Page:Six Months at the White House.djvu/310

Rh ing  'broadswords'  for weapons, and the two opposite banks of the Mississippi, where the river was about a mile wide, for the  'ground.' "

Dr. Henry, who had listened quietly to this, here broke in, "That will do for a 'story,' Arnold," said he, "but it will hardly pass with me, for I happened to be Lincoln's  'second'  on the occasion. The facts are these.  You will bear me witness that there was never a more spirited circle of young folks in one town than lived in Springfield at that period.  Shields, you remember, was a great  'beau.'   For a bit of amusement one of the young ladies wrote some verses, taking him off sarcastically, which were abstracted from her writing-desk by a mischievous friend, and published in the local newspaper.  Shields, greatly irritated, posted at once to the printing-office and demanded the name of the author.  Much frightened, the editor requested a day or two to consider the matter, and upon getting rid of Shields went directly to Mr. Lincoln with his trouble.

"'Tell Shields,' was the chivalric rejoinder, 'that I hold myself responsible for the verses.' The next day Mr. Lincoln left for a distant section to attend court.  Shields, boiling over with wrath, followed and 'challenged' him.  Scarcely knowing what he did, Mr. Lincoln accepted the challenge, seeing no alternative.  The choice of weapons being left to him, he named 'broadswords,' intending to act only on the defensive, and think-