Berry "moved on" from the inconvenient
neighborhood, and soon afterward died, contributing nothing to reduce
the indebtedness. Lincoln patiently continued to make payments during
several years to come, until he had discharged the whole amount. It was
only a few hundred dollars, but to him it seemed so enormous that
betwixt jest and earnest he called it "the national debt." So late as in
1848, when he was a member of the House of Representatives at
Washington, he applied part of his salary to this old indebtedness.
During this "store"-keeping episode he had begun to study law, and while
"keeping shop" he was with greater diligence reading Blackstone and such
other elementary classics of the profession as he could borrow. He
studied with zeal and became absorbed in his books. Perched upon a
woodpile, or lying under a tree with his feet thrust upwards against the
trunk and "grinding around with the shade," he caused some neighbors to
laugh uproariously, and others to say that he was daft. In fact, he was
in grim earnest, and held on his way with much persistence.
May 7, 1833, Lincoln was commissioned as postmaster at New Salem. His
method of distributing the scanty mail was to put all the letters in his
hat, and to hand them out as he happened to meet the persons to whom
they were addressed. The emoluments could hardly have gone far towards
the discharge of "the national debt.
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