"Son, you've just got time. Take this letter to my young friend, Abe Lincoln, and bring him back in the buggy to appear in the case. Guess he'll come if he can."
The young man from Mechanicsville found the lawyer in the street playing "knucks" with a troop of children and laughing heartily at the fun they were all having. When the note was handed to him, Lincoln said:
"All right, wait a minute," and the game soon ended amid peals of laughter. Then the young lawyer jumped into the buggy. On the way back Mr. Lincoln told his companion such funny stories that the young man, convulsed with laughter, was unable to drive. The horse, badly broken, upset them into a ditch, smashing the vehicle.
"You stay behind and look after the buggy," said the lawyer. "I'll walk on."
He came, with long strides, into the court room just in time for the trial and won the case for the wagonmaker.
"What am I to pay you?" asked the client delighted.
"I hope you won't think ten or fifteen dollars too much," said the young attorney, "and I'll pay half the hire of the buggy and half the cost of repairing it."
LAWYER LINCOLN AND MARY OWENS
About the time Mr. Lincoln was admitted to the bar, Miss Mary Owens, a bright and beautiful young woman from Kentucky, came to visit her married sister near New Salem. The sister had boasted that she was going to "make a match" between her sister and Lawyer Lincoln. The newly admitted attorney smiled indulgently at all this banter until he began to consider himself under obligations to marry Miss Owens if that young lady proved willing.
After he went to live in Springfield, with no home but his office, he wrote the young lady a long, discouraging letter, of which this is a part: