it in its hock, then over the
string-pole, and the other point through the other hock, and so swung
the animal clear of the ground. While all this was being done, it took a
good man to "hold the hog," greasy, warmly moist, and weighing some two
hundred pounds. And often those with the gambrel prolonged the strain,
being provokingly slow, in hopes to make the holder drop his burden.

This latter thought is again expressed where President Lincoln, writing
of the peace which he hoped would "come soon, to stay; and so come as to
be worth the keeping in all future time," added that while there would
"be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched
teeth and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind
on to this great consummation," he feared there would "be some white
ones unable to forget that, with malignant heart and deceitful tongue,
they had striven to hinder it."

He had two seemingly opposite elements little understood by strangers,
and which those in more intimate relations with him find difficult to
explain; an open, boyish tongue when in a happy mood, and with this a
reserve of power, a force of thought that impressed itself without words
on observers in his presence. With the cares of the nation on his mind,
he became more meditative, and lost much of his lively ways remembered
"back in Illinois."

HIS POOR RELATIONS.

One of the most beautiful traits of Mr. Lincoln's character was his
considerate regard for the poor and obscure relatives he had left,
plodding along in their humble ways of life. Wherever upon his circuit
he found them, he always went to their dwellings, ate with them, and,
when convenient, made their houses his home. He never assumed in their
presence the slightest superiority to them. He gave them money when
they needed it and he had it. Countless times he was known to leave
his companions at the village hotel, after a hard day's work in the
court-room, and spend the evening with these old friends and companions
of his humbler days. On one occasion, when urged not to go, he replied,
"Why, Aunt's heart would be broken if I should leave town without
calling upon her;" yet, he was obliged to walk several miles to make the
call.

DESERTER'S SINS WASHED OUT IN BLOOD.

This was the reply made by Lincoln to an application for the pardon of
a soldier who had shown himself brave in war, had been severely wounded,
but afterward deserted:

"Did