"'Well, I guess that will never be of much account again—as a dog.'—'I guess that Pemberton's forces will never amount to much again—as an army.' By this time the delegation were looking for their hats."
Like stories followed among the merry foresters. One of them told another "That reminds me"—how that two boys had been pursued by a small but vicious dog, and one of them had caught and held him by the tail while the other ran up a tree. At last the boy who was holding the dog became tired and knew not what to do, and cried out:
"Jim!"
"What say?"
"Come down."
"What for?"
"To help me let go of the dog."
This story, also, whatever may have been the date of it, President Lincoln used to tell amid the perplexities of the war. In the darkest times of his life at the White House his mind used to return for illustration to the stories told at this backwoods smithy, and at the country stores that he afterward came to visit at Gentryville, Indiana, and New Salem, Illinois.
He delighted in the blacksmith's own stories and jokes. The man's name was John Baldwin. He was the Homer of Gentryville, as the village portion of this vast unsettled portion of country was called. Dennis Hanks, Abraham Lincoln's cousin, who frequented the smithy, was also a natural story-teller. The stories which had their origin here evolved and grew, and became known in all the rude cabins. Then, when Abraham Lincoln became President, his mind went back to the quaint smithy in the cool, free woods, and to the country stores, and he told these stories all over again. It seemed restful to his mind to wander back to old Indiana and Illinois.
The cloud grew. The air darkened. There was an occasional rustle of wind in the tree-tops.