"After the company had gotten pretty noisy and mellow from their imbibitions of Yellow Seal and 'corn juice,'" says Mr. Bryant, "Mr. Douglas and General Shields, to the consternation of the host and intense merriment of the guests, climbed up on the table, at one end, encircled each other's waists, and to the tune of a rollicking song, pirouetted down the whole length of the table, shouting, singing, and kicking dishes, glasses, and everything right and left, helter skelter. For this night of entertainment to his constituents, the successful candidate was presented with a bill, in the morning, for supper, wines, liquors, and damages, which amounted to six hundred dollars."
But boisterous suppers were not by any means the important feature of Lincoln's social life that winter in Vandalia. There was another and quieter side in which he showed his rare companionableness and endeared himself to many people. In the midst of the log-rolling and jubilations of the session he would often slip away to some acquaintance's room and spend hours in talk and stories. Mr. John Bryant tells of his coming frequently to his room at the hotel, and sitting "with his knees up to his chin, telling his inimitable stories and his triumphs in the House in circumventing the Democrats."
Major Newton Walker, of Lewiston, was in Vandalia at the time; and still talks with pleasure not only of the Assembly's energetic legislation, but of the way Lincoln endeared himself to him and to his colleague. "We both loved him," says Major Walker, "but I little thought then that he would become the greatest man that this country ever produced, or perhaps ever will. Many a night I have sat up listening to Lincoln's wonderful stories. That was a long time ago—nearly sixty years. I shall be ninety-two years old in a few days. I was six years older than Lincoln."
INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY OF WHICH LINCOLN WAS ONE OF THE MANAGERS.
The invitation is in the collection of Mr. C.F. Gunther of Chicago, through whose courtesy it is here reproduced.
"I used to play the fiddle a great deal, and have played for Lincoln a number of times. He used to come over to where I was boarding and ask me to play the fiddle for him; and I would take it with me when I went over to visit him, and when he grew weary of telling stories he would ask me to give him a tune, which I never refused to do."
LINCOLN MOVES TO SPRINGFIELD.
As soon as the Assembly closed, Lincoln returned to New Salem; but it was not to stay. He had determined to go to Springfield. Major John Stuart, the friend who had advised him to study law and who had lent him books and with whom he had been associated closely in politics, had offered to take him as a partner. It was a good opening, for Stuart was one of the leading lawyers and politicians of the State, and his influence would place Lincoln at once in command of more or less business. From every point of view the change seems to have been wise; yet Lincoln made it with foreboding.
To practise law he must abandon his business as surveyor, which was bringing him a fair income; he must for a time, at least, go without any certain income. If he failed, what then? The uncertainty weighed on him heavily, the more so because he was burdened by the debts left from his store and because he was constantly called upon to aid his father's family. Thomas Lincoln had remained in Coles County, but he had not, in these six years in which his son had risen so rapidly, been able to get anything more than a poor livelihood from his farm. The sense of responsibility Lincoln had towards his father's family made it the more difficult for him to undertake a new profession. His decision was made, however, and as soon as the session of the Tenth Assembly was over he started for Springfield. His first appearance there is as pathetic as amusing.