At once he proceeded to perform the feat, and accomplished it with seeming ease. The barrel was raised, and a quantity of liquor taken from the bung-hole.

“There it is!” exclaimed Green. “But that is the first dram I ever saw you drink in my life, Abe,” he added, turning to Abraham.

The words had scarcely escaped his lips before Abraham set down the barrel, and spirted the whiskey that was in his mouth upon the floor, at the same time replying, “And I haven’t drunk that, you see.”

Green burst into a hearty laugh at this turn of the affair, and added, “You are bound to let whiskey alone, Abe.”

And this same Green writes to us: “That was the only drink of intoxicating liquor I ever saw him take, and that he spirted on the floor.”

The stranger was satisfied, as well as astonished. He had never seen the like before, and he doubted whether he ever should again. He did not know that the whole life-discipline through which Abraham had passed was suited to develope muscular strength. Probably he did not care, since there was the actual deed.

We are interested in it mostly for the determination it showed to reject whiskey. The act was in keeping with all his previous temperance habits.

On the evening after this affair Abraham was alone with his friend William Green, who won the aforesaid hat, and he said to him, “William, are you in the habit of betting?”

“No; I never bet before in my life, never.”

“Well, I never would again, if I were you. It is what unprincipled men will do, and I would set my face against it.”

“I didn’t see anything very bad in that bet,” said William.

“All bets are alike,” answered Abraham, “though you may not have any bad motives in doing it.”

“I only wanted to convince the man that you could lift the barrel.”

“I know it; but I want you should promise me that you will never bet again. It is a species of gambling, and nothing is meaner than that.”

“I don’t suppose I shall ever do it again.”

“I want you should promise me that you won’t,” continued Abraham, with increased emphasis. “It will please your mother to know of so good a resolution.”

“I will promise you, Abe,” answered William, grasping his hand, while tears glistened in his eyes. And there was true seriousness in this transaction, more than might appear to the reader at first view. The one who thus pledged himself to Abraham writes to us now, in his riper years: “On that night, when alone, I wept over his lecture to me, and I have so far kept that solemn pledge.”

The New Salem company went into camp at Beardstown, from whence, in a few days, they marched to the expected scene of conflict. When the thirty days of their enlistment had expired, however, they had not seen the enemy. They were disbanded at Ottawa, and most of the volunteers returned. But a new levy being called for, Abraham re-enlisted as a private. Another thirty days expired, and the war was not over. His regiment was disbanded, and again, the third time, he volunteered. He was determined