He insisted on politeness before women. One day as he was showing goods, a boorish man came in and began to use profanity. Young Lincoln leaned over the desk, and begged him to desist before ladies. When they had gone, the man became furious. Finding that he really desired to fight, Lincoln said, "Well, if you must be whipped, I suppose I may as well whip you as any other man," and suiting the action to the word, gave him a severe punishing. The man became a better citizen from that day, and Lincoln's life-long friend.
Years afterward, when in the Presidential chair, a man used profanity in his presence, he said, "I thought Senator C. had sent me a gentleman. I was mistaken. There is the door, and I wish you good-night."
Hearing that a grammar could be purchased six miles away, the young store-keeper walked thither and obtained it. When evening came, as candles were too expensive for his limited wages, he burnt one shaving after another to give light, and thus studied the book which was to be so valuable in after years, when he should stand before the great and cultured of the land. He took the "Louisville Journal," because he must be abreast of the politics of the day, and made careful notes from every book he read.
Mr. Offutt soon failed, and Abraham Lincoln was again adrift. War had begun with Blackhawk, the chief of the Sacs, and the Governor of Illinois was calling for volunteers. A company was formed in New Salem, and "Honest Abe" was chosen captain. He won the love of his men for his thoughtfulness of them rather than himself, and learned valuable lessons in military matters for the future. A strange thing now happened,--he was asked to be a candidate for the State Legislature! At first he thought his friends were ridiculing him, and said he should be defeated as he was not widely known.
"Never mind!" said James Rutledge, the president of their little debating club. "They'll know you better after you've stumped the county. Any how, it'll do you good to try."
Lincoln made some bright, earnest stump speeches, and though he was defeated, the young man of twenty-three received two hundred and seventy-seven votes out of the two hundred and eighty cast in New Salem. This surely was a pleasant indication of his popularity. It was a common saying, that "Lincoln had nothing, only plenty of friends."