LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS - Foreword - WHEN I was a little girl and lived in Springfield, Illinois, I knew familiarly a large group of older folk, all of whom had known Lincoln. An uncle had stood guard over his bier, an aunt had sung at his funeral. Many of my grandfathers friends had been Lincolns associates at the bar. Others had played cards with him - in a certain old drug store that still remained. The younger of the older men of the town had been Wide Awakes, and had marched in oilcloth capes in . the campaign of 68. The women, too, had their recollections of Lincoln. They had been to his house to call upon his wife, to attend receptions. A certain old lady of charming presence had seen him married and, on demand, could give interesting details of the occasion. The oldest of them all had seen him pilot the Talisman down the Foreword I Sangamon, and remembered well that no one dreamed of inviting him to the ball that had celebrated that event. Springfield, one might say, was permeated with the spirit of Lincoln. The house where I went to school with other little Springfield girls was the house in which he had been married. The desk in a corridor of the chief hotel, upon which we did not hesitate to perch at class dances, had been Lincolns. The house where Lincoln had lived, and where his children had been born, was open to the public. One took country cousins to see its interior. The monument where he slept dominated the cemetery. The bristling groups of bronze soldiers at the four corners of the shaft were of endless interest. The Springfield children learned to know Lincoln, therefore, from the stories of his neighbors and through his association with various P laces, long before they knew him from the histories. It was, I remember, with a feeling of vi Foreword surprise that I came upon his name in books. It was like coming upon a friend of every day riding in a barouche behind four horses. One preferred the friend and neighbor in a linen duster, a market-basket upon his arm. Moreover, the histories had little to say of Springfield, Lincoln. home for twenty years, - of Springfield, which seemed to us his proper It is of the everyday Lincoln and his Mid-Western home that I shall attempt to write, in the hope that the memories treasured by his townsmen may not be wholly without interest to a wider world. November 29 - , 1917 THE ROAD ALONG THE SANGAMON AT NEW SALEM OVER WHICH LINCOLN WALKED TO BORROW LAW BOOKS 111. MOVES TO SPRINGFIELD. 29 IV. HOUSELSI NCOLKNN EW. 45 V. THE L INCOLHNO ME a . 63 VI. OLD STATE HOUSE. . l 75 VII. LAST DAYS AT HOME l . l 91 VIII. THE FUNERAL l l 109 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.