The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

754 THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
in the street, but he would quash the indictment if it failed to specify
which hand he blew it with!"
On one occasion, in the Executive chamber, there were present a
number of gentlemen, among them Mr. Seward.
A point in the conversation suggesting the thought, Mr. Lincoln
said: "Seward, you never heard, did you, how I earned my first dollar?" "No," said Mr. Seward. "Well," replied he, "I was about
eighteen years of age. I belonged, you know, to what they call
down South, the 'scrubs;' people who do not own slaves are nobody
there. But we had succeeded in raising, chiefly by my labor, sufficient produce, as I thought, to justify me in.taking it down the river
to sell.
"After much persuasion, I got the consent of mother to go, and
constructed a little flatboat, large enough to take a barrel or two of
thinrs, that we had gathered, with myself and little bundle, down to
New Orleans. A steamer was coming down the river. rWe have, you
know, no wharves on the Western strearhs; and the custom was, if passen,rurs were at any of the landings, for them to go out in a boat, the
steamer stopping and taking them on board.
"I was contemplating my new flatboat, and wondering whether I
could make it stronger or improve it in any particular, when two men
cane down to the shore in carriages with trunks, and looking at the
different boats singled out mine, and asked, 'Who owns this?' I
answered, somewhat modestly, 'I do.' 'Will you,' said one of them,
'take us and our trunks out to the steamer?' 'Certainly,' said I. I
was veryl glad to have the chance of earning something. I supposed
that each of them would give me two or three bits. The trunks were
put on my flatboat, the passengers seated themselves on the trunks,
and I sculled them out to the steamboat.
"They got on board, and I lifted up their heavy trunks, and put
tlhem on deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I
called out that they had forgotten to pay me. Each of them took
from his pocket a silver half-dollar, and threw it on the floor of my
boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up the money.
Gentlemen, you may think it was a very little thing, and in these days
it seems to me a trifle; but it was a most important incident in my
life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in
less than a day-that by honest work I had earned a dollar. The
world seemed wider and fairer before me. I was a more hopeful and
confident being from that time."