he walked to Springfield, fourteen miles distant. So absorbed would he become in reading his books on the way home, that he would be oblivious of everything around him. A favorite resort for study was an old oak-tree, around which he moved to keep in the shade. Often he would be found lying flat on his back on the counter, absorbed in his studies. A book was almost always his inseparable companion. One day a friend called at his boarding-house, and found him stretched at full length upon the bed, poring over a book, and rocking the cradle of his landlady's baby with one foot.

In 1833 he was appointed postmaster of New Salem. The remuneration was not large, and the office was discontinued during Lincoln's term. Some time later, and after Lincoln had begun the practice of law, an agent of the Post-office Department entered his office, and inquired if Abraham Lincoln was in. Lincoln was told that the agent had called to collect a balance due the Department from the New Salem office. A shade of perplexity passed over Lincoln's face, which did not escape the notice of friends who were present. One of them said at once: "Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let us help you." He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled out from a pile of books a little old trunk, and, returning to the table, asked the agent how much the amount of his debt

was. The sum was named, and then Lincoln opened the trunk, pulled out a little package of coin wrapped in a cotton rag, and counted out the exact sum, amounting to something more than seventeen dollars.

After the agent had left the room, Lincoln remarked quietly that he never used any man's money but his own. Although this sum had been in his hands for several years-during which he was in great financial straits-he had never regarded it as available, even for any temporary purpose of

his own.

After retiring from the post-office, Lincoln resumed rail-splitting for a living. He was thus working for a man named Short, when a neighbor came along and told him he had been appointed a government surveyor.

In 1834, Lincoln was again a candidate for the Legislature. He made a thorough canvass, delighted his audiences with his funny stories, and was triumphantly elected. On one occasion, while speaking to a number of men cradling wheat in a field, one of them said:

"I won't vote for any man we can cut out of his swath."

Well, boys," replied Lincoln, "I guess you will all vote for me then ;" and seizing a cradle, he led them around the field.

Lincoln's finances were low, but his credit was so good that he borrowed two hundred dollars with which to buy clothes and pay his expenses during the session of the Legislature. To save the expense, he walked to Vandalia, the capital, a distance of about one hundred miles, carrying his clothes in a pack on his back. One of the first persons he met at Springfield, though not as a member of the Legislature, was Stephen A. Douglas, with whose name his own was afterward to be intimately associated.

With him

In a speech in 1856, Mr. Lincoln made the following generous allusion to Douglas. He said: "Twenty years ago Judge Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then, he a trifle younger than I. Even then we were both ambitious-I, perhaps, quite as much as he. With me the race of ambition has been a failure. it has been a splendid success. His name fills the nation, and it is not unknown in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the high eminence he has reached; so reached that the oppressed of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow."

Mr. Lincoln was a candidate for re-election. There was considerable interest, and the voters of Sangamon County called upon each candidate to

"show his hand." In response Mr. Lincoln issued the following address:

"FELLOW-CITIZENS,-The candidates are called upon, I see, to show their hands. Here is mine. I go for all sharing the privileges of government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all the whites to the rights of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means excluding the females.

"If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon County my constituents, as well those who oppose as those who support me. While acting as their representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others, I shall do what my judgment tells me will best advance their interests.

"Whether elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of the sales of the public lands to the several States, to enable our State, in common with others, to dig canals and construct railroads without borrowing money and paying the interest on it. If alive on the first day of November, I shall vote for Hugh L. White for President."

His opponent was George Forquar, of Springfield, Illinois, who was celebrated for having" changed his coat" politically, and as having introduced the first and only lightning-rod in Springfield at this time.

He said in a speech, in Lincoln's presence: "This young man [Lincoln] will have to be taken down, and I am sorry the task devolves upon me;" and then proceeded to "take him down."

Lincoln replied, and in closing said: "Fellowcitizens, it is for you, not for me, to say whether I am up or down. The gentleman has alluded to my being a young man; I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire place and distinction as a politician; but I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, live to see the day that I would have to erect a lightning-rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God."

This response was greeted with laughter and cheers, and, lifting him upon their shoulders, Lincoln's friends carried him from the court-house. Forquar made no reply.

In this Legislature, Lincoln took a somewhat active part. His most notable action was the presentation of the following protest, dated March 3, 1837:

"Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly, at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.

"They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy; but that