University of Virginia Library

LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY
[FEBRUARY 12]

HE RESCUES THE BIRDS
BY NOAH BROOKS [ADAPTED]

ONCE, while riding through the country with some other lawyers, Lincoln was missed from the party, and was seen loitering near a thicket of wild plum trees where the men had stopped a short time before to water their horses.

“Where is Lincoln?” asked one of the lawyers.

“When I saw him last,” answered another, “he had caught two young birds that the wind had blown out of their nest, and was hunting for the nest to put them back again.”

As Lincoln joined them, the lawyers rallied him on his tender-heartedness, and he said:—

“I could not have slept unless I had restored those little birds to their mother.”

LINCOLN AND THE LITTLE GIRL
BY CHARLES W. MOORES

IN the old days, when Lincoln was one of the leading lawyers of the State, he noticed a little girl of ten who stood beside a trunk in front of her home crying bitterly. He stopped to learn what

was wrong, and was told that she was about to miss a long-promised visit to Decatur because the wagon had not come for her.

“You need n't let that trouble you,” was his cheering reply. “Just come along with me and we shall make it all right.”

Lifting the trunk upon his shoulder, and taking the little girl by the hand, he went through the streets of Springfield, a half-mile to the railway station, put her and her trunk on the train, and sent her away with a happiness in her heart that is still there.

TRAINING FOR THE PRESIDENCY
BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN

“I MEANT to take good care of your book, Mr. Crawford,” said the boy, “but I've damaged it a good deal without intending to, and now I want to make it right with you. What shall I do to make it good?”

“Why, what happened to it, Abe?” asked the rich farmer, as he took the copy of Weems's “Life of Washington” which he had lent young Lincoln, and looked at the stained leaves and warped binding. “It looks as if it had been out through all last night's storm. How came you to forget, and leave it out to soak?”

“It was this way, Mr. Crawford,” replied Abe.

“I sat up late to read it, and when I went to bed, I put it away carefully in my bookcase, as I call it, a little opening between two logs in the wall of our cabin. I dreamed about General Washington all night. When I woke up I took it out to read a page or two before I did the chores, and you can't imagine how I felt when I found it in this shape. It seems that the mud-daubing had got out of the weather side of that crack, and the rain must have dripped on it three or four hours before I took it out. I'm sorry, Mr. Crawford, and want to fix it up with you, if you can tell me how, for I have not got money to pay for it.”

“Well,” said Mr. Crawford, “come and shuck corn three days, and the book 's yours.”

Had Mr. Crawford told young Abraham Lincoln that he had fallen heir to a fortune the boy could hardly have felt more elated. Shuck corn only three days, and earn the book that told all about his greatest hero!

“I don't intend to shuck corn, split rails, and the like always,” he told Mrs. Crawford, after he had read the volume. “I'm going to fit myself for a profession.”

“Why, what do you want to be, now?” asked Mrs. Crawford in surprise.

“Oh, I'll be President!” said Abe with a smile.

“You'd make a pretty President with all your

tricks and jokes, now, would n't you?” said the farmer's wife.

“Oh, I'll study and get ready,” replied the boy, “and then maybe the chance will come.”

WHY LINCOLN WAS CALLED “HONEST ABE”
BY NOAH BROOKS

IN managing the country store, as in everything that he undertook for others, Lincoln did his very best. He was honest, civil, ready to do anything that should encourage customers to come to the place, full of pleasantries, patient, and alert.

On one occasion, finding late at night, when he counted over his cash, that he had taken a few cents from a customer more than was due, he closed the store, and walked a long distance to make good the deficiency.

At another time, discovering on the scales in the morning a weight with which he had weighed out a package of tea for a woman the night before, he saw that he had given her too little for her money. He weighed out what was due, and carried it to her, much to the surprise of the woman, who had not known that she was short in the amount of her purchase.

Innumerable incidents of this sort are related of Lincoln, and we should not have space to tell

of the alertness with which he sprang to protect defenseless women from insult, or feeble children from tyranny; for in the rude community in which he lived, the rights of the defenseless were not always respected as they should have been. There were bullies then, as now.

A STRANGER AT FIVE-POINTS
[ADAPTED]

ONE afternoon in February, 1860, when the Sunday School of the Five-Point House of Industry in New York was assembled, the teacher saw a most remarkable man enter the room and take his place among the others. This stranger was tall, his frame was gaunt and sinewy, his head powerful, with determined features overcast by a gentle melancholy.

He listened with fixed attention to the exercises. His face expressed such genuine interest that the teacher, approaching him, suggested that he might have something to say to the children.

The stranger accepted the invitation with evident pleasure. Coming forward, he began to speak and at once fascinated every child in the room. His language was beautiful yet simple, his tones were musical, and he spoke with deep feeling.

The faces of the boys and girls drooped sadly

as he uttered warnings, and then brightened with joy as he spoke cheerful words of promise. Once or twice he tried to close his remarks, but the children shouted: “Go on! Oh! do go on!” and he was forced to continue.

At last he finished his talk and was leaving the room quietly when the teacher begged to know his name.

“Abra'm Lincoln, of Illinois,” was the modest response.

A SOLOMON COME TO JUDGMENT

BY CHARLES W. MOORES

LINCOLN'S practical sense and his understanding of human nature enabled him to save the life of the son of his old Clary's Grove friend, Jack Armstrong, who was on trial for murder. Lincoln, learning of it, went to the old mother who had been kind to him in the days of his boyhood poverty, and promised her that he would get her boy free.

The witnesses were sure that Armstrong was guilty, and one of them declared that he had seen the fatal blow struck. It was late at night, he said, and the light of the full moon had made it possible for him to see the crime committed. Lincoln, on cross-examination, asked him only questions enough to make the jury see that it was the

full moon that made it possible for the witness to see what occurred; got him to say two or three times that he was sure of it, and seemed to give up any further effort to save the boy.

But when the evidence was finished, and Lincoln's time came to make his argument, he called for an almanac, which the clerk of the court had ready for him, and handed it to the jury. They saw at once that on the night of the murder there was no moon at all. They were satisfied that the witness had told what was not true. Lincoln's case was won.

GEORGE PICKETT'S FRIEND

BY CHARLES W. MOORES

GEORGE PICKETT, who had known Lincoln in Illinois, years before, joined the Southern army, and by his conspicuous bravery and ability had become one of the great generals of the Confederacy. Toward the close of the war, when a large part of Virginia had fallen into the possession of the Union army, the President called at General Pickett's Virginia home.

The general's wife, with her baby on her arm, met him at the door. She herself has told the story for us.

“ `Is this George Pickett's home?' he asked.

“With all the courage and dignity I could

muster, I replied: `Yes, and I am his wife, and this is his baby.'

“ `I am Abraham Lincoln.'

“ `The President!' I gasped. I had never seen him, but I knew the intense love and reverence with which my soldier always spoke of him.

“The stranger shook his head and replied: `No; Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend.'

“The baby pushed away from me and reached out his hands to Mr. Lincoln, who took him in his arms. As he did so an expression of rapt, almost divine tenderness and love lighted up the sad face. It was a look that I have never seen on any other face. The baby opened his mouth wide and insisted upon giving his father's friend a dewy kiss.

“As Mr. Lincoln gave the little one back to me he said: `Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of your bright eyes.' ”

LINCOLN THE LAWYER

BY Z. A. MUDGE [ADAPTED]

HE delighted to advocate the cases of those whom he knew to be wronged, but he would not defend the cause of the guilty. If he discovered in the course of a trial that he was on the wrong side, he lost all interest, and ceased to make any exertion.

Once, while engaged in a prosecution, he discovered that his client's cause was not a good one, and he refused to make the plea. His associate, who was less scrupulous, made the plea and obtained a decision in their favor. The fee was nine hundred dollars, half of which was tendered to Mr. Lincoln, but he refused to accept a single cent of it.

His honesty was strongly illustrated by the way he kept his accounts with his law-partner. When he had taken a fee in the latter's absence, he put one half of it into his own pocket, and laid the other half carefully away, labeling it “Billy,” the name by which he familiarly addressed his partner. When asked why he did not make a record of the amount and, for the time being, use the whole, Mr. Lincoln answered: “Because I promised my mother never to use money belonging to another person.”

THE COURAGE OF HIS CONVICTIONS
[ADAPTED]

MR. LINCOLN made the great speech of his famous senatorial campaign at Springfield, Illinois. The convention before which he spoke consisted of a thousand delegates together with the crowd that had gathered with them.

His speech was carefully prepared. Every

sentence was guarded and emphatic. It has since become famous as “The Divided House” speech. Before entering the hall where it was to be delivered, he stepped into the office of his law-partner, Mr. Herndon, and, locking the door, so that their interview might be private, took his manuscript from his pocket, and read one of the opening sentences: “I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.”

Mr. Herndon remarked that the sentiment was true, but suggested that it might not be good policy to utter it at that time.

Mr. Lincoln replied with great firmness: “No matter about the policy. It is true, and the nation is entitled to it. The proposition has been true for six thousand years, and I will deliver it as it is written.”

MR. LINCOLN AND THE BIBLE

BY Z. A. MUDGE [ADAPTED]

A VISITOR in Washington once had an appointment to see Mr. Lincoln at five o'clock in the morning. The gentleman made a hasty toilet and presented himself at a quarter of five in the waiting-room of the President. He asked the usher if he could see Mr. Lincoln.

“No,” he replied.

“But I have an engagement to meet him this morning,” answered the visitor.

“At what hour?” asked the usher.

“At five o'clock.”

“Well, sir, he will see you at five.”

The visitor waited patiently, walking to and fro for a few minutes, when he heard a voice as if in grave conversation.

“Who is talking in the next room?” he asked.

“It is the President, sir,” said the usher, who then explained that it was Mr. Lincoln's custom to spend every morning from four to five reading the Scriptures, and praying.

HIS SPRINGFIELD FAREWELL ADDRESS

IT was on the morning of February 11, 1861, that the President-elect, together with his family and a small party of friends, bade adieu to the city of Springfield, which, alas! he was never to see again.

A large throng of Springfield citizens assembled at the railway station to see the departure, and before the train left Mr. Lincoln addressed them in the following words:—

“My Friends: No one, not in my position, can appreciate the sadness I feel at this parting. To this people I owe all that I am. Here I have lived

more than a quarter of a century; here my children were born, and here one of them lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me which is, perhaps, greater than that which has devolved upon any other man since the days of Washington. He never would have succeeded except by the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my friends, will all pray that I may receive that Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is certain. Again I bid you an affectionate farewell.”