" I said, "Yes; in the
Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts." He then threw his leg over the corner
of the big chair and said, "I have heard many a time, ever since I was
young, that up there in those hills you have to sharpen the noses of the
sheep in order to get down to the grass between the rocks." He was so
familiar, so everyday, so farmer-like, that I felt right at home with
him at once.

He then took hold of another roll of paper, and looked up at me and
said, "Good morning." I took the hint then and got up and went out.
After I had gotten out I could not realize I had seen the President of
the United States at all. But a few days later, when still in the city,
I saw the crowd pass through the East Room by the coffin of Abraham
Lincoln, and when I looked at the upturned face of the murdered
President I felt then that the man I had seen such a short time before,
who, so simple a man, so plain a man, was one of the greatest men that
God ever raised up to lead a nation on to ultimate liberty. Yet he was
only "Old Abe" to his neighbors. When they had the second funeral, I was
invited among others, and went out to see that same coffin put back in
the tomb at Springfield. Around the tomb stood Lincoln's old neighbors,
to whom he was just "Old Abe." Of course that is all they would say.

Did you ever see a man who struts around altogether too large to notice
an ordinary working mechanic? Do you think he is great? He is nothing
but a puffed-up balloon, held down by his big feet. There is no
greatness there.

Who are the great men and women? My attention was called the other day
to the history of a very little thing that made the fortune of a very
poor man. It was an awful thing, and yet because of that experience
he--not a great inventor or genius--invented the pin that now is called
the safety-pin, and out of that safety-pin made the fortune of one of
the great aristocratic families of this nation.

A poor man in Massachusetts who had worked in the nail-works was injured
at thirty-eight, and he could earn but little money. He was employed in
the office to rub out the marks on the bills made by pencil memorandums,
and he used a rubber until his hand grew tired. He then tied a piece of
rubber on the end of a stick and worked it like a plane. His little girl
came and said, "Why, you have a patent, haven't you?" The father said
afterward, "My daughter told me when I took that stick and put the
rubber on the end that there w