Lincoln's tenderness of heart was displayed in his treatment of animals, toward which he was often performing unusual acts of kindness. On one occasion, as Mr. Speed relates, Lincoln and the other members of the Springfield bar had been attending court at Christiansburg, and Mr. Speed was riding with them toward Springfield. There was quite a party of these lawyers, riding two by two along a country lane. Lincoln and John J. Hardin brought up the rear of the cavalcade. "We had passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees," says Mr. Speed, "and stopped to water our horses. Hardin came up alone. 'Where is Lincoln?' we inquired. 'Oh,' replied he, 'when I saw him last he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown out of their nests, and he was hunting the nest to put them back.' In a short time Lincoln came up, having found the nest and placed the young birds in it. The party laughed at him; but he said, 'I could not have slept if I had not restored those little birds to their mother.'" Again, as Dr. Holland narrates, "Lincoln was one day riding by a deep slough or pit in which, to his exceeding pain, he saw a pig struggling, and with such faint efforts that it was evident that he could not extricate himself. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud that enveloped him, and then looked ruefully at some new clothes in which he had but a short time before enveloped himself. Deciding against the claims of the pig he rode on; but he could not get rid of the vision of the poor brute, and at last, after riding two miles, he turned back, determined to rescue the animal at the expense of his new clothes. Arrived at the spot, he tied his horse, and coolly went to work to build of old rails a passage to the bottom of the hole. Descending on these rails, he seized the pig and dragged him out, but not without serious damage to the clothes he wore. Washing his hands in the nearest brook and wiping them on the grass, he mounted his gig and rode along. He then fell to examining the motive that sent him back to the release of the pig. At the first thought it seemed to be pure benevolence; but at length he came to the conclusion that it was selfishness, for he certainly went to the pig's relief in order (as he said to the friend to whom he related the incident) to 'take a pain out of his own mind.'"