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Story of Young Abraham Lincoln

<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> <h3>Lincoln & Herndon</h3> <div class='center'> YOUNG HERNDON'S STRANGE FASCINATION FOR LINCOLN</div> Lincoln remained in the office with Judge Logan about four years, dissolving partnership in 1845. Meanwhile he was interesting himself in behalf of young William H. Herndon, who, after Speed's removal to Kentucky, had gone to college at Jacksonville, Ill. The young man seemed to be made of the right kind of metal, was industrious, and agreeable, and Mr. Lincoln looked forward to the time when he could have "Billy" with him in a business of his own. Mrs. Lincoln, with that marvelous instinct which women often possess, opposed her husband's taking Bill Herndon into partnership. While the young man was honest and capable enough, he was neither brilliant nor steady. He contracted the habit of drinking, the bane of Lincoln's business career. As Mr. Lincoln had not yet paid off "the national debt" largely due to[185] his first business partner's drunkenness, it seems rather strange that he did not listen to his wife's admonitions. But young Herndon seems always to have exercised a strange fascination over his older friend and partner. While yet in partnership with Judge Logan, Mr. Lincoln went into the national campaign of 1844, making speeches in Illinois and Indiana for Henry Clay, to whom he was thoroughly devoted. Before this campaign Lincoln had written to Mr. Speed: "We had a meeting of the Whigs of the county here last Monday to appoint delegates to a district convention; and Baker beat me, and got the delegation instructed to go for him. The meeting, in spite of my attempts to decline it, appointed me one of the delegates, so that in getting Baker the nomination I shall be fixed like a fellow who is made a groomsman to a fellow that has cut him out, and is marrying his own dear 'gal.'" Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the nomination for Governor of Illinois, and declined the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme confidence in her husband's ability, tried[186] to make him more self-seeking in his political efforts. He visited his old home in Indiana, making several speeches in that part of the State. It was fourteen years after he and all the family had removed to Illinois. One of his speeches was delivered from the door of a harness shop near Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter Schoolhouse." After this address he drove home with Mr. Josiah Crawford—"Old Blue Nose" for whom he had "pulled fodder" to pay an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of Washington," and in whose house his sister and he had lived as hired girl and hired man. He delighted the old friends by asking about everybody, and being interested in the "old swimming-hole," Jones's grocery where he had often argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr. Baldwin, had told him some of his best stories, and where he once started in to learn the blacksmith's trade. He went around and called on all his former acquaintances who were still living in the neighborhood. His memories were so vivid and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long poem about this, from which the following are three stanzas:[187] <div class='poem'> "My childhood's home I see again And sadden with the view; And still, as memory crowds the brain, There's pleasure in it, too. "Ah, Memory! thou midway world 'Twixt earth and paradise, Where things decayed and loved ones lost In dreamy shadows rise. "And freed from all that's earthy, vile, Seems hallowed, pure and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle, All bathed in liquid light." </div> <div class='center'> TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT</div> As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time away from Springfield he felt that he needed a younger assistant to "keep office" and look after his cases in the different courts. He should not have made "Billy" Herndon an equal partner, but he did so, though the young man had neither the ability nor experience to earn anything like half the income of the office. If Herndon had kept sober and done his best he might have made some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who treated him like a foster-father, was trying to do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the[188] sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's absences by going on sprees with several dissipated young men about town. <div class='center'> WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE</div> A Springfield gentleman relates the following story which shows Lawyer Lincoln's business methods, his unwillingness to charge much for his legal services; and his great longing to save his young partner from the clutches of drink: "My father," said the neighbor, "was in business, facing the square, not far from the Court House. He had an account with a man who seemed to be doing a good, straight business for years, but the fellow disappeared one night, owing father about $1000. Time went on and father got no trace of the vanished debtor. He considered the account as good as lost. "But one day, in connection with other business, he told Mr. Lincoln he would give him half of what he could recover of that bad debt. The tall attorney's deep gray eyes twinkled as he said, 'One-half of nought is nothing. I'm neither a shark nor a shyster, Mr. Man. If I should collect it, I would accept only my regular percentage.'[189] "'But I mean it,' father said earnestly. 'I should consider it as good as finding money in the street.' "'And "the finder will be liberally rewarded," eh?' said Mr. Lincoln with a laugh. "'Yes,' my father replied, 'that's about the size of it; and I'm glad if you understand it. The members of the bar here grumble because you charge too little for your professional services, and I'm willing to do my share toward educating you in the right direction.' "'Well, seein' as it's you,' said Mr. Lincoln with a whimsical smile, 'considering that you're such an intimate friend, I'd do it for twice as much as I'd charge a total stranger! Is that satisfactory?' "'I should not be satisfied with giving you less than half the gross amount collected—in this case,' my father insisted. 'I don't see why you are so loath to take what is your due, Mr. Lincoln. You have a family to support and will have to provide for the future of several boys. They need money and are as worthy of it as any other man's wife and sons.' "Mr. Lincoln put out his big bony hand as if to ward off a blow, exclaiming in a pained tone:[190] "'That isn't it, Mr. Man. That isn't it. I yield to no man in love to my wife and babies, and I provide enough for them. Most of those who bring their cases to me need the money more than I do. Other lawyers rob them. They act like a pack of wolves. They have no mercy. So when a needy fellow comes to me in his trouble—sometimes it's a poor widow—I can't take much from them. I'm not much of a Shylock. I always try to get them to settle it without going into court. I tell them if they will make it up among themselves I won't charge them anything.' "'Well, Mr. Lincoln,' said father with a laugh, 'if they were all like you there would be no need of lawyers.' "'Well,' exclaimed Lawyer Lincoln with a quizzical inflection which meant much. 'Look out for the millennium, Mr. Man—still, as a great favor, I'll charge you a fat fee if I ever find that fellow and can get anything out of him. But that's like promising to give you half of the first dollar I find floating up the Sangamon on a grindstone, isn't it? I'll take a big slice, though, out of the grindstone itself, if you say so,' and the tall attorney went out with the peculiar[191] laugh that afterward became world-famous. "Not long afterward, while in Bloomington, out on the circuit, Mr. Lincoln ran across the man who had disappeared from Springfield 'between two days,' carrying on an apparently prosperous business under an assumed name. Following the man to his office and managing to talk with him alone, the lawyer, by means of threats, made the man go right to the bank and draw out the whole thousand then. It meant payment in full or the penitentiary. The man understood it and went white as a sheet. In all his sympathy for the poor and needy, Mr. Lincoln had no pity on the flourishing criminal. Money could not purchase the favor of Lincoln. "Well, I hardly know which half of that thousand dollars father was gladder to get, but I honestly believe he was more pleased on Mr. Lincoln's account than on his own. "'Let me give you your five hundred dollars before I change my mind,' he said to the attorney. "'One hundred dollars is all I'll take out of that,' Mr. Lincoln replied emphatically. 'It was no trouble, and—and I haven't earned even that much.'[192] "'But Mr. Lincoln,' my father demurred, 'you promised to take half.' "'Yes, but you got my word under false pretenses, as it were. Neither of us had the least idea I would collect the bill even if I ever found the fellow.' "As he would not accept more than one hundred dollars that day, father wouldn't give him any of the money due, for fear the too scrupulous attorney would give him a receipt in full for collecting. Finally, Mr. Lincoln went away after yielding enough to say he might accept two hundred and fifty dollars sometime in a pinch of some sort. "The occasion was not long delayed—but it was not because of illness or any special necessity in his own family. His young partner, 'Billy' Herndon, had been carousing with several of his cronies in a saloon around on Fourth Street, and the gang had broken mirrors, decanters and other things in their drunken spree. The proprietor, tired of such work, had had them all arrested. "Mr. Lincoln, always alarmed when Billy failed to appear at the usual hour in the morning, went in search of him, and found him and[193] his partners in distress, locked up in the calaboose. The others were helpless, unable to pay or to promise to pay for any of the damages, so it devolved on Mr. Lincoln to raise the whole two hundred and fifty dollars the angry saloon keeper demanded. "He came into our office out of breath and said sheepishly: "'I reckon I can use that two-fifty now.' "'Check or currency?' asked father. "'Currency, if you've got it handy.' "'Give Mr. Lincoln two hundred and fifty dollars,' father called to a clerk in the office. "There was a moment's pause, during which my father refrained from asking any questions, and Mr. Lincoln was in no mood to give information. As soon as the money was brought, the tall attorney seized the bills and stalked out without counting it or saying anything but 'Thankee, Mr. Man,' and hurried diagonally across the square toward the Court House, clutching the precious banknotes in his bony talons. "Father saw him cross the street so fast that the tails of his long coat stood out straight behind; then go up the Court House steps, two at a time, and disappear.[194] "We learned afterward what he did with the money. Of course, Bill Herndon was penitent and promised to mend his ways, and, of course, Mr. Lincoln believed him. He took the money very much against his will, even against his principles—thinking it might save his junior partner from the drunkard's grave. But the heart of Abraham Lincoln was hoping against hope." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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