Lincoln, the unknown

54 •LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN"I came to Illinois as a poor, strange, friendless, uneducatedboy, and started working on a flatboat for eight dollars amonth, and I had only one pair of breeches to my back, andthey were buckskin. When buckskin gets wet and dried by thesun, it shrinks; and my breeches kept shrinking until they leftseveral inches of my legs bare between the lower part of mybreeches and the top of my socks. And while I was growingtaller, the breeches were getting wet and becoming shorter andtighter until they left a blue streak around my legs that can beseen to this day. Now, if you call that being a fancily dressedaristocrat, I must plead guilty to the charge."The audience whistled and shouted and shrieked its approval.When Lincoln and Mary reached the Edwards house, shetold him how proud she was of him, that he was a great speaker,and that some day he would be President.He looked down at her, standing beside him in the moonlight,and her manner told him everything. Reaching over,he took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. . . .The wedding-day was set for the first of January, 1841.That was only six months away, but many a storm was tobrew and blow before then.