Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN• 117pale. He was startled, and he got up, but the illusion vanished.He lay down again, and there was the ghost, plainer than before.The thing worried and haunted him; and he told Mrs. Lincolnabout it. She was sure it was a sign that he would be electedto a second term of office, but that the death pallor of one facemeant he would not live through the second term.Lincoln himself soon came to believe very strongly that hewas going to Washington to die. He received scores of letterswith sketches of gibbets and stilettoes; and almost every mailbrought him threats of death.After the election, Lincoln said to a friend:"I am worrying to know what to do with my house. I don'twant to sell myself out of a home, but if I rent it, it will bepretty well used up by the time I get back."But finally he found a man who he thought would take careof the place and keep it in repair; so Lincoln rented it to himfor ninety dollars a year; and then inserted this notice in the"Springfield Journal":The furniture consisting of Parlor and Chamber Sets,Carpets, Sofas, Chairs, Wardrobes, Bureaus, Bedsteads,Stoves, China, Queensware, Glass, etc., at the residence onthe corner of Eighth and Jackson Street isoffered at privatesale without reserve. For particulars apply at thepremises at once.One wanted aThe neighbors came and looked things over.few chairs and a cook-stove, another asked the price of a bed."Take whatever you want," Lincoln probably replied, "andpay me what you think it is worth."They paid him little enough.Mr. L. L. Tilton, superintendent of the Great Western Railway,bought most of the furniture; and later took it with him toChicago, where it was destroyed in the great fire of 1871.A few pieces remained in Springfield; and years afterward abookseller purchased as much of it as possible and took it toWashington and installed it in the rooming-house where Lincolndied. That house stands almost directly across the street fromFord's Theater, and is now the property of the United StatesGovernment—a national shrine and museum.The second-hand chairs that Lincoln's neighbors could havebought for a dollar and a half apiece, are to-day worth more