e felt that he really couldn't afford
to spoil them for the sake of any pig, so he whipped up his horse
and drove on. But the pig was in his mind, and he could think of
nothing else. After he had gone about two miles, he said to himself,
I've no right to leave that poor creature there to die in the mud,
and what is more, I won't leave him. Turning his horse, he drove back
to the spot. He got out and carried half a dozen fence-rails to the
edge of the hole, and placed them so that he could get to it without
falling in himself. Then, kneeling down, he bent over, seized the
pig firmly by the fore legs and drew him up on to the solid ground,
where he was safe. The pig grunted out his best thanks, and Lincoln,
plastered with mud, but with a light heart, drove on to the
court-house.

[Illustration: LINCOLN AND THE PIG.]

257. Lincoln is elected to the state legislature; he goes to
Springfield to live; he is elected to Congress.--Many people in
Illinois thought that they would like to see such a man in the state
legislature[12] helping to make their laws. They elected him; and
as he was too poor at that time to pay so much horse-hire, he walked
from New Salem, a distance of over a hundred miles, to Vandalia,[13]
which was then the capital of the state.

Lincoln was elected to the legislature many times; later, he moved
to Springfield, Illinois, and made that place his home for the rest
of his life.

The next time the people elected him to office, they sent him to
Congress to help make laws, not for his state only, but for the whole
country. He had got a long way up since the time when he worked with
John Hanks[14] fencing the cornfield round his father's cabin; but
he was going higher still,--he was going to the top.

[Footnote 12: Legislature: persons chosen by the people of a state
or country to make its laws.]

[Footnote 13: Vandalia (Van-da'li-a).]

[Footnote 14: John Hanks: see paragraph 250.]

258. The meeting for choosing a candidate[15] for President of the
United States; the two fence-rails; the Chicago meeting; Abraham
Lincoln elected President of the United States.--In the spring of
1860 a great convention, or meeting, was held in one of the towns
of Illinois. Lincoln was present at that convention. The object of
the people who had gathered there was to choose a candidate that they
would like to see elected President of the United States. A number
of speeches had been made, when a member of the conven