The Lincoln Story Book | Page 9

the store, and having paid
only attention to the dram counter, the necessary concomitant of the
village center, became garrulous, but unfortunately more than seasoned
the flow with a profanity tolerably rich in variety if not distinguished
for refinement; he was of the Clary's Grove genus. As there was a
crowd at the "ladies' department," that is, the dry-goods and finery,
where it happened Lincoln was commonly besieged, the language was
resented by woman's weapons--tosses of the head, affected deafness,
glances into the future, and so on, but the clerk resented it in another
way. He bade him be silent.

Now, the fellow thought, with his kind, that he was entitled to exhale
the breath which was strengthened by the strong waters vended here,
and expressed himself more foully than before.
He had a resentment against the clod rising to be a flower of courtesy,
and here was his opportunity to satisfy the grudge, and before an
audience timid and not apt to intervene.
Singularly, the men who most despise women are the ones who seek to
have her applause. He wished to see the man who would stop him from
uttering his sentiments. He was answered that his business would be
attended to, as soon as the offended ladies had withdrawn.
The undesired witnesses took the hint and quitted the store. Thereupon
the long-limbed clerk verified the taunt of "counter-jumper" by clearing
it at a bound. "Will you engage not to repeat that rowdy (blackguard)
talk in the store while I am the master, and leave instanter?"
The bully protested in a torrent of unrepeatable words.
"I see," said the champion of decency, "you want a whipping, and I
may as well give it you as any other man."
And he forthwith administered the correction; not only did he drag him
outdoors, but laid him out so senseless that nothing less than the border
finish of a knock-down and drag-out encounter--the rubbing the
conquered man's eyes with smart-weed--revived him to beg for mercy,
and a drink. The victor allowed him to rise, converted his appeal into
mockery by offering plain water, which the brute applied solely to his
doubly inflamed eyes, and sent him away in tears. But the shock had a
reparative effect; he became a good neighbor, and a convert to
temperance.
(This or a similar lesson to the village bully is testified to by an
eye-witness of Sangamon, but resident of Viroqua, Wisconsin; his
name is John White. He worked at chopping rails with the rail-splitter
on more than one job.)
* * * * *
TURN OUT OR BE TURNED OUT.
Superintendent Tinker, of the W. U. T., says he heard Secretary Seward
say to President Lincoln:
"Mr. President, I hear that you turned out for a colored woman on a
muddy crossing the other day?"
"Did you?" returned the other laughingly. "Well, I don't remember it;

but I always make it a rule, if people do not turn out for me, I will for
them. If I didn't, there would be a collision."
* * * * *
THE BEST THING TO TAKE.
When Lincoln worked in and kept a grocery-store, it was flanked by a
groggery and he had to supply spirits, but from that fact he saw the
evils of the saloon and early identified himself with the novel
temperance movement. In 1843, he joined the Sons of Temperance.
While he said he was temperate on theory, it was not so--he was
practically abstinent. Not only did he lecture publicly, but, at one such
occasion, he gave out the pledges. In decorating a boy, Cleophas
Breckenridge, with a badge, after he took the pledge, he said:
"Sonny, that is the best thing you will ever take."
* * * * *
DRINKING AND SWALLOWING ARE TWO THINGS.
It has been stated that Lincoln, after reigning at the village store, had
become the idol of the settlement. A stranger to whom he was shown
was not properly impressed. One of the clerk's friends, William Greene,
bragged that his favorite was the strongest man in the township--this
was not affecting the critic--and even went on: "The strongest in the
country!"
"H'm! not the strongest in the State!" denied the stranger. "I know a
man who can lift a barrel of flour as easily as I can a peck of potatoes."
"Abe, there, could lift two barrels of flour if he could get a hold on
them."
"You can beat me telling 'raisers', but--"
"Taking a lift out of you or not, I am willing to bet that Abe will lift a
barrel of spirits and drink out of the bunghole to prove he can hold it
there!"
"Impossible! What will you lay on the thing?"
They made a wager of a new hat--the Sunday hat of