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, coarseboots, 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 theabolition 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."
"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."
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 noideait 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 & LINCOLNAttorneys-at-Law
STUART & LINCOLNAttorneys-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, keepinghis 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 andthe 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 someexcellent 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 wouldbe 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."
"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 wouldbe 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 couldsee 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'sattention 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:—Idon't drink!"
In spite of this remark, Mr. Lincolnwasan ardent temperance man. One Washington's birthday he delivered a temperance addressbeforetheWashingtonian 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 theState. 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 morelikely 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 morbidlyconscious 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 townlike 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 entirelyhappy 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 lastSangamon Journalthat 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 theSangamon Journala 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 Shieldshisname 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 killedhim, 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 everperformed 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."
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 tohis 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, triedto 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 againAnd 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 lostIn 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 thesort. 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 fortwiceas much as I'd charge atotal 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 peculiarlaugh 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 andhis 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."
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 flutteringon 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."