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STRUGGLES WITH POVERTY
on returning to New Salem, Lincoln looked for some employment to earn his livelyhood. " What do you say to my learning the blacksmith's trade?" he said to his friend William
Green. "The blacksmith's trade!" Green exclaimed with surprise. "what makes you think of
that sort of thing, Abe? Why, we've been thinking of sending you to the legislature."
" To the legislature? You're joking." " No not at all."
At last Lincoln consented to be a cadidate for the legislature. He won almost all the votes in his own community. New Salem gave him 277 votes in a poll of 284-- all but seven.
He was not elected, however, only because he was not known through out the county.
In partnership with another young man, William F. Berry, he bought a store on credit; but
it soon failed, and Berry died, leaving him in debt as much as 1,100 dollars. Lincoln could
have freed himself by bankruptcy, but he paid everything, working and saving for about
fifteen years. He was often said to have no money sense, but he was one of the public
characters to whom the epithet " honest" became desevedly attached. |
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