a pair of saddle-bags containing a few
clothes. I was a merchant at Springfield, and kept a large country
store, embracing dry-goods, groceries, hardware, books, medicines,
bed-clothes, mattresses--in fact, everything that the country needed.
Lincoln came into the store with his saddle-bags on his arm. He
said he wanted to buy the furniture for a single bed. The mattress,
blankets, sheets, coverlid, and pillow, according to the figures made
by me, would cost seventeen dollars. He said that perhaps was cheap
enough; but small as the price was, he was unable to pay it. But if I
would credit him till Christmas, and his experiment as a lawyer was a
success, he would pay then; saying in the saddest tone, 'If I fail in
this I do not know that I can ever pay you.' As I looked up at him I
thought then, and I think now, that I never saw a sadder face.

"I said to him: 'You seem to be so much pained at contracting so small
a debt, I think I can suggest a plan by which you can avoid the debt,
and at the same time attain your end. I have a large room with a
double bed upstairs, which you are very welcome to share with me.'

"'Where is your room?' said he.

"'Upstairs,' said I, pointing to a pair of winding stairs which led
from the store to my room.

"He took his saddle-bags on his arm, went upstairs, set them on the
floor, and came down with the most changed expression of countenance.
Beaming with pleasure, he exclaimed:

"'Well, Speed, I am moved.'"

Another friend, William Butler, with whom Lincoln had become intimate
at Vandalia, took him to board; life at Springfield thus began under
as favorable auspices as he could hope for.

After Chicago, Springfield was at that day the most promising city in
Illinois. It had some fifteen hundred inhabitants, and the removal of
the capital was certain to bring many more. Already, in fact, the town
felt the effect. Houses and blocks were started; lawyers, politicians,
tradesmen, laborers, were pouring in. Hitherto most of the dwellings
had been of log or frame; now, however, there was an increase in brick
buildings.

The effect was apparent too, in society. "We used to eat all
together," said an old man who in the early thirties came to
Springfield as a hostler; "but about this time some one came along and
told the people they oughtn't to do so, and then the hired folks ate
in the kitchen." This differentiation was apparent to Lincoln and
a little discouraging. He was thinking vag