''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, Alexander Kelly McClure [suggested reading TXT] 📗

intended to sell out. Mr. Greene went into the store, and offered him at random $400 for his stock, which offer was immediately accepted.

Lincoln “happened in” the next day, and being familiar with the value of the goods, Mr. Greene proposed to him to take an inventory of the stock, to see what sort of a bargain he had made. This he did, and it was found that the goods were worth $600.

Lincoln then made an offer of $125 for his bargain, with the proposition that he and a man named Berry, as his partner, take over Greene’s notes given to Radford. Mr. Greene agreed to the arrangement, but Radford declined it, except on condition that Greene would be their security. Greene at last assented.

Lincoln was not afraid of the “Clary Grove Boys”; on the contrary, they had been his most ardent friends since the time he thrashed “Jack” Armstrong, champion bully of “The Grove”—but their custom was not heavy.

The business soon became a wreck; Greene had to not only assist in closing it up, but pay Radford’s notes as well. Lincoln afterwards spoke of these notes, which he finally made good to Greene, as “the National Debt.”

 

LINCOLN DEFENDS FIFTEEN MRS. NATIONS.

When Lincoln’s sympathies were enlisted in any cause, he worked like a giant to win. At one time (about 1855) he was in attendance upon court at the little town of Clinton, Ill., and one of the cases on the docket was where fifteen women from a neighboring village were defendants, they having been indicted for trespass. Their offense, as duly set forth in the indictment, was that of swooping down upon one Tanner, the keeper of a saloon in the village, and knocking in the heads of his barrels. Lincoln was not employed in the case, but sat watching the trial as it proceeded.

In defending the ladies, their attorney seemed to evince a little want of tact, and this prompted one of the former to invite Mr. Lincoln to add a few words to the jury, if he thought he could aid their cause. He was too gallant to refuse, and their attorney having consented, he made use of the following argument:

“In this case I would change the order of indictment and have it read The State vs. Mr. Whiskey, instead of The State vs. The Ladies; and touching these there are three laws: the law of self-protection; the law of the land, or statute law; and the moral law, or law of God.

“First the law of self-protection is a law of necessity, as evinced by our forefathers in casting the tea overboard and asserting their right to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness: In this case it is the only defense the Ladies have, for Tanner neither feared God nor regarded man.

“Second, the law of the land, or statute law, and Tanner is recreant to both.

“Third, the moral law, or law of God, and this is probably a law for the violation of which the jury can fix no punishment.”

Lincoln gave some of his own observations on the ruinous effects of whiskey in society, and demanded its early suppression.

After he had concluded, the Court, without awaiting the return of the jury, dismissed the ladies, saying:

“Ladies, go home. I will require no bond of you, and if any fine is ever wanted of you, we will let you know.”

 

AVOIDED EVEN APPEARANCE OF EVIL

Frank W. Tracy, President of the First National Bank of Springfield, tells a story illustrative of two traits in Mr. Lincoln’s character. Shortly after the National banking law went into effect the First National of Springield was chartered, and Mr. Tracy wrote to Mr. Lincoln, with whom he was well acquainted in a business way, and tendered him an opportunity to subscribe for some of the stock.

In reply to the kindly offer Mr. Lincoln wrote, thanking Mr. Tracy, but at the same time declining to subscribe. He said he recognized that stock in a good National bank would be a good thing to hold, but he did not feel that he ought, as President, profit from a law which had been passed under his administration.

“He seemed to wish to avoid even the appearance of evil,” said Mr. Tracy, in telling of the incident. “And so the act proved both his unvarying probity and his unfailing policy.”

 

WAR DIDN’T ADMIT OF HOLIDAYS.

Lincoln wrote a letter on October 2d, 1862, in which he observed:

“I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is, but it does not admit of holidays.”

 

“NEUTRALITY.”

Old John Bull got himself into a precious fine scrape when he went so far as to “play double” with the North, as well as the South, during the great American Civil War. In its issue of November 14th, 1863, London “Punch” printed a rather clever cartoon illustrating the predicament Bull had created for himself. John is being lectured by Mrs. North and Mrs. South—both good talkers and eminently able to hold their own in either social conversation, parliamentary debate or political argument—but he bears it with the best grace possible. This is the way the text underneath the picture runs:

MRS. NORTH. “How about the Alabama, you wicked old man?” MRS. SOUTH: “Where’s my rams? Take back your precious consols—there!!” “Punch” had a good deal of fun with old John before it was through with him, but, as the Confederate privateer Alabama was sent beneath the waves of the ocean at Cherbourg by the Kearsarge, and Mrs. South had no need for any more rams, John got out of the difficulty without personal injury. It was a tight squeeze, though, for Mrs. North was in a fighting humor, and prepared to scratch or pull hair. The fact that the privateer Alabama, built at an English shipyard and manned almost entirely by English sailors, had managed to do about $10,000,000 worth of damage to United States commerce, was enough to make any one angry.

 

DAYS OF GLADNESS PAST.

After the war was well on, a patriot woman of the West urged President Lincoln to make hospitals at the North where the sick from the Army of the Mississippi could revive in a more bracing air. Among other reasons, she said, feelingly: “If you grant my petition, you will be glad as long as you live.”

With a look of sadness impossible to describe, the President said:

“I shall never be glad any more.”

 

WOULDN’T TAKE THE MONEY.

Lincoln always regarded himself as the friend and protector of unfortunate clients, and such he would never press for pay for his services. A client named Cogdal was unfortunate in business, and gave a note in settlement of legal fees. Soon afterward he met with an accident by which he lost a hand. Meeting Lincoln some time after on the steps of the State-House, the kind lawyer asked him how he was getting along.

“Badly enough,” replied Cogdal; “I am both broken up in business and crippled.” Then he added, “I have been thinking about that note of yours.”

Lincoln, who had probably known all about Cogdal’s troubles, and had prepared himself for the meeting, took out his pocketbook, and saying, with a laugh, “Well, you needn’t think any more about it,” handed him the note.

Cogdal protesting, Lincoln said, “Even if you had the money, I would not take it,” and hurried away.

 

GRANT HELD ON ALL THE TIME.

(Dispatch to General Grant, August 17th, 1864.)

“I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing.

“Hold on with a bulldog grip.”

 

CHEWED THE CUD IN SOLITUDE.

As a student (if such a term could be applied to Lincoln), one who did not know him might have called him indolent. He would pick up a book and run rapidly over the pages, pausing here and there.

At the end of an hour—never more than two or three hours—he would close the book, stretch himself out on the office lounge, and then, with hands under his head and eyes shut, would digest the mental food he had just taken.

 

“ABE’S” YANKEE INGENUITY.

War Governor Richard Yates (he was elected Governor of Illinois in 1860, when Lincoln was first elected President) told a good story at Springfield (Ill.) about Lincoln.

One day the latter was in the Sangamon River with his trousers rolled up five feet—more or less—trying to pilot a flatboat over a milldam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part and let it run out, affording a forcible illustration of the ready ingenuity of the future President.

 

LINCOLN PAID HOMAGE TO WASHINGTON.

The Martyr President thus spoke of Washington in the course of an address:

“Washington is the mightiest name on earth—long since the mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation.

“On that name a eulogy is expected. It cannot be.

“To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington is alike impossible.

“Let none attempt it.

“In solemn awe pronounce the name, and, in its naked, deathless splendor, leave it shining on.”

 

STIRRED EVEN THE REPORTERS.

Lincoln’s influence upon his audiences was wonderful. He could sway people at will, and nothing better illustrates his extraordinary power than he manner in which he stirred up the newspaper reporters by his Bloomingon speech.

Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, told the story:

“It was my journalistic duty, though a delegate to the convention, to make a ‘longhand’ report of the speeches delivered for the Tribune. I did make a few paragraphs of what Lincoln said in the first eight or ten minutes, but I became so absorbed in his magnetic oratory that I forgot myself and ceased to take notes, and joined with the convention in cheering and stamping and clapping to the end of his speech.

“I well remember that after Lincoln sat down and calm had succeeded the tempest, I waked out of a sort of hypnotic trance, and then thought of my report for the paper. There was nothing written but an abbreviated introduction.

“It was some sort of satisfaction to find that I had not been ‘scooped,’ as all the newspaper men present had been equally carried away by the excitement caused by the wonderful oration and had made no report or sketch of the speech.”

 

WHEN “ABE” CAME IN.

When “Abe” was fourteen years of age, John Hanks journeyed from Kentucky to Indiana and lived with the Lincolns. He described “Abe’s” habits thus:

“When Lincoln and I returned to the house from work, he would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn-bread, take down a book, sit down on a chair, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read.

“He and I worked barefooted, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, cradled together; plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn. ‘Abe’ read constantly when he had an opportunity.”

 

ETERNAL FIDELITY TO THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY.

During the Harrison Presidential campaign of 1840, Lincoln said, in a speech at Springfield, Illinois:

“Many free countries have lost their liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was last to desert, but that I never deserted her.

“I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing.

“I cannot deny that all may