t let him stop singing. They finally
mounted him on their shoulders and carried him about in triumph, like a
victor bard of old. Ever rang the chorus from the lips of the people,
"Our Lincoln is the man!" "Old Abram is the man!"

Lincoln heard the song. He loved songs. One of his favorite songs was
"Twenty Years ago." But this was the first time, probably, that he had
heard himself sung. He was living at that time in the plain house in
Springfield that has been made familiar by pictures. The song delighted
him, but he, of all the thousands, was forbidden by his position to
express his pleasure in the song. He would have liked to join with the
multitudes in singing "Our Lincoln is the man!" had not the situation
sealed his lips. But after the scene was over, and the great mass of
people began to melt away, he sought the minstrel, and said:

"Come to my room, and sing to me the song privately. _I_ want to hear
you sing it."

So he listened to it in private, while it was being borne over the
prairies on tens of thousands of lips. Did he then dream that the
nations would one day sing the song of his achievements, that his death
would be tolled by the bells of all lands, and his dirge fill the
churches of Christendom with tears? It may have been that his destiny in
dim outline rose before him, for the events of his life were hurrying.

Aunt Indiana was there, and she found the Tunker.

"The land o' sakes and daisies!" she said. "That we should both be here!
Well, elder, I give it up! I was agin Lincoln until I heard all the
people a-singin' that song; then it came over me that I was doin' just
what I hadn't ought to, and I began to sing 'Old Lincoln is the man!'
just as though it had been a Methody hymn written by Wesley himself."

"I am glad that you have changed your mind, and that I have lived to see
my prophecy, that Lincoln would become the heart of the people,
fulfilled."

"Elder, I tell you what let's we do."

"What, my good woman?"

"Let's we each get a rail, and go down before Abe's winder, and I'll
sing as loud as anybody:

"'Old Abram is the man!
Old Abram is the man!
And he'll trim her sails
As he split the rails.
Old Abram is the man!'

I'll do it, if you will. I've been all wrong from the first. Why, even
the Grigsbys are goin' to vote for him, and I'm goin' to do the right
thing myself. Abe always had a human heart, and it is that which is the
most human that leads off i