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.'"
Aptly Said.
To a man who was condoling Uncle Abe on the disaster at Olustee, and suggesting how it might have been prevented, he said:
"Your remarks are well intended, doubtless; but they do little less than aggravate a thing which I can't help thinking might have been helped. It reminds me of a story that I read when I was a boy. An old fellow who had clambered rather high into an apple tree, fell and broke his arm. A sympathizing and philosophic neighbor, seeing his mishap, went to his aid. 'Ah,' said he, 'if you had followed my plan you would have escaped this.' 'Indeed, what is your plan?' enquired the groaning man. 'Why, never to let go both hands, till you get one hold somewhere else.'"
The would-be Brigadier saw the point, and left.
"I see you've got to the sticking point at last," as the Democrat remarked to a slippery Republican, whose team had gone into the ground up to the hub.
"They have gone up every Creek and Bayou where it was a little damp."