sence--although he almost never was
absent--was feared with the liveliest emotions of anxiety, was 'Uncle
Abe,' as he was lovingly called by us all. Sometimes he might happen to
be a day or two late. Then, as the Bloomington stage came in at sundown,
the bench and bar, jurors and citizens, would gather in crowds at the
hotel where he always put up, to give him a welcome if, happily, he
should arrive, and to experience the keenest feelings of disappointment
if he should not. If he arrived, as he alighted and stretched out both
his long arms to shake hands with those nearest to him and with those
who approached, his homely face handsome in its broad and sunshiny
smile, his voice touching in its kindly and cheerful accents, everyone
in his presence felt lighter in heart and more joyous. He brought light
with him. He loved his fellow-men with all the strength of his great
nature, and those who came in contact with him could not help
reciprocating the love."

Another old friend describes Lincoln as being at this time "very plain
in his costume, as well as rather uncourtly in his address and general
appearance. His clothing was of home Kentucky jean, and the first
impression made by his tall, lank figure upon those who saw him was not
specially prepossessing. He had not outgrown his hard backwoods
experience, and showed no inclination to disguise or to cast behind him
the honest and manly though unpolished characteristics of his earlier
days. Never was a man further removed from all snobbish affectation. As
little was there, also, of the demagogue art of assuming an uncouthness
or rusticity of manner and outward habit with the mistaken notion of
thus securing particular favor as 'one of the masses.' He chose to
appear then, as in all his later life, precisely what he was. His
deportment was unassuming, though without any awkwardness of reserve."

Mr. Crane, an old settler of Tazewell County, says he used to see
Lincoln when passing through Washington, in that county, on his way to
attend court at Metamora; and he remembers him as "dressed in a homespun
coat that came below his knees and was out at both elbows."

Lincoln's tenderness of heart was displayed in his treatment of animals,
toward which he was often performing unusual acts of kindness. On one
occasion, as Mr. Speed relates, Lincoln and the other members of the
Springfield bar had been attending court at Christiansburg, and Mr.
Speed was riding with them toward Spr