The Wonderful Story of Lincoln Part 7

That was Lincoln's religion, to love his fellow-men and his country.

In the turmoil of wrongs infesting the confusions that were bewildering all minds at the close of the Civil War, all now know that both North and South lost the n.o.blest and most valued friend, the ablest and wisest restorer, anywhere to be found in all the vast regions of pain.

CHAPTER VI

I. HELPFULNESS AND KINDNESS OF A WORTH-WHILE CHARACTER

It would take a whole book to tell the stories of kindness and sympathy told by those who were neighbors and friends of Lincoln. All who knew him agree in saying how much he loved children and how considerate he was for the comfort of others.

While living in the Rutledge tavern he often took upon himself all kinds of discomforts to accommodate travellers. The Great Book says, "He who loses his life for my sake shall find it." Lincoln seemed most of the time to forget that he had any life of his own in trying to do good to others. Many times he served ungrateful people, and many persons mistreated him who mistook his kindness for servility, but that didn't change Lincoln. He kept right on doing good to others, until at last he lost his life, in the full meaning of that phrase, but we may be sure that somewhere else he has found it.

If a traveller became stuck in the mud, literally or figuratively, Lincoln always seemed to be the first to see his need. If widows and orphans were suffering, he was the first to know it and relieve their wants.

Deeds of kindness often look like "bread cast upon the waters," but we are a.s.sured that such is not lost, for it "shall return after many days."

The effective way in which Lincoln sometimes turned upon those who "run him down" by sarcastic references to his poverty or looks is ill.u.s.trated by his reply to George Forquer. Lincoln was to make his first speech in the Court House at Springfield, and he was to be answered by Forquer, a rather aristocratic citizen of the town who had been a Whig, but who had recently turned over to the Democrats and received the appointment to an important office. Incidentally, he had also put up a lightning rod to protect his rather showy house, and this fact was quite well known, because it was the first lightning rod to be put upon a house in that county.

Forquer rose to speak as Lincoln sat down, and his smile of derision seemed to show that he expected to demolish with ridicule the backwoodsman from New Salem.

Turning to Lincoln, he said, "The young man must be taken down, and I am truly sorry that the task devolves upon me."

He was a witty and sarcastic speaker. He did not try to argue but ridiculed Lincoln in the most offensive way. Lincoln's friends feared for this onslaught, not knowing what Lincoln could say. But Lincoln said it so effectively in a few words, as he always seemed able to do, that his opponent lost and never recovered.

In closing a very short reply, Lincoln said, pointing his long, accusing finger at Forquer in a scathing rebuke:

"Live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like this gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office with a salary of three thousand dollars a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from the fear of an angry G.o.d."

II. THE LOVE OF FREEDOM AND TRUTH

Lincoln's fairness for all men, even when they were his opponents and the enemies of his cause, may be seen in his defense of Colonel Baker.

There was a bitter political campaign in progress, and Colonel Baker was making a speech to a rough crowd in the courthouse. This building had been built to be a storehouse and directly over the speaker was a loft with a stairway near the speaker's stand. Lincoln was sitting on the platform above as a more convenient place to hear the speaker than from the crowded floor below.

The speaker began to say things that annoyed the crowd. Suddenly the yell was raised to take him off the stand and put him out. The crowd surged forward when Lincoln's long legs were seen to swing over the edge of the opening at the head of the stairs as if he had no time to use the steps. He alighted on his feet by the speaker's side.

"Gentlemen," cried Lincoln as he raised his hand to stop the oncoming rioters, "let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live.

This is a land where the freedom of speech is guaranteed. Mr. Baker has a right to speak, and ought to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it."

The sudden appearance of this champion of human rights dropping down from above so unexpectedly, his perfect calmness and fairness and the well-known fact that he was no idle boaster, quieted the outbreak, and Colonel Baker finished his address in peace.

Joshua Speed tells how Lincoln rode into Springfield on a borrowed horse to attend his first session of the legislature with all his earthly possessions packed into his saddle bags. Lincoln came into the store owned by Speed and asked the price of a bedstead with its equipment of bedding. The price was named, Lincoln said that was no doubt cheap enough but that he could not buy it unless the storekeeper could wait for part of the pay until the money was earned.

Speed was greatly impressed with the earnest young man. He offered to share with him the room which he used over the store. He pointed to the stairway leading up to the room.

Lincoln went up the stairs and in a moment appeared at the stairway with beaming face.

"Well, Speed," he said, "I am moved."

Thus he made friends of all persons at once and they were not fairweather friends, but lifetime friends.

The homely old copybook text so familiar to our grandmothers, "Beauty is as beauty does," applies well to the appearance of Lincoln, and to the first impressions received by those who saw him. Paraphrasing the poet, "none knew him but to love him, none knew him but to praise." He was like one transformed in the animation and zeal of expressing his profound sentiments of freedom, humanity and truth.

One who knew Lincoln well says, "He was one of the homeliest men ever seen when walking around, but while he was making a speech he was one of the handsomest men I have ever known."

III. THE WIT-MAKERS AND THEIR WIT

Lincoln's quick wit never contained any sting and he lost no friends by it. On one occasion several of his friends got into an argument about the proper proportions of the body. They could agree on their theories in all respects excepting the relative length of the legs.

Lincoln listened gravely to their arguments, and, as usual, some one asked him his opinion.

"It is of course one of the most important of problems, and doubtless was a source of great anxiety to the maker of man. But, after all is said and done, it is my opinion that man's lower limbs, in order to combine harmony and service, should be at least long enough to reach from his body to the ground."

At another time a very unhandsome man stopped Lincoln and peered offensively into his face.

"What seems to be the matter, my friend," inquired Lincoln.

"Well," replied the stranger, "I have always considered it my duty if ever I came across a man uglier than myself to shoot him on the spot."

Lincoln took his hand in friendly agreement.

"Stranger, if this is really true, shoot me. If I thought I was uglier than you, I'd want to die."

Senator Voorhees of Indiana said that he once heard Lincoln defeat a windy little pettifogging lawyer by telling a story. After showing how the fellow's arguments were only empty words, he said, "He can't help it. When his oratory begins it exhausts all his force of mind. The moment he begins to talk his mental operations cease. I never knew of but one thing that was similar to my friend in that respect. Back in the days when I was a keel boatman I became acquainted with a puffy little steamboat, which used to bustle and wheeze its way up and down the Sangamon River. It had a fivefoot boiler and a seven-foot whistle, so that every time it whistled that boat stopped."

Even in business Lincoln could not refrain from expressing himself in a humorous way. A New York firm wrote him to know the financial reliability of one of their customers. He replied:

"I am well acquainted with your customer and know his circ.u.mstances. First, he has a wife and baby: these ought to be worth not less than $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs at, say, $1.00.

"Last of all, there is in one corner a large rathole, which will bear looking into.

"Respectfully, "A. LINCOLN."

All the great contemporaries who heard Lincoln tell stories agree that he never told one merely for the sake of the story or to raise a laugh, but always to carry some useful point or impress an idea. The aptness and wit of his stories often were more convincing than any argument or logic. We may be a.s.sured that any other kind of a Lincoln story is spurious, and none of his.

He had a case where two men had got into a fight. It was proven that Lincoln's man had merely defended himself against the other's attack.

But the other attorney insisted that Lincoln's man could have defended himself less violently.

Lincoln closed out the argument and won his case with a story.

"That reminds me," said Lincoln, "of the man who was attacked by a farmer's dog. He defended himself so violently with a pitchfork that he killed the dog.

"'What made you kill my dog?' demanded the angry farmer.

"'Because he tried to bite me,' replied the victim.

"'Well, why didn't you go at him with the other end of the pitchfork?'