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

and then asked the lady why she did not donate money to build a hospital.

“We have been very much embarrassed by the war,” she replied, “and our estates are much hampered.”

“You are not ruined?” asked the President.

“No, sir, but we do not feel that we should give up anything we have left.”

The President, after some reflection, then said: “There are more battles yet to be fought, and I think God would prefer that your church be devoted to the care and alleviation of the sufferings of our poor fellows. So, madam, you will excuse me. I can do nothing for you.”

Afterward, in speaking of this incident, President Lincoln said that the lady, as a representative of her class in Alexandria, reminded him of the story of the young man who had an aged father and mother owning considerable property. The young man being an only son, and believing that the old people had outlived their usefulness, assassinated them both. He was accused, tried and convicted of the murder. When the judge came to pass sentence upon him, and called upon him to give any reason he might have why the sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he with great promptness replied that he hoped the court would be lenient upon him because he was a poor orphan!

“BAP.” McNABB’S BOOSTER.

It is true that Lincoln did not drink, never swore, was a stranger to smoking and lived a moral life generally, but he did like horse-racing and chicken fighting. New Salem, Illinois, where Lincoln was “clerking,” was known the neighborhood around as a “fast” town, and the average young man made no very desperate resistance when tempted to join in the drinking and gambling bouts.

“Bap.” McNabb was famous for his ability in both the raising and the purchase of roosters of prime fighting quality, and when his birds fought the attendance was large. It was because of the “flunking” of one of “Bap.‘s” roosters that Lincoln was enabled to make a point when criticising McClellan’s unreadiness and lack of energy.

One night there was a fight on the schedule, one of “Bap.” McNabb’s birds being a contestant. “Bap.” brought a little red rooster, whose fighting qualities had been well advertised for days in advance, and much interest was manifested in the outcome. As the result of these contests was generally a quarrel, in which each man, charging foul play, seized his victim, they chose Lincoln umpire, relying not only on his fairness but his ability to enforce his decisions. Judge Herndon, in his “Abraham Lincoln,” says of this notable event:

“I cannot improve on the description furnished me in February, 1865, by one who was present.

“They formed a ring, and the time having arrived, Lincoln, with one hand on each hip and in a squatting position, cried, ‘Ready.’ Into the ring they toss their fowls, ‘Bap.‘s’ red rooster along with the rest. But no sooner had the little beauty discovered what was to be done than he dropped his tail and ran.

“The crowd cheered, while ‘Bap.,’ in disappointment, picked him up and started away, losing his quarter (entrance fee) and carrying home his dishonored fowl. Once arrived at the latter place he threw his pet down with a feeling of indignation and chagrin.

“The little fellow, out of sight of all rivals, mounted a woodpile and proudly flirting out his feathers, crowed with all his might. ‘Bap.’ looked on in disgust.

“‘Yes, you little cuss,’ he exclaimed, irreverently, ‘you’re great on dress parade, but not worth a darn in a fight.”’

It is said, according to Judge Herndon, that Lincoln considered McClellan as “great on dress parade,” but not so much in a fight.

 

A LOW-DOWN TRICK.

When Lincoln was a candidate of the Know Nothings for the State Legislature, the party was over-confident, and the Democrats pursued a still-hunt. Lincoln was defeated. He compared the situation to one of the camp-followers of General Taylor’s army, who had secured a barrel of cider, erected a tent, and commenced selling it to the thirsty soldiers at twenty-five cents a drink, but he had sold but little before another sharp one set up a tent at his back, and tapped the barrel so as to flow on his side, and peddled out No. 1 cider at five cents a drink, of course, getting the latter’s entire trade on the borrowed capital.

“The Democrats,” said Mr. Lincoln, “had played Knownothing on a cheaper scale than had the real devotees of Sam, and had raked down his pile with his own cider!”

 

END FOR END.

Judge H. W. Beckwith, of Danville, Ill., in his “Personal Recollections of Lincoln,” tells a story which is a good example of Lincoln’s way of condensing the law and the facts of an issue in a story: “A man, by vile words, first provoked and then made a bodily attack upon another. The latter, in defending himself, gave the other much the worst of the encounter. The aggressor, to get even, had the one who thrashed him tried in our Circuit Court on a charge of an assault and battery. Mr. Lincoln defended, and told the jury that his client was in the fix of a man who, in going along the highway with a pitchfork on his shoulder, was attacked by a fierce dog that ran out at him from a farmer’s dooryard. In parrying off the brute with the fork, its prongs stuck into the brute and killed him.

“‘What made you kill my dog?’ said the farmer.

“‘What made him try to bite me?’

“‘But why did you not go at him with the other end of the pitchfork?’

“‘Why did he not come after me with his other end?’

“At this Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his long arms an imaginary dog, and pushed its tail end toward the jury. This was the defensive plea of ‘son assault demesne’—loosely, that ‘the other fellow brought on the fight,’—quickly told, and in a way the dullest mind would grasp and retain.”

 

LET SIX SKUNKS GO.

The President had decided to select a new War Minister, and the Leading Republican Senators thought the occasion was opportune to change the whole seven Cabinet ministers. They, therefore, earnestly advised him to make a clean sweep, and select seven new men, and so restore the waning confidence of the country.

The President listened with patient courtesy, and when the Senators had concluded, he said, with a characteristic gleam of humor in his eye:

“Gentlemen, your request for a change of the whole Cabinet because I have made one change reminds me of a story I once heard in Illinois, of a farmer who was much troubled by skunks. His wife insisted on his trying to get rid of them.

“He loaded his shotgun one moonlight night and awaited developments. After some time the wife heard the shotgun go off, and in a few minutes the farmer entered the house.

“‘What luck have you?’ asked she.

“‘I hid myself behind the woodpile,’ said the old man, ‘with the shotgun pointed towards the hen roost, and before long there appeared not one skunk, but seven. I took aim, blazed away, killed one, and he raised such a fearful smell that I concluded it was best to let the other six go.”’

The Senators laughed and retired.

 

HOW HE GOT BLACKSTONE.

The following story was told by Mr. Lincoln to Mr. A. J. Conant, the artist, who painted his portrait in Springfield in 1860:

“One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for it. Without further examination, I put it away in the store and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and, emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I read”—this he said with unusual emphasis—“the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them.”

 

A JOB FOR THE NEW CABINETMAKER.

This cartoon, labeled “A Job for the New Cabinetmaker,” was printed in “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper” on February 2d, 1861, a month and two days before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States. The Southern states had seceded from the Union, the Confederacy was established, with Jefferson Davis as its President, the Union had been split in two, and the task Lincoln had before him was to glue the two parts of the Republic together. In his famous speech, delivered a short time before his nomination for the Presidency by the Republican National Convention at Chicago, in 1860, Lincoln had said: “A house divided against itself cannot stand; this nation cannot exist half slave and half free.” After his inauguration as President, Mr. Lincoln went to work to glue the two pieces together, and after four years of bloody war, and at immense cost, the job was finished; the house of the Great American Republic was no longer divided; the severed sections—the North and the South—were cemented tightly; the slaves were freed, peace was firmly established, and the Union of states was glued together so well that the nation is stronger now than ever before. Lincoln was just the man for that job, and the work he did will last for all time. “The New Cabinetmaker” knew his business thoroughly, and finished his task of glueing in a workmanlike manner. At the very moment of its completion, five days after the surrender of Lee to Grant at Appomattox, the Martyr President fell at the hands of the assassin, J. Wilkes Booth.

 

“I CAN STAND IT IF THEY CAN.”

United States Senator Benjamin Wade, of Ohio, Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and Wendell Phillips were strongly opposed to President Lincoln’s re-election, and Wade and Davis issued a manifesto. Phillips made several warm speeches against Lincoln and his policy.

When asked if he had read the manifesto or any of Phillips’ speeches, the President replied:

“I have not seen them, nor do I care to see them. I have seen enough to satisfy me that I am a failure, not only in the opinion of the people in rebellion, but of many distinguished politicians of my own party. But time will show whether I am right or they are right, and I am content to abide its decision.

“I have enough to look after without giving much of my time to the consideration of the subject of who shall be my successor in office. The position is not an easy one; and the occupant, whoever he may be, for the next four years, will have little leisure to pluck a thorn or plant a rose in his own pathway.”

It was urged that this opposition must be embarrassing to his Administration, as well as damaging to the party. He replied: “Yes, that is true; but our friends, Wade, Davis, Phillips, and others are hard to please. I am not capable of doing so. I cannot please them without wantonly violating not only my oath, but the most vital principles upon which our government was founded.

“As to those who, like Wade and the rest, see fit to depreciate my policy and cavil at my