Mr. Lincoln, about this time, was offered the nomination for Governor of Illinois, and declined the honor. Mrs. Lincoln, who had supreme confidence in her husband's ability, tried to make him more self-seeking in his political efforts. He visited his old home in Indiana, making several speeches in that part of the State. It was fourteen years after he and all the family had removed to Illinois. One of his speeches was delivered from the door of a harness shop near Gentryville, and one he made in the "Old Carter Schoolhouse." After this address he drove home with Mr. Josiah Crawford--"Old Blue Nose" for whom he had "pulled fodder" to pay an exorbitant price for Weems's "Life of Washington," and in whose house his sister and he had lived as hired girl and hired man. He delighted the old friends by asking about everybody, and being interested in the "old swimming-hole," Jones's grocery where he had often argued and "held forth," the saw-pit, the old mill, the blacksmith shop, whose owner, Mr. Baldwin, had told him some of his best stories, and where he once started in to learn the blacksmith's trade. He went around and called on all his former acquaintances who were still living in the neighborhood. His memories were so vivid and his emotions so keen that he wrote a long poem about this, from which the following are three stanzas: "My childhood's home I see again And sadden with the view; And still, as memory crowds the brain, There's pleasure in it, too. "Ah, Memory! thou midway world 'Twixt earth and paradise, Where things decayed and loved ones lost In dreamy shadows rise. "And freed from all that's earthy, vile, Seems hallowed, pure and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle, All bathed in liquid light." TRYING TO SAVE BILLY FROM A BAD HABIT As Mr. Lincoln spent so much of his time away from Springfield he felt that he needed a younger assistant to "keep office" and look after his cases in the different courts. He should not have made "Billy" Herndon an equal partner, but he did so, though the young man had neither the ability nor experience to earn anything like half the income of the office. If Herndon had kept sober and done his best he might have made some return for all that Mr. Lincoln, who treated him like a foster-father, was trying to do for him. But "Billy" did nothing of the sort. He took advantage of his senior partner's absences by going on sprees with several dissipated young men about town. WHAT LAWYER LINCOLN DID WITH A FAT FEE A Springfield gentleman relates the following story which shows Lawyer Lincoln's business methods, his unwillingness to charge much for his legal services; and his great longing to save his young partner from the clutches of drink: