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.’
“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 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.