Chapter IV: Part 4

* * * * *

A FIGHT PROVES NOTHING.

Stung by the repetition here in the West by Horace Greeley's quip upon Douglas, whose trimming lost him supporters, "He is like the man's pig which did not weigh as much as he expected, and he always knew he wouldn't," a partizan of the senator's wanted to challenge Lincoln. The latter declared that he would not fight Judge Douglas or his second.

"In the first place, a fight would prove nothing in issue in this contest. If my fighting Judge Douglas would not prove anything, it would prove nothing for me to fight his _bottle_-holder."

(It is to be borne in mind that the senator had a high reputation as a convivial host, and the toady was believed to be his familiar --"the Bottle Imp.")

* * * * *

"WIN THE FIGHT, OR DIE A-TRYING."

Though Douglas had his misgivings from knowing Lincoln is "the ablest of the Republican party," he was forced by his standing and the pressure of his less dubious followers to accept the oratorical challenge of the other. The trumpeteers at once boasted the Little Giant could make small feed of the animated fence-rail. Lincoln said on the subject to Judge Beckwith, of Danville, on the eve:

"You have seen two men about to fight? Well, one of them brags about what he means to do. The other fellow, he says not a word. He is saving his wind for the fight, and as sure as it comes off, he will win it--or die a-trying!"

* * * * *

PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY.

The Puritanic and classically sedate critics blamed the President for finding recreation in reading and hearing comic tales, used to illustrate grave texts. He said to a congressman who brought up the censure at a time when the country was profoundly harried:

"Were it not for this occasional vent, I should die!"

* * * * *

"DOWN TO THE RAISINS!"

It was the regular habit of President Lincoln to read the day's telegrams in order in the "flimsy" triplicates. They were kept in a drawer at the White House telegraph-office. As he handled the papers almost solely, each addition would come to be placed on the last lot of the foregoing day. When this was attained, he would say with a sigh:

"There, I have got down to the raisins!"

It was due to the story, which amused him, of the countryman. This tourist entered a fashionable restaurant, and on viewing the long menu, and concluding that all the dishes were for the customer at the fixed price, manfully called for each in turn. When he arrived at the last line, he sighed in relief, and cried:

"Thanks be! I have got down to the raisins!"

* * * * *

GIANT AND GIANT-KILLER.

As Stephen A. Douglas, from his concentrated force and limited height was nicknamed "the Little Giant," his opponent, the elongated Lincoln, was dubbed "the Giant-Killer."

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S "SENTIMENTS" ON A MOOTED POINT.

The President's reply to an autograph fiend who sought his signature, appended to a sentiment, was:

"DEAR MADAM: When you ask a stranger for that which is of interest only to yourself, always enclose a stamp."

* * * * *

CHESTNUTS UNDER A SYCAMORE.

The President, on his way to the Department of War, perceived a gentleman under a tree, scraping among the heaped leaves with his cane. He knew him, a Major Johnson, of the department, an old District of Columbia man who had never been out of the district.

"Good morning, major!" hailed the executive officer. "What in the world are you doing there?"

"Looking for a few horse-chestnuts."

"Eh? Do you expect to find them under a sycamore-tree?" The President laughed freely and passed on. He ought to have removed the misguided botanist into the Department of Agriculture, where he might have learned something.

* * * * *

STILL OF LITTLE NOTE.

On hearing that a man had been arrested in Philadelphia for trying to procure $1,500 by a forgery of Lincoln's name, he humorously said: "It is surprising that any man could get the money!"

The secretary pointed out that use might have been made of a signature given to a stranger as an autograph on a blank paper, the body of which had been improperly filled up as a note.

"Well," answered the President, then, as to interfering, "I don't see but that he will have to sit on 'the blister-bench.'"

* * * * *

THE TREE-TOAD AND "TIMOTHEUS."

In the early days when Abraham Lincoln went with his pioneer father to settle in wild Indiana, the chief diversion of the rude inhabitants was from the preaching of the traveling pastors. They were singular devotees whose sincerity redeemed all their flaws of ignorance, illiteracy, and violence. Abraham, with his inherent proneness toward imitation of oratory, used to "take them off" to the hilarity of the laboring men who formed his first audiences. Out of his recollections came this tale, which he liked to act out with all the quaint tones and gestures the subject demanded.

The itinerant ranters held out at a schoolhouse near Lincoln's cabin; but in fine weather preferred the academy--as the Platoists would say--what was left of an oak grove, only one tree being spared, making a pulpit with leafy canopy for the exhorter. This man was a Hard-shell Baptist, commonly imperturbable to outside sights and doings when the spirit moved him. His demeanor was rigid and his action angular and restricted. He wore the general attire, coonskin cap or beaver hat, hickory-dyed shirt, breeches loose and held up by plugs or makeshift buttons, as our ancestors attached undergarments to the upper ones by laces and points. The shirt was held by one button in the collar.

This dress little mattered, as a leaf screen woven for the occasion hid the lower part of his frame and left the protruding head visible as he leaned forward, standing on a log rolled up for the platform.

He gave out the text, from Corinthians: "Now if Timotheus come, see that he may be with you without fear; for he worketh the work of the law." The following runs: "Let no man despise him," etc.

As he began his speech, a tree-toad that had dropped down out of the tree thought to return to its lookout to see if rain were coming. As the shortest cut it took the man as a post. Scrambling over his yawning, untanned ankle jack-boots, it slipped under the equally yawning blue jeans. He commenced to scale the leg as the preacher became conscious of the invasion. So, while spooning out the text, he made a grab at the creature, which might be a centipede for all he knew; and then, as it ascended, and his voice ascended a note or two, with the words "be without fear," he slapped still higher. Then, still speaking, but fearsomely animated, he clutched frantically, but always a leetle behindhand, at the unknown monster which now reached the imprisoning neckband. Here he tore at the button--the divine, not the newt--and broke it free! As he finally yelled--sticking to the sermon as to the hunt, "worketh the work of the law!" an old dame in among the amazed congregation rose, and shrieked out:

"Well, if you represent Timotheus and that is working for the law--then I'm done with the Apostles!"

* * * * *

"IF IT WILL DO THE PRESIDENT GOOD--"

G. H. Stuart, chief of the Christian Commission, was a Bible distributer during the war. The organization had a special soldiers' Bible called the Cromwell one, whose mixture of warrior and preacher seemed to couple him with Abraham Lincoln. The soldiers usually accepted a copy without pressing, though some said they preferred a cracker. But one man, a Philadelphian, like Stuart himself, rejected the offer. Among the colporteur's arguments, however, was one that overcame him.

"I'll tell you that I commenced my tract distribution at the White House, and the first person I offered one to was Abraham Lincoln. He took it and promised to read it."

"I'll take one," promptly cried the man; "if the President thought it would do _him_ good, it won't hurt me!"

* * * * *

GROUNDS FOR A FINANCIAL ESTIMATE.

When the mercantile agencies were young, they acquired a consensus of opinion upon a business man by annoying his acquaintances with inquiries. One such house queried of Lincoln about one of his neighbors. His reply was a smart burlesque on the bases on which they rated their registered "listed."

"I am well acquainted with Mr. X----, and know his circumstances. First of all, he has a wife and baby; together, they ought to be worth $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all, there is in one corner a large rat-hole, which will bear _looking into!_ Respectfully, etc."

* * * * *

"I WANTED TO SEE THEM SPREAD!"

It is related that the ushers and secret service officials on duty at the Executive Mansion during the war were prone to congregate in a little anteroom and exchange reminiscences. This was directly against instructions by the President.

One night the guard and ushers were gathered in the little room talking things over, when suddenly the door opened, and there stood President Lincoln, his shoes in his hand.

All the crowd scattered save one privileged individual, the Usher Pendel, of the President's own appointment, as he had been kind to the Lincoln children.

The intruder shook his finger at him and, with assumed ferocity, growled:

"Pendel, you people remind me of the boy who set a hen on forty-three eggs."

"How was that, Mr. President?" asked Pendel.

"A youngster put forty-three eggs under a hen, and then rushed in and told his mother what he had done.

"'But a hen can't set on forty-three eggs,' replied the mother.

"'No, I guess she can't, but I just wanted to see her spread herself.'

"That's what I wanted to see you boys do when I came in," said the President, as he left for his apartments.--(By Thomas Pendel, still usher, in 1900.)

* * * * *

THE LINCOLN NON SEQUITUR.

Though a Democrat, Member of Congress John Ganson, of New York, supported the President, and he thought himself entitled to enjoy what no one had surprised or captured--the confidence of Abraham's bosom, as was the current phrase. He, calling, insisted that he ought to know the true situation of things military and political, so that he might justify himself among his friends. Ganson was bald as the egg and was the most clean-shaven of men. The "Northern Nero" eyed the presumptuous satrap fixedly, and drawled:

"Ganson, how clean you shave!"

He had escaped another inquisition by his close shave. (Told by Senator C. M. Depew.)

* * * * *

WHY SO MANY COMMON PEOPLE.

Like another Daniel, Lincoln interpreted dreams. He said that he had one in this guise:

He imagined he was in a great assemblage like one of his receptions multiplied. The mass described a hedge to let him pass. He thought that he heard one of them remark:

"That is a common-looking fellow!"

To whom Lincoln replied--still in the dream:

"Friend, the Lord loves common-looking people--that is why He made so many of them."

(NOTE.--Another current saying substitutes "the poor" for "common.")

* * * * *

ENVY OF A HUMORIST.

It is difficult for the present generation to perceive the streak of fun in "the Petroleum V. Nasby Papers" which regaled our grandfathers, and Mr. Lincoln above others, who waited eagerly for the next letter in the press. He requested the presentation of the author, John Locke, and thanked him face to face--neither, like the augurs, able to keep his _face_--for such antidotes to the blues. He said to a friend of "the Postmaster at Confedrit X-rodes":

"If 'Petroleum' would impart his talent to me, I would swap places with him!"

* * * * *

THE STOPPER ON JOURNALISTIC "GAS."

Having examined a model cannon devised not to allow the escape of gas, he quizzically glanced at the group of newspaper reporters, and said:

"I really believe this does what it is represented to do. But do any of you know of any machine or invention for preventing the escape of _gas_ from newspaper establishments?"

* * * * *

SALT BEFORE PEPPER.

The Cabinet being assembled in September, 1862, to consider the first draft of the Emancipation Act, those not yet familiar with the chairman's habit to supply a whet before the main dish, were startled that he should preface the business by reading the New York paper--_Vanity Fair_--continuing the series of "Artemus Ward's" tour with his show. This paper was the "High-handed Outrage at Utica." He laughed his fill over it, while the grave signiors frowned and yet struggled to keep their countenances.

If they had more experience, they would have heard him read "Josh Billings," particularly "On the Mule," from the New York _Weekly_ columns. It was as "good as a play," the stenographers said, to see the President dart a glance over his spectacle-rims at some demure counselor whose molelike machinations were more than suspected, and with mock solemnity declaim:

"'I hev known a mewl to be good for six months jest ter git a chance to kick his owner!'" In allusion to those remarkable feats of arms and--legs--Early's or Stuart's raids and Jackson's forced rapid marches, almost at horse-speed, when the men carried no rations, but ate corn-ears taken from the shucks and roasted them "at their pipes," the droll ruler would bring in that "mewl" again:

"'If you want to find a mewl in a lot, you must turn him into the one next to it.'"

Only the rebel "fly-by-nights" were more like the Irishman's flea--"when you put your hand on him, he was not there!"

* * * * *

"MATCHING" STORIES.

The President looking in at the telegraph-room in the White House, happened to find Major Eckert in. He saw he was counting greenbacks. So he said jokingly:

"I believe you never come to business now but to handle money!"

The officer pleaded that it was a mere coincidence, and instanced a story in point:

"A certain tailor in Mansfield, Ohio, was very stylish in dress and airy in manner. Passing a storekeeper's door one day, the latter puffed himself up and emitted a long blow, expressive of the inflation to oozing-point of the conceited tailor, who indignantly turned and said: 'I will teach you to blow when I am passing!' to which the storekeeper replied: 'And I'll teach you not to pass when I am blowing!'"

"Very good!" returned the hearer. "That is very like a story _I_ heard of a man driving about the country in an open buggy, caught at night by a pouring rain. Passing a farmhouse, a man, apparently struggling with the effects of whisky, thrust his head out of a window, and shouted loudly:

"'Hello!'

"The traveler stopped for all of his hurry for shelter and asked what was wanted.

"'Nothing of you!' was the blunt reply.

"'Well, what in the infernals are you shouting 'Hello' for when people are passing?' angrily asked the traveler.

"'Well, what in the infernals are you passing for when people are shouting hello?'"

The rival story-tellers parted "at evens."

* * * * *

THE ONLY DISCREDIT.

A backhanded compliment of the acutest nature is credited to Lincoln as a lawyer and gentleman. A Major Hill accused him of maligning Mrs. Hill, upon which Lincoln denied the accusation and apologized with "whitewash" which blacked the bystander:

"I entertain the highest regard for Mrs. Hill, and the only thing I know to her discredit is that she is Major Hill's wife!"

* * * * *

NO RE-LIE-ANCE OF THEM!

Mrs. Secretary Welles, more susceptible about press attacks on her idol--and everybody in Washington officialdom's idol--the President, called attention to fresh quips and innuendoes.

"Pshaw! let pass; the papers are not always reliable. That is to say, Mrs. Welles," interposed the object of the missiles, "they lie, and then they _re-lie_!"

* * * * *

NO VICES--FEW VIRTUES.

Some one was smoking in the presence of the President, and had complimented him on having no vices--such as drinking or smoking.

"That is a doubtful compliment," said the host. "I recollect being once outside a coach in Illinois, and a man sitting beside me offered me a. cigar. I told him I had no vices. He said nothing, smoked for some time, and then grunted out:

"'It's my experience that folks who have no vices have plaguey few virtues.'"

(Mrs. General Lander--Miss Jean Davenport, of stage life, the original of Dickens' "Miss Crummies"--must have heard this in the presidential circle, for she would say: "If a man has no petty vices, he has great ones.")

A later version ascribes the reproof to a brother Kentuckian, also a stage companion, variation sufficient to prove the happening.

* * * * *

THE APPLES OF HIS EYE.

"Up in the State, out my way," says the narrator, "there was a farmer in the days when his sort were not called agriculturists; he kep' an orchard, at the same time, without being called a horticulturist. He was just another kind of 'Johnny Appleseed,' for he doted on apples and used to beg slips and seeds of any new variety until he had one hundred and eighty-two trees in his big orchard. I have counted them and longed for them, early, mid, and late harvest--he fit off the bug and the blight and the worm like a wizard. If there was any one thing save his orchard he doted upon it was a daughter o' his'n, her name being Rose, and all that you can cram of lush and bright-red and rosy-posy nicety into that name. An' yet he hankered much on the latest addition to his garden--a New York State apple as he sent for and 'tended to at great outlay of time, anyway. 'This here daughter' and 'that there apple-tree' were his delights. You might say the Rose and the Baldwin, that were the brand of the fruit, were the apples of his two eyes!

"Well, there were two men around there, who cast sheep's eyes, not to say wolfish ones, at the fruit and the girl. They Both expected to have the other by getting the one. Well, one of those days the pair of young fellers lounged along and kinder propped up the old man's fence around the orchard. They was looking out of the tail of the eye more for the Rose than the other thing in the garden. But they could not help spying the Baldwin. It was the off year, anyhow, for apples, and this here one being first in fruiting had been spared in but one blossom, and so the old man cared for it with prodigious love. As mostly comes to pass with special fruit, this one being petted, throve--well, you have no idea how an apple tended to can thrive. It was big and red and meller! Well, one of the fellers, being the cutest, he saw the other had his cane with him and was spearing a windfall every now and then, and seeing how close he could come to flipping the ears of a hog wallering down the lane, or mayhap a horse looking over the paddock fence. Then a notion struck him.

"'Lem,' said he, for the rival's name was Lem, for Lemuel; 'Lem,' he says, 'I bet you a dollar you can't fire at that lone apple and knock it off the stem--a dollar coin!' For they were talking in coonskins them times. So Lem he takes the bet, and, sticking an apple on the switch, sends it kiting with such accuracy of aim that it plumps the Baldwin, ker-chung! in the plum center, and away fly both apples. Then, while he grabbed the dollar--the girl and the old soul come out, and the old soul see the pet apple rolling half-dented at his feet, and the girl ran between him and the two men. But the feller who was such a good shot, he sees a leetle too late what he had lost for a dollar and he scooted, with the old man invoking all the cusses of Herod agin' him.

"The other feller he opened the gate as bold as a brazen calf, and said, anticipating the old man:

"'Oh, _I_ don't come for apples--I want to spark your darter!'"

* * * * *

THE WHETSTONE STORY.

Abraham Lincoln was not given to boasting, but he did pride himself on his gift of memory of faces. It included all sorts of things. Among the soldiers calling at the White House was one from his section. He knew him at sight, used his name, and said:

"You used to live on the Danville road. I took dinner with you one time I was running for the legislature. I recollect that we stood talking together out at the barnyard gate while I sharpened my jack-knife on your whetstone."

"So you did!" drawled the volunteer, delighted. "But, say, whatever did you do with that stone? I looked for it mor'n a thousand times, but I never could find it after the day you used it! We 'lowed that mebby you took it along with you."

"No," replied the presumed purloiner seriously, "I sot it on the top of the gate-post--the high one."

"Thunder! likely enough you did! Nobody else couldn't have boosted it up there! and we never thought to look there for it!"

When the soldier was allowed to go home, the first thing he did was to look up to that stone. Surely enough it was on the gate-post top! It had lain there fifteen years, since the electioneerer had stuck it there as easily as one might place it on a table.

* * * * *

"THE MONARCH OF ALL HE SURVEYED."

Lincoln's coquetting with the science of Gunter, Jack of all trades that he was, empowered him to perpetrate a fine pun on the United States surveyor-general in California, General Beall. This official acquired in his course so much real estate of the first quality that on a reference being made to it in the President's hearing, he observed:

"Yes, they say Beall is 'monarch of all he _surveyed_.'" (New York _Herald_.)

* * * * *

MEN HAVE FAULTS LIKE HORSES.

While riding between the court towns, Menard and Fulton Counties, Illinois, Lincoln rode knee to knee with an old settler who admitted that he was going to Lewiston to have some "lawing" out with a neighbor, also an old-timer. The young practitioner already preached, as a motto, that there would always be litigation enough and again exerted to throw oil on the riled water.

"Why, Uncle Tommy, this neighbor has been a tolerable neighbor to you nigh onto fifteen year and you get along in _hunk_ part of the time, don't 'ee?"

The rancantankerous man admitted as much.

"Well, now, you see this nag of mine? He isn't as good a horse as I want to straddle and I sometimes get out of patience with him, but I know his faults as well as his p'ints. He goes fairly well as hosses go, and it might take me a long while to git used to another hoss' faults. For, like men, all hosses hev faults. You and Uncle Jimmy ought to put up with each other as man and his steed put up with one another; see?"

"I reckon you are about right, Abe!"

And he went on to town, but not to "law."

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S PUNS ON PROPER NAMES.

Though as far back as Doctor Johnson, punning was regarded as obsolete, it was still prevalent in the United States and so up to a late date. Mr. Lincoln was addicted to it.

Mr. Frank B. Carpenter was some six months at the presidential mansion engaged on the historical painting of "The President and the Cabinet Signing the Emancipation Act," when the joke passed that he had come in there a _Carpenter_ and would go out a _cabinet-maker_. An usher repeated it as from the fountain-head of witticism there.

At a reception, a gentleman addressed him, saying: "I presume, Mr. President, you have forgotten me?"

"No! your name is Flood. I saw you last, twelve years ago, at ----. I am glad to see that _the Flood_ still goes on."

The Draft Riots in New York, mid-July, 1863, had, at the bottom, not reluctance to join the army, but a belief among the Democrats, notably the Irish-Americans, that the draws were manipulated in favor of letting off the sons of Republicans. However, the Irish were prominent in resistance. The President said: "General _Kilpatrick_ is going to New York to put down the riots--but his name has nothing to do with it."

In 1856, Lincoln was prosecuting one Spencer for slander. Spencer and a Portuguese, Dungee, had married sisters and were at odds. Spencer called the dark-complexioned foreigner a nigger, and, further, said he had married a white woman--a crime in Illinois at that era. On the defense were Lawrence Weldon and C. H. Moore. Lincoln was _teasled_ as the court sustained a, demurrer about his papers being deficient. So he began, his address to the jury:

"My client is not a negro--though it is no crime to be a negro--no crime to be born with a black skin. But my client is not a negro. His skin may not be as white as ours, but I say he is not a negro, though he may be a _Moore!"_ looking at the hostile lawyer. His speech was so winning that he recovered heavy damages. But being a family quarrel, this was arranged between the two. Mr. Weldon says that he feared Mr. Lincoln would win, as he had said with unusual vehemence:

"Now, by Jing! I will beat you, boys!"

By Jing! (Jingo--St. Gengulphus), was "the extent of his expletives." Byron found a St. Gingo's shrine in his Alpine travels.

On paying the costs, Lincoln left his fee to be fixed by the opposing pair of lawyers, saying: "Don't you think I have honestly earned twenty-five dollars?"

They expected a hundred, for he had attended two terms, spent two days, and the money came out of the enemy's coffer.

* * * * *

NOT SO EASY TO GET INTO PRISON.

William Lloyd Garrison, the premier Abolitionist, was imprisoned in Baltimore for his extreme utterances when a stronghold of the pro-slavery party. After the war, he visited the regenerated city, and, for curiosity, sought unavailingly the jail where he had been confined. On hearing the fruitlessness of his quest, the President said:

"Well, Mr. Garrison, when you first went to Baltimore, you could not get out of prison--but this second time you could not get in!"

* * * * *

"THEM THREE FELLERS AGIN!"

The gamut of possible atrocities in connection with fulfilment of the threats of secession being run through the rumors became stale and flat. Lincoln, receiving one deputation of alarmists with considerable calm, no doubt thought to excuse it by saying:

"That reminds me of the story of the schoolboy. He found great difficulty in pronouncing the names of the three children in the fiery furnace. Yet his teacher had drilled him thoroughly in 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,' so that, one day, he purposely took the same lesson in Bible reading, and managed to have the boy read the passages containing these names again. As the dull pupil came to them he stopped, looked up, and said:

"'Teacher, there's them three fellers ag'in!'"

* * * * *

LINCOLN THE GREAT AND LINCOLN THE LITTLE.

In 1856, the new Republican party tested its strength by offering a ticket: General Fremont, popular through his invasion of California and Rocky Mountain exploration, was selected as the presidential nominee, with Dayton as vice. But during the balloting, Lincoln was opposed to the latter, and received over a hundred votes. This news was despatched to Illinois as a compliment to her "favorite son."

But on going to congratulate "our Lincoln," the deputation found him easy and incredulous on the felicitation.

"You are barking up the wrong tree, neighbors," he said gravely; "that must be the great Lincoln--of Massachusetts."

There was a Levi Lincoln, to whom he had been introduced as a form and as a kinsman of the Massachusetts Lincolns. So the namesake's mistake in modesty was pardonable in one who studied the train of politics most thoroughly since he had said he would be President of these United States. It was in his teens, but the saying is common property of young America, and it is more notable that before he left Indiana, and early in his new and unalterable one in Illinois, his astounded admirers prophesied the same goal; it is a fact that his own hand proves; that in 1854, he says, "I have really got it into my head to be United States senator." [Footnote: Nevertheless, a friend, Speed or Herndon, says, a year or two later, that Lincoln had no more founded idea that he would be President than Emperor of China. It may be permitted to believe that no man is a confidant to his valet or friend.]--(Letter to Joseph Gillespie, preserved in Missouri Historical Society Library.)

* * * * *

"GO, THOU, AND DO LIKEWISE."

Lord Lyons was the British ambassador at Washington when the Prince of Wales--now King Edward--was betrothed to the Princess Alexandra, of Denmark, since queen regent of England. He used the most stilted, ornate, and diplomatic language to carry the simple fact. The President replied offhand with trenchant advice to the bearer, who was unmarried:

"'Go, thou, and do likewise!'"

This did not alter the amity existing between the two, for Lincoln so won upon the envoy that he notified his premier, Lord Russell, at a critical instant when England and France were expected to combine to raise the Southern blockade, that it was wrong to prepare the American Government for recognition of the Confederacy. As for the Russian alliance with the powers, that was a fable, since the czar had sent a fleet to New York, where the admiral had sealed orders to report to President Lincoln in case the European allies' declared war.

In consequence of Lord Lyons opposing the English move, he had to resign.--(A later account in Malet's "Shifting Scenes.")

* * * * *

"IS THE WORLD GOING TO FOLLOW THAT COMET OFF?"

Two gentlemen going by stage-coach from Terre Haute to Indianapolis, in 1858, found one part of the vehicle occupied fully by a tall, countrified person, in a cheap hat and without coat or vest, but a farm roundabout. They had to wake him up, but he was civil and polite enough in his unkempt way. They thought he would be a good butt for play, as educated folk were uncommon out there in 1847, and considered the untaught as their legitimate prey. So they bombarded the poor bumpkin with "wordy pyrotechnics," at which the stranger bewilderingly added his laugh and finally was emboldened to ask what would be the upshot of "this here comet business?"

The comet was the talk, especially in the evening, of the world, as it was taken to forerun disasters. If the editor remembers aright it was sword-shaped. That portends war. The intelligent jesters answered him to confuse still more, and left him at Indianapolis. One of the two travelers was Judge Abram Hammond, and his companion, who tells the story, Thomas H. Nelson, of Terre Haute. The latter, coming down after preening up, found a brilliant group of lights of the law in the main room. They were judges and luminaries of the bar--but who should be the center of the galaxy but the uncouth fellow traveler! All were so interested in a story he was telling that Mr. Nelson could, unnoticed, inquire of the laughing landlord as to the entertainer of these wits.

"Abraham Lincoln, of Sangamonvale, our M. C.!"

He was so stupefied that, on recovery, he hurried upstairs and got Hammond to levant with him. But he was not to remain unpunished. Years after, when Hammond was governor of the State, and he to become minister to Chile, Nelson, was at the same hotel-Browning's--at the capital, when looking over the party welcoming and accompanying the President-elect to Washington, he saw a long arm reached out to his shoulder; a shrill voice pierced his ear:

"Hello, Nelson! do you think, after all, the whole world is going to follow that darned comet [Footnote: Donati's comet.] off?"

The words were Nelson's own in reply to the supposed Reuben's question in the stage-coach twelve years before!

No joke of a memory, that--for a joke!

* * * * *

A GOOD LISTENER.

The invidious who would themselves get a word in, accused Lincoln of monopolizing the conversation where he wished to reign supreme. This is contradicted in several instances. Rather his confraternity describe their meetings as "swapping stories," the flow circulating.

Mr. Bowen pictures Lincoln as getting up half-dressed, after a speech at Hartford, in his hotel bedroom at Mr. Trumbull, of Stonington, rapping at the door. Trumbull had just thought of "another story I want to tell you!" And the tired guest sat up till three in the morning "exchanging stories." This does not resemble monopoly.

A clerk, Littlefield, in the Lincoln-Herndon office, prepared a speech, and said to his senior employer:

"It is important that I get this speech correct, because I think you are going to be the presidential candidate. I told him I would like to read it to him. He consented, sitting down in one corner of the room, with his feet on a chair in front of him.

"'Now,' said he, in his hearty way, 'fire away, John! I think I can stand it.' As I proceeded, he became quite enthusiastic, exclaiming: 'You are hitting the nail on the head.' He broke out several times in this way, finally saying: 'That is going to go.'"

It did go, as the fellow clerk, Ellsworth, of Chicago Zouaves fame, borrowed it, and it disappeared--wads for his revolver, perhaps.

* * * * *

CARRIED THE POST-MATTER IN HIS HAT.

It is to Abraham Lincoln is fastened the joke that as postmaster he carried the mail in his hat. This was at New Salem, postmaster of which he was appointed by President Jackson, as he was the best qualified of any of the burgesses. Indeed, he often had to read letters to their ignorant receivers, and habitually acted as town clerk in reading out newspapers for the general good, on the stoop.

* * * * *

PRESIDENT LINCOLN DUBBED THEM THE "WIDE-AWAKES."

In looking over the illustrated newspapers of the war, one may find drawn the processions anterior to election of the various political parties. Gradually the lines, at first only uniform in certain organizations, became regular as a body. The Republicans at rich Hartford, having funds for the purpose, formed a corps of three or four hundred young men. They drilled to march creditably, assumed a kind of uniform: a cape to shed sparks and oil from the torches, and swinging lamps carried; and a hat, proof also to fire, water, and missiles!

In March, 1860, Mr. Lincoln paid a visit to the college city to speak at the old City Hall. He was introduced as one who had "done _yeoman_ service for the young party (the Republican)." The word yeoman was under stood in the old English sense of the small independent farmers. Old Tom Lincoln's boy came into this class. He assented to it and even lowered the level by presenting himself as a hard worker in the cause--"a dirty shirt" of the body. After the meeting, the marchers surrounded the speaker's "public carriage" to escort him to the mayor's house. His introducer was Sill, later lieutenant-governor of the State. To him the guest observed on the ride:

"Those boys are wide-awake! Suppose (they were seeking a name) we call them, the Wide-awakes?"

The name was enthusiastically adopted. The wide felt hat, with one flap turned up, was called the Wide-awake, but the election marchers did not wear them at all. Lincoln had added a new word to the language.

* * * * *

TRUST TO THE OLD BLUE SOCK.

Several incidents in Lincoln's early career earned him the title of "honest," confirmed by his uncommon conduct as a lawyer; [Footnote: The Honest Lawyer. It is said that he was amused by the conjunction, which he observed, to an adviser who turned him into the legal field, was rather a novelty. He thought of the story of the countryman who saw a stranger by the God's acre, staring at a gravestone, without however any emotion on his face to betray he was a mourner. On the contrary, the man wore a puzzled smile, which piqued him to inquire the cause.

"Relative of yours?" asked the native.

"No, not at all, except through Adam. But," reading the epitaph, "'X., an honest man, and a lawyer.' Why, how did they come to bury those _two_ men in one grave?'"] but a principal event was in connection with his postmastership. It was in 1833. After renouncing the position, he removed to Springfield to take up the study of the law. An agent from the Post-office Department called on him to settle his accounts; through some oversight he had been left undisturbed for some years. He was living with a Mr. Henry, who kept a store, anterior to his lodging in Mr. Speed's double-bedded room. As he was poverty-stricken and had been so since quitting home. Mr. Henry, hearing that a matter of fifteen or twenty dollars was due the government, was about to loan it, when Lincoln, not at all disquieted, excused himself to the man from headquarters to go over to his boarding-house. Usually when a debtor thus eclipses himself the official expects to learn he is a defaulter and has "taken French leave," as was said on the border. But the ex-postmaster immediately came over, and, producing an old blue woolen sock, such as field-hands wore, poured out coin, copper and silver, to the exact amount of the debit. Much as the poor adventurer needed cash in the interval, the temptation had not even struck him to use the trust--the government funds. He said to partner Herndon he had promised his mother never to use another's money.

* * * * *

IF ALL FAILED, HE COULD GO BACK TO THE OLD TRADE!

The Illinois Republican State Convention of 1860 met at Decatur, in a _wigwam_ built for the purpose, a type of that noted in the Lincoln annals as at Chicago. A special welcome was given to Abraham Lincoln as a "distinguished citizen of Illinois, and one she will ever be delighted to honor." The session was suddenly interrupted by the chairman saying: "There is an old Democrat outside who has something to present to the convention."

The present was two old fence-rails, carried on the shoulder of an elderly man, recognized by Lincoln as his cousin John Hanks, and by the Sangamon folks as an old settler in the Bottoms. The rails were explained by a banner reading:

"Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks, in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830."

Thunderous cheers for "the rail-splitter" resounded, for this slur on the statesman had recoiled on aspersers and was used as a title of honor. The call for confirmation of the assertion led Lincoln to rise, and blushing--so recorded--said:

"Gentlemen: I suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth is, John and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom." He eyed the wood with the knowingness of an authority on "stumpage," and added: "I don't know whether we made those rails or not; the fact is, I don't think they are a credit to the makers!" It was John Hanks' turn to blush. "But I do know this: I made rails then, and, I think, I could make better ones now!"

Whereupon, by acclamation, Abraham Lincoln was declared to be "first choice of the Republican party in Illinois for the Presidency."

Riding a man in on a rail became of different and honorable meaning from that out.

This incident was a prepared theatrical effect. Governor Oglesby arranged with Lincoln's stepbrother, John D. Johnston, to provide two rails, and, with Lincoln's mother's cousin, Dennis Hanks, for the latter to bring in the rails at the telling juncture. Lincoln's guarded manner about identifying the rails and sly slap at his ability to make better ones show that he was in the scheme through recognizing that the dodge was of value politically.

(Confirmed by several present, notably by Missouri Congressman John Davis, who was taking notes, and by the present Speaker, Joseph Cannon, also "a gentleman from Illinois." He was at this meeting and saw Lincoln standing on the platform, between the rails he split. He thought then that the orator's years of hard work and close study told on him and that serious illness impended. It may be added, as a link with the past, that on hearing; Lincoln and Douglas in their debates, his courage and hopes as to advance through public speaking fell; yet he was State attorney.)

* * * * *

AS A LIGHT PORTER.

One morning when Lawyer Lincoln was walking from his house to the state-house, at Springfield, he spied a child weeping at a gate. The girl had been promised a trip by the railroad-cars for the first time; all was arranged for her to meet another little companion and travel with her, but she was detained from getting out for the station, as no one was about to carry her trunk. She drew the conclusion that she must lose her train, and she burst into fresh tears.

The box in question was a toy casket proportionate to her size. Lincoln smiled, and that almost dismissed her tears if not her fears. They were immediately dispelled, however, by his cheerily crying out:

"Is that all? Pooh-pooh! Dry your eyes and step out."

He reached over the fence and lifted clear across to him the trunk. He raised it on his shoulder with the other hand, crossing as a corn-bag is carried. He grabbed her by the hand just as the tooting of the train whistle was heard in the mid-distance. So half-lugging her, the pair hurried along to the depot, reaching it as the cars rolled in and pulled up.

He put her on the car, kissed her, and cheered her off with:

"Now, have a real good time with your auntie!"

Always wanting to relieve somebody of a burden, you see!

* * * * *

WHISKERED, TO PLEASE THE LADIES AND GET VOTES.

As Mr. Lincoln was utterly unknown in the East, the "engineers" of his campaign for President planned to have him make himself liked by a tour of the Middle and Northern States. To lessen the impression from one unprepossessing in aspect, "some fixing up" was compulsory. The journalist, Stephen Fiske, recites that on arriving at New York, Mrs. Lincoln, a sort of valet for the trip, had hand-bag of toilet essentials, and that she "brushed his hair, and arranged that snaky black necktie of his--which would twist up and play the shoe-string in five minutes after adjustment. But it was not she, as thought, who coaxed him into making the lower part of his features become cavernous as strong feeling surged upon him. He revealed the source of the improvement.

"Two young ladies in Buffalo wrote me that they wanted their fathers and sweethearts to vote for me, but I was so homely-looking that the men refused! The ladies said that if I would only grow whiskers (what were called "weepers," or the Lord Dundreary mode, was popular) it would improve my appearance, and I would get four more votes! I grew the whiskers!"

(In the Lincoln iconology, his pictures before and after the whiskers is a distinction.)

* * * * *

AFTER VOTES.

Lincoln had become the readiest of public speakers by his long experience. So it was matter for surprise that he, famed for rapid repartee, should have refrained from taking any notice of an interrupter whose shout could have been turned on him; so thought a friend on the platform.

"Why don't you answer him?"

"I am after votes and that man's is as good as any other man's!" replied Mr. Lincoln.

(The Honorable Mr. Palmer says of above: "Mr. Lincoln told me this.")

* * * * *

THE HIGHWAYMAN'S NON SEQUITUR.

"But you will not abide the election of a Republican President? In that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool! A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth: 'Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you--and then you will be a murderer!'"--(Speech, New York City, February 27, 1860.)

* * * * *

"HOW TO GET MEN TO VOTE!"

"Let them go on with their howling! (Political opponents.) They will succeed when, by slandering women, you get them to love you, or by slandering men you get them to vote for you!"

* * * * *

BEGINNING AT THE HEAD WITH CLOTHING.

Upon Mr. Lincoln's nomination in 1860, a hatter sent him a silk hat for the advertisement and send-off. He put it on before the glass, and said to his wife:

"Well, Mary, we are going to have some new clothes out of this job, anyway!"

* * * * *

"LUCE A JUG--THE HANDLE ALL ONE SIDE."

Lincoln's intimates thought it remarkable that he should keep his finger on the political pulse and show himself as fully cognizant of the trend of popular feeling. Oddly enough the professional politicians themselves would not own that he was a king among them, though Douglas affirmed him to be in his time the most able man in the Republican party. On clashing returns coming in, he humorously remarked on two reports: "If that is the way doubtful districts are coming in, I will not stop to hear from the certain ones." He observed to Alexander H. Rice, then up for Congress in Massachusetts: "Your district is a good deal like a jug--the handle is all one side!"

* * * * *

"SUCH A SUCKER AS ME, PRESIDENT!"

When Lincoln's wife, at his prospect of being United States senator was on the verge of realization, reminded him of her prophecy, away back in the fifties, that he would attain the highest niche--the inevitable feminine "I told you so!" he clasped his knees in keen enjoyment, and, laughing a roar, cried out:

"Think of such a _sucker_ as me as President!"

But presently, he said with his dry smile: "But I do not pretend I do not want to go _to the Senate_!"--(Henry Villard, then newspaper reporter.)

* * * * *

ONE HAPPY DAY.

To his friend Bowen, Lincoln avowed during the electioneering-time that he was sure "from the word go," to become President, though the split of the opposition into three parties was materially helpful: Douglas, Bell, and Breckenridge. He thought the reward due him as having gone "his whole length" for the Republican party, almost his creation. So he frankly said on his success:

"I cannot conceal the fact that I am a very happy man. Who could help being so under such circumstances?"--(To H. C. Bowen, of the New York _Independent._)

* * * * *

OLD ABE WILL LOOK BETTER WHEN HIS HAIR IS COMBED.

"Did I ever tell you the joke the Chicago newsboys had on me? (To the War Department telegraph manager, A. B. Chandler.) A short time before my nomination (for President), I was at Chicago attending to a lawsuit. A photographer asked me to sit for a picture, and I did so. This coarse, rough hair of mine was in particularly bad tousle at the time, and the picture presented me in all its fright. After my nomination, this being about the only picture of me there was, copies were struck off to show those who had never seen me how I looked. The newsboys carried them around to sell, and had for their cry:

"'Here's your "Old Abe"--he will look better when he gets his hair combed!'"

He laughed heartily, says Mr. Chandler.

NOTE.--Mrs. Lincoln seems to have perceived this bar to her husband's facial beauty. For the journalist, Fiske, relating the arrival of the Lincolns in New York for the Eastern tour in 1860, speaks thus of the toilet to befit him for the reception by Mayor Fernando Wood:

"The train stopped, and Mrs. Lincoln opened her handbag, and said:

"'Abraham, I must fix you up a bit for these city folks.'

"Mr. Lincoln gently lifted her upon the seat before him. (She was an undersized, stout woman.) She parted, combed, and brushed his hair.

"'Do I look nice, now, mother?' he affectionately asked.

"'Well, you'll do, Abraham,' replied Mrs. Lincoln critically."

* * * * *

A CURIOUS COMBINATION.

When the names of Lincoln and Hamlin were painted large on the street banners, it was immediately noticed that a singular effect appeared, as

* * * * *

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

One of the anagrams upon the President had, at least, peculiar signification:

Abraham Lincoln: _O ba! an III. charm_.

It was Hamlin who proposed at the Lincoln Club, of New York, that a day should be set aside as "the Lincoln Day."

* * * * *

THE SNAKE SIMILE.

"If I saw a venomous snake crawling in the road, any man would say I might seize the nearest stick and kill it. But if I found that snake in bed with my children, that would be another question. I might hurt the children more than the snake, and it might bite them. Much more if I found it abed with my neighbor's children, and I had bound myself by a solemn contract not to meddle with his children under any circumstances, it would become me to let that particular mode of getting rid of the gentleman alone. But--if there was a bed newly made up, to which the children were to be taken, and it was proposed to take a batch of young snakes and put them there with them, I take it no man would say there was any question how I ought to decide." --(Speech by Abraham Lincoln at New York Cooper Institute, and repeated through Connecticut, 1860.)

* * * * *

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

The Reverend Doctor Moore, of Richmond, derived Lincoln from two words, meaning: "On the precipice verge," and Davis as interpretable as "God with us."

* * * * *

PAYING FOR WHISKY HE DID NOT DRINK.

In 1858, Mr. Lincoln was campaigning in Ohio, and staying in Cincinnati at the Burnett House, it was the meeting-place of the party of which he was the looming light. Some of the younger Republicans (says Murat Halstead, there as a newspaper man) had refreshments in his rooms, and from some stupid oversight, allowed the whisky and cigars to be included in his bill. This raised a hot correspondence between them and the guest, ticklish about his lifelong abstinence principles. Mr. Halstead said that the episode rankled in the blunderers after they had elected their pride President. He must have felt like the gentleman at the inn dining-room who, falling asleep at his meal, had the fowl consumed by some merry wags; then greasing his lips with the drumstick, they left him before the carcass so that the host naturally charged him with the feast.

* * * * *

"THE HIGHEST MERIT TO THE SOLDIER."

"This extraordinary war in which we are engaged falls heavily upon all classes of people, but the most heavily upon the soldier. For it has been said, 'All that a man hath he will give for his life;' and, while all contribute of their substance, the soldier puts his life at stake, and often yields it up in his country's cause. The highest merit, then, is due to the soldier."

* * * * *

"HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE?"

If Lincoln did not possess a wide range of reading, he had the habit of committing to memory entire pages of the text he delighted in. The consequence was his invariable ability to not only utter apt quotations at length, but to cap them, if need be. Joining a group of visitors to Washington, at the Soldiers' Home, during the war, he suddenly, but in an undertone, murmured:

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest?

The women were affected to tears by their susceptible nature, the surroundings of the cemetery with its graves, the evening dusk, and the touching voice with its apposite lines. An effect he redoubled by concluding:

And women o'er the graves shall weep,
Where nameless heroes calmly sleep!

* * * * *

THE STOKERS AS BRAVE AS ANY.