Читать книгу Lincolniana; Or, The Humors of Uncle Abe - Andrew Adderup - Страница 10

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In "Clay times," as the old farmers of Sangamon still recall the period of Henry Clay's powerful canvass for the Presidency, Uncle Abe had a wide circuit practice. In travelling to the various courts, he generally drove a horse and vehicle that some people will still remember. The horse had belonged to an undertaker, and the "funeral business," together with years, had made him a grave and staid animal. His physique presented those angularities that characterized his master, but unlike his owner, he was never known to perpetrate a joke or indulge in a "horselaugh." The vehicle was neither buggy, nor Jersey wagon, but had become, by virtue of alterations and repairs, what Uncle Abe afterwards described the Union under the plan of free and Slave States "neither one thing or the other." There was in fact an "eternal fitness" in horse and man that was not exactly a "standing joke," but a peripatetic one.

I would give all my expectation of a brigadiership for a portrait of Uncle Abe seated in this strange "turnout," as he "might have been seen" wending his meditative way across the prairies.

About this time Uncle Abe was nominated for Congress in the Sangamon. Yet he did not forego his business, but prosecuted his legal course, as well as all evil-doers who chanced to fall into his hands. He had just started on a circuit trip, to be gone a month. Often, since Mr. Lincoln's nomination for Congress, had Mrs. Lincoln begged him to add a second story to their humble dwelling, but he pleaded poverty. But a relation of Mrs. Lincoln's having died in Kentucky leaving her a small legacy, she determined her husband should have a house worthy a candidate for Congress. Doubtless she felt an inward satisfaction at the thought of furnishing a good surprise for her husband on his return. So she at once bought material, set mechanics at work, and in three weeks metamorphosed the dwelling into what political pilgrims to Springfield in 1860 will remember as a neat, two-story, clay-colored residence.

Uncle Abe arrived home just after dark, and drove up to what he thought to be Eighth street, but not seeing his house, and thinking he had made a mistake, he drove round on to the next street. Recognizing the houses there; he again drove around to Eighth, and, passing his own house, recognized that occupied by W———n, a clever tailor, who was standing at his own gate.

"Why, is that you, Wilkie?" (said Uncle Abe patronizingly.) W———n, assured him of his own identity, "Wilkie, where does Old Abe Lincoln live now."

"Well," said W———n, "The Loco's say he's so sure of his election that he's gone to Washington to select his seat; but Mrs. Lincoln lives now in that beautiful new two-story house you have just passed." Uncle Abe indulged in a quaint laugh, and then turned his ancient horse around, alighted and asked if Mrs. Lincoln lived in the house before which he stood. Mrs. Lincoln received him as a fond woman should receive her lord, and the return was the cause of much pleasant badinage in social circles.