the two ran up and caught the bear by the hind legs, while the other climbed up into a little tree, and complacently witnessed the conflict going on beneath, between the bear and his companion. The tussel was a sharp one, and the boy, after becoming quite exhausted, cried out in alarm, 'Bill, for God's sake come down and help me let this darned bear go!' Now, gentlemen," said Mr. Lincoln, "you see what a fix I am in—it may be dangerous to hold on to Chase, but it will require more assistance than I see at present, to help me let him go."
During the Black Hawk war, when the valiant Illinoisians were in hasty retreat from what they thought certain scalping, and the roads exclusively bad, in fact, unfathomable mud.—In this predicament, the corps in which Uncle Abe was, became somewhat scattered, when the officer commanding, called out to the men to formtwo deep. "Blast me!" shouted Abe from a slough, in which he was nearly buried, "I am too deep already; I am up to the neck."
When Uncle Abe first made his appearance in the Illinois House of Representatives, and was desirous of delivering his sentiments on a certain measure, he rose and began:—"Mr. Speaker,I conceive——" but could go no further. Thrice he repeated unsuccessfully the same attempt; when Douglas, who had more confidence, and had been a year longer in the House, completely dumbfounded Abe by saying: "Mr. Speaker, The honorable gentleman hasconceived three times, and brought forth nothing."
One night Uncle Abe came wet and cold to a cross road tavern in Indiana, and found the fire more thoroughly blockaded with Hoosiers than mother Welles has been able to blockade the Southern Confederacy. Abe ordered the landlord to carry his horse a peck of catfish. "He can't eat catfish," said Boniface. "Try him," said Abe, "there's nothing like trying." The crowd all rushed after the landlord to see Abe's horse eat the peck of catfish. "He won't eat them, as I told you," said the landlord, on returning. "Then," coolly responded Uncle Abe, who had squatted on the best seat, "bring them to me and I'll eat them myself."
Being asked by a client in Springfield why he spelled so badly in his law papers, Uncle Abe replied, "Because, the Suckers are so cussed mean they won't pay for good spelling."
The soldiers at Helena, in Arkansas, used to amuse the inhabitants of that place, on their first arrival, by telling them yarns, of which the following is a sample:
"Some time ago Jeff. Davis got tired of the war and invited President Lincoln to meet him on neutral ground to discuss terms of peace. They met accordingly, and after a talk, concluded to settle the war by dividing the territory and stopping the fighting. The North took the Northern States, and the South the Gulf and seaboard Southern States. Lincoln took Texas and Missouri, and Davis Kentucky and Tennessee; so that all were parcelled off excepting Arkansas. Lincoln did'nt want it—Jeff, would'nt have it. Neither would consent to take it, and on that they split; and the war has been going on ever since."
Uncle Abe was lately visited by one of the "On to Richmond" sword of Gideon gentry, who confidently expressed the hope, so common among the Abolition noodles, that Lee's army would be "bagged." Uncle Abe grinned to the utmost of his classic mouth, and remarked that he was afraid there would be too much "nigger mathematics" in it. The visitor smiled at the allusion, as he felt bound in politeness to do supposing there must be something in it, though he could not see the point. "But I suppose you don't know what 'nigger mathematics' is," continued Uncle Abe. "Lay down your hat a minute, and I'll tell you." He, himself, resumed the sitting posture leaned back in his chair, elevated his heels on the table, and went on with his story. "There was a darkey in my neighborhood, called Pompey, who, from a certain quickness in figuring up the prices of chickens and vegetables, got the reputation of being a mathematical genius. Johnson, a darkey preacher, heard of Pompey, and called to see him. 'Here ye're a great mat'm'tishum, Pompey.' 'Yes sar, you jas try.' 'Well Pompey, Ize compound a problem in mat'matics.' 'All right, sar.' 'Now, Pompey, spose dere am tree pigeons sittin' on a rail fence, and you fire a gun at'em and shoot one, how many's left?' 'Two, ob cooors,' replies Pompey after a little wool scratching. 'Ya-ya-ya,' laughs Mr. Johnson; 'I knowed you was a fool, Pompey; dere'snoneleft—one's dead, and d'udder two's flown away.' "That's what makes me say," continued Uncle Abe, "that I am afraid there was too much nigger mathematics in the Pennsylvania campaign." And the result showed that in this instance, at least, the anecdote suited the fact. Lee's army was then three pigeons. One of them was taken down at Gettysburg, but the other two flew off over the Potomac.
"Here I am, and here is Mrs. Lincoln, and that's the long and short of it."—Speech of Mr. Lincoln from the balcony of the White House at Washington.
Whilst Uncle Abe was passing, in his flat-boat, a small town on the Wabash, an old chum accosted him from shore thus:—
"Uncle Abe, are you asleep?"
"Why?"
"Because, I want to borrow some whiskey."
"Then" said Abe, "I am asleep."
And he rolled over drowsily on the flat-boat, and it passed on.
A Methodist dominie was lecturing Abe on his love of gambling. "Ah Abraham, it is a grievous sin—in the first place, consider the loss of time."
"Yes," replied Uncle Abe, "I have often begrudged the loss of time—inshuffling and dealing."
During a conversation which took place between Uncle Abe and a distinguished western senator, the recent legislative nominations for the next presidency were incidentally referred to. "Yes," said Uncle Abe, nursing his leg with evident gratification—"yes senator, the current seems to be setting all one way!"
"It does, really, seem to be setting all one way," was the answer of the senator; "but, Mr. Lincoln, as you have told me several good stories since I have been here, permit me if you please, to tellyouone. It has always been observed that the Atlantic Ocean, at the Straits of Gibraltar, constantly pours into the Mediterranean with tremendous volume. The Bosphorus empties into it, at its other end, and rivers are seen contributing to its waters all along its coast. It was for many years the constant puzzle of geographers, why the Mediterranean, under all these accessions, never got full, and overran its banks. After a while, however, a curious fellow took the notion of dropping a plummet in the center of the Straits, when, lo! he discovered that, though the tremendous body of water on the surface was rushing inward from the ocean, a still more powerful body was passing outward, in a counter current, some twenty feet below!"
"Oh, ah!" said Uncle Abe, seriously, evidently nonplussed, for the first time in his life; "thatdoes notremind me of any story I ever heard before!"
We do not know what joke Uncle Abe made when he heard the news of the surrender of Plymouth. In regard to the Fort Pillow affair he made a Bunsby speech, but no joke. His last joke, of which we have any knowledge, occurred when Secretary Chase was starting on his trip to New York. Uncle Abe is like Cromwell without his military genius, and is very fond of playing practical jokes on his associates. It is said that after Cromwell had signed the warrant for the execution of King Charles he turned round to one of his colleagues and smeared his face with the ink. This he thought capital fun. Uncle Abe's jokes are of about the same quality. When Chase called upon him to say good bye, the Secretary of the Treasury asked for some information about the probable end of the war, saying it would help him greatly in getting more money in Wall street. "Do you want more money?" asked Lincoln, and then quickly added, "What! has the printing machine gin out?" This joke is fully equal to Cromwell's.
At one of Uncle Abe's levees recently, among the Company was a Pennsylvania Avenue tailor whom Abe recognized but could not name. "My dear Sir} I remember your face, but I forget your name," said Uncle Abe. The knight of the needle whispered confidentially into Uncle Abe's ear. "I made your breeches." Uncle Abe took him most affectionately by the hand and exclaimed enthusiastically "Major Breeches, I am happy to meet you at the White House!"
A refugee from Richmond was telling Uncle Abe of the sad state of affairs reigning there. Among other things he said liquor was so scarce that the rebel President himself could scarcely get a drop to drink.
"He ought not to have a dropto drinkin this world or the next," said Uncle Abe.
"You are rather severe," replied the refugee.
"Well," said Uncle Abe, "if you think a drop would do him good, let it be a drop from the scaffold."
While the western governors were in conversation the other day, one of them asked him if he remembered a certain Major of the ——— Illinois regiment.
Uncle Abe replied that "he could'nt say that he did." The gentleman who addressed him then tried to jog the executive memory a little by mentioning a circumstance or two connected with the Major's history. Finally Uncle Abe remembered him very well—which fact he stated in the following graphic language: "O yes, I know who you mean.It's that turkey egg faced fellow that you'd think did'nt know as much as a last year's bird's nest." This was the very individual referred to. It will be seen that Uncle Abe has other fortes than statesmanship—and that of a physiognoist is one of them.
Dick Yates, the jolly Governor of the Suckers, tells that he called on Uncle Abe one morning when he was trying to get the 88,000 "Hundredazers" accepted, and that during their interview Uncle Abe remarked: "Yates, I'll tell you the difference between the concrete and the abstract. When the Senate passed a resolution requesting me not to appoint any more Brigadiers, as the vacancies were all full, that's the concrete. But when a Senator comes up here with a long petition and a longer face, requesting me to make a brigadier out of some scallawag of a friend of his, as it happens every day—I call that the abstract."
Uncle Abe and his chums were wrecked and swamped once on a trip to New Orleans, and having waded ashore, were in search of shelter and refreshment, without much prospect of success, in a thickly timbered bottom. They had traveled through the forest a long distance, and were in despair of finding any human habitation, when they discovered a negro hanging on the projecting limb of a tree. "The joy," said Abe, when telling the adventure, "which this cheering view excited, cannot be described, for it convinced us that we were in acivilized country."
In the days when Uncle Abe plied the flat-boat business on the Wabash and Sangamon, he made it a practice to troll for catfish and dispose of them to the planters in Mississippi, when passing their plantations. This brought him quite a revenue, which was always expended for "forty rod" whisky, or the fish were traded off direct for that fluid chain lightning. Once while passing the plantation of Mr. Percy, he was bound to have some forty rod, and went ashore with a fine lot of fish. A large party were assembled at the mansion of the aristocratic Percy; when Julius C�sar informed him that Uncle Abe was below with some very fine fish. "Well," said Percy, "give him his forty rod as usual, and let him go."
"But sah, he won't take it dis time," said the darkey, "he wants a hundred lashes on the bare back, well laid on massa." Uncle Abe insisted to the surprise of every one on this strange price for his fish, and Mr. Percy to humor him, complied, directing the overseer to cut him gently. When Uncle Abe had received the fiftieth lash, he cried, "Hold! I have got a partner in this business, to whom I have engaged to give half of whatever I should get for the fish—this overseer would not admit me only on that condition." O course the overseer had his share well paid, and Abe got his forty-rod as usual, with something added.
One day a poor woman ran into Uncle Abe's law office in great fright exclaiming:—
"Oh, Mr. Lincoln, my boy has swallowed a penny!"
"Was it a counterfeit," coolly asked Mr. Lincoln.
"No, certainly not," replied the woman, somewhat indignantly.
"Oh! well, thenit will pass, of course," said Uncle Abe.
It is hardly necessary to add that the anxious mother went home comforted and that the boy who "swallowed the penny," at the last Presidentia-election voted for "Honest Old Abe."
At the famous watering place, of the Blue Lick Springs, Uncle Abe was severely afflicted with a pain in the stomach, which neither gin cock-tails nor other cordials could remove. It was night and he was in bed. His loving wife, unwilling to awake the domestics, descended to the kitchen, and prepared mustard poultice, which she spread on her own handkerchief, and proceeded with it to the distressed Uncle Abe. Before leaving him, she left a light dimly burning in the apartment; but deeply impressed with anxiety, she was not as careful as she might have been in noting the number of her room.
Guided by a light which she saw shining in a chamber, and which she supposed was the one she had left, she entered, and gently raising the bed clothes, &c., laid the warm poultice upon a stomach but not the stomach of Uncle Abe.
"Hello there! What the ———— are you about?" shouted a voice of thunder, and the body and sleeves? whence it issued, sprang out of bed.
The lady screamed and ran; Uncle Abe rushed to the rescue from the next room, the waiters joined and a small scene ensued, much to the amusement of all concerned. The poulticed gentleman had indiscreetly left a light in his room, and this lured the lady from her path.
Uncle Abe was so amused and excited by the mistake that he quite forgot his pains; but early the next morning, with his wife and trunks, left for Springfield, 111. The poulticed man still retains the handkerchief—a beautiful cambric—with the lady's name on it, the initials of Frances Amelia E. Todd.
When Uncle Abe kept grocery on the Sangamon he was elected as School Superintendent out of his district. It was his duty to examine the applicant teachers on mathematics; which he once did in this wise in his grocery store. "If two pigs weigh twenty pounds how much will a large hog weigh."
"Jump into the scales," said the weilder of the birch, "and I'll soon tell you."
Abe did not examine him further in mathematics.
Uncle Abe being asked once why he walked so crookedly? said, "Oh my nose, you see, is crooked, and I have to follow it!"
After Uncle Abe had studied law some time and whilst travelling in the Prairie country in Knox County, Illinois, he stopped at the house of Mrs. Galt, an old Scotch lady whose husband was largely engaged in wool growing. Abe at this time was beginning to be proud of his learning, especially of his pronunciation of English. Mrs. Galt when dinner was over desired the servant in waiting to take away the fowls, which she, (as is sometimes done in Scotland), pronouncedfools, "I presume, madam, you mean fowls" said Abe rather sententiously. "Very well, be it so," said Mrs. Galt; "take away thefowls, but let thefoolremain!"
Old Whitey, Abe's school master, said to him angrily one day, "Abraham you are better fed than taught!"
"Should think I was," said Abe, "as I feed myself and you teach me!"
Uncle Abe says there is a good deal of the devil in the Rebels. They sometimes fight like him, frequently run like him, and always lie like him.
Uncle Abe was asked by a client whether his neighbor Brown was "a man of means."
"Well I reckon he ought to be," said Abe, "for he is just the meanest man in Springfield."
When Uncle Abe was taken sick recently, and Mrs Lincoln had sent for the doctor; Uncle Abe, having an aversion to physic, said, he had better call another time, as he was too sick then to joke with him.
Abe when asked whether he could account for his excessive homeliness said "when I was two months old I was the handsomest child in Kentuck, but my nigger nurse swapped me off for another boy just to please a friend who was going down the river whose child was rather plain looking."
Another story of Uncle Abe, too good to be lost, has leaked out. It seems he had accompanied a young lady to one of the hospitals in the capitol where the sympathizing creature, as in duty bound became interested in a wounded soldier. To all her inquiries as to the location of the wound, however, she could only get one reply, thus: "My good fellow where were you hit!"
"At Antietam."
"Yes, but where did the bullet strike you?"
"At Antietam."
"But where did it hit you!"
"At Antietam." Becoming discouraged, she deputized Uncle Abe to prosecute the inquiry, which he did successfully Upon his rejoining her, she was more curious than, ever, when the President, taking both her hands in his said in his most impressive style. "My dear girl, the ball that hithim, would not have injuredyou."
An old acquaintance of Uncle Abe's called upon him a short time since with the view to getting hold of a contract. Uncle Abe told him that contracts were not what they were in Cameron's time. "In fact," said he, "they remind me now of a piece of meadow land on the Sangamon bottoms during a drouth."
"How was that?" said the Sucker—"Why," said Abe, looking rather quizical, "the grass was so short that they had to lather before they could mow it."
During the fall of 1863, Uncle Abe was riding on the Virginia side of the Potomac, between Arlington Heights and Alexandria, accompanied by Dr. N———— of New Jersey. Passing the huge earth-work fortifications, the Doctor observed: "Mr. President, I have never yet been enabled to discover the utility of constructing and maintaining those forts. What is your opinion about them?"
"Well doctor," replied Uncle Abe, "you are a medical man! and I will ask you a question in the line of your profession. Can you tell me the use of a man's nipples?"
"No I can't" said the doctor "Well I can tell you," said Uncle Abe,—"They would be mighty handy if he happened to have a child."
A client of Uncle Abe's was tried for stealing, in Springfield, Illinois, when it was satisfactorily proven that he had acknowledged the theft to several persons. Uncle Abe argued in behalf of his client that he was such an abominable liar that no one could believe him and the jury ought not to. The judge charged against the prisoner, but to his astonishment the jury brought in a verdict that the accused was entirely unworthy of belief; and he was therefore acquitted.
A young U. S. Officer being indicted at Chicago, for an assault on an aged gentleman, Uncle Abe began to open the case thus: "this is an indictment against a soldier for assaulting an old man."
"Sir," indignantly interrupted the defendant, "I am no soldier, I am an officer!"
"I beg your pardon," said Abe, grinning blandly; "then, gentlemen of the jury, this is an indictment againstan officer, who isno soldier, for assaulting an old man."
When Uncle Abe joined the Sangamon Militia and entered on the Black Hawk war campaign, his Colonel was a small snipe of a fellow about four feet three inches. Physically, of course, Uncle Abe looked down upon his Colonel. Abe had rather a slouching look and gait at that time, and attracted by his awkward appearance, the dapper little Colonel thus saluted the future Executive and manufacturer of both Colonels and Brigadiers. "Come, Uncle Abe, hold up your head; higher, fellow!"
"Yes sir."
"Higher, fellow—higher." Abe stretched his lank neck to its greatest altitudinous tension and said, "What—so, Sir?"
"Yes, fellow, a little higher."
"And am I always to remain so?"
"Yes, fellow, certainly!"
"Then," said Uncle Abe, with a woeful countenance, "good bye, Colonel, for I shall never seeyou again!"
Yesterday a Western correspondent, in search for something definite in relation to the fighting now going on, stepped into the White House and asked the President if he had anything authentic from Gen. Grant. The President stated that he had not, as Grant, was like the man that climbed the pole and then pulled the pole up after him.—Washington Union, May 16.