Part 4 (1/2)
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 towns.h.i.+p--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 beaver being still costly.
Greene was betting unfairly--on a sure thing--as he had seen his friend do what he a.s.serted, all but the drinking flourish. Lincoln was averse to the wagering at all, but to help his friend to the hat, he consented to the feat. He pa.s.sed through it, lifting the cask between his two hands and holding the spigot-hole to his lips while he imbibed a mouthful. As he was slowly lowering the barrel to the floor, the winner exclaimed jubilately:
”I knew you would do it; but I never knew you to drink whisky before!”
The barrel was stood on the floor, when the drinker calmly expelled the mouthful of its contents, and drolly remarked:
”And I have not _drunk_ that, you see!”
As a return for his action to win the hat, he asked Greene not to wager any more--a resolve which he took to oblige him.
WORSTED IN A HORSE-TRADE.