him to study law. Stuart was himself engaged
in a large and lucrative practice at Springfield.

Lincoln said he was poor--that he had no money to buy books, or to live
where books might be borrowed or used. Major Stuart offered to lend him
all he needed, and he decided to take the kind lawyer's advice, and accept
his offer. At the close of the canvass which resulted in his election, he
walked to Springfield, borrowed "a load" of books of Stuart, and took them
home with him to New Salem.

Here he began the study of law in good earnest, though with no preceptor.
He studied while he had bread, and then started out on a surveying tour to
win the money that would buy more.

One who remembers his habits during this period says that he went, day
after day, for weeks, and sat under an oak tree near New Salem and read,
moving around to keep in the shade as the sun moved. He was so much
absorbed that some people thought and said that he was crazy.

[Illustration]
Not unfrequently he met and passed his best friends without noticing them.
The truth was that he had found the pursuit of his life, and had become
very much in earnest.

During Lincoln's campaign he possessed and rode a horse, to procure which
he had quite likely sold his compass and chain, for, as soon as the
canvass had closed, he sold the horse and bought these instruments
indispensable to him in the only pursuit by which he could make his
living.

When the time for the assembling of the legislature had arrived Lincoln
dropped his law books, shouldered his pack, and, on foot, trudged to
Vandalia, then the capital of the State, about a hundred miles, to make
his entrance into public life.

"The Long Nine."

The Sangamon County delegation to the Illinois Legislature, in 1834, of
which Lincoln was a member, consisting of nine representatives, was so
remarkable for the physical altitude of its members that they were known
as "The Long Nine." Not a member of the number was less than six feet
high, and Lincoln was the tallest of the nine, as he was the leading man
intellectually in and out of the House.

Among those who composed the House were General John A. McClernand,
afterwards a member of Congress; Jesse K. DuBois, afterwards Auditor of
the State; Jas. Semple, afterwards twice the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and subsequently United States Senator; Robert Smith,
afterwards member of Congress; John Hogan, after