numerous personal affrays, of which many are remembered, and not improbably many more have been forgotten.  In spite of the picturesque adjectives which have been so decoratively used in describing the ruffian of the frontier, he seems to have been about what his class always is; and when these fellows had forced a fight, or “set up” a match, their chivalry never prevented any unfairness or brutality.  A tale illustrative of the times is told of a closely contested election in the legislature for the office of state treasurer.  The worsted candidate strode into the hall of the Assembly, and gallantly selecting four of the largest and strongest of those who had voted against him, thrashed them soundly.  The other legislators ran away.  But before the close of the session this pugilist, who so well understood practical politics, was appointed clerk of the Circuit Court and county recorder.[28]

Corn bread was the chief article of diet; potatoes were a luxury, and were often eaten raw like apples.  To the people at large whiskey “straight” seemed the natural drink of man, and whiskey toddy was not distasteful to woman.  To refuse to drink was to subject one’s self to abuse and suspicion;[29] Lincoln’s notorious lack of liking for it passed for an eccentricity, or a physical peculiarity.  The customary social gatherings were at horse-racings, at corn-shuckings, at political speech-makings, at weddings, whereat the coarse proceedings would not nowadays bear recital; at log-rollings, where the neighbors gathered to collect the logs of a newly cleared lot for burning; and at house-raisings, where they kindly aided to set up the frame of a cabin for a new-comer; at camp-meetings, where the hysterical excitement of a community whose religion was more than half superstition found clamorous and painful vent;[30] or perchance at a hanging, which, if it met public approbation, would be sanctioned by the gathering of the neighbors within a day’s journey of the scene.  At dancing-parties men and women danced barefoot; indeed, they could hardly do better, since their foot-wear was apt to be either moccasins, or such boots as they themselves could make from the hides which they themselves had cured.  In Lincoln’s boyhood the hunting-shirt and leggings made of skins were a sufficiently respectable garb; and buckskin breeches dyed green were enough to captivate the heart of any girl who wished a fashionable lover; but by the time that he had become a young man, most self-respecting men had suits of jeans.  The ugly butcher’s knife and tomahawk, which had been essential as was the rapier to the costume of gentlemen two centuries earlier, began now to be more rarely seen at the belt about the waist.  The women wore linsey-woolsey gowns, of home manufacture, and dyed according to the taste or skill of the wearer in stripes and bars with the brown juice of the butternut.  In the towns it was not long before calico was seen, and calfskin shoes; and in such populous centres bonnets