eight o'clock on the
eleventh of February
`` Keep the old sign hanging . A little thing like the election of a President should make no change in the firm of Lincoln and Herndon . If I live I 'm coming back some time and then we 'll go right on with the practice of the law as if nothing had happened . '' Then -- that Monday morning in Springfield when at eight o'clock on the eleventh of February the train bore him toward the great task of his life . Hannah Armstrong , who had foxed his trousers in New Salem , and the venerable Doctor Allen and the Brimsteads , and Aleck Ferguson , bent with age , and Harry Needles and Bim and their four handsome children , and my father and mother , and Betsey , my maiden sister , and Eli Fredenberg were there in the crowd to bid him good-by . A quartet sang . Mr. Lincoln asked his friends and neighbors to pray for his success .