Practicing law in those days, and in that region, had some peculiar features. It was the custom for lawyers to “ride the circuit,” that is, to accompany the judges from one country-town to another, attending to such business as might offer, in different sections of the State. Railroads had not yet found their way out so far West, and the lawyer was wont to travel on horseback, stopping at cabins on the way to eat and sleep, and, in brief, to “rough it.” One brought up like Lincoln was not likely to shrink from any hardships which this might entail. Indeed, it is likely that, upon the whole, he enjoyed it, and that these journeys increased his natural shrewdness and knowledge of human nature, and furnished him with no inconsiderable part of the apposite stories which he was wont to quote in later years.{97}

Here is an incident which will amuse my readers. It is told by Mr. Francis E. Willard: “In one of my temperance pilgrimages through Illinois, I met a gentleman who was the companion in a dreary ride which Lincoln made in a light wagon, going the rounds of a Circuit Court where he had clients to look after. The weather was rainy, the road heavy with mud of the Southern Illinois pottery, never to be imagined as to its blackness and profundity by him who has not seen it, and assuredly needing no description to jostle the memory of one who has. Lincoln enlivened the way with anecdote and recital, for few indeed were the incidents that relieved the tedium of the trip.

“At last, in wallowing through a ‘slough’ of the most approved Western manufacture, they came upon a poor shark of a hog, who had succumbed to gravitation, and was literally fast in the mud. The lawyers commented on the poor creature’s pitiful condition, and drove on. About half a mile was laboriously gone over, when Lincoln suddenly exclaimed: ‘I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’ve got to go back and pull that hog out of the slough.’{98}

“His comrade laughed, thinking it merely a joke; but what was his surprise when Lincoln dismounted, left him to his reflections, and, striding slowly back, like a man on stilts, picking his way as his long walking implements permitted, he grappled with the drowning hog, dragged him out of the ditch, left him on its edge to recover his strength, slowly measured off the distance back to his buggy, and the two men drove off as if nothing had happened.”

This little incident is given to show that Mr. Lincoln did not confine his benevolence to his own race, but could put himself to inconvenience to relieve the sufferings of an inferior animal. In fact, his heart seemed to be animated by the spirit of kindness, and this is one of the most important respects in which I am glad to hold him out as an example to the young. Emulate that tenderness of heart which led him to sympathize with “the meanest thing that breathes,” and, like him, you will win the respect and attachment of the best men and women!

The young lawyer, successful as he was in court, did not make money as fast as some of his professional associates. One reason I have {99}already given—he would not willingly exert his power on the wrong side. Moreover, he was modest, and refrained from exorbitant charges, and he was known at times to remit fees justly due when his client was unfortunate. One day he met a client who had given him a note, nearly due, for professional services.

“Mr. Lincoln,” he said, “I have been thinking of that note I owe you. I don’t see how I am to meet it. I have been disabled by an explosion, and that has affected my income.”

“I heard of your accident,” said Lincoln, “and I sympathize with you deeply. As to the note, here it is.”

“But I can not meet it at present.”

“I don’t want you to. Take it, and destroy it. I consider it paid.”

No doubt many lawyers would have done the same, but it so happened that Lincoln was at that moment greatly in need of money, and was obliged to defer a journey on that account. It was not out of his abundance, but out of his poverty, that he gave.

As to his professional methods, they were peculiar. He was always generous to an opponent.{100} Instead of contesting point by point, he often yielded more than was claimed, and excited alarm in the breast of his client. But when this was done, he set to work and stated his own view of the case so urgently that the strength of his opponent’s position was undermined, his arguments torn to pieces, and the verdict secured. He was r............