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Abraham Lincoln: a History — Volume 01 by John George Nicolay;John Hay
page 78 of 416 (18%)
indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you
hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more,
making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you
should go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in
California; but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can
get close to home, in Coles County. Now, if you will do this you will
soon be out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that
will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear
you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as ever. You
say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty
dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure
you can with the offer I make get the seventy or eighty dollars for
four or five months' work. You say if I will furnish you the money you
will deed me the land, and if you don't pay the money back you will
deliver possession. Nonsense. If you can't now live with the land, how
will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I
do not mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but
follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eighty times eighty
dollars to you.

Here is a later epistle, still more graphic and terse in statement,
which has the unusual merit of painting both confessor and penitent to
the life:

SHELBYVILLE, Nov. 4, 1851.

DEAR BROTHER: When I came into Charleston, day before yesterday, I
learned that you were anxious to sell the land where you live and move
to Missouri. I have been thinking of this ever since, and cannot but
think such a notion is utterly foolish. What can you do in Missouri
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