FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>   >|  
"ABE, YOU CAN'T PLAY THAT ON ME." The night President-elect Lincoln arrived at Washington, one man was observed watching Lincoln very closely as he walked out of the railroad station. Standing a little to one side, the man looked very sharply at Lincoln, and, as the latter passed, seized hold of his hand, and said in a loud tone of voice, "Abe, you can't play that on me!" Ward Lamon and the others with Lincoln were instantly alarmed, and would have struck the stranger had not Lincoln hastily said, "Don't strike him! It is Washburne. Don't you know him?" Mr. Seward had given Congressman Washburne a hint of the time the train would arrive, and he had the right to be at the station when the train steamed in, but his indiscreet manner of loudly addressing the President-elect might have led to serious consequences to the latter. HIS "BROAD" STORIES. Mrs. Rose Linder Wilkinson, who often accompanied her father, Judge Linder, in the days when he rode circuit with Mr. Lincoln, tells the following story: "At night, as a rule, the lawyers spent awhile in the parlor, and permitted the women who happened to be along to sit with them. But after half an hour or so we would notice it was time for us to leave them. I remember traveling the circuit one season when the young wife of one of the lawyers was with him. The place was so crowded that she and I were made to sleep together. When the time came for banishing us from the parlor, we went up to our room and sat there till bed-time, listening to the roars that followed each ether swiftly while those lawyers down-stairs told stories and laughed till the rafters rang. "In the morning Mr. Lincoln said to me: 'Rose, did we disturb your sleep last night?' I answered, 'No, I had no sleep'--which was not entirely true but the retort amused him. Then the young lawyer's wife complained to him that we were not fairly used. We came along with them, young women, and when they were having the best time we were sent away like children to go to bed in the dark. "'But, Madame,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'you would not enjoy the things we laugh at.' And then he entered into a discussion on what have been termed his 'broad' stories. He deplored the fact that men seemed to remember them longer and with less effort than any others. "My father said: 'But, Lincoln, I don't remember the "broad" part of your stories so much as I do the moral that is in them,' and it was a thing in which t
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114  
115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Lincoln

 
remember
 

lawyers

 

stories

 

Washburne

 

father

 

circuit

 

Linder

 
parlor
 

President


station

 

laughed

 

morning

 

disturb

 

banishing

 
rafters
 

listening

 

swiftly

 
stairs
 

termed


deplored

 

entered

 

discussion

 

longer

 
effort
 

things

 

lawyer

 

complained

 

fairly

 

amused


retort

 

answered

 
children
 
Madame
 

seized

 

instantly

 

Seward

 

strike

 

hastily

 

alarmed


struck

 
stranger
 

passed

 

sharply

 

arrived

 

Washington

 

observed

 

Standing

 
looked
 
railroad