Lincoln's Yarns and Stories Part 77

"Well, there's the word hominy, for instance. We have just ordered a lot of that stuff for the troops. I see how the word originated. I notice it came from the Latin word h.o.m.o--a man.

"When we decline h.o.m.o, it is:

"'h.o.m.o--a man.

"'Hominis--of man.

"'Homini--for man.'

"So you see, hominy, being 'for man,' comes from the Latin. I guess those soldiers who don't know Latin will get along with it all right--though I won't rest real easy until I hear from the Commissary Department on it."

HIS IDEA'S OLD, AFTER ALL.

One day, while listening to one of the wise men who had called at the White House to unload a large cargo of advice, the President interjected a remark to the effect that he had a great reverence for learning.

"This is not," President Lincoln explained, "because I am not an educated man. I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to have grown up among books."

"Men of force," the visitor answered, "can get on pretty well without books. They do their own thinking instead of adopting what other men think."

"Yes," said Mr. Lincoln, "but books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new, after all."

This was a point the caller was not willing to debate, and so he cut his call short.

LINCOLN'S FIRST SPEECH.

Lincoln made his first speech when he was a mere boy, going barefoot, his trousers held up by one suspender, and his shock of hair sticking through a hole in the crown of his cheap straw hat.

"Abe," in company with Dennis Hanks, attended a political meeting, which was addressed by a typical stump speaker--one of those loud-voiced fellows who shouted at the top of his voice and waved his arms wildly.

At the conclusion of the speech, which did not meet the views either of "Abe" or Dennis, the latter declared that "Abe" could make a better speech than that. Whereupon he got a dry-goods box and called on "Abe"

to reply to the campaign orator.

Lincoln threw his old straw hat on the ground, and, mounting the dry-goods box, delivered a speech which held the attention of the crowd and won him considerable applause. Even the campaign orator admitted that it was a fine speech and answered every point in his own "oration."

Dennis Hanks, who thought "Abe" was about the greatest man that ever lived, was delighted, and he often told how young "Abe" got the better of the trained campaign speaker.

"ABE WANTED NO SNEAKIN' 'ROUND."

It was in 1830, when "Abe" was just twenty-one years of age, that the Lincoln family moved from Gentryville, Indiana, to near Decatur, Illinois, their household goods being packed in a wagon drawn by four oxen driven by "Abe."

The winter previous the latter had "worked" in a country store in Gentryville and before undertaking the journey he invested all the money he had--some thirty dollars--in notions, such as needles, pins, thread, b.u.t.tons and other domestic necessities. These he sold to families along the route and made a profit of about one hundred per cent.

This mercantile adventure of his youth "reminded" the President of a very clever story while the members of the Cabinet were one day solemnly debating a rather serious international problem. The President was in the minority, as was frequently the case, and he was "in a hole," as he afterwards expressed it. He didn't want to argue the points raised, preferring to settle the matter in a hurry, and an apt story was his only salvation.

Suddenly the President's fact brightened. "Gentlemen," said he, addressing those seated at the Cabinet table, "the situation just now reminds me of a fix I got into some thirty years or so ago when I was peddling 'notions' on the way from Indiana to Illinois. I didn't have a large stock, but I charged large prices, and I made money. Perhaps you don't see what I am driving at?"

Secretary of State Seward was wearing a most gloomy expression of countenance; Secretary of War Stanton was savage and inclined to be morose; Secretary of the Treasury Chase was indifferent and cynical, while the others of the Presidential advisers resigned themselves to the hearing of the inevitable "story."

"I don't propose to argue this matter," the President went on to say, "because arguments have no effect upon men whose opinions are fixed and whose minds are made up. But this little story of mine will make some things which now are in the dark show up more clearly."

There was another pause, and the Cabinet officers, maintaining their previous silence, began wondering if the President himself really knew what he was "driving at."

"Just before we left Indiana and crossed into Illinois," continued Mr.

Lincoln solemnly, speaking in a grave tone of voice, "we came across a small farmhouse full of nothing but children. These ranged in years from seventeen years to seventeen months, and all were in tears. The mother of the family was red-headed and red-faced, and the whip she held in her right hand led to the inference that she had been chastising her brood.

The father of the family, a meek-looking, mild-mannered, tow-headed chap, was standing in the front door-way, awaiting--to all appearances--his turn to feel the thong.

"I thought there wasn't much use in asking the head of that house if she wanted any 'notions.' She was too busy. It was evident an insurrection had been in progress, but it was pretty well quelled when I got there.

The mother had about suppressed it with an iron hand, but she was not running any risks. She kept a keen and wary eye upon all the children, not forgetting an occasional glance at the 'old man' in the doorway.

"She saw me as I came up, and from her look I thought she was of the opinion that I intended to interfere. Advancing to the doorway, and roughly pus.h.i.+ng her husband aside, she demanded my business.

"'Nothing, madame,' I answered as gently as possible; 'I merely dropped in as I came along to see how things were going.'

"'Well, you needn't wait,' was the reply in an irritated way; 'there's trouble here, an' lots of it, too, but I kin manage my own affairs without the help of outsiders. This is jest a family row, but I'll teach these brats their places ef I hev to lick the hide off ev'ry one of them. I don't do much talkin', but I run this house, an' I don't want no one sneakin' round tryin' to find out how I do it, either.'

"That's the case here with us," the President said in conclusion. "We must let the other nations know that we propose to settle our family row in our own way, and 'teach these brats their places' (the seceding States) if we have to 'lick the hide off' of each and every one of them.

And, like the old woman, we don't want any 'sneakin' 'round' by other countries who would like to find out how we are to do it, either.

"Now, Seward, you write some diplomatic notes to that effect."

And the Cabinet session closed.

DIDN'T EVEN NEED STILTS.

As the President considered it his duty to keep in touch with all the improvements in the armament of the vessels belonging to the United States Navy, he was necessarily interested in the various types of these floating fortresses. Not only was it required of the Navy Department to furnish seagoing wars.h.i.+ps, deep-draught vessels for the great rivers and the lakes, but this Department also found use for little gunboats which could creep along in the shallowest of water and attack the Confederates in by-places and swamps.

The consequence of the interest taken by Mr. Lincoln in the Navy was that he was besieged, day and night, by steamboat contractors, each one eager to sell his product to the Was.h.i.+ngton Government. All sorts of experiments were tried, some being dire failures, while others were more than fairly successful. More than once had these tiny war vessels proved themselves of great service, and the United States Government had a large number of them built.

There was one particular contractor who bothered the President more than all the others put together. He was constantly impressing upon Mr.

Lincoln the great superiority of his boats, because they would run in such shallow water.

"Oh, yes," replied the President, "I've no doubt they'll run anywhere where the ground is a little moist!"