In the Executive Chamber one evening, there were present a number of
gentlemen, among them Mr. Seward.
A point in the conversation suggesting the thought, the President said:
“Seward, you never heard, did you, how I earned my first dollar?”
“No,” rejoined Mr. Seward. “Well,” continued Mr. Lincoln, “I was about
eighteen years of age. I belonged, you know, to what they call down
South, the ‘scrubs;’ people who do not own slaves are nobody there. But
we had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient produce,
as I thought, to justify me in taking it down the river to sell.
“After much persuasion, I got the consent of mother to go, and
constructed a little flatboat, large enough to take a barrel or two of
things that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to
New Orleans. A steamer was coming down the river. We have, you know,
no wharves on the Western streams; and the custom was, if passengers
were at any of the landings, for them to go out in a boat, the steamer
stopping and taking them on board.
“I was contemplating my new flatboat, and wondering whether I could
make it stronger or improve it in any particular, when two men came
down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and looking at the
different boats singled out mine, and asked, ‘Who owns this?’ I
answered, somewhat modestly, ‘I do.’ ‘Will you,’ said one of them,
‘take us and our trunks out to the steamer?’ ‘Certainly,’ said I. I
was very glad to have the chance of earning something. I supposed that
each of them would give me two or three bits. The trunks were put on my
flatboat, the passengers seated themselves on the trunks, and I sculled
them out to the steamboat.
“They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks, and put them on
deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out
that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took from his pocket
a silver half-dollar, and threw it on the floor of my boat. I could
scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money. Gentlemen, you may
think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me
a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my life. I could
scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than
a day,--that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The world seemed
wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and confident being
from that time.”