MODEL OF FIRST PLOUGH MADE IN MENARD COUNTY, ILLINOIS.
Reproduced by permission from “Menard-Salem-Lincoln Souvenir Album,” Petersburg, Illinois, 1893.
His honesty excited no less admiration. Two incidents seem to have particularly impressed the community. Having discovered on one occasion that he had taken six and a quarter cents too much from a customer, he walked three miles that evening, after his store was closed, to return the money. Again, he weighed out a half-pound of tea, as he supposed. It was night, and this was the last thing he did before closing up. On entering in the morning he discovered a four-ounce weight on the scales. He saw his mistake, and, closing up shop, hurried off to deliver the remainder of the tea. This unusual regard for the rights of others soon won him the title of “Honest Abe.”
A NEW SALEM CHAIR.
This chair is now in the collection of Mr. Louis Vanuxem of Philadelphia. It was originally owned by Caleb Carmen of New Salem, and was once repaired by Abraham Lincoln.
LINCOLN STUDIES GRAMMAR.
As soon as the store was fairly under way, Lincoln began to look about for books. Since leaving Indiana, in March, 1830, he had had, in his drifting life, little leisure or opportunity for study, though he had had a great deal for observation. Nevertheless his desire to learn had increased, and his ambition to be somebody had been encouraged. In that time he had found that he really was superior to many of those who were called the “great” men of the country. Soon after entering Macon County, in March, 1830, when he was only twenty-one years old, he had found he could make a better speech than at least one man who was before the public. A candidate had come along where John Hanks and he were at work, and, as John Hanks tells the story, the man made a speech. “It was a bad one, and I said Abe could beat it. I turned down a box, and Abe made his speech. The other man was a candidate, Abe wasn’t. Abe beat him to death, his subject being the navigation of the Sangamon River. The man, after Abe’s speech was through, took him aside, and asked him where he had learned so much and how he could do so well. Abe replied, stating his manner and method of reading, what he had read. The man encouraged him to persevere.”
He had found that people listened to him, that they quoted his opinions, and that his friends were already saying that he was able to fill any position. Offutt even declared the country over that “Abe” knew more than any man in the United States, and that some day he would be President.
Under this stimulus Lincoln’s ambition increased. “I have talked with great men,” he told his fellow-clerk and friend Greene, “and I do not see how they differ from others.” He made up his mind to put himself before the public, and talked of his plans to his friends. In order to keep in practice in speaking he walked seven or eight miles to debating clubs. “Practising polemics” was what he called the exercise. He seems now for the first time to have begun to study subjects. Grammar was what he chose. He sought Mentor Graham, the school-master, and asked his advice. “If you are going before the public,” Mr. Graham told him, “you ought to do it.” But where could he get a grammar? There was but one, said Mr. Graham, in the neighborhood, and that was six miles away. Without waiting for further information, the young man rose from the breakfast-table, walked immediately to the place, and borrowed this rare copy of Kirkham’s Grammar. From that time on for weeks he gave his leisure to mastering its contents. Frequently he asked his friend Greene to hold the book while he recited, and when puzzled he would consult Mr. Graham.
Lincoln’s eagerness to learn was such that the whole neighborhood became interested. The Greenes lent him books, the school-master kept him in mind and helped him as he could, and the village cooper let him come into his shop and keep up a fire of shavings sufficiently bright to read by at night. It was not long before the grammar was mastered. “Well,” Lincoln said to his fellow-clerk Greene, “if that’s what they call a science, I think I’ll go at another.”
Before the winter was ended he had become the most popular man in New Salem. Although he was but twenty-two years of age in February, 1832; had never been at school an entire year; had never made a speech, except in debating clubs or by the roadside; had read only the books he could pick up, and known only the men of the poor, out-of-the-way towns in which he had lived, yet, “encouraged by his great popularity among his immediate neighbors,” as he says, he announced himself, in March, 1832, as a candidate for the General Assembly of the State.