Soon after he was raised to the dignity of postmaster another
piece of good fortune came in his way. Sangamon County covered a
territory some forty miles long by fifty wide, and almost every
citizen in it seemed intent on buying or selling land, laying out
new roads, or locating some future city. John Calhoun, the county
surveyor, therefore, found himself with far more work than he
could personally attend to, and had to appoint deputies to assist
him. Learning the high esteem in which Lincoln was held by the
people of New Salem, he wisely concluded to make him a deputy,
although they differed in politics. It was a flattering offer,
and Lincoln accepted gladly. Of course he knew almost nothing
about surveying, but he got a compass and chain, and, as he tells
us, "studied Flint and Gibson a little, and went at it." The
surveyor, who was a man of talent and education, not only gave
Lincoln the appointment, but, it is said, lent him the book in
which to study the art. Lincoln carried the book to his friend
Mentor Graham, and "went at it" to such purpose that in six weeks
he was ready to begin the practice of his new profession. Like
Washington, who, it will be remembered, followed the same calling
in his youth, he became an excellent surveyor.

Lincoln's store had by this time "winked out," to use his own
quaint phrase; and although the surveying and his post-office
supplied his daily needs, they left absolutely nothing toward
paying his "National Debt." Some of his creditors began to get
uneasy, and in the latter part of 1834 a man named Van Bergen,
who held one of the Lincoln-Berry notes, refusing to trust him
any longer, had his horse, saddle, and surveying instruments
seized by the sheriff and sold at public auction, thus sweeping
away the means by which, as he said, he "procured bread and kept