' He took hold of the cradle and led the way
all the round with perfect ease. The boys were satisfied, and I
don't think he lost a vote in the crowd."
Sometimes two or more candidates would meet at such places, and
short speeches would be called for and given, the harvesters
throwing down their scythes meanwhile to listen, and enlivening
the occasion with keen criticisms of the method and logic of the
rival orators. Altogether the campaign was more spirited than
that of two years before. Again there were thirteen candidates
for the four places; but this time, when the election was over,
it was found that only one man in the long list had received more
votes than Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln's election to the legislature of Illinois in August,
1834, marks the end of the pioneer period of his life. He was
done now with the wild carelessness of the woods, with the rough
jollity of Clary's Grove, with odd jobs for his daily bread--with
all the details of frontier poverty. He continued for years to be
a very poor man, harassed by debts he was constantly laboring to
pay, and sometimes absolutely without money: but from this time
on he met and worked with men of wider knowledge and
better-trained minds than those he had known in Gentryville and
New Salem, while the simple social life of Vandalia, where he
went to attend the sessions of the legislature, was more elegant
than anything he had yet seen.
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