and one who often heard him at that time has borne testimony to the convincing character of his logic. Dr. A. G. Henry, an intimate friend and neighbor, said that men whose principles were opposed to Lincoln's sometimes refused to hear him speak. "He makes me believe him whether I will or no,' said one of these unwilling "whole-hog Jackson men." Of his personal appearance, another, Judge S. T. Logan, said: "He was a very tall, gawky, and awkward-looking young fellow then; his pantaloons did n't meet his shoes by six inches. But after he began speaking, I became very much interested in him." Lincoln's manner when "on the stump" was that of a man wholly at ease, awkward although his personal appearance may have been.

In those far-off days, on the frontiers of the new country, people were careless of dress, rude in manners, and free and easy in their relations with each other. To take the stump was to mount the most convenient object around which people could gather, even the stump of a newly felled tree, and address the voters assembled in a homely, off-hand, and argumentative manner, urging the reasons why the speaker should be chosen to the place for which he was a candidate. It was not uncommon for the audience to ask questions of the speaker, while he was in full tide of his address. Lincoln always answered these queries, when they were not impertinent, with ready good-humor and generally with what was called "an actual settler of an argument." On one occasion, seeing from his elevation that a friend of his in the crowd before him had been

attacked by a ruffianly fellow, and was getting the worst of it, Lincoln descended from his temporary rostrum, seized the assailant by the scruff of the neck, threw him about ten feet, and then, having discharged his duty as a keeper of the peace, calmly remounted the stump and went on with his speech as if nothing had happened to interrupt it. A man who, on fit occasions, was as ready with his muscle as with his mental power had many friends in the frontier region.

Defeated in his race for the Legislature, a disbanded volunteer, with his late employer in bankruptcy, Lincoln was forced to look around him for some means of livelihood. He had none. He had dabbled in politics and done some campaigning, and these occupations had unfitted him for resuming his place as a day laborer. Money was scarce with everybody in those parts. Most financial transactions required nothing more substantial than notes of hand that passed from one to the other, mere promises to pay, which might or might not be made good in the future. In this way Lincoln bought the halfinterest of one of the Herndon brothers in their country store. Somehow, he was attracted to mercantile pursuits. The business gave him ample leisure for study. Customers were never too numerous. The store of a neighboring merchant, one Radford, had become offensive to the Clary's Grove boys, for some unexplained reason, and they promptly wrecked it, staving in the windows and prying out one corner of its foundations. Radford thought it best to move from thence, and he sold his

stock to a chance passenger named Greene, the price being two hundred dollars-on paper. Lincoln was called in to make an inventory of the contents of the damaged building, and, being fascinated with the possibilities of the stock, he offered two hundred and fifty dollars for the lot. Greene gladly accepted the proposition, and gave full possession of the establishment to Lincoln, making fifty dollars on his bargain-also on paper. For not a cent of hard money changed hands, the consideration being, as usual, a note of hand.

In this venture Lincoln had a partner, one Berry, an idle and dissolute fellow, from whom he was soon obliged to separate, and in a very short time the enterprise, begun with so much promise and so many expectations, fell into ruin, and the goods were sold in lots to suit purchasers, to close out the concern. Lincoln was again on the world without occupation, and loaded down with debts incurred in this latest speculation. The store, as he expressed it, had "winked out," and he had no immediate recourse. He had read law books in a desultory and unaided way, and now he tackled them with more energy than ever, dimly realizing that here, at least, was a gleam of leading light for him. He borrowed every book on law that he could find, the attorneys of the region round about good-naturedly lending him whatever they had. In his quest for information of this sort, he often walked from New Salem to Springfield, a distance of fourteen miles.

He also bought an old book of legal forms, and amused himself and his neighbors with drawing up

imaginary deeds, wills, and conveyances in which fictitious property was disposed of at tremendous prices; this by way of practice. But, whenever an opportunity occurred, the people went to "Abe Lincoln" for advice and assistance in the selling or mortgaging of real estate, and thus he gradually worked his way into something like a business. His fees, he used to say, were generally necessaries of life turned in to the family with whom he happened to board. He also undertook small cases on trial before the justice of the peace, and, to use his own figure of speech, "tried on a dog" his legal eloquence and lore. He was trying himself in these paths into which he was to enter for life by and by. And it is worthy of remark that Lincoln's friends and associates unite in saying that he never undertook a case that was not founded on justice and right, and that when he did argue to a jury, as he sometimes did, the impression was that he sincerely believed everything he said. He was making reputation, as well as preparing himself for work in his destined field. And, in the matter of counsel, he was, as well as in more violent quarrels and disputes, "everybody's friend." About this time, too, that is to say, in 1833, he undertook the study of surveying, and, as in other undertakings, he succeeded so well that he soon became an expert. His instruments were few and simple; contemporaries have said that his first chain was a grape-vine. But maps and plots of land surveyed by Lincoln, still extant, show a neatness and semblance of accuracy that testify to the rigid care that he always exercised in all his work. Mr.

John Calhoun, county surveyor, was at this period a useful friend to young Lincoln. The region round about was full of mushroom cities springing up in a day; they had to be surveyed in order that their fortunate owners could describe to the guileless new arrivals the location of streets, public squares, and other features of future magnificence laid down-on paper. Lincoln became an assistant to Calhoun, and, when occasion required, was a surveyor "on his own hook."

In May, 1833, Andrew Jackson being President, Abraham Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem. The office had very small revenues and no political importance. It was given to Lincoln because all his neighbors wanted him to have it, and he was the only man willing to take it and able to make out the necessary returns to the post-office department. The mail was light, and Lincoln, as tradition runs, generally carried the post-office in his hat. He could not keep at home, of course, and when a villager met him and asked if there were letters for him, the postmaster gravely searched through his hat for an answer. But there were newspapers brought to New Salem by this weekly mail, and Lincoln religiously made it his duty to read them all before they could be called for; this, he used to say, made the office worth more to him than many times the amount of the money income could have been. In course of time, the population of New Salem migrated to other and more promising localities, and the post-office was discontinued. In later years, an agent of the Post-office Department