'The Lizard' An Abe Lincoln Story

As it happens, Abraham Lincoln had lived in New Salem, Illinois only a few months, when he was  asked to be clerk of the local election board for an election. On election day, when voters were coming in slowly, Lincoln began to entertain the crowd at the polls with some stories.

Lincoln called this one, "The lizard story".

"The meeting house was in the woods and quite a distance from any other house. It was only used once a month. The preacher - an old line Baptist - was dressed in course linen pantaloons [pants], and shirt of the same material. The pants, manufactured after the old fashion, with baggy legs and a flap in front, were made to attach to his frame without the aid of suspenders. A single button held his shirt in place, and that was at the collar.

He rose up in the pulpit and with a loud voice announced his text thus: 'I am the Christ whom I shall represent today.' About this time a little blue lizard ran up under his baggy pantaloons. The old preacher, not wanting to interrupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on his legs, expecting to stop the intruder; but his efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept on climbing higher and higher.

Continuing with his sermon, the preacher slyly unbuttoned the central button which graced the waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick, off came that loose-fitting garment. But meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had past the equatorial line of the waistband and was calmly exploring that part of the preacher's anatomy which lay underneath the back of his shirt.

Things were now growing interesting, but the sermon was still grinding on. The next movement on the preacher's part was for the collar button, and with one sweep of his arm - off came the tow linen shirt!

The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed. At length, one old lady in the rear of the room rose up and started for the door. Glancing back once more at the odd happenings behind the pulpit, she shouted at the top of her voice: 

'If you represent Christ, then I'm done with the Bible!'

One of the people in the crowd at the polls that day enjoying Lincoln's stories was J.R. Herndon, the cousin of Abraham Lincoln's future law partner and biographer, William Herndon. In J.R.'s opinion, it was Lincoln's gift of storytelling - not his wrestling or feats of strength - that earned his acceptance by the tiny, frontier community of New Salem, Illinois in 1831. 

This was another tale from Abe Lincoln, Storyteller.

Mac

Work Cited

Herndon, William H. and Weik, Jesse W. (1949) Herndon's Life of Lincoln: With introduction and notes by Paul M. Angle. New York City, NY: The World Publishing Company. pp. 67-68.