Then he left them in other hands and walked back to New Salem.

More loitering and waiting followed, with a process of getting acquainted with everybody, and at last Mr. Offutt's goods arrived. He added to them by purchasing the stock on hand of what would otherwise have been the rival establishment. He had kept his liking for his flatboat hero, and Abe was engaged as clerk and salesman of the new concern. It was a rise in life for him; one more round of the ladder he was climbing out of the miry bog in which he had been born.

Mr. Offutt was an enterprising man, and he now rented the mill itself from its owners, and put it under the especial charge of Abe, while a clerk named Green was assigned to duty at the store. Lincoln had tried his hand at many things, and now he was a miller, as if no point of life should be found at which he had not come into contact with the people he lived among. He mingled with them everywhere, being thoroughly one of them. He soon discovered that not even the woods of Indiana had developed a rougher, coarser, and in some respects a more vicious and degraded community. Fighting, drinking, gambling, riotous dissipation of all the ruder varieties, were the order of the day, and of almost every day. Abe's physical prowess once more stood him in good stead. It enabled him

in time to set up as a sort of heavy-handed keeper of the peace: but this could not be, of course, until he had been tested against the local bully.

The boasts of his friends, headed by Mr. Offutt, shortly brought that matter about. The latter freely declared that Abe could outrun, throw, or whip any man in Sangamon County, and that he knew more than any other man alive, and would be President of the United States some day. He had reasons of his own for the faith that was in him; but over at Clary's Grove there was another man who imagined a large share at least of all that praise his own peculiar due. He too had enthusiastic admirers ready to do his boasting for him.

The "Clary's Grove Boys" were a set of unmitigated ruffians, and Jack Armstrong was their best man. From all accounts it is hard to guess who or what could have been their worst, and all peaceable people stood in dread of them.

There came one day a kind of boasting match between Offutt and Bill Clary, of Clary's Grove, and it could have but one result. Abe Lincoln and Jack Armstrong were pitted against each other for a wrestle, in spite of all the strong objections made by the former. That was not the sort of competition or success that Mr. Offutt's foreman was studying for, and he did his best to avoid it; but it was too late to escape, for the match had been definitely made.

The confidence of the Clary's Grove Boys in their champion was unbounded, and so was that of the public generally, so that the tide of betting and talk ran all in favor of Jack Armstrong, until the two antagonists were fairly clinched in the ring.

The struggle which followed was no common one, for the men were well matched, and, so long as the rules of fair wrestling were observed, neither succeeded in gaining any advantage. At last, both out of breath, they separated and stood looking at each other.

"Jack," said Lincoln, "let's quit. You can't throw me and I can't throw you."

The champion had been deeply stung by his unexpected failure, and now a chorus of biting remarks arose among his own friends and followers. He made no verbal reply, but rushed right in again in the hope of suddenly securing a "foul hold" and an unfair advantage. But he had already tried too far even the steady temper of his antagonist: in another instant, caught by the throat in a pair of iron hands, he was held out at arm's length, and shaken as if he had been a child.

Then the cry was, "A fight! A fight!" and the supporters of Mr. Offutt were by no means equal, in either numbers or bru

tality, to those of Bill Clary. The latter claimed the stakes, and they would perhaps have been surrendered to him but for the aroused condition of Abe Lincoln's temper. He had an abundance of it if any one would take the trouble to stir it up, and it refused always to go down rapidly. He now declared himself ready and willing to fight Armstrong or any of his fellows. The consequences might have been serious but for the arrival of Mr. Rutledge, the owner of the mill and the great man of New Salem. The noisy mob had all a mob's respect for well-clad wealth. The mill-owner was able to restore the broken peace, and there was no fighting done.

The episode was full of important consequences to Abraham Lincoln. His courage and prowess had been thoroughly tested and had made a deep impression upon the minds of his rough neighbors. He was in no danger of further challenges from any of them, and Jack Armstrong avowed himself the fast friend of the man who had given him so good a shaking. The further results were only a question of time, for the wrestling match which was not won by either of the contestants gained for Abe Lincoln a strong and devoted, if somewhat turbulent, constituency. Every member of the Clary's Grove gang had a vote, and with it a strong admiration for a man who could not only read and write, but could hold a bully at arm's length. The story of the "match" went far and wide, and its hero was thenceforth a man of note and influence in that community.

Thenceforward, moreover, the immediate neighborhood had a recognized and respected peacemaker, and became a more pleasant place of residence for men of quiet tastes. Not to such a degree, however, that an utter stranger would be wise in loitering here and there too much unless he were prepared to look out for his personal safety somewhat as Lincoln had done.

The new foreman of Offutt's mill found that his duties left him with time on his hands, and he did not propose to waste it.

He could already read and write and "cipher." He could make speeches. He could even compose essays and get them printed. He knew that he had a fair capacity for the use of words. But he had latterly made an important discovery. It was that human language, his own in particular, had its laws, and these had been ferreted out and formulated by men of learning, and that no man could be called "educated" while ignorant of them. He went at once to Mr. Graham, the schoolmaster of New Salem, and asked him questions about grammar. "I have a notion to study it."

"If you ever expect to go before the public in any capacity, I think it's the best thing you can do."

"If I had a grammar I'd begin on it right away."

The schoolmaster knew of one that could be had of a man named Vaner, only six miles away, and the rare book was purchased and brought back to town with all the speed in the long limbs of its new owner. Whether or not it would better fit him to come before such a public as that of Clary's Grove, or even New Salem, Abe gave all his spare time to the mastery of it.

There were other books now within reach, and these also were doggedly conquered, one by one. The daylight was burned over them, while the student lay at full length on his counter in the store, waiting for customers, or stretched upon the grass outside in dull seasons, or sitting on a sack of corn, "between grists," at the mill. When evening came, he would go over to the cooper-shop and read there, burning shaving after shaving, one kindled from another, in place of unattainable candles. These were not only scarce but costly, and Abe's wages permitted him no vain extravagances. He was fighting his upward way, inch by inch, with iron resolution. Even the New Salem community could plainly discern how fast his inner man was growing. They were all but proud of him, and the fame of his knowledge spread far and wide, keeping even pace with his reputation for story-telling and for shaking

Jack Armstrong. He could not fail to be popular among those who knew him well, and every fresh arrival from the outside world was sure to be seized upon and made a friend of. Yes, and then subjected to a pumping process, which drew from him, for Abe's benefit, whatever he might know. There is hardly a human being from whom such an inquirer could not learn something, and the power to so gather wisdom grows continually with its use.

Lincoln's first political speech in Illinois had dealt with the problem of the future navigation of the Sangamon River, and now, early in the spring of 1832, a company of gentlemen went so far, in attempting a practical solution, as to charter a small steamboat named the "Talisman," and decide to send her up the stream as high as she could go. Quite a number of questions could be answered by the results of such an experiment: but it was not tried in flood-time or they might have found and reported much more water in the channel. They were wise enough to secure Abe Lincoln's services as pilot, "from Beardstown, up and back." He steered the boat in safety around the many crooks and windings, avoiding all snags and bars and similar perils, until she found her further progress barred by the New Salem mill-dam. If she could not pass that barrier the Sangamon could not be truthfully set down on any map as a navigable stream.

There was but one way of overcoming the difficulty, and enough of the dam was promptly torn away to permit the steamboat to pass. On she went. But there were perils before her even then; for she reached the shallow water above, only to find that it was hourly getting shallower, and that the river was rapidly falling. The experiment had been faithfully tried. The inquirers knew just how far they could take just such a craft up the Sangamon at somewhat low water.

The problem now remaining was how to get her down the river again, and it seemed a serious one; but their pilot managed it for them. He is said to have been paid forty dollars