“The question is whether you would trust a man owing a national debt and without an asset but good intentions and a license to practise law for so much money,” said Honest Abe.  “I don’t know when I could pay you.”

Speed was also a young man of good intentions and a ready sympathy f or those who had little else.  He had heard of the tall representative from Sangamon County.

“I have a plan which will give you a bed for nothing if you would care to share my room above the store and sleep with me,” he answered.

“I’m much obliged but for you it’s quite a contract.”

“You’re rather long,” Speed laughed.

“Yes, I could lick salt off the top of your hat.  I’m about a man and a half but by long practice I’ve learned how to keep the half out of the way of other people.  They say that when Long John Wentworth got to Chicago he slept with his feet sticking out of a window and that they had to take down a partition because he couldn’t stand the familiarity of the woodpeckers, but he is eight inches taller than I am.”

“I’m sure we shall get along well enough together,” said Speed.

They went up to the room.  In a moment Mr. Lincoln hurried away for his saddle-bags and returned shortly.

“There are all my earthly possessions,” he said as he threw the bags on the floor.

So his new life began in the village of Springfield.  Early in the autumn Samson arrived and bought a small house and two acres of land on the edge of the village and returned to New Salem to move his family and furniture.  When they drove along the top of Salem Hill a number of the houses were empty and deserted, their owners having moved away.  Two of the stores were closed.  Only ten families remained.  They stopped at Rutledge’s tavern whose entertainment was little sought those days.  People from the near houses came to bid them good-by.  Dr. John Allen was among them.

“Sorry to see you going,” he said.  “With you and Abe and Jack Kelso gone it has become a lonely place.  There’s not much left for me but the long view from the end of the hill and the singing in the prairie grass.”

Pete and Colonel, invigorated by their long rest, but whitened by age and with drooping heads, drew the wagon.  Sambo and the small boy rode between Sarah and Samson.  Betsey and Josiah walked ahead of the wagon, the latter leading a cow.  That evening they were comfortably settled in their new home.  Moving was not such a complicated matter those days.  Abe Lincoln was on hand to bid them welcome and help get their goods in place.  He had borrowed fire and cut some wood and there was a cheering blaze in the fireplace on the arrival of the newcomers.  When the beds were set up and ready for the night Sarah made some tea to go with the cold victuals she had brought.  Mr. Lincoln ate with them and told of his new work.