Page:Abraham Lincoln, A Story and a Play.djvu/43

 shoulder, and the girl's tiny hand clasped tightly in his own big, strong one, the station was reached before the train pulled out.

As the young lawyer put his little charge on board, he kissed her good-bye, saying, "Now have a real good time."

Lincoln had not practiced law very long before the best people of Springfield began to invite him to their homes. He was still "poor as a church mouse," but he was so bright and clever, and such a good story teller, that no gathering seemed a success without him.

And so Honest Abe, the backwoods rail-splitter, was now often the manager of a dance, or the chief speaker at a dinner party.

At this time he became acquainted with a Miss Mary Todd, a handsome and witty young girl, who had come from Kentucky to visit her married sister. She chose Mr. Lincoln out of the many young men in Springfield who admired her, and the two were married when Lincoln was thirty-three years old.

He was still so poor that he could not afford to set up house-keeping, so he and his young wife went to board for a while at a cheap tavern, where their food and room together cost only four