SOCIAL LIFE IN VANDALIA IN 1836 AND 1837.

The Tenth Assembly was important to Lincoln not only in its legislation; it greatly increased his circle of acquaintances.  The character of the work of the session called to Vandalia numbers of persons of influence from almost every county in the State.  They were invariably there to secure something for their town or county, and naturally made a point of getting acquainted.  Game suppers seem to have been the means usually employed by visitors for bringing people together.  The lobbyists were not the only ones in Vandalia who gave suppers, however.  Not a bill was passed nor an election decided that a banquet did not follow.  Mr. John Bryant, the brother of William Cullen, was in Vandalia that winter in the interest of his county, and he attended one of these banquets, given by the successful candidate for the United States Senate.  Lincoln was present, of course, and so were all the prominent politicians of the State.

“After the company had gotten pretty noisy and mellow from their imbibitions of Yellow Seal and ‘corn juice,’” says Mr. Bryant, “Mr. Douglas and General Shields, to the consternation of the host and intense merriment of the guests, climbed up on the table, at one end, encircled each other’s waists, and to the tune of a rollicking song, pirouetted down the whole length of the table, shouting, singing, and kicking dishes, glasses, and everything right and left, helter skelter.  For this night of entertainment to his constituents, the successful candidate was presented with a bill, in the morning, for supper, wines, liquors, and damages, which amounted to six hundred dollars.”

But boisterous suppers were not by any means the important feature of Lincoln’s social life that winter in Vandalia.  There was another and quieter side in which he showed his rare companionableness and endeared himself to many people.  In the midst of the log-rolling and jubilations of the session he would often slip away to some acquaintance’s room and spend hours in talk and stories.  Mr. John Bryant tells of his coming frequently to his room at the hotel, and sitting “with his knees up to his chin, telling his inimitable stories and his triumphs in the House in circumventing the Democrats.”

Major Newton Walker, of Lewiston, was in Vandalia at the time; and still talks with pleasure not only of the Assembly’s energetic legislation, but of the way Lincoln endeared himself to him and to his colleague.  “We both loved him,” says Major Walker, “but I little thought then that he would become the greatest man that this country ever produced, or perhaps ever will.  Many a night I have sat up listening to Lincoln’s wonderful stories.  That was a long time ago—­nearly sixty years.  I shall be ninety-two years old in a few days.  I was six years older than Lincoln.”

[Illustration:  INVITATION TO A SPRINGFIELD COTILLION PARTY OF WHICH LINCOLN WAS ONE OF THE MANAGERS.