An "out-of-character" moment for Lincoln?

[Lewis Gannett]

Thanks RJ! Doubtless everyone's heard the story--Speed told it--that Lincoln was out riding with friends one day and espied baby birds on the ground. He picked them up and climbed a tree to return them to their nest. His companions laughed at him. Speed quoted Lincoln replying, "I could not have slept tonight if I had not given those two little birds to their mother" (HI 590). Caleb Carman, sometime roommate in New Salem, recalled that Lincoln loved his pet cats, Jane and Susan. When Lincoln left town to serve his first term in Vandalia, "Jane & Susan he would not alow them hurt the winter he went to Vandalia to the Legislator he Left very strict orders for the cats to be well taken care of" (HI 504). Caleb Carman, by the way, is quite an interesting & fun New Salem source on his friend Abe. Of course, there are a bunch of Lincoln-kind-to-animals stories. The one about the mired-down hog is thoroughly credible.