have seemed crude people with a narrow horizon.  Indeed, till he was called upon to take supreme control of very great matters, Lincoln must have had singularly little intercourse either with men versed in great affairs or with men of approved intellectual distinction.  But a mind too original to be subdued to its surroundings found much that was stimulating in this time when Illinois was beginning rapidly to fill up.  There were plenty of men with shrewd wits and robust character to be met with, and the mental atmosphere which surrounded him was one of keen interest in life.  Lincoln eventually stands out as a surprising figure from among the other lawyers and little politicians of Illinois, as any great man does from any crowd, but some tribute is due to the undistinguished and historically uninteresting men whose generous appreciation gave rapid way to the poor, queer youth, and ultimately pushed him into a greater arena as their selected champion.

In 1831, at the age of twenty-two, Lincoln, returning from his New Orleans voyage, settled in New Salem to await the arrival of his patron, Denton Offutt, with the goods for a new store in which Lincoln was to be his assistant.  The village itself was three years old.  It never got much beyond a population of one hundred, and like many similar little towns of the West it has long since perished off the earth.  But it was a busy place for a while, and, contrary to what its name might suggest, it aspired to be rather fast.  It was a cock-fighting and whisky-drinking society into which Lincoln was launched.  He managed to combine strict abstinence from liquor with keen participation in all its other diversions.  One departure from total abstinence stands alleged among the feats of strength for which he became noted.  He hoisted a whisky barrel, of unspecified but evidently considerable content, on to his knees in a squatting posture and drank from the bunghole.  But this very arduous potation stood alone.  Offutt was some time before he arrived with his goods, and Lincoln lived by odd jobs.  At the very beginning one Mentor Graham, a schoolmaster officiating in some election, employed him as a clerk, and the clerk seized the occasion to make himself well known to New Salem as a story-teller.  Then there was a heavy job at rail-splitting, and another job in navigating the Sangamon River.  Offutt’s store was at last set up, and for about a year the assistant in this important establishment had valuable opportunities of conversation with all New Salem.  He had also leisure for study.  He had mentioned to the aforesaid Mentor Graham his “notion to study English grammar,” and had been introduced to a work called “Kirkham’s Grammar,” which by a walk of some miles he could borrow from a neighbour.  This he would read, lying full length on the counter with his head on a parcel of calico.  At other odd times he would work away at arithmetic.  Offutt’s kindly interest procured him distinction in another field.