When Lincoln was a lawyer, one day he was going with a party of lawyers to attend court. They were riding, two by two, on horseback through a country lane, Lincoln in the rear. As they passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees, his friends missed him.
“Where is he?” they asked.
Just then Lincoln’s companion came riding up. “Oh,” replied he, “when I saw him last, he had caught two young birds that the wind had blown out of their nest, and was hunting for the nest to put them back.”
After a little while, Lincoln rode up, and when his friends rallied him about his tender heart, he said:—
“I could not have slept, unless I had restored those little birds to their mother.”
Rescuing the Pig
Another time, Lincoln was riding past a deep miry ditch, and saw a pig struggling in the mud. The animal could not get out, and was squealing with terror.
Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud, and then at his clothes—clean ones, that he had just put on. Then he decided in favour of the clean clothes, and rode along.
But he could not get rid of the thought of the poor animal struggling so pitifully in its terror. He had not gone far when he turned back.
He reached the ditch, dismounted, and tied his horse. Then he collected some old wooden rails, and with them made a foot-bridge to the bottom of the ditch. He carefully walked down the bridge, and caught hold of the pig. He pulled it out, and setting it on the ground, let it run away.