was made to ‘jam him through the crowd’ to his place of honor on the stage; but the crowd was too dense.  Then he was ’boosted’—­lifted up bodily—­and lay for a few seconds sprawling and kicking upon the heads and shoulders of the great throng.  In this manner he was gradually pushed toward the stand, and finally reached it, doubtless to his great relief, ’in the arms of some half-dozen gentlemen,’ who set him down in full view of his clamorous admirers.  ’The cheering was like the roar of the sea.  Hats were thrown up by the Chicago delegation, as if hats were no longer useful.’  Mr. Lincoln rose, bowed, smiled, blushed, and thanked the assembly as well as he could in the midst of such a tumult.  A gentleman who saw it all says, ’I then thought him one of the most diffident and worst-plagued men I ever saw.’  At another stage of the proceedings, Governor Oglesby rose again with another provoking and mysterious speech.  ‘There was,’ he said, ’an old Democrat outside who had something he wished to present to the convention.’  ‘Receive it!’ ‘Receive it!’ cried some.  ‘What is it?’ ’What is it?’ yelled some of the lower Egyptians, who seemed to have an idea that the ‘old Democrat’ might want to blow them up with an infernal machine.  The door opened; and a fine, robust old fellow, with an open countenance and bronzed cheeks, marched into the midst of the assemblage, bearing on his shoulder ‘two small triangular heart rails,’ surmounted by a banner with this inscription:  ’Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks, in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830.’  The sturdy rail-bearer was old John Hanks himself, enjoying the great field-day of his life.  He was met with wild and tumultuous cheers, prolonged through several minutes; and it was observed that the Chicago and Central-Illinois men sent up the loudest and longest cheering.  The scene was tempestuous and bewildering.  But it ended at last; and now the whole body, those in the secret and those out of it, clamored for a speech from Mr. Lincoln, who in the meantime ‘blushed,’ but seemed to shake with inward laughter.  In response to the repeated calls he rose and said:  ’Gentlemen, I suppose you want to know something about those things’ (pointing to old John and the rails).  ’Well, the truth is, John Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon Bottom.  I don’t know whether we made those rails or not; the fact is, I don’t think they are a credit to the makers’ (laughing as he spoke).  ’But I do know this:  I made rails then, and I think I could make better ones than these now.’  By this time the innocent Egyptians began to open their eyes; they saw plainly enough the admirable Presidential scheme unfolded to their view.  The result of it all was a resolution declaring that ’Abraham Lincoln is the first choice of the Republican party of Illinois for the Presidency, and instructing the delegates to the Chicago convention to use all honorable means to secure his nomination, and to cast the vote of the State as a unit for him.’”