"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.
NO VANDERBILT
In February, 1860, not long before his nomination for the Presidency, Lincoln made several speeches in Eastern cities. To an Illinois acquaintance, whom he met at the Astor House, in New York, he said:
"I have the cottage at Springfield, and about three thousand dollars in money. If they make me Vice-President with Seward, as some say they will, I hope I shall be able to increase it to twenty thousand, and that is as much as any man ought to want."