eral Usher F. Linder deliver address amid threats of vio leries. Lincoln and Baker g and stationed themselves When he had finished Linco "Linder, Baker and I are you may be attacked by so who insulted you from the ga come to escort you to your ho we can do a little fighting, walk between us until we ge Your quarrel is our quarrel a Whig party of this nation; an this occasion is the greatest made by any of us, for which love, and defend you." A unmolested, amid the cheers These were rough days extended to the polls. A named Radford had taken possession of a pollingplace during the "hard-cider campaign" and prevented the Whigs from voting. Lincoln seized an ax-handle and made for the place. 66 'Radford," he said, "you'll spoil and blow if you live much longer." Knowing the character of Lincoln, Radford discreetly retired, to the disappointment of the candidate, who told Speed that he wanted Radford to show fight, as he "intended just to knock him down and leave him kicking." His power of invective and ridicule is exemplified in the remarkable "Rebecca" letters. Speaking of Shields, then the Auditor of the State and a very prominent Democratic politician, Lincoln wrote in the local paper, in a humorous burlesque style: "I seed him when I was down in Springfield last winter. They had a sort of gatherin' there one night among the grandees; they called it a fair. All the gals about town was there, and all the handsome widows and married women, finickin' about trying to look like gals. . . . I looked in at the window, and there this same fellow Shields floatin' about on the air, without heft or earthly substances, just like a lock of cat fur where cats had been fighting. He was paying my fault that I am so handso As this last was expressed contortion of his face, he se their hands and squeezed and a quarter of an hour. 'Oh, m I to myself, 'if that was one of in the Lost Townships, the w pin let into you would be abo This is very witty, but Li severe and at times, or ra abusive, as his answer to a Auditor Shields shows: "I say it's a lie, and not that. It grins out like a cop is a fool as well as a liar. Wit the question, and as for get passable lie out of him, you strike fire from a cake of ta Strong words these, which a duel. Something was once said about the wild-cat Western currency of seventy years ago, a species of paper money then worth about as much as Confederate bills were worth after Lee's surrender (at the latter time a parcel containing over a thousand dollars was offered for five dollars). Mr. Lincoln's story was that he was going down the Mississippi. Fuel was getting low and the captain directed the pilot to steer in to the first woodpile that he saw on the river-bank. When the captain reached one he said to the owner on shore, "Is that your wood?" "Certainly." "You want to sell it?" "Yes." "Will you accept currency?" "Certainly." "How will you take it?" said the captain; to which the owner promptly replied: "Cord for cord." His great tenderness in love and sorrow is shown when Anne Rutledge, his first love, was laid in the grave. Grieving till his friends feared his loss of reason, he was found on a dark and stormy night beside the new-made grave crying, "I cannot bear to have the rain fall upon her." Speaking of his ancestry, Lincoln once humorously remarked, "I don't know who my grandfather was, and I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” |