At one of Uncle Abe's levees recently, among the Company was a
Pennsylvania Avenue tailor whom Abe recognized but could not name. "My
dear Sir} I remember your face, but I forget your name," said Uncle Abe.
The knight of the needle whispered confidentially into Uncle Abe's ear.
"I made your breeches." Uncle Abe took him most affectionately by the
hand and exclaimed enthusiastically "Major Breeches, I am happy to meet
you at the White House!"
A Dry Drop.
A refugee from Richmond was telling Uncle Abe of the sad state of
affairs reigning there. Among other things he said liquor was so scarce
that the rebel President himself could scarcely get a drop to drink.
"He ought not to have a drop _to drink_ in this world or the next," said
Uncle Abe.
"You are rather severe," replied the refugee.
"Well," said Uncle Abe, "if you think a drop would do him good, let it
be a drop from the scaffold."
Uncle Abe as a Physiognomist.
While the western governors were in conversation the other day, one of
them asked him if he remembered a certain Major of the ------ Illinois
regiment.
Uncle Abe replied that "he could'nt say that he did." The gentleman
who addressed him then tried to jog the executive memory a little by
mentioning a circumstance or two connected with the Major's history.
Finally Uncle Abe remembered him very well--which fact he stated in
the following graphic language: "O yes, I know who you mean. _It's that
turkey egg faced fellow that you'd think did'nt know as much as a last
year's bird's nest_." This was the very individual referred to. It will
be seen that Uncle Abe has other fortes than statesmanship--and that of
a physiognoist is one of them.
The Concrete vs. the Abstract.
Dick Yates, the jolly Governor of the Suckers, tells that he called
on Uncle Abe one morning when he was trying to get the 88,000
"Hundredazers" accepted, and that during their interview Uncle Abe
remarked: "Yates, I'll tell you the difference between the concrete and
the abstract. When the Senate passed a resolution requesting me not to
appoint any more Brigadiers, as the vacancies were all full, that's the
concrete. But when a Senator comes up here with a long petition and a
longer face, requesting me to make a brigadier out of some scallawag of
a friend of his, as it happens every day--I call that the abstract."
Symptoms of Civilization.
Uncle Abe and his chums were wrecked and swamped once on a trip to
New Orleans, and having waded ashore, were in search of shelter and
refreshment, without much prospect of success, in a thickly timbered
bottom. They had traveled through the forest a long distance, and were
in despair of finding any human habitation, when they discovered a negro
hanging on the projecting limb of a tree. "The joy," said Abe, when
telling the adventure, "which this cheering view excited, cannot be
described, for it convinced us that we were in a _civilized country._"
Uncle Abe goes into Partnership.
In the days when Uncle Abe plied the flat-boat business on the Wabash
and Sangamon, he made it a practice to troll for catfish and dispose
of them to the planters in Mississippi, when passing their plantations.
This brought him quite a revenue, which was always expended for "forty
rod" whisky, or the fish were traded off direct for that fluid chain
lightning. Once while passing the plantation of Mr. Percy, he was bound
to have some forty rod, and went ashore with a fine lot of fish. A large
party were assembled at the mansion of the aristocratic Percy; when
Julius C├Žsar informed him that Uncle Abe was below with some very fine
fish. "Well," said Percy, "give him his forty rod as usual, and let him
go."
"But sah, he won't take it dis time," said the darkey, "he wants a
hundred lashes on the bare back, well laid on massa." Uncle Abe insisted
to the surprise of every one on this strange price for his fish, and Mr.
Percy to humor him, complied, directing the overseer to cut him gently.
When Uncle Abe had received the fiftieth lash, he cried, "Hold! I have
got a partner in this business, to whom I have engaged to give half of
whatever I should get for the fish--this overseer would not admit me
only on that condition." O course the overseer had his share well paid,
and Abe got his forty-rod as usual, with something added.
Abe Passing Counterfeit Money.
One day a poor woman ran into Uncle Abe's law office in great fright
exclaiming:--
"Oh, Mr. Lincoln, my boy has swallowed a penny!"
"Was it a counterfeit," coolly asked Mr. Lincoln.
"No, certainly not," replied the woman, somewhat indignantly.
"Oh! well, then _it will pass_, of course," said Uncle Abe.
It is hardly necessary to add that the anxious mother went home
comforted and that the boy who "swallowed the penny," at the last
Presidentia-election voted for "Honest Old Abe."
The Wrong Man Poulticed.
At the famous watering place, of the Blue Lick Springs, Uncle Abe
was severely afflicted with a pain in the stomach, which neither gin
cock-tails nor other cordials could remove. It was night and he was in
bed. His loving wife, unwilling to awake the domestics, descended to
the kitchen, and prepared mustard poultice, which she spread on her own
handkerchief, and proceeded with it to the distressed Uncle Abe. Before
leaving him, she left a light dimly burning in the apartment; but deeply
impressed with anxiety, she was not as careful as she might have been in
noting the number of her room.
Guided by a light which she saw shining in a chamber, and which she
supposed was the one she had left, she entered, and gently raising the
bed clothes, &c., laid the warm poultice upon a stomach but not the
stomach of Uncle Abe.
"Hello there! What the -------- are you about?" shouted a voice of
thunder, and the body and sleeves? whence it issued, sprang out of bed.
The lady screamed and ran; Uncle Abe rushed to the rescue from the next
room, the waiters joined and a small scene ensued, much to the amusement
of all concerned. The poulticed gentleman had indiscreetly left a light
in his room, and this lured the lady from her path.
Uncle Abe was so amused and excited by the mistake that he quite forgot
his pains; but early the next morning, with his wife and trunks,
left for Springfield, 111. The poulticed man still retains the
handkerchief--a beautiful cambric--with the lady's name on it, the
initials of Frances Amelia E. Todd.
Uncle Abe as School Superintendent.
When Uncle Abe kept grocery on the Sangamon he was elected as School
Superintendent out of his district. It was his duty to examine the
applicant teachers on mathematics; which he once did in this wise in his
grocery store. "If two pigs weigh twenty pounds how much will a large
hog weigh."
"Jump into the scales," said the weilder of the birch, "and I'll soon tell
you."
Abe did not examine him further in mathematics.
Uncle Abe's Nose.
Uncle Abe being asked once why he walked so crookedly? said, "Oh my
nose, you see, is crooked, and I have to follow it!"
Take Away the Fowls.
After Uncle Abe had studied law some time and whilst travelling in the
Prairie country in Knox County, Illinois, he stopped at the house of
Mrs. Galt, an old Scotch lady whose husband was largely engaged in wool
growing. Abe at this time was beginning to be proud of his learning,
especially of his pronunciation of English. Mrs. Galt when dinner was
over desired the servant in waiting to take away the fowls, which she,
(as is sometimes done in Scotland), pronounced _fools_, "I presume,
madam, you mean fowls" said Abe rather sententiously. "Very well, be it
so," said Mrs. Galt; "take away the _fowls_, but let the _fool_ remain!"
Uncle Abe Well Fed.
Old Whitey, Abe's school master, said to him angrily one day, "Abraham
you are better fed than taught!"
"Should think I was," said Abe, "as I feed myself and you teach me!"
Uncle Abe says there is a good deal of the devil in the Rebels. They
sometimes fight like him, frequently run like him, and always lie like
him.
A Man of Means.
Uncle Abe was asked by a client whether his neighbor Brown was "a man of
means."
"Well I reckon he ought to be," said Abe, "for he is just the meanest
man in Springfield."
Call Again.
When Uncle Abe was taken sick recently, and Mrs Lincoln had sent for
the doctor; Uncle Abe, having an aversion to physic, said, he had better
call another time, as he was too sick then to joke with him.
Uncle Abe Swapped when a Baby.
Abe when asked whether he could account for his excessive homeliness
said "when I was two months old I was the handsomest child in Kentuck,
but my nigger nurse swapped me off for another boy just to please
a friend who was going down the river whose child was rather plain
looking."
Hit at Antietam.
Another story of Uncle Abe, too good to be lost, has leaked out. It
seems he had accompanied a young lady to one of the hospitals in
the capitol where the sympathizing creature, as in duty bound became
interested in a wounded soldier. To all her inquiries as to the location
of the wound, however, she could only get one reply, thus: "My good
fellow where were you hit!"
"At Antietam."
"Yes, but where did the bullet strike you?"
"At Antietam."
"But where did it hit you!"
"At Antietam." Becoming discouraged, she deputized Uncle Abe to
prosecute the inquiry, which he did successfully Upon his rejoining her,
she was more curious than, ever, when the President, taking both her
hands in his said in his most impressive style. "My dear girl, the ball
that hit _him_, would not have injured _you_."
A Poor Crop.
An old acquaintance of Uncle Abe's called upon him a short time since
with the view to getting hold of a contract. Uncle Abe told him that
contracts were not what they were in Cameron's time. "In fact," said he,
"they remind me now of a piece of meadow land on the Sangamon bottoms
during a drouth."
"How was that?" said the Sucker--"Why," said Abe, looking rather
quizical, "the grass was so short that they had to lather before they
could mow it."
Handy in Case of Emergencies.
During the fall of 1863, Uncle Abe was riding on the Virginia side of
the Potomac, between Arlington Heights and Alexandria, accompanied by
Dr. N-------- of New Jersey. Passing the huge earth-work fortifications,
the Doctor observed: "Mr. President, I have never yet been enabled to
discover the utility of constructing and maintaining those forts. What
is your opinion about them?"
"Well doctor," replied Uncle Abe, "you are a medical man! and I will ask
you a question in the line of your profession. Can you tell me the use
of a man's nipples?"
"No I can't" said the doctor "Well I can tell you," said Uncle
Abe,--"They would be mighty handy if he happened to have a child."
Value of a Reputation.
A client of Uncle Abe's was tried for stealing, in Springfield,
Illinois, when it was satisfactorily proven that he had acknowledged the
theft to several persons. Uncle Abe argued in behalf of his client that
he was such an abominable liar that no one could believe him and the
jury ought not to. The judge charged against the prisoner, but to his
astonishment the jury brought in a verdict that the accused was entirely
unworthy of belief; and he was therefore acquitted.
Didn't Like the Name.
A young U. S. Officer being indicted at Chicago, for an assault on
an aged gentleman, Uncle Abe began to open the case thus: "this is an
indictment against a soldier for assaulting an old man."
"Sir," indignantly interrupted the defendant, "I am no soldier, I am an
officer!"
"I beg your pardon," said Abe, grinning blandly; "then, gentlemen of the
jury, this is an indictment against _an officer_, who is _no soldier_,
for assaulting an old man."
Uncle Abe's Good Bye.
When Uncle Abe joined the Sangamon Militia and entered on the Black Hawk
war campaign, his Colonel was a small snipe of a fellow about four feet
three inches. Physically, of course, Uncle Abe looked down upon his
Colonel. Abe had rather a slouching look and gait at that time, and
attracted by his awkward appearance, the dapper little Colonel thus
saluted the future Executive and manufacturer of both Colonels and
Brigadiers. "Come, Uncle Abe, hold up your head; higher, fellow!"
"Yes sir."
"Higher, fellow--higher." Abe stretched his lank neck to its greatest
altitudinous tension and said, "What--so, Sir?"
"Yes, fellow, a little higher."
"And am I always to remain so?"
"Yes, fellow, certainly!"
"Then," said Uncle Abe, with a woeful countenance, "good bye, Colonel,
for I shall never see _you again!_"
Uncle Abe's Last.
Yesterday a Western correspondent, in search for something definite in
relation to the fighting now going on, stepped into the White House and
asked the President if he had anything authentic from Gen. Grant.
The President stated that he had not, as Grant, was like the man that
climbed the pole and then pulled the pole up after him.-- _Washington
Union, May 16_.