"Thought he Must be Good for Something."
An Illinois man who had known the "boy Mayor," John Hay, from boyhood, was expressing to Uncle Abe, after the massacre at Olustee, some regret that he should have supposed him capable of any military position.
"About Hay," said Uncle Abe, "the fact was, I was pretty much like Jim Hawks, out in Illinois, who sold a dog to a hunting neighbor, as a first-rate coon dog. A few days after, the fellow brought him back, saying he 'wasn't worth a cuss for coons.' 'Well,' said Jim, I tried him for everything else, and he wasn't worth a d——n, and so I thought he must be good for coons.'"