He Knew Lincoln, and Other Billy Brown Stories — John Shaqi
He Knew Lincoln, and Other Billy Brown StoriesTarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva)
General
He Knew Lincoln, and Other Billy Brown Stories
Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Anecdotes
“No end of other great men around. He saw ’em all. Sometimes I used
to step over and watch him--didn’t bother him a mite to see a big
man--not a mite. He’d jest shake hands and talk as easy and natural as
if ’twas me--and he didn’t do no struttin’ either. Some of the fellers
who come to see him looked as if _they_ was goin’ to be president, but
Mr. Lincoln didn’t put on any airs. No, sir, and he didn’t cut any of
his old friends either. Tickled to death to see ’em every time, and
they all come--blamed if every old man and woman in Sangamon County
didn’t trot up here to see him. They’d all knowed him when he was
keepin’ store down to New Salem and swingin’ a chain--surveyed lots of
their towns for ’em--he had--and then he’d electioneered all over that
county, too, so they just come in droves to bid him good-by. I was over
there one day when old Aunt Sally Lowdy came in the door. Aunt Sally
lived down near New Salem, and I expect she’d mended Mr. Lincoln’s
pants many a time; for all them old women down there just doted on
him and took care of him as if he was their own boy. Well, Aunt Sally
stood lookin’ kind a scared seein’ so many strangers and not knowin’
precisely what to do, when Mr. Lincoln spied her. Quick as a wink he
said, ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ and he just rushed over to that old woman
and shook hands with both of his’n and says, ‘Now, Aunt Sally, this is
real kind of you to come and see me. How are you and how’s Jake?’ (Jake
was her boy.) ‘Come right over here,’ and he led her over, as if she
was the biggest lady in Illinois, and says, ‘Gentlemen, this is a good
old friend of mine. She can make the best flapjacks you ever tasted,
and she’s baked ’em for me many a time.’ Aunt Sally was jest as pink
as a rosy, she was so tickled. And she says, ‘Abe’--all the old folks
in Sangamon called him Abe. They knowed him as a boy, but don’t you
believe anybody ever did up here. No, sir, we said Mr. Lincoln. He was
like one of us, but he wa’n’t no man to be over familiar with. ‘Abe,’
says Aunt Sally, ‘I had to come and say good-by. They say down our way
they’re goin’ to kill you if they get you down to Washington, but I
don’t believe it. I just tell ’em you’re too smart to let ’em git ahead
of you that way. I thought I’d come and bring you a present, knit ’em
myself,’ and I’ll be blamed if that old lady didn’t pull out a great
big pair of yarn socks and hand ’em to Mr. Lincoln.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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