stirred him to the depths. When he
left he carried a soul heavy with regret and great resolutions. Not that
he had mentioned the matter to her or to any one. It was a thing too
sacred for speech. To God in his prayers he spoke of it but to no other.

He asked to be made and to be thought worthy. He would have had the whole
world stopped and put to sleep for a term until he was delivered from the
bondage of his tender youth. That being impossible it was for him a sad
but not a hopeless world. Indeed he rejoiced in his sadness. Annabel was
four years older than he. If he could make her to know the depth of his
passion perhaps she would wait for him. He sought for self-expression in
_The Household Book of Poetry_--a sorrowful and pious volume. He could
find no ladder of rhyme with an adequate reach. He endeavored to build
one. He wrote melancholy verses and letters, confessing his passion, to
Annabel, which she did not encourage but which she always kept and valued
for their ingenuous and noble ardor. Some of these Anacreontics are among
the treasures inherited by her descendants. They were a matter of slight
importance, one would say, but they mark the beginning of a great career.
Immediately after his return to the new home in Springfield the boy
Josiah set out to make himself honored of his ideal. In the effort he
made himself honored of many. His eager brain had soon taken the footing
of manhood.

A remarkable school of political science had begun its sessions in that
little western village. The world had never seen the like of it. Abraham
Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, E.D. Baker, O.H. Browning, Jesse B. Thomas,
and Josiah Lamborn--a most unusual array of talent as subsequent history
has proved--were wont to gather around the fireplace in the rear of
Joshua Speed's store, evenings, to discuss the issues of the time. Samson
and his son Joe came often to hear the talk. Douglas looked like a dwarf
among those long geared men. He was slight and short, being only about
five feet tall, but he had a big, round head covered with thick,
straight, dark hair, a bull-dog look and a voice like thunder. The first
steamboat had crossed the Atlantic the year before and The Future of
Transportation was one of the first themes discussed by this remarkable
group of men. Douglas and Lincoln were in a heated argument over the
admission of slavery to the territories the first night that Samson and
Joe sat down with them.

"We didn't like t