at Alton; but it was necessary for
him to attend to some things this day in preparation of being absent
to-morrow. In the afternoon he had to drive out to his farm, and I went
with him. And when we came within a short distance of the log cabin,
where I had spent my first winter on the farm, I was seized with a
desire to see it again. There was so much of Rome and Italy fresh in my
mind with which to contrast my previous life. And we drove to the cabin.

The door had fallen to one side. The clay between the logs had dried,
turned to dust, and fallen away. The roof had sagged. The fireplace was
going to wreck. We looked in. Weeds had grown up during the summer
through the crevices of the floor. The place was lonely and haunted.
"Well," said Reverdy, "this is the kind of a home that Lincoln had as a
boy. He was born in a cabin like this; and he's poor now. He has never
got rich like Douglas has. And Douglas will soon be as poor as Lincoln
if he keeps on at the same rate spending money in this campaign. They
say he has mortgaged nearly all his property in Chicago. Everybody's
fighting him--the Republicans, all the Abolitionists, and half the
Democrats. This campaign means his political death or life."

"You say Lincoln was born in a log cabin. Is this a campaign of the log
cabin, hard cider, and war records?"

"Well, perhaps more log cabins, but no war record. Lincoln was never in
any war but the Black Hawk. He was against the Mexican War; and when in
Congress voted for resolutions that the war was unconstitutional and
improper. No, he is not old Harrison or old Zach Taylor. Still the log
cabin is in the fight."

Then Reverdy went on to tell me that Lincoln was a clean man and that
the Republicans had no abler man in Illinois; that he had been a good
deal in politics after all, though quiet for about ten years. That while
Douglas had been Senator, chairman of the committee on territories, his
name on everybody's tongue, the most prominent man and the most active
in the whole country, building railroads, organizing territories,
battling with Great Britain, settling California and Oregon, and Kansas
and Nebraska, traveling abroad into Russia and Asiatic Europe, and
companioning with notables everywhere, making money almost like a
millionaire, Lincoln had been over at Springfield practicing law,
talking on the street corners, sitting in his office alone in
reflection, sometimes reading; but all the while, in a way, resting.