to practise law. On his return
from the North he had ridden to Springfield to begin his work as a lawyer
in the office of John T. Stuart. His plan was to hire and furnish a room
arid get his meals at the home of his friend, Mr. William Butler. He went
to the store of Joshua Speed to buy a bed and some bedding. He found that
they would cost seventeen dollars.

"The question is whether you would trust a man owing a national debt and
without an asset but good intentions and a license to practise law for so
much money," said Honest Abe. "I don't know when I could pay you."

Speed was also a young man of good intentions and a ready sympathy f or
those who had little else. He had heard of the tall representative from
Sangamon County.

"I have a plan which will give you a bed for nothing if you would care to
share my room above the store and sleep with me," he answered.

"I'm much obliged but for you it's quite a contract."

"You're rather long," Speed laughed.

"Yes, I could lick salt off the top of your hat. I'm about a man and a
half but by long practice I've learned how to keep the half out of the
way of other people. They say that when Long John Wentworth got to
Chicago he slept with his feet sticking out of a window and that they had
to take down a partition because he couldn't stand the familiarity of the
woodpeckers, but he is eight inches taller than I am."

"I'm sure we shall get along well enough together," said Speed.

They went up to the room. In a moment Mr. Lincoln hurried away for his
saddle-bags and returned shortly.

"There are all my earthly possessions," he said as he threw the bags on
the floor.

So his new life began in the village of Springfield. Early in the autumn
Samson arrived and bought a small house and two acres of land on the edge
of the village and returned to New Salem to move his family and
furniture. When they drove along the top of Salem Hill a number of the
houses were empty and deserted, their owners having moved away. Two of
the stores were closed. Only ten families remained. They stopped at
Rutledge's tavern whose entertainment was little sought those days.
People from the near houses came to bid them good-by. Dr. John Allen was
among them.

"Sorry to see you going," he said. "With you and Abe and Jack Kelso gone
it has become a lonely place. There's not much left for me but the long
view from the end of the hill and the singing in the prairie grass."

Pete and Colonel, in