to be the next President of
the United States. Outside in the streets the crowds were celebrating.
They were singing, shouting, shooting off cannons. Abe told his friends
that he was "well-nigh upset with joy."

"I guess I'd better go home now," he added. "There is a little woman
there who would like to hear the news."

Mary was asleep when he entered their bedroom. Her husband touched her
on the shoulder. "Mary, Mary," he said with a low chuckle, "we are
elected."

By February the Lincolns were ready to move. Abe tied up the trunks and
addressed them to "A. Lincoln, The White House, Washington, D.C." Before
he left Illinois there was a visit he wanted to make to a log farmhouse
a hundred and twenty-five miles southeast of Springfield. His father had
been dead for ten years, but his stepmother was still living there.

[Illustration]

Travel was slow in those days, and he had to change trains several
times. There was plenty of time to think. He knew that hard days lay
ahead. There were many Southerners who said that they were afraid to
live under a President who was against slavery. Several Southern states
had left the Union and were starting a country of their own. For the
United States to be broken up into two different nations seemed to him
the saddest thing that could possibly happen. As President, Abraham
Lincoln would have a chance--he must make the chance--to preserve the
Union. He could not know then that he would also have a chance to free
the slaves--a chance to serve his country as had no other President
since George Washington.

His thoughts went back to his boyhood. Even then he had wanted to be
President. What had once seemed an impossible dream was coming true. He
thought of all the people who had encouraged and helped him. He thought
of his mother who, more than any one person, had given him a chance to
get ahead.

"Mother!" Whenever Abe said the word, he was thinking of both Nancy and
Sarah.

Sarah was waiting by the window. A tall man in a high silk hat came
striding up the path.

"Abe! You've come!" She opened the door and looked up into the sad, wise
face.

"Of course, Mother." He gave her the kind of good bear hug he had given
her when he was a boy. "I am leaving soon for Washington. Did you think
I could go so far away without saying good-by?"

The word spread rapidly that he was there. One after another the
neighbors dropped in, until the little room was crowded. As he sat
before th