The Lincoln Story Book by Henry L. Williams

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"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.)

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