The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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Abe was maneuvering his boat on the Ohio River, at Rockport, when he
heard the whistle announcing the approach of a steamboat. These craft
were not enabled to make a landing anywhere, even with a run-out
gang-plank--but took passengers and parcels aboard by lighters.
Lincoln's small boat seemed admirably placed to serve as a transport
to a couple of gentlemen who came down to the shore to ship on the
steamboat. Their trunks were taken out of their carriages, and they
selected Lincoln's new boat among some others. In his homespun, the
gawky youth looked what he was--not the owner of the craft and about
to try a speculation on the river, but one of the "scrubs." The
"scrubs," not from any relation with washing--quite otherwise--were
those poor families on the outskirts of towns who lived in the scrub
or dwarfed pines. Accordingly one of them asked, indicating the
flatboat:

"Who owns this?"

The hero relates the story thus:

"'I answered, somewhat modestly: 'I do!'

"'Will you take us and our trunks out to the steamboat?'

"'Certainly,' glad of the chance of earning something. I supposed that
each of them would give two or three _bits_--practically the dime
of nowadays."

Lincoln carried the passengers aboard the vessel and handed up their
trunks. Each of the gentlemen drew out a piece of silver and threw
it on the little deck.

"Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these
days it seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important incident
in my life. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the two
silver half-dollars. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had
earned a dollar in less than a day--that by honest work, I had earned
a dollar!" (Lincoln's flatboatman wage was $10 a month.)

(Related by Frank B. Carpenter, the portrait-painter, as given out by
President Lincoln to a party of friends in the White House executive
chamber, Secretary Seward, notably, being among them.)

* * * * *

CONVICTION THROUGH A THRASHING.

In 1831, Abraham Lincoln, returning from a voyage to New Orleans, paid
the usual filial visit to his father, living in Coles County. A famous
wrestler, one Needham, hearing of the newcomer's prowess in wrestling,
more general than pugilism on the border, called to try their
strength. As the professional was in practise, and as the other, from
his amiable disposition and his forbidding appearance was not so, the
latter declined the honor of a hug and the forced repose of lying on
the back. Nevertheless, taunted into the trial, he met the champion
and defeated him in two goes. The beaten one was chagrined, and vented
his vexation in this defiance:

"You have thrown me twice, Lincoln, but you cannot _whip_ me!"

"I do not want to, and I don't want to get whipped myself," was the
simple reply.

"Well, I 'stump' you to lick me!" went on Needham, thinking he was
gaining ground. "Throwing a man is one thing and licking him another!"

"Look here, Needham," said the badgered man, at last, "if you are not
satisfied that I can throw you every time, and want to be convinced
through a thrashing, I will do that, too, for your sake!"

The man "backed out." But he was ever afterward one of the champion's
warmest friends.

* * * * *

BOATING ON GROUND "A LEETLE DAMP."

In a letter of August, 1862, the President alludes to the amphibious
minor navy, which made their tracks "wherever the ground was a little
damp." This is hardly an exaggeration of Western shallow-water
navigation. Lincoln, as pilot on the Sangamon River in 1831, was
engaged to run a steamboat called the _Talisman_, after Sir
Walter Scott's popular romance. It was to test the point whether the
Sangamon River was navigable or not, an important local problem on
which Lincoln, later, got into the legislature. As he had "tried" the
river a good deal with the flatboats, he answered, he would try and do
the best he could. A large crowd flocked in from all sides to witness
the experiment. Lincoln guided the bark well up to the New Salem dam.
Here a gap had been cut to let the vessel slip through. But at a
place called Bogue's Mill, the water was rapidly lowering, and they
had to wheel about and get back, or be shoaled and be held there until
the spring freshets. The return trip was slow, as, though the stream
was in his favor, the high prairie wind delayed the boat. The falling
water had made the broken hole in the dam impracticable. But Lincoln
backed the _Talisman_ off as soon as she stranded and stuck; and,
by casting an anchor so as to act as a gigantic grapnel, to tear away
some more of the dam, the opening sufficed for the boat to "coast" on
the stones and get over into deep water. "I think," says an old
boatman--J. R. ("Row") Herndon--"that the captain gave Lincoln forty
dollars to keep on to Beardstown. I am sure I got that!"

* * * * *

THE INITIATOR INSTALLED.

As a fruit of incessant study Abraham Lincoln fitted himself to accept
the post of clerk at Offutt's store, in New Salem, in 1831. It was a
responsible position, requiring strict honesty, intelligence, glib
talk, attention, and courtesy to the few dames in the population of
twenty households, "with the back settlement to hear from." In fact,
Lincoln's gifts and cultivated acquirements made him such a favorite
that the list of customers from out of town was extensive. This
promotion of a newcomer nettled the bad element of the region. They
were located from congeniality in a suburb termed Clary's Grove. Like
the tail which undertakes to wag the dog, this tag constituted
itself the criterion and proposed "initiating" any accession to the
inhabitants. To take the conceit out of the upstart who had leaped
from the flatboat deck to behind the counter at the store--the acme of
a bumpkin's ambition--they selected their bully. This Jack Armstrong
was held so high by Bill Clary, "father" of the Grove boys, that he
bet with Offutt, over-loud in praise of his help, that Jack could beat
Abe, "and your Abe has got to be initiated, anyway!"

Abraham refused under provocation to have anything to do with
"rough-and-tumble" fighting--as also known as "scuffle and tussle,"
and "wooling and pulling"--in short, these agreeable features promise
to include all brutalities save gouging, which was unfashionable so
far to the North. But a man could not live quietly on the frontier
without showing to such ruffians that his hands could shield his head.
For the honor of the store, the clerk had to stand up to the opponent.

The bout came off. In the first attack, Lincoln lifted the foe, though
heavier, clean off his feet, but he was unable to lay him down in the
orthodox manner, consisting in placing him flat on his back, with both
shoulder-blades denting the earth. The semi-victor amicably said:
"Let's quit, Jack! You see I cannot give you the fall--and you cannot
give it me."

The gang shouted for a resumption of the "sport," thinking this was
weakness of the competitor. They joined again, but Armstrong, having
his doubts, resorted to foul play--kicking or "legging," as the
localism stands. Indignantly, Lincoln drew him up again and shook him
in mid-air as a terrier does a rat. The rowdies, seeing their champion
bested, shouted for him to make a _fight_ of it, and probably
they would have "mixed in" and made a "fight for all" in another
minute. But Jack had his doubts set at rest as to the prospect of
overcoming a man who could hold him out and off at arm's length; and,
begging to be set down, grasped his antagonist's hand in friendship
and proclaimed him the best man "who had ever broke into" that
section. The two became friends, and the gang gradually dwindled by
this recession from their ranks of their Goliath.

* * * * *

THE HORRORS FOR THE THIRD TIME!

When Abraham Lincoln was a poor young lawyer from Springfield,
attending the perambulatory court down at Lewiston, Illinois, he found
the place crowded by a Methodist meeting as well as the court having
an attractive case to try. He was obliged--because of exclusion from
the inn--to put up at the sheriff's house. Mrs. Davidson herself could
only offer him shares with Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, also a rising man,
and Peter Cartwright, the noted preacher--on the floor, but on a
feather bed. At that period the wild goose flew low. It may be
supposed that the student of Shakespeare might quote "When shall we
three meet again?" on rising between the famous border worthies in the
dawn. The hospitality was so refreshing that the trio spent the next
night there. They sat up by the large fireside, capping stories.
The enmity of lawyers, and even of politicians, is but skin-deep,
and Steve and Abe clashed not at all to meet the minister's reproof.
Lincoln rocked while story-telling in a cane-bottomed chair, taken
from the steamboat celebrated in Spoon River annals as its first
navigator. Lincoln was the more interested, as he had been boatman and
pilot on his river, the Sangamon. In the 1820's, this toy boat, the
_Utility_, struggled into the high water of Spoon River. It is a
tributary of the Illinois. Now, though the county is named Fulton,
none of the inhabitants knew anything about the inventor of steam
navigation, and doubted that a steamboat existed near them. Hence the
snorting, puffing, and clangor of the vessel as she surged against the
freshet, alarmed all the population in hearing when she ascended the
virgin Spoon.

One Sam Jenkins had been on a spree for a week, and even he was roused
by the tremendous sound. As he rushed from his cabin, by the terrific
blaze from the high smoke-stack and the furnace burning pitch-pine,
he sank onto his shaking knees and yelled:

"Boys, I have got 'em for the third time! It is all up with me!"

* * * * *

THE WHISTLE THAT STOPPED THE BOAT.

Lincoln was pitted, as a lawyer, against a brother of the toga who was
of fat and plethoric habit, and who puffed and blowed when most he
wished to get on with his speech. The wag said:

"The gentleman reminds me of a little steamboat I knew about on the
Spoon River. She had been equipped with a whistle disproportionate to
her capacity of steam-power, and every time she blew off it stopped
the boat!"

* * * * *

IT IS THE DEED, NOT THE DOER.

By one of those unaccountable contradictions which disturb one's
calculations upon women's conduct, the fair sex "took to" him with
extraordinary kindness, though he always remained shy in their
presence. This favor on their part was fortified by his striking
honesty in little points which the close-seeing feminine eye never
misses. To cap the climax he defended the purity of social order with
a rarity in those quarters sufficient to single him out. Not that the
roughest Westerner was not excessively gallant, but his restrictions
in the ladies' presence did not always curb his proneness to "tall
talk."

Once in the way, a loafer hanging about in the store, and having paid
only attention to the dram counter, the necessary concomitant of the
village center, became garrulous, but unfortunately more than
seasoned the flow with a profanity tolerably rich in variety if
not distinguished for refinement; he was of the Clary's Grove
_genus_. As there was a crowd at the "ladies' department," that
is, the dry-goods and finery, where it happened Lincoln was commonly
besieged, the language was resented by woman's weapons--tosses of the
head, affected deafness, glances into the future, and so on, but the
clerk resented it in another way. He bade him be silent.

Now, the fellow thought, with his kind, that he was entitled to exhale
the breath which was strengthened by the strong waters vended here,
and expressed himself more foully than before.

He had a resentment against the clod rising to be a flower of
courtesy, and here was his opportunity to satisfy the grudge,
and before an audience timid and not apt to intervene.

Singularly, the men who most despise women are the ones who seek to
have her applause. He wished to see the man who would stop him from
uttering his sentiments. He was answered that his business would be
attended to, as soon as the offended ladies had withdrawn.

The undesired witnesses took the hint and quitted the store. Thereupon
the long-limbed clerk verified the taunt of "counter-jumper" by
clearing it at a bound. "Will you engage not to repeat that rowdy
(blackguard) talk in the store while I am the master, and leave
instanter?"

The bully protested in a torrent of unrepeatable words.

"I see," said the champion of decency, "you want a whipping, and
_I_ may as well give it you as any other man."

And he forthwith administered the correction; not only did he drag him
outdoors, but laid him out so senseless that nothing less than the
border finish of a knock-down and drag-out encounter--the rubbing the
conquered man's eyes with smart-weed--revived him to beg for mercy,
and a drink. The victor allowed him to rise, converted his appeal into
mockery by offering plain water, which the brute applied solely to his
doubly inflamed eyes, and sent him away in tears. But the shock had a
reparative effect; he became a good neighbor, and a convert to
temperance.

(This or a similar lesson to the village bully is testified to by an
eye-witness of Sangamon, but resident of Viroqua, Wisconsin; his name
is John White. He worked at chopping rails with the rail-splitter on
more than one job.)

* * * * *

TURN OUT OR BE TURNED OUT.

Superintendent Tinker, of the W. U. T., says he heard Secretary Seward
say to President Lincoln:

"Mr. President, I hear that you turned out for a colored woman on a
muddy crossing the other day?"

"Did you?" returned the other laughingly. "Well, I don't remember it;
but I always make it a rule, if people do not turn out for me, I will
for them. If I didn't, there would be a collision."

* * * * *

THE BEST THING TO TAKE.

When Lincoln worked in and kept a grocery-store, it was flanked by a
groggery and he had to supply spirits, but from that fact he saw
the evils of the saloon and early identified himself with the novel
temperance movement. In 1843, he joined the Sons of Temperance. While
he said he was temperate on theory, it was not so--he was practically
abstinent. Not only did he lecture publicly, but, at one such
occasion, he gave out the pledges. In decorating a boy, Cleophas
Breckenridge, with a badge, after he took the pledge, he said:

"Sonny, that is the best thing you will ever _take_."

* * * * *

DRINKING AND SWALLOWING ARE TWO THINGS.

It has been stated that Lincoln, after reigning at the village store,
had become the idol of the settlement. A stranger to whom he was
shown was not properly impressed. One of the clerk's friends, William
Greene, bragged that his favorite was the strongest man in the
township--this was not affecting the critic--and even went on:
"The strongest in the country!"

"H'm! not the strongest in the State!" denied the stranger. "I know
a man who can lift a barrel of flour as easily as I can a peck of
potatoes."

"Abe, there, could lift _two_ barrels of flour if he could get
a hold on them."

"You can beat me telling 'raisers', but--"

"Taking a lift out of you or not, I am willing to bet that Abe will
lift a barrel of spirits and drink out of the bunghole to prove he
can hold it there!"

"Impossible! What will you lay on the thing?"

They made a wager of a new hat--the Sunday hat of beaver being still
costly.

Greene was betting unfairly--on a sure thing--as he had seen his
friend do what he asserted, all but the drinking flourish. Lincoln was
averse to the wagering at all, but to help his friend to the hat, he
consented to the feat. He passed through it, lifting the cask between
his two hands and holding the spigot-hole to his lips while he imbibed
a mouthful. As he was slowly lowering the barrel to the floor, the
winner exclaimed jubilately:

"I knew you would do it; but I never knew you to drink whisky before!"

The barrel was stood on the floor, when the drinker calmly expelled
the mouthful of its contents, and drolly remarked:

"And I have not _drunk_ that, you see!"

As a return for his action to win the hat, he asked Greene not to
wager any more--a resolve which he took to oblige him.

* * * * *

WORSTED IN A HORSE-TRADE.

Until Lincoln--seeing that his decisions created enemies, whichever
way they fell--renounced being umpire for horse-racing and the like
events, momentous on the border, he officiated in many such pastimes.
Before he found them "all wrong," he had a horsy acquaintance in a
judge. This was at a time when he was practising law, which involved
riding on circuit, as the court went round to give sittings like the
ancient English justices, attending assizes. During such excursions,
they played practical jokes, naturally. Among their singular contests
was a bet of twenty-five dollars--as forfeit if, in horse-swapping,
the loser rejected the horse offered on even terms with the one he
"put in." Neither was to know anything of the equine paragon until
simultaneously exhibited.

As good sport was indicated where two such arrant jokers were in
conflict, a vast throng filled the tavern-yard where the pair were to
draw conclusions. At the appointed hour the court functionary dragged
upon the scene a most dilapidated _simulacrum_ of man's noblest
conquest--blind, spavined, lean as Pharaoh's _kind_, creeking in
every joint--at the same time that his fellow wagerer carried on under
his long arm a carpenter's _horse_--gashed with adze and broadax,
bored with the augur, trenched with saw and draw-knife--singed, paint,
and tar-spotted, crazy in each leg of the three still adhering--in
short, justifying Lincoln to reverse his cry at viewing the real
animal:

"Jedge (for judge), this is the first time I ever _got the worst_
of it in a hoss-trade!"

* * * * *

HOW MANY SHORT BREATHS?

In the nearest town to the Lincolns lived a man called "Captain"
Larkins. He was short and fat, and consequently "puffing." He was
logically fond of "blowing." For example, if he bought any object,
he would proclaim that it was the best article of its sort in the
settlement. His favorite orating-ground--in fact, the only theater for
displays was the front of the village store, where, among the farmers
who came in to dicker and purchase stores, he would dilate. Lincoln
did not like the pompous little fellow whose rotund and diminutive
figure was in glaring contrast to his own--a young man, but colossal,
while his stature was augmented by his meagerness.

"Gentlemen," bawled Larkins, "I have the best horse in the county!
I ran him three miles in two-forty each and he never fetched a long
breath!"

"H'm!" interrupted Lincoln, looking down at the man panting with
excitement; "why don't you tell us how many short breaths _you_
drew?"

* * * * *

LINCOLN'S HEIGHT.

One of the committee appointed to acquaint Mr. Lincoln formally with
the decision of the Chicago Presidential Convention of 1860 was Judge
Kelly, a man of unusual stature. At the meeting with the nominee he
eyed the latter with admiration and the jealousy the exceptional
cherish for rivals. This had not escaped the curious Lincoln; he
asked him, as he singled him out: "What is your height?"

"Six feet three. What is yours?"

"Six feet four." [Footnote: This will probably never be exactly
settled now. Speaker Reed agreed with this statement. But Miss Emma
Gurley Adams, in a position to know, published in the New York
_Press_: "Mr. Lincoln told my father that he was exactly six feet
three inches." This was at the end of his life. The contrariety of the
assertions simply baffles one.]

"Then, sir, Pennsylvania bows to Illinois," responded the judge.
"My dear sir, for years my heart has been aching for a President I
could look up to, and I have found him at last in the land where we
thought there were none but _little_ giants."

(Stephen Douglas, leader of the Democratic party, was a pocket Daniel
Webster and bearing the by-name of "the Little Giant.")

* * * * *

MEASURES AND MEN.

The earlier audiences at the White House were inspired by ludicrous
ideas, far between patriotism and interest in the "tall Hoosier." The
habitual attendants and guards soon discovered that the chief was an
unrivaled host, adapting modes of reception to the differing kind of
callers. He noticed once two young men who hung about the door, so
that, sympathizing with the shy--for he had been wofully troubled by
that feeling in his youth--he went over to the pair, and to make them
feel at home, asked them to be seated while they looked on. But they
didn't care for chairs. The shorter of the two stammered that he and
his friend had a talk about the President's unusual height, and would
the host kindly settle the matter, and see whether he were as tall as
his excellency.

Lincoln had been scanning the competitor and, smiling, returned:
"He is _long_ enough, certainly. Let us see about that." He went
for his cane [Footnote: Lincoln's cane. This was the cane he carried,
instead of going armed. But he was forever leaving it anywhere about,
so that, nine times out of ten, he went forth without it on his errant
"browsing" around; and it was a wonder that this time he knew where to
find it.] and, placing the ferule end to the wall, to act as a level,
he bade the young man draw near and stand under. When the rod was
carefully adjusted to the top of the head, Mr. Lincoln continued:

"Now, step out and hold the cane while I go under."

This comparison showed that the young man stood six feet three
exactly. Lincoln's precise figure, too.

"Just my height," remarked the affable President to the herald of
the match; "he guessed with admirable accuracy!"

Giving both a shake of the hand, he gave them the good-by warmly.
He had seen that they were innocents and shrank from letting them
know that they had unconsciously offended his dignity.

* * * * *

THE PRIZE FOR HOMELINESS.

In keeping with his proneness to jest at his own expense rather than
lose a laugh, Lincoln is credited with telling the following story
upon himself:

"In the days when I used to be on the circuit (law), I was accosted
on the road by a stranger. He said: 'Excuse me, sir, but I have
an article in my possession which belongs to you.' 'How is that?'
I asked, considerably astonished.

"The stranger took a 'Barlow' from his pocket.

"'This knife,' said he, 'was placed in my hands some years ago with
the injunction of the community, through its bearer, that I was to
keep it until I struck a man homelier than I. I have carried it from
that time till this. Allow me to say, sir, that you are fairly
entitled to the testimonial.'"

* * * * *

HOW LONG LEGS SHOULD BE.

A quipster, harping on Mr. Lincoln's abnormal tallness, had the mishap
to draw upon himself some quizzing; the President putting the _non
plus_ on him by asking:

"How long, then, ought a man's legs to be?"

The answer was given by the sphinx:

"Long enough to reach from his body to the ground."

* * * * *

LONG METER.

John Sherman will be remembered as originator of the politicians'
"cover" for electioneering activity, "I am going home to mend my
fences." He was fresh from Ohio, but he included in his round of
duties, on visiting the capital, an attendance of a Lincoln reception.
He waited in the long file for his turn to shake hands, and, while
doing so, wondered how he would be received. For the informal
"function" was enlivened by the most untoward incidents, due to the
host's simplicity, spontaneous acts and words, and the homelike
nature of the scene. Truly enough, when his chance came, the meeting
was eccentric.

Lincoln scanned him a moment, threw out his large hand, and said:

"'You're a pretty tall fellow, aren't you? Stand up here to me, back
to back, and let's see which of us two is the taller!'

"In another moment I was standing back to back with the greatest man
of his age. Naturally I was quite abashed by this unexpected evidence
of democracy.

"'You are from the West, aren't you?' inquired Lincoln.

"'My home is in Ohio,' I replied.

"'I thought so', he said; 'that's the kind of men they raise out
there!'"

* * * * *

"HARDSHIPS STRENGTHEN MUSCLES."

As in the old country, kings evade the tiresome features of
receptions, after a time, by retiring and leaving the ceremony to
be carried out by a deputy, so the daintier Presidents before the
sixteenth one eluded the handshaking when possible. But, on the
contrary, "the man out of the West" continued to the last, and the
latest visitor had no reason to cavil at the grip being less hearty to
him than the first comer. On visiting the army hospital at City Point,
where upward of three thousand patients awaited his passing with
enrapt respect, he insisted on no one being neglected. A surgeon
inquired if he did not feel lamed in the arm by the undue exertion,
whereupon he replied smilingly:

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