He summed up his situation:

"I must certainly have decent clothes to go there among the
celebrities."

No doubt, the State capital had other fashions than those prevailing
at Sangamon town, where even the shopkeeper's present attire, in which
he had solicited suffrages, was scoffed at as below the mark. It was
composed of "flax and tow-linen pantaloons (one Ellis, storekeeper,
describes from eye-witnessing), I thought, about five inches too short
in the legs, exposing blue-yarn socks (the original of the Farmers'
_Sox_ of our mailorder magazines); no vest or coat; and but one
suspender. He wore a calico shirt, as he had in the Black Hawk War;
coarse brogans, tan color."

"As you voted for me," went on the ambitious man about to exchange the
counter for the rostrum, "you must want me to make a decent appearance
in the state-house?"

"Certainly," was the reply, as anticipated, Lincoln was so sure of his
wheedling ways by this time.

And the friend in need supplied him with two hundred dollars currency,
which, according to the budding legislator's promise, he returned out
of his first pay as representative.


* * * * *