Abraham Lincoln. William Eleroy Curtis

he said—

      "Gentlemen: I suppose you want to know something about those things. Well, the truth is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon bottom. I don't know whether we made those rails or not; fact is, I don't think they are a credit to the maker [and his awkward frame shook with suppressed laughter]; but I know this, I made rails then and I think I could make better ones than these now."

      The rails were taken to the National Convention at Chicago and had a prominent place at the Illinois head-quarters, where, trimmed with flowers and lighted by tapers by enthusiastic ladies, they were the subject of much private and newspaper attention. Later in the campaign they were sent from place to place in the country and other rails from the old farm were also used as campaign emblems. A Philadelphia speculator sent to Illinois and purchased a car-load of them.

      Through the remainder of the year and the following winter (1830–31) young Lincoln was employed about his father's new home and at intervals assisted the neighbors in farm work in company with John Hanks. When he reached his twenty-first year he started out for himself according to the custom of the country. He was the most promising young man in that neighborhood. He had a better education than any of the community, his intellectual and conversational powers were beyond all rivalry, and his physical strength and endurance were remarkable even among the giants of those days. He stood six feet four inches in his stockings, and could outlift, outwork, outrun, and outwrestle every man of his acquaintance. And his pride in his physical accomplishments was greater than in his intellectual attainments. For a man of his natural modesty he was very vain of his stature and strength, and was accustomed to display and boast of them even after he became President. He retained his muscular strength to the end of his life, although he then took very little physical exercise. The muscles of his body were like iron. General Veile says that he could take a heavy axe and, grasping it with his thumb and forefinger at the extreme end of the handle, hold it out on a horizontal line from his body. "When I was eighteen years of age I could do this," he said with pride, "and I have never seen the day since when I could not do it." The attachés of the office of the Secretary of War relate curious stories of his frequent displays of muscular strength when he visited the War Department to read the despatches from his generals. He frequently astonished visitors at the Executive Mansion by asking them to measure height with him, and one day shocked Senator Sumner by suggesting that they stand back to back to see which was the taller. A delegation of clergymen appeared at the White House one morning bursting with righteous indignation because slavery was still tolerated in the rebellious States and bearing a series of fervid resolutions demanding immediate abolition. One of the number was a very tall man, and the President could scarcely wait until he had completed his carefully prepared oration presenting the memorial. As soon as he had uttered the last word, Mr. Lincoln asked eagerly—

      "Mr. Blank, how tall are you?"

      The clergyman turned scarlet and looked around at his colleagues in amazement.

      "I believe I am taller than you," continued the President. "What is your height?"

      "Six feet three inches," responded the divine with evident irritation.

      "Then I outmeasure you by an inch," said Mr. Lincoln with a satisfied air, and proceeded to explain the situation as to slavery.

      A similar scene occurred on another occasion when, however, the visitor happened to be a trifle taller than the President. One of his friends who was present says that the latter showed more irritation than he had ever seen him exhibit before; nor did he forget it, but the next time his friend called he referred to the matter and remarked that he considered himself the tallest man in Washington, although he didn't pretend to be as handsome as General Scott.

      When the notification committee came from the Chicago Convention to his home at Springfield, they were presented one after another to their candidate, and, as Governor E. D. Morgan, of New York, reached him, he asked his height and weight. Mr. Morgan gave the information with some amusement, whereupon Lincoln remarked—

      "You are the heavier, but I am the taller."

      In 1859, when he went to Milwaukee to deliver an address at a State fair, a cannon-ball tosser in a sideshow interested him more than anything else on the grounds. Lincoln insisted upon testing the weights he handled, and was quite chagrined because he was not able to throw them about as easily as the professional. As they parted he remarked in his droll way—

       "You can outlift me, but I could lick salt off the top of your hat."

      Thomas Lincoln did not remain long at his home on the bluffs overlooking the Sangamon River. He was always afflicted with the fever of unrest. Like so many of his class, he continued to advance westward, keeping on the skirmish line of the frontier. He removed three times after he came to Illinois in search of better luck, and never found it. He owned three farms, but never paid for any of them, and was always growing poorer and signing larger mortgages. Finally, when he had reached the end of his credit, Lincoln bought him a tract of forty acres near Farmington, Coles County, where he lived until January 17, 1851, long enough to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his son one of the foremost men in the State. He was buried near the little hamlet. His wife survived both him and her famous step-son, and was tenderly cared for as long as the latter lived. Before starting for his inauguration he paid her a visit, in February, 1861, when they spent the day in affectionate companionship. She had a presentiment that she should never see him again and told him so, but neither dreamed that he would die first. She lived until April, 1869, a pious, gentle, intelligent, and well-loved woman, and was buried beside her husband. Robert T. Lincoln has erected a monument over their graves.

      John Johnston, Lincoln's step-brother, was an honest, but uneasy and shiftless man, and gave him a great deal of trouble. He lived with his mother and step-father most of his life, but never contributed much to their support, and was always in debt, although Lincoln several times give him means to make a fresh start. Lincoln's letters to his step-brother, several of which have been preserved, throw considerable light upon his character.

      In 1851, after Thomas Lincoln's death, Johnston proposed to leave his mother and go to Missouri, where he thought he could do better than in Illinois, and asked permission to sell the farm which Lincoln had bought to secure his step-mother a home for life.

      "You propose to sell it for three hundred dollars," wrote Lincoln in his indignation, "take one hundred dollars away with you, and leave her two hundred dollars at eight per cent, making her the enormous sum of sixteen dollars a year. Now, if you are satisfied with seeing her in that way I am not."

      Then Johnston proposed that Lincoln should lend him eighty dollars to pay his expenses to Missouri.

      "You say you would give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars," Lincoln wrote his step-brother. "Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. What I propose is that you shall go to work 'tooth and nail' for somebody who will give you money for it. … I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. … In this I do not mean that you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close at home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep as ever."

      A few months later Lincoln wrote Johnston again in regard to his contemplated move to Missouri:

      "What can you do in Missouri better than here? Is the land any richer? Can you there, any more than here, raise corn and wheat and oats without work? Will anybody there, any more than here, do your work for you? If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are; if you do not intend to go to work, you cannot get along anywhere. Squirming and crawling about from place to place can do you no good. You have raised no crop this year; and what you really want is to sell the land, get the money, and spend it. Part with the land you have, and, my life upon it, you will never after own a spot big enough to bury