BERRY AND LINCOLN'S GROCERY.--A SET OF BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES.--BERRY AND LINCOLN TAKE OUT A TAVERN LICENSE.--THE POSTMASTER OF NEW SALEM IN 1833.--LINCOLN BECOMES DEPUTY SURVEYOR.--THE FAILURE OF BERRY AND LINCOLN.--ELECTIONEERING IN ILLINOIS.--LINCOLN CHOSEN ASSEMBLYMAN.--BEGINS TO STUDY LAW.--THE ILLINOIS STATE LEGISLATURE IN 1834.--THE STORY OF ANN RUTLEDGE.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT TWENTY-SIX YEARS OF AGE. _Embodying special studies in Lincoln's life at New Salem by J. McCan Davis._ LOOKING FOR WORK. It was in August, 1832, that Lincoln made his unsuccessful canvass for the Illinois Assembly. The election over, he began to look for work. One of his friends, an admirer of his physical strength, advised him to become a blacksmith, but it was a trade which would afford little leisure for study, and for meeting and talking with men; and he had already resolved, it is evident, that books and men were essential to him. The only employment to be had in New Salem which seemed to offer both support and the opportunities he sought, was clerking in a store; and he applied for a place successively at all of the stores then doing business in New Salem. But they were in greater need of customers than of clerks. The business had been greatly overdone. In the fall of 1832 there were at least four stores in New Salem. The most pretentious was that of Hill and McNeill, which carried a large line of dry goods. The three others, owned by the Herndon Brothers, Reuben Radford, and James Rutledge, were groceries. DECIDES TO BUY A STORE.