[“Come and set by the stove by the hour and tell stories and talk and argue”]
“He traded here. I’ve got his accounts now. See here, ‘quinine, quinine, quinine.’ Greatest hand to buy quinine you ever see. Give it to his constituents. Oh, he knew how to be popular, Mr. Lincoln did. Cutest man in politics. I wa’n’t a Whig. I was then and I am now a Democrat, a real old-fashioned Jackson Democrat, and my blood just would rise up sometimes hearin’ him discuss. He was a dangerous man—a durned dangerous man to have agin you. He’d make you think a thing when you knew it wa’n’t so, and cute! Why, he’d just slide in when you wa’n’t expectin’ it and do some unexpected thing that u’d make you laugh, and then he’d get your vote. You’d vote for him because you liked him—just because you liked him and because he was so all-fired smart, and do it when you knew he was wrong and it was agin the interest of the country.
“Tell stories? Nobody ever could beat him at that, and how he’d enjoy ’em, just slap his hands on his knees and jump up and turn around and then set down, laughin’ to kill. Greatest man to git new yarns that ever lived, always askin’, ‘Heard any new stories, Billy?’ And if I had I’d trot ’em out, and how he’d laugh. Often and often when I’ve told him something new and he’d kin’ a forgit how it went, he’d come in and say, ‘Billy, how about that story you’se tellin’ me?’ and then I’d tell it all over.
“He was away a lot, you know, ridin’ the circuit along with some right smart lawyers. They had great doin’s. Nuthin’ to do evenings but to set around the tavern stove tellin’ stories. That was enough when Lincoln was there. They was all lost without him. Old Judge Davis was boss of that lot, and he never would settle down till Lincoln got around. I’ve heard ’em laugh lots of times how the Judge would fuss around and keep askin’, ‘Where’s Mr. Lincoln, why don’t Mr. Lincoln come? Somebody go and find Lincoln,’ and when Lincoln came he would just settle back and get him started to yarning, and there they’d set half the night.
“When he got home he’d come right in here first time he was downtown and tell me every blamed yarn he’d heard. Whole crowd would get in here sometimes and talk over the trip, and I tell you it was something to hear ’em laugh. You could tell how Lincoln kept things stirred up. He was so blamed quick. Ever hear Judge Weldon tell that story about what Lincoln said one day up to Bloomington when they was takin’ up a subscription to buy Jim Wheeler a new pair of pants? No? Well, perhaps I oughten to tell it to you, ma says it ain’t nice. It makes me mad to hear people objectin’ to Mr. Lincoln’s stories. Mebbe he did say words you wouldn’t expect to hear at a church supper, but he never put no meanin’ into ’em that wouldn’t ’a’ been fit for the minister to put into a sermon, and that’s a blamed sight more’n you can say of a lot of stories I’ve heard some of the people tell who stick up their noses at Mr. Lincoln’s yarns.
“Yes, sir, he used to keep things purty well stirred up on that circuit. That time I was a speakin’ of he made Judge Davis real mad; it happened right in court and everybody got to gigglin’ fit to kill. The Judge knew ’twas something Lincoln had said and he began to sputter.
“‘I am not going to stand this any longer, Mr. Lincoln, you’re always disturbin’ this court with your tomfoolery. I’m goin’ to fine you. The clerk will fine Mr. Lincoln five dollars for disorderly conduct.’ The boys said Lincoln never said a word; he just set lookin’ down with his hand over his mouth, tryin’ not to laugh. About a minute later the Judge, who was always on pins and needles till he knew all the fun that was goin’ on, called up Weldon and whispered to him, ‘What was that Lincoln said?’ Weldon told him, and I’ll be blamed if the Judge didn’t giggle right out loud there in court. The joke was on him then, and he knew it, and soon as he got his face straight he said, dignified like, ‘The clerk may remit Mr. Lincoln’s fine.’
“Yes, he was a mighty cute story-teller, but he knew what he was about tellin’ ’em. I tell you he got more arguments out of stories than he did out of law books, and the queer part was you couldn’t answer ’em—they just made you see it and you couldn’t get around it. I’m a Democrat, but I’ll be blamed if I didn’t have to vote for Mr. Lincoln as President, couldn’t help it, and it was all on account of that snake story of his’n illustratin’ the takin’ of slavery into Kansas and Nebraska. Remember it? I heard him tell it in a speech once.
“‘If I saw a pizen snake crawlin’ in the road,’ he says, ‘I’d kill it with the first thing I could grab; but if I found it in bed with my children, I’d be mighty careful how I touched it fear I’d make it bite the children. If I found it in bed with somebody else’s children I’d let them take care of it; but if I found somebody puttin’ a whole batch of young snakes into an empty bed where mine or anybody’s children was going to sleep pretty soon, I’d stop him from doin’ it if I had to fight him.’ Perhaps he didn’t say ‘fight him,’ but somehow I always tell that story that way because I know I would and so would he or you or anybody. That was what it was all about when you come down to it. They was tryin’ to put a batch of snakes into an empty bed that folks was goin’ to sleep in.