The rate of postage on letters was still twenty-five cents, and
small as the earnings of the office undoubtedly were, a little
change found its way now and then into his hands. In the scarcity
of money on the frontier, this had an importance hard for us to
realize. A portion of this money, of course, belonged to the
government. That he used only what was rightfully his own we
could be very sure, even if a sequel to this post office
experience were not known which shows his scrupulous honesty
where government funds were concerned. Years later, after he had
become a practising lawyer in Springfield, an agent of the
Post-office Department called upon him in his office one day to
collect a balance due from the New Salem post-office, amounting
to about seventeen dollars. A shade of perplexity passed over his
face, and a friend, sitting by, offered to lend him the money if
he did not at the moment have it with him. Without answering,
Lincoln rose, and going to a little trunk that stood by the wall,
opened it and took out the exact sum, carefully done up in a
small package. "I never use any man's money but my own, he
quietly remarked, after the agent had gone.
Soon after he was raised to the dignity of postmaster another
piece of good fortune came in his way. Sangamon County covered a
territory some forty miles long by fifty wide, and almost every
citizen in it seemed intent on buying or selling land, laying out
new roads, or locating some future city.
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