III. HOMELY WAYS TO EXPRESS TRUTH
The way Lincoln looked at the malicious denunciations of his conduct of the war, the vile stories told about him and the wicked perversions of the things he said was once characterized by him in the story of an incident that happened to two Irish emigrants who had come out into the wilderness fresh from the Emerald Isle.
They were tramping their way through the West seeking for work. One evening they camped at the edge of a pond of water. Being tired, they were soon fast asleep. Suddenly they were awakened by a chorus of bellowing sounds the like of which they had never heard before. It was not comparable to anything they knew of man or beasts. Baum, gurgle and bellow it went here, there, and then seemingly everywhere. They grabbed their walking-stick shillelahs, ready to face the enemy, whether man, beast or devil. But nothing was to be seen. They crept forward, then boldly searched, strained their eyes in every direction and defied their enemy with many insulting challenges to show himself, but the scattering bellowing was all that could be found.
At last a happy thought struck one of them. “Jamie,” he cried to his companion, “I know what it is! It’s nothing but a noise.”
Lincoln took this attitude toward all minor things that could have absorbed his time for weightier questions.
When General Phelps captured Ship Island, near New Orleans, early in the war, he took upon himself the power of freeing all the slaves on the island. This looked like something very important to many people, who were surprised that Lincoln took no notice of it. At last he was taken to task for it, and he settled the whole question with a story.
There was once a man who was very meek but he had a very aggressive wife. He had the reputation of being badly henpecked. One day a friend saw the poor man’s wife switching him out of the house.
The first time the friend met the henpecked man, after that disgraceful episode, the friend said, “I have always stood up for you, as you well know, but now I am done with you. Any man who allows his wife to switch him out of the house deserves all he gets.”
The abused man patted his friend on the back and in a conciliating tone said, “Now don’t feel that way about it, it didn’t hurt me a bit, and you have no idea what a great amount of satisfaction it gives my dear wife.”