THE INITIATOR INSTALLED.
As a fruit of incessant study Abraham Lincoln fitted himself to accept the post of clerk at Offutt's store, in New Salem, in 1831. It was a responsible position, requiring strict honesty, intelligence, glib talk, attention, and courtesy to the few dames in the population of twenty households, "with the back settlement to hear from." In fact, Lincoln's gifts and cultivated acquirements made him such a favorite that the list of customers from out of town was extensive. This promotion of a newcomer nettled the bad element of the region. They were located from congeniality in a suburb termed Clary's Grove. Like the tail which undertakes to wag the dog, this tag constituted itself the criterion and proposed "initiating" any accession to the inhabitants. To take the conceit out of the upstart who had leaped from the flatboat deck to behind the counter at the store--the acme of a bumpkin's ambition--they selected their bully. This Jack Armstrong was held so high by Bill Clary, "father" of the Grove boys, that he bet with Offutt, over-loud in praise of his help, that Jack could beat Abe, "and your Abe has got to be initiated, anyway!"
Abraham refused under provocation to have anything to do with "rough-and-tumble" fighting--as also known as "scuffle and tussle," and "wooling and pulling"--in short, these agreeable features promise to include all brutalities save gouging, which was unfashionable so far to the North. But a man could not live quietly on the frontier without showing to such ruffians that his hands could shield his head. For the honor of the store, the clerk had to stand up to the opponent.
The bout came off. In the first attack, Lincoln lifted the foe, though heavier, clean off his feet, but he was unable to lay him down in the orthodox manner, consisting in placing him flat on his back, with both shoulder-blades denting the earth. The semi-victor amicably said: "Let's quit, Jack! You see I cannot give you the fall--and you cannot give it me."
The gang shouted for a resumption of the "sport," thinking this was weakness of the competitor. They joined again, but Armstrong, having his doubts, resorted to foul play--kicking or "legging," as the localism stands. Indignantly, Lincoln drew him up again and shook him in mid-air as a terrier does a rat. The rowdies, seeing their champion bested, shouted for him to make a fight of it, and probably they would have "mixed in" and made a "fight for all" in another minute. But Jack had his doubts set at rest as to the prospect of overcoming a man who could hold him out and off at arm's length; and, begging to be set down, grasped his antagonist's hand in friendship and proclaimed him the best man "who had ever broke into" that section. The two became friends, and the gang gradually dwindled by this recession from their ranks of their Goliath.