ree.(6)

But the village was a small part of Sangamon County. Though Lincoln
received a respectable number of votes elsewhere, his total was well
down in the running. He remained an inconspicuous minority candidate.

Meanwhile Offut's grocery had failed. In the midst of the legislative
campaign, Offut's farmer storekeeper volunteered for the Indian War
with Black Hawk, but returned to New Salem shortly before the election
without having once smelled powder. Since his peers were not of a
mind to give him immediate occupation in governing, he turned again to
business. He formed a partnership with a man named Berry. They bought on
credit the wreck of a grocery that had been sacked by Lincoln's friends
of Clary's Grove, and started business as "General Merchants," under the
style of Berry & Lincoln. There followed a year of complete unsuccess.
Lincoln demonstrated that he was far more inclined to read any chance
book that came his way than to attend to business, and that he had "no
money sense." The new firm went the way of Offut's grocery, leaving
nothing behind it but debt. The debts did not trouble Berry; Lincoln
assumed them all. They formed a dreadful load which he bore with his
usual patience and little by little discharged. Fifteen years passed
before again he was a free man financially.

A new and powerful influence came into his life during the half idleness
of his unsuccessful storekeeping. It is worth repeating in his own
words, or what seems to be the fairly accurate recollection of his
words: "One day a man who was migrating to the West, drove up in front
of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household
plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no
room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value.
I did not want it but to oblige him I bought it and paid him, I think,
a half a dollar for it. Without further examination I put it away in the
store and forgot all about it Sometime after, in overhauling things,
I came upon the barrel and emptying it upon the floor to see what it
contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of
Blackstone's Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had
plenty of time; for during the long summer days when the farmers were
busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I
read, the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was
my mind so thoroughl