News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-12-13
STORIES ABOUT LINCOLN.
His P~eculiarities While Sitting for
His Portrait.

Baptist Pastors in New York listened
to some interesting remarks by A. J.
Conant, the artist, on personal Remin-
iscences of Abraham Lincoln" Mr..
Conant said his first acquaintance with
Mr.. Lincoln came about through his be-
ing requested to paint Mr.. Lincoln's
portrait for the first exhibition Of the
r. us ms custom. nSFSaiI, = I-i-t;..s
this to go to MIR. LincoIn's Office III the
old State building, as Mr.. Lincoln was
at that time (1S60) busted with political
affairs and could not find time for for
NAL sittings.
The first time Mr.. Conant visited Mr..
Lincoln for this purpose he found the
expression upon his face quite the re-
verse of the melancholy and serious one
he had supposed he wore. 1t was SO
bright, animated, and genial that Mr..
Conant at once made up his mind to de-
pict it if he could. With this in view it
was his custom to tell humorous stories,
which, when they touched Mr.. Lincoln's
fancy. made HIM forget for the time his
absorbing affairs.
One day Mr.. Lincoln told how, when
running" as he termed it, his grocery
store at Salem, near Springfield, he got
his first taste for law. A farmer drove up
with a ~broken-down horse and q 20
filled with household "plunder," and
he asked him what he would give "fur
the hull load" Lincoln looked over the
bit of old pots, pans, kettles, and stuff,
and gave him half a dollar. The man
vent off and Lincoln stored the stuff.
Some weeks after the purchase Lincoln
had occasion to use one of the barrels,
which Ernra fi1O1 ryI+l ,A~oA III A. III
"truck" bought i'll the fifty-cent pur-
cuase, and as he turned out the contents
of one of them, under the old rusty pans
q dilapidated copy of Blackstone's Com
mentaries came to light. Lincoln eyed
it curiously and laid it aside. Later in
the afternoon he picked the book up and
began to read. He soon became absorbed
in it, and from that day on he read all
the long leisure hours which fall to the
lot of the country grocer. This was the
first inkling he had If any taste in the
direction in which he afterward attained
such success.
The other story the artist told was one
which he had used on several occasions,
on two of which he had been interrupted
before he got to the point, land" said
hAAS q 81 IL uIAOlO a Ill Ull1LS NL1Cll
annoyed Mr.. Lincoln it was this. 1t
caused him always to remember the
man from whom he got the story. The
story was of a Missouri man who went
to a stable to get a horse to take him to
a convention to which he was going rs o
delegate with n hope of nomination.
The stable keeper was of q different
political persuasion, and gave him n
horse which he calculated would break
down before he got there. His c~alcula-
ton proved true, and the man lost the
nomination. On his return to the
stable; the disappointed Missourian
asked the stableman if he was training
that horse for a hearse. The man said,
Kinder guessed he wasn't WELL
said the man, 'if you are, he'll never do
it, for lie wouldn't get a corpse to the
cemetery in time for the resurrection.
This story Lincoln had twice tried to
tell, once from the real OF q train, and
was carried away by it before be got to
the point, and a second time, when
present at a gun testing, when the gun
was fired just as he reached the Mis-
sourian's reply.