Page:He Knew Lincoln and Other Billy Brown Stories.djvu/109

 carry on the Mexican War. Now, I know that wa'n't so, and more'n that it didn't have anything to do with the question. It made me feel plumb bad to have him goin' on that way.

And that's the way he kept it up. Always digressin', never takin' up a p'int till Lincoln had drove him into a corner, always insistin' Lincoln wanted a nigger wife. Why, he made so much of that fool lie that there was a lot of people got to thinkin' mebbe that's what Lincoln's idees did mean. There's a man livin' here in this town now that's got a little book Lincoln made for him to show around and to prove he didn't mean nuthin' of the kind.

Fact was, Douglas never meant to argue it out fair and square. He meant to dodge, to mix us up and keep our minds off Kansas-Nebraska and old Judge Taney, and all the things Lincoln