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treated, whipped, and scourged. Lincoln saw it; his heart bled, said nothing much, was silent from feeling, was sad, looked bad, felt bad, was thoughtful and abstracted. I can say, knowing it, that it was on this trip that he formed his opinions of slavery. It run its iron in him then and there, May, 1831. I have heard him say so often and often."

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Some time in June the party took passage on a steamboat going up the river, and remained together until they reached St. Louis, where Offutt left them, and Abe, Hanks, and Johnston started on foot for the interior of Illinois. At Edwardsville, twenty-five miles out, Hanks took the road to Springfield, and Abe and Johnston took that to Coles County, where Tom Lincoln had moved since Abraham's departure from home.

Abe never worked again in company with his friend and relative, good old John Hanks. Here their paths separated: Abe's began to ascend the heights, while John's continued along the common level. They were in the Black Hawk War during the same campaign, but not in the same division. But they corresponded, and, from 1833, met at least once a year, until Abe was elected President. Then Abe, delighting to honor those of his relatives who were worthy of it, invited John to go with him to see his step-mother. John also went to the inauguration at Washington, and tells, with pardonable pride, how he "was in his [Abe's] rooms several times." He then retired to his old home in Macon County, until the assassination and the great funeral, when he came to Springfield to look in the blackened face of his old friend, and witness the last ceremonies of his splendid burial.

Scarcely had Abe reached Coles County, and begun to think what next to turn his hand to, when he received a visit from a famous wrestler, one Daniel Needham, who regarded him as a growing rival, and had a fancy to try him a fall or two. He considered himself "the best man" in the country, and the report of Abe's achievements filled his big breast with envious pains. His greeting was friendly and hearty, but his challenge was rough and peremptory. Abe valued his popularity among "the boys" too highly to decline it,

and met him by public appointment in the "greenwood," at Wabash Point, where he threw him twice with so much ease that Needham's pride was more hurt than his body. "Lincoln," said he, "you have thrown me twice, but you can't whip me."-"Needham," replied Abe, "are you satisfied that I can throw you? If you are not, and must be convinced through a threshing, I will do that, too, for your sake." Needham had hoped that the youngster would shrink from the extremity of a fight with the acknowledged "bully of the patch;" but finding him willing, and at the same time magnanimously inclined to whip him solely for his own good, he concluded that a bloody nose and a black eye would be the reverse of soothing to his feelings, and therefore surrendered the field with such grace as he could command.

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