Produced by Sandra Bannatyne Tiffany Vergon Charles AldarondoCharles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamTHE LINCOLN STORY BOOKA Judicious Collection of the Best Stories  and Anecdotes of the Great President       Many Appearing Here for the         First Time in Book FormCOMPILED BYHENRY L WILLIAMSPREFACEThe Abraham Lincoln Statue at Chicago is accepted as the typicalWesterner of the forum the rostrum and the tribune as he stoodto be inaugurated under the warcloud in 1861 But there is anotherLincoln as dear to the common peoplethe Lincoln of happy quotationsthe speaker of household words Instead of the erect impressivepenetrative platform orator we see a long gaunt figure dividedbetween two chairs for comfort the head bent forward smilingbroadly the lips curved in laughter the deep eyes irradiating theircaves of wisdom the storytelling Lincoln enjoying the enjoyment hegave to othersThis talkativeness as Lincoln himself realized was a very valuableasset Leaving home he found in a venture at Yankee notionpedlingthat glibness meant three hundred per cent in disposing of flimsywares In the camp of the lumberjacks and of the Indian rangers hewas regarded as the pride of the mess and the inspirator of the tentFrom these stages he rose to be a graduate of the college of theyarnspinnerthe village store where he became clerkThe store we know is the township vortex where all assemble to swapstories and deal out the news Lincoln from behind the counterhispulpitnot merely repeated items of information which he had heardbut also recited doggerel satire of his own concoction punning andemitting sparks of wit Lincoln was hailed as the capper of anygood things on the roundsEven then his friends saw the germs of the statesman in the lankhomely crackvoiced hobbledehoy Their praise emboldened him tostand forward as the spokesman at schoolhouse meetings lectureslogrollings huskings auctions fairs and so onthe folkmeets ofour people One watching him in 1830 said foresightedly Lincolnhas touched land at lastIn commencing electioneering he cultivated the farming population andtheir ways and diction He learned by their parlance and Bible phrasesto construct short sentences of small words but he had all alongthe idea that the plain people are more easily influenced by a broadand humorous illustration than in any other way It is the AngloSaxontrait distinguishing all great preachers actors and authors of thatbreedHe acknowledged his personal defects with a frankness unique andstartling told a girl whom he was courting that he did not believeany woman could fancy him publicly said that he could not be in lookswhat was rated a gentleman carried the knife of the homeliest mandisparaged himself like a Brutus or a Pope Sixtus But the massrelished this plain blunt man who spoke right onHe talked himself into being the local Eminence but did not succeedin winning the election when first presented as the humble candidatefor the State Senate He stood upon his imperfect education his notbelonging to the first families but the seconds and his shunningsociety as debarring him from the study he requiredRepulsed at the polls he turned to the law as another channelsupplementing forensic failings by his artful storytelling Judgeswould suspend business till that Lincoln fellow got through with hisyarnspinning or underhandedly would direct the usher to get the richbit Lincoln told and repeat it at the recessMrs Lincoln the first to weigh this man justly said proudly thatLincoln was the great favorite everywhereMeanwhile his fellow citizens stupidly tired of this Merry Andrewtheysent him elsewhere to talk other folks to deathto the State Housewhere he served several terms creditably but was mainly the fund ofjollity to the lobby and the chartered jester of the lawmakersSuch loquacious witchery fitted him for the Congress Elected to theHouse he was immediately greeted by connoisseurs of the best stampPresident Martin van Buren prince of good fellows Webster anotherintellect saturnine in repose and mercurial in activity theconvivial Senator Douglas and the like These formed the rapt ringaround Lincoln in his own chair in the snug corner of the congressionalchatroom Here he perceived that his rusticity and shallow skimmingsplaced him under the trained politicians It was here too that hisstereotyped prologue to his digressionsThat reminds mebecamepopular and even reached England where a publisher so entitleda jokebook Lincoln displaced Sam Slick and opened the way toArtemus Ward and Mark Twain The longing for elevation was fanned bythe association with the notablesBuchanan to be his predecessoras President Andrew Johnson to be his vice and successor JeffersonDavis and Alex H Stephens President and VicePresident of theC S A Adams Winthrop Sumner and the galaxy over whom hissolitary star was to shine dazzlinglyA sound authority who knew him of old pronounced him as good attelling an anecdote as in the 30s But the fluent chatterer reinedin and became a good listener He imbibed all the political ruses andreturned home with his quiver full of new and victorious arrows forthe Presidential campaign for his bosom friends urged him to try togratify that ambition preposterous when he first felt it attack himHe had grown out of the sensitiveness that once made him beg thecritics not to put him out by laughing at his appearance He formeda boundless arsenal of images and similes he learned the Americanhumorists art not to parade the joke with a discounting smile Heworked out Euclid to brace his fantasies as the steel bar in acement fencepost makes it irresistibly firm But he allowed hisvehement fervor to carry him into such flights as left the reportersunable to accompany his sentences throughoutHe was recognized as the destined national mouthpiece He was not ofthe universities but of the universe the Mississippi of Eloquenceuncultivated stupendous enriched by sweeping into the innumerableside bayous and creeksElected and reelected President he continued to be a surprise tothose who shrank from levity Lincoln was their puzzle for he hada sweet sauce for every roast and showed the smile of invigorationto every croaking prophet His state papers suited the war tragediesbut still he delighted the people with those tales tagging all theevents of what may be called the