BY IDA M. TARBELL AUTHOR OF “LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN” New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Copyright, 1907 By McCLURE, PHILLIPS & COMPANY Copyright, 1907, 1908 and 1909 By THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY Copyright, 1909 By MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY New York Copyright, 1920 By AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS New York Copyright, 1920 and 1922 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY NEW YORK CITY TO MY SISTER...

More than one clue must be unravelled to reach an understanding of Abraham Lincoln. Among them there surely must be reckoned his capacity for companionship. None more catholic in his selections ever lived. All men were his fellows. He went unerringly and unconsciously for the most part, to the meeting place that awaited him in each man’s nature. There might be a wall, often there was; but he knew, no one better, that there is always a secret door in human walls. Sooner or later he discovered it,

“He has the pass-key to hearts, to him the response of the prying of hands on the knobs.” — Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Answerer.” “Did I know Lincoln? Well, I should say. See that chair there? Take it, set down. That’s right. Comfortable, ain’t it? Well, sir, Abraham Lincoln has set in that chair hours, him and Little ‘Doug,’ and Logan and Judge Davis, all of ’em, all the big men in this State, set in that chair. See them marks? Whittlin’. Judge Logan did it, all-firedest man to whittle. Always

Hear ’em? Hear the Lincoln and Douglas debates? Well, I should say I did. Heard every one of ’em. Yes, sir, for about two months back there in ’58, I didn’t do a thing but travel around Illinois listenin’ to them two men argue out slavery; and when I wa’n’t listenin’ to ’em or travelin’ around after ’em, I was pretty sure to be settin’ on a fence discussin’. Fur my part I never did understand how the crops was got in that fall; seemed to me about all the men in the state was settin’ around whitt

Kind-hearted? Mr. Lincoln kind-hearted ? I don’t believe a man ever lived who’d rather seen everybody happy and peaceable than Abraham Lincoln. He never could stand it to have people sufferin’ or not gettin’ what they wanted. Time and time again I’ve seen him go taggin’ up street here in this town after some youngster that was blubberin’ because he couldn’t have what wa’n’t good for him. Seemed as if he couldn’t rest till that child was smilin’ again. You can go all over Springfield and talk to

“Yes, sir; he was what I call a godly man. Fact is, I never knew anybody I felt so sure would walk straight into Heaven, everybody welcomin’ him, nobody fussin’ or fumin’ about his bein’ let in as Abraham Lincoln.” Billy was tilted back in a worn high-back Windsor, I seated properly in his famous “Lincoln’s chair,” a seat too revered for anybody to stand on two legs. It was a snowy blusterly day and the talk had run on uninterruptedly from the weather to the campaign. (The year was 1896, and Bil