Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-05-03
Fiue Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
BY JAMES MORGAN.
In Politics, Love and Law
BY JAMES MORGAN.

In BOhtfcs, Love anu LAW
One day while he was a store
keeper in New Salem, Lincoin's long
arm fshed out of a barrel OF odds
and ends a copy OF Blackstone's Com
mentaries. over Its fascinating pages
he pored day after day as he lay on
the ground outside his now neglected
store. with his feet resting high
against the trunk of a shade tree. The
Volume finished, he began to borrow
other works on law from a lawyer in
Springfield, and people remembered
in all after years the picture of the
tall barefoot student intently reading
as he walked the 10 miles of dusty
road.
Before he became a lawyer, Lin
coins neighbors elected him to the
Legislature. which was like a univer-
sity for this unschooled man, who
never had lived IN a town or ASSOCIATE
ed with educated people. Nevertheless
he straightway became a leader OF the
Wings and finally their candidate for
Speaker.
There are Just two items in the
record of his eight years as a legfs-
Ilator hat are worthy of remembrance
first his declaration for woman sun
rage, long before hat question was
an issue anywhere; second, his stand
against slavery, though only one
Tother member Joined him IN his bold
dissent from the otherwise unanimous
action of the Legislature in denounc-
ing the abolitionists instead of the
lawless mobs thai were prosecuting
them all over the North.
After Lincoln had become a rising
young lawyer in Springfield, n
while Mary Todd, daughter of a not
able Kentucky family. q visiting
the prairie capital, that pretty, high
spirited little woman accepted the shy
railspltter in preference to even SUCH
a careful courtier as stephen a
Douglas. But on the wedding day
the bridegroom failed to appear, Tor
some reason that remains In dispute
probably from a correct presentiment
that they were ill-mated In tempera-
ment.
Once more Lincoln was so tortured
in hts melancholy soul that friends
anxiously watched over him. n ne
consulted by mail a Cincinnati physi-
clan, to whom he described his love
sicknesses in the past and in the pres
ent. In the end his sense of duty
or an ideal or chivalry triumphed
over his forebodings. AS IL determined
to take no more chances with ms
maynard moods, he n Miss Iodd
mar ried in such haste that the BRIDE
had to wear a borrowed wedding
gown. If either repented at leisure,
neither ever gave voice to the repent
ance.
At least, hncoln's knightly honor,
single-minded, patient devotion were
we'll matched by his wife's inspiring
admiration of his abilities and her
prophetic faith in his greatness. Care
full as the husband was OF the reel
ings of others, he innocently
Mrs. Lincolp's sense of proprtety
" forgetting the special knife for the
butter. or tmpulsively getting up from
his favorite position on the floor when
the bell rang and, instead of waiting
for the busy hired girl. going to the
door, perhaps In shirt sleeves n
slippers, to welcome ladies who came
make a fashionable call.
Ltncoln's law partner also found his
informality a trial. Their office was
to him only a shelter and his desk
a footrest. He wrote on his knee: he
kept no books n he filed his papers
In his tall stove-pipe hat until it was
full, when he dumped its contents
in a pile and wrote on top of the pile:
IF you can't find 1t anywhere else,
in this"
Better than home or office he en-
joyed the gypsy life of a lawyer on
the circuit. over which he rode in a
buggy to attend the courts
OF u uOzen counties. A nearly wei
come awaited him at any farmhouse
where he stopped for dinner or as he
'alighted before the village tavern.
with a queer old carpet sack in one
hand and a faded green umbrella In
the other; with a 25-cent. low-crown-
ed palm hat or a high, shaggy beaver
on his head n a suit of dusty, rusty,
shiny bombazine hanging on his
enormous frame. the s~uspenders, per-
haps. fastened to the trousers by
sticks which he had whitfield to take
1.-THE place of missing buttons.
Yet this CHEEKY, companionable a
really had no companions. Those who
knew him best saw only a whimsical
simple, helpful friend and nelghbor.
who MIXED his COWS, bedded his horse
carried his boys pick-back In the
streets. went TO market with his baS-
ket on his arm or sat on a box a.
the foot of his office steps, telling
stories to a group of street loiterers
They caught only battling glimpses
from time to time of mother man
who walked the street wrapped in
solitude, or who brooded in his office
far into the night. This was the
mystic. the inner Lincoln, poet,
dreamer, idealist, prophet, who pom
dered within the outer Lincoln and
guided him on his high duty.