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Updated: June 1, 2025
While Fret Offut was taller and larger than Jack North, he lacked the latter's firm-set muscles, and what was of even greater account, his unflinching determination to win. Our hero never knew what it was to possess a faint heart, and that is more than half the battle every time.
Though Jack turned into the alley at a moderate pace, as soon as he had gone a short distance, he started again into a smart run. "I shall have farther to go," he thought, "but Fret Offut will think I have given up, and thus he will let me get in ahead of him."
Disliking to raise a fuss Jack remained silent at first, but he felt bound to say: "I was first at the office, and I claim " "You'd claim the earth, as far as that is concerned, you miserable chick of nobody!" broke in Offut. The last was more than Jack could stand, and stepping quickly forward, he cried: "Stop, Fret Offut! you have said enough.
Henshaw, a rather rough man, as slow as he was of comprehension, was interested in the dispute, and not averse to encouraging sport of the kind, he said: "That's it, boys; fight it out. I'll hire the lad that downs the other." "Then the job is as good as mine!" cried Fret Offut, rushing at Jack with great bluster and no regard to fairness. The Test of Strength
Offut engaged Abraham, with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks, to take a flatboat from Beardstown, on the Illinois River, to New Orleans; and all four arranged to meet at Springfield as soon as the snow should melt. In March, when the snow finally melted, the country was flooded and traveling by land was utterly out of the question.
The way he performed these not only gave general satisfaction, but greatly interested Mentor Graham, who was the village schoolmaster, and from that time on proved a most helpful friend to him. Offut finally arrived with a miscellaneous lot of goods, which Lincoln opened and put in order, and the storekeeping began.
Offut with the way in which Lincoln executed his commission that on his return he engaged him to take charge of a mill and store at New Salem. There, as in every other place in which he had resided, he became the popular favorite. His kindness of heart, his good humor, his skill as a story teller, his strength, his courtesy, manliness, and honesty were such as to win all hearts.
Of more immediate consequence was the notion which the rattle-brained Offut conceived of Lincoln's general ability. This lively patron now proposed to build a river steamboat, with "runners for ice and rollers for shoals and dams," of which his redoubtable young employee was to be captain. But this strange scheme gave way to another for opening in New Salem a "general store" of all goods.
A Narrow Escape With the wild cry of Fret Offut and the exultant yells of the bush-raiders ringing in his ears above the thunder of the rushing train, Jack North heard the ominous crash, of the descending bowlder, and saw with a dazed look its swift approach. The locomotive, throbbing and panting like a human being in a race for life, was fairly flying along the winding track.
New Salem was a very small village destined to be of only a few years duration. Here Offut erected a small general store and placed Lincoln in charge while Offut having other unimportant business ventures went about the community bragging that his clerk, Lincoln, was the best man in the country and would some day be president of the United States.
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