Two events occurred during this trip which are of sufficient interest
to bear narration.

The boat with its cargo had been set afloat in the Sangamon River at
Springfield. All went well until, at New Salem, they came to a mill dam
where, in spite of the fact that the water was high, owing to the
spring floods, the boat stuck. Lincoln rolled his trousers "five feet
more or less" up his long, lank legs, waded out to the boat, and got
the bow over the dam. Then, without waiting to bail the water out, he
bored a hole in the bottom and let it run out. He constructed a machine
which lifted and pushed the boat over the obstruction, and thus their
voyage was quickly resumed. Many years later, when he was a practising
lawyer, he whittled out a model of his invention and had it patented.
The model may to-day be seen in the patent office at Washington. The
patent brought him no fortune, but it is an interesting relic.

This incident is of itself entirely unimportant. It is narrated here
solely because it illustrates one trait of the man--his ingenuity. He
had remarkable fertility in devising ways and means of getting out of
unexpected difficulties. When, in 1860, the Ship of State seemed like
to run aground hopelessly, it was his determination and ingenuity that
averted total wreck. As in his youth he saved the flatboat, so in his
mature years he saved the nation.

The other event was that at New Orleans, where he saw with his own eyes
some of the horrors of slavery. He never could tolerate a moral wrong.
At a time when drinking was almost universal, he was a total abstainer.
Though born in a slave state, he had an earnest and growing repugnance
to slavery. Still, up to this time he had never seen much of its
workings. At this time he saw a slave market--the auctioning off of