He spent the evening of election day in the telegraph office. Report after report came in from different parts of the country. He was gaining. He was winning. After a while he knew--his friends knew--all Springfield knew--that Abraham Lincoln was to be the next President of the United States. Outside in the streets the crowds were celebrating. They were singing, shouting, shooting off cannons. Abe told his friends that he was "well-nigh upset with joy." "I guess I'd better go home now," he added. "There is a little woman there who would like to hear the news." Mary was asleep when he entered their bedroom. Her husband touched her on the shoulder. "Mary, Mary," he said with a low chuckle, "we are elected." By February the Lincolns were ready to move. Abe tied up the trunks and addressed them to "A. Lincoln, The White House, Washington, D.C." Before he left Illinois there was a visit he wanted to make to a log farmhouse a hundred and twenty-five miles southeast of Springfield. His father had been dead for ten years, but his stepmother was still living there. [Illustration] Travel was slow in those days, and he had to change trains several times. There was plenty of time to think. He knew that hard days lay ahead. There were many Southerners who said that they were afraid to live under a President who was against slavery. Several Southern states had left the Union and were starting a country of their own. For the United States to be broken up into two different nations seemed to him the saddest thing that could possibly happen. As President, Abraham Lincoln would have a chance--he must make the chance--to preserve the Union. He could not know then that he would also have a chance to free the slaves--a chance to serve his country as had no other President since George Washington. His thoughts went back to his boyhood. Even then he had wanted to be President. What had once seemed an impossible dream was coming true. He thought of all the people who had encouraged and helped him. He thought of his mother who, more than any one person, had given him a chance to get ahead. "Mother!" Whenever Abe said the word, he was thinking of both Nancy and Sarah. Sarah was waiting by the window. A tall man in a high silk hat came striding up the path. "Abe! You've come!" She opened the door and looked up into the sad, wise face. "Of course, Mother." He gave her the kind of good bear hug he had given her when he was a boy. "I am leaving soon for Washington. Did you think I could go so far away without saying good-by?" The word spread rapidly that he was there. One after another the neighbors dropped in, until the little room was crowded. As he sat before the fireplace, talking with all who came, Sarah seemed to see, not a man about to become President, but a forlorn-looking little boy. She had loved that little boy from the moment she first saw him. He had always been a good son to her--a better son than her own John.