''Abe'' Lincoln's Yarns and Stories by Alexander Kelly McClure (english books to improve english TXT) 📕

half the time; he can’t be relied upon, and it is a shame to have such a man in command of an army.”

“So Grant gets drunk, does he?” queried Lincoln, addressing himself to one of the particularly active detractors of the soldier, who, at that period, was inflicting heavy damage upon the Confederates.

“Yes, he does, and I can prove it,” was the reply.

“Well,” returned Lincoln, with the faintest suspicion of a twinkle in his eye, “you needn’t waste your time getting proof; you just find out, to oblige me, what brand of whiskey Grant drinks, because I want to send a barrel of it to each one of my generals.”

That ended the crusade against Grant, so far as the question of drinking was concerned.

 

HIS FINANCIAL STANDING.

A New York firm applied to Abraham Lincoln, some years before he became President, for information as to the financial standing of one of his neighbors. Mr. Lincoln replied:

“I am well acquainted with Mr.–- and know his circumstances. First of all, he has a wife and baby; together they ought to be worth $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50 and three chairs worth, say, $1. Last of all, there is in one corner a large rat hole, which will bear looking into. Respectfully, A. Lincoln.”

 

THE DANDY AND THE BOYS.

President Lincoln appointed as consul to a South American country a young man from Ohio who was a dandy. A wag met the new appointee on his way to the White House to thank the President. He was dressed in the most extravagant style. The wag horrified him by telling him that the country to which he was assigned was noted chiefly for the bugs that abounded there and made life unbearable.

“They’ll bore a hole clean through you before a week has passed,” was the comforting assurance of the wag as they parted at the White House steps. The new consul approached Lincoln with disappointment clearly written all over his face. Instead of joyously thanking the President, he told him the wag’s story of the bugs. “I am informed, Mr. President,” he said, “that the place is full of vermin and that they could eat me up in a week’s time.” “Well, young man,” replied Lincoln, “if that’s true, all I’ve got to say is that if such a thing happened they would leave a mighty good suit of clothes behind.”

 

“SOME UGLY OLD LAWYER.”

A. W. Swan, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, told this story on Lincoln, being an eyewitness of the scene:

“One day President Lincoln was met in the park between the White House and the War Department by an irate private soldier, who was swearing in a high key, cursing the Government from the President down. Mr. Lincoln paused and asked him what was the matter. ‘Matter enough,’ was the reply. ‘I want my money. I have been discharged here, and can’t get my pay.’ Mr. Lincoln asked if he had his papers, saying that he used to practice law in a small way, and possibly could help him.

“My friend and I stepped behind some convenient shrubbery where we could watch the result. Mr. Lincoln took the papers from the hands of the crippled soldier, and sat down with him at the foot of a convenient tree, where he examined them carefully, and writing a line on the back, told the soldier to take them to Mr. Potts, Chief Clerk of the War Department, who would doubtless attend to the matter at once.

“After Mr. Lincoln had left the soldier, we stepped out and asked him if he knew whom he had been talking with. ‘Some ugly old fellow who pretends to be a lawyer,’ was the reply. My companion asked to see the papers, and on their being handed to him, pointed to the indorsement they had received: This indorsement read:

“‘Mr. Potts, attend to this man’s case at once and see that he gets his pay. A. L.’”

 

GOOD MEMORY OF NAMES.

The following story illustrates the power of Mr. Lincoln’s memory of names and faces. When he was a comparatively young man, and a candidate for the Illinois Legislature, he made a personal canvass of the district. While “swinging around the circle” he stopped one day and took dinner with a farmer in Sangamon county.

Years afterward, when Mr. Lincoln had become President, a soldier came to call on him at the White House. At the first glance the Chief Executive said: “Yes, I remember; you used to live on the Danville road. I took dinner with you when I was running for the Legislature. I recollect that we stood talking out at the barnyard gate while I sharpened my jackknife.”

“Y-a-a-s,” drawled the soldier, “you did. But say, wherever did you put that whetstone? I looked for it a dozen times, but I never could find it after the day you used it. We allowed as how mabby you took it ‘long with you.”

“No,” said Lincoln, looking serious and pushing away a lot of documents of state from the desk in front of him. “No, I put it on top of that gatepost—that high one.”

“Well!” exclaimed the visitor, “mabby you did. Couldn’t anybody else have put it there, and none of us ever thought of looking there for it.”

The soldier was then on his way home, and when he got there the first thing he did was to look for the whetstone. And sure enough, there it was, just where Lincoln had laid it fifteen years before. The honest fellow wrote a letter to the Chief Magistrate, telling him that the whetstone had been found, and would never be lost again.

 

SETTLED OUT OF COURT.

When Abe Lincoln used to be drifting around the country, practicing law in Fulton and Menard counties, Illinois, an old fellow met him going to Lewiston, riding a horse which, while it was a serviceable enough animal, was not of the kind to be truthfully called a fine saddler. It was a weatherbeaten nag, patient and plodding, and it toiled along with Abe—and Abe’s books, tucked away in saddlebags, lay heavy on the horse’s flank.

“Hello, Uncle Tommy,” said Abe.

“Hello, Abe,” responded Uncle Tommy. “I’m powerful glad to see ye, Abe, fer I’m gwyne to have sumthin’ fer ye at Lewiston co’t, I reckon.”

“How’s that, Uncle Tommy?” said Abe.

“Well, Jim Adams, his land runs ‘long o’ mine, he’s pesterin’ me a heap an’ I got to get the law on Jim, I reckon.”

“Uncle Tommy, you haven’t had any fights with Jim, have you?”

“No.”

“He’s a fair to middling neighbor, isn’t he?”

“Only tollable, Abe.”

“He’s been a neighbor of yours for a long time, hasn’t he?”

“Nigh on to fifteen year.”

“Part of the time you get along all right, don’t you?”

“I reckon we do, Abe.”

“Well, now, Uncle Tommy, you see this horse of mine? He isn’t as good a horse as I could straddle, and I sometimes get out of patience with him, but I know his faults. He does fairly well as horses go, and it might take me a long time to get used to some other horse’s faults. For all horses have faults. You and Uncle Jimmy must put up with each other as I and my horse do with one another.”

“I reckon, Abe,” said Uncle Tommy, as he bit off about four ounces of Missouri plug. “I reckon you’re about right.”

And Abe Lincoln, with a smile on his gaunt face, rode on toward Lewiston.

 

THE FIVE POINTS SUNDAY SCHOOL.

When Mr. Lincoln visited New York in 1860, he felt a great interest in many of the institutions for reforming criminals and saving the young from a life of crime. Among others, he visited, unattended, the Five Points House of Industry, and the superintendent of the Sabbath school there gave the following account of the event:

“One Sunday morning I saw a tall, remarkable-looking man enter the room and take a seat among us. He listened with fixed attention to our exercises, and his countenance expressed such genuine interest that I approached him and suggested that he might be willing to say something to the children. He accepted the invitation with evident pleasure, and coming forward began a simple address, which at once fascinated every little hearer and hushed the room into silence. His language was strikingly beautiful, and his tones musical with intense feeling. The little faces would droop into sad conviction when he uttered sentences of warning, and would brighten into sunshine as he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he attempted to close his remarks, but the imperative shout of, ‘Go on! Oh, do go on!’ would compel him to resume.

“As I looked upon the gaunt and sinewy frame of the stranger, and marked his powerful head and determined features, now touched into softness by the impressions of the moment, I felt an irrepressible curiosity to learn something more about him, and while he was quietly leaving the room, I begged to know his name. He courteously replied: ‘It is Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois.’”

 

SENTINEL OBEYED ORDERS.

A slight variation of the traditional sentry story is related by C. C. Buel. It was a cold, blusterous winter night. Says Mr. Buel:

“Mr. Lincoln emerged from the front door, his lank figure bent over as he drew tightly about his shoulders the shawl which he employed for such protection; for he was on his way to the War Department, at the west corner of the grounds, where in times of battle he was wont to get the midnight dispatches from the field. As the blast struck him he thought of the numbness of the pacing sentry, and, turning to him, said: ‘Young man, you’ve got a cold job to-night; step inside, and stand guard there.’

“‘My orders keep me out here,’ the soldier replied.

“‘Yes,’ said the President, in his argumentative tone; ‘but your duty can be performed just as well inside as out here, and you’ll oblige me by going in.’

“‘I have been stationed outside,’ the soldier answered, and resumed his beat.

“‘Hold on there!’ said Mr. Lincoln, as he turned back again; ‘it occurs to me that I am Commander-in-Chief of the army, and I order you to go inside.’”

 

WHY LINCOLN GROWED WHISKERS.

Perhaps the majority of people in the United States don’t know why Lincoln “growed” whiskers after his first nomination for the Presidency. Before that time his face was clean shaven.

In the beautiful village of Westfield, Chautauqua county, New York, there lived, in 1860, little Grace Bedell. During the campaign of that year she saw a portrait of Lincoln, for whom she felt the love and reverence that was common in Republican families, and his smooth, homely face rather disappointed her. She said to her mother: “I think, mother, that Mr. Lincoln would look better if he wore whiskers, and I mean to write and tell him so.”

The mother gave her permission.

Grace’s father was a Republican; her two brothers were Democrats. Grace wrote at once to the “Hon. Abraham Lincoln, Esq., Springfield, Illinois,” in which she told him how old she was, and where she lived; that she was a Republican; that she thought he would make a good President, but would look better if he would let his whiskers grow. If he would do so, she would try to coax her brothers to vote for him. She thought the rail fence around the picture of his cabin was very pretty. “If you have not time to answer my letter, will you allow your little girl to reply for you?”

Lincoln was much pleased with the letter, and decided to answer it, which he did at once, as follows:

“Springfield, Illinois, October 19, 1860.

“Miss