]
It was after he had read the Laws of Indiana that Lincoln had free
access to the library of his admirer, Judge John Pitcher of Rockport,
Indiana, where undoubtedly he examined many law-books. But from the
time he left Indiana in 1830 he had no legal reading until one day
soon after the grocery was started, when there happened one of those
trivial incidents which so often turn the current of a life. It
is best told in Mr. Lincoln's own words.[2] "One day a man who was
migrating to the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which
contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would
buy an old barrel, for which he had no room in his wagon, and which
he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to
oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a dollar for it.
Without further examination, I put it away in the store, and forgot
all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the
barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I
found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone's
Commentaries.
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