In a very short time, the Harrison campaign became the "Log-Cabin and Hard-Cider" campaign.

Even in the staid, old-fashioned cities and towns of the Eastern States, log cabins were built for rallying. places. Barrels of hard cider were kept on tap, and, instead of the customary tin cup for drinking purposes, gourds were ostentatiously hung out. Coon-skins were nailed on the outer walls of these symbolic log cabins. In some places, extravagant expedients were resorted to in order to rouse public enthusiasm. In Boston, for example, a huge ball was made by covering a wood framework, some fifty feet in circumference, with painted cloth; and on it was the legend, is the ball that is rolling on." The novel device was rolled through the streets of the city, on the occasion of a log-cabin parade, the big ball being guided by ropes hitched to its axis. Campaign songsters, flags, and all sorts of inventions to stir up the people were scattered broadcast all over the country.

This

At a great meeting in Springfield, Edward Baker, Lincoln's close friend, was speaking in a large room next below the floor on which was Lincoln's office. A trap-door, once used for ventilating purposes, was cut in the ceiling over the spot where the speaker stood. Lincoln raised this slightly and listened to Baker's harangue. Presently, Baker, losing his temper, assailed the Democrats very hotly, and, as some of these were present, they made a rush for the speaker, crying: "Pull him off the platform! To their intense surprise, the trap-door was lifted, and a pair of large feet, well known by their proportions, appeared; then legs, and finally a body, slid down, and Lincoln stood there defiantly by the side of Baker. Quieting the rising tide by a wave of his hand, Lincoln said: "Gentlemen,

let us not disgrace the age and country in which we live. This is a land where freedom of speech is guaranteed. Baker has a right to speak, and a right to be permitted to do so. I am here to protect him, and no man shall take him from this stand if I can prevent it." Lincoln had sufficient reputation for courage and muscle, as well as for fairness, to warrant that Baker should have no further interruption.

CHAPTER VII

WINNING HIS WAY

W

HILE Lincoln was living in New Salem, he became tenderly attached to a young lady of that village, Miss Ann Rutledge. It is not known that the pair were ever engaged to be married, but it is known that a very cordial affection existed between the twain. At that time, Lincoln, who was ever looking on the dark and practical side of life, was in no condition to marry; he was not only poor, but was burdened with debts, and with a very uncertain future before him. It is hardly likely that he would have engaged himself to marry while his prospects in life were so very dim and discouraging. But Miss Rutledge died suddenly, while yet in the bloom of youth. This sad event impressed Lincoln with the deepest melancholy, and was to him a forcible lesson in the vanity of human expectations.

Lincoln was never what is called " a lady's man." He delighted in the society and conversation of cultivated and sprightly women always, but he was obliged to live laborious days, and sit up far into the night pursuing his studies, his reading, his course of thought. In 1840, however, there came to Springfield from Kentucky his destiny in the person of Miss Mary Todd, a daughter of Robert Todd. It was one of her relatives,