March 21, 1864.
CONTENTS
[A Letter]
[BOOK ONE]
[CHAPTER I--Which Describes the Journey of Samson Henry Traylor and His Wife and Their Two Children and Their Dog Sambo through the Adirondack Wilderness in 1831 on Their Way to the Land of Plenty, and Especially Their Adventures in Bear Valley and No Santa Claus Land. Furthermore, It Describes the Soaping of the Brimsteads and the Capture of the Veiled Bear]
[CHAPTER II--Wherein Is Recorded the Vivid Impression Made upon the Travelers by Their View of a Steam Engine and of the Famous Erie Canal. Wherein, Also, Is a Brief Account of Sundry Curious Characters Met on the Road and at a Celebration of the Fourth of July on the Big Waterway]
[CHAPTER III--Wherein the Reader Is Introduced to Offut's Store and His Clerk Abe, and the Scholar Jack Kelso and His Cabin and His Daughter Bim, and Gets a First Look at Lincoln]
[CHAPTER IV--Which Presents Other Log Cabin Folk and the First Steps in the Making of a New Home and Certain Incapacities of Abe]
[CHAPTER V--In Which the Character of Bim Kelso Flashes Out in a Strange Adventure that Begins the Weaving of a Long Thread of Romance]
[CHAPTER VI--Which Describes the Lonely Life in a Prairie Cabin and a Stirring Adventure on the Underground Railroad about the Time It Beganx Operations]
[CHAPTER VII--In Which Mr. Eliphalet Biggs Gets Acquainted with Bim Kelso and Her Father]
[CHAPTER VIII--Wherein Abe Makes Sundry Wise Remarks to the Boy Harry and Announces His Purpose to Be a Candidate for the Legislature at Kelso's Dinner Party]
[CHAPTER IX--In Which Bim Kelso Makes History, While Abe and Harry and Other Good Citizens of New Salem Are Making an Effort to that End in the Indian War]
[BOOK TWO]
[CHAPTER X--In Which Abe and Samson Wrestle and Some Raiders Come to Burn and Stay to Repent]
[CHAPTER XI--In Which Abe, Elected to the Legislature, Gives What Comfort He Can to Ann Rutledge in the Beginning of Her Sorrows. Also He Goes to Springfield for New Clothes and Is Astonished by Its Pomp and the Change in Eli]
[CHAPTER XII--Which Continues the Romance of Abe and Ann until the Former Leaves New Salem to Begin His Work in the Legislature. Also It Describes the Coloneling of Peter Lukins]
[CHAPTER XIII--Wherein the Route of the Underground Railroad Is Surveyed and Samson and Harry Spend a Night in the Home of Henry Brimstead and Hear Surprising Revelations, Confidentially Disclosed, and Are Charmed by the Personality of His Daughter Annabel]
[CHAPTER XIV--In Which Abe Returns from Vandalia and Is Engaged to Ann, and Three Interesting Slaves Arrive at the Home of Samson Traylor, Who, with Harry Needles, Has an Adventure of Much Importance on the Underground Road]
[CHAPTER XV--Wherein Harry and Abe Ride Up to Springdale and Visit Kelso's and Learn of the Curious Lonesomeness of Eliphalet Biggs]
[CHAPTER XVI--Wherein Young Mr. Lincoln Safely Passes Two Great Danger Points and Turns into the Highway of His Manhood]
[BOOK THREE]
[CHAPTER XVII--Wherein Young Mr. Lincoln Betrays Ignorance of Two Highly Important Subjects, in Consequence of Which He Begins to Suffer Serious Embarrassment]
[CHAPTER XVIII--In Which Mr. Lincoln, Samson and Harry Take a Long Ride Together and the Latter Visit the Flourishing Little City of Chicago]
[CHAPTER XIX--Wherein Is One of the Many Private Panics Which Followed the Bursting of the Bubble of Speculation]
[CHAPTER XX--Which Tells of the Settling of Abe Lincoln and the Traylors in the Village of Springfield and of Samson's Second Visit to Chicago]
[CHAPTER XXI--Wherein a Remarkable School of Political Science Begins Its Sessions in the Rear of Joshua Speed's Store. Also at Samson's Fireside Honest Abe Talks of the Authority of the Law and the Right of Revolution, and Later Brings a Suit against Lionel Davis]
[CHAPTER XXII--Wherein Abe Lincoln Reveals His Method of Conducting a Lawsuit in the Case of Henry Brimstead et al. vs. Lionel Davis]
[CHAPTER XXIII-- Which Presents the Pleasant Comedy of Individualism in the New Capital, and the Courtship of Lincoln and Mary Todd]
[CHAPTER XXIV--Which Describes a Pleasant Holiday and a Pretty Stratagem]
[CHAPTER XXV--Being a Brief Memoir by the Honorable and Venerable Man Known in These Pages as Josiah Traylor, Who Saw the Great Procession of Events between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson and Especially the Making and the End of Lincoln ]
A Letter
TO THE AGED AND HONORABLE JOSIAH TRAYLOR FROM HIS GRANDSON, A SOLDIER IN FRANCE, WHEREIN THE MOTIVE AND INSPIRATION OF THIS NARRATIVE ARE BRIEFLY PRESENTED.
In France, September 10, 1915.
Dear Grandfather:
At last I have got mine. I had been scampering towards the stars, like a jack-rabbit chased by barking greyhounds, when a shrapnel shell caught up with me. It sneezed all over my poor bus, and threw some junk into me as if it thought me nothing better than a kind of waste basket. Seems as if it had got tired of carrying its load and wanted to put it on me. It succeeded famously but I got home with the bus. Since then they have been taking sinkers and fish hooks out me fit only for deep water. Don't worry, I'm getting better fast. I shall play no more football and you will not see me pitching curves and running bases again. No, I shall sit in the grandstand myself hereafter and there will not be so much of me but I shall have quite a shuck on my soul for all that. I've done a lot of thinking since I have been lying on my back with nothing else to do. When your body gets kind of turned over in the ditch it's wonderful how your mind begins to hustle around the place. Until this thing happened my intellect was nothing more than a vague rumor. I had heard of it, now and then, in college, and I had hoped that it would look me up some time and ask what it could do for me, but it didn't. These days I would scarcely believe that I have a body, the poor thing being upon the jacks in this big machine shop, but my small intellect is hopping all over the earth and back again and watching every move of these high-toned mechanics with their shiny tools and white aprons. My mind and I have kind of got acquainted with each other and I'm getting attached to it. It is quite an energetic, promising young mind and I don't know but I'll try to make a permanent place for it in my business.