Daily Story
Diversion and Revenge
Thurlow Weed tells of breakfasting with Lincoln and Judge Davis while in Springfield in December prior to Mr. Lincoln’s first inauguration. Judge Davis remarked Mr. Weed’s fondness for sausage and said, “You seem fond of our Chicago sausages.” To which Mr. Weed responded that he was, and thought the article might be relied on where pork was cheaper than dogs. “That,” said Mr. Lincoln, “reminds me of what occurred down in Joliet, where a popular grocer supplied all the villagers with sausages.” One Saturday evening, when his grocery was filled with customers, for whom he and his boys were busily engaged in weighing sausages, a neighbor with whom he had had a violent quarrel that day came into the grocery, made his way up to the counter, holding two enormous dead cats by the tail, which he deliberately threw onto the counter saying, “This makes seven to-day. I’ll call round Monday and get my money for them.”
Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, p. 142-143.