n! Lincoln's wealth
of funny stories gave Offut's grocery somewhat the role of a vaudeville
theater and made the storekeeper as popular a man as there was in New
Salem.

In another way he repeated his conquest of Pigeon Creek. New Salem had
its local Alsatia known as Clary's Grove whose insolent young toughs led
by their chief, Jack Armstrong, were the terror of the neighborhood. The
groceries paid them tribute in free drinks. Any luckless storekeeper
who incurred their displeasure found his store some fine morning a total
wreck. Lincoln challenged Jack Armstrong to a duel with fists. It was
formally arranged. A ring was formed; the whole village was audience;
and Lincoln thrashed him to a finish. But this was only a small part
of his triumph. His physical prowess, joined with his humor and his
companionableness; entirely captivated Clary's Grove. Thereafter, it was
storekeeper Lincoln's pocket borough; its ruffians were his body-guard.
Woe to any one who made trouble for their hero.

There were still other causes for his quick rise to the position of
village leader. His unfailing kindness was one; his honesty was another.
Tales were related of his scrupulous dealings, such as walking a
distance of miles in order to correct a trifling error he had made, in
selling a poor woman less than the proper weight of tea. Then, too, by
New Salem standards, he was educated. Long practice on the shovel at
Pigeon Creek had given him a good handwriting, and one of the first
things he did at New Salem was to volunteer to be clerk of elections.
And there was a distinct moral superiority. Little as this would have
signified unbacked by his giant strength since it had that authority
behind it his morality set him apart from his followers, different,
imposing. He seldom, if ever, drank whisky. Sobriety was already the
rule of his life, both outward and inward. At the same time he was
not censorious. He accepted the devotion of Clary's Grove without
the slightest attempt to make over its bravoes in his own image. He
sympathized with its ideas of sport. For all his kindliness to humans of
every sort much of his sensitiveness for animals had passed away. He was
not averse to cock fighting; he enjoyed a horse race.(5) Altogether, in
his outer life, before the catastrophe that revealed him to himself,
he was quite as much in the tone of New Salem as ever in that of Pigeon
Creek. When the election came he got every vote in New Salem except
th