ments, Lincoln resolved to buy a store. He was not long in finding an opportunity to purchase. James Herndon had already sold out his half interest in Herndon Brothers' store to William F. Berry; and Rowan Herndon, not getting along well with Berry, was only too glad to find a purchaser of his half in the person of "Abe" Lincoln. Berry was as poor as Lincoln; but that was not a serious obstacle, for their notes were accepted for the Herndon stock of goods. They had barely hung out their sign when something happened which threw another store into their hands. Reuben Radford had made himself obnoxious to the Clary's Grove Boys, and one night they broke in his doors and windows, and overturned his counters and sugar barrels. It was too much for Radford, and he sold out next day to William G. Greene, for a four-hundred-dollar note signed by Greene. At the latter's request, Lincoln made an inventory of the stock, and offered him six hundred and fifty dollars for ita proposition which was cheerfully accepted. Berry and Lincoln, being unable to pay cash, assumed the four-hundred-dollar note payable to Radford, and gave Greene their joint note for two hundred and fifty dollars. The little grocery owned by James Rutledge was the next to succumb. Berry and Lincoln bought it at a bargain, their joint note taking the place of cash. The three stocks were consolidated. Their aggregate cost must have been not less than fifteen hundred dollars. Berry and Lincoln had secured a monopoly of the grocery business in New Salem. Within a few weeks two penniless men had become the proprietors of three stores, and had stopped buying only because there were no more to purchase.

But the partnership, it was soon evident, was unfortunate. Berry, though the son of a Presbyterian minister, was according to tradition “a very wicked young man," drinking, gambling, and taking an active part in all the disturbances

of the neighborhood. In spite of the bad habits of his partner, Lincoln left the management of the business largely to him. It was his love of books which was responsible for this poor business management. He had soon discovered that store-keeping in New Salem, after all duties were done, left a large amount of leisure on a man's hands. It was his chance to read, and he scoured the town for books. On pleasant days he spent hour after hour stretched under a tree, which stood just outside the door of the store, reading the works he had picked up. If it rained he simply made himself comfortable on the counter within. It was in this period that Lincoln discovered Shakespeare and Burns. In New Salem there was one of those curious individuals, sometimes found in frontier settlements, half poet, half loafer, incapable of earning a living in any steady employment, yet familiar with good literature and capable of enjoying itJack Kelso. He repeated passages from Shakespeare and Burns incessantly, over the odd jobs he undertook, or as he idled by the streams-for he was a famous fisherman-and Lincoln soon became one of his constant companions. The tastes he formed in company with Kelso he retained through life.

It was not only Burns and Shakespeare that interfered with the grocery keeping; Lincoln had begun seriously to read law. His first acquaintance with the subject, we have already seen, had been made when, a mere lad, a copy of the "Revised Statutes of Indiana” had fallen into his hands.

But from the time he left Indiana in 1830 he had no legal reading until one day soon after the grocery was started, there happened one of those trivial incidents which so often turn the current of a life. It is best told in Mr. Lincoln's own words." * "One day a man who was migrating to

*This incident was told by Lincoln to Mr. A. J. Conant, the artist, who in 1860 painted his portrait in Springfield. Mr. Conant, in order

the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for it. Without further examination I put it away in the store, and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone's Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between. The more I read"-this he said with unusual emphasis-"the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them."

But all this was fatal to business, and by spring it was evident that something must be done to stimulate the grocery sales. Liquor selling was the expedient adopted, for, on the 6th of March, 1833, the County Commissioners' Court of Sangamon County granted the firm of Berry and Lincoln a license to keep a tavern at New Salem. It is probable that the license was procured not to enable the firm to keep a tavern but to retail the liquors which they had in stock. Each of the three groceries which Berry and Lincoln acquired had the usual supply of liquors and it was only natural that they should seek a way to dispose of the surplus quickly and profitably--an end which could be best accomplished by selling it over the counter by the glass. To do this lawfully

to catch Mr. Lincoln's pleasant expression, had engaged him in conversation, and had questioned him about his early life; and it was in the course of their conversation that this incident came out. It is to be found in a delightful and suggestive article entitled, "My Acquaintance_with Abraham Lincoln," contributed by Mr. Conant to the "Liber Scriptorum."