He said farming was, after all, the best occupation on earth. He then told a number of incidents in his own life to illustrate, as he said, “How little I know about farming!” The incidents were droll and full of wise suggestions, which wholly disarmed me until I laughed without reserve.
Lincoln told of a visit Horace Greeley had made to the White House a few weeks before to enlighten the President on “What I know about farming.” Lincoln said he half believed the story about Greeley wherein it was said that he (Greeley) planted a long row of beans, and when in the process of first growth the beans were pushed bodily out of the ground, Greeley concluded that the beans “had made a blunder,” and, pulling up each bean, he carefully turned it over with the roots sticking out in the air.
The President then asked me if I was a farmer’s boy, and when I answered that I was brought up on a farm in the Berkshire Hills he burst out into strong laughter and said, “I hear that you have to sharpen the noses of the sheep up there to get them down to the grass between the rocks.” Then the President, as his mind was led away from the awful cares of state, turned to a small side table and picked up a much-worn copy of the News Stand Edition of the Life and Sayings of Artemus Ward. Both Ward and Lincoln were skilled storytellers, and they were alike in their avoidance of vulgar or low yarns. Lincoln was credited with thousands of yarns he never heard, and with thousands to which he would not have listened without giving a rebuke. Many of those at which he revolted have been continued in print under his name. But Ward’s speech concerning his visit to the President among the office-seeking crowd was to Lincoln’s mind “a masterpiece of pure fun.”
As we sat there Lincoln opened Artemus Ward’s book and read several things from it. Then closing it, he said, “Ward rests me more than any living man.”
Chapter III: Lincoln Reads Artemus Ward Aloud
This generation, whose taste in humor has naturally changed from that of Civil War times, is not very familiar with the stories of Artemus Ward. It will be well for the reader to bear this in mind in the pages that follow.
One of the two stories Lincoln read by way of relaxation, as I have told in the preceding chapter, concerned the President himself. Here it is:
HOW OLD ABE RECEIVED THE NEWS OF HIS NOMINATION