“It ain’t important to my mind what was in that book. What’s important is that Abraham Lincoln was wrestlin’ in those days to find out the truth, wa’n’t content like I was to settle down smotherin’ any reservations that I might a had. He never did that, grappled hard with everything touchin’ religion that came up, no matter which side it was. He never shirked the church if he wa’n’t a member, went regular, used to go to revivals and camp meetings too in those days when he was readin’ the ‘Ruins.’ Most of the boys who didn’t profess went to camp meetings for deviltry—hang around on the edges—playin’ tricks—teasin’ the girls—sometimes gettin’ into regular fights. Mr. Lincoln never joined into any horse play like that. He took it solemn. I reckon he wouldn’t ever hesitated a minute to go forward and ask prayers if he’d really believed that was the way for him to find God. He knew it wa’n’t. The God he was searchin’ for wa’n’t the kind they was preachin’. He was tryin’ to find one that he could reconcile with what he was findin’ out about the world—its ruins—its misery. Clear as day to me that that was what he was after from the start—some kind of plan in things, that he could agree to.
“He certainly did have a lot to discourage him—worst was when he lost his sweetheart. I’ve allus figured it out that if Ann Rutledge had lived and married him he’d been a different man—leastwise he’d been happier. He might have even got converted and joined the church, like I did after I courted Ma. A good woman sort of carries a man along when he loves her. It’s a mighty sight easier to believe in the goodness of the Lord and the happiness of man when you’re in love like I’ve allus been, and like he was with that girl.
“‘There was no doubt she was a fine girl—no doubt he loved her. When she died he was all broke up for days. I’ve heard his old friends tell how he give up workin’ and readin’—wandered off into the fields talkin’ to himself. Seemed as if he couldn’t bear to think of her covered over with snow—beaten on by rain—wastin’ away—eaten by worms. I tell you he was the kind that saw it all as it was. That’s the hard part of bein’ so honest you see things just as they are—don’t pretend things are different—just as they are. He couldn’t get over it. I believe it’s the Lord’s mercy he didn’t kill himself those days. Everybody thought he was goin’ crazy, but I rather think myself he was wrestlin’ with himself, tryin’ to make himself live. Men like him want to die pretty often. I reckon he must have cried out many a night like Job did, ‘What is mine end that I should prolong my life? My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life. I loathe it. I would not live alway.’
“He pulled out, of course, but he never got over havin’ spells of terrible gloom. I expect there was always a good many nights up to the end when he wondered if life was worth keepin’. Black moods took him and he’d go days not hardly speakin’ to people—come in here—set by the stove—not sayin’ a word—get up—go out—hardly noticin’ you. Boys understood, used to say ‘Mr. Lincoln’s got the blues.’
“Curious how quick things changed with him. He’d be settin’ here, laffin’ and jokin’, tellin’ stories and somebody’d drop some little thing, nobody else would think about, and suddent his eyes would go sad and his face broodin’ and he’d stop talkin’ or like as not get up and go out. I don’t mean to say this happened often. Of course that wa’n’t so; as I’ve told you no end of times, he was the best company that ever was—the fullest of stories and jokes, and nobody could talk serious like him. You could listen forever when he’d get to arguin’, but spite of all that you knew somehow he was a lonely man who had to fight hard to keep up his feelin’ that life was worth goin’ on with. Gave you queer feelin’ about him—you knew he was different from the others, and it kept you from bein’ over-familiar.
“There was a man in here the other day I hadn’t seen for years—used to be a conductor between here and Chicago—knew him well. It tickled him to death to have me set him in that chair you’re in—looked it all over, said it seemed as if he could just see Mr. Lincoln settin’ there. Well, he got to talkin’ about all the big bugs that used to travel with him, Little Dug, Judge Davis, Logan, Swett, Welden, and all the rest; and he said something about Mr. Lincoln that shows how he struck ordinary people. He said Lincoln was the most folksy of any of them, but that there was something about him that made everybody stand a little in awe of him. You could get near him in a sort of neighborly way, as though you had always known him, but there was something tremendous between you and him all the time.
“This man said he had eaten with him many times at the railroad eatin’ houses. Everybody tried to get near Lincoln when he was eatin’, because he was such good company, but they looked at him with a kind of wonder, couldn’t exactly make him out. Sometimes there was a dreadful loneliness in his look, and the boys used to wonder what he was thinkin’ about. Whatever it was, he was thinkin’ all alone. No one was afraid of him, but there was something about him that made plain folks feel toward him a good deal as a child feels toward his father, because you know every child looks upon his father as a wonderful man.
“There ain’t any doubt but there was a good many years after Mr. Lincoln got started and everybody in the state held him high, when he was a disappointed man and when he brooded a good deal over the way life was goin’. Trouble was he hadn’t got a grip yet on anything that satisfied him. He hadn’t made a go of politics, had quit it. Of course he had plenty of law practice, but, Lord a mighty, you take a town like this was along in the ’40’s and ’50’s, when Mr. Lincoln was practicin’ here, and get right down to what was really happenin’, and it was enuff to make a broodin’ man like him sick, and want to quit. He had to handle it all, a lawyer does, men fightin’ over a dollar, gettin’ rich on cheatin’, stingy with their wives, breakin’ up families, quarrelin’ over wills, neglectin’ the old folks and yet standin’ high in the church, regular at prayer meetin’, and teachin’ in Sunday School. There was a lot of steady meanness like that all around, and it made him feel bad.
“And then there was dreadful things happened every now and then, men takin’ up with girls when they had good wives of their own. There’s more than one poor child lyin’ over there in the graveyard because some onery old scoundrel got the better of her, and there’s more than one good man been put to shame in this town because some woman who was no better than she ought to be run him down. Lord, it makes you sick, and then every now and then right out of a clear sky there’d be a murder somewhere in the country. Nobody would talk of anything else for days. People who hardly ever opened their mouths would find their tongues and tell the durnedest things.
“It was so all the time Mr. Lincoln was practicin’ out here. And it made him pretty miserable sometimes, I reckon, to see so much meanness around. I never knew a man who liked people better’n Mr. Lincoln did—seemed as if he felt the world ought to be happy, and that it could be if people would only do the right thing. You’ve heard people tellin’ how he’d refuse a case often if he didn’t think it ought to be brought. Well, sir, that’s true. I’ve heard him argue time and again with the boys about the duty of lawyers to discourage lawsuits. ‘It’s our business to be peacemakers,’ he used to tell ’em, ‘not to stir up quarrels for the sake of makin’ a little money.’ I remember somebody tellin’ how they heard him lecturin’ a man who’d brought him a case, and pointed out that by some sort of a legal trick, he could get $600. Made Lincoln mad all through. ‘I won’t take your case,’ he said, ‘but I’ll give you some free advice. You’re a husky young man. Go to work and earn your $600.’