man and fell on top of him. He said he always thought he had the best eyes in the world for measuring distances, and having measured the distance to the bottom of the hill, he concluded that by rolling over and over till they came to the bottom his antagonist's body would fill it, and he would be wedged in so tight that he could whip him at his leisure. So he let the fellow turn him, and over and over they went, when about the twentieth revolution brought Uncle Mord's back in contact with the bottom of the rut, "and," said he, "before fire could scorch a feather, I cried out in stentorian voice: Take him off!'"

Young Lincoln and the "Clary's Grove Boys"—A Wrestling Match and How it Terminated.

There lived at the time young Lincoln resided at New Salem, Illinois, in and around the village, a band of rollicking fellows, or, more properly, roystering rowdies, known as the "Clary's Grove Boys." The special tie that united them was physical courage and prowess. These fellows, although they embraced in their number many men who have since become respectable and influential, were wild and rough beyond toleration in any community not made up like that which produced them. They pretended to be "regulators," and were the terror of all who did not acknowledge their rule; and their mode of securing allegiance was by flogging every man who failed to acknowledge it. They took it upon themselves to try the mettle of every new comer, and to learn the sort of stuff he was made of. Some of their number was appointed to fight, wrestle, or run a foot-race with each incoming stranger. Of course Abraham Lincoln was obliged to pass the ordeal.

Perceiving that he was a man who would not easily be floored, they selected their champion, Jack Armstrong, and

imposed upon him the task of laying Lincoln upon his back. There is no evidence that Lincoln was an unwilling party in the sport, for it was what he had always been accustomed to. The bout was entered upon, but Armstrong soon discovered that he had met with more than his match. The "Boys" were looking on, and, seeing that their champion was likely to get the worst of it, did after the manner of such irresponsible bands. They gathered around Lincoln, struck and disabled him, and then Armstrong, by "legging" him, got him down.

Most men would have been indignant, not to say furiously angry, under such foul treatment as this; but if Lincoln was either, he did not show it. Getting up in perfect good humor, he fell to laughing over his discomfiture, and joking about it. They had all calculated upon making him angry, and then they intended, with the amiable spirit which characterized the "Clary's Grove Boys," to give him a terrible drubbing. They were disappointed, and, in their admiration of him, immediately invited him to become one of the company.

A Batch of Lincoln Reminiscences The Turning Point in the Great Man's Life.

It was while young Lincoln was engaged in the duties of Offutt's store that the turning point in his life occurred. Here he commenced the study of English grammar. There was not a text-book to be obtained in the neighborhood, but, hearing that there was a copy of Kirkham's Grammar in the possession of a person seven or eight miles distant, he walked to his house and succeeded in borrowing it.

L. M. Green, a lawyer of Petersburg, in Menard County, says that every time he visited New Salem, at this period, Lincoln took him out upon a hill, and asked him so explain

some point in Kirkham that had given him trouble. After having mastered the book, he remarked to a friend, that if that was what they called a science, he thought he could "subdue another."

Mr. Green says that Mr. Lincoln's talk at this time showed that he was beginning to think of a great life and a great destiny. Lincoln said to him, on one occasion, that all his family seemed to have good sense, but, somehow, none had ever become distinguished. He thought that perhaps he might become so. He had talked, he said, with men who had the reputation of being great men, but he could not see that they differed much from others!

During this year, he was also much engaged with debating clubs, often walking six or seven miles to attend them. One of these clubs held its meetings at an old storehouse in New Salem, and the first speech young Lincoln ever made was made there. He used to call the exercise

"practicing polemics." As these clubs were composed principally of men of no education whatever, some of their "polemics" are remembered as the most laughable of farces.

His favorite newspaper, at this time, was the Louisville Journal, a paper which he received regularly by mail, and paid for during a number of years when he had not money enough to dress decently. He liked its politics, and was particularly delighted with its wit and humor, of which he had the keenest appreciation. When out of the store, he was always busy in the pursuit of knowledge.

One gentleman who met him during this period, says that the first time he saw him he was lying on a trundlebed, covered with books and papers, and rocking a cradle with his foot. The whole scene, however, was entirely characteristic-Lincoln reading and studying, and at the same time helping his landlady by quieting her child.

"My early history," said Mr. Lincoln to J. L. Scripps, "is perfectly characterized by a single line of Gray's Elegy:

'The short and simple annals of the poor.""

A GENTLEMAN who knew Mr. Lincoln well in early manhood says: "Lincoln at this period had nothing but plenty of friends."

SAYS J. G. Holland: "No man ever lived, probably, who was more a self-made man than Abraham Lincoln. Not a circumstance of life favored the development which he had reached.”

In his seventh year Lincoln attended his first school. Zacharia Riney, a Catholic, whose memory Lincoln always revered, was the teacher. Caleb Hazel was the second teacher, under whose instructions Lincoln learned to write a good legible hand in three months.

AFTER the customary hand-shaking, on one occasion at Washington, several gentlemen came forward and asked the President for his autograph. One of them gave his name as "Cruikshank." "That reminds me," said Mr. Lincoln," of what I used to be called when a young man'Long-shanks!""

MR. HOLLAND says: "Lincoln was a religious man. The fact may be stated without any reservation-with only an explanation. He believed in God, and in His personal supervision of the affairs of men. He believed himself to be under His control and guidance. He believed in the power and ultimate triumph of the right, through his belief in God."

GOVERNOR YATES, in a speech at Springfield, before a meeting at which William G. Greene presided, quoted Mr. Greene as having said that the first time he ever saw Lincoln he was "in the Sangamon River, with his trousers

1

rolled up five feet more or less, trying to pilot a flat-boat over a mill-dam. The boat was so full of water that it was hard to manage. Lincoln got the prow over, and then, instead of waiting to bail the water out, bored a hole through the projecting part, and let it run out."

A PROMINENT writer says: "Lincoln was a child-like man. No public man of modern days has been fortunate. enough to carry into his manhood so much of the directness, truthfulness, and simplicity of childhood as distinguished him. He was exactly what he seemed.

.

MR. LINCOLN and Douglas met for the first time when the latter was only 23 years of age. Lincoln, in speaking of the fact, subsequently said that Douglas was then "the least man he ever saw." He was not only very short, but very slender.

LINCOLN's mother died in 1818, scarcely two years after her removal to Indiana from Kentucky, and when Abraham was in his tenth year. They laid her to rest under the trees near the cabin, and, sitting on her grave, the little boy wept his irreparable loss.

THE Black Hawk war was not a very remarkable affair. It made no military reputations, but it was noteworthy in the single fact that the two simplest, homliest and truest men engaged in it afterward became Presidents of the United States, viz: General (then Colonel) Zachary Taylor, and Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln never spoke of it as anything more than an interesting episode in his life, except upon one occasion when he used it as an instrument for turning the military pretensions of another into ridicule.