Fortunately an occupation now offered itself which was more lucrative, and possessed also the valuable quality of leaving niches of leisure for the study of the law.  The mania for speculation in land had begun in Illinois; great tracts were being cut up into “town lots,” and there was as lively a market for real estate as the world has ever seen.  The official surveyor of the county, John Calhoun, had more work than he could do, and offered to appoint Lincoln as a deputy.  A little study made him competent for the work, which he performed for some time with admirable accuracy, if the stories are to be believed.  But he had not long enjoyed the mild prosperity of this new career ere an untoward interruption came from a creditor of the extinct grocery firm.  This man held one of the notes representing “the national debt,” and now levied execution upon Lincoln’s horse and surveying instruments.  Two friends, however, were at hand in this hour of need, and Bolin Greene and James Short are gratefully remembered as the men who generously furnished, in that actual cash which was so scarce in Illinois, the sums of one hundred and twenty-five dollars and one hundred and twenty dollars respectively, to redeem these essential implements of Lincoln’s business.

The summer of 1834 found Lincoln again a candidate for the legislature.  He ran as a Whig, but he received and accepted offers of aid from the Democrats, and their votes swelled the flattering measure of his success.  It has usually been stated that he led the four successful candidates, the poll standing:  Lincoln, 1,376; Dawson, 1,370; Carpenter, 1,170; Stuart, 1,164.  But Mr. Herndon adduces evidence that Dawson’s number was 1,390, whereby Lincoln is relegated to the second place.  Holland tells us that he “shouldered his pack and on foot trudged to Vandalia, then the capital of the State, about a hundred miles, to make his entrance into public life.”  But the correcting pen of the later biographer interferes with this dramatic incident also.  For it seems that, after the result of the election was known, Lincoln visited a friend, Coleman Smoot, and said:  “Did you vote for me?” “I did,” replied Smoot.  “Then,” said Lincoln, “you must lend me two hundred dollars!” This seemed a peculiar sequitur, for ordinary political logic would have made any money that was to pass between voter and candidate move the other way.  Yet Smoot accepted the consequence entailed in part by his own act, and furnished the money, whereby Lincoln was able to purchase a new suit of clothes and to ride in the stage to Vandalia.