"Why don't you study law?" he asked.
Abe pursed his lips. "I'd sure like to," he drawled; then added with a grin: "But I don't know if I have enough sense."
Major Stuart paid no attention to this last remark. "You have been reading law for pleasure," he went on. "Now go at it in earnest. I'll lend you the books you need."
This was a chance that Abe could not afford to miss. Every few days he walked or rode on horseback to Springfield to borrow another volume. Sometimes he read forty pages on the way home. He was twenty-five years old, and there was no time to waste.
Meanwhile he was making many speeches. He asked the voters in his part of Illinois to elect him to the legislature which made the laws for the state. They felt that "Honest Abe" was a man to be trusted and he was elected.
Late in November Abe boarded the stagecoach for the ride to Vandalia, then the capital of the state. He looked very dignified in a new suit and high plug hat. In the crowd that gathered to tell him good-by, he could see many of his friends. There stood Coleman Smoot who had lent him money to buy his new clothes. Farther back he could see Mr. Rutledge and Ann, Hannah and Jack Armstrong, Mentor Graham, and others who had encouraged and helped him. And now he was on his way to represent them in the legislature. There was a chorus of "Good-by, Abe."
Then, like an echo, the words came again in Ann's high, sweet voice: "Good-by, Abe!" He leaned far out the window and waved.
He was thinking of Ann as the coach rolled over the rough road. He was thinking also of Sarah. If only she could see him now, he thought, as he glanced at the new hat resting on his knee.
