Part 1

LINCOLNIANA

OR THE HUMORS OF UNCLE ABE

By ANDREW ADDERUP

1864

Preface

Is Joe Miller "complete?" I doubt it, maugre the pretenses of title-pages. An old joke is sometimes like a piece of painted glass in a kaleidoscope--every turn gives it a new aspect, and the new view is sometimes taken for the original phase. Perhaps this is true of some herein, although I am unconscious of that being so. If the accusation be made, try Uncle Abe first, for he is used to trials. As for me, I shall plead my privilege of telling you "the tale as it was told to me." But if these "little jokes" be not "sworn upon" for Miller, they shall stand for Uncle Abe--the writer hereof claiming only a godfathership. And others shall follow as fast as I glean them. To aid this purpose, let everybody who has a "good thing" send it to the publisher of this, and duly it will appear in the "complete" edition of Uncle Abe's jokes, always excepting the last, for the act of dying over will remind him of some little story with a _hic jacet_ moral.

ANDREW ADDERUP.

Springfield, Ill., April 1, 1864.

LINCOLNIANA; OR, THE HUMORS OF UNCLE ABE,

An Involuntary Black Republican.

Sometime after Mr. Lincoln's well remembered passage of the rebel Rubicon at Baltimore, some radical Republicans, who thought they saw some signs of the President's backwardness in vindicating the Chicago platform, went in committee to the White House to beg him to carry out his principles--or rather to stretch them in Queen Dido's style.

"I don't know about it, gentlemen," replied Uncle Abe; "with a pretty strong opposition at home and a rebellion at the South, we'd best push republicanism rather slow. Fact is, I'm worse off than old blind Jack Loudermill was when he got married on a short courtship. Some one asked him a few days after, how he liked his new position. 'Dunno,' said he; 'I went it blind to start with, and ain't had a chance to feel my way to a conclusion yet.' So it is with me. Perhaps you can see further than I can, to me the future is dark and lowering; and we have now got to feel every step of our way forward. Making Republicans used to be hard work, and I don't see as I could do much at it now, unless I proselyte by giving fat offices to weak-kneed opponents; but that," continued Uncle Abe, with a sly look toward several of his old Illinois friends, "would'nt be quite fair to those who believe that 'to the victors belong the spoils.' Your idea about pushing things reminds me of the first _black_ Republican I ever made."

And the President threw his left leg over his right and subsided into that air of _abandon_ which denotes his pregnancy of a good story.

"You see, gentlemen," he began, "in my boyhood days, I had a slim chance for schooling, and did'nt improve what I did have. Occasionally a Yankee would wander into Kentuck, and open a school in the log building that was a church and school house as well, and keep it till he got starved out or heard of a better location. One Fall a bald headed, sour-visaged old man came along and opened the school, and my people concluded I must go; as usual the big boys soon began to test the master, who, though he was a patient Jeffersonian Republican, seemed very tyrannical to us. My good nature singled me out soon, as the scapegoat of the school, and I got more than my share of the birch: at least, my back was as good as an almanac, for every day of the week was recorded there. But, though this record of past time was no pastime to me, I could stand it better than I could the taunts and jibes of the boys out of school.

"One morning when a half dozen of us were warming before the broad logwood fire, I noted a big fellow (who had got me flogged the day before) standing on the side opposite, his back to the blaze: both hands were partially open, one laid in the other; some would lay it to the devil, but it was only the spirit of revenge which prompted me to pick up a live coal, covered with ashes, and drop it into his hands. For a moment he did'nt mind it, but it burned all the deeper; when it did burn he jumped and bellowed like a stuck calf.

"'Who made that noise?' Demanded old Whitey? the master.

"'I made it,' replied the big fellow, rubbing his hands.

"'Why?' more angrily demanded old Whitey.

"'Some one put a coal of fire in my hand and burnt me,' sniffled the booby.

"The big fellow, however, didn't know who did it. Some of the boys, who had a lurking pity for me, said it snapt into his hand; but the master 'couldn't see it;' and at last it leaked out that 'Abe Lincoln done it.'

"So you see, gentlemen," said Uncle Abe, moralizing, "I got the blame of a long score of supposititious shortcomings by one act of my own, pretty much as I had to bear the sins of my whole party in the late canvass, because of a few sins of my own."

"'Abraham, come up here!' thundered the master, (By the way, gentlemen, my people always called me Abe--my wife still calls me plain Abe--but that old fellow called me _Abraham_ so often and so severely that I early dropped all claim to a definite appellative, and chose to be indefinitely 'A. Lincoln.') * But to go on. I got a deserved threshing that time, and a reputation withal for wickedness that saved all the little rogues in school. At last, however, I determined to be even with old Whitey, somehow.

"It wasn't long till I worked out an idea. Just over the master's desk was a rude shelf, upon which he kept some books and a big-bellied bottle of ink, which some admirer of his Jeffersonian-Republican principles had presented him. I had observed that in stepping upon his desk platform, he never touched or moved his chair, beyond leaning back in it, which he always did, after taking his seat. So next day I robbed our old long-tailed white horse of a few hairs and braided them in a three stranded cord. While the master was gone out to his dinner, I put the thin glass ink bottle upon the edge of the shelf propped a-cant, and tied one end of the cord to the bottle, and the other end to the back of his chair. The boys sympathized with me, and were in an extacy of delight. Anon the master came. Without looking to the right or left, he marched sternly to the chair, and hence saw not the repressed titter of expectation that was ready to burst over the whole room. I stood just outside of the door expecting the result; he sat down and then leaned back. Down came the bottle, deluging the bald head in a shower of Stygian blackness! Yes, gentlemen, I fancy that was the first _black_ Republican ever made in Kentuck, but the conversion was too sudden."

"How was that?" queried Cassius M. Clay.

"Why," replied Uncle Abe, "he afterwards married a widow and----twelve negroes."

* When Mr. Lincoln was nominated, very many papers ran up the name of "Abram Lincoln."

The Wrong Pig by the Ear.

I never knew a flash phrase worse used up than was one by Uncle Abe attending one of the neighboring Circuit Courts above Springfield. He was employed to aid a young County Attorney to prosecute some reputed hog thieves. The crime of hog stealing had become so common that the people were considerably excited and an example was determined on. The first person tried was acquitted on a pretty clear _alibi_ or pretty hard swearing. As the fellow thus acquitted was lounging round the Court House, Uncle Abe was passing, and he hailed him.

"Well Mr. Lincoln, I reckon you got the wrong sow by the ear when you undertook to pen me up."

"So it seems," replied Uncle Abe, blandly, "but really you must excuse me, pigs are so very much alike! In fact, people up here don't all seem to know their own."

"Wilkie, where does Old Abe Lincoln Live."

In "Clay times," as the old farmers of Sangamon still recall the period of Henry Clay's powerful canvass for the Presidency, Uncle Abe had a wide circuit practice. In travelling to the various courts, he generally drove a horse and vehicle that some people will still remember. The horse had belonged to an undertaker, and the "funeral business," together with years, had made him a grave and staid animal. His _physique_ presented those angularities that characterized his master, but unlike his owner, he was never known to perpetrate a joke or indulge in a "horselaugh." The vehicle was neither buggy, nor Jersey wagon, but had become, by virtue of alterations and repairs, what Uncle Abe afterwards described the Union under the plan of free and Slave States "neither one thing or the other." There was in fact an "eternal fitness" in horse and man that was not exactly a "standing joke," but a peripatetic one.

I would give all my expectation of a brigadiership for a portrait of Uncle Abe seated in this strange "turnout," as he "might have been seen" wending his meditative way across the prairies.

About this time Uncle Abe was nominated for Congress in the Sangamon. Yet he did not forego his business, but prosecuted his legal course, as well as all evil-doers who chanced to fall into his hands. He had just started on a circuit trip, to be gone a month. Often, since Mr. Lincoln's nomination for Congress, had Mrs. Lincoln begged him to add a second story to their humble dwelling, but he pleaded poverty. But a relation of Mrs. Lincoln's having died in Kentucky leaving her a small legacy, she determined her husband should have a house worthy a candidate for Congress. Doubtless she felt an inward satisfaction at the thought of furnishing a good surprise for her husband on his return. So she at once bought material, set mechanics at work, and in three weeks metamorphosed the dwelling into what political pilgrims to Springfield in 1860 will remember as a neat, two-story, clay-colored residence.

Uncle Abe arrived home just after dark, and drove up to what he thought to be Eighth street, but not seeing his house, and thinking he had made a mistake, he drove round on to the next street. Recognizing the houses there; he again drove around to Eighth, and, passing his own house, recognized that occupied by W------n, a clever tailor, who was standing at his own gate.

"Why, is that you, Wilkie?" (said Uncle Abe patronizingly.) W------n, assured him of his own identity, "Wilkie, where does Old Abe Lincoln live now."

"Well," said W------n, "The Loco's say he's so sure of his election that he's gone to Washington to select his seat; but Mrs. Lincoln lives now in that beautiful new two-story house you have just passed." Uncle Abe indulged in a quaint laugh, and then turned his ancient horse around, alighted and asked if Mrs. Lincoln lived in the house before which he stood. Mrs. Lincoln received him as a fond woman should receive her lord, and the return was the cause of much pleasant badinage in social circles.

Too Literal Obedience.

Gen. McClellan was complaining to Uncle Abe of one of his division commanders, who had literally obeyed an order publicly given for the purpose of hood-winking the rebels through the aid of the numerous undetected spies known to lurk in the camp as well as the capital.

"That reminds me of a little story--a little thing that happened to me when I was out in the Black Hawk war," said Uncle Abe.

"You see, after we brought the Foxes to terms, they were as sweet as wild honey. The women especially tried to make a good thing out of the defeat of their braves, by selling us moccasins, deerskin breeches, &c. One squaw in particular, made beautiful breeches, and I concluded to have a pair made. How she was to fit my spindles, puzzled me at first, as the Indians are no tailors in any _measurable_ degree. At last I bethought me of an old pair which I had in my saddle bag, and these I gave to her that she might rip them open and use the parts for patterns. When she brought the new ones home, I was not a little angry to find that she had exactly imitated the old patch on the nether parts of the new breeches."

Little Mac smiled in his peculiar grave way, and remarked that when he gave an order for a similar purpose, he would tell this story by way of a hint.

How Uncle Abe Felt.

Soon after Uncle Abe's defeat by Judge Douglas in 1848, (whereby Douglas unwittingly made a President) some one asked Uncle Abe how he felt over the result.

"Well," said he, "I feel a good deal like a big boy I knew in Kentuck. After he'd got a terrible pounding by the school master, someone asked him how he felt? 'Oh! said he, it hurt so awful bad, I couldn't laugh, and I was too big to cry over it.' That's just my case."

It is presumed the questioner got an idea how a defeated politician feels.

P.P.P.

Soon after the advent of Uncle Abe at the White House, the pressure of aspirants for official positions was perfectly crushing.

In fact, Uncle Abe sometimes got so flustered by their bedevilment, that he not only failed to recollect an illustrating anecdote, but soon lost his temper.

One of the Illinois applicants--a fellow named Jeff.

D------r, was particularly a bore, seeming to think it part of the Chicago platform to give every village politician an office.

"Seems to me, Jeff," said Uncle Abe, "you got the Chicago platform reduced to enormous brevity--in fact, just three p's would seem to express your idea of it."

"How's that, Mr. Lincoln?" inquired-Jeff.

"Why, it looks to me as if it was patriotism, place and plunder, and a mighty important plea is the last one, I reckon."

Jeff was silent for a while, but bored on until he "struck ile" in the shape-of a clerkship.

Rattaned for a Rat Joke.

Just after the retreat of the rebels from Bull Run, when it leaked out that our troops had been held at bay by wooden or Quaker guns, a Pennsylvanian Congressman remarked to Uncle Abe--"Well, Mr. Lincoln, you see that Quaker principles even embodied in wood may be of some service in war."

"Yes, but as you see in that shape, they are only substituted principles; such things may do once, but found out, they will avail worse than nothing. Your remark, however, 'reminds me of a little story.'

"When I was a youngster of fifteen or so, I went to an 'Academy' for a few weeks, just to brush up my old-field school learning. Such schools are called Academies in the East, to distinguish their intermediate position between colleges and common schools; but in Kentuck and the West, generally the high sounding title merely meant that the 'principal' taught a few branches ahead of the old-field schools. Well, the rats were thick about the old building where we daily gathered to reap the fruit of knowledge; and as many of the boys brought their dinners and threw the fragments under their old-fashioned box desks, they soon grew as bold as they were thick. The teacher had a mortal antipathy to rats, and as I didn't 'take' to the teacher, I naturally encouraged the rats. Whenever one showed himself, he was sure to get a whack from the old teacher's rattan. Sometimes he missed his aim at the rats, but never at us boys, which was owing, perhaps, to the difference in the size of the game.

"An industrious rat had made a hole from beneath the floor up under my desk, and thence out through the end, and as I fed him well he was quite tame. Often during school hours he would come up and peer out into the aisles through his hole in the end of the desk, and whenever he was seen by the teacher, he was sure to see the rattan whirling in the air. An idea struck me one day. I got a dead rat--I did not like to kill my pet--and stuffing it, made quite a good-looking 'Quaker' rat. Then I fixed some springs so I could work my rat out and in at pleasure; so whenever the teacher was looking up, my rat was always out; but when the whack came down, he was in betimes. At last he seemed to think it wondrous tame, and the ill-suppressed titter of the school boys finally made him suspicious. The boys had been let into my secret, and relished it hugely, and I was too prone to give a few exhibitions. At last the teacher watched me sharper than he did the rat, and then caught me in the act. He got hold of the rat and beat me alternately with rat and switch, and you may well guess, I was well rattaned. If soldiers who use wooden guns ever get worse usage, I pity them."

The 300 Pounder Parrot since used by the Government, shows Uncle Abe's poor appreciation of Quaker guns and Quaker principles.

The State House Struck by Whiggery.

Soon after the State House at Springfield was erected, in 1840, Mr. Lincoln stood on the east side of the Capitol Square one day, in conversation with a Democratic friend, who was loth to believe that the Whigs could carry the State for "Tip and Ty."

"Nothing is more morally certain," said Uncle Abe. "All the signs of the times point to it, and--why even the State House is struck with Whiggery" he said, pointing up under the eves, where is yet seen a remarkable representation of a "coon" in the stone.

Graphic and True.

When Hon. Emerson Etheridge escaped from Tennessee during the summer of 1862, his opinions on Tennessee affairs were eagerly listened to in Washington. Among other questions, Uncle Abe asked:

"Do the Methodist clergy in your State take to secession?"

"Take? Why, sir, they take to it like a duck to water, or a sailor to a duff kid."

A Judge of the Post Office.

Judge David Davis of Bloomington, Illinois, who was recently appointed (by Uncle Abe) to a position on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, is known to many of his friends as one of the best hearted men in the world. His, is withal, full of the piety of good humor. I call it "piety," because I think a smiling face is a perpetual thanksgiving to God. His benevolence, however, edges down his wit, and gives it more the characteristic of humor, strictly speaking. This, while it may have helped that "belly with fat capon lined," has kept him at peace with himself and the world.

On one occasion, while Judge Davis was presiding at the Logan County Circuit Court, a case came up that involved a question of postal law. Uncle Abe was on the case, and politely loaned Judge D. a small manual of postal law, that he might see for himself what the letter of the law was. The Judge gave his understanding of the law, but had hardly finished when Mr. S------s, a burley farmer from Clear Creek, jumped up and sang out--

"I reckon that ain't so, Judge. I've been Post-Master more'n a dozen years, and I reckon I ought to know what's Post Office law."

Of course Judge Davis had every right to fine the man for contempt, but he had a different way of treating such cases. "With a tone in which sarcasm only slightly blended, he said:

"Truly, I think you ought, Mr. S------s. It has never been my privilege to be a Post-Master, and I would like your opinion in this case. Please step this way."

The Judge moved over and made room on the bench, which Mr. S------s occupied, and proceeded to give _his_ opinion on the mooted question. The bar sat smiling in expectation.

"Keep your seat, Mr. S------s, while I speak a word with my friend Parks."

Uncle Abe it was who had been interrupted, so he resumed:

"May it please the Court, I had some doubt on this point myself, so I borrowed the usual manual of Postal Law, to be perfectly assured. I regret to contend that the clear letter of the law conflicts--sadly conflicts--with the view just taken by Judge S------s;" but here the bar indulged in a quiet "smile" without a stick in it, and it just popped into Mr. S------'s head, that he was out of place, and he skedaddled in haste.

"The largest _pussie_ Judge that sat on our bench," remarked Will Wyatt. From that day to this, Mr. S------s, has never lost the title he so suddenly gained.

I'm an Inderlid.

One day while Uncle Abe was attending to a case at Mount Pulaski, (the country seat of Logan County, Illinois,) he was beset by old B------s, a worthy farmer, but a notorious malaprop, for an opinion as to his amenability to the road tax. "You look here, Mr. Lincoln, these fellows here want to make me work on the road."

"Well!" said Uncle Abe.

"Well, I tells them that they can't do it, cause I'm an _inderlid_, you see."

(Of course Uncle Abe concurred in B------s opinion, and forgot to charge a fee.)

"On another occasion, he wanted John G. Gillette, the great cattle dealer, to _proximate_ him because he'd got the best pair of cattle scales in Logan County."

How Uncle Abe got his Sobriquet.

Some one ventured to ask Uncle Abe, soon after his arrival at the White House, how he got the sobriquet of "Honest Abe."

"Oh," said he, "I suppose my case was pretty much like that of a country merchant I once read of. Some one called him a 'little rascal.' 'Thank you for the compliment,' said he. 'Why so?' asked the stigmatizer. 'Because that title distinguishes me from my fellow tradesmen, who are all _great_ rascals.'"

"So honest lawyers were so scarce in Illinois that you were thus distinguished from them?" persisted the questioner.

"Well," quoth Uncle Abe, glancing slyly at Douglas, Sweet, and others from Illinois, "it's hard to say where the honest ones are."

"I'll take Number Eleven too."

Thirty-five or forty years ago, a trip from Sangamon or Macon County, to St. Louis, was an event to be talked of. It took as long to make it, and furnished food for as much rustic enquiry and comment, as does a voyage to Europe now. Uncle Abe had then given up rail-splitting, and was studying law. Having a little while before treated himself to a (then) rare thing, a suit of "store clothes;" and a neighbor being about to leave for St. Louis, he resolved to go along. As the teams toiled on at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles a day, they were gradually joined by others, till the train presented somewhat the sights now to be seen on our great overland routes to the Pacific.

On arrival at St. Louis, Abe determined to see high life, and accordingly made tracks for a letter A. No. 1, first class Hotel. The Old City Hotel was then the only house that could claim that distinction. There the merchants congregated, and there the Indian trader sought relaxation from frontier hardships, while the rough trapper was content with the humble fare of the "Hunter's Home."

I forget what association called out this reminiscence of that trip; but there can be no harm in repeating the story. Such mishaps have befallen incipient greatness before.

At the dinner table, each waiter was provided with a wine card, and each guest had his wine charged to the number of his room, simply calling out, as for instance, Sherry No. 9, &c. A jolly Indian trader, sat just opposite Abe, who betimes called "Claret, No 11." Abe saw that most of the guests were similarly providing for themselves, and concluded not to appear penurious, so he said he'd take some wine too.

"What kind, sah?" asked the waiter.

"Oh, I'll take the same,"--pointing to the bottle just called for by the Indian trader.

"What number, sah?"

Abe was puzzled. Ho had not been used to wine or hotel life; but it was only a moment before he broke the ice.

"Oh, I'll just take No. 11 too."

The trader looked up surprised, while several others near by, smiled a faint comprehension as to the state of affairs.

"Why, young man," said the trader, "that is my number, and mine is a single room."

"I beg pardon," stammered Abe, conscious that he had betrayed rusticity and ignorance; but not knowing exactly how to extricate himself, the good-hearted trader came to his aid--

"Were you ever in the city before?" asked he.

"Never before."