Abraham Lincoln . -quaintance of the people. The day for the annual election came. Men-tor Graham was clerk, but the assistant clerk was not present. noticed a tall young man loitering about the village, and vent-ured to ask him if he could write. I can make a few rabbit-tracks,w^as the reply ; whereupon he was installed in office. The voters werenot long in discovering that the assistant clerk was honest and fair,and performed his duties faithfully. More than that, he entertainedthem with stories. () One of the citizens of New Salem was departing for Texas with hisfamily. It was not
Abraham Lincoln . -quaintance of the people. The day for the annual election came. Men-tor Graham was clerk, but the assistant clerk was not present. noticed a tall young man loitering about the village, and vent-ured to ask him if he could write. I can make a few rabbit-tracks,w^as the reply ; whereupon he was installed in office. The voters werenot long in discovering that the assistant clerk was honest and fair,and performed his duties faithfully. More than that, he entertainedthem with stories. () One of the citizens of New Salem was departing for Texas with hisfamily. It was not far to the Illinois River, and the most expeditiousway of reaching Beardstown, where he could take a steamboat for , would be bv flat-boat down the Sangamon. The assistant clerkof elections engaged to convey the family to the Illinois, and once morewas pulling an oar. The water was low% and the boat often groundedon the sand-bars; but all obstacles were surmounted, and the trip suc-cessfully A IN NKW OKLEANt A CITIZEN OF ILLINOIS. 63 Upon the arrival of Oflfuts goods, the boatman became clerk andsalesman. It was a country store, and the articles for sale were suchas a newly-settled agricultural community on the frontier would espe-cially need. Women wanted i)ins, needles, thread; they asked if thecalico which they examined would wash ; they chinked the crock-ery to discover a possible crack. Their presence, in com])arison with themen whom he met on Hat-boats, made the air sweet and pure, liegreeted them with a ])leasant smile, and was so truthful in what he saidabout the goods, and gave such just weight, that they soon had implicitconfidence in liim. In keeping accounts he was careful to reckon thehalf and quarter cents. We are to remember that the mint at Phil-adelphia for coining money had been in operation but little more thanthirty years; not many dimes and twenty-five cent pieces were incirculation, but fVmrpence. sixpence, ninepence,
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