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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: messmate, George M. Harrison, had the misfortune to have their
horses stolen the very day before, but Harrison's record says:
"I laughed at our fate, and he joked at it, and we all started of
merrily. The generous men of our company walked and rode by turns
with us, and we fared about equal with the rest. But for this
generosity, our legs would have had to do the better work, for in
that day this dreary route furnished no horses to buy or to
steal, and whether on horse or afoot, we always had company, for
many of the horses' backs were too sore for riding."
Lincoln reached New Salem about the first of August, only ten
days before the election. He had lost nothing in popular esteem
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