“Are you satisfied that I can throw you?” asked Abe. “If you are not, and must be convinced through a thrashing, I will do that too for your sake.”
“I reckon we’ll put it off,” said Needham, finding his young rival more willing than he had expected. He had hoped that, though not shrinking from a friendly wrestling contest, Abe might hesitate to meet him in a more serious encounter.
I have told this story partly because I know my young readers would be interested in it, partly to give an idea of the strength and athletic power of the hero of my story.
But wrestling contests would not earn a living for young Lincoln. He was in search of employment, and found it. As one thing leads to another, the same man who had sent him to New Orleans in charge of a flat-boat, opened a store at New Salem, and needing a clerk, bethought himself of young Lincoln. Abe unpacked the goods upon their arrival, and worked energetically to put them in order. With a new store-book, serving as a ledger, and a pen behind his ear, he made his début as a “first clerk” of the leading mercantile establishment in the town. In the readiness with which he turned from one thing to another, Abe might well be taken for a typical Yankee, though born in Kentucky.
We are now to look upon the future President in a new capacity. As a clerk he proved honest and efficient, and my readers will be interested in some illustrations of the former trait which I find in Dr. Holland’s interesting volume.
One day a woman came into the store and purchased sundry articles. They footed up two dollars and six and a quarter cents, or the young clerk thought they did. We do not hear nowadays of six and a quarter cents, but this was a coin borrowed from the Spanish currency, and was well known in my own boyhood.
The bill was paid, and the woman was entirely satisfied. But the young store-keeper, not feeling quite sure as to the accuracy of his calculation, added up the items once more. To his dismay he found that the sum total should have been but two dollars.
“I’ve made her pay six and a quarter cents too much,” said Abe, disturbed.
It was a trifle, and many clerks would have dismissed it as such. But Abe was too conscientious for that.
“The money must be paid back,” he decided.