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A STOREKEEPER IN ILLINOIS.

FTER a few years Thomas Lincoln grew tired

of Indiana, and Illinois having been portrayed to him as a veritable paradise, he pulled up stakes and migrated thither in February, 1830, settling near Decatur. Young Abraham accompanied his father. On the way they crossed a shallow stream that was covered with thin ice. After the family had reached the shore, Abraham heard the cries of their little dog, which was standing on the opopposite bank, and was afraid to step into the icy water. "I can not bear to see even a puppy in distress," he said, so he rolled up his trousers, and barefoot waded the stream, took the dog in his arms, and carried it safely across.

Abraham assisted his father in building his cabin, clearing ground, and planting a crop. It was during this time that Lincoln and John Hanks split the rails which were introduced with such tremendous effect at the Republican State Convention, held in Decatur, Ill., in 1860, which nominated delegates to the ensuing National Convention. Lincoln had scarcely taken his seat in the Convention, when

General Oglesby announced that an old Democrat of Macon County desired to make a contribution to the Convention. At once several farmers entered the hall carrying on their shoulders two old fencerails, bearing the inscription: "Abraham Lincoln, the rail candidate for the Presidency in 1860. Two rails from a lot of three thousand, made in 1830 by Thomas Hanks and Abe Lincoln, whose father was the first pioneer of Macon County." The effect was thrilling. The cheering continued for fifteen minutes, and the demonstration showed the Convention and the country that Abraham Lincoln was the only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the Presidency.

When Lincoln became of age, he thought it time to do something for himself. Among his first contracts was one to split rails for a woman who, in payment, was to furnish cloth and make him a pair of trousers. The terms were three hundred rails for every yard of cloth used, and the bargain was faithfully carried out.

Not long afterward a man named Offutt engaged Lincoln to take a flatboat loaded with country produce, and sell it. A herd of pigs constituted part of the cargo, and as as they refused to be driven, Abraham took them, one by one, in his strong arms, and carried them aboard. While in New Orleans he, for the first time, entered a slave-market, where

he saw men, women, and children sold like cattle. The anguish of fathers and mothers and children, as they were torn from each other, fired him with indignation, and he said to one of his companions: "If I ever get a chance to hit that institution, I will hit it hard, John."

After Lincoln's return Mr. Offutt offered him a position as clerk in his store at New Salem, Illinois. Mr. Offutt was very proud of his clerk, and praised him so often that a gang of young roughs in the neighborhood, known as the "Clary Grove boys," determined to give him a thrashing. They finally provoked Lincoln to engage in a wrestling match with their leader, Jack Armstrong. Armstrong was as strong as an ox, and was the champion wrestler. To his great surprise Lincoln, seizing him with both hands, held him at arms' length, and shook him like a child. His friends rushed to his assistance, but Armstrong shouted to them to stop, saying: "Boys, Abe Lincoln is the best man that ever broke into this settlement. He shall be one of us."

One of Lincoln's greatest triumphs at the bar was in defending William Armstrong, the son of this Jack Armstrong. Young Armstrong had been indicted, with another young man named Norris, for a murder committed near a camp-meeting. The crime had created great excitement and indigna

tion. Norris had been convicted and sentenced to State-prison. Young Armstrong had few friends, and no money to employ attorneys. His mother had often befriended Lincoln in his younger days, and cheered him in his melancholy moods. She thought he might now befriend her boy in his need. She believed that he could save Bill from disgrace and death if any one could. So she went to him and told him the story. He promised to do what he could. At the trial the evidence against the boy was very strong. The strongest point made was by a witness who swore that at eleven o'clock at night he saw Armstrong strike the murdered man on the head. He declared the full moon was shining brightly, and that he could not have been mistaken.

Lincoln quietly picked up an almanac, and examining it found there was no moon at all on that night. This was Lincoln's only point for defense, but upon this testimony rested the strength of the case against his client. He told no one of his discovery; but when he came to argue the case, he gradually prepared the minds of the jury for the climax of his speech, when he called for the almanac, and showed that the principal witness had testified to what was absolutely false, and declared his whole story a fabrication. What followed is thus described in Barrett's "Life of Lincoln:"

"An almost instantaneous change seemed to

have been wrought in the minds of his auditors, and the verdict of 'not guilty' was at the end of every tongue. But the advocate was not content with this intellectual achievement. His whole being had for months been bound up in this work of gratitude and mercy, and, as the lava of the overcharged crater bursts from its imprisonment, so great thoughts and burning words leaped forth from the soul of the eloquent Lincoln. He drew a picture of the perjurer so horrid and ghastly that the accuser could sit under it no longer, but reeled and staggered from the court-room, while the audience fancied they could see the brand upon his brow. Then, in words of thrilling pathos, Lincoln appealed to the jurors, as fathers of sons who might become fatherless, and as husbands of wives who might be widowed, to yield to no previous impressions, no ill-founded prejudice, but to do his client justice; and as he alluded to the debt of gratitude which he owed the boy's sire, tears were seen to fall from many eyes unused to weep. It was near night when he concluded by saying, that if justice was done as he believed it would be-before the sun should set it would shine upon his client, a free man.

"The jury retired, and the court adjourned for the day. Half an hour had not elapsed, when, as the officers of the court and the volunteer attorney