“So far I’ve had nothing more important to do than proving damage in cases of assault and battery,” he said.  “There is many a man who, when he thinks he has been wronged, proceeds to take it out of the hide of the other feller.  The hides of Illinois have suffered a good deal in that way.  It is very annoying.  Generally I stand for the hides.  They need a friend and protector.  When people take the law in their hands it gets badly worn and mussed up.  In a little while there isn’t any law.  Next week I begin my first turn on the circuit.”

“It seems good to see folks around us,” said Sarah.  “I believe we shall enjoy ourselves here.”

“It’s a wonderful place,” Lincoln declared with enthusiasm.  “There are fine stores and churches and sociables and speeches and theater shows.”

“Yes.  It’s bigger than Vergennes,” said Sarah.

“And you’re goin’ to have time to enjoy it,” Samson broke in.  “There’ll be no farm work and Betsey and Josiah are old enough to be quite a help.”

“How the girl is developing!” Abe exclaimed.  “I believe she will look like Bim in a year or two.”

Betsey was growing tall and slim.  She had the blonde hair and fair skin of Samson and the dark eyes of her mother.  Josiah had grown to be a bronzed, sturdy, good-looking lad, very shy and sensitive.

“There’s a likely boy!” said Samson as he clapped the shoulder of his eldest son.  “He’s got a good heart In him.”

“You’ll spoil him with praise,” Sarah protested and then asked as she turned to the young statesman.  “Have you heard from Bim or any of the Kelsos?”

“Not a word.  I often think of them.”

“There’s been a letter in the candle every night for a week or so, but we haven’t heard a word from Harry or from them,” said Sarah.  “I wonder how they’re getting along in these hard times.”

“I told Jack to let me know if I could do anything to help,” Samson assured them.

Sarah turned to Abe Lincoln with a smile and said:  “As we were coming through the village Mary Owens asked me to tell you that on account of the hard times she was not going to have a public wedding.”

The chairman of the finance committee laughed and answered:  “That old joke is still alive.  She writes me now and then and tells me what she is doing in the way of preparation.  It’s really a foolish little farce we have been playing in—­a kind of courtship to avoid marriage.  We have gone too far with it.”

A bit later he wrote a playful letter to Mary and told her that there was so much flourishing about in carriages and the like in Springfield he could not recommend it to a lady of good sense as a place of residence.  He said that owing to certain faults in his disposition he could not recommend himself as a husband; that he felt sure she could never be happy with him.  But he manfully offered to marry her as soon as his circumstances would allow if, after serious consideration, she decided that she cared to accept him.  It was, on the whole, one of the most generous acts in the history of human affairs.