One of the pupils would retire, and then come in as a stranger, and another pupil would have to introduce him to all the members of the school n what was considered “good manners.”
As “Abe” wore a linsey-woolsey shirt, buckskin breeches which were too short and very tight, and low shoes, and was tall and awkward, he no doubt created considerable merriment when his turn came. He was growing at a fearful rate; he was fifteen years of age, and two years later attained his full height of six feet four inches.
HAD RESPECT FOR THE EGGS.
Early in 1831, “Abe” was one of the guests of honor at a boat-launching, he and two others having built the craft. The affair was a notable one, people being present from the territory surrounding. A large party came from Springfield with an ample supply of whisky, to give the boat and its builders a send-off. It was a sort of bipartisan mass-meeting, but there was one prevailing spirit, that born of rye and corn. Speeches were made in the best of feeling, some in favor of Andrew Jackson and some in favor of Henry Clay. Abraham Lincoln, the cook, told a number of funny stories, and it is recorded that they were not of too refined a character to suit the taste of his audience. A sleight-of-hand performer was present, and among other tricks performed, he fried some eggs in Lincoln’s hat. Judge Herndon says, as explanatory to the delay in passing up the hat for the experiment, Lincoln drolly observed: “It was out of respect for the eggs, not care for my hat.”
HOW WAS THE MILK UPSET?
William G. Greene, an old-time friend of Lincoln, was a student at Illinois College, and one summer brought home with him, on a vacation, Richard Yates (afterwards Governor of Illinois) and some other boys, and, in order to entertain them, took them up to see Lincoln.
He found him in his usual position and at his usual occupation—flat on his back, on a cellar door, reading a newspaper. This was the manner in which a President of the United States and a Governor of Illinois became acquainted with each other.
Greene says Lincoln repeated the whole of Burns, and a large quantity of Shakespeare for the entertainment of the college boys, and, in return, was invited to dine with them on bread and milk. How he managed to upset his bowl of milk is not a matter of history, but the fact is that he did so, as is the further fact that Greene’s mother, who loved Lincoln, tried to smooth over the accident and relieve the young man’s embarrassment.