Business men are devoted to the business game. Otherwise the play is poor business. So, the man whose happiness was in learning could not be a business man. The store did not pay. As Lincoln was compelled to earn his living at other work, the management of the store was entirely in the hands of Berry, with whom it went from bad to worse until two brothers offered to buy out the business. The store was sold, not for cash, but for notes covering the amount.
When the notes became due, the two brothers fled. The store was closed by the creditors, the goods were auctioned off, and a heavy remaining debt was against Berry and Lincoln. Soon after this Berry died and all the debt was against Lincoln. Now was the time for him “to skip the country,” as was the custom. But he did not “clear out” and therewith beat his creditors out of the debt of eleven hundred dollars.
Lincoln told a friend that this debt, in many ways an unjust one, because he did not make it, was “the greatest obstacle I ever met in life. I had no way of speculating, and could not earn money, except by labor; and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars, besides the interest and my living, seemed the work of a lifetime.” It did, indeed, take all he could earn above his living for seventeen years. But he did it. He paid the debt in full. The moral system in his soul was never sold for the mess of pottage in any temporary distress. “To thyself be true,” says Shakespeare, “and it follows, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.” Many think themselves to be an emotion, or a tired feeling, or a fool ambition, or a will to do something, but it is not so. My self is a system, an identity, an integrity, a consistency, that has no hour, or day, or year, but at least a life time.
One of Lincoln’s creditors, who was like Shylock, demanded his exact dues the exact time they were due. He sued Lincoln and got judgment, so that the surveyor’s tools, and everything by which he made his living were seized and put up for sale by auction.
Lincoln’s friends gathered at the sale without saying anything about what they would or would not do. The demand was for one hundred and twenty dollars. Very few could spare any such sum. But the things, horse, saddle, surveying instruments, etc., were all bought in by James Short, a farmer living on Sand Ridge, just north of New Salem. Then this farmer turned them all over to Lincoln. That benevolent farmer did not know what he was doing for his country when he did that, but it was a great deed.
A few years later James Short moved out to California. For some reason he had lost most of his property and had become a poor man. When Lincoln became president he heard of the distress “Uncle Jimmy” was in and one day the old man received a letter from Washington. Opening it, he found an appointment from Lincoln as commissioner to the Indians.
II. MAKING A LIVING AND LEARNING THE MEANING OF LIFE
Lincoln belonged to the Whig political party, but he was appointed postmaster by the Democratic administration in 1833. That there was not much mail may be inferred from the fact that it would cost twenty-five cents, in those scarce times, to send a letter or the ordinary magazine of today from any distance around of four hundred miles. His kindliness of spirit is well illustrated in the fact that he delivered most of the mail himself, knowing how precious it was to the person addressed.
As postmaster, Lincoln had to make an accounting to the government for its share of money received, and this was to be receipted for by the postoffice agent. There was much chance for graft, and especially so in this case, as the agent to settle the business did not appear. It was not till Lincoln became a practicing lawyer in Springfield that the agent called upon him to close up his accounts as postmaster at New Salem.
The postoffice inspector produced a claim for seventeen dollars. Lincoln paused a moment as if perplexed to remember just what it was. A friend, seeing this, thought it was because Lincoln did not have the money, and so offered to lend him that amount. Without answering, Lincoln went to his trunk and brought out a package containing the exact amount, put away all that time, awaiting the business call of the postoffice agent.