"Why, you see," responded the President, "it reminds me of Mrs. Sallie Ward, a neighbor of mine, who had a very large family. Occasionally one of her numerous progeny would be heard crying in some outof-the-way place, upon which Mrs. Ward would exclaim: 'There's one of my children that is n't dead yet."

PILOTING A FLAT-BOAT OVER A MILL-DAM.

W. T. GREENE states that the first time he ever saw Mr. Lincoln he was in the Sangamon River with his trousers 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. This was a forcible illustration of Mr. Lincoln's fertility of resources for times of need.

LINCOLN'S WEDDING-SUIT.

ONE of the greatest trials of Mr. Lincoln's patience occurred in connection with his wedding. When he gave his order for his wedding-suit, his tailor, Mr. A. S. Thompson, regarded it as a joke, and paid no attention to the matter. On the morning of the wedding-day Mr. Lincoln sent for his suit, and was surprised to learn that work upon it had not begun. Mr. Thompson at once put all the force possible upon it, and when in the evening a messenger came for the suit, it was still unfinished. Mr. Lincoln was obliged to wait, with his characteristic patience, partially robed, for an hour, when the boy arrived with the important package.

MR. LINCOLN'S "FRIEND MARY."

AMONG the most interesting of Mr. Lincoln's personal letters is one addressed to Miss Mary S. Owens, to whom he seems at one time to have proposed marriage. It is dated Springfield, May 7, 1839, and is addressed "Friend Mary." In it he says:

"This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after all. At least it is so to me. I am quite as lonesome here as I ever was anywhere in my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman since I have been here, and should not have been by her if she could have avoided it. I have never been to church

yet, and probably shall not be soon. I stay away because I am conscious I should not know how to behave myself. I have been thinking of what we said about your coming to live at Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing it. You would have to be poor without the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I could imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of discontent in you. What you have said to me may have been in the way of jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then, let it be forgotten; if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously before you decide.

What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is that you had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more severe than you now imagine. I know you are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and if you deliberate maturely upon this before you decide, then I am willing to abide your decision." Mr. Lincoln, in a letter addressed to Mrs. O. H. Browning, dated Springfield, April 1, 1838, appears, without naming the lady, to explain how he came to propose marriage to Miss Owens, and says: "It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married lady of my acquaintance, who was a great friend of mine, being about to pay a visit to her father and other relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed to me that on her return she would bring a sister of hers with her, on condition that I would engage to become her brother-in-law with all convenient dispatch. I, of course, accepted the proposal, for you know I could not have done otherwise had I really been averse to it." After he met the lady he seems not to have been well pleased, and would gladly have withdrawn his promise, but felt in duty bound to adhere to it. It seems to have given him great distress for a while, but he had made up his mind to marry the lady, and be a devoted husband. In this closing letter he says:

"After all my sufferings upon this deeply interesting subject, here I am, wholly, unexpectedly, completely out of the scrape,' and I now want to know if you can guess how I got out of it-out, clear in every sense of the term-no violation of word, honor, or conscience. I don't believe you can guess, and so I might as well

tell you at once. As the lawyer says, it was done in the manner following, to wit: After I had delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the way, had brought me round into the last fall), I concluded I might as well bring it to a consummation without further delay, and so I mustered my resolution and made the proposal to her direct; but, shocking to relate, she answered no. At first I supposed she did it through an affectation of modesty, which I thought ill became her under the peculiar circumstances of her case, but on my renewal of the charge I found she repelled it with greater firmness than before. I tried it again and again, but with the same success, or rather the same want of success. I finally was forced to give up, at which I very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond endurance. And, to cap the whole, I then, for the first time, began to suspect that I was really a little in love with her. But let it all go! I'll try and outlive it. Others have been made fools of by the girls, but this can never with truth be said of me. I most emphatically in this instance made a fool of myself."

LINCOLN'S TRIBUTE TO THE BIBLE.

TO JOSHUA SPEED, his intimate personal friend, Mr. Lincoln said at the Soldiers' Home, near Washington, about a year before his death :

"I am profitably engaged reading the Bible. Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a better

MR. LINCOLN'S TALL HAT.

ONE of the noteworthy characteristics of Mr. Lincoln was his tall hat. After his election, as if not content with his six feet four or five inches of gaunt stature, he had his historic hat made fully a foot high, with a brim almost as big as a southern sombrero. It was a combination of all styles then in existence, and in this respect it reflected his own early experience in having been a store keeper, soldier, surveyor, and finally a solicitor. It was a veritable "joint of stovepipe," and its remarkable and romantic brim made it alike serviceable in rain or shine. Representative Springer, who hails from Lincoln's old home, in speaking of the hat, said: "Mr. Lincoln's high hat was the most indispensable thing of his whole outfit. In it he carried all his valuable papers. In fact, it was a sort of file-rack. Here were all the briefs of his various law cases. Curiously enough, he carried the accounts in his head, and that is why he lost so much money. Had he reversed the process, and kept his accounts in his hat and the cases in his head, he would have been better off. His hat served for his satchel on a journey, and all that was needed besides this were his saddle-bags and his horse. It was large and capacious, and a great many documents and data could be crowded into it without seriously discommoding the wearer."

When Mr. Lincoln was postmaster at New Salem, his hat was a most important part of his office equip ment. As soon as the mail was received each day, the young postmaster would put the letters in his hat and take a stroll through the village. The villagers knew