nion, and not for the freedom of the negro slaves.
President "Abe" had patience, and everything came out all right in the
end.

GETTING RID OF AN ELEPHANT.

Charles A. Dana, who was Assistant Secretary of War under Mr. Stanton,
relates the following: A certain Thompson had been giving the government
considerable trouble. Dana received information that Thompson was about
to escape to Liverpool.

Calling upon Stanton, Dana was referred to Mr. Lincoln.

"The President was at the White House, business hours were over, Lincoln
was washing his hands. 'Hallo, Dana,' said he, as I opened the door,
'what is it now?' 'Well, sir,' I said, 'here is the Provost Marshal of
Portland, who reports that Jacob Thompson is to be in town to-night,
and inquires what orders we have to give.' 'What does Stanton say?'
he asked. 'Arrest him,' I replied. 'Well,' he continued, drawling his
words, 'I rather guess not. When you have an elephant on your hands, and
he wants to run away, better let him run.'"

GROTESQUE, YET FRIGHTFUL.

The nearest Lincoln ever came to a fight was when he was in the vicinity
of the skirmish at Kellogg's Grove, in the Black Hawk War. The rangers
arrived at the spot after the engagement and helped bury the five men
who were killed.

Lincoln told Noah Brooks, one of his biographers, that he "remembered
just how those men looked as we rode up the little hill where their camp
was. The red light of the morning sun was streaming upon them as they
lay, heads toward us, on the ground. And every man had a round, red spot
on the top of his head about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had
taken his scalp. It was frightful, but it was grotesque; and the red
sunlight seemed to paint everything all over."

Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid picture, and added, somewhat
irrelevantly, "I remember that one man had on buckskin breeches."

"ABE" WAS NO DUDE.

Always indifferent in matters of dress, Lincoln cut but small figure in
social circles, even in the earliest days of Illinois. His trousers were
too short, his hat too small, and, as a rule, the buttons on the back of
his coat were nearer his shoulder blades than his waist.

No man was richer than his fellows, and there was no aristocracy;
the women wore linsey-woolsey of home manufacture, and dyed them in
accordance with the tastes of the wearers; calico was rarely seen, and a
woman wearing a dress of that material was the envy of her siste