XIII.

IN VANDALIA.

Lincoln, as has been said, was a Whig. Mr. Calhoun was a strong Democrat. Before the young man would accept the position of assistant surveyor from him, he inquired if he should be expected to renounce his principles and turn Democrat; for much as he needed the work, he would not take it on those terms. And he did not. It was not a small matter to fit himself for the work so thoroughly and quickly as he did; it cost him very hard study and plenty of it. That he was ready to give; but he would not sell his vote to any man.

As a surveyor he was so fair and just that he was often sent for to settle disputed boundaries. Herndon tells an incident where after much discussion the parties agreed to send for Lincoln and to abide by his decision. compass, flag-staff and chain,'" said Mr.

666

"He came with

"""He stopped

McHenry whom Herndon quotes. “ with me three or four days,'" he added, "and surveyed the whole section. When in the neighborhood of the disputed corner by actual survey, he called for his staff and driving it in the ground at a certain spot said, "Gentlemen, here is the corner." We dug down into the ground at the point indicated and lo! there we found about six or eight inches of the original stake sharpened at the end, and beneath this was the usual piece of charcoal placed there by the surveyor who laid the ground off for the government many years before." Lincoln had done so fairly and well that everybody went away satisfied.

With his income as surveyor, small enough, and his salary as postmaster of New Salem, still smaller, Lincoln was getting on well-when, suddenly, something happened. He had never forgotten his notes given for the purchase of the store, and as he could, he was paying something on them, scrimping himself in every way to do it. But one man grew impatient, sued him for his note and took away his personal possessions, the few he had, and, worse than that, sold his horse and surveying instruments to pay the debt. Then the young man was in a hard place; for he could not do surveying with

out instruments. But friends bought in the property for him and gave him back his instruments and his horse, waiting until Lincoln could repay them.

There is a proverb that a man who has friends must show himself friendly. Lincoln, certainly, did this to every one he could help, and with no thought whether he himself would ever gain by his kindness. It is told of him that one day when he was about fourteen miles from Springfield he was overtaken by a man whom he knew very slightly, and who was in great haste to reach the land office in Springfield before another man traveling on a different road. He explained to Lincoln that he wanted to enter a small tract of land which joined his; but that this other man who was rich had made up his mind. to get it, and would get it if he arrived first. But his own neighbors had advanced the necessary money and he could secure the land by being on hand before the other man. Lincoln looked at the speaker's tired horse and saw that it would give out before the journey's end if it were urged. "Here's my horse," he said. "He's fresh and full of grit; there's no time to be lost; mount him and put him through." And he told the man where to leave the horse for him. At about dark when Lincoln rode in on the jaded

horse which he had let take its time, he found the other man radiant; he had arrived in season and secured his land. The two men were friends the rest of their lives although they were on opposite sides in politics.

One man who knew Lincoln at this time says: "Lincoln had nothing, only plenty of friends." Another said of him that in every circle where he found himself, whether refined or uneducated, he was always the centre of attraction. One day when some of the boys from Illinois college went to see him, they found him flat on his back on a cellar door reading a newspaper. It is said that then Lincoln could repeat the whole of Burns and was a great student of Shakespeare.

And while he was reading law and studying Shakespeare and the politics of the day at the same time, he was going about from place to place surveying, doing fine work in this occupation, making new friends every day and keeping all the old ones, and getting ready for his nomination a second time as representative to the State Legislature. And this second time, in 1834, he had no defeat, but was elected by a good majority.

When Washington was a young man he was a surveyor, also. And the business gave him

such opportunity to see good land and to know it that he selected many choice acres which afterwards brought him in money. But Lincoln never used his business for himself further than to receive pay for his work, he made no money out of it. It seems as if his heart were set upon something before him to be done even when he could not yet see what it was, and he could not give his thoughts to other things. Some biographies of him tell us that he was so poor that when he was elected representative, he walked the hundred miles to Vandalia, But others tell us that he borrowed money from a friend that he might go to the capital in dress and conveyance suitable to a representative, and that he went there by stagecoach which was then the usual way of traveling.

At this first session of the Legislature he was quiet and modest and did nothing to make himself conspicuous. He was all the time learning, learning, not books alone, although he was still studying law harder than ever; but he was getting into knowledge of men who make laws, was growing to perceive how to handle men, that is, how to handle them in law-making. He was born with great power to appeal to men of all ranks and touch their hearts and lead them. No doubt, when he sat there in his place among