It was while at the store in New Salem that Lincoln made the
acquaintance of Richard Yates, contemporarily in office with him as
war governor of Illinois. So proud were the citizens of the colloquial
abilities of their rising young man that they used to show him to
visitors as their lion. Yates was introduced and stayed to hear
him roar. Later, Lincoln asked him to join him in his noon meal at
the cabin where a woman boarded him. The latter was one of those
good souls who give the best in the larder, but are all the time
apologizing. They had happened upon the ordinarily plain repast of
bread--home-made, and of the sweetest corn--and milk from the cow.
Flurried by the unknown company, the auntie, in dealing out the bowls
to a numerous family, somehow, between herself and Lincoln, let the
vessel slip, and, falling to the floor, it was smashed and the milk
wasted. Lincoln disputed it was her fault, as she politely averred.
She continued to argue for her guiltiness.

"Oh, very well," said Lincoln, at last, "we will not wrangle on whose
was the slip, or if it does not trouble you it will not trouble
_me_. Anyway, what is a basin of pap?--nothing to fret about!"

"Mr. Lincoln, you are wrong"--the woman remembered the children to
whom a lesson ought to be given--"a dish of bread and milk is fit for
the President of these United States."

Both the guests acquiesced. The cream of a story is in the
application. Years afterward, when the man from Sangamon, the unknown,
occupied the curule chair, an elderly woman from Illinois called at
the White House and requested an interview. It was the Aunt Lizzie
of the above episode. Her mere mention of being "home folks" won her