"'Here it is, sir,' was the ready reply.
"'That will do,' said the teacher, 'for this time; you can take your seat, sir.'"
COULD MAKE "RABBIT-TRACKS"
When a grocery clerk at New Salem, the annual election came around. A Mr. Graham was clerk, but his assistant was absent, and it was necessary to find a man to fill his place. Lincoln, a "tall young man," had already concentrated on himself the attention of the people of the town, and Graham easily discovered him. Asking him if he could write, "Abe" modestly replied, "I can make a few rabbit-tracks." His rabbit-tracks proving to be legible and even graceful, he was employed.
The voters soon discovered that the new assistant clerk was honest and fair, and performed his duties satisfactorily, and when, the work done, he began to "entertain them with stories," they found that their town had made a valuable personal and social acquisition.
PETER CARTWRIGHT'S DESCRIPTION OF LINCOLN
Peter Cartwright, the famous and eccentric old Methodist preacher, who used to ride a church circuit, as Mr. Lincoln and others did the court circuit, did not like Lincoln very well, probably because Mr. Lincoln was not a member of his flock and once defeated the preacher for Congress. This was Cartwright's description of Lincoln: "This Lincoln is a man six feet four inches tall, but so angular that if you should drop a plummet from the center of his head it would cut him three times before it touched his feet."
WISHED THE ARMY CHARGED LIKE THAT
A prominent volunteer officer who, early in the War, was on duty in Washington and often carried reports to Secretary Stanton at the War Department, told a characteristic story on President Lincoln. Said he: