One day while they were at work Pollard Simmons came out to them and said that John Calhoun the County Surveyor wanted Abe to be his assistant.

“I don’t know how to survey,” said Abe.

“But I reckon you can learn it,” Simmons answered.  “You’re purty quick to learn.”

Abe thought a moment.  Calhoun was a Democrat.

“Would I have to sacrifice any of my principles?” he asked.

“Nary a one,” said Simmons.

“Then I’ll try and see if I can get the hang of it,” Abe declared.  “I reckon Mentor Graham could help me.”

“Three dollars a day is not to be sneezed at,” said Simmons.

“No, sir—­not if you can get it honest,” Abe answered.  “I’m not so careless with my sneezing as some men.  Once when Eb Zane was out on the Ohio in a row-boat Mike Fink the river pirate got after him.  Eb had a ten dollar gold piece in his pocket.  For fear that he would be captured he clapped it into his mouth.  Eb was a good oarsman and got away.  He was no sooner out of danger than he fetched a sneeze and blew the gold piece into the river.  After that he used to say that he had sneezed himself poor and that if he had a million dollars it wouldn’t bother him to sneeze ’em away.  Sneezing is a form of dissipation which has not cost me a cent so far and I don’t intend to yield to it.”

Immediately after that Abe got Flint and Gibson’s treatise on surveying and began to study it day and night under the eye of the kindly schoolmaster.  In about six weeks he had mastered the book and reported for duty.

In April Abe wrote another address to the voters announcing that he was again a candidate for a seat in the Legislature.  Late that month Harry walked with him to Pappsville where a crowd had assembled to attend a public sale.  When the auctioneer had finished Abe made his first stump speech.  A drunken man tried to divert attention to himself by sundry interruptions.  Harry asked him to be quiet, whereupon the ruffian and a friend pitched upon the boy and began to handle him roughly.  Abe jumped down, rushed into the crowd, seized the chief offender and raising him off his feet flung him into the air.  He hit the ground in a heap some four yards from where Abe stood.  The latter resumed his place and went on with his speech.  The crowd cheered him and there was no further disturbance at that meeting.  The speech was a modest, straightforward declaration of his principles.  When he was leaving several voices called for a story.  Abe raised a great laugh with a humorous anecdote in which he imitated the dialect and manners of a Kentucky backwoodsman.  They kept him on the auctioneer’s block for half an hour telling the wise and curious folk tales of which he knew so many.  He had won the crowd by his principles, his humor and good nature as well as by the brave and decisive exhibition of his great strength.