Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/273

 STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS quainted. We were both comparatively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those peculiar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they under- take. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when a cabinet-maker I made a good bed- stead and tables, altho my old boss said I suc- ceeded better with bureaus and secretaries than with anything else; but I believe that Lincoln always was more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him to get into the Legislature. I met him there, however, and had sympathy with him, because of the uphill struggle we both had in life. He was then just as good at telling an anecdote as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or running a foot-race, in pitching quoits, or tossing a copper; could ruin more liquor than all the boys of the town to- gether, and the dignity and impartiality with which he presided at a horse-race or fist-fight excited the admiration and won the praise of everybody that was present and participated. I sympathized with him because he was strug- gling with difficulties, and so was I. Mr. Lin- coln served with me in the Legislature in 1836 when we bcth retired, and he subsided, or be-