accomplished, largely through his efforts, about the time he went
to Springfield to live. This change from New Salem, a village of
fifteen or twenty houses, to a "city" of two thousand
inhabitants, placed him once more in striking new relations as to
dress, manners, and society. Yet, as in the case of his removal
from his father's cabin to New Salem six years earlier, the
change was not so startling as would at first appear. In spite of
its larger population and its ambition as the new State capital,
Springfield was at that time in many ways no great improvement
upon New Salem. It had no public buildings, its streets and
sidewalks were still unpaved, and business of all kinds was
laboring under the burden of hard times.

As for himself, although he now owned a license to practise law,
it was still a question how well he would succeed--whether his
rugged mind and firm purpose could win him the livelihood he
desired, or whether, after all, he would be forced to turn his
strong muscles to account in earning his daily bread. Usually so
hopeful, there were times when he was greatly depressed. His
friend William Butler relates how, as they were riding together
on horseback from Vandalia to Springfield at the close of a
session of the legislature, Lincoln, in one of these gloomy
moods, told him of the almost hopeless prospect that lay
immediately before him. The session was over, his salary was all
drawn, the money all spent; he had no work, and did not know
where to turn to earn even a week's board. Butler bade him be of
good cheer, and, kind practical friend that he was, took him and
his belongings to his own home, keeping him there for a time as
his guest. His most intimate friend of those days, Joshua F.
Speed, tells us that soon after riding into the new capital on a