"'Certainly,' glad of the chance of earning something. I supposed that each of them would give two or three bits--practically the dime of nowadays."
Lincoln carried the passengers aboard the vessel and handed up their trunks. Each of the gentlemen drew out a piece of silver and threw it on the little deck.
"Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the two silver half-dollars. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day--that by honest work, I had earned a dollar!" (Lincoln's flatboatman wage was $10 a month.)
(Related by Frank B. Carpenter, the portrait-painter, as given out by President Lincoln to a party of friends in the White House executive chamber, Secretary Seward, notably, being among them.)
CONVICTION THROUGH A THRASHING.
In 1831, Abraham Lincoln, returning from a voyage to New Orleans, paid the usual filial visit to his father, living in Coles County. A famous wrestler, one Needham, hearing of the newcomer's prowess in wrestling, more general than pugilism on the border, called to try their strength. As the professional was in practise, and as the other, from his amiable disposition and his forbidding appearance was not so, the latter declined the honor of a hug and the forced repose of lying on the back. Nevertheless, taunted into the trial, he met the champion and defeated him in two goes. The beaten one was chagrined, and vented his vexation in this defiance:
"You have thrown me twice, Lincoln, but you cannot whip me!"
"I do not want to, and I don't want to get whipped myself," was the simple reply.
"Well, I 'stump' you to lick me!" went on Needham, thinking he was gaining ground. "Throwing a man is one thing and licking him another!"
"Look here, Needham," said the badgered man, at last, "if you are not satisfied that I can throw you every time, and want to be convinced through a thrashing, I will do that, too, for your sake!"