After the election, he bought an interest with a man named Berry in a store. At the same time Lincoln began to study law. The law books were not very numerous. One day a man going past drove up to the store, and wanted him to buy a barrel of rubbish for which he had no room in his wagon. Lincoln paid half a dollar for it. Sometime afterwards in looking over the stuff, he found a complete edition of Blackstone's law commentary. "The more I read," said he, "the more interested I became. Never in my life was my mind so thoroughly possessed. I read until I devoured it." These books are quite a large set of books and it must have required a good deal of work to have learned them. Lincoln was postmaster. The rates of postage then, were much higher than they are now. For instance, a single sheet letter carried thirty miles or under eighty was ten cents, four hundred miles, eighteen and one-half cents, and over that twenty-five cents. As Mr. Lincoln studied so hard, and his partner Berry did not attend to the business very well, the store was not prosperous. They gave it up and sold out. Lincoln then studied surveying, and became a surveyor. He also began to practice a little law, and when anybody had a law suit about New Salem, he was frequently employed. It is said that when he first took up surveying, he was too poor to buy him a chain, and had to use a grape vine. Between the surveying and a little law practice, Lincoln made his living; but it was not until fifteen years afterwards that he was able to settle all the debts made by the store of Berry & Lincoln. The summer of 1834 he again ran for the legislature and was elected. The capital at this time was located at Vandalia instead of Springfield. They only had rough tables and benches for the legislators, and they did not receive as much pay as they do now. They wore the same kind of suits, buckskin trousers and coonskin caps as the soldiers of the Black Hawk war. At the time Mr. Lincoln was a member of the legislature it was very unpopular to be an abolitionist. The legislature passed a resolution condemning the abolitionists because they stirred up the people by agitating the freedom of slaves. Mr. Lincoln and one other man signed a protest against the resolution, and were the only members of the Illinois legislature at this time who were willing to stand up for the freedom of the slaves. Mr. Lincoln continued to study law quite hard while he was a member of the legislature. He had four terms, and met some men there as fellow-members who afterwards became very prominent men.