cabins in conscious security. Here was a man who seemed, to these
simple-minded people, to be afraid to sleep in his own house without
special and extraordinary protection from Almighty God. These old
settlers thought nothing but the consciousness of guilt, the stings of a
guilty conscience, could account for such timidity. Forquer and his
lightning-rod were talked over in every settlement from Sangamon to the
Illinois and the Wabash. Whenever he rose to speak thereafter, they
said, 'There is the man who dare not sleep in his own house without a
lightning-rod to keep off the vengeance of the Almighty.'"

Another amusing incident of the same campaign, and one which illustrates
Lincoln's love of a practical joke, is given as follows: "Among the
Democrats stumping the county at this time was one Dick Taylor, a most
pompous person, who was always arrayed in the richest attire--ruffled
shirts, seals, etc., besides a rich embroidered vest. Notwithstanding
this array, he made great pretentions of being one of the 'hard-handed
yeomanry,' and ridiculed with much sarcasm the 'rag barons' and
'manufacturing lords' of the Whig party. One day, when he was
particularly aggravating in a speech of this kind, Lincoln decided on a
little sport, and sidling up to Taylor suddenly threw open the latter's
coat, showing to the astonished spectators a glittering mass of ruffled
shirt, gold watch, and glittering jewels. The crowd shouted
uproariously. Lincoln said: 'While he [Colonel Taylor] was making these
charges against the Whigs over the country, riding in fine carriages,
wearing ruffled shirts, kid gloves, massive gold watch-chains with large
gold seals, and flourishing a heavy gold-headed cane, I was a poor boy,
hired on a flatboat at eight dollars a month, and had only one pair of
breeches to my name, and they were buckskin,--and if you know the nature
of buckskin, when wet and dried by the sun it will shrink,--and mine
kept shrinking until they left several inches of my legs bare between
the tops of my socks and the lower part of my breeches. Whilst I was
growing taller, they were becoming shorter and so much tighter that they
left a blue streak around my legs that can be seen to this day. If you
call this aristocracy, I plead guilty to the charge.'"

"The Saturday evening preceding the election," says Mr. Lamon, "the
candidates were addressing the people in the Court House at Springfield.
Dr. Early, one of the candidates on the Democ