of any individual woman. He detested and never would repeat neighborhood scandal. The savory morsels which some people find so toothsome and delicious under their tongues were wholly unpalatable to him. If he happened to narrate a story in which the wit or weakness of woman was a factor, it was invariably located in the wilds of Kentucky or southern Indiana or some other region equally remote. Besides, the story itself was so ingeniously told and the point or moral so obvious and suggestive, no one present could identify the heroine by name because no name was used or needed. Thus, it will be observed the reputation of every woman he knew was safe in his hands. In the winter of 1838, along with Evan Butler, James Matheney, Milton Hay - John Hay's uncle- and other habitués of the court-house, Lincoln joined in organizing a debating or literary society which met, usually in the clerk's office, once and sometimes twice a month. It was strictly a stag affair, the ladies not being represented. Among other things a poem was contributed by Mr. Lincoln. Its title, if it had any, has been forgotten, but James Matheney, who served as secretary, was able when I last saw him to recall a few verses. Here is one stanza which I have in his handwriting: "Whatever spiteful fools may say, No woman ever went astray Notwithstanding his characteristically indulgent and forbearing nature, Herndon always contended that Lincoln had less charity or patience than the average person for the man who abused his wife or in any other way ig PUNISHING A DRUNKEN SHOEMAKER 71 nored his marriage vows. Not far from Hoffman's Row, the building in Springfield in which the early courts were held, lived a shoemaker who was given to the rather free use of intoxicants and who almost invariably wound up a spree by whipping his wife. One day Lincoln called the fellow aside, upbraided him for his brutality, and then admonished him that if he ever laid violent hands on his wife again a drubbing would be administered so vigorous he would not soon forget it. Meanwhile he apprised Evan Butler and James Matheney of his threat and invited them to join him in dealing out the requisite punishment if the offense should be repeated. "In due time," related Matheney to me, "the contingency arose. The drunken shoemaker had forgotten Lincoln's warning. It was late at night and we dragged the wretch to an open space back of a store building, stripped him of his shirt and tied him to a post. Then we sent for his wife, and arming her with a good stout switch bade her to 'light in' while the three of us sat on our haunches in solemn array near by to witness the execution of our judgment. The wife, a little reluctant at first, soon warmed up to her work, and emboldened by our encouraging and sometimes peremptory directions, performed her delicate task lustily and well. When the culprit had been sufficiently punished, Lincoln gave the signal 'Enough,' and he was released; we helped him on with his shirt and he shambled ruefully toward his home. For his sake we tried to keep all knowledge of the affair from the public; but the lesson had its effect, for if he ever again molested his wife we never found it out." No better illustration of how Mr. Lincoln appeared socially, or rather how he demeaned himself in ladies' company, is obtainable than the two incidents which follow, and which, while emphasizing some of his singular and characteristic traits, are also noteworthy in that they come from truthful and unquestioned sources. One of them was communicated to me both verbally and in writing by the late Henry C. Whitney. The testimony of this witness, with whom I spent many hours in Chicago after he had removed from Urbana, and who verified so much that Herndon had told me, is of the highest value, because, for almost ten years prior to Lincoln's election to the Presidency in 1860, he was much of the time in the latter's company as the two made their way from county to county on the circuit. "I well recollect," said Whitney, “that Mr. Lincoln was invited to join me and my wife at tea one evening at the residence of Mr. Boyden, the mayor of Urbana. He was in good spirits and seemed to be at perfect ease during the meal and afterwards, while I was in the room; but later I was called out for a short time to meet a client who was awaiting me at the front gate. When I returned, the party, meanwhile, having adjourned to the parlor, Mr. Lincoln's bearing and manner had entirely changed; for some unexplained reason he was laboring under the most painful embarrassment and appeared to be as demoralized and ill at ease as a bashful country boy. Drawn up in his chair and gazing alternately at the floor and ceiling, he would put his arms behind him and then bring them to the front again as if endeavoring in some way to hide them; meanwhile struggling, though in vain, to keep his long legs out of sight. His discomfiture was so plain and unmistakable I could not help pitying the poor fellow, and yet I could not 73 AN EVENING AT NORMAN B. JUDD'S understand it unless it was because he was alone in a room with three women, for no one was present but Mrs. Boyden, my wife, and her mother." Evidently Sarah Rickard, who had declined to marry Lincoln, was not without a woman's intuitive discernment when she protested to Herndon that the former's "peculiar manner and general deportment were not calculated to fascinate a young lady entering the society world." The second incident, which describes Lincoln under similar circumstances on another occasion, is equally well authenticated besides narrated by a woman herself. In September, 1857, Lincoln was in Chicago attending the United States Circuit Court where he was engaged in the trial of the noted Rock Island Bridge case. During his stay there he was invited to spend an evening at the home of Norman B. Judd, one of his valued friends, a lawyer and associated in the same case. Several ladies were present. What occurred and how Lincoln bore himself is so graphically and entertainingly told in an account written many years ago for Herndon by the wife of Mr. Judd, I feel that the portrait of Lincoln which I am trying to draw would be incomplete without it. After announcing the fact of Mr. Lincoln's arrival and describing the surroundings they were sitting on the piazza in plain view of Lake Michigan with the full moon throwing "a flood of silvery light upon the dancing waves" - the writer undertakes to indicate the effect of the scene on her visitor. ་་ "Mr. Lincoln, whose home," she writes, "was far inland from the Great Lakes, seemed stirred by the wondrous beauty of the scene and by its very impressiveness was carried away from all thoughts of the earth. In that high-pitched but smooth-toned voice he began to speak of the mystery which for ages enshrouded and shut out those distant worlds above us from our own; of the poetry and beauty which was seen and felt by seers of old when they contemplated Orion and Arcturus as they wheeled seemingly around the earth in their mighty course; of the discoveries since the invention of the telescope which had thrown a flood of light and knowledge on what before was incomprehensible and mysterious; of the wonderful computations of scientists who had measured the miles of seemingly endless space which separated the planets in our solar system from our central sun and our sun from other suns which were now gemming the heavens above us with their resplendent beauty. "When the night air became too chilly to remain longer on the piazza, we went into the parlor where, seated on the sofa his long limbs stretching across the carpet and his arms folded about him, Mr. Lincoln went on to speak of the discoveries and inventions which had been made during the long lapse of time between the present and those early days when man began to make use of the material things about him. He speculated upon the possibilities of the knowledge which an increased power of the lens would give in the years to come, and then the wonderful discoveries of late centuries, as proving that beings endowed with such capabilities as man must be immortal and created for some high and noble end by Him who had spoken these numberless worlds into existence. "We were all indescribably impressed," continues Mrs. Judd, "by Mr. Lincoln's conversation. After he had Mr. Judd remarked: 'The more I see of Mr. Lincoln the gone |