Note 60 — Chapter Thirty-five

Much has been made of the fact that David earned his first year’s law-book money in Springfield by operating a sawing-machine for a lumber company during his noon-hours and Saturday afternoons. In fact, Elsworth Tappen in his monograph, goes so far as to say that he earned enough money, what after paying his board, his lodging, and sending money home, to pay for his law-books and accessories by sawing wood. One way, I suppose, of interpreting the act of operating a sawing-machine.

But, in any event, the American public loves to think of David as literally sawing the wood.