Lincoln’s Wit/Wisdom 173

You can take the country boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the country boy, and Lincoln was a country boy through and through. Thus, you might have been surprised, if you had knocked on the Lincoln White House door, to have the door answered by the President himself - in his shirtsleeves and/or slippers. You might have been non-plussed seeing him use his own spoon in the White House sugar bowl. And there's no telling how you'd react to the following story that may not be true but certainly has the ring of authenticity about it. One evening, they say, before going to the theater, Lincoln was standing at the foot of the stairs in the White House with some friends and explained in his own distinctively breezy manner, ‘Mary's still upstairs puttin' on her trottin' harness.'’