January 2, 1851
Dear Johnston:
Your request for
eighty dollars I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times
when I have helped you a little you have said to me, "We can get along
very well now"; but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty
again. Now, this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that
defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy, and still you are an idler. I
doubt whether, since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work in any
one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much
merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This
habit of uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important
to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break the habit. It
is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out
of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they
are in.
You are now in
need of some money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work,
"tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let
father and your boys take charge of your things at home, prepare for a crop,
and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge
of any debt you owe, that you can get; and, to secure you a fair reward for
your labor, I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and
the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own
indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By this, if you hire
yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty
dollars a month for your work. In this I do not mean you shall go off to St.
Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines in California, but I mean for you
to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. Now,
if you will do this, you will be soon out of debt, and, what is better, you
will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I
should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep in as
ever. You say you would almost give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty
dollars. Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can,
with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five
months' work. You say if I will furnish you the money you will deed me the
land, and, if you don't pay the money back, you will deliver possession.
Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live without it?
You have always been kind to me, and I do not mean to be unkind to you. On the
contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than
eighty times eighty dollars to you.
Affectionately your brother,
A.
Lincoln
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