Extra Credit Questions

[David Lockmiller]

(10-10-2023 02:22 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Yes, Anita. Well done!

The quote comes from a lecture Speed delivered which was published in 1884.

Speed told the following story to explain why he included "bird" in his statement about Lincoln's tender heart:

"Six gentlemen, I being one, Lincoln, Baker, Hardin, and others were riding along a country road. We were strung along the road two and two together. We were passing through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees. A violent windstorm had just occurred. Lincoln and Hardin were behind. There were two young birds by the roadside too young to fly…. The old bird was fluttering about and wailing as a mother ever does for her babes. Lincoln stopped, hitched his horse, caught the birds, hunted the nest and placed them in it. The rest of us rode on to a creek, and while our horses were drinking Hardin rode up. “Where is Lincoln?” said one. “Oh, when I saw him last he had two little birds in his hand hunting for their nest.” In perhaps an hour he came. They laughed at him. He said with much emphasis, “Gentlemen, you may laugh, but I could not have slept well tonight if I had not saved those birds. Their cries would have rung in my ears."

Roger, I found this post (in part) that I made on May 12, 2014:

I wish to add two more stories on the subject from one of my favorite Lincoln books -- "Lincoln Talks, a Biography in Anecdote" by Emanuel Hertz. One story is directly on point; the second story has a tangential "animal kindness" reference.

1) We had passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab trees, and stopped to water our horses, when Hardin came up alone. "Where is Lincoln?" we all inquired. "Oh," replied he, "when I saw him last he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown out of their nest, and he has been hunting for the nest so as to put them back." In a short time Lincoln came up, having found the nest. The party laughed at him but he said: "I could not have slept if I had not restored those little birds to their mother." -- Joshua F. Speed (page 95)