Lincoln speaks to "large and enthusiastic assembly." Later, at flag station 20 miles west of Springfield, he and Henry Villard, reporter, take refuge from storm in box car. Lincoln tells Villard that as youth his highest political ambition was to be elected to legislature. Now his wife insists he will be senator and President too. "Just think of such a sucker as me as President!" Henry Villard, Memoirs of Henry Villard, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904), 1:96; Menard Index, 4 November 1858; Speech at Petersburg, Illinois, 29 October 1858, CW, 3:333.