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WHY HE WAS CALLED "HONEST ABE."
During the year Lincoln was in Denton Offutt's store at New Salem, that
gentleman, whose business was somewhat widely and unwisely spread about
the country, ceased to prosper in his finances and finally failed. The
store was shut up, the mill was closed, and Abraham Lincoln was out of
business.
The year had been one of great advance, in many respects. He had made
new and valuable acquaintances, read many books, mastered the grammar of
his own tongue, won multitudes of friends, and became ready for a step
still further in advance.
Those who could appreciate brains respected him, and those whose ideas
of a man related to his muscles were devoted to him. It was while he
was performing the work of the store that he acquired the sobriquet
of "Honest Abe"--a characterization he never dishonored, and an
abbreviation that he never outgrew.
He was judge, arbitrator, referee, umpire, authority, in all disputes,
games and matches of man-flesh, horse-flesh, a pacificator in all
quarrels; everybody's friend; the best-natured, the most sensible, the
best-informed, the most modest and unassuming, the kindest, gentlest,
roughest, strongest, best fellow in all New Salem and the region round
about.
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Stories and Anecdotes About the Life of Abraham Lincoln
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