In October 1860, an eleven-year-old girl named Grace Bedell in Westfield, New York saw a picture of Abraham Lincoln and wrote him a letter. She told him his face was so thin that if he let his whiskers grow, he would look a great deal better, and she would try to get her brothers to vote for him. Four days later, Lincoln wrote back. He was gracious, though he wondered if people might call it silly to start a beard now. Yet when he stopped in Westfield in February 1861 on the way to his inauguration, he wore a full beard and met his young correspondent. Never think your voice is too small to matter.
