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work for small things, work for what could be got then, rather than wait for something better to turn up. Later, in November, 1851, Lincoln wrote to John, giving him much wholesome advice, as follows:

"DEAR BROTHER:-When I came into Charleston, day before yesterday, I learned that you are anxious to sell the land where you live and move to Missouri. I have been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but think such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do no good. You have raised no crop this year, and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it. Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough to bury you in. Half you will get for the land you will spend in moving to Missouri, and the other half you will eat and drink and wear out, and no foot of land will be bought. Now, I feel it is my duty to have no hand in such a piece of foolery. I feel that it is so even on your own account, and particularly on mother's account. The eastern forty acres I intend to keep for mother while she lives. If you will not cultivate it, it will rent for enough to support her; at least it will rent for something. Her dower in the other two forties she can let you have, and no thanks to me. Now, do not misunderstand this letter. I do not write it in any unkindness. I write it in order, if possible,

to get you to face the truth, which truth is, you are destitute because you have idled away all your time. Your thousand pretences deceive nobody but yourself. Go to work, is the only cure for your case."

We shall understand Lincoln better from this letter to his step-brother. It shows him to be independent, self-reliant, and disposed to make his own way in the world without calling on others to carry him along, as so many young men are in the habit of doing. There are other letters extant that show that Lincoln had repeatedly assisted this same stepbrother; and this letter gives touching evidence of his care and anxiety for his step-mother. None of these were kin to Lincoln, but they were, all the same, a charge upon his generosity and affection, just as though they were of the same blood. Brought up in a hard school, Lincoln was early taught many practical lessons in frugality and economy; but his natural kindliness and open-handedness were never spoiled by penury and need. He never, so say his contemporaries, was able to make any money outside of his profession. The only possession he ever had that was not gained by sheer hard work was a tract of wild land in Iowa, given to him by the United States Government (as it was to each volunteer), for his services in the Black Hawk war. When he went to Washington to take the Presidency, the sum total of all his wealth in goods, chattels, lands, and cash was valued at a sum not so great as a single fee sometimes paid in these later days to a lawyer of the standing and ability he had at that time.

Lincoln was thrifty only in the sense of working hard for what he got and never spending for that which was not absolutely needful for the comfort and happiness of those dependent upon him. Parsimonious he never was.

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LINCOLN'S WRESTLE WITH ARMSTRONG FROM THE DRAWING BY A. FREDERICK

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