Returning from off the circuit once [Lincoln] said to Mr. Herndon: ‘Billy, I heard a good story while I was up in the country. Judge D—- was complimenting the landlord on the excellence of his beef. ‘I am surprised,’ he said, ‘that you have such good beef. You must have to kill a whole critter when you want any.’ ‘Yes,’ said the landlord, ‘we never kill less than a whole critter.’

— William Henry Herndon, Abraham Lincoln, 1889