Meanwhile, Stephen Brice had been given permission to practise law in the
sovereign state of Missouri. Stephen understood Judge Whipple better. It
cannot be said that he was intimate with that rather formidable
personage, although the Judge, being a man of habits, had formed that of
taking tea at least once a week with Mrs. Brice. Stephen had learned to
love the Judge, and he had never ceased to be grateful to him for a
knowledge of that man who had had the most influence upon his life,
--Abraham Lincoln.

For the seed, sowed in wisdom and self-denial, was bearing fruit. The
sound of gathering conventions was in the land, and the Freeport Heresy
was not for gotten.

We shall not mention the number of clients thronging to Mr. Whipple's
office to consult Mr. Brice. These things are humiliating. Some of
Stephen's income came from articles in the newspapers of that day. What
funny newspapers they were, the size of a blanket! No startling headlines
such as we see now, but a continued novel among the advertisements on the
front page and verses from some gifted lady of the town, signed Electra.
And often a story of pure love, but more frequently of ghosts or other
eerie phenomena taken from a magazine, or an anecdote of a cat or a
chicken. There were letters from citizens who had the mania of print,
bulletins of different ages from all parts of the Union, clippings out of
day-before-yesterday's newspaper of Chicago or Cincinnati to three-weeks
letters from San Francisco, come by the pony post to Lexington and then
down the swift Missouri. Of course, there was news by telegraph, but that
was precious as fine gold,--not to be lightly read and cast aside.

In the autumn of '59, through the kindness of Mr. Brinsmade, Stephen had
gone on a steamboat up the river to a great convention in Iowa. On this