Douglas!  Reverdy looked at me as if he had much to say.  “He’s campaigning,” said Reverdy; “already has made about a hundred speeches.  He has a fight on his hands.  He has a tough rival to handle.”

“Who is it?”

“Abraham Lincoln!”

“Who is Abraham Lincoln?”

I had never heard that name before; nor seen it in print.  Reverdy went on to tell me briefly that Lincoln had been in the legislature at the same time that Douglas was in 1836; that he had been in Congress in 1847; that he was well known as a lawyer in Springfield; that for many years he had done nothing but practice law, though more active in politics since 1855 than before.  That was some explanation of my ignorance of the name.

I repeated it aloud:  “Abraham Lincoln.  That is a great name,” I said to Reverdy.  “Well, he’s an able lawyer, and he gives Douglas enough to do in the debates they’re having.”  “So they are debating, are they?” I asked.  “Yes,” drawled Reverdy, “Lincoln was nominated for Senator by the Republicans; Douglas of course is again the nominee of the Democrats.  Lincoln challenged Douglas to a debate; and they’re at it hot and heavy.  We talk of nothing else.  It’s funny you didn’t hear of it anywhere along the way home.  This part of the country is on fire, and they say the East is waking up to what is going on here in Illinois.  I’ve got the newspapers here containing all the debates.  You’ve got some good reading ahead of you.  To-morrow’s the last debate over at Alton.”

“We must go,” I said quickly.  “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.  We must go.”  And I was thinking, what better way to forget Isabel?  Reverdy was really glad to hear this debate at Alton; but it was necessary for him to attend to some things this day in preparation of being absent to-morrow.  In the afternoon he had to drive out to his farm, and I went with him.  And when we came within a short distance of the log cabin, where I had spent my first winter on the farm, I was seized with a desire to see it again.  There was so much of Rome and Italy fresh in my mind with which to contrast my previous life.  And we drove to the cabin.

The door had fallen to one side.  The clay between the logs had dried, turned to dust, and fallen away.  The roof had sagged.  The fireplace was going to wreck.  We looked in.  Weeds had grown up during the summer through the crevices of the floor.  The place was lonely and haunted.  “Well,” said Reverdy, “this is the kind of a home that Lincoln had as a boy.  He was born in a cabin like this; and he’s poor now.  He has never got rich like Douglas has.  And Douglas will soon be as poor as Lincoln if he keeps on at the same rate spending money in this campaign.  They say he has mortgaged nearly all his property in Chicago.  Everybody’s fighting him—­the Republicans, all the Abolitionists, and half the Democrats.  This campaign means his political death or life.”

“You say Lincoln was born in a log cabin.  Is this a campaign of the log cabin, hard cider, and war records?”