accepted for the Herndon stock of goods. They had barely hung out
their sign when something happened which threw another store into
their hands. Reuben Radford had made himself obnoxious to the Clary's
Grove Boys, and one night they broke in his doors and windows,
and overturned his counters and sugar barrels. It was too much
for Radford, and he sold out next day to William G. Green for a
four-hundred-dollar note signed by Green. At the latter's request,
Lincoln made an inventory of the stock, and offered him six hundred
and fifty dollars for it--a proposition which was cheerfully
accepted. Berry and Lincoln, being unable to pay cash, assumed the
four-hundred-dollar note payable to Radford, and gave Green their
joint note for two hundred and fifty dollars. The little grocery owned
by James Rutledge was the next to succumb. Berry and Lincoln bought
it at a bargain, their joint note taking the place of cash. The three
stocks were consolidated. Their aggregate cost must have been not less
than fifteen hundred dollars. Berry and Lincoln had secured a monopoly
of the grocery business in New Salem. Within a few weeks two penniless
men had become the proprietors of three stores, and had stopped
buying only because there were no more to purchase.

[Illustration: THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(REPRINTED FROM McCLURE'S FOR NOVEMBER).

From a daguerreotype in the possession of the Hon. Robert T. Lincoln,
taken before Lincoln was forty, and first published in the McCLURE'S
Life of Lincoln. Of the sixty or more portraits of Lincoln which will
be published in this series of articles, thirty, at least, will
be absolutely new to our readers; and of these thirty none is more
important than this early portrait. It is generally believed that
Lincoln was not over thirty-five years old when this daguerreotype was