“Before I heard that story I’d heard Lincoln say a hundred times, settin’ right there in that chair, where you are, ‘Boys, we’ve got to stop slavery or it’s goin’ to spread all over this country,’ but, somehow, I didn’t see it before. Them snakes finished me. Then I knew he’d got it right and I’d got to vote for him. Pretty tough, though, for me to go back on Little ‘Doug.’ You see he was our great man, so we thought. Been to the United States Senate and knew all the big bugs all over the country. Sort o’ looked and talked great. Wan’t no comparison between him and Lincoln in looks and talk. Of course, we all knew he wan’t honest, like Lincoln, but blamed if I didn’t think in them days Lincoln was too all-fired honest—kind of innocent honest. He couldn’t stand it nohow to have things said that wan’t so. He just felt plumb bad about lies. I remember once bein’ in court over to Decatur when Mr. Lincoln was tryin’ a case. There was a fellow agin him that didn’t have no prejudices against lyin’ in a lawsuit, and he was tellin’ how Lincoln had said this an’ that, tryin’ to mix up the jury. It was snowin’ bad outside, and Mr. Lincoln had wet his feet and he was tryin’ to dry ’em at the stove. He had pulled off one shoe and was settin’ there holdin’ up his great big foot, his forehead all puckered up, listenin’ to that ornery lawyer’s lies. All at onct he jumped up and hopped right out into the middle of the court-room. “‘Now, Judge,’ he says, ‘that ain’t fair. I didn’t say no sich thing, and he knows I didn’t. I ain’t goin’ to have this jury all fuddled up.’ “You never see anything so funny in a court-room as that big fellow standin’ there in one stockin’ foot, a shoe in his hand, talking so earnest. No, sir, he couldn’t stand a lie. “‘Think he was a big man, then?’ Nope—never did. Just as I said, we all thought Douglas was _our_ big man. You know I felt kind of sorry for Lincoln when they began to talk about him for President. It seemed almost as if somebody was makin’ fun of him. He didn’t look like a president. I never had seen one, but we had pictures of ’em, all of ’em from George Washington down, and they looked somehow as if they were different kind of timber from us. Leastwise that’s always the way it struck me. Now Mr. Lincoln he was just like your own folks—no trouble to talk to him, no siree. Somehow you just settled down comfortable to visitin’ the minute he come in. I couldn’t imagine George Washington or Thomas Jefferson settin’ here in that chair you’re in tee-heein’ over some blamed yarn of mine. None of us around town took much stock in his bein’ elected at first—that is, none of the men, the women was different. They always believed in him, and used to say, ‘You mark my word, Mr. Lincoln will be president. He’s just made for it, he’s good, he’s the best man ever lived and he ought to be president.’ I didn’t see no logic in that then, but I dunno but there was some after all.