* * * * *


AS CLEAR AS MOONSHINE.

In 1858, Lincoln was committed to the political campaign which was a
passing victory, superficial, to his opponent, Senator Douglas, to
eventuate in his accession to the Presidency. So he had let legal
strife fall into abeyance, during two years. He was, therefore, vexed
to have an applicant for his renewing that line of business, but
at once welcomed the suitor on learning her name. It was Hannah
Armstrong. He was eager to see her. She was the wife of the bully of
Clary's Grove, the locally noted wrestler, Jack Armstrong. After they
had become friends, Lincoln had been harbored in their cottage, in
the days when poverty held him down so he scarcely could get his
head above water. The good soul had repaid his doing chores about her
house, such as minding the baby, getting in the firewood, and keeping
the highway cows out of her cabbage-patch, after her husband died, by
darning his socks, filling up a bowl with corn-mush, at the period
when it was a feast to have "cheese, bologna, and crackers," in the
garret where he pored over law-books. Her news was painful. The baby,
whose cradle Lincoln had rocked, was a man now, and was in what the
vernacular phrased "pretty considerable of a tight fix."

It looked as though Mr. Lincoln would have difficulty in loosening
the fix, far more to remove it.

At a camp-meeting, the young men had been riotous. Armstrong and a