THE BOY 
 LINCOLN 
 
 W. O. STODDARD 
 
Books by 
 
 W. O. Stoddard 
 
 i 
 
 Little Smoke. A Tale of the Sioux 
 
 The Battle of New York 
 
 On the Old Frontier; or 
 
 The Last Raid of the Iroquois 
 
 Chris, the Model-Maker 
 
 The Windfall 
 
 The Red Patriot 
 
 Spy of Yorktown 
 
 The Fight for the Valley 
 
 The Boy Lincoln 
 
 These are Appleton Book* 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 Publishers New York 
 
 325A**** 
 
WOtStoddan! 
 
 IHifl 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://archive.org/details/boylincolnOOillstod 
 
Hold onto him, Abe ! " 
 
The 
 BOY LINCOLN 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM O. STODDARD 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE WINDFALL," "THE RED PATRIOT," 
 
 "THE SPY OF YORKTOWN," "THE FIGHT 
 
 FOR THE VALLEY," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 NEW YORK :: :: LONDON 
 
 1930 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1905^ BY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved. This book, or parts 
 thereof, must not be reproduced in any 
 form without permission of the publishers. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
M to 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Theee is a wonderful romance in the early life 
 of Abraham Lincoln. It is worth anybody's while to 
 study the beginnings of such a career and examine 
 the first steps made toward the greatness which was 
 to come. Only a few months before I became ac- 
 quainted with him, I was living in just such a log 
 house as he built for his father in Illinois and but 
 a few miles north of it. Both were larger and better 
 than the cabin in the Indiana backwoods, but each 
 had just such a puncheon floor as Abe's step-mother 
 made Tom Lincoln put down on her arrival. There 
 were ten miles of open prairie between me and the 
 nearest fenced settlement, and all the Embarrass 
 Eiver timber near at hand contained but one Yan- 
 kee. The other settlers were all from Kentucky, 
 southern Indiana and Ohio, altogether such neigh- 
 bors as were his own around Gentryville. With all 
 features of their character and life I became so 
 familiar that it sometimes seems as if I had lived 
 where he did. 
 
 I wish that those who may read this story might 
 understand him better and then read on through the 
 grand history of his life till they know why those 
 
PREFACE 
 
 who were associated with him obtained such exalted 
 ideas of him. During the years of my experience 
 with him in the White House, it seemed to me as if 
 his tall form grew taller all the while ; and now, as 
 I look back through the mists of memory and a half 
 century of time, to our first meeting in my editorial 
 room, he appears gigantic and I almost doubt if he 
 ever did really get into so small a place and sit 
 down with me to discuss our county politics. 
 
 I have carefully avoided bringing into this nar- 
 rative imaginary places or occurrences or indi- 
 viduals, and if old man Sansom is to be called an 
 exception to the rule, it may be replied that no man 
 can live long on the frontier or in the backwoods 
 without meeting his counterpart and hearing him 
 say, " I knowed a man, once " 
 
 There is here a lesson of possible development, 
 advancement, uplifting, which is invaluable. It is 
 peculiarly American and should become familiar to 
 every boy or girl in the Republic for which he did 
 and suffered so much and so unselfishly. There- 
 fore I am going to send out my little book and ask 
 them to go into the Indiana clearing with me and 
 hear Abe talk with old man Sansom and listen to 
 the debates of the parliament that held its impor- 
 tant sessions in Gentry's grocery. 
 
 William 0. Stoddard. 
 
 vi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. — The Neighbors 1 
 
 II. — Great Comfort . 18 
 
 III.— The Hunter 36 
 
 IV.— The Pour-Horse Team 55 
 
 V.— The New Home 71 
 
 VI. — Out of the Shadow 89 
 
 VII. — The Old and the New 107 
 
 VIII.— New Schools 125 
 
 IX.— The Summer Woods 143 
 
 X. — Horse-Dealing 161 
 
 XI. — The Country Store 179 
 
 XII.— The Debates 197 
 
 XIII. — Stump Speaking 215 
 
 XIV.— The Rail-Splitter 231 
 
 vu 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 HERE were about thirty acres of land 
 upon which there were no trees. All 
 around this patch the forest was un- 
 broken. On the southerly side were many stumps 
 to tell of ax work, and the remainder was one of 
 the natural " opens " which are always so eagerly 
 sought for by frontiersmen, because it is as if there 
 was just so much weary chopping already done and 
 the stumps pulled out. In among the stumps, but 
 not at all concealed, were two rude structures made 
 of untrimmed logs. One of these was only a long, 
 low shed, with a front composed of poles and slabs 
 of bark. This was what some of the Western peo- 
 ple called a " half-faced camp," and others a " pole 
 
 1 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 shelter." The other building was a well-made log 
 house, about twenty feet by thirty, with a split- 
 shingle roof. On the farther side of it was a huge 
 chimney, made of sticks and tempered clay, but as 
 yet, that frosty morning, no smoke from its black- 
 ened nose was rising above the roof-peak. Opposite 
 the chimney and in the middle of the house-front 
 there was a doorway, and on either side of this were 
 wide, square holes for windows, but these had in 
 them neither sash nor glass. 
 
 Just as a faint glimmer of coming light began 
 to grow among the eastern tree tops, a framework 
 of planks inside the doorway swung slowly back, 
 and beyond this the sound of shrill young voices 
 was heard, cheerily answering one another. It had 
 required the strength of two young borderers to lift 
 and swing back that door, and one of them stepped 
 quickly out and glanced in all directions around 
 him. If he were only ten, he was a tall boy for his 
 age, and somewhat slender. His dark, bushy hair 
 was partly hidden by a brimless coonskin cap, 
 which seemed to add something or other to the 
 expression of merry good-humor upon his sun- 
 
 2 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 burned face. As to the rest of his outfit, he did not 
 appear to have anything on him which had not 
 originally been part of the wearing apparel of some 
 luckless deer. However well his buckskin shirt 
 and leggings had been constructed by a backwoods 
 tailor, they were now a good deal the worse for 
 wear. As to warmth and comfort, they would have 
 been well enough at some other season of the year, 
 but were hardly the thing for frosty weather. The 
 moccasins on his feet came half-way up the ankles, 
 and seemed to be made of pretty thick deer leather. 
 
 "Hard frost, Dennis," he said. "It a'most 
 looks as if thar had been a fall o' snow. Eeckon 
 deer 'd leave a good trail, this mornin , . ,, 
 
 " It wouldn't do us any good if they did," re- 
 plied Dennis, from beyond the doorway. "Wish 
 we had a gun ! " 
 
 " Abe ! Abe ! " called out a girl's voice from 
 within, " what we want first is a bucket of water. 
 Don't let's poke up the fire till we git one." 
 
 "All right," said Abe. "The bucket's right 
 here by the door. Come on." 
 
 Dennis was no taller than Abe, but he was 
 
 3 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 broader shouldered and may have been older. The 
 third member of that household to come out in 
 sight was not more than twelve years old. She 
 was a great deal better-looking than either of the 
 others, without being at all better dressed ; that is, 
 her moccasins were in fair condition, but her woolen 
 frock was in need of darning in several places. 
 Her head was bare, and her rippling brown hair 
 fell down over her shoulders. 
 
 When Abe had picked up his bucket and the 
 three walked away together, the house behind them 
 was all alone. 
 
 The land, upon which there were no trees, in- 
 cluding that upon which there were stumps, lay in 
 low ridges which told of the plow. At regular 
 intervals along the ridges the white carpet of 
 frost was pierced by the stiff-looking yellow stumps 
 which are left behind by the corn-cutter. There 
 were no other signs of any cropping on that small 
 farm. 
 
 The three were following a well-trodden path- 
 way. It led away to the eastward, almost into the 
 forest. Not quite, for here at its edge was a long, 
 
 4 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 narrow level, the face of which looked as if a great 
 pane of polished glass, with ragged borders, were 
 gloomily waiting for the sunlight to come over the 
 tree tops and enable it and its neighboring frost- 
 faces to glimmer and smile. There was no spring 
 here, for no rivulet flowed away from the pool, but 
 much rain-water had drained into this hollow and it 
 had become a natural cistern, such as was needed 
 by people who had no other and had digged no 
 well. 
 
 The young people halted at the edge of the ice, 
 and Abe put down his bucket to take another long 
 look around him and to remark : 
 
 " I say, Sis, don't you be skeered. But didn't 
 old man Sansom tell how the redskins used to come 
 an' watch at sech places as this? They'd skulk in 
 bushes, like them over yonder, an' draw a bead on 
 you while you were fillin' your bucket. Then they'd 
 come 'round an' take your skelp an' git away with 
 it. Ain't you glad they're gone? " 
 
 " Oo-oogh ! " shuddered Sis. " I wish he 
 wouldn't tell any more awful stories. But our 
 folks killed 'em off for it, anyway." 
 
 5 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 " So they did," almost whispered back Abe. 
 "But, Nancy, keep still! You an' Dennis, both. 
 Look yonder — 'cross the pool — 'mong the sumacs ! " 
 
 There was a dense growth of bushes on the far- 
 ther margin of the sheet of ice. Away out over 
 them stretched the leafless branches of the giant 
 oaks, with a protective expression, although no 
 sumac-bush was ever the child of any oak. The 
 previous summer had been one of prosperity for 
 that copse. The red " bobs " were numerous, and 
 the frost had brought out all their brilliancy of 
 color, while it had not lessened the yellow tints of 
 such remnants of foliage as still clung to the wide 
 arms of the forest monarchs. 
 
 " Hush-sh ! " whispered Nancy. " I see 'em ! 
 Keep still, Denny ! " 
 
 There were three faces which were almost out 
 from the cover of the bushes; three forms which 
 were as motionless as those of Nancy herself and 
 her two companions. That was only for a moment, 
 and then they gently nudged one another, as if they 
 were pointing across the ice and saying something 
 about the water-carriers from the log house. One 
 
 6 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 of them, in the middle, was a very handsome fellow, 
 and he was large for one of his family, although 
 his antlers told for him that he was only five years 
 old. Once more he stood still, while the two does 
 on either side of him drew closer till they touched 
 him, as if to remind him that he was their pro- 
 tector, in case there might be any danger to them 
 in the three other wild creatures at whom they 
 were staring. 
 
 " Buck an' two does," muttered Abe. " Don't I 
 wish I had a rifle ! But father took his with him, 
 all the way to Kentucky. Good short range." 
 
 " Oh, don't kill 'em! " said Nancy; " they're too 
 pretty." 
 
 "Can't!" grumbled Abe. "But I could, if I 
 had a gun." 
 
 " Don't believe you could hit 'em," said Dennis 
 doubtfully. 
 
 The buck stood quite fearlessly, and may have 
 been under the impression that he had not been 
 seen. No one could have told him that the family 
 rifle had just then gone visiting. The fact is that 
 as to deer and their perceptions concerning hunters 
 
 7 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 there is no authentic record. They will sometimes 
 expose themselves recklessly without any apparent 
 reason. Other animals are strangely careless at 
 times. It has been declared by a multitude of in- 
 telligent farmers that the crow alone will never 
 allow a man with a gun to come anywhere near 
 him. If, indeed, the man will lay down his gun 
 and walk away from it, or if he has accidentally 
 left his ammunition at home, the dark-winged corn- 
 stealer will be more neighborly. There have been 
 endless arguments as to the manner in which he 
 determines the precise range of any shotgun, and 
 whether or not it is loaded. 
 
 The buck and his companions continued to look 
 on in silence, while Abe broke the thin ice with a 
 stick and filled his rude bucket with water. So little 
 did they appear to be alarmed, in fact, that one of 
 the does began to nibble at a sumac bob, and the 
 other went back a step or two and picked at the 
 red berries of a mountain-ash. Abe put down his 
 bucket to watch them, and remarked: 
 
 "I've heard tell about that. It's one way the 
 deer git thar livin', all winter long. They'll eat 
 
 8 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 twigs, too, an' they'll scratch away the snow from 
 any place whar thar's a bunch o' grass under it." 
 
 " Why," objected Nancy, " they couldn't see the 
 grass." 
 
 " Yes, they can," said Abe, " right through the 
 snow. An' father says a buck'll stand an' keep 
 watch while the does eat up the fodder." 
 
 " But how does he git his own dinner? " asked 
 Nancy. 
 
 "Oh," replied Abe, with a chuckle, "he says 
 the old coon's only playin' sharp. He watches, 
 an' then he goes round an' scoops all the rest o' 
 the grass the does have been uncoverin' for him. 
 They'll scratch the snow in a dozen places. Saves 
 him heaps o' work." 
 
 There was hardly any wind blowing. There 
 rarely is, near the roots of the trees in a great for- 
 est, whatever gusts may be driving overhead. In 
 the summer-time, when the foliage is thick, one may 
 often lie on the ground in an almost undisturbed 
 stillness, unless a hurricane should upset a heavy 
 trunk upon him. Nevertheless the air was bracing, 
 and the young water-carriers were quite willing to 
 
 9 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 pick up their bucket and walk off with it toward 
 the house. Nancy lingered for one more glance at 
 the pretty brown faces among the sumacs, but at 
 that moment the buck tossed his antlered head and 
 the does wheeled gracefully to spring away with 
 him into the forest. They had seen enough for one 
 morning, and it might be best for them to go and 
 break the ice in some other pool. At least they had 
 no fires to build, if their breakfasts were yet to 
 come, and that was what their human neighbors 
 were now thinking of. 
 
 " If we'd only jest set it goin' ! " said Nancy 
 regretfully. 
 
 "Never mind," replied Abe; "I reckon it'll 
 come up, quick enough. "We covered heaps o' red 
 coals last evenin\" 
 
 There was an important feature of border 
 housekeeping hidden in that statement concerning 
 fire that was smothered under a heap of ashes. 
 Not in all that forest, down to the Ohio Eiver, six- 
 teen miles away southerly, nor beyond it, could 
 there have been found one box of good lucifer 
 matches that morning. As for going northward 
 
 10 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 after one, there were no settlements of any impor- 
 tance between that small clearing and the shores of 
 the great lakes. All was a wilderness, into which 
 matches had not yet intruded, for the entire new 
 State contained not more than a hundred and twenty 
 thousand inhabitants. In every cabin, therefore, 
 the fire when once kindled had to be kept up per- 
 petually, like the Sacred Fire of the Six Nations 
 in their Council-house among the Onondagas. Wise 
 men have studied and written concerning the origin 
 and meaning of that mystic and wonderful Sacred 
 Fire, not thinking deeply enough to put themselves 
 in mind of how many other fires, in how many 
 wigwams, were from day to day, year to year, con- 
 tinually kindled from that central blaze. It was 
 but a sort of National Treasury of carefully pre- 
 served combustion. 
 
 The heap of ashes on the hearth in the log cabin 
 had a cold look on its face when the children came 
 in. Abe and Dennis put down the bucket inside the 
 door, but Nancy darted ahead of them and began 
 very gently to shave away ashes from the top of 
 the heap. 
 
 11 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 "Hold on!" said Abe. "I'll fetch in some 
 birch bark; hickory, too. We'll have a fire, soon 
 enough. Don't blow it till I come." 
 
 Out he went, and it was but a few steps to a 
 liberal wood-pile, on one side of which lay a heap 
 of bark and small branches. Dennis had followed 
 him for an armful of larger wood, and in less than 
 a minute they also were stooping over the ashes. 
 More were scraped away, and Abe exclaimed: 
 
 " It's kept first-rate. Look at those coals I It'll 
 come up." 
 
 There they were, plenty of them, and as their 
 gray blanket was removed, so that they could ob- 
 tain a breath of the morning air, they all woke up, 
 with red and healthy faces. Nancy blew them hard, 
 and more color came into their cheeks and her own. 
 Some of them even sent out angry sparkles, as if 
 they resented being disturbed from their quiet 
 slumbers. The bits of dry bark were deftly laid in 
 place, and now there was no need for any more 
 blowing, so speedily did the yellow flames dance 
 upward. More bark went on, some small branches, 
 and then Abe sprang to his feet, exclaiming: 
 
 12 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 " Thar ! That'll do. Nancy, you stir up the 
 pone, while he an' I go for a back-log. You'd bet- 
 ter let me cut the bacon." 
 
 " I'll do that," said Dennis. " I can cut it bet- 
 ter'n you can." 
 
 " No, you can't," said Abe ; " you always cut it 
 too thick." 
 
 Out they went to the wood-pile, and here there 
 was a selection to be made, on consultation. They 
 agreed, and the cut of oak which was to serve as a 
 backlog for the fire was one which had been 
 chopped off by stronger hands than theirs. It was 
 a bit of fuel which was to be rolled to its place 
 rather than carried. It was easy enough to get it 
 in front of the fireplace and take away the and- 
 irons, but then there still remained a kind of prob- 
 lem in log-house engineering as to the manner in 
 which so heavy a weight was to be put away back 
 without crushing out the very life of that now joy- 
 ous and healthy fire. Both of the boys, however, 
 had seen that thing done, for they now brought out 
 of a corner a couple of short, strong poles, which 
 they skilfully employed as levers. Under the log 
 
 13 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 went the poles, and then both skill and strength 
 went into one long, hard-breathing lift. 
 
 " Thar she goes ! " shouted Abe. " That'll burn 
 all day an' all night. Now we'll put in the irons 
 and go for a fores tick." 
 
 "Whack up against the backlog went the and- 
 irons, and, shortly, in came a smaller cut which was 
 still heavy enough to require prying with the levers. 
 Here was therefore a good foundation, and all sorts 
 of smaller firewood might be heaped upon it at 
 pleasure. At the same time all the coals which 
 remained, with others which were rapidly making, 
 were carefully poked out to the front, for it was 
 getting hungrily near breakfast-time, and the cabin 
 cookery was yet to be done. Part of it had already 
 begun, for Nancy had climbed upon a table in a 
 corner to bring down a large earthenware bowl, and 
 into this, with an iron spoon, she had ladled a quan- 
 tity of Indian corn-meal from a bag under the 
 table. This itself consisted of four forked stakes 
 driven into the ground, crosspieces on the stakes, 
 and on these three sawed planks, all unplaned. Into 
 the meal Nancy had sifted a little salt, she had 
 
 14 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 poured on water from the bucket, she had stirred 
 vigorously, and now the pone was standing to soak 
 until its time should come for further treatment. 
 Against the wall near the table hung several flitches 
 of bacon, a good-looking ham and a shoulder ; and 
 Abe, with Dennis watching him, was now at work 
 with a butcher-knife cutting long slices from one 
 of the flitches. He made the slices thin, but liberal, 
 for he knew about what might be done with them 
 by himself and his two assistants. 
 
 The bed of coals was now a good one, and on 
 it Dennis had placed a long-handled sheet-iron 
 saucepan, which heated so quickly that the fragrant 
 pork began to hiss and sizzle the moment the slices 
 were laid down. The whole house took on a differ- 
 ent air, one of comfort, as soon as that smoke began 
 to rise and float around. Any part of it which 
 might choose to do so was free to go out at the 
 door, for none of them had thought of closing it. 
 The windows were still closed by wooden shutters, 
 which hung from leather strap hinges above and 
 were secured at the bottoms by leather catches, so 
 that no midnight burglar could break in — not with- 
 
 15 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 out a shove strong enough to break that deerskin. 
 All the light in the room came in at the door, but 
 there was enough of it, for the sun was now well 
 up, and his pleasant rays were shining brightly 
 among the tops of the forest trees, to tell of the 
 coming day. It would be a good while before he 
 could climb high enough to shine down upon the 
 ice of the pool, or to look in at the hole in the front 
 of the cabin. 
 
 The fire was now going so well that it was warm 
 work to stand near enough to turn the bacon so it 
 would be done on both sides. At last it was cooked 
 finely and was spooned off, so that its place in the 
 saucepan might be taken by spats of corn pone, 
 deftly sleighted in by Nancy, with one hand shield- 
 ing her pretty face from the fire. She was not dark 
 and sallow, like her brother Abe. There were roses 
 in her cheeks, and there was a perpetual laugh 
 lurking away back in her bright blue eyes. 
 
 There were other plates to which the cakes and 
 bacon might be carried, but there was no breakfast- 
 table in that house. Instead of one, there was an 
 affair which may have been planned for a frontier 
 
 16 
 
THE NEIGHBORS 
 
 sofa, but which would do to lay plates on. A very- 
 wide slab of black walnut had been smoothed on 
 its flat side. Into its other side auger-holes had 
 been bored to receive crooked wooden legs, of 
 nearly but not quite the same lengths, and the table, 
 or sofa, had received no further improvements. At 
 all events, it was not likely to break down, and the 
 three housekeepers were soon gathered around it. 
 The fact was that almost precisely such a morning 
 meal was at that hour being prepared in thousands 
 of frontier houses, and eaten without butter, sugar, 
 or milk. 
 
§ 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GREAT COMFORT 
 
 |p!JHE fire was dancing merrily, and more 
 MhYiaf/ sticks had been put on, for the one 
 25sg£al luxury which was almost unstinted at 
 that homestead was first-rate firewood. The room 
 was warm, and there was even light enough, al- 
 though the shutters over the window-holes had not 
 been lifted. Breakfast was over and Nancy was 
 clearing away the dishes. Two of the plates were 
 of pewter, and another was of earthenware. There 
 were also glimpses of shining tin upon the shelf, 
 and there was a big, sheet-iron " Dutch oven " in 
 a corner. The floor looked as if a little sweeping 
 would do it no harm, but it did not get any. It con- 
 sisted of pounded clay, which had been hardened 
 by time and by the treading of many feet until it 
 was as hard as " adobe," if not quite so smooth. 
 The chairs upon which the children had been seated 
 
 18 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 were three-legged stools, which were strong enough 
 to uphold the heaviest person. When a log of wood 
 is split through lengthwise and the faces of the 
 halves are trimmed flat, they become " puncheons," 
 and are available for a variety of purposes. The 
 tables and chairs in this house were all made from 
 puncheons. 
 
 "Come on, Denny," said Abe; "it's time for 
 you an' me to go an' feed the shoats. Jest hear 
 'em squeal ! " 
 
 " Reckon I heard 'em callin' for corn," replied 
 Dennis; "but they can go down to the pool an' 
 root for their own water." 
 
 "They don't care to wallow in it in winter- 
 time, anyhow," said Abe. " Father says he'll have 
 it railed in before spring. Then the shoats'll have 
 to go all the way to the other pool." 
 
 " That's what we may have to do, if this one 
 dries up," said Nancy, " but I do jest hope it won't. 
 What we need is a spring or a well." 
 
 The time for that clearing to own so great an 
 improvement as a deep hole in the earth, with a 
 windlass and a bucket, had evidently not yet come, 
 
 19 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 and the nearest running water was almost a mile 
 from the house. 
 
 Abe and Dennis set out at once in the direction 
 of the impatient summons which was now sound- 
 ing incessantly. It came from away at the left, in 
 the edge of the woods, and the path to it carried 
 them past the second specimen of forest architec- 
 ture which had been seen from the pool. It was a 
 curious affair. The roof was almost as good as 
 that of the house itself. Three sides had been 
 roughly made of logs, but the front, of bark and 
 poles and slabs, appeared to tell that the builders 
 had been in a hurry or had wearied of so much 
 heavy log-work. There was an open doorway in 
 the middle, but windows there were none, and 
 there was no chimney. If ever a fire had been 
 kindled inside of that thing, instead of out in front 
 of the door, the smoke had to find its own way 
 out. The pole-shelter promised protection from the 
 weather, but no comfort, unless it might be for a 
 picnic party in summer. It was only a little better 
 than such " camps " as trappers and hunters were 
 in the habit of constructing for the headquarters of 
 
 20 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 considerable parties who were not going home 
 very soon. 
 
 " That's where aunt an' uncle Sparrow used to 
 live, before the milk-sick came," said Abe thought- 
 fully. " They're gone, now. So is mother." 
 
 Dennis made no reply whatever, but Abe turned 
 his head as he walked on and seemed to be looking 
 away off among the trees. He could not see them, 
 but at no great distance, hidden from him by the 
 tree trunks, were three low mounds of earth upon 
 which the frost was resting whitely. That these 
 mounds were there accounted for the fact that 
 neither the log house nor the pole-shelter contained 
 at this time a father or a mother, and that the three 
 children were alone in the woods. 
 
 " Come on, Abe ! " shouted Dennis. " Jest look 
 at 'em!" 
 
 The shoats, as he called them, were about thirty 
 in number, besides a lot of smaller ones. Any 
 four-legged hog may aspire to that title if he is: 
 big enough to kill; but a human being has been 
 known to consider it a grave offense when another 
 called him a shoat. Those that were here were 
 
 21 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 making all this fuss around an octagonal structure 
 of chestnut rails about fifteen feet high. A little 
 farther on was another like it, and beyond that an- 
 other. The reason why the squealers were here, 
 and not there, though all were full of corn, was that 
 for the present this was the crib from which they 
 were in the habit of receiving their morning and 
 evening supplies. Whenever this should disap- 
 pear, they would transfer their hopes and their 
 squealing. In putting up such a crib, it is only 
 necessary to fence in the ground breast-high at 
 first. "When that hollow is filled up, more rails may 
 be put on, successively, until the walls are too high 
 to pitch corn over them easily from a wagon, or 
 until the corn on hand is all in. In like manner, 
 the upper rails may be dropped off as the corn is 
 fed out. It is the most complete and readily made 
 corn-crib in all the world, with the one defect that 
 it is open at the bottom for any kind of corn-eating 
 animal which can burrow under or squeeze in be- 
 tween the rails, or that can gnaw in the soft chest- 
 nut wood, or any other, a hole large enough to let 
 him out after he has eaten his dinner and increased 
 
 22 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 his size. There are many marauders with these 
 capacities in the neighborhood of all Western corn- 
 fields. 
 
 The two boys went up the side of the corn-crib 
 like a pair of squirrels, and in a moment more their 
 cloven-footed charges were contending with one an- 
 other for the first long, yellow ears that were thrown 
 to them. They were a long-nosed, high-backed 
 , company, of the kind that in after-times, when im- 
 I proved stock began to come in, received the ugly 
 name of " timber-sharks." It was, indeed, a num- 
 ber of long years before shoats received any better 
 care than this. During spring and summer they 
 were permitted to range the woods for a living ; in 
 the autumn they might even grow fat upon beech- 
 nuts and acorns, but only such favored individuals 
 as were penned up for " fall killing " received any 
 corn before winter. There was one curious conse- 
 quence of this kind of farming. While in a state 
 of nature, uninvaded by white settlers, the Western 
 wilderness abounded with snakes. Among these 
 were the large "timber rattlesnakes," that never 
 came out on the prairies ; and with them were their 
 
 23 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 cousins, the copperheads. There were also mas- 
 sauga rattlesnakes, shorter and of a different color, 
 that preferred the prairie, and were rarely found 
 in the woods. Black snakes, milk snakes, adders, 
 and other varieties were in liberal supply, but they 
 all were soon to become things of the past. They 
 were to vanish like the red men themselves, and the 
 land they had lived in was to become almost as 
 free of reptiles as Ireland is said to be. It is not 
 that a shoat has any kind of innate enmity for a 
 serpent, but that one is to him a kind of delicacy. 
 He will root for one, chase him down, dance on him 
 in the strangest manner until he is dead, and then, 
 copperhead or massauga, will tear him up and eat 
 him as if he were something better than oysters. 
 It is said that no hog was ever known to be hurt 
 by a snake-bite. At all events, one of the oddest 
 sights to be anywhere obtained is that of an 
 excited porker, back arched high and bristling, 
 eyes flashing, teeth clashing, fiercely grunting, and 
 springing up and down to strike a wriggling, strug- 
 gling serpent with his sharp-rimmed hoofs. 
 
 There was nothing of that sort for the boys to 
 24 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 see, this morning. All the reptiles in that, or any 
 other timber, were sound asleep among whatever 
 rock ledges or swamps they had chosen for their 
 cold-weather refuges. 
 
 It was a sharp bit of work to throw over corn 
 enough for so many eaters, and to scatter it so that 
 each of them might obtain a fair share. There is 
 no kind of good manners or unselfishness or respect 
 for the rights of others among hungry timber- 
 sharks. It was all done at last, however, and the 
 boys were free to come down and make their way 
 back to the house. Nevertheless, no boys of their 
 age, or somewhat more, ever did go home in a 
 straight line. Not in a forest, anyhow, nor in a 
 city where there were blocks to go around — if there 
 might be anything worth seeing on the other side of 
 one of those blocks. 
 
 There was little underbrush to impede strolling. 
 There rarely is in an old forest, for bushes do not 
 thrive well among great roots or under too much 
 shade. There was a vast amount of winter beauty 
 in all directions, and it was as handsome as if there 
 had been snow on the ground, while the fact that 
 
 25 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 there was no snow at all made walking in mocca- 
 sins as easy as if they had been wearing boots. As 
 Abe remarked: 
 
 " Snow's the wust thing thar is 'bout winter — 
 that is, if it's deep. Onless thar's been a good thaw 
 an' a freeze, so thar's a crust." 
 
 " That's the time for deer, too," replied Dennis. 
 " They break through the crust, an' you could 
 a'most take 'em alive if you wanted to." 
 
 "You can f oiler 'em easy, then," said Abe; 
 "but I tell you what, that Injin that was here 
 last winter, on his snowshoes, didn't need any 
 crust. He could jest go it, fast, on top o' the 
 snow." 
 
 " But if you break in on a drift in them snow- 
 shoes," said Dennis, " it'll take you pretty nigh all 
 day to climb out." 
 
 " No, it won't," said Abe. " You can take 'em 
 off an' put 'em on ag'in. But one thing I wonder 
 is, whar all the b'ars find holler trees enough to 
 sleep in through the winter." 
 
 " Well," responded Dennis, after a moment of 
 profound consideration, " don't you reckon thar's 
 
 26 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 as many trees with holes in 'em as thar is b'ars that 
 have got to find holes'? " 
 
 " Dunno," replied Abe, with a wise shake of his 
 head. "But father killed six of 'em last winter. 
 He says thar's about as many of 'em as thar ever 
 was, but painters are gittin' scurse." 
 
 "That's so," said Dennis. "I saw one, once, 
 but he was makin' off on a lope an' I didn't git but 
 one look. They jump the awfullest kind o' long, 
 springy jumps, an' they can 'light down from away 
 up a tree, right down onto a feller, when he isn't 
 lookin' for 'em." 
 
 " I don't want one of 'em to 'light onto me ! " 
 exclaimed Abe. " They can scratch any kind of 
 human all to pieces." 
 
 There were plenty of things to talk about, as 
 the two companions wandered hither and thither 
 among the oaks. There were maples also, but not 
 many along their line of march, and the woods con- 
 tained an abundance of hickory and walnut, chest- 
 nut, beech, birch, and the boys themselves told of 
 groves of buckeye, butternut, and endless copses 
 of the nut-bearing hazel. More than one fright- 
 
 27 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 ened rabbit sprang away as they drew near the 
 place where he had been sitting, and twice they 
 were agreeably startled by the sudden whir of par- 
 tridge wings. That is, the boys called them by that 
 name, when they were nothing but bevies of fat 
 quails. 
 
 "Hark!" suddenly shouted Abe. "Did you 
 hear that! " 
 
 " Rifle ! " shouted back Dennis, as if he feared 
 that Abe was too far away to hear him unless he 
 yelled. " Some feller's out after deer." 
 
 "'Way off yonder," said Abe; "so fur you 
 can't but jest hear him." 
 
 When the woods are still, the crack of a rifle 
 may be heard at a considerable distance, but trees 
 and rocks will carry echoes around, and it is not 
 always easy to determine the direction from which 
 a report originally came. If a gun is fired at 
 one end of a deep ravine, the sound of it may 
 insist upon coming out only at the opposite ex- 
 tremity of the rocky hollow, in a very deceptive 
 manner. 
 
 "He didn't shoot ag'in," said Dennis. "He 
 28 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 had to stop an' load. Mebbe 'twas a deer, but it 
 might ha' been a turkey." 
 
 " Or a painter," suggested Abe. " But let's you 
 and I light out for home. Oh, don't I wish I had 
 a rifle!" 
 
 " You couldn't do much with it if you had one," 
 sarcastically responded Dennis. " If I was a deer, 
 I'd sit still for ye." 
 
 Abe had hardly anything to say in defense of 
 his marksmanship, for Dennis was able to mention 
 more than one occasion when he had seen him miss ; 
 but they were now in sight of the house, and the 
 pigs had ceased their squealing, as if aware that 
 there was no hope of more corn. 
 
 During all this time Nancy had been attending 
 to various household duties. She had even been out 
 to the wood-pile for more fuel, and the fire was in 
 fine condition. It made the room look even pleas- 
 ant while she washed and arranged and rearranged 
 the limited supply of crockery and pewter. She 
 paid some attention to her rippling mass of tangled 
 hair, but did not appear to have any needlework on 
 hand. After that, she did a little sweeping with a 
 
 29 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 rude broom made of hickory twigs, but it did not 
 do a great deal of good to that earthen floor. As 
 for the walls of the room, they were nothing but 
 rough logs with the bark on. The cracks between 
 the logs had been stopped with tempered clay in- 
 stead of mortar. Against them, in one place, had 
 been fastened a fine pair of deer antlers, from 
 which a bullet-pouch and powder-horn were hang- 
 ing, as if to tell strangers what such hooks were 
 there for. On another side of the room a similar 
 pair of hunting trophies sustained a long, wooden- 
 handled "whipsaw," which accounted for the fact 
 that the ceiling overhead was composed of sawed 
 boards. There was a large box in a corner ; it had 
 no lid, and it evidently contained carpenter's tools, 
 such as a broadax, an adz, a small saw, and some 
 hammers and chisels. There was no grindstone to 
 be seen, and a too careful observer might have won- 
 dered how those tools were to retain their edges. 
 Perhaps they did not always do so. There was but 
 one bed to be seen. It was at the right of the door- 
 way, and far enough from the fire to be safe from 
 sparks which might now and then shoot out at it 
 
 30 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 spitefully, and fall only a little more than half-way. 
 If any spark had succeeded in reaching the bed, it 
 would have fallen upon some blankets which cov- 
 ered a huge bag filled with corn-husks. These made 
 a soft bed, to be sure, and the frame which upheld 
 them was a strong one. Forked stakes had been 
 driven into the earth at proper distances, and 
 poles from these to chinks in the wall sustained 
 slats of sawed timber upon which the bag of corn- 
 husks rested. As for the height of it all, nobody 
 would ever have been injured by falling out of 
 that bed. 
 
 When her small housework was done, Nancy 
 walked slowly out and stood in front of the house. 
 There was not anything wonderful for her to see, 
 but she looked inquiringly in all directions, as if 
 she were searching for something in which she 
 might be interested. There were the stumps, but 
 now the white frost had disappeared from them, 
 and the open and the bare, plowed ridges were not 
 at all attractive. Beyond them were the gloomy 
 trunks and the stiff-looking, leafless branches of the 
 forest trees. In among these there could not be 
 
 31 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 anything hidden which might induce a bright girl 
 of less than thirteen to go and seek for it. There 
 was certainly a great deal of dulness in such a life 
 as hers. It may be that a hungry expression which 
 crept into her face had for its real meaning a long- 
 ing — longing for the company of other girls and 
 for something better than a log-house home. Then 
 she turned and walked all the way around the house, 
 pausing for a moment to look up at the chimney, 
 almost as if she had never seen it before. It was 
 a big, clumsy affair, and it was all outside of the 
 wall of logs, except at the bottom, but it was never- 
 theless a pretty good chimney and could carry away 
 any amount of smoke. 
 
 "I've seen houses with two stories," she said, 
 half aloud, "an* some of 'em were painted. I'd 
 like to live in such a house, an' have neighbors. I 
 wish more settlers would come. I wish we had 
 some cows an' some horses. I wish we had some 
 chickens an' some ducks. I'd like to feed 'em, 
 myself." 
 
 It did seem hard that so very moderate an 
 amount of riches should be denied her, but the only 
 
 32 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 poultry in all that region, so far as she knew, were 
 the wild turkeys in the woods, for all the other wild 
 fowl larger than a quail, all the ducks and geese 
 and brant, had gone south for their cold-weather 
 vacations. They would return in the spring, when 
 the bears were waking up and walking out of their 
 hollows, and when the buds were beginning to swell 
 upon the trees. 
 
 Nancy's walk carried her around to the front of 
 the house again, and just as she reached the door- 
 way she turned suddenly and listened. Then her 
 face brightened into a smile, for here had arrived 
 a real incident, something unusual and unexpected, 
 to break in upon the dull monotony of that lonely 
 clearing in the wilderness. 
 
 " It came from over yonder ! " she exclaimed, 
 motioning with her hand. " No, it didn't. It was 
 over that way. Somebody is out thar, huntin\ I 
 wonder who it is. I didn't want anybody to shoot 
 those three deer at the pool. I knew a girl, once, 
 that had a tame deer, an' those three looked as if 
 they were a'most tame." 
 
 She went into the house to throw a stick of wood 
 33 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 on the fire, and when she hurried out again she 
 could see Abe and Dennis coming along the edge 
 of the woods. Both of them were turning their 
 heads frequently, for they were anxious to hear an- 
 other report from that rifle, as soon as it could be 
 properly loaded, primed, and aimed at another deer, 
 or at the same deer, if he had not been entirely 
 killed. 
 
 " Thar they come," she said. " Mebbe they can 
 tell somethin' about it. Like as not they saw some- 
 body out in the woods. They were gone long 
 enough. I'd like to see some one." 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of people at that hour 
 were as eager for the morning news as was Nancy, 
 but she was not to obtain any right away, as so 
 many of them would; for when the boys came in 
 they were only able to tell her that they had heard 
 the gun, and that they believed they had caught a 
 glimpse of a very large wild turkey, at a distance, 
 entirely out of range of the guns which they wished 
 they had had with them. 
 
 Still all three of them were several degrees more 
 cheerful and happy, and the bright November day 
 
 34 
 
GREAT COMFORT 
 
 was pleasanter while they talked about hunters and 
 hunting, and wondered whether or not any wander- 
 ing sportsman would come along in sight of that 
 house, carrying home a deer. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HUNTER 
 
 | HE horse was a small one. He was very 
 black and very fat, but currycomb and 
 brush had never been near neighbors 
 of his, and it was almost as if he had put on a coat 
 of furzy fur on account of the cold weather. That 
 is precisely what large numbers of animals and 
 some human beings are in the habit of doing. He 
 was bridled and haltered, but he bore no saddle. 
 Instead of that, he carried the carcass of an un- 
 commonly large buck. Only a glance would have 
 been needed to reassure Nancy that this was not 
 the pretty creature she had prevented Abe from 
 shooting at the margin of the pool, if he had had 
 his father's rifle with him, for there were six tines 
 upon his antlers instead of five. 
 
 The man who strode along at the side of the 
 horse was tall and strongly built, and would have 
 been a white man if his weather-beaten face had not 
 
 36 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 become so nearly copper-colored. It had probably 
 been pretty dark in the first place, for his hair was 
 densely black, as his long, tangled beard and mus- 
 tache would have been if time and weather had not 
 taken all the color out of them and left them snow 
 white. He was a vigorous looking old fellow, and 
 would have appeared several inches taller if there 
 had not been such a stoop in his broad shoulders. 
 As for his outfit, he did not have anything on him 
 which had not been made long ago of buckskin, 
 with the single exception of his cap. This had been 
 so skilfully manufactured from the fur of an otter 
 that an earl might have coveted it. The rifle in his 
 hand was a long-barreled, well-kept weapon, and at 
 his belt was a long knife, resting in a leather sheath. 
 With some effort the fat pony was able to keep up 
 with him, and they came out into the clearing to- 
 gether. The man was a little ahead, and it should 
 have been concerning him that the young people 
 at the house made their first remarks, but it was 
 not so. 
 
 Dennis alone was outside at that moment, and he 
 shouted : 
 
 37 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 " Hurrah, Abe ! that pony's got a deer on him. 
 Come out an' see him ! " 
 
 It was not Abe, however, but Nancy herself who 
 hurried out next. 
 
 " Oh ! " she exclaimed, " I hope it isn't the one 
 that was in the bushes." 
 
 " Don't care if it is," said Abe, as he dropped 
 something to spring away after her. " But I reck- 
 oned that rifle was shot off on t'other side o' the 
 clearin'. Hallo! I know who that is." 
 
 " He got him, anyhow," said Dennis, " an' he's 
 comin' right in." 
 
 So he was, and he was pulling steadily on 
 the halter of the pony until he reached the pool 
 and allowed the animal to pause for a drink of 
 water. 
 
 " That's old man Sansom," said Abe. " He's 
 from over nigh Big Pigeon Creek. They say he 
 got that stoop in his shoulders when he was young, 
 because he didn't build his house high enough an' 
 couldn't stand up in it without batting his head. 
 He's a good shot, an' he used to fight the Injins. 
 Killed heaps of 'em. He was down to the fight at 
 
 38 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 New Orleens, too, an' he shot some o' the British. 
 Father knows him, first-rate." 
 
 " I heard him tell all about him," said Nancy. 
 11 He was with General Harrison, too, and he can 
 talk all day 'bout the wars and Injins, if he can git 
 anybody to sit still and listen to him." 
 
 " Eeckon I'd sit still," said Abe, " an' he could 
 talk all night. Thar, he's comin' right along now. 
 It's a buck. I can see the horns." 
 
 There was no time for any further discussion 
 of old man Sansom, for he and his pony were 
 quickly within speaking distance. Then a wide 
 opening suddenly appeared between the white 
 mustache and the beard, and a stentorian voice 
 called out: 
 
 " Oh, Abe, is that you? Whar's your Pop? " 
 
 " Pop's gone to Kentucky," shouted back Abe, 
 "but I reckon it's nigh a'most time he was back 
 ag'in. He didn't let on what he was goin' for." 
 
 " Ye don't say ! " replied old man Sansom, his 
 
 voice keeping up its pitch fairly well as he plodded 
 
 on. " Wal, I kind o' reckon I know what he had on 
 
 his mind. You'll all know more when he gits yere. 
 
 4 39 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 I went out after meat, yerly this mornin', an' I 
 didn*t have no kind o' luck till I tramped 'way 
 over yon, 'mong the buckeyes by the ravine. Thar 
 I knocked over this buck, an' I was torn down glad 
 I had a hoss along. I was too fur from home to 
 ha' toted him, an' I hadn't any ax to make a drag, 
 but he's been makin' me travel mighty slow all day. 
 I'll come on in, an 7 while you an' Nancy are f ryin' 
 some bacon I'll cut up part o' the buck an' we'll 
 have some fresh meat. I'm powerful holler, an* I 
 want to fill up." 
 
 This was only ordinary backwoods hospitality, 
 for every man's fireside belonged to all his neigh- 
 bors, and anything like a refusal of such an offer as 
 that had never been heard of in those parts. Nancy 
 tripped back into the house, while Abe and Dennis 
 lingered to see with what rapid dexterity Sansom 
 could take off the hide of a deer, horns and all. 
 
 " Tell ye what I'll do," he said to them, after 
 the job was partly done. " I'll divide, an' leave ye 
 the forequarters. I may strike another on the way 
 home. Most likely I will, for the woods is full on 
 'em; or a turkey. I'd ruther have a turkey, an' 
 
 40 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 they're gittin' kind o' shy. They most ginerally do 
 at this season of the year, or at any other time. 
 Thar ! I'll take off some f ryin' cuts, an' we'll go on 
 into the house. Glad you've got sech a prime good 
 fire a-goin' ; jest fit to grill by." 
 
 Noon had not yet arrived, but the first smell of 
 broiling venison appeared to make Nancy and the 
 two boys hungry ; or else they caught it from San- 
 som, and it was a wonder how much that mighty 
 hunter was able to do away with, including the corn 
 pone that Nancy fried for him. If he were to be 
 a regular boarder anywhere, it would be well for 
 that house that game should be plentiful in its 
 neighborhood, and that his luck should be good in 
 going after it. 
 
 " So ! " he at length exclaimed, as he came to 
 what seemed a kind of resting-place between two 
 cuts of venison. "You reckon old man Linkin'll 
 be home to-morrer, or next day, or the day after? 
 I hope he will. Wal, I don't feel like settin' out for 
 home right away. I'll go out an' give that pony 
 a feed o' corn, an' then I'll come back an' sit down 
 awhile. I jest do like to see some boys an' gals 
 
 41 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 around. All o' mine are grown up. Some on 'em 
 are livin' with me, an' some on 'em are gone off." 
 
 While he was talking he was fishing out from 
 some place of hiding among his buckskins a pipe 
 bowl made from the butt end of a huge corn-cob. 
 With it came a six-inch cut of reed for a stem, and 
 a yellow twist of home-grown tobacco, which he 
 proceeded to shred with his long knife. The pipe 
 was filled and lighted with a coal from the fire, 
 and then out he went, blowing great blue clouds 
 of smoke. It was evident that he was feeling in a 
 first-rate mental and bodily condition. 
 
 " Jest think," said Abe, as soon as he was gone, 
 " of how many British an' Injins that man has put 
 under ! Game, too. Tell you what, when he comes 
 in, let's poke questions an' make him talk." 
 
 It was an idea which appeared to suit Dennis 
 and Nancy perfectly, and it soon began to look as 
 if a kind of conspiracy were being concocted for the 
 purpose of opening a well-known storehouse of old 
 yarns. 
 
 In all the talk about Sansom there was a sound 
 of older wisdom than might have been expected 
 
 42 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 from them, but it was true to nature. All lonely 
 human beings long for company and for fresh talk, 
 while the young, even more than the old, are all 
 the time ready for story-tellers. 
 
 The pony was duly fed, and then a cloud of 
 tobacco-smoke, with a stoop-shouldered hunter 
 under it, came striding back to the house as if it 
 and he were in a hurry to get there. There was a 
 vast amount of smiling good-humor in his bronzed 
 face. The expression of it appeared to say for him 
 that he was as much pleased with his unexpected 
 visit as if he had shot a whole gang of deer, and 
 some turkeys. 
 
 " Sech a day as this," he told them, " and after 
 a feller's been out in the woods, thar isn't anything 
 more to my likin' than to sit down by a good blaze, 
 if you've fetched along your pipe an' tobacker. 
 The first pipe I ever had was give to me by an 
 Injin. He'd hollered it out o' red clay an' cooked it 
 in a fire, an' it was a real good one. I kep' it till 
 I went down to New Orleens with Jackson, an' thar 
 it got broke. It'd got pretty black by that time. 
 Abe, did you know that the British wore red coats? 
 
 43 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 They did ; but not all on 'em. I seen some in blue, 
 an' I shot one o' them. When I was a-sittin' on the 
 top o' the breastwork, in the battle, it was right 
 smoky for good shootin', too, but we fetched 'em. 
 Sorry we had to kill so many on 'em. I don't want 
 to ever see any more war." 
 
 Half a dozen questions jumped out at him at 
 once from his eager listeners, and one of them hit 
 him so that he answered it. 
 
 " No, Abe," he said, " I don't reckon they had 
 any Americans with 'em. No Tories, like they 
 would have had in the old Eevolutionary War. My 
 father was in that, all through, an' I've heard him 
 tell about the Tories. But down at Orleens it wasn't 
 so. I reckon they had English an' Irish an' Scotch 
 an' Injins. Eed Stick Creek Injins an' niggers 
 from the West Injies." 
 
 "Why," interrupted Dennis, "will niggers 
 fight? Do folks ever make real soldiers of 'em? " 
 
 "Wal, they do," said Sansom, knocking the 
 ashes out of his pipe and beginning to shred off 
 more tobacco from his yellow twist. " I had cur'ous 
 notions, once, 'bout black men an' Injins. I was 
 
 44 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 born Vay down the Mississippi River, an' thar was 
 hardly any free niggers 'round ; nothin' but slaves. 
 I used to see 'em bought an' sold, jest like so many 
 critters. That way I got an idee that they wasn't 
 jest human an' hadn't any souls, an' it was right to 
 treat 'em jest the same as other critters. So with 
 Injins, for the Red Stick Creeks was 'round after 
 our skelps all the while, an' that's how I kem to keer 
 mighty little 'bout shootin' down a redskin." 
 
 " Wal," said Abe thoughtfully, " do you reckon 
 that Injins an' black fellers are the same kind o' 
 human that folks are — white folks f " 
 
 " Yes, they are ! " exclaimed Nancy. " I know 
 some of 'em that are first-rate people, an' it's wrong 
 to kill 'em." 
 
 " Nancy's right," said the old man, raking out 
 some coals to light his pipe by. " Niggers have 
 souls. A nigger's a human ; I found that out long 
 ago. Why, tell ye what: when I stepped down 
 behind the breastwork, thar at New Orleens, to load 
 up for another shot, jest alongside o' me was the 
 blackest feller you ever saw. He'd fired, an' he 
 was a loadin', too, same as I was, an' his face was 
 
 45 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 all grit an' pluck, an' jest beyond him was a big 
 mulatter; an' when I turned an' looked the other 
 way, my next neighbors were a round dozen o' full- 
 blooded Choctaw Injins. "We had French Creoles, 
 too, an' Spaniards, an' a lot of out-an'-out pirates 
 from Barrataria, an' we were as much mixed as the 
 British were," 
 
 " Pirates ! " shouted Abe, as if he had suddenly 
 found something. " I say, what's a pirate 1 I never 
 heard of 'em. What are they like? " 
 
 He had unintentionally opened a new well that 
 was as deep as any war, for Sansom's replies soon 
 let out the fact that in his earlier days he had 
 actually crossed the Atlantic on a trader. He had 
 seen one edge of England, and touched the shores 
 of other islands. He had seen big merchant ships 
 and men-of-war, all sorts, with wonderful masts 
 and sails and cannon. He had heard forecastle 
 yarns, and had accumulated a whole handful of 
 tales about pirates. He appeared to have an idea, 
 however, that they were only the Eed Stick Creeks 
 of the sea. They were to be exterminated, but after 
 all they were a kind of human, with probable souls. 
 
 46 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 "Let's brile some more deer-meat," lie said at 
 the end of one of his best and longest yarns. " I 
 feel kind o' holler ag'in. I reckon I can fetch down 
 another buck on my way home. All I want o' this 
 one is the hind half, anyhow, an' we'll cut some from 
 that this time. It's a big one." 
 
 It was getting on into the afternoon, and the 
 long shadows that now reached out into the clearing 
 were cast by the western trees. Sansom himself 
 went out to the wood-pile for a new backlog for the 
 fire, and he selected a thick cut. He rolled it in, 
 and the three young people stood by and wondered 
 at him when he poked forward the glowing remains 
 of the old stick, that he might actually pick up this 
 one and lift it over the tops of the andirons as if 
 doing so cost him hardly any exertion. 
 
 "He's awful strong!" remarked Abe. "It 
 takes a heap o' pork an' deer an' wild turkeys an' 
 pone to keep him up. I reckon thar ain't many men 
 that could ha' h'isted that log the way he did." 
 
 He had rebuilt their fire for them, at all events, 
 and was minded to leave a warm house behind 
 him; but when he had broiled and eaten his slices 
 
 47 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 of venison and had taken one more smoke, he arose, 
 and said it was time for him to get out his pony 
 and go home. 
 
 " 'Tisn't so very far," he told them, " for me, 
 but it's a good push for the hoss. Besides, if I'm 
 to git any chance at another deer, I mustn't wait 
 till ihar's too much shadder in the woods." 
 
 The middle part of his first prize was mostly 
 gone, but the forequarters were hung against the 
 side of the house, and the hindquarters were se- 
 cured once more upon the back of the pony. Then 
 Sansom took the halter and began to pull. The 
 pony followed him, and he shouted back : 
 
 " Abe, when your father gits in you tell him I 
 was yere, an' that I'm comin' over to see him pretty 
 soon. Tell him to come over, an' to fetch along his 
 rifle. We'll go out after deer together." 
 
 He turned away, and the last they heard was a 
 discontented grumble : 
 
 " It's kind o' rough that a hoss can't walk off as 
 fast as a man can. It kind o' hinders a feller, some- 
 times, when he's in a hurry." 
 
 It occurred to Abe, and he said so, that the best 
 48 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 remedy for such an evil would be to get a horse 
 with longer legs — as long, for instance, as were 
 those of old man Sansom himself. In a few min- 
 utes more the pony and his legs, and even his rider, 
 or rather leader, were utterly forgotten. Abe ap- 
 peared to be thinking of something of a serious 
 character, and both Dennis and Nancy became 
 strangely silent. Then each of the three picked up 
 a stool and went and sat down in front of the fire, 
 staring into it as if they half expected to see some- 
 thing among the coals and ashes or sitting upon 
 the backlog. There was really nothing to be seen 
 in the fire, nothing but wild, red shapes which arose 
 and danced and sparkled and disappeared. All be- 
 hind them, however, the room was swarming with 
 stories, stories, stories. So were the forest and the 
 clearing out yonder. Away off westward, more- 
 over, was the Mississippi River, into which the 
 Ohio poured, and down which old man Sansom had 
 floated on a flatboat, when he went with General 
 Jackson to fight the British army. Away off, east- 
 ward, there were cities, some of which he had seen, 
 with wonderful streets that he had walked in. Be- 
 
 49 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 yond them were great waves of the ocean, break- 
 ing into foam upon rocky shores and carrying over 
 all the world the ships which the pirates were hunt- 
 ing for, to rob them and to murder everybody on 
 board of them. It had been a remarkable day, and 
 it seemed to them to be a kind of double-made af- 
 fair, that was both short, too short, and very, very 
 long. 
 
 They could hardly have told which of them was 
 first to break the stillness ; then one after another, 
 speaking low and slowly at first, and then more and 
 more excitedly, they began to go over the strange 
 things which had been told them. Other tales which 
 they had heard came creeping in, with such curious 
 modifications of their original shapes as were made 
 by young memories and the manner of the relating. 
 It has often been noted of even much older nar- 
 rators than they, that both fiction and what is called 
 history will assume new shapes in the telling. 
 There have been two entirely authentic histories of 
 the same nation, by different authors, which bore 
 only a distant family resemblance to each other. 
 However, if there had been three voices at the be- 
 
 50 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 ginning of that fireside talk, there was shortly only 
 one, since Abe could remember and could tell ten 
 for one of the stories which were recalled and told 
 by the others. 
 
 The shadows without deepened into starlit dark- 
 ness, and within the house there was only firelight, 
 for candles and lamps were an all but unattainable 
 luxury for most of the dwellers in the backwoods. 
 
 " Reckon old Sansom's got home by this time," 
 remarked Dennis ; " but you couldn't lose him in the 
 woods, nohow." 
 
 "He can't see in the dark," said Nancy, "no 
 more'n anybody else can." 
 
 " That's the reason why he shoved right along 
 an' got thar," replied Abe. " What I'd like to know 
 is if he knocked over another deer. Jest the meat 
 he had on that pony wouldn't last him long." 
 
 " I don't keer," said Nancy. " Let's go to bed. 
 I'm tired." 
 
 So they all were, for they had a feeling that they 
 had been performing a tremendous day's work ; but 
 the going to bed was a peculiar affair. The bed in 
 that room belonged to Nancy, and there did not ap- 
 
 51 
 
 , .. . : : ;v;...':v 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 pear to be any other, nor were there stairs which 
 might lead up to an upper story of the house, if 
 there had been one. In the corner at the left of the 
 fireplace, however, stout pegs had been driven into 
 holes in the logs, and above these there was a wide 
 hole in the planks of the ceiling, or rather in the 
 boards of the floor of the garret. Abe and Dennis 
 only waited to heap abundant ashes upon the coals 
 of the fire and the front of the backlog, and then up 
 they went, Dennis first, and then Abe. It was peg 
 after peg, and they climbed that queer flight of 
 frontier stairs as if it were all that could be ex- 
 pected by them. They were now in a kind of garret, 
 to which there was no other window than the hole 
 in the floor through which they had entered it, and 
 by which a limited amount of firelight seemed now 
 to be following them, as if to ascertain what they 
 were about to do up yonder. It was done at once, 
 for down they went upon bags of corn-husks made 
 narrower than the one on the lower floor. Night- 
 gowns were not to be expected, and small prepara- 
 tion was required before they were under the 
 blankets. They were by no means uncomfortable, 
 
 52 
 
THE HUNTER 
 
 and were sure not to freeze, for all day long warm 
 air had been coming up at the hole. Even now the 
 entire garret was finely perfumed for them with the 
 rich odors of broiling venison and frying bacon. 
 
 If anybody had been there to watch them, he 
 might soon have noted that while Dennis was evi- 
 dently sound asleep, Abe was restless, turning over 
 every now and then as if there were a disturbance 
 in his mind. There really was not any. Nothing 
 unusual was in his head, except British and Indians 
 and black men and pirates, and some rivers and 
 oceans with ships sailing on them among islands 
 and cities — stories, stories, stories ; but at last these 
 began to run into one another, becoming dreadfully 
 mixed, and then his eyes closed and they all were 
 ended. 
 
 Down-stairs, or down pegs, Nancy was all alone. 
 She, too, did not immediately go to sleep. It was 
 better to lie and watch the dull glow which crept 
 out through openings in the ash-heap over the 
 coals, and to see what strange shapes would now 
 and then follow one another along the walls or flit 
 across the rough boards overhead. The door of 
 
 53 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the cabin had been carefully closed, but it had 
 neither bar nor lock. A wind had risen and was 
 moaning among the forest trees. It walked across 
 the clearing and all around the house, whistling at 
 the corners. It made an attempt to whistle to her, 
 not only through the door but down the chimney. 
 She had heard winter winds doing that before, and 
 it did not disturb her much now. 
 
 " Do hear it," she muttered, sleepily. " Winter 
 'fore last thar came a harricane, an' it jest howled, 
 an' it tried to h'ist the roof off the house. It didn't, 
 but it blew down three big hickories that were out 
 in the open, an' Pop sawed 'em up. He said that 
 thar wind saved him jest so much choppin\" 
 
 This wind that was now blowing was no hurri- 
 cane. It was ready to serve as a slumber-maker, 
 and before long, as Nancy listened to its whistling 
 and sighing, she closed her eyes and forgot even 
 about Sansom and his histories. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 |ANCY slept soundly the next morning, 
 and when she did wake up it was be- 
 cause something startled her. It was 
 a great glow of red light that struck her in the face, 
 and she sat holt upright, exclaiming : 
 
 " Oh, something on fire ! Oh, yes, the boys 
 are up." 
 
 She should have said that Dennis and Abe 
 were down. They had begun their day by piling 
 branches and bark on the fire with as little noise 
 as might be, and had gone off to the pool after a 
 bucket of water. Neither of them had offered a 
 word of explanation for the care they had taken 
 against wakening Nancy, and the true reason was 
 that they had no particular excuse for it what- 
 
 55 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 ever. It was just a notion, such as comes, thou- 
 sands of times, into the heads of the careless and 
 unthinking. 
 
 Nancy was on her feet in a moment, and began 
 her duties as housewife. 
 
 "I must have breakfast for 'em as soon as I 
 can after they come in," she said. " Thar's water 
 enough in the skillet to mix the pone." 
 
 There was only just about enough, without wa- 
 sting any of it for mere toilet purposes, and Nancy 
 actually began to sing as she stirred the meal into 
 it for the required soaking. She had a clear, mu- 
 sical voice and a good ear, but it appeared as if 
 the songs with which she was familiar were mostly 
 scraps and snatches of old camp-meeting hymns. 
 There were strange lilts and melodies in some of 
 them, and one which she sang over and over had 
 a weird refrain which told of the camps and shan- 
 ties of the colored people. It did not altogether 
 belong in that house, and so its plaintive music 
 went out at the open door and away among the 
 stumps and across the furrows to meet the boys as 
 they came homeward, lugging between them a full 
 
 56 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 bucket of water and wishing that the pool were 
 nearer the house. 
 
 "Hear that!" said Dennis. "Wish I could 
 sing like her ; but I can't." 
 
 " I can't, neither," said Abe. " Mother could, 
 when she was alive. I never heard anybody 
 that could sing like her. Sis makes me think 
 of her." 
 
 Very likely there was a sound of the mother's 
 voice in the daughter's, but it was something that 
 old man Sansom had carelessly said that made 
 Nancy herself think and sing as she did that morn- 
 ing. He had only half said it, and then he had 
 stopped, but he had used the word " mother," and 
 she thought she had also heard the word " com- 
 ing," but was not sure. Anyhow, it had come 
 back to her while she was mixing the pone, and 
 all the songs she had been remembering had been 
 taught her, long ago, by a voice that was now 
 silent. 
 
 She, too, became silent at the end of that last, 
 sweet, mournful melody. She stood still, looking 
 into the fire. 
 
 57 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 " Wish I had a mother," she said. " Other girls 
 have mothers." 
 
 Nothing in all her hymns had been so pitifully 
 plaintive as was that. Her lips were quivering, and 
 there was a deep shadow on her rosy face. She 
 looked around her. There was not much in the 
 house, and she had never been accustomed to a 
 great many things which are as necessaries of life 
 to millions of other girls. The one most important 
 thing which was not there, however, was the pres- 
 ence of a woman, a mother. No answering voice 
 came to her out of the silence and the wilderness. 
 In a long minute more the boys and their bucket 
 were at the door. 
 
 " Hallo, Sis ! " said Abe ; " let's have some deer- 
 meat this time. It'd come good. Glad the fire's 
 all right; we fixed it." 
 
 " You go an' cut it," she said. " I must watch 
 the pone. I reckon it's goin' to be a real bright, 
 sunshiny day." 
 
 " Reckon 'tis," said Dennis, " but we didn't sight 
 a sign of any deer down thar this mornin'. Old 
 Sansom may ha' skeered 'em off." 
 
 58 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 " He couldn't," said Abe. " Thar's mighty little 
 huntin' goin' on jest now. The woods are full o' 
 game. Wait till Pop gits home." 
 
 The venison was quickly ready for cooking. 
 After all, it was a pretty good breakfast for young 
 people who had never known anything better, and 
 who were almost contented with what they had. 
 After it was eaten, the pigs were to be fed, as usual, 
 and after that all that remained was the nothing- 
 to-do kind of life which belongs to the backwoods 
 in winter, when all the leaves are dead and the frost 
 is on the ground. 
 
 Nancy did not sing again, except now and then 
 a low ripple of sound which began and died away, 
 but Abe sat down by the fire and tried to tell over 
 again some of the wonderful things which old man 
 Sansom had told them the day before. He suc- 
 ceeded pretty well with them, while Dennis and 
 Nancy listened, now and then making comments 
 and corrections. They were glad to have him tell 
 ahead, hit or miss, for it was something to while 
 away the time and make the day appear not quite 
 so heavy and long. The fact was that among the 
 
 59 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 shadows in that house was one which was not made 
 by the firelight. It was larger and darker, and at 
 the same time brighter, than any of the others. It 
 was not all one shadow, either, for it was composed 
 of several which were twisted and woven in to- 
 gether. Part of it was only a kind of " waiting " 
 for somebody, a father who was about to come back 
 at the end of a fortnight's absence. Another part 
 of it was " doubt," and still another was a vague 
 and dreamy "expectation." No set of boys and 
 girls in all the world ever awaited the return of a 
 father from a long absence, in another State and 
 across a great river, without wondering and won- 
 dering, and asking inside questions of themselves 
 as to what he might possibly bring with him. It 
 might be a wagonload, certainly, and there was no 
 sort of guessing what would be in the wagon, if 
 it came. 
 
 Noon came first, and it looked as if this day 
 also might pass and get away precisely as so many 
 others had done. Not a word about the shadow 
 had been spoken by either Nancy or the boys, but 
 every now and then one of them would half turn 
 
 60 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 and look at a kind of break among the trees on the 
 southerly side of the clearing. It was an opening 
 which had been made by axes, for at that point 
 something like a crooked, ram's-horn sort of road 
 began to lose itself in the woods. There were 
 wheel tracks in it, but these were barely deep 
 enough to mark a plain trail. It was the only 
 highway leading into or out of that clearing. By 
 and by first Nancy, and then Abe and Dennis, 
 began to wander slowly in that direction. They 
 had almost reached the place where the road escaped 
 from the forest around a huge stump, when a loud, 
 shrill shout came to their ears, and the next moment 
 they heard the same voice calling out: 
 
 "Come on, Sal! Come on, Tilly! I reckon 
 we're a'most thar. I sighted a clearin' ; I know I 
 did. We'll be thar right soon, now." 
 
 " John ! " called back another voice. " "Wait 
 for Matilda an' me." 
 
 " Hold on, children ! " commanded somebody yet 
 farther on, and there was a thrill running all over 
 Nancy when she stepped forward, exclaiming: 
 
 " Boys, did you hear that? It's a woman." 
 61 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 It had been long since the echoes of that forest 
 had listened to the music of a half -anxious cry of 
 a mother to her children. Whatever else it was to 
 Nancy, however, it was also startling both to her 
 and the two boys. They did not go forward a step 
 farther, but stood still, and stared first at each 
 other and then at the crooked road before them. It 
 was not much of a road, to be sure, but then it was 
 about to bring them something that was entirely 
 unexpected. Then they began to retreat slowly 
 toward their house, as if this were entirely too 
 much for them. They walked with turned heads, 
 nevertheless, and it was only a few minutes before 
 Abe gave a sudden jump. Dennis whistled, and 
 Nancy exclaimed: 
 
 "Boys, it's John Johnston an' the girls. 
 Come on!" 
 
 Abe did not utter a word, but sprang away to 
 meet the newcomers, who were evidently old ac- 
 quaintances, and the others were at his heels. The 
 boy member of the arriving party was nearest, 
 of course, and he, too, was now quickening his 
 
 paces. 
 
 62 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 " Hallo, Abe ! " lie shouted, as soon as he was 
 near enough. " Is this your clearin' f Mother an* 
 the waggin are right back thar. She's comin\" 
 
 " Whar's my Pop! " inquired Abe. " An' what 
 on earth fetched you all out here? I'm torn down 
 glad you came." 
 
 " Why, Abe," replied the nearest of the girls, 
 "your father's gone an' married my mother, an' 
 we're all come out here to live with you. It's a 
 four-hoss wagon." 
 
 Just at that moment they all might see the team 
 she spoke of, pulling the wagon out into the open. 
 The man who walked at the head of it was appar- 
 ently in a doubtful state of mind, for he was lash- 
 ing the ground discontentedly with his whip and 
 muttering to himself: 
 
 " This 'ere's the Linkin farm, is it? An' yon- 
 der's the house, an' thar ain't no barn behind it. 
 Thar's a good patch o' cleared land, but this isn't 
 jest what Sally Bush Johnston was told of when 
 she married Tom Linkin. My team's pretty nigh 
 used up, too, haulin' the waggin over this bush- 
 whackin' kind o' road. 'Pears like it was laid out 
 
 63 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 by a sick snake, an' then lie died. Tom did crawl 
 in a long way 'mong the woods 'fore he settled. 
 But she's got to stick to her barg'in now." 
 
 Abe had been remarking of him: 
 
 " That's old man Krume. I used to know him." 
 
 "Yes," responded one of the Johnston girls, 
 "that's his team, an' he was real good, but he's 
 been a-growlin' an' a-growlin' all the way." 
 
 " Glad we've got here, anyhow," said the other 
 Johnston girl. " I'm tired." 
 
 Abe and Dennis and Nancy appeared to be a 
 little more than willing to lead the way to the 
 house, and to postpone as long as they might what- 
 ever more was yet to come. The wagon was com- 
 ing. There was a woman in it, and a man was 
 walking beside it, and Mr. Krume was ahead of it ; 
 but the whole picture of that arrival would not have 
 been complete if some strange spirit of curiosity 
 had not crept into the sagacious heads of Mr. Tom 
 Lincoln's drove of shoats. Every cloven hoof of 
 them marched out to the edge of the woods, and 
 there they were now, looking gravely on and occa- 
 sionally grunting or squealing to each other the 
 
 64 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 sentiments which had been aroused within them and 
 which they could not otherwise express. 
 
 " Here we are, Sally ! " said the man beside the 
 wagon, but no immediate reply was made, and she 
 was looking inquiringly at the house. 
 
 " This is the place," he said. " It can be made 
 a right good one." 
 
 "I see," she replied wearily. "Anyhow, the 
 children are takm' to each other right away. 
 They've always been kind o' like cousins. But I 
 jest want to git a look into that thar house." 
 
 His face fell, and he did not appear to have any- 
 thing more to say just then. Krume and the team 
 plodded onward until he pulled them in close in 
 front of the doorway, and Mr. Lincoln helped his 
 wife to get down. She did not go in at once, how- 
 ever, for here were all the young people, crowding 
 around her, and there were three pairs of timid, 
 wistful, hopeful eyes looking up into her own. 
 There were even tears in those of Nancy. Abe was 
 nearest, and his new mother stooped to put her 
 arms around him and kiss him. Hardly had she 
 done so before Nancy's own arms were around her 
 
 65 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 neck and her kiss also was given. Then came Den- 
 nis ; but Krume was muttering : 
 
 "All right. Reckon they've kind o' beat her. 
 But if I ain't mistaken, she was gittin' some mad 
 'bout this 'ere turnout. I remember she was always 
 mighty fond of Abe. She liked the gal, too. Den- 
 nis has growed a good bit since I saw him. Thar'll 
 be eight on 'em in one small house ! " 
 
 The total count for that night promised to be 
 nine. Krume unhitched his horses to lead them 
 away for water and corn, and the eight he left be- 
 hind him were very busy immediately. The fire 
 was doing its best to make things look cheerful, 
 and Abe explained to his father how there came to 
 be so much fresh venison on hand. 
 
 "Wait," said Mrs. Lincoln, when Nancy hur- 
 riedly produced the saucepan and Dennis began to 
 rake out some coals to put it on. " I must git some 
 o' my things out o' that wagon. I'm gwine to make 
 this place a little more fit for human bein's to live 
 in. Tom, you jest take hold an' unload. Git out 
 the table first, an' the box o' dishes. Now, if I don't 
 set you to work on this place you may shoot me! " 
 
 66 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 There was no lack of muscle in him, and there 
 was hardly anything in the wagon that he could not 
 have lifted out single-handed. All the things called 
 for were coming down and out, however, as if he 
 were already under pretty good discipline and ex- 
 pected to ohey the orders of his commander. Abe 
 made himself as busy as a bee, and so did his sis- 
 ter; but Dennis preferred to keep out of every- 
 body's way and to ask endless questions of the 
 Johnston girls, while John Johnston walked out 
 and around the house to see just how much there 
 might be of it. 
 
 Well might the young Lincolns and Dennis 
 stare as they did ! That four-horse wagon was as 
 a mine of wealth, and their eyes opened wide with 
 astonishment while treasure after treasure was 
 carefully uncovered and carried into the house. A 
 good-sized table was set down at once in the mid- 
 dle of the floor. Upon this there shortly appeared 
 an array of plates, cups, saucers, and actually a 
 lot of two-tined forks. Those of three tines, or 
 made of anything costlier than steel, were as yet 
 among the wild dreams of the luxurious future 
 
 67 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 which was one day to come to that part of the 
 United States. There were spoons of several kinds 
 and sizes, and there were kettles and other cooking 
 utensils. The three-legged stools might not at once 
 be thrown aside, but Mrs. Lincoln had brought with 
 her a full set of substantial chairs to place around 
 her table. She was now ready to proceed with 
 cookery, while her husband took down and brought 
 in a large and heavy chest, which Matilda Johnston 
 asserted was full of clothing and blankets ; but her 
 sister Sarah added, with unmistakable pride : 
 
 " Sho ! the big bureau, out thar in the wagon, 's 
 got a heap more into it than the chist has." 
 
 No more unloading and placing was done right 
 away, for Mr. Krume had come in, and he had ex- 
 pressed his gratification at the abundance and good 
 quality of the dinner which was preparing for him. 
 He became better tempered the moment he pulled a 
 chair to the table and sat down before a plate, with 
 the choice given him whether he would load it with 
 bacon or venison cutlets. All the rest sat down, 
 but two of them were on stools after all the chairs 
 were occupied. Then Mrs. Lincoln paused for a 
 
 68 
 
THE FOUR-HORSE TEAM 
 
 moment, bowing her head and shutting her eyes. 
 She did not utter a word, but they all knew what it 
 meant and followed her example. It was a good 
 promise for the future of that rough log house and 
 its family that the real head of the concern was 
 willing to thank God for it, even if it was not ex- 
 actly what she had expected. It could not be said 
 that she had openly complained, and after dinner 
 the work of unloading and furnishing began again. 
 The old forked-stick bedstead was taken up and 
 put down again farther along, and its place in that 
 corner was taken by a well-made affair with the 
 right kind of bedding. The puncheon table in the 
 opposite corner was to remain for a while, and 
 the box of carpenter's tools was drawn near it, to 
 make room for a truly magnificent chest of drawers 
 whose weight and value had required the united 
 strength of Krume and Tom Lincoln to carry it in 
 from the wagon without dropping it. Sarah John- 
 ston told Abe that it was worth more than forty dol- 
 lars, and he knew that that was about half the price 
 of a good new farm, trees and all, with uncleared 
 land at a dollar and a quarter an acre. It was im- 
 
 69 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 possible for Mrs. Lincoln to go up-stairs by the pegs 
 on the wall, but she was told all about it, and sev- 
 eral articles of bedding went up there, with a num- 
 ber of other things for which there was no room 
 below. 
 
 " Thar, Tom," said Mr. Krume at last, " I've 
 done the best I could for you an' Sally Bush. What 
 I want now is to git away early to-morrer mornm', 
 so I can reach the ferry an' cross the river 'fore 
 dark. Tell ye what, though, you an' she are gwine 
 to have right smart o' work a-gittin' settled down 
 to live in this here clearin\" 
 
 He went to the door and looked out in all direc- 
 tions. Tom Lincoln followed him and made the 
 same kind of survey, but there was really not one 
 more word to be said about it just then. 
 
i 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NEW HOME 
 
 HE fire was burning well that evening. 
 
 All the newly made family and Mr. 
 
 Krume sat in front of it. As for Abe, 
 he had pulled one of the three-legged stools a little 
 behind his new mother, and there he sat, now and 
 then looking earnestly up into her face. After each 
 long look at her he would turn and stare around 
 the room. It was not at all the place it had been, 
 although the bare log walls were there. For the 
 first time in his life he was beginning to obtain 
 ideas concerning wealth and splendor and magnifi- 
 cence. Besides, he had been near when Mrs. Lin- 
 coln was giving her husband a long list of instruc- 
 tions as to material improvements which he was to 
 make right away. Abe could hardly believe his 
 ears, but among other things which were meekly 
 promised had been a complete puncheon floor over 
 
 71 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the pounded clay level ; a new door, properly made, 
 fitted, and hung ; real sash and glass windows that 
 would let the light in and keep out the wind ; a door 
 at the rear, and also a lean-to, whether of logs or 
 boards ; and a wood-pile a number of yards nearer 
 the house. He was dreaming about the beauty of 
 a puncheon floor, when Mrs. Lincoln arose, went to 
 the bureau, unlocked its lower drawer, and took out 
 the largest book he had ever seen. 
 
 " It's about time to go to bed," she said. " I'll 
 read a chapter before we go. Thar ain't gwine to 
 be any heathen in this house." 
 
 She put the book on the table, opened it, and 
 then she suddenly turned to Abe and said to him, 
 pointing with her finger: 
 
 " Jest do you read that aloud, Abe." 
 
 Abe stared at the big black letters, but he could 
 make nothing at all out of them, and he whispered 
 back despondently : 
 
 " I can't do it, nohow." 
 
 "Why?" she said; "you went to school over 
 in Kentucky." 
 
 " Yes'm," he said. " I went to Caleb Hazel an' 
 72 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 Zach Riney, but I didn't git so far as readin'. I 
 can pick out the letters, though." 
 
 " Then," she exclaimed emphatically, " 'bout the 
 next thing you'll do is to go to school, if thar is one 
 'round here. I can show you a good many things 
 myself. It's time you knew how to read." 
 
 The chapter in the Bible was reverently read. 
 Krume and all the boys went up-stairs by the pegs. 
 When they came down next morning, although it 
 was very early, they found Mrs. Lincoln already at 
 work, with three girls to help her, or to hinder, and 
 the house was getting to rights rapidly. The four- 
 horse team and wagon were at the door soon after 
 breakfast, and then, amid a shower of thanks for 
 his kindness, Mr. Krume drove away into the 
 crooked thoroughfare which was to take him to the 
 ferry across the Ohio River. He had not quite 
 reached the entrance of it when he asserted: 
 
 " Thar'll be a mighty sight more o' Tom Linkin 
 an* them youngsters after they've all been under 
 the care o' Sally Bush for a while." 
 
 There was not a doubt of it. That very morn- 
 ing she found time to question not only Abe, but 
 
 73 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 Dennis and Nancy, as to what they knew or did not 
 know. It was somewhat apparent, however, that 
 her heart was going out especially toward the slim, 
 tall boy, who could hardly keep away from her long 
 enough to go out after wood. One variation came 
 when he took his new brother and sisters to the 
 pool, and told them about the buck and the two 
 does. Never in all their lives before had they been 
 so near any real wild, large animals, and it did a 
 great deal toward making them feel more contented 
 with their new home and its surroundings. 
 
 The hours went by rapidly, and nobody in the 
 clearing knew that it was so near noon when Abe 
 put his head in at the door and shouted : 
 
 " Mother, it's old man Sansom a-comm', with a 
 hoss an' somethin' on him." 
 
 Every soul was out of the house in a moment, 
 and Mr. Lincoln stepped forward, but before he 
 was able to say a word he was hailed with: 
 
 " Good for you, Tom ! I knowed mighty well 
 what you was up to. Glad you made out to fetch 
 her along. I've knowed her for twenty year. She's 
 wuth two of ye. Wal, I reckoned I'd be neighborly, 
 
 74 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 seem' as how it was a weddin' affair. I had prime 
 luck a-goin' home an' out this mornin\ One more 
 yesterday, an' a buck an' two turkeys this mornin' 
 — big ones. I didn't fetch the pony this time, 
 nuther." 
 
 Abe had noticed that first thing, for the animal 
 upon which the really fine lot of game was packed 
 was a high-backed, raw-boned, mud-colored horse, 
 with remarkably long legs and a great deal of mane 
 and tail. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln did much better than did her hus- 
 band in the matter of thanks and acknowledgments, 
 and Tom declared that he would be out with his 
 rifle right away ; but old man Sansom talked right 
 along, with only a moderate drop in the volume and 
 power of his voice. 
 
 "That's all right. But speakin' o' hosses, I 
 reckoned the pony wouldn't do nigh so well, an' I 
 had plenty o' hosses on hand, but I didn't have no 
 waggin to spare, an' I wasn't a-usin' any on 'em, 
 an' so I fetched the claybank, an' he's a good one, 
 if you have to go over to the river landin' for trade 
 or anythin'. He can carry a heap. Some hosses'll 
 
 75 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 carry a'most as much as a waggin. I had one that 
 I went 'way up the river with, one time, an' what 
 I packed onto that critter to fetch home with me 
 was because thar wasn't any more deck room onto 
 his back to stow 'em ; but I had to come home afoot, 
 an' he kep' up with me, an' thar ain't many hosses 
 can do that." 
 
 The welcome supply of game was removed from 
 the back of the claybank horse and hung up against 
 the side of the cabin, while Mrs. Lincoln and the 
 girls were preparing for old man Sansom decidedly 
 the best dinner that had ever been cooked before 
 that fireplace. As soon as he had done it justice — 
 which he did — he sat down before the fire and 
 smoked, pulling out the same corn-cob pipe, but 
 with it a new and very long twist of that yellow, 
 home-grown tobacco. As he did so, he entered into 
 a full and interesting exposition of the right way in 
 which to plant and raise tobacco in the woods, and 
 then to prepare it for consumption. 
 
 " I don't raise none to sell," he told them, " but 
 I never have to buy any. My weak spot is hosses. 
 Sometimes I have so many, all sorts, that 'pears 
 
 76 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 like they was a'most a-eatin' thar heads off. I had 
 a hoss, once, that was kind o' holler. You could 
 stan' in front of him an' shovel in corn all day. 
 An' it didn't fatten him, nuther, for his ribs'd 
 show if he was wearin' out a hull corn-crap, besides 
 his grass; an' I sold him to a feller from down 
 river that told me I didn't know how to feed crit- 
 ters an' he'd show me what a hoss like that'd be 
 if he was only fed up. An' two months later I met 
 him, an' I asked him if he had that hoss on hand 
 yit ; an' he said he had, but he'd had to buy another 
 farm to raise fodder for him, an' hire hands to 
 shovel it in." 
 
 Next to that, for lively conversation, were the 
 endless inquiries he had to make concerning all 
 sorts of people he had formerly known in Ken- 
 tucky and Tennessee, and of quite a number of 
 whom he appeared to have imbibed unfavorable 
 opinions. 
 
 "You know how it is with that kind o' men, 
 Mrs. Johnston — I mean Mrs. Linkin — " he said. 
 " Your first husband used to be keeper of the county 
 jail. He had lots on 'em under lock an' key, one 
 
 77 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 time or another. The trouble was with that jail 
 it wasn't half large enough, an' so they let a heap 
 o' fellers go by. Some on 'em got out of it, too, an' 
 saved the county thar keep till they were convicted 
 ag'in an' put back." 
 
 Abe could have heard Sansom spin yarns all 
 day, but even that afternoon part of one wore out, 
 and the old man prepared to go. 
 
 "It's all right, Tom," he said. "You've had 
 prime good luck, whether she has or not, an' you 
 can keep the claybank in the old pole-shelter as good 
 as if 'twas a barn. You can keep him all winter, 
 an' I'll lend a hand an' help you with your plowin' 
 in the spring. I hear thar are lots o' new settlers 
 comin' in, an' we won't be quite so hard-up for 
 neighbors one o' these days — an' some neighbors 
 ain't wuth havin', nuther." 
 
 He was gone, shortly, and did not know how 
 much he had done toward making Mrs. Lincoln feel 
 contented with her new surroundings. As for her 
 husband, it was an unexpected stroke of good for- 
 tune to have a long-legged and broad-backed horse 
 to carry him to the trading-places at the far-away 
 
 78 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 river landings, and to bring home for him the pur- 
 chases he might now he compelled to make — such, 
 for instance, as window sashes with the glass in, all 
 ready to be hung up on their hinges. 
 
 One of the good things for the girls and boys, 
 three of each kind, was that they were old acquaint- 
 ances and easily accepted the idea that they now 
 all belonged to the same family. They could the 
 more readily nestle together under the same small 
 roof. Mrs. Lincoln at once rejected a suggestion 
 that some of her flock might be sent to sleep in the 
 pole-shelter. 
 
 "No," she said indignantly; "it's good enough 
 for pigs, or for old man Sansom's horse, but it isn't 
 the right place for humans." 
 
 Abe took a deep interest in the claybank, with 
 a curious idea in his mind that it was the first ani- 
 mal he had ever owned, and that he must pay par- 
 ticular attention to the matter of corn and water; 
 but as yet he did not worry himself about such 
 horse luxuries as currycombs and brushes. 
 
 " Wish we had a dog, too," he said to Dennis. 
 " We ought to have a cat, and mother says she'll 
 
 79 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 git one, soon as she can. She says she won't feel 
 all at home till thar's a cat in front o' the fire." 
 
 "We haven't any rats for one," replied Den- 
 nis; "but a cat can live the best kind on young 
 rabbits." 
 
 " We'll have all sorts o' good times, anyhow," 
 said Abe ; but he did not know what was the next 
 thing coming to him. 
 
 The days of idleness had passed for that house- 
 hold the moment the new mother went into the 
 cabin. Hardly had Abe returned from his work at 
 the corn-crib and pole-shelter, next morning, before 
 he was informed that there was much water ready 
 for use. Some of it was hot, too, and it was time 
 for him to experience the almost novel sensation of 
 a bath from head to foot. He needed one badly, 
 and it made him feel as if he were becoming an- 
 other fellow. There was something more to come. 
 Mrs. Lincoln had fished up from one of her boxes 
 a nearly new buckskin suit that was only a little 
 too large for him. He would soon grow into it, she 
 said, and he responded: 
 
 "Yes'm; but that isn't jest the way it goes. 
 80 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 When things are too big, they shrink down to me 
 till they fit. This'll be tight in a little while." 
 
 There was no doubt on that point, but the work 
 of improvement had not reached its climax. It was 
 only a few minutes before he found himself sitting 
 on a three-legged stool, with the face of a young 
 martyr, while a pair of sharp scissors was busy 
 with his uncombed hair. Lock after lock came off, 
 until he began to feel light headed. At the end of 
 it all, she made him look at himself in a mirror 
 which she had set up over the bureau. If he had 
 ever done such a thing before he did not say, but 
 he could have told her that he had never been well 
 acquainted with the boy in yonder, behind the glass. 
 If he had actually done so, he would have been en- 
 tirely correct, for a new boy by the name of Abe 
 Lincoln was beginning to take the place of the poor 
 young half-savage who had hitherto been known by 
 that name. Dennis and Nancy also received many 
 kinds of attention and improvement. Nancy ap- 
 peared to rejoice in it, but Dennis grimly submitted, 
 as to a tyranny against which he would like to rebel, 
 if he dared. 
 
 81 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 "Some things are gittin' to rights now," said 
 Mrs. Lincoln, at the dinner-table ; " but thar isn't a 
 pound o' hominy in the house, an' we've got to set 
 to work an' make some. What I want first is ashes." 
 
 "HI go to choppin' right away," began her 
 husband submissively. "You can have loads of 
 ashes " 
 
 But she interrupted him : " No, I ain't gwine to 
 wait for that. You chop for puncheons an' for 
 more wood, and I'll burn that whole wood-pile but 
 I'll have ashes right away. I'll go out now an' 
 start a fire while the weather's dry. I found a good 
 barr'l, an' you can fetch out your saw an' cut it in 
 two in the middle." 
 
 " That barr'l," he said; " yes, I'd forgot it. It 
 was fetched here long ago. Jest the thing to set a 
 leech with. We'll have some hominy." 
 
 A great heap of logs and brushwood was 
 shortly burning at a short distance from the house. 
 One of the half -barrels produced with the saw was 
 sitting up gravely on pegs, with its other half on the 
 ground in front of it. Then it was a matter for as- 
 tonishment how soon the half on the pegs was full 
 
 82 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 to its lips with fresh, clean ashes. Some of them 
 had been so hot that they hissed indignantly when 
 a bucket of water from the pool was poured upon 
 them. Just before that was done, Tom Lincoln had 
 bored a hole near the bottom of the leech-tub and 
 fitted in what he called a "spile," made of two splits 
 of wood with a hollow gouged along their middles. 
 It was not long before a slow stream of dark red 
 lye began to trickle down through the spile and into 
 the tub below. 
 
 During all this time, however, the younger work- 
 men of the combined families had not been permit- 
 ted to be idle. It had been discovered that while the 
 nearer corn-crib, from which feeding was now go- 
 ing on, was supplied altogether with the long-eared, 
 yellow-grained, "horse-tooth" corn which cattle 
 prefer, but which many people consider too coarse 
 for meal or for human food, the farther crib con- 
 tained quantities of the smaller-eared and finer- 
 grained " flint " varieties, which neither cattle nor 
 horses like so well. Neither do corn-raisers, for the 
 flint will not raise nearly so many bushels to the 
 acre, nor will it make as much pork. At all events, 
 
 83 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the boys had been sent to that crib, with orders to 
 sort out such grain as their mother required for 
 hominy and the like. They succeeded pretty well 
 and were proud of it, but the next orders given made 
 Abe and Dennis put on wry faces. Both of them, 
 and John Johnston, were transformed into corn- 
 shellers, and were not let out of that unwelcome job 
 until near supper-time. It was slow, hard work, 
 and even then Mrs. Lincoln told them they had not 
 shelled out enough to last so large a family as that 
 for any length of time. They would have to shell a 
 heap more, right away. 
 
 " We won't put any to soak to-night," she said, 
 " for a big lot of it must go in at the same time an' 
 soak even. We'll fill the tub, first thing to-morrer 
 mornin'. That's right good, strong lye. I reckon 
 it'll take off the shucks as clean as a whistle." 
 
 From hour to hour, as work went on, one fact 
 became more and more clear concerning Mr. Thom- 
 as Lincoln. He was somewhat under six feet in 
 height, and round-shouldered, but his every move- 
 ment testified that he was possessed of unusual mus- 
 cular strength. He was a man of power. More- 
 
 84 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 over, his manner of doing all that was now upon his 
 hands told how ready he was to do anything in the 
 world that he could for the wife he had brought out 
 into the woods. A motion of her hand or a glance 
 of her eye was enough, and this promised well for 
 the future happiness of the log-cabin household. 
 Therefore, and for many reasons, it was never 
 again to be at all the affair it had been in the dreary, 
 uncomfortable days gone by. 
 
 Evening came and the whole family was gath- 
 ered in the one room. The door was shut and the 
 fire was blazing high, for a chill November wind was 
 whistling among the tree tops and shivering around 
 the open. The flickering light searched all around 
 the room inquiringly, as if it were an old resident 
 returned from an absence and surprised to find so 
 many new faces to shine upon. Something like 
 that was what Abraham Lincoln was doing with his 
 own eyes. He had placed a stool for himself away 
 at the farther end of the magnificent new table, while 
 all the others were gathered in a semicircle around 
 the fire, until it investigated them too earnestly with 
 heat as well as light, and compelled them to push 
 
 85 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 back their chairs. There were enough of these for 
 all of them, for Sally Johnston was sitting in her 
 mother's lap, with her arms around the good wom- 
 an's neck. It might have been remarked that as 
 Abe's eyes went all around, from face to face, his 
 hands went up to his head and felt of it all over. 
 It was not so much that they missed finding his 
 much-valued hair in the place where it used to be, 
 but that in their vain hunt for it they had helped 
 him to make all this wonderful change more like a 
 thing of this present world that he knew about, and 
 less like some strange dream or a look into some 
 other world, far away from these woods and that 
 clearing. 
 
 " Tom," said Mrs. Lincoln at the end of a long 
 silence, "I'll jest tell you what. When spring 
 comes, you've got to spade me up a good, wide 
 patch for a garden. I want to grow inyons an' all 
 sorts o' things. Besides, we're gwine to have a cow 
 of our own, if we can git one ; an' I'll want you to 
 put in pumpkins among the corn; squashes, too, 
 and watermillions. Thar can be a mighty sight o' 
 truck raised on sech a patch as this is." 
 
 86 
 
THE NEW HOME 
 
 " Good for you ! " he said. " We'll jam it chuck 
 full. I don't keer how much we put in. It's good 
 land. 'Pears to me we can fix things right up to 
 the handle 'fore another winter. I'm in for a cow 
 as much as you be, an' I'm right down glad o' San- 
 som's hoss. I'll set out for the river " 
 
 " No, you won't ! " she exclaimed, " not till the 
 puncheons are cut an' put down ! I'm gwine to have 
 a floor first thing. An' every tree you cut'll give 
 plenty o' branches for the wood-pile. Thar'll be 
 good backlogs left, too. When a house is as open 
 all 'round as this is, you've got to keep the fire 
 a-goin'. It'll have to be a mighty high pile, 'fore the 
 real cold weather sets in. Besides, you don't know 
 how much snow may come, and we may be kind o' 
 drifted in an' shut up one o' these days." 
 
 "Wal, now as to that," he replied confidently, 
 " thar was never any great amount o' hard weather 
 down here, so nigh the river. It all comes farther 
 north — up toward the lakes. But they do jest have 
 hard winters up thar. I've heard tell o' some o' 
 them. Make you shiver ! " 
 
 As if to ascertain whether or not it would do so 
 87 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 he proceeded to relate a number of interesting sto- 
 ries that he had heard concerning the kind and cold 
 of the snow times that were to be experienced by the 
 dwellers in the northern woods of Indiana. The 
 lakes would all freeze solid sometimes, he said, and 
 the bears would freeze in the hollow trees, so that 
 it would be late in the spring before they could thaw 
 and come out. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 | HERE it stood on the new table, and Abe 
 was staring at it. He had been out to 
 see shelled corn poured into the tub of 
 lye until it would hold no more, and he knew very 
 well what a change would come to the kernels soon 
 after that. It was not the first time he had seen 
 corn prepared for hominy. After a sufficient soak- 
 ing, it would have to be taken out of the tub, dried, 
 hustled around on an old blanket, winnowed clean 
 of the separated husks, and put away for further 
 drying. Then it would become " hulled corn," and 
 might be cooked and eaten as such, but it would 
 have to be cracked before it would be fit to make 
 cakes. He also knew that there was what was 
 called a " hand-mill," miles and miles away from 
 that house, but his hulled corn was not to go there 
 
 89 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 at present, for there was enough of ground meal 
 on hand. It was this thing, here on the table, which 
 was the next most important improvement in the 
 Lincoln housekeeping. It was an iron mortar a 
 foot high, and above it arose the long wooden 
 handle of its pestle. Mortars like this were the 
 principal mills of the frontier during many a long 
 year after that, and they were the great aversion 
 of all the young people, to whom, as a rule, the 
 handling of pestles especially appertained. 
 
 The first duties of the mortar in the present in- 
 stance, however, had nothing to do with corn. At 
 that moment Mrs. Lincoln was busily scouring the 
 old saucepan, to remove from it all traces and 
 flavors of bacon. 
 
 " I don't want any smoked pork in my coffee," 
 she had sharply remarked; "it'd spile it for me. 
 Some folks don't seem to keer, but I do." 
 
 Already there had been pulled out from among 
 her many treasures a bag which appeared to con- 
 tain over a peck. When she opened it, she took out 
 a handful of the large-beaned Eio coffee, which in 
 those days was brought up the river by the wagon 
 
 90 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 trains from New Orleans. As for flatboats of the 
 ordinary patterns, they indeed floated down-stream, 
 but they never came up again, for no rowers could 
 have propelled them against the swift currents and 
 through the eddies. Even after steam came in 
 and there was less need of oars, the big side-wheel 
 and stern-wheel steamboats sometimes had all that 
 they could do to overcome the rushing power of the 
 floods which were hurrying southward to the Gulf 
 of Mexico and the ocean. 
 
 The saucepan was ready at last, and then it was 
 a treat indeed for Abe to watch the roasting and to 
 smell the fragrant odor which arose and came to 
 him from the burnt beans of South America. 
 
 " Now, Abe," said Mrs. Lincoln, " I'm gwine to 
 teach you how to pound coffee. We'll have some 
 for dinner this very day." 
 
 Down upon the floor came the mortar, and down 
 he went with his legs around it, all willingness to 
 make his first attempt, but not without an increas- 
 ingly clear idea of what that iron pot might yet 
 have in store for such boys as he and Dennis and 
 John Johnston. That was because no such thing 
 
 91 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 as ready roasted and ground coffee had yet been 
 seen in the Mississippi valley. 
 
 The next unexpected rarity to make its appear- 
 ance was a quantity of coarse, brown sugar, the 
 proposed use of which then and there was for the 
 coffee only. Quantities of this great sweetener and 
 civilizer were already making on the lower Louisi- 
 ana plantations. More were coming on ships from 
 the West Indies, for the commerce of the United 
 States was growing fast. It sometimes almost 
 seemed as if a man who would stand still and listen, 
 might hear a kind of humming sound, as of myriads 
 of busy and bee-like beings, hard at work upon the 
 building of the foundations of the country that was 
 yet to be. Everywhere the muscles and the brains of 
 boys and girls were building, building. In some of 
 those brains — and nobody might yet tell which 
 of them — new and strange ideas were taking root, 
 like young trees which were one day to bear 
 fruits whereof no man alive had so much as 
 dreamed. 
 
 Abe Lincoln, for instance, was not only learn- 
 ing from what countries coffee and sugar came, 
 
 92 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 but at the same time he was obtaining a strong im- 
 pression of the effect which might be produced by 
 long, hard pounding with iron and willing muscles. 
 Just so, no doubt, were a great many other boys, and 
 little good it did for some of them in the way of 
 schooling or development. That is to say, in all that 
 region there were small " scrub " oaks which would 
 never grow any higher, while from the same kind 
 of acorns, apparently, there were other saplings 
 which in due time went towering away up into the 
 upper sunshine. It was not with reference to any 
 hope of that kind that before long Abe got up from 
 around the mortar and pestle and went for a look 
 at that " Muscovado " sugar. It made him think 
 of some wild honey he had once tasted, and he had 
 heard old man Sansom aver his belief that bee- 
 trees full of sweetness might be found within a few 
 miles of the river. 
 
 " You see," Sansom had said, " it stands to rea- 
 son. The bees kem in with the white settlers, an' 
 they git crowded out o' one place after another, 
 jest as we do. What they need is holler trees, an' 
 
 they'll find 'em an' preempt 'em, if they have to 
 
 93 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 wing it across a river to do it. That's jest what 
 I'd do, if I was a bee." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln himself was a hard-working man 
 that day, and he was a capital woodsman. Not 
 many men could so rapidly bring down a tree and 
 rive it for either rails or puncheons. As for the 
 latter, not a large number had to be made at pres- 
 ent, merely to cover that amount of floor. The trees 
 selected were of the smaller sizes, not more than 
 twelve or fourteen inches through, and of a grain 
 as straight as could be found. Down they came, 
 and after they were chopped into lengths the 
 process of riving, with a wedge and maul, was per- 
 formed with rapidity. Much of it was completed, 
 trimming and all, before the end of that first 
 hominy-making day. The trees fell and were trans- 
 formed into puncheons while the corn was soaking. 
 Abe went out to look at them, after the coffee was 
 pounded. It was to him an exceedingly interesting 
 operation, but those puncheons were to lift him up 
 in the world a great deal higher than their mere 
 measured thickness. The floor itself was not to be 
 raised much. Several inches in depth of the pound- 
 
 94 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 ed clay was to be shoveled out before the half-logs 
 were put in. At the very outset of the work, how- 
 ever, it was evident that the whole aspect of that 
 interior would undergo a civilizing change. 
 
 The effect of all this upon Mr. Tom Lincoln 
 himself was remarkable. He was a fine specimen 
 of that large class of men in whom there is a great 
 capacity for hard work, but who are altogether in 
 need of competent direction. This had now come 
 to him, accompanied by intelligence and a strong 
 will, and he was by no means averse to taking the 
 benefit offered. There are a great many house- 
 holds, the world over, in which the wife and mother 
 is by all odds the best business man of the concern. 
 Mrs. Lincoln had also the advantage of an educa- 
 tion better than that of her husband, and with it 
 also a deeply religious turn of mind. She was just 
 the woman to lift up those who were around her, 
 if they would let her. At least one of her newly 
 acquired boys began to feel almost instantly that a 
 new force was operating upon him. Moreover, 
 while altogether unaware of it, he was beginning 
 to see dimly the advantage of the education which 
 
 95 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 his new mother had obtained, and which made her 
 so superior to her unpleasant and unexpected cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 " Tom Lincoln," she said to him, just after sup- 
 per, " we'll git to rights in no time. One thing I 
 want right away, an' that's lard. You'll have to kill 
 one o' the fattest shoats, an' we'll use the pork fresh, 
 but I must have lard to fry cakes with. I won't 
 have all the hominy, when it's done, put to cook in 
 bacon fat. Jest the same with deer-meat; an' I'm 
 right down glad I fetched along a good gridiron. 
 This br'ilin' cuts on a stick, like so many hunters 
 in a camp, won't do for us any longer. To-morrer 
 we'll have a whole saddle roasted in that oven. 
 Meat'll keep first-rate in sech cold weather as this, 
 an' we must have most o' the choppin' done before 
 a storm comes. After the puncheons are down, 
 you'll go to the river for the window-sashes ; then 
 we can go to work an' set up the lean-to. I don't 
 want to have to dig firewood out of a snow-bank, 
 an' we'd most likely have that to do if we didn't 
 put on a wood-shed. One o' poles'd do to begin 
 
 with." 
 
 96 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 Tom almost sighed over the thought of all those 
 improvements and luxuries, but he agreed with her 
 in his heart, and so did all the young people, who 
 were likely one of these days to have to bring in 
 that firewood. It occurred to Abe, moreover, that 
 it would be a great thing if the pool itself could be 
 hauled a few yards nearer. He did not know that 
 Mrs. Lincoln had already been talking, prophet- 
 ically, about a deeply sunken, genuine, regularly 
 walled-in well, as one of the beauties of the future 
 for that clearing. It was, she had confidently de- 
 clared, to have a curb and a rope and a bucket. The 
 water from it would be cool in summer, instead of 
 warm, like pool water. Besides, Abe himself knew 
 that at times that pool would grow warmer and 
 warmer till it sank away and dried up. 
 
 There was to be no pig-killing that evening, nor 
 on the next day, for the floor was the first thing of 
 importance. The hominy was doing well and ma- 
 king rapidly, but that, along with the mortar and 
 pestle, might have in it much evil yet to be mani- 
 fested. Here was a work from which Mr. Lincoln 
 himself was to be counted out. Abe shortly recol- 
 
 97 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 leeted hearing old man Sansom relate how the 
 Indians themselves cracked their "samp" in 
 wooden mortars, when they could not find deep 
 enough holes in rocks to answer the purpose. It 
 was not at all reassuring, in the present case, to 
 remember also that no proud red man ever ham- 
 mered corn. It was a task which belonged to the 
 squaws, and which the wigwam ladies were apt to 
 turn over to such very young braves as were still 
 under squaw government. It was possible that in 
 his own case even samp might yet be added to the 
 monotonous toil attending the preparation of hom- 
 iny and coffee. Only the future could unfold, but 
 Abe was developing an aversion for that mortar. 
 It takes more than one day to dry out hominy, 
 but the sun and wind could work as well on the 
 Sunday which came as on any other day, although 
 all chopping and pestle business had to stop. It 
 was on Monday that the entire family put in its 
 best efforts upon the shoveling out of the clay floor, 
 and after that the placing of the puncheons was 
 easily done. All the while, the wood-pile grew and 
 the cookery improved ; but Tom Lincoln was every 
 
 98 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 now and then heard to say something or other about 
 going over to old man Sansom's pretty soon, with 
 reference to deer and turkeys. 
 
 " Jest as soon as I've 'tended to the fresh pork," 
 he declared, " I want to git out into the woods. 
 Tears to me, what I'd like to do, more'n 'most any- 
 thing else, is to hear the crack of a rifle ag'in." 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln was thoughtful for a moment, but 
 she did not make any open opposition. On Tues- 
 day, therefore, the fat pig was shot, as if it had been 
 a wild one, and its carcass was put into proper 
 shape for whatever operations were thereafter to be 
 performed upon it. On the following morning, 
 daylight had hardly arrived when Mr. Lincoln and 
 Abe were at the pole-shelter, attending to the clay- 
 bank horse. He seemed to Abe about the biggest 
 of his kind that he had ever seen, and it was already 
 known by the Lincoln family how much corn each 
 day was required to feed him. Abe and his father 
 had also eaten breakfast, and the latter had won- 
 dered why his wife had so firmly insisted upon his 
 taking so small a boy along with him. He would 
 have understood that matter a great deal better if 
 
 99 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 he could have read her thoughts or heard her say 
 to herself: 
 
 " I never did see quite sech another boy as he is, 
 for some things. He jest does take notice of every 
 least thing 'round him. I almost reckon he has 
 eyes in the back of his head. That boy's up to learn- 
 in' all thar is, an' I'm gwine to see to it that he 
 goes to school. It isn't of much use for some, but 
 it will be for him. Anyhow, when he gits home 
 he'll be able to tell me all about that Sansom place 
 a heap better'n his father could. He'd come pretty 
 nigh seein' things that wasn't thar." 
 
 When a boy has a habit of seeing all there is 
 between him and the horizon, and with that the 
 other habit of remembering all he has seen, he is 
 sure to have a full head in the course of time. He 
 had already seen, that morning, that he might have 
 difficulty in mounting so tall a horse ; but his father 
 settled that matter by picking him up as if he 
 weighed nothing at all and landing him safely on 
 his perch. 
 
 " Sit well back," he said, " an' I'll git on in 
 front. He's as gentle as a kitten, an' he's used to 
 
 100 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 carryin' double ; only most o' the time his load is a 
 man an' a deer, or mebbe a pile o' bags." 
 
 Away they went through the frosty woods, and 
 these were so clear that no traveled road was needed 
 by a horse with no wheels behind him. The distance 
 to be ridden was only a few miles, and it was still 
 early in the morning when they came out of the 
 forest at the edge of a respectably large clearing 
 and natural meadow, on the bank of Big Pigeon 
 Creek. 
 
 " Here's old man Sansom's," said Mr. Lincoln 
 — "houses an' stables an' barns! How like all 
 natur' he an' his sons an' his sons-in-law must ha' 
 worked to set 'em all up! Two or three more'd 
 make a village of it. Hosses an' cattle an' hogs. 
 He's gittin' rich, if all them critters don't eat him 
 bone dry. Takes a heap o' corn for sech a lot as 
 that." 
 
 Only a minute later they were hailed across the 
 open by the loudest welcome old man Sansom could 
 send them, and he and his quite numerous family 
 poured tumultuously out of the house. 
 
 " Come for a hunt, have ye ! " roared the old 
 101 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 man. "I knowed you'd come soon's you could. 
 Got your old woman settled, have jel Smartest 
 thing you ever did; an' how you managed to per- 
 suade her to come beats me. I wouldn't ha' married 
 ye for any money. Come on in, an' we'll be off in 
 short order. You can leave that boy o' your'n here 
 at the house, an' the women'll talk him to death 
 while we're gone. I've been out an' sighted lots o' 
 game, an' the deer ain't runnin' so wild as they was ; 
 turkeys nuther. I'll git 'round an' be ready in no 
 time. Been moldin' bullets." 
 
 He had no more to say, and by the time he was 
 ready to put his pipe into his mouth again his vis- 
 itors were at the door, and a tall, strong-looking 
 young woman had taken Abe down from the back 
 of the horse, remarking: 
 
 "I've got ye, you picked chicken! Now you 
 come in an' tell us all about your new mother, an' 
 the Johnston girls, an' John. We used to know 
 'em, in Kentucky, an' we're mighty glad they've 
 come. What we've been wantin' was a heap more 
 o' nigh neighbors, somebody close by, to run in an' 
 see. An' we're comin' right over to have a talk 
 
 102 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 with Sally Bush — but her name isn't Johnston now, 
 it's Linkin — jest as soon's we reckon she's ready." 
 
 Abe was already aware that this was a Mrs. Jim 
 "Williams, a daughter of old man Sansom, and that 
 she could stop talking about as soon as he could, 
 but not much sooner. Just now the arrival of 
 others might have turned her into a quiet and silent 
 kind of woman, if it had not been for a swarm 
 of small children to whom she was compelled to 
 give her next attention — and they all had to be 
 spoken to. 
 
 " Come right along in," said the larger woman, 
 who now took hold of Abe. " Most likely you've 
 had some breakfast, but a little more won't hurt ye, 
 not after sech a ride. I reckon your father'll eat 
 somethin', too, while my father's gittin' ready." 
 
 " The boys'll 'tend to all that's outside," he told 
 her. " But we won't take along that claybank hoss. 
 I'd ruther have my yaller gray; he's every bit as 
 good a walker, an' what's more, he'll stan' still all 
 day jest whar you plant him, an' that's the kind 
 o' hoss for a deer-hunt, for you don't need to hitch 
 him. I say, Abe, you was askin' me all sorts o' 
 
 103 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 questions at your house. Do you see that! An* 
 you don't know what it is? " 
 
 Abe's eyes followed the pointing finger, and he 
 did see. It was a long string of something hanging 
 against the log wall of the house ; but the old man 
 was correct, for he could not even guess what it 
 might be. 
 
 " Can't hit it, eh? " said Sansom. " Wal, them's 
 from Gineral Harrison's old war with the British 
 and Injins. Him an' Commodore Perry — up 'round 
 the lakes and on 'em. Some day I'll tell ye how 
 I kem by 'em, but not now. They're ginooine Shaw- 
 nee Injin skelps, an' some others mixed in, mebbe. 
 They was took by the Maumees, an' a hull heap 
 o' the Maumees lost thar own ha'r at about the 
 same time." 
 
 Scalps of red Indians ! What an opening into 
 the ancient history of America that was to a boy 
 like Abe ! They may have been taken when he was 
 a baby in the cradle, so long ago was that old time. 
 He was staring at them in open-eyed astonishment 
 and wonder, when the old man took down from its 
 deer-horn hooks a heavy, rusty-looking old fire- 
 
 104 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 arm, upon which was an equally rusty fixed bay- 
 onet, and shouted : 
 
 "Jest look at that, will you! It's from New 
 Orleens! When Gineral Pack'num's redcoats 
 . broke an' run, I jumped down from the top of our 
 breastwork, whar I'd been shootin' on 'em, an* I 
 gathered that piece, an' I jest smouged it from the 
 officers that collected the arms, an' I kep' it to this 
 day, to remember Gineral Jackson. I dasn't fire 
 it now, for fear it might bust; but the bagonet 
 wouldn't miss fire, I reckon. Jest heft it ! " 
 
 Abe took the old musket with more pride than 
 he could tell. He did not utter a word while he 
 turned it this way and that. He even tried to take 
 aim with it, and all the while he was internally 
 grappling with a new geographical formation 
 which he had never known before. It included the 
 Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, the northern 
 lakes, and all the rest of the world. The string of 
 scalps and the musket were doing a great deal 
 toward making things appear as realities at long 
 distances from his own cabin and clearing. 
 
 " Old man," said Tom Lincoln, " it's time for 
 105 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 you an' me to git out, if we're to do anytime wuth 
 while in the woods. Come along ! " 
 
 "Fm with ye," replied Sansom, and out they 
 went, leaving Abe to be torn away from the mili- 
 tary trophies and his new geography and history, 
 to be put down at a table with a real bowl of milk 
 before him and all the hominy he wanted. That 
 was the first bowl of milk he had put a spoon into 
 since he had lived in the very young State of In- 
 diana, and it was worth a good deal to get it. He 
 at once made up his mind that when he became a 
 man he would keep cows, if he had to milk them 
 himself. That purpose was made stronger yet by 
 the unlimited butter, as strange to him as the milk 
 had been, and his big slice of corn-bread quickly 
 assumed a golden appearance which no pone had 
 ever worn that he could remember. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 § 
 
 u 
 
 HE open doorway of the Lincoln log 
 house put on a look of eager expecta- 
 tion, if not of actual disappointment, 
 at the hour when the tree shadows grew long, that 
 evening. The fire was blazing brightly and cook- 
 ing was going on before it, but only Matilda and 
 Sally Johnston were watching the corn-bread in 
 the big skillet. Dennis Hanks and John Johnston 
 were out at the corn-crib, attending to the pigs, and 
 Mrs. Lincoln stood a little inside the door, staring 
 away into the forest. All she could see there was 
 the leafless trees and the increasing darkness, and 
 she said, half aloud: 
 
 " Jest as I might have expected. Tom won't be 
 home this night. I reckon nothin' could ha' hap- 
 pened to him, or to Abe. Tom an' the old man 
 wound up thar hunt at the Sansom place. It 
 
 107 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 wouldn't do for them to try comin' through the 
 woods any later'n this." 
 
 There she paused, and went for a look at the 
 skillet, but she returned to the doorway and her 
 watching. She was beyond the threshold when she 
 said: 
 
 "I feel kind o' queer, too, to be left alone at 
 night in sech a place. Glad thar ain't any Injins 
 nowadays. Away back, when I was a little gal, 
 'fore the War of 1812, 'fore the Eed Stick Creeks 
 was put under by Gineral Jackson, that used to be 
 what folks thought of, sometimes, about dark. The 
 redskins used to come, too, now an' then, an' when 
 they struck a place it was all up with every soul in 
 it. They never spared man or woman or child. 
 Oh, well, I wish he'd come home, but he won't. 
 What a boy Abe is ! I must try an' do something 
 with him. He's wuth it." 
 
 She turned, and looked in at her own girls and 
 
 Nancy, and she saw the two boys coming in. She 
 
 was not to be altogether lonely, after all, and there 
 
 were no real dangers of any kind creeping toward 
 
 her household. 
 
 108 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 Not a great while after that there was a pleasant 
 gathering around the Lincoln fireplace and the 
 tahle; but there was a larger one, with several 
 grown-up people in it and twice as many younger, 
 in front of the blazing hickory logs at old man 
 Sansom's. He and Tom Lincoln had almost been 
 caught in the woods by their great good luck. It 
 had followed them all day, or rather it had walked 
 on ahead of them, enticing them to follow it up. 
 The yellow-gray horse had behaved himself finely, 
 always willing to stand still as long as might be 
 required of him, and never starting again until 
 made entirely sure that he must go; but his back 
 was a sight to see when he was once more led within 
 the rail fence that surrounded his own house and 
 stable. On his patient deck — if it might be called 
 so — was a cargo consisting of four deer and nine 
 wild turkeys, to bear witness to the abundance of 
 game and the accurate marksmanship of his two 
 human companions. Neither of them was likely to 
 miss a fair shot at any time, and two such experts 
 together were sure to be jealously shooting against 
 each other, as if for a prize. They were critically 
 
 109 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 discussing the several prime shots they had made, 
 long after they had exhibited their return cargo to 
 the small crowd of admirers which hurried out to 
 meet them. 
 
 Old man Sansom's sons and sons-in-law took 
 care of the game, and the only remark Abe was 
 heard to make sounded like : 
 
 " I reckon Pop and I'll have to walk home to- 
 night, an' how we're to find the way in the dark I 
 don't know." 
 
 It was only a few minutes before he learned 
 that it would not be necessary for him to know, and 
 that he was to sleep that night in a bunk in the lean- 
 to behind the Sansom house. He had been in a state 
 of carefully concealed excitement all day, seeing 
 so much and hearing so much, and surrounded by 
 such an unaccustomed throng of people. He had 
 taken looks at everything he could get at, in or 
 around the place — every horse and colt, every cow 
 and calf, every dog and pup, and, as nearly as 
 might be, every pig. There were no hens or chick- 
 ens to be seen, but there was an exceedingly intel- 
 ligent tame raccoon, which had stirred up in his 
 
 110 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 visitor a determination to catch one like him and 
 train him up in like manner. He said as much to 
 old man Sansom, at the supper-table. 
 
 "Abe, my boy," responded the always ready 
 story-teller, "that's what you'd better do. The 
 right time to catch coons or possums, though, is in 
 the winter, when the frost's good an' hard. It's 
 about twenty year gone, now, down in old Tennes- 
 see, that I was out choppin', an' I kem across a 
 big black walnut-tree with a hole at the root of it, 
 an' a dog that was with me began to bark his head 
 off at that hole. Dogs mostly won't go after coons 
 in winter, but he did, an' I set to work on that tree 
 an' down it kem. It was nigh four foot through at 
 the butt, an' it was clean holler for thirty foot to 
 the branches. An', Abe, you wouldn't believe me 
 — nobody else ever did — but that thar holler was 
 jest packed full o' coons, all as fat as butter an' all 
 fast asleep. I didn't try to count 'em, but I gath- 
 ered no end o' prime coon-skins, an' what I'd been 
 reely hopin' for was b'ars. That thar holler was 
 jest made for b'ar. I say, Abe, what'd you think 
 o' findin' a pack o' b'ar four foot thick an' thirty 
 
 111 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 foot long? I've killed right smart o' b'ar, too, but 
 they're gittin' kind o' scurse, an' so is painters. I 
 mean to fetch in a painter 'fore spring. I've heard 
 four on 'em call in the woods lately, or mebbe 'twas 
 the same chap callin' four times; you can't 'most 
 allers tell." 
 
 It was at about that time that a new idea began 
 to come to Abe concerning the old man. It grew 
 out of things which were said by the rest of the 
 family, and the amount of it was that all of them 
 had heard, long since, about all that he had to tell. 
 He was an old book which they all had read, per- 
 haps a great many times, till they knew it by heart. 
 Therefore, during most of his time, all his wealth 
 Of history had to remain corked up within him, 
 and he was all the better pleased to have an oppor- 
 tunity, like Abe and his father, to bring out as 
 much of it as he could and give them also the benefit 
 of it. Abe, at least, was more than willing to have 
 him remain uncorked, even after Bob Sansom had 
 meanly said something about "that thar holler 
 black walnut-tree havin' growed some, sence last 
 winter was a year ago. More coons in it, too." 
 
 112 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 Nevertheless, the old man was a tip-top nar- 
 rator, with plenty of fun in him, and before long 
 he was having things pretty much his own way. 
 One more thing there was which helped the socia- 
 bility amazingly, and which also illustrated the 
 natural productiveness of those woods. It did seem 
 as if the Sansom young people had strained all 
 their capacities to gather all the nuts that were to 
 be had. Hazelnuts as good as filberts, walnuts, 
 hickory-nuts, butternuts, beechnuts, all in profu- 
 sion, with hammers and flat-irons to crack them. It 
 was grand, and all along with the cracking and 
 kernel-picking ran the often interrupted ripple of 
 the story-telling. Not only old man Sansom him- 
 self, but some of the young men and women, and 
 even Tom Lincoln, were ready to contribute to the 
 stream now and then. 
 
 Abe found his head becoming more and more 
 crowded with short yarns and long, from the South 
 and the North and the West, and even from the 
 Atlantic shore and from beyond the sea. All this 
 was what made it so late before bedtime, and why 
 they all but let the fire die out ; and why, when Abe 
 
 113 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 went and curled himself up in his bunk, he shortly 
 idreamed that it was on a flatboat, and that in it he 
 was gaily drifting down the Mississippi River. In 
 his mind, as he so drifted, was the purpose of sail- 
 ing on, on, across the blue waters of the Gulf of 
 Mexico, until he should land upon Barrataria 
 Island, among the pirates and buccaneers and Afri- 
 can slave-dealers. 
 
 The next morning did not come to him as early 
 as usual. He had no water to bring from any pool, 
 nor did he have any pigs to feed, nor wood to bring 
 from any wood-pile. He had a liberal breakfast to 
 eat, however, and then the claybank horse was at 
 the door. He saw at once that he had reasoned 
 correctly about a walk home for himself and his 
 father, for no less than four of the turkeys and two 
 of the deer were tied upon the animal's ample back, 
 and old man Sansom remarked : 
 
 " 'Tain't no more'n your sheer, Tom. An' be- 
 sides, you must stick to your chopping an' your 
 goin' to the river arter them winders. An' we've 
 four rifles, ready to go out, any time we run ashore, 
 for fresh meat. 'Tisn't like sech a house as your'n 
 
 114 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 is, with only one gun in it. Sometimes our deer 
 come a'most in range from the door. I lived in a 
 house once whar all ye had to do was only to sit on 
 the door-sill an' wait for 'em; if ye was willin' to 
 wait long enough, they was sure to come, an' all 
 ye had to do was to drop 'em an' fetch 'em in. 
 Tell your wife we're all comin' over to see her 
 soon's we can, an' she must he neighborly. We'd 
 like to have her step over here any time, an' fetch 
 her gals along. We're mighty glad to have some- 
 body livin' next door, as it were, an' they say thar's 
 a heap more a-comin' on in the spring. I jest do 
 hope they'll come ! " 
 
 It would have required another broad-backed 
 horse to have carried all the good-will, in addition 
 to the game, when Abe and his father set out for 
 home. That is, Abe led the horse and cargo, while 
 Mr. Lincoln strode on ahead, rifle in hand, with a 
 sharp lookout for game, as if he were not well 
 enough supplied already. Abe had no rifle, but his 
 eyes were busy, for he had heard things at San- 
 som's which had burdened him with an idea that 
 among the branches of those gigantic trees he might 
 
 115 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 at any moment catch a glimpse of one of the cou- 
 gars, or " painters," whose voices had been told of 
 as making music in the night. 
 
 The homeward distance did not amount to any- 
 thing for a boy who was on the lookout for wild 
 beasts in tall trees ; but as they were at last entering 
 their own clearing, Abe suddenly began to feel that 
 he had undergone a change of character. Instead 
 of being a possible cougar-hunter, he was turning 
 into a kind of triumphal procession. It was not 
 altogether the claybank horse, nor his father, nor 
 even the load of game, that did it. Vastly more 
 effective than anything else was the enormous list 
 of news items which he had collected for his good 
 mother, and which he felt sure she would be glad 
 of. He had been setting them in order for her, all 
 the way, and was eager for an opportunity to un- 
 load. Just behind this part of his precious gather- 
 ings was a consciousness of the extraordinary 
 quantity of brand-new yarns which he would now 
 be able to distribute to Nancy, Dennis, Matilda, and 
 Sally. Neither of them had ever heard the yarns 
 before, whatever might be the misfortune, in that 
 
 116 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 respect, of the Sansom family. He did not know 
 that he had been in a first-rate kind of frontier 
 school, for it was as if at least a month of hard 
 study had gone over him while he was inspecting 
 his new neighbors, who were in their own opinion 
 so very near. 
 
 Something of the same idea concerning near- 
 ness appeared to be entertained by Mrs. Lincoln 
 herself, and it was only a little while after he 
 reached the house that she put down one of the 
 wild turkeys to exclaim: 
 
 " Now, Tom, I'm so glad of it all. They're right 
 down good people, and I kind o' feel safer, an' not 
 quite so lonely. I'll feel better, while you're gone 
 to the river after the things. It's real good to have 
 neighbors." 
 
 The fact that she had so much to say to him 
 left Abe altogether at the mercy of the rest of the 
 family, and they went through him as if he had 
 been the latest edition of the Big Pigeon Creek Oc- 
 casional News and Advertiser. If the journal indi- 
 cated were not exactly printed, it was at least quite 
 full of interesting matter, some of which might 
 
 117 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 even rank as selected fiction. All newspapers do 
 more or less with fiction, especially in their accounts 
 of battles and of occurrences in foreign lands, not 
 to leave out their accounts of successful hunting 
 and fishing, such as Abe's. 
 
 The laying of the puncheons was finished that 
 afternoon, and a sufficient amount of corn had been 
 hulled for immediate use. It would, therefore, be 
 well for Mr. Lincoln to set out on his errands the 
 next morning, with the claybank for company. 
 
 Morning came, and there was no manner of de- 
 lay about their going, for Mrs. Lincoln sent them. 
 No sooner were they out of sight on the crooked 
 road, than the energetic manager of the family 
 affairs set all her young assistants at work. Their 
 first duty was to bring water from the pool and fill 
 to the brim another barrel which she had found on 
 the place, and two more which had been in the 
 wagon among her own goods, and which were now 
 empty. 
 
 " Thar's no cistern," she said, " but I won't be 
 ketched in any snow-storm with no water nigher 
 than that thar pool. We might all git awful dry 
 
 118 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 'fore we could git to it, in some storms I've 
 seen." 
 
 They had to become drawers of water, there- 
 fore; and if they were not also hewers of wood, 
 they at least had to pick up and bring to the house 
 quantities of big chips and branches which Mr. 
 Lincoln had made ready for them in his chopping. 
 He had thought of it, himself, for he had made 
 short cuts of many of the larger branches. All 
 things within doors were bright and cheerful when 
 evening came, and Mrs. Lincoln looked around her 
 from the supper-table, smilingly, to say: 
 
 "Bless my soul! Fve seen rooms with carpets 
 on the floor that didn't show any tidier than this 
 does. I'm glad we're all here, an' I reckon your 
 father can finish up an' git back to-morrer night." 
 
 There was nothing but the red glow from the 
 fire to see it by, and Abe, too, had been making an 
 inspection. 
 
 " Tell you what, mother," he said, " one o' the 
 big things at old man Sansom's is a lard-oil lamp, 
 with a wick an' a glass chimbley. It'll light up a 
 hull room ; but Mrs. Bob Sansom says she doesn't 
 
 119 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 set it a-goin' often, 'cause it uses up sech an all- 
 killin' lot o' lard. But they lit it when we were 
 thar, an' it burnt till it burnt the chimbley black as 
 tar." 
 
 "We can't have one jest yet," she told him, 
 " but I mean we shall, one o' these days. I've seen 
 some that didn't black the chimbley. Now, you jest 
 go ahead an' tell us what else you saw, an' who was 
 thar, an' what they said. I've been so busy I 
 couldn't git at you 'bout it till now." 
 
 Abe's tongue was let loose, and she might as 
 well have set a young river going. This was one 
 thing he had been waiting for, and all that he had 
 previously half told was now in better shape to be 
 told over again. No kind of story goes off at its 
 best the first time it tries. There are always some 
 things that were forgotten, and some others which 
 ought to be tacked on to make it sound right. The 
 art of tacking on the missing things is what makes 
 one historian a better novelist than another. 
 
 " It's jest as I said about you, Abe," said his 
 mother thoughtfully, at last. " You didn't miss a 
 thing. You may go to bed now, but I want to hear 
 
 120 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 the rest of it to-morrer night — especially about the 
 cows. An' what's more, I'm gwine to make Betty 
 Sansom give me one o' them pups. What this house 
 needs is a dog o' some sort, an' he'd better be started 
 on the place while he's young; then he won't run 
 away, first chance he gits." 
 
 The time had arrived for the boys to go up- 
 stairs, but Abe was still thinking of the dog ques- 
 tion. He was half-way up the pegs, when he paused 
 to turn around and hang on while he said: 
 
 "Mother, one o' them dogs o' Sansom's is as 
 big as a calf. It doesn't take so much to feed him, 
 nuther. He ketches his own rabbits." 
 
 " That's the kind I want," she told him. " The 
 wust o' some dogs is thar keep, an' if you don't 
 feed 'em they git to be all skin an' ribs. I knew 
 a dog once that'd stay fat on corn pone. But they're 
 scurce, I reckon." 
 
 It was only seventeen miles to the store or tra- 
 ding station where Tom Lincoln expected to make 
 his purchases, and his wife was right about his 
 being able to get home next day. He was aided, 
 indeed, by the claybank, and was urged onward by 
 
 121 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the first flurries of a coming storm of snow. The 
 warmest kind of welcome awaited him, and a good 
 dinner ; but hardly had he risen from the table be- 
 fore the work of putting in the new windows had 
 to begin. It did not take a great while, and when 
 it was done there was, for the first time in its his- 
 tory, a fair amount of light in the house after its 
 door was shut. That also could now receive some 
 attention, with an assurance that an entirely new 
 one would have to take its place as soon as tree- 
 trunks could be sawed into boards for the purpose. 
 
 " The cuttin' through o' the back door can wait 
 a bit," said Mrs. Lincoln. " The lean-to must go 
 up first, but all the firewood must be fetched an' 
 stacked agin the house, both sides o' the door ; it'll 
 be a fender from the weather, an' it'll be right 
 handy. The shoats have all come up to the crib, 
 an' what they need thar is a rail pen to keep off 
 the snow from 'em. Thar'll be plenty for us to do 
 the rest o' this winter." 
 
 It looked as if there would be, now somebody 
 had come to boss the doing of it and make sure 
 that it was not neglected. Moreover, one of the 
 
 122 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW 
 
 features of the improved situation was the effect it 
 was having upon Mr. Thomas Lincoln. The activ- 
 ity insisted upon appeared to be doing him good, 
 and he was notably cheerful as he went on from 
 one thing to another. When he first took a look at 
 the full water-barrels, he exclaimed : 
 
 " Gineral Jackson ! I never thought o' that. I 
 didn't have but one barr'l, nohow. Tell ye what, 
 when spring comes I'll dig holes an' sink 'em, an' 
 the water'll keep cool in hot weather, if you kiver 
 'em up. Besides, I'll do as she says, an' fence in 
 the pool, so's to keep the hogs out of it. Hogs'll 
 spile any water for drinkin'. But I'll chop some 
 more wood to-morrer, storm or no storm." 
 
 That was what he intended to do, but there was 
 no such piece of work before him. After dark, that 
 evening, he was industriously shifting the wood- 
 piles to their new places near the door, assisted by 
 the boys and girls, and under strict direction, but 
 they had not completed their job when they all were 
 compelled to go into the house. It was not the in- 
 creasing gloom only that put an end to their going 
 and coming. A great cold wind from the north had 
 
 123 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 arrived, with a backload of driving snow. It came 
 sweeping on over the tops of the trees until it 
 reached the clearing; then it made a dive which 
 appeared to be aimed mainly at the door of the 
 cabin ; it smote vigorously upon the roof ; it rattled 
 the new windows ; it tried to push in the door ; it 
 howled angrily down the chimney; it went to the 
 pole-shelter and screeched in at the claybank horse, 
 and then it traveled on southward. But Mrs. Lin- 
 coln remarked: 
 
 " Abe, I reckon this is one o' the blows old man 
 Sansom was tellm' of. You said he said it would 
 last about three days. I don't keer if it does ; we're 
 all ready for it now." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 |OME things — a great storm, for in- 
 stance — may make a tremendous blus- 
 ter without accomplishing anything 
 else of importance. When morning came, it was 
 discovered that but little snow had fallen, and that 
 in the woods it had made nothing but a pretty white 
 carpet, which would not interfere with either hunt- 
 ing or chopping. As for hunting, indeed, such a 
 snow was an enemy of the wild animals, for it com- 
 pelled them to leave trails which their pursuers 
 might follow. No more game was needed at the 
 Lincoln place right away, however, and the busi- 
 ness of improvement might go on uninterrupted by 
 any excursions after deer or turkeys. Mrs. Lincoln 
 herself had an altogether different undertaking on 
 her mind, for Abe had brought home from San- 
 som's one particularly important piece of informa- 
 tion. 
 
 125 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 " That's what I wanted to know ! " she ex- 
 claimed when she heard it. " Abe, if thar's to be 
 any kind o' school over on Little Pigeon Creek this 
 winter, the hull lot o' ye have got to go to it. Only 
 a mile an' a half to school? Why, I had to travel 
 twice that distance sometimes, and it wasn't much 
 of a school, nuther. I'm gwine to take the claybank 
 to-morrer mornin' an' go over an' see what it is. 
 The children must learn somethin'." 
 
 That was a thing that made the house appear 
 quiet and sober all that day, as if the shadow of 
 knowledge to come might be settling down into it. 
 All of them had been to school, more or less, over 
 in Kentucky, but none of them had heretofore been 
 in fear of any such thing here in the safety of the 
 woods. They talked about it almost gloomily, and 
 wondered among themselves what sort of machine 
 it would prove to be. Not the least interesting of 
 their mutual inquiries and forebodings related to 
 the great question of whether or not the teacher 
 of the reported school was in the habit of " puttin' 
 on the gad." They were aware that there were wide 
 differences of method and management in that re- 
 
 126 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 spect among men of learning. There were said to 
 be schoolmasters, indeed, who believed that no boy 
 could really do well with his letters and figures 
 without frequent assistance from a stout switch. 
 These were apt, too, to be faithful men, ready at 
 any moment to do their whole duty. As to that 
 matter, however, Nancy had an idea which was of 
 more than a little comfort to half of them. 
 
 " I don't keer," she said ; " the lickin's all go to 
 the boys. Over in Caleb Hazel's school, when any 
 o' the girls had been cuttin' up, he used to lay it all 
 onto some o' the boys, an' didn't they ketch it! 
 I reckon they did. Served 'em right, too." 
 
 " That's so," replied Matilda Johnston. " Abe 
 an' John an' Dennis can take all the whackin' that 
 belongs to this house. I don't want any." 
 
 The general subject of education was taking a 
 strong hold upon Abe's own mind, for it fitted in 
 with a number of the new things which he had been 
 hearing. There was now at least one book in the 
 house, and before the day was over he had it spread 
 open wide upon the table. If he could not read it, 
 he could turn over the broad leaves and stare at 
 
 127 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the pictures, of which there were several. These 
 were truly remarkable woodcuts, of the kind that 
 ornamented most of the earlier editions of the Bible 
 which were printed in this country. The first of 
 them to really fasten his attention was a vivid rep- 
 resentation of the Flood. It was a vast waste of 
 rough water, in which trees, rocks, human be- 
 ings, and wild animals appeared to be floating or 
 swimming vaguely around in the neighborhood 
 of the ark. 
 
 "Old man Sansom told me," remarked Abe, 
 " that he saw jest sech a flood as that is, 'way down 
 the Mississippi, only he didn't say anybody 
 drowned. I'd like to see one on 'em, an' I will, some 
 day." 
 
 There was a great deal to be learned from the 
 Flood, but after a while he turned from that to an 
 accurate picture of David slaying Goliath. The 
 victor in that memorable duel appeared to be a boy 
 not much taller than Abe himself, while the giant, 
 by comparison, was a man who could have picked 
 chestnuts from a tree top. 
 
 " Wal," said Abe doubtfully, " I don't see how 
 128 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 he could ha' hove a rock o' that size. But I'll make 
 a sling an' try it on." 
 
 He tired of that, and turned the leaves till he 
 came to a picture of the Israelites crossing the Eed 
 Sea, hy way of a road about wide enough for one 
 wagon, and that had great cliffs and crags of water 
 on each side of it. The runaways from the land of 
 Pharaoh and trouble were marching four abreast, 
 and it occurred to him : 
 
 " I think they ought to ha' cleared out that track 
 a little wider." 
 
 On he went until he had wearily studied every 
 work of art in that big book. Then he shut it up, 
 because the table was needed for supper, and he did 
 not at all know that his first picture-gallery had 
 been to him something like a small library, full of 
 instruction. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln was as good as her word, in the 
 morning, although she had to ride the claybank 
 without any saddle. He did not seem to care, and 
 she never spoke about it. All the frontier women 
 were well accustomed to bareback riding, and so 
 were all the men. What she really needed, indeed, 
 
 129 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 was to obtain a reasonably clear idea of how she 
 was to find her way to the neighborhood of the log- 
 built meeting-house and the log schoolhouse that 
 was near it, on Little Pigeon Creek. Her husband 
 dfTered to accompany her, and so did Abe, but she 
 rejected both propositions. The entire family gath- 
 ered at the door to see her ride away, and they 
 gazed after her with an unanimous opinion that 
 tremendous consequences must depend upon the 
 doing of such an errand by such a woman. 
 
 It was not until nearly nightfall that the clay- 
 bank returned with his invaluable burden, but he 
 had done his duty for the cause of education. Mrs. 
 Lincoln was able to call out, even before she dis- 
 mounted : 
 
 " Tom, I did it. I saw old Dorsey that teaches 
 the school. It's in sech a cabin as I expected. You 
 can't but jest stand up straight in it, an' thar's 
 greased paper for winder-glass, an' thar's a punch- 
 eon floor, an' that's somethin'." 
 
 " Glad you found him, an' right down glad 
 you're home ag'in," he responded. " We were git- 
 tin' kind o' anxious 'bout you." 
 
 130 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 " You needn't, then," she said. " But he was 
 right down glad to hear o' six new scholars, an' it'll 
 make his school half as large ag'in as it was ; but 
 if they keep on comin' in, he may have nigh onto 
 two dozen 'fore spring. He 'pears to be a decent 
 sort o' man, with a kind o' rope-colored beard, an' 
 he's jest powerful polite." 
 
 After she was in the house she had go many 
 more things to tell, in her delight over her success, 
 that the young people hardly had a chance to 
 ask questions. The fact was that she answered a 
 great many more than she could have asked. 
 At all events, they were compelled to make up 
 their minds that they were to be condemned to 
 the pursuit of knowledge under the care of Mr. 
 Hazel Dorsey, whether or not he was a" whipping 
 teacher. 
 
 One point which Mrs. Lincoln had ascertained 
 was of great importance in a region where there 
 were no bookstores. She had been told that there 
 were already in the schoolhouse almost enough text- 
 books to go around. Any deficiency in that respect 
 was to be remedied easily by putting two scholars 
 
 131 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 on one book, whenever they were digging at the 
 same task. 
 
 " That's all right," thought Abe; " then neither 
 on 'em'll be gittin' on ahead o' the other. It's jest 
 fair to both on 'em." 
 
 " When are they to begin to go ! " asked Mr. 
 Lincoln dubiously. " If thar's much more snow to 
 fall, they can't git thar reg'lar every day." 
 
 "Wal," said his wife, "it's the first week o' 
 December. I want 'em to start in now, so's to git 
 right smart a-goin' 'fore Christmas. Old man Dor- 
 sey's gwine to spend that an' New Year's Day with 
 his friends in Kentucky. I don't feel quite sure 
 when he'll git back. I've known men to go 
 away " 
 
 There she paused, and went to put a stick of 
 wood on the fire. The records of all that region 
 were full of memories of individuals who went to 
 pay visits, of one sort or another, and whose ab- 
 sences had been continuous. 
 
 From the moment of Mrs. Lincoln's return, and 
 as if she had brought it with her on the claybank, 
 a different spirit began to work its way around 
 
 132 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 among the young people. Swelling rapidly within 
 them was an enthusiasm concerning Hazel Dorsey 
 and his log-house academy, and an hourly increas- 
 ing curiosity relating to the other boys and girls 
 with whom they were so soon to become acquainted. 
 
 " Some on 'em'll be bigger'n we are, an' some 
 won't," remarked Dennis combatively, " but I ain't 
 gwine to take any kind o' sass from 'em — no, sir! 
 An' I reckon Nancy an' the girls won't, nuther." 
 
 There was a vigorous chorus of assent to that 
 proposition. Then the discussion of the general 
 subject of education died out into thoughtfulness 
 concerning the morrow, and the pupils that were 
 to be went to bed full of all kinds of dreams con- 
 cerning the state of social affairs on Little Pigeon 
 Creek. 
 
 When morning came, Mr. Lincoln himself at- 
 tended to the wood-pile and the pigs, while Mrs. 
 Lincoln anxiously busied herself with the outfit of 
 her student folk. They had neither cloaks nor over- 
 coats, but there were comfortable leggings to be put 
 on, for she appeared to have an abundant pro- 
 vision of such things among her household goods. 
 
 133 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 They were comfortable things to have, although 
 the snow was not deep and the distance was not 
 considered worth mentioning, for going to school 
 on the frontier. 
 
 Quite a procession at last walked out of the 
 Lincoln clearing, and it began its march almost dig- 
 nifiedly, gazed after with loving eyes by the good 
 and thoughtful woman who had set it going. Beside 
 her in the doorway stood her husband, and he, too, 
 was both pleased and thoughtful. 
 
 " Sally," he said to her, " I do hope they'll make 
 out to learn somethin'. Sometimes I kind o' think 
 that if I'd had more to do with schools an' books 
 when I was little — wal, I dunno — it might ha' been 
 wuth somethin' to me — I can't say exactly what. 
 But I'm glad you know more'n I do." 
 
 " I mean they shall learn all they can," she told 
 him. " I'm gittin' a cur'ous notion 'bout that boy 
 Abe. I never did see another jest like him. I 
 always said so, over in Kentucky. Thar's the 
 makin' of a man in him, onless I'm awfully mis- 
 taken." 
 
 "He's pretty bright," admitted Mr. Lincoln, 
 134 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 "but nobody can tell what's in a boy no older'n 
 he is. Eeckon we'll see better by an' by." 
 
 The procession started well enough, and it went 
 on two and two for a considerable distance, appear- 
 ing to despise altogether the light and fleecy snow 
 carpet that it kicked aside. Then a rabbit dashed 
 across the path, which was no path at all, and the 
 boys at once began to talk about dogs. The call 
 of a wild turkey was heard away off at the right, 
 and the column broke all to pieces in an eager rush 
 which resulted in only one fleeting glimpse of a 
 great bird getting safely away from unarmed hunt- 
 ers and huntresses. The march was resumed, but 
 its order was no more what it had been, and it 
 needed only a gang of deer, half a mile farther on, 
 to make them all half wish that there were to be 
 no books for them that day. 
 
 There were not to be a great many. When they 
 reached the bit of a log coop which served as the 
 young seminary, they discovered that one thing and 
 another had made them late, in spite of all the care 
 of Mrs. Lincoln. The procession halted to recon- 
 noiter, for it understood that the other scholars 
 
 135 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 must already be in their seats. The shrill voice, 
 indeed, of some boy who was undergoing a difficult 
 lesson might have been heard quite a distance into 
 the woods. That part of his morning exercises 
 plainly related to good school discipline, order, and 
 respect for the head of the academy. He was likely 
 to remember for some time a teaching which was 
 so liberally punctuated. The newcomers also were 
 receiving information. 
 
 " Thar ! " exclaimed Dennis, " he's ketchin' it ! 
 I say, Abe, most likely your turn'll come next. Oh, 
 but won't you jest holler ! " 
 
 Abe did not say anything, for the procession 
 was again in motion, and he was at the head of it, 
 thinking deeply concerning the proper method for 
 breaking into that schoolhouse. For that very rear- 
 son, however, and being absorbed in thought, he 
 missed the right way, and led his detachment, or 
 reenforcement, straight on into the fort, without 
 so much as hailing the garrison by knocking at the 
 door. More than that, he was leading them dar- 
 ingly forward, and they all were following reck- 
 lessly, when a gruff voice came from a short 
 
 136 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 man who had just laid down a limber-looking 
 switch. 
 
 " Stop right thar ! " he commanded. " Now, 
 walk back to the door ! Stand still ! Face this way ! 
 Look straight at me ! Bow ! Say ' Good morning, 
 Mr. Dorsey.' All of you say it, once more." 
 
 Each of his orders had been promptly obeyed, 
 at first with some confusion, and then with better 
 precision. The second chorus of " Good morning, 
 Mr. Dorsey," was done very well, if Abe had not 
 instantly led off in a third, which was superfluous. 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Dorsey said, with dignity: 
 
 " Now you may come forward and shake hands. 
 I am glad to see you all, and to have given you your 
 first lesson in good manners. One of the most im- 
 portant things in this world is to know how to git 
 into a room and how to git out of it with propriety. 
 Most people don't know how. Now, my next duty 
 is to diskiver jest how much each one of you al- 
 ready knows about books, especially 'bout the cor- 
 rect spellin' of words. Thar is really nothing of 
 more importance than learning how to spell your 
 native tongue correctly. I will begin with the girls. 
 
 137 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 The boys will also step back two steps, and stan' 
 right thar ontil their names are called by me." 
 
 Dennis and John and Abe stepped back, while 
 Nancy and Sally and Matilda bravely faced Mr. 
 Dorsey. They did pretty well with their spelling, 
 too, until he cruelly broke them all down, one after 
 another, with dreadfully tangled words of three and 
 four syllables each. 
 
 " That will do," he said. " Go to your seats. 
 Now for the boys. It is probable that they will not 
 do so well. Girls a'most always do thar hard 
 spellin' better'n boys do. It comes nat'ral to 'em. 
 Abraham ! " 
 
 The seats spoken of were rough plank sofas, 
 without any other backing than the log walls behind 
 them. They were taken, however, and then there 
 was complete attention paid, all around the room, 
 by every young student in it, while Abraham Lin- 
 coln stood firmly and spelled correctly the first 
 word given him. It was one he had learned long 
 ago at his first school in Kentucky, and it may have 
 been the only one, for he did not hit the mark again, 
 although he was made to fire a number of verbal 
 
 138 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 shots. He was not lonely, however, for his two 
 companions appeared to become panicky and made 
 out somewhat worse than he did. 
 
 " Go and sit down ! " commanded the school- 
 master. "It is jest as I was expecting. Spellin' 
 will always be done better by girls than by boys, 
 and how to account for it I do not know. It is so 
 of some other things." 
 
 He did not see fit to specify any of the other 
 things which he did not know, but that was made a 
 day of trial to all his pupils, especially to the new- 
 comers. There was one patch of blue sky in it, 
 nevertheless, for he carried that rare luxury, a 
 watch, and an hour came when, after gazing sternly 
 upon the open face of it, he declared that the time 
 for the accustomed recess had duly arrived. Then 
 the scholars were all called upon to stand up in 
 their places and bow to him. That being done, they 
 were at liberty to attend to their several luncheons 
 of cold venison, corn-bread, bacon, or turkey, and 
 to take up the important business of getting better 
 acquainted with each other. It was taken up, and 
 the number and kinds of questions which flew back 
 
 139 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 and forth were extraordinary. The feeling grew 
 rapidly among them that something like a " settle- 
 ment " was beginning to gather in the woods along 
 the borders of Big and Little Pigeon Creeks. One 
 of the boys took pains to explain to John Johnston 
 that the difference between those two names did 
 not at all refer to the respective sizes of any winged 
 creatures, but rather to the quantities of water flow- 
 ing in the indicated hollows. 
 
 "Wal," he further explained, "they're big an' 
 little, most o' the time ; but when thar's any kind o' 
 fresh a-runnin', one on 'em's as big as the other, 
 an' a hoss can't wade either on 'em." 
 
 School was dismissed long enough before sun- 
 set to give even the scholars who came from long 
 distances a chance to reach their homes before dark, 
 and they were all very ready to do so. So was the 
 schoolmaster himself; but he did his last duties 
 concerning good manners, for he made his flock 
 march out of its educational fold in single file, in a 
 perfectly orderly manner, and this was a great 
 credit to him. 
 
 Once in the woods again, the members of the 
 140 
 
NEW SCHOOLS 
 
 Lincoln brigade quickly lost their manners, and 
 they might also have lost their way if it had not 
 been for the footmarks in the snow which they 
 themselves had made that morning, and for the fact 
 that the road was " blazed " for them, part of the 
 distance, by ax-marks on the trees. 
 
 " Old man Sansom says," Abe told them, " that 
 the Injins make blaze marks that a white man can't 
 find — not onless he's lived among 'em an' found 
 out how they do it. He knew a feller once that 
 could read Injin sign, an' he could tell what tribe 
 they belonged to. They skelped him, too, for shoot- 
 in' some on 'em ; but old man Sansom said he reck- 
 oned that feller was a good deal more'n even with 
 'em on skelps." 
 
 " Thar's mother ! " shouted Matilda, as they 
 drew near the house. " She's been worryin' 'bout 
 us, I know she has. She always does, soon's we're 
 out of her sight. But she needn't do it, not one bit." 
 
 Tilly was right, for Mrs. Lincoln had not yet 
 become quite accustomed to the fact that she was in 
 a country where there were almost no roads. 
 
 " Oh, dear me ! " she had said to herself, " I 
 141 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 s'pose they'll come, safe enough. Wish thar was a 
 good road all the way — both ways, goin' an' comin\ 
 Thar'll be plenty o' roads by an' by. All we have 
 to do is to wait." 
 
 She said about the same thing, with even more 
 energy, after they were all in plain sight from 
 where she stood in the doorway, and then it seemed 
 as if she were actually counting them, more than 
 once, to make sure that none of them were missing. 
 
 She was made easy on that point soon enough, 
 for each of the returned battalion was eager for his 
 or her opportunity to tell whatever there was to 
 tell about the school, and even Mr. Lincoln himself 
 took an unexpectedly active interest in the several 
 noisily made reports. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 NTERRUPTIONS in the course of edu- 
 cation would come. Attendance at school 
 in winter could not be entirely regular. 
 Nobody in that settlement, including the schoolmas- 
 ter himself, expected that it would be. Neither the 
 state of the weather nor the many family affairs 
 were to be depended upon. Even when a splendidly 
 thick and hard crust formed on the snow, after a 
 heavy fall, a first-rate thaw, and a tip-top frost, it 
 proved untrustworthy at the end of a week of good 
 walking. Another thaw came, as is often the case in 
 human affairs. If that crust was both good and bad 
 for the school, however, it was only bad luck for the 
 deer, and enough of them were brought in by the 
 hunters to last during many days. With the opera- 
 tions of the sportsmen Abe and his fellow students 
 had little or nothing to do. On the other hand there 
 
 143 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 was much corn to be shelled at the Lincoln place, 
 the mortar and pestle were still there, and the pigs 
 provided employment even after they were securely 
 penned in. 
 
 Meantime the back door was cut through, the 
 lean-to was up, the windows were better fitted, the 
 new front door was made and hung, and the pool 
 was duly fenced in. Mr. Lincoln and his wife made 
 journeys to the trading-places on the Ohio Eiver, 
 and the claybank horse was made to earn his corn 
 and stable-room. One of the brightest features of 
 the situation was the continual coming of visitors 
 to see Mrs. Lincoln, and the fact that every one of 
 those visits had to be returned in due season. Abe 
 managed to get over to old man Sansom's one after- 
 noon, and had a grand time in spite of the fact that 
 the old historian was out hunting; but that was 
 nothing to the evenings that he spent at his own fire- 
 side, when Sansom came over to chat with his friend 
 Tom Lincoln. He might stay pretty late, if every- 
 thing was all right. His homeward way was now 
 so well marked that he could not lose his way, ex- 
 cept in an uncommonly dark night. Such nights, of 
 
 144 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 course, were to be avoided, and the rising of the 
 moon was to he taken into account as well as the 
 blazes on the trees. 
 
 All things went on well at the school. Deport- 
 ment, spelling, reading, arithmetic were even pain- 
 fully attended to. Abe himself had not yet advanced 
 so far as writing. Not only was Mr. Dorsey of opin- 
 ion that it was not well for a boy to plunge into pen- 
 manship at so early an age, but there were neither 
 pens nor paper in the Lincoln house. It was enough, 
 and, all things considered, it was a grand achieve- 
 ment that, before spring came and plowing time to 
 break up the winter school altogether, Abe was in- 
 dustriously, if somewhat slowly, picking out, a word 
 at a time, the several stories which belonged to 
 those tremendous pictures in the Bible. Before 
 long he knew them all by heart. He became so ac- 
 customed to the story of David and Goliath, how- 
 ever, that even after the snow was gone and he 
 could find stones fit to throw, he entirely forgot his 
 first purpose of practising with a sling to find out 
 how the big Philistine was knocked over. 
 
 Plowing time meant a great deal that year. 
 145 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln was determined that every available 
 acre should be put into corn except the small patch 
 which she reserved for her garden seeds. The soil 
 was new and fertile. There had little been taken 
 from it to wear it out. No harrowing was done, for 
 there was no harrow on the place, but after the land 
 was plowed it was marked off into squares, and 
 every corner of those squares provided work for 
 some boy. At that season the farm required much 
 more work than could be done by one man, and it 
 was well for Mr. Lincoln that he had so many young 
 helpers. Even a small chap like Abe could drop 
 seed-corn on the spots where the hills were to be, 
 and he and the other boys could take turns, with the 
 one hoe in the family, at covering the seed, and 
 afterward in keeping down the intrusive weeds 
 which persisted in coming. 
 
 All game was out of season, and there was no 
 good fishing to be had in that vicinity, but the woods 
 themselves were in all their beauty. It was worth 
 any boy's while, whenever he could escape from his 
 hoe and his weeds and his pigs, merely to wander 
 around in the grand old forest, while the leafy can- 
 
 146 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 opies grew thicker overhead and the mosses and 
 grasses grew greener under foot. It was a good 
 thing to be able to tell one tree from another by its 
 bark and leaves, and to know every animal that 
 dwelt there, including the snakes and porcupines. 
 There did not appear to be many birds. Pigeons 
 came, and crows. There were woodpeckers of sev- 
 eral varieties, and a few other birds which were not 
 often seen. The honk of wild geese had been 
 heard away up in the sky, and ducks also had passed 
 on northward, but none of them had alighted in the 
 Lincoln clearing. Neither had an eagle, which had 
 been seen day after day making wide circles far up 
 above the tops of the trees. Abe told Sansom about 
 that eagle. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I sighted him," said the old borderer, 
 " or mebbe it was another jest like him. It means 
 that somebody 'round here's got a sick hoss or some 
 other critter. That eagle's waitin' for the carkiss. 
 I learned 'bout that when I was 'way down in the 
 Louisiana country. If thar wasn't a wing to be seen 
 anywhar in the sky an' if thar hadn't been one sight- 
 ed for a month, you jest let a mule drop dead, an' 
 
 147 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 'fore you could git away a hundred yards you need 
 but just look up an' you'd see the buzzards comin\ 
 You know they couldn't ha' sighted him, an' they 
 couldn't ha' smelt him, but some on 'em had been 
 a-watchin' of him, an' they knew jest how sick he 
 was. Not one on 'em'll ever come nigh a hull drove 
 o' healthy critters." 
 
 Pieces of natural history and border wisdom 
 like that were all the while arriving. It was as if 
 the young people, and Abe in particular among 
 them, were now attending a kind of summer school 
 in which a great many branches were taught, some- 
 what to the neglect of deportment and manners. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was never out of employment ; not 
 even after all his corn was in, and his fences had 
 been mended to keep out the marauding deer. He 
 was the only carpenter to be had for many a long 
 mile, and the only man who owned a whip-saw for 
 the making of plank. He did not exactly earn 
 money, for there was not much of it in circulation, 
 but he could " dicker " for a great many things 
 which his wife wanted, and on the whole they were 
 doing very well. As for the deer, one of Abe's dis- 
 
 148 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 covenes, in his studies of animals, was how high a 
 fence a beautiful buck or doe will jump if there is 
 a field of tender-leafed, delicious young corn be- 
 yond it. 
 
 "What I wonder is," he said, "how do they 
 know it's corn ? They ain't used to havin' any in the 
 woods. But it a'most looks as if some on 'em knew 
 how to climb. I don't believe any deer really 
 jumped that fence." 
 
 Hot days came, when the air was like everybody 
 else, and did not care to stir about or do any work. 
 Storms of rain came, when the hurricanes roared 
 among the trees, and the thunder and lightning 
 broke in awfully upon the dull monotony of the for- 
 est life which the settlers were leading. It was at 
 times a genuine relief to stand in the cabin doorway 
 and wonder whether or not there had any trees 
 been blown down. 
 
 " I jest do hope thar's been some knocked over," 
 remarked Abe on one of these occasions. He was 
 not in the house, but looking out from the pole- 
 shelter, and he added, " It'd save Pop heaps o' work, 
 an' he says a harricane mostly picks out the trunks 
 
 149 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 that are beginnin' to dry. What did old man San- 
 som mean when he said it was jest so with men? 
 The rotten ones tumbled." 
 
 " That's so," replied John Johnston. " I found 
 one yesterday that'd been cut down by lightning an' 
 it was so holler that I crawled into it like I was a 
 b'ar. It would hide a feller, but I wouldn't keer to 
 sleep in that kind o' place all winter." 
 
 It was a good growing year, as all the settlers 
 and their crops were ready to testify, and every 
 now and then good Mrs. Lincoln would look at Abe 
 from head to foot and remark : 
 
 " I do declar', how that boy is growin' ! He's as 
 tall as most boys o' twelve, if he isn't more; only 
 he's so awful thin an' lanky. One'd think he didn't 
 git enough to eat — an' goodness knows what his ap- 
 petite is ! " 
 
 All other occupations were slackened up for him 
 and his companions at the recurring berry times, 
 and then there was fun. The fallen trees of other 
 years, wherever they were crumbling, appeared to 
 have tumbled for the distinct purpose of having 
 wild raspberry vines spring up and climb over 
 
 150 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 them. Besides these were the strawberries that 
 came first, then the blackberries and afterward the 
 whortleberries, wintergreen berries, elderberries, 
 and some others which were to be let alone because 
 of their bad reputation as being possibly poisonous. 
 It was when he was coming home from berrying 
 one day that Abe met old man Sansom near a fence 
 corner, and the bearded veteran was looking at 
 something that he held in his hand. 
 
 " Abe," he said, " do you know what that is! " 
 " Eed clover," said Abe. " Eeckon everybody 
 knows clover." 
 
 " Do they? " said Sansom. " Wal, mebbe they 
 do, but the In j ins themselves didn't use to know it. 
 Thar wasn't a mite of it in this country till the set- 
 tlers kem in. Then, pretty soon, the Injins caught 
 sight on it. It had been fetched in on some man's 
 waggin that had had hay on it — hayseed, ye know. 
 An' all the redskins hated it like pisen, for they 
 called it < The White Man's Foot' They said it 
 meant that they was to be crowded out pretty soon. 
 They were right about it, too, for thar was never 
 an acre o' land give back to 'em after the red clover 
 
 151 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 got a good start onto it. For along with the clover 
 kem a lot o' men with rifles, an' I'm only af eard that 
 the deer an' turkey s'll go after a bit, jest as the In- 
 jins did. What I s'pose we'll have to do 'fore long 
 is to raise our own turkeys; but it's on my mind 
 that we wouldn't do well with deer nor painters." 
 
 The summer passed, as all summers will, one 
 after another, and corn-harvest came, bringing with 
 it a severe affliction to Abe and the boys. He was 
 as tall as either of them, and to him, somehow, came 
 the first declaration that he was tall enough to pull 
 corn, even if he had to reach up for it or to bend 
 down some of the mightier stalks. Any cutting 
 which was to be done by a strong arm and a heavy 
 cutlass-like corn-knife, required a grown man, but 
 mere shucking might be performed by smaller 
 workmen. It was just so with the business of toss- 
 ing the ears from the field heaps into the wagon, 
 which was borrowed from old man Sansom, and 
 again from that wagon into the rail corn-cribs. 
 Considering the increased size of the family, it was 
 well that the crop was liberal. This time the white, 
 flint part of it was carefully pitched into a separate 
 
 152 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 crib of its own. It might have been said, however, 
 that whenever the boys looked at that crib it re- 
 minded them not only of hominy, cakes, and pone, 
 but also of the weary hours of shelling which were 
 surely before them in the future. 
 
 The hunting season came with the ripening corn, 
 but it did not come for Abe. Instead of any splen- 
 did strolls through the autumn woods after deer, 
 catamounts, or bears, there was to be more scholar- 
 ship, for the dreaded announcement was made that 
 Mr. Dorsey had not run away and was to reopen his 
 academy over on Little Pigeon Creek. Mrs. Lin- 
 coln insisted that all the children should begin with 
 the opening of the school, except the half-time days, 
 which were allowed them for the pleasure of husk- 
 ing corn now and then, and they all went. On the 
 whole, they took it well and patiently, and they did 
 so partly because they knew that all the other schol- 
 are would have reports to make as to what had hap- 
 pened to them during so long a vacation. As to 
 that, it was about as they expected during the out- 
 of-door hours of their first week at the school- 
 house ; but Dennis Hanks got into a fight with one 
 
 153 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 boy, who crowed over him too much because his own 
 father had killed a bear, and neither Mr. Lincoln 
 nor any other settler had as yet accomplished so 
 much this season. 
 
 The Lincoln cabin was now in pretty good con- 
 dition, differing greatly within and without from 
 the miserable coop in which Dennis and Nancy and 
 Abe had waited for the coming of their new mother. 
 All the improvements were due to her, and so was 
 the praise that she had not shown any kind of favor- 
 itism to her own children, whom she had brought 
 there with her, over the forlorn young savages she 
 came to take care of. These were now appearing 
 about as well as any other young frontiersmen, boys 
 or girls, and they had made a little society of their 
 own in which, crowded as they were, there was no 
 danger that any member of it would feel at all lone- 
 ly. In fact, even Mr. Tom Lincoln sometimes com- 
 plained that his house was almost too lively for com- 
 fort ; but when old man Sansom came over to spend 
 an evening on history, he roundly asserted that there 
 was not a finer, ruggeder lot of youngsters in all 
 
 those woods — especially Abe. 
 
 154 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 It was to be understood, as a strong mark of his 
 approval of the manner in which they had listened 
 to him, that one Saturday afternoon he brought 
 with him a present of a fine mastifT pup of his own 
 raising, which had already developed a remarkable 
 growl of its own. 
 
 " I wouldn't give a cent," he said, " for a dog 
 that can't growl. You see, it shows that thar ain't 
 no spunk into him. What I keer for is a dog that 
 can growl all over an' make the ha'r rise on the top 
 of his back. I had a dog once that could pull down 
 a wild steer, an' he liked the fun o' doin' it, too ; but 
 one o' the critters horned him right through the 
 head an' that was the last o' him — killed him dead 
 as a stone. But that pup'll do well if you fetch him 
 up right, for a pup is jest like a boy, an' you can't 
 begin too early with him. I did, for I cut off all but 
 'bout two inches of his tail, first thing." 
 
 The pup was made to feel at home immediately, 
 and it shortly began to appear as if there were 
 seven children in the house instead of six. Like his 
 companions, the seventh and youngest showed signs 
 of increasing intelligence, but his interest in Dor- 
 
 155 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 sey's school could be inferred only from the fact 
 that he was always out beyond the wood-pile waiting 
 at the hour for the return of the daily procession, 
 weather or no weather. All through that winter he 
 and the rest grew rapidly in knowledge and in size, 
 but neither the mastiff pup nor any of the other 
 young people shot upward so remarkably as did 
 Abe himself. 
 
 "I do declar'," exclaimed his mother, after a 
 careful inspection of him, " he's gained a good two 
 inches ! He grows right along out o' anything I can 
 put onto him. But he's beginnin' to read first-rate, 
 an' old Dorsey says he's at the head of the boys' 
 class in spellin', but thar's one o' the older gals that 
 can spell him down. Mebbe she can, mebbe she can't. 
 You needn't take all that Hazel Dorsey says for 
 gospil truth." 
 
 There had been pork to sell at killing time, and 
 even much corn to spare. Sansom's wagon had to 
 be borrowed more than once. Therefore there was 
 now on hand a larger amount than formerly of the 
 supplies which might be called luxuries, like sugar 
 and coffee and tea. Besides these, Mrs. Lincoln had 
 
 156 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 insisted upon obtaining a number of articles of 
 clothing for herself and the girls, not to speak of the 
 increasing demands of the boys for more extensive 
 buckskins. That part of her supplies, however, did 
 not come from the stores at the landings. It did 
 not cost money, but dicker, for old man Sansom 
 fairly delighted in tanning as many skins as he 
 could obtain, and Tom Lincoln and others were 
 eager to oblige him with all the proceeds of their 
 hunting. 
 
 " Fact is," remarked Sansom, " thar won't never 
 be any kind o' cloth made that's quite ekil, all things 
 considered, to the nat'ral coat of a wild critter. I 
 knowed a man once that never'd put on in winter 
 anythin' but b'arskin j an' he moved out o' Tennes- 
 see an' squatted 'way down in Arkansaw 'cause b'ar 
 was gittin' scurse ; an' he got all chawed up in a fight 
 with a grizzly one day an' that was the end of him ! " 
 
 After all that he might feel disposed to say, 
 there was one serious defect in the kind of dry- 
 goods he was praising. The palefaces had never ac- 
 quired the art with which the Indian squaws will 
 tan deerskin so that it will not shrink on wetting. 
 
 157 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 All garments made from such material as old man 
 Sansom provided might as well be made several 
 sizes too large, in the first place, in order that 
 after the weather exposure they were sure to receive 
 they might narrow down to something like a fit. It 
 was on this account that Mrs. Lincoln found two 
 difficulties in the way of her efforts at making Abe 
 look decent : one was the growth of the boy himself ; 
 the other was that his successive buckskins, of their 
 own accord, pretty soon began to put on an air of 
 being on a hunt after some smaller boy, for whom 
 they had been getting ready. As for moccasins, 
 there was a deal of ready-made economy about 
 them, for nobody in all that settlement dreamed of 
 going otherwise than barefooted, except in winter 
 weather or to meeting. 
 
 " Fact is," said old man Sansom, when present- 
 ing that subject, " I've worn leather shoes a good 
 many times — high-leg boots, too ; but I never quite 
 got used to 'em, except one long-top pair that I had 
 in the War of 1812. I found 'em on the battle-field 
 the day after we whipped Gineral Pack'num an' the 
 redcoats. I reckoned some feller'd pulled 'em off 
 
 158 
 
THE SUMMER WOODS 
 
 so he could run better, an' they fitted me within 
 less'n an inch all 'round the foot. They wore me 
 nine years, for I never put 'em on if I could help it, 
 an' I most ginerally could. If you want a pair o' 
 boots or shoes to last, you oughtn't to walk 'round 
 in 'em onless it's needful. Jest ile 'em well an' hang 
 'em up, an' they'll keep." 
 
 Abe did not get any leather shoes to try experi- 
 ments with, but he made up his mind that he would 
 surely do so some day. It already was an evident 
 promise of that far-off future that he would then 
 have to call for the largest sizes, for his feet were 
 advancing beyond the rest of his growth. 
 
 There were fine snow-storms that winter, and 
 several of them were of a depth of snowfall which 
 almost shut up the Dorsey academy. It took Mr. 
 Lincoln a whole day, with a wooden shovel, to cut a 
 road through one of those drifts between the house 
 and the pigs and corn-cribs. During all that time 
 the plaintive cries of the hungry animals could be 
 heard at the house, and the sympathy expressed for 
 them was also continuous. 
 
 " Hear em ! " said Mrs. Lincoln. " Jest think o' 
 159 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the children tIyin , to git to school ! They won't, for 
 days an' days." 
 
 " Jest so," said her husband. " An' the wust of 
 it is that we're keepin' them two ponies for Sansom, 
 an' they'll die o' thirst if they don't git a drink. 
 Glad it isn't quite so bad between this an' the pool, 
 but it's a good thing for us that all the barr'ls are 
 full." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " replied his wife ; " we can always 
 melt snow enough for all the water we need, so 
 long's the wood-pile holds out an' thar are trees nigh 
 enough for choppin'. Thar are wuss things than 
 snow-water." 
 
 After all, the first help the pigs received was 
 from Abe and Dennis and John, for the boys floun- 
 dered over the big drift and threw out corn until all 
 the squealing ceased. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HOBSE-DEALING 
 
 winter can last forever, and there was 
 an end of that one, but all through its 
 days of snow and nights of frost yet 
 another improvement had been preparing. It did 
 not come suddenly, and it was not fully completed 
 until it was nearly time for the spring plowing to be- 
 gin. Some of the new settlers that had been hoped 
 for arrived first, and there were rumors that a gath- 
 ering of houses over on Little Pigeon Creek was to 
 be a village before long, and that it would have a 
 name of its own. 
 
 " Yes, 'bout that," said Mr. Tom Lincoln. " I 
 did hear that if old man Gentry made his store any- 
 thin' like what it ort to be, most likely the town'd be 
 called Gentryville, an' one name's as good as an- 
 other." 
 
 " Tom," replied his wife, " never mind 'bout that 
 161 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 jest now. What I want to know is what old man 
 Sansom's gwine to do 'bout the hosses. Can't you 
 make him come to some kind o' agreement? " 
 
 " Sally," said he, " fact is, I believe Bob San- 
 som's nigh right 'bout his father. He says the old 
 man jest loves to raise hosses, an' he's allers ready 
 for a trade, but it does jest about kill him to let one 
 hoss go from him without gittin' another hoss o' 
 some kind back in the swop. I haven't anythin' to 
 swop with, an' thar's whar the shoe pinches." 
 
 The subject had been brought up frequently ever 
 since the first borrowing of the claybank. Mrs. Lin- 
 coln had calculated that he and some of Sansom's 
 ponies which had taken their turns in the pole-shel- 
 ter, whether or not there had been any use for them, 
 at the time of their residence (in that barn by way 
 of a kindness done to a neighbor) had eaten their 
 heads off several times over, if there had been any 
 fair price offering for unshelled corn on the Indiana 
 market. 
 
 " You see, Tom," the old man had remarked, as 
 he sat by the Lincoln fireplace and smoked, " thar's 
 a great deal to be said 'bout hosses. It isn't easy, 
 
 162 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 jest offhand, to say what they're wuth. I had a 
 hoss once that I traded six times, an' I allers made 
 something on him. He was dead sure to come back. 
 An' then I'd trade another hoss, to settle the matter 
 an' make a new deal. Any man was glad to let me 
 have that hoss an' git another in place of him. He 
 was a good one, too. Thar wasn't a fault in him 
 that'd show under a week or ten days, an' then he'd 
 let out what was in him, an' he'd keep it up till they 
 fetched him home an' said the devil was in him." 
 
 Nevertheless, when the grass was greening and 
 the buds were swelling on the trees, old man San- 
 som one morning met Abe leading the claybank 
 along the road, and looking somewhat dejected. 
 
 " Abe," said he, " whar are ye gwine with that 
 hoss!" 
 
 " Over to your house," replied Abe mournfully. 
 " Thar was a man kem from one o' the new clear- 
 ing, an' he was talkin' with mother. He had the 
 likeliest kind of a critter that he didn't know what to 
 do with." 
 
 " Abe," exclaimed the old man, " you jest face 
 about an' trot home. I'll go an' see your mother. 
 
 163 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 Why, I'd done sold that nag to Tom. All thar was 
 left to 'range was somethin' 'bout the gray pony an' 
 some carpenter work an' jest odds an' ends o' 
 things. It's his hoss now, an' he needn't hunt 
 for another trade this season. Some o' the critters 
 these new settlers are fetchin' in ain't wnth much, 
 nohow." 
 
 Not a great many minutes later he and Abe were 
 at the Lincoln front door, face to face with the lady 
 manager, who had determined to try her hand at a 
 horse-trade and see if she could not bring the nego- 
 tiations to a finish. 
 
 " What I was thinkin' of," she said to Sansom, 
 " was that you seemed to set store by that one, an' 
 that I'd jest as lieve have one that was four or five 
 years younger an' that was raised in Kentucky." 
 
 "Why, bless your soul," he replied politely, 
 " that's jest whar he was raised ! Best stock in the 
 kentry. An' he's younger than he looks. I've 
 known hosses o' that breed to keep on as good as 
 ever till they was over thirty. An' I saw one once 
 at forty, an' he could pull down a fence or open a 
 barn door then. Thar's Tom comin' now, an' we can 
 
 164 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 fix the matter right up. He can go on with his plow- 
 in', but he'd best go over to Gentryville an' git a job 
 o' carpenter work on Gentry's new store. It'll help 
 him pay for the pony, an' that's what fetched me 
 over here to-day, for I want to trade for some o' 
 Gentry's tools an' things." 
 
 That was it. In an unexpected way the main ob- 
 stacle had been removed, for it leaked out in that 
 very hour that Sansom had already been dickering 
 with Gentry for a second horse trade, into which 
 this might be made to work profitably. Here, there- 
 fore, was not to be merely a miserable out-and-out 
 sale of a horse, but a series of long-winded bargains 
 such as his soul delighted in. Abe led away the 
 claybank to the pole-shelter with a yet higher re- 
 spect for his mother and a determination that he 
 would shortly go and see the new town, if it was 
 really there. 
 
 The next morning he was missed, and not a soul 
 could give any idea what had become of him, al- 
 though search was made, with ample shouting of his 
 name all around the clearing. He was not to be 
 found, and his absence without leave might have 
 
 165 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 made trouble for him if it had not been for some 
 collateral considerations. The first of these was 
 that the plowed ground was not yet quite ready for 
 corn-planting ; the next was, that he had gone on an 
 exploring expedition. Yet another might have been 
 good or bad for him, according to circumstances. 
 He was gone all day, and even his father became 
 anxious about him, and went and cut a long, limber 
 switch by way of expressing his feelings. At last 
 it was very near sunset, when John Johnston and 
 Dennis Hanks met him coming in on the farther side 
 of the open. 
 
 " Hallo ! " they shouted ; and Dennis added, 
 " Whar've you been? " and John exclaimed, " Oh, 
 but won't you ketch it ! You'll be jest hided." 
 
 " Been to Gentryville ! " shouted back Abe. 
 " Saw all thar was to see." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell us fellers, an' let us go 
 'long with you ! " yelled John ; and Dennis grum- 
 bled : " That was jest torn down mean ! " 
 
 " Wal," said Abe, " the notion took me last 
 night, an' it ketched me ag'in at the pool this 
 mornin', an' I jest snaked it an' went." 
 
 166 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 " What did you see, anyhow I " asked John. 
 " Wish I could ha' gone." 
 
 " Didn't see nothin' much," responded Abe, and 
 he appeared to be inclined to silence as he hurried 
 on toward the house. 
 
 In a few minutes more he was replying to a sim- 
 ilar question from Mrs. Lincoln while she was hug- 
 ging him, and while his father was slowly drawing 
 the switch through the fingers of his left hand. 
 
 " Oh, Abe ! " she had said, " Gentryville ! An' 
 how you have scared us! But what did you see? 
 Did you git anythin' new? How does it look? " 
 
 The switch was drawing a little more slowly, as 
 Abe could see out of a corner of one eye, and he 
 quickly replied: 
 
 " Wal, it's jest about nothing 'cept some houses 
 an' a lot o' folks. I asked one feller whar the town 
 was, an* he said it was comin', but it hadn't got in 
 yet. He said old Sol Gentry forgot it this trip, an' 
 left it behind him over on the Wabash. Then he 
 said it was to be a new kind o' town, an' thar wasn't 
 gwine to be any small boys 'lowed into it. He said 
 thar was to be a hog-reeve 'pinted to kill 'em all off." 
 
 167 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 " What else did he tell ye? " demanded Mr. Lin- 
 coln, with the switch lowered as if it might be wait- 
 ing for the answer to that question. 
 
 Mrs. Lincoln dropped a skillet that she had 
 picked up, and John and Dennis grinned at the 
 switch and at each other, but Abe went on : 
 
 " I was jest about sayin' somethin' back at him 
 when a big chap kem along with a club in one hand 
 an' a rifle in the other, an' hooted right into his 
 ear. Then he collared him an' jerked him off 
 his feet." 
 
 "Was thar a fight? " shouted Mr. Lincoln, let- 
 ting the switch find a resting-place on the floor, 
 close beside the skillet. " Did he kill him? " 
 
 " No, Pop, he didn't kill him," said Abe, " but he 
 had to knock him endways 'fore he'd give in. He 
 told the folks that this feller was wanted down the 
 river for hoss-stealin', an' thar was a big gang of 
 them, an' that folks 'round hereaway'd better be all 
 on the lookout for thar critters, 'specially o' dark 
 nights." 
 
 " Tom," exclaimed Mrs. Lincoln, " we must look 
 sharp for ours, now we've got 'em. Oh, I'm so glad 
 
 168 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 Sansom give us that pup ! We can tie him in the 
 stable. He can bark like anythin', an' I'll be sure 
 to hear." 
 
 " Wal, if I ain't torn down glad he went ! " said 
 Mr. Lincoln emphatically. " Thieves are bound to 
 come whar thar's critters. No, Abe, you eat your 
 supper, but do you jest go right on an' tell all you 
 saw at Gentryville. I reckon thar's enough o' the 
 town got in, an' the rest of it's comin'." 
 
 Abe was a good deal more than ready to obey. 
 As he did so, it quickly became apparent that the 
 arrest of the marauder had set all the unemployed 
 men and women in the village to spinning yarns on 
 the spot. In fact, some who had previously been at 
 work lost all interest in their other occupations and 
 joined the mob of historians with thrilling contri- 
 butions of their own. These were many and of all 
 sorts, but not one tale of a lost quadruped had been 
 told in Abe's hearing without his becoming an en- 
 tirely competent reporter thereof. It was as if 
 something in his head were playing stenographer 
 and taking it all down in shorthand. Before the 
 evening's entertainment was over he had added to 
 
 169 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the Gentryville list a number of things which he had 
 heard at Sansom's. All the reports and records be- 
 ing put together, it was evident that organized 
 gangs, as well as solitary horse-thieves, had for a 
 long time been recognized features of frontier life. 
 It was as if the taking of four-footed plunder were 
 as a local custom which had been handed down from 
 the heroes of the vanished Indian tribes, all of 
 whom were known to glory in that kind of skill, 
 with its daring adventures and hardly won suc- 
 cesses. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were entirely ab- 
 sorbed, and neither Dennis nor John could have 
 given the smallest idea of the manner in which they 
 envied Abe that trip of his to Gentryville. 
 
 It was almost a necessary consequence of the ar- 
 rest of a horse-thief in presence of Abe that he and 
 his father, one on the claybank and the other on the 
 pony, rode over to old man Sansom's early next 
 morning. The news was important; its discussion 
 was necessary. The reception of it by the old horse- 
 raiser and his family was every bit as enthusiastic 
 as they could have expected reasonably, for all the 
 men on the place at once went and took down their 
 
 170 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 rifles, to make sure the weapons were in good order 
 for use. 
 
 Abe himself went out for an inspection of the 
 stock as soon as he could after dismounting from his 
 pony. It occurred to him that any gang of proposed 
 horse-thieves would be likely to come after that en- 
 ticing collection. " They'd jest gobble 'em, too," he 
 said to himself, " if it wasn't for thar bein' so many 
 dogs an' guns around. All those pups, big an' lit- 
 tle'd wake up every soul on the place if they'd let all 
 their mouths off together. Some on 'em can jest 
 howl ! I've heard 'em. Good biters, too." 
 
 He may have missed some of old man Sansom's 
 horse stories by lingering as long as he did among 
 the stables, but he did not fail of obtaining one piece 
 of information which was of interest to him. He 
 was thinking of it seriously, but it was not until 
 he and his father had remounted and were on their 
 way home that Mr. Lincoln turned suddenly to say : 
 
 " Abe, Sansom tells me that old man Locker has 
 got his hand-mill into shape ag'in at his place, over 
 beyond the south timber. It's a good, straight road, 
 an' you can find it easy. Thar's plenty o' corn, 
 
 171 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 ready shelled, an' you boys can shell a heap more. 
 You an' Dennis can take both o' the hosses to-mor- 
 rer, while I'm carpentering at Gentry's, an' you can 
 tote a big grist to be ground. We're nigh out o' 
 meal." 
 
 " That's jest what I'd like to do !" exclaimed 
 Abe. " I saw a grist-mill once down in Kentucky, 
 but I didn't go inside, an' I don't know what it's 
 like. That one was run by a mill-pond an' a big 
 wheel." 
 
 " This one isn't," said his father. " You'll see, 
 when you git thar." 
 
 That did not prevent him from asking questions 
 of his mother when he got home. Nobody, any- 
 where, had as yet dreamed of a steam-power mill, 
 but she could tell him a number of interesting things 
 about water-power and horse-power. The latter 
 was commonly the beginning of grindings all over 
 the world, so that in after days the efficiency of mill- 
 ing inventions, of whatever kind, came to be calcu- 
 lated according to the estimated or supposed num- 
 ber of the animals they took the work away from. 
 It has never yet been discovered what precise horse, 
 
 172 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 large or small, weak or strong, was originally se- 
 lected to measure power by. 
 
 Home was reached and all was duly arranged. 
 It was necessary for the boys to be off at an early 
 hour next morning, in order that the corn might 
 reach the mill as soon as possible after the power 
 to be employed might be supposed to have finished 
 his breakfast 
 
 " I do hope," said Mrs. Lincoln, " that not too 
 many others'll be in the mill ahead o' ye. If you 
 find thar are too many grists waitin', you'd better 
 leave your'n an' come home an' make another trip 
 for it." 
 
 The claybank and the pony were bridled and led 
 to the door. Then Abe on the broad deck and Den- 
 nis on the smaller craft were put on board first. 
 The rest of the cargo, in large sacks, was hoisted 
 before and behind them, wedging them in so that no 
 amount of shying or rearing by the beasts could un- 
 seat them. A wagon would have been somewhat 
 better, but as yet the Lincoln outfit did not include 
 any wheels. 
 
 It was only six or seven miles to the Locker 
 173 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 place, even by the winding way which led to it 
 through the woods. The miles were passed, and 
 just as the two mill-boys rode out from under the 
 forest shadows the claybank suddenly stood still. 
 It was as if he saw something which interested or 
 even startled him. The gray pony followed his ex- 
 ample, but neither of them said anything. The boys 
 also were entirely silent observers for a few mo- 
 ments, and then Abe burst out with : 
 
 " Denny, if thar isn't the mill ! Jest look at him 
 a-grindin'." 
 
 There it was, indeed — a large, open shed, a mere 
 roof, under the center of which the millstones had 
 been set up. There was more machinery outside of 
 the stones and their casing, but the most prominent 
 feature of the whole contrivance was a long, out- 
 reaching beam on one side, at the outer end of which 
 a short, fat man was walking and pushing, and he 
 was the power which was compelling the stones to 
 whirl around as they were now doing. 
 
 " Some other feller's in ahead of us," said Den- 
 nis. " It's goinV 
 
 " That isn't jest what I was thinkin'of," replied 
 174 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 Abe. " Don't you remember what mother was read- 
 in' to us about Samson? The Philistines pulled his 
 eyes out, an' stuck him in a hand-mill an' made him 
 grind corn for 'em. Thar's a big picter of it in her 
 Bible, an' I went for a look at it yesterday. I read 
 the story all the way through. That thar looks a 
 good deal like the picter does. But I kind o' reckon 
 Samson was wuth a heap more in any mill than old 
 man Locker is." 
 
 " Wal," said Dennis, " I heard it, an' that wasn't 
 the hull on it. Samson got even with 'em. He 
 pulled thar old meetin'-house right down onto them 
 while thar was preachin' goin' on, an' it was full. 
 Killed loads on 'em. Served 'em right, too, for 
 blindin' of him the way they did." 
 
 " That isn't all," said Abe. " He was a heap 
 more'n even with 'em 'fore they put him in the mill. 
 He mashed 'em with a bone. I asked old man San- 
 som how it was, an' he said he saw a mule skeleton 
 once, an' a jawbone of it was as long's your arm ; 
 it'd make an awful club. Let's go ahead." 
 
 As they did so the mill stopped running and the 
 power of it came forward to meet them. He was a 
 
 175 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 strong old fellow, for he lowered the sacks of grain 
 with almost as little effort as Tom Lincoln might 
 have used. Then he relieved Abe's anxiety about 
 the grist he was grinding. 
 
 "It's all right, my boy," he said. "When 
 nothin' else is in I grind my own corn. That's how 
 I have meal on hand to trade with to fellers that's 
 in a hurry. I can stop it off now an' put in your'n." 
 
 " How long'll it take? " asked Abe. " Can we 
 have it to-day?" 
 
 " Course you can ! " he exclaimed indignantly. 
 " Why, bless your soul, I can grind fifteen bushels 
 a day in that mill if I'm put to it ! Ornarily, though, 
 ten bushel is all I call for. I don't keer to work 
 myself to death for any man. You boys can run 
 'round anywhar you please till dinner-time; then 
 you'll hear the horn at the house, an' come in." 
 
 Dennis was ready to inspect everything about 
 the place without delay, but Abe was in a manner 
 fascinated by that mill. He stood and watched all 
 the operations of the miller. He saw some of his 
 own corn put in, saw the meal from it coming out 
 below, and then he studied the ingenious mechanism 
 
 176 
 
HORSE-DEALING 
 
 by means of which the same power that turned the 
 stones also rattled the holting-cloth which was sift- 
 ing other meal in a carefully weather-guarded cor- 
 ner of the shed. 
 
 " That's a big thing, isn't it! " said Mr. Locker 
 proudly. " It saves all sorts o' trouble for the wom- 
 en-folks. They used to have to sift thar own meal 
 out, but now they won't. It's a great improvement." 
 
 He leaned against his beam, and it walked slowly 
 away with him while he talked to Abe about other 
 mills, better and worse, and asserted : 
 
 " 'Fore next winter I'm goin' to have this mill 
 walled in so I can run it in any kind o' weather, on- 
 less it's too tarnation cold. I ain't a-goin' to freeze 
 myself to death for any man." 
 
 He was not so determined a story-teller as old 
 man Sansom, but he did pretty well, and it was long 
 before Abe went to join Dennis. They looked 
 around at cattle and hogs and horses, but it was not 
 a great while before they were startled by a burst 
 of sound which came from the house. 
 
 " Horn ! " shouted Dennis. " Did you ever hear 
 anythin' like that?" 
 
 177 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 " It means dinner," said Abe. " But what's he 
 blowin' like that for! " 
 
 Old man Locker himself stood in the doorway, 
 and he was sending out blast after blast, but there 
 did not appear to be anybody sent for or arriving 
 except the boys. No, he did not expect anybody 
 else, and he was exerting his lungs in this manner 
 solely for the pride and pleasure that he took in that 
 tremendous curve of black ox-horn. 
 
 The dinner was a good one, and while it was pro- 
 gressing Mr. Locker explained to his young custom- 
 ers the differences between fine meal, coarse meal, 
 samp and hominy grits. Nevertheless, he appeared 
 to eat in some haste, as if he were eager to return to 
 his imitation of Samson. When he did so, the meal 
 ran out as if Philistines were driving him, and 
 in due season the sacks were on the pony and the 
 claybank. 
 
 " Talon' out the cobs makes 'em smaller," said 
 Abe; and away they went homeward, but he was 
 troubled by a curious idea that there was some kind 
 of mill-wheel running in his own head. 
 
 178 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 OUR corners," he said. " That makes 
 two streets. The village is mostly 
 scattered all along 'em. Mother says 
 that thar'll be sidewalks one o' these days. Thar 
 might be now, if folks didn't like the middle o' the 
 road better'n the sides. Reckon old Gentry's new 
 store cost him a pile." 
 
 It must have done so, for it was coated all over 
 with planed boards which came from south of the 
 Ohio River. Moreover, these were now in process 
 of being painted white. This was a tremendous 
 piece of extravagance, and the stately building it- 
 self was actually two stories high. It would easily 
 contain all the goods which were likely to be called 
 for by all the population settling within reach of it 
 for years to come. There it stood, on the south- 
 easterly corner of the crossroads, and on the op- 
 
 179 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 posite corner northward was Mr. Gentry's barn. 
 This was large, for there was at least a half dozen 
 of it, of various shapes and sizes, but none of it 
 was of any other architecture or material than log- 
 work. The several stables and cribs and pens were 
 scattered over more than an acre of ground, testify- 
 ing in this way to the liberal character of their own- 
 er's mind and pocketbook. Across the road, west- 
 ward, was Jim Allen's blacksmith shop. On the 
 other of the four corners was the as yet unpainted 
 frame residence of an important man by the name 
 of Josiah Crawford. "With due politeness to that 
 part of it which was just under the roof, Craw- 
 ford's mansion might be called a story and a half, 
 but not two stories. 
 
 " The village is growin'," remarked Abe, with- 
 out moving from his place of observation under the 
 shadow of Gentry's front barn ; " but this is the first 
 time I've seen that store since the roof was on." 
 
 It was evidently making a strong impression 
 upon him, but at that moment he was hailed sono- 
 rously by a new arrival on horseback. 
 
 " Hallo, Abe ! I say, come an' hold this hoss 
 180 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 while I go over to the shop. Jim Allen's been tin- 
 kerin' my rifle, an' I want to see whether he's gone 
 an* sp'iled the lock. The old screw wouldn't grip 
 the flint hard enough to make it strike fire, an' it's 
 jest awful to have your flint drop when you pull 
 trigger on a buck. I knew a man once that had his 
 life saved that way, an' it made a pious man of him. 
 He stopped swearin' an' drinkin'. You'd best keep 
 a tight hand on that hoss, or he'll be walkin' right 
 on into the store, like he meant to buy somethin\ 
 I haven't had him long, an' I don't exackly know 
 what he won't do next." 
 
 Old man Sansom was on the ground long before 
 his remarks were concluded, and Abe had the pony 
 by the bit, gently restraining the animal's apparent 
 tendency to rear with all four of his feet at the same 
 time. His efforts were only fairly successful, but 
 the net result of them was by no means altogether 
 desirable. In less than a minute after his master 
 disappeared through the ample doorway of the 
 smithy, the restive dancer had brought Abe almost 
 into the store itself. At the threshold, however, 
 both of them came to a standstill, and the boy and 
 
 181 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 the beast stared silently into the place of business. 
 For the first time in his life that pony saw a man 
 laying out calico on a counter, for a bevy of ad- 
 miring women to criticize and test with eyes and 
 fingers. He could hear their remarks, too, and so 
 could Abe. They were telling each other, and Mr. 
 Gentry behind the counter, about the wonderful 
 dry-goods they had seen in other times and at other 
 places. Costly ! Splendid ! Too fine altogether for 
 the present requirements of the sensible people of 
 southern Indiana. 
 
 " Tell ye what, Mr. Gentry," said one of them, 
 older than the rest, " if craps are good this season 
 an' next, you don't know what goods you may have 
 to fetch on. Some o' the gals are awful extrava- 
 gant nowadays." 
 
 " It was jest so when I was a gal," began the 
 woman who was standing next to her, with a yard 
 of red calico displayed over one arm, but at that 
 moment the pony interrupted her with a loud neigh, 
 and let fly a kick which upset an empty barrel that 
 was standing outside of the doorway. 
 
 Abe shouted " Whoa ! " and hung bravely to the 
 182 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 bridle, but the pony wheeled around and stood with 
 his face to the street, as if he were entirely dis- 
 gusted by the unhaylike appearance of all that he 
 had seen in the new store. He was also exhibiting 
 signs of a vicious disposition to back, and one of 
 the women screamed excitedly : 
 
 " Oh ! look at that hoss ! He's gwine to rare in ! " 
 "Hold onto him, Abe!" roared another and 
 louder voice. "Jim hadn't finished sp , ilin , the 
 rifle, but I got back a rope halter I'd left thar, an' 
 I'll hitch him to Si Crawford's hitchin'-post, an' I 
 reckon he won't make out to pull it up. If he does, 
 I'll have to pay for the post. I've got him ! Come 
 along, now, you black rascal ! What did ye want 
 
 into that thar store? I knew a hoss, once " 
 
 There he ceased speaking, for the pony was 
 meighing close to his ear, as he yielded to the pres- 
 sure of the rope halter and followed its influence 
 across the street. Abe was therefore unhorsed, and 
 he walked on into the store as far as the nearest 
 counter. There he halted, and gazed rapidly around 
 in all directions, even at the ceiling, from which 
 many articles of bright tin and pewter ware, with 
 
 183 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 some of iron which were not so bright, were sus- 
 pended low enough for inspection by possible 
 customers. There were shelves at the sides, be- 
 hind both of the counters, and on them were many 
 varieties of merchandise. He saw open-topped 
 boxes, also, which appeared to contain sugar and 
 coffee and salt, not mixed at all, but each article in 
 a separate box by itself. It took him but a moment 
 to ascertain that the store presented for sale all 
 sorts of agricultural implements likely to be called 
 for, with harness for horses, and boots and shoes 
 for men and women. The crockery and queens- 
 ware bewildered him a little, there was so much of 
 it all. He was just beginning to think painfully 
 concerning worldly wealth when Mr. Gentry him- 
 self shouted out : 
 
 " Abe, glad you came. I was just wishing for 
 a boy. You take these parcels and carry them out 
 to Mrs. Harriman's wagon; then hurry back, and 
 I'll have something more for you to do. Step, lively, 
 now ! " 
 
 This was not by any means Abe's first acquaint- 
 ance with the merchant, and he obeyed with alac- 
 
 184 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 rity. Of all the things, however, which he could 
 have thought of as unlikely to come to him, but 
 that pleased him well, was the idea thus put before 
 him of becoming in any manner associated with that 
 magnificent commercial enterprise. Something like 
 a shower of warm water seemed to pour over him 
 as he accepted his momentary association with the 
 new store. He took the parcels and carried them 
 out with a vague idea that he himself had somehow 
 sold the goods to Mrs. Harriman, and that he was 
 to sell a lot more as soon as he should be better 
 settled in his business, with an improved knowledge 
 of merchandise and prices. It was all as yet a trifle 
 dreamy, and he was stirred out of possible hallu- 
 cinations as he was turning away from the wagon, 
 for old man Sansom had hitched the pony and was 
 half-way across the street. 
 
 "Abe," he thundered, "it's all right! I didn't 
 know that Gentry had hired ye. I knowed he wanted 
 a boy, for that thar son o' his'n had ruther do 'most 
 anythin' else than 'tend store, onless thar was to be 
 all the while nothin' but gals to trade with. An* 
 your folks have got too many in the house for com- 
 
 185 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 fort, an' they'd most likely be glad to git red o' one. 
 I reckon I would, if I had sech a raft on hand." 
 
 He might have said more, nobody knows what, 
 but Abe was now disappearing through the door- 
 way of his place of business, if that was what it 
 was, and Mr. Gentry was shouting at him another 
 errand, all ready to be attended to. He was a tall, 
 slender man, with a clean-shaven face that day, and 
 exceedingly polite manners for that occasion. It 
 was not entirely unknown to Abe, however, that the 
 shaving of his face was done regularly on Sunday 
 mornings, and that one of the griefs of his life was 
 the marvelous rapidity with which his whiskers and 
 beard would grow, Toward the end of each week, 
 to his sorrow, his long, lean face was sure to present 
 the idea of a stubble-field on which there had been 
 a closely planted crop of black-stemmed grain. In 
 his dress he was fairly particular all the week, out 
 of respect to his customers, but no storm that ever 
 blew could have prevented him from putting on his 
 best black swallow-tailed suit on a Sunday morn- 
 ing, even if he had to stay at home in it. 
 
 The main trouble with that establishment, that 
 186 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 day, was its prosperity. It had too many custom- 
 ers and only one salesman. It was all but impos- 
 sible for the busy merchant to measure calico and 
 weigh out sugar at the same moment. He managed 
 pretty well, nevertheless, with the assistance of his 
 newly arrived thirteen-year-old clerk, although Abe 
 could not as yet be entrusted, of course, with so in- 
 tricate a matter as the management of weighing- 
 scales which would go as high as fifty pounds. This 
 highly ornamental as well as useful affair sat on a 
 counter, but on the floor, near the door, stood an- 
 other, with a capacity much more ponderous. Any- 
 thing like a wagon or a load of hay could not be 
 weighed at any place nearer than one of the Ohio 
 River landings. 
 
 It was well for Abe to be kept so busy, or the 
 sudden change in his circumstances might have be- 
 wildered him. It surely would have done so if he 
 had all at once taken in the vast idea that this ad- 
 venture of his was to last for more than one day. 
 He knew that his mother was somewhere in the 
 village, visiting a friend, and he expected that 
 toward night she would come and take him home 
 
 187 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 with her, in time for the supper which the girls were 
 to cook. He did not fully understand the needs of 
 that business nor the wisdom of his mother. She 
 finished her visit and came to the store, but she 
 did not manifest any astonishment at seeing her 
 son behind a counter. One fact was that she had 
 met old man Sansom. So deeply was he interested 
 that he came in with her, carrying his now com- 
 pletely mended rifle. It was with this long, dan- 
 gerous-looking weapon that he pointed at Mr. 
 Gentry's new clerk, remarking: 
 
 " Thar he is, Mrs. Linkin. I was put into a store 
 once, when I wasn't much older'n he is. But I was 
 real bright, an' so is he, an' I got out ag'in. But 
 he'll git into scrapes with old Gentry, sure's you 
 live. Nobody can git along with him for any length 
 o' time." 
 
 "What's that?" laughed Mr. Gentry. "You 
 get out! But about Abe, Mrs. Lincoln, do you 
 mind my keeping him here for a while? " 
 
 " Why, no," said she. " I'd kind o' like it. He 
 could sleep at home an' come over here every 
 
 mornin'." 
 
 188 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 " Oh no," interrupted Mr. Gentry, " not so bad 
 as that. I want him to sleep in the store, and he 
 can get his meals at my house. He'll have to be up 
 early and sweep out. If it's cold weather — and it 
 soon will be — he will have to start the fire before he 
 gets his breakfast." 
 
 " That's what he'll have to do, Mrs. Linkin," 
 put in old man Sansom. " If thar's anythin' in the 
 wide world that Sol Gentry hates, it's gittin' out o* 
 bed in the mornin'. An' he ain't wuth much arter 
 he's out, nohow. Now, Gentry, I want half a pound 
 o' rifle powder, best you've got, that'll go off with- 
 out holdin' down a coal o' fire on top of it. Thar 
 are some kinds o' gunpowder " 
 
 " Just so ! " exclaimed Mr. Gentry. " But if a 
 man doesn't know how to load a gun, and rams 
 down a wad before he puts in his powder " 
 
 " Might a'most as well, with some powder I've 
 seen," said Sansom. " Put a light to it, an' it'll 
 burn steady all day. I want some new flints, 
 too — good ones. Some flints don't seem to have 
 any fire in 'em, nohow. But I had a flint once 
 that'd send out a stream o' sparks long as your 
 
 189 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 finger. It'd burn a hole right through a piece o' 
 leather " 
 
 " Just so," said Mr. Gentry. " I had a barrel 
 o' that kind o' flints once, but I had to stop keeping 
 'em. You see, Mrs. Lincoln, it wouldn't do. I had 
 to keep all the time pouring water on them to keep 
 them from taking fire. Might burn down the store, 
 you know." 
 
 " Wal," she said, " Abe, do you want to stay? " 
 
 "Of course I do!" jumped out of his mouth 
 eagerly. " I can learn all thar is in the store in no 
 time. Keep it right, too." 
 
 " Ye-es," said Sansom, " mebbe you can, but I 
 warn ye. Don't put that thar powder-kag down by 
 the fire. An' if you do, don't sit on it. I knew a 
 feller once that tried it on, an' you can't guess how 
 high it lifted him. Wasted all the powder, too." 
 
 There might have been more talk if Mrs. Lin- 
 coln had not been in haste to get home; but even 
 in that short conversation Abe had begun to get a 
 glimpse of one of the great educational advantages 
 of his new position. 
 
 If the term "parliament" means "talking- 
 190 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 place," and it is said to imply something of that 
 kind, then there were two parliaments which were 
 frequently held at Gentry's store. Sometimes both 
 of them met at the same time, but generally only 
 one was in session, at this place or that, according 
 to the circumstances and the weather. If it was 
 warm, or at least not very cold, the doorway and 
 its neighborhood was a favorite locality for the 
 lingering of men who had time to spare. Corn 
 would grow just the same without their watching it 
 All sorts of passengers on either road were prone 
 to turn toward that doorway, if anybody was to be 
 seen standing there. Generally there would be, for 
 there were men who were willing to stand guard 
 there an hour at a time waiting for chance comers. 
 A shower of rain, or somebody bargaining, might 
 cause the parliament to drift inside and sit on the 
 barrel-heads or the counters, or even on the floor; 
 and there were good commercial reasons why Mr. 
 Gentry was willing to have it so. 
 
 As for him, however, considered as a perpetual 
 member, the fact was that no other man in that set- 
 tlement, not even old man Sansom himself, knew 
 
 191 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 more yarns and tales of all sorts, or was apparently 
 more fond of telling them, or of hearing other men 
 tell. Sansom, indeed, insisted that Gentry kept a 
 stock of old stories, dried or salted, either down 
 cellar or over in the haymow at the ham, ready to 
 be brought out whenever they were wanted. The 
 real place of deposit, however, was probably nearer 
 than the barn, for his own upper story was always 
 within easy reach. 
 
 The other and often the greater parliament was 
 assembled only in cold weather. Its place of meet- 
 ing was at the back of the store, and here Abe was 
 now to make his first acquaintance with that rare 
 luxury, a stove. Several broad slabs of limestone 
 had been put down to protect the floor, and upon 
 these rested the feet of an enormous, open-faced 
 Franklin, in which, with skill and attention, almost 
 as much wood might be burned as in any fireplace. 
 It had the advantage, however, of giving out more 
 heat than a stick and mud affair could throw, espe- 
 cially after its broad, rusty back became red-hot. 
 
 Sunset came, and with it the exciting novelty, 
 to Abe, of going to Mr. Gentry's house for supper. 
 
 192 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 He managed to go and to get away without having 
 uttered a loud word, so far as he could remember. 
 It was not only that he was somewhat overcome by 
 the presence of strange company, but much more 
 that he was eager to be in the store again and to 
 take part in its illumination for the evening's trade. 
 He had seen a lard lamp at old man Sansom's, and 
 had believed it a big one, but it was a mere child of 
 a lamp when compared with either of the three 
 which Mr. Gentry had brought with him on his last 
 return from Kentucky. It was true that he had 
 bought them second-hand, and that they exhibited 
 signs of antiquity, but they could hold lard enough 
 to make any owner of them wish that pork might be 
 cheap and evenings not too long. Besides these, 
 there were candles which might be employed on 
 occasion and then blown out. There was a lantern 
 for visits to the cellar, and that cave under the store 
 was dark enough to encourage the bringing down 
 of a lantern at any time. 
 
 It was a treat to watch Mr. Gentry trim and 
 light a lamp, but he had no show-window to put 
 one in. His lamps were to be suspended from the 
 
 193 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 ceiling by long brass-gold chains, so that articles 
 of merchandise on the counters or the shelves might, 
 with close inspection, be distinguished from each 
 other. Abe watched with deep interest while they 
 were preparing. Then they were lighted and the 
 store was brilliant. 
 
 " Now, Abe," said Mr. Gentry, " I'll go for my 
 supper. When I get back I'll show you something 
 else." 
 
 Perhaps he had an insane idea that Abe would 
 be left there all alone, and that he might feel lonely. 
 Perhaps Abe, on the other hand, was expecting to 
 have that vast concern all to himself for a time. If 
 so, both of them were in error. It was as if all the 
 boys and some of the girls of that small community 
 had been on the watch for the departure of the mer- 
 chant. All of them had been at school with Abe, 
 and word had mysteriously gone around among 
 them that he had been caught and caged and made 
 a clerk of in Gentry's store. If they were at all 
 afraid of that great man, or of his crowds of cus- 
 tomers, they had no fears whatever to keep them 
 from pouring in for a stare at his clerk, and for a 
 
 194 
 
THE COUNTRY STORE 
 
 torrent of more or less derisive interrogatories. It 
 was of no use, however, for he was as ready as if he 
 had been expecting them to come or had invited 
 them. Besides, he had the advantage of being be- 
 hind the counter, and none of them dared climb 
 over. There were a few older people who came and 
 were willing to await the return of Mr. Gentry, al- 
 though Abe appeared to know prices pretty well. 
 Neither they, therefore, nor any of the younger peo- 
 ple, purchased a cent's worth. It was all talk and 
 no trade. 
 
 There was a reason why Mr. Gentry became 
 willing to be unannoyed by customers for a few 
 minutes, not long after his return. He had seen 
 one of them out into the road, and when he reentered 
 the store he strode at once to the middle of it, faced 
 to the right, and took his silver watch out of his 
 pocket. Before him, on a high shelf against the 
 wail, stood the most treasured jewel of his establish- 
 ment. It was a large and very white-faced clock, 
 except for fly-specks and age, and there was a slight, 
 rheumatic crook in one of its withered hands. It 
 was this hand first, and then the other, that had to be 
 
 195 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 moved short distances correctively, before he pro- 
 ceeded carefully to wind up the long-corded weights 
 by means of which the delicate mechanism of that 
 time-keeper was revolved. 
 
 "Abe," said Mr. Gentry, "that's exactly the 
 right time." But even while he made that assertion 
 so confidently he was gently moving backward or 
 forward the hands of his watch. "You see," he 
 continued, " I know just how it is. The clock runs 
 a trifle fast. It gains just so much. My watch runs 
 a trifle slow. It loses just so much, every day. 
 When you split the difference, you are sure you 
 have exactly the right time." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE DEBATES 
 
 |0 parliament would assemble around the 
 Franklin stove until a fire should blaze 
 in it, but there was a promise of cold 
 weather on the morrow. The last instructions of 
 Mr. Gentry to Abe had reference to this fact. 
 
 " Nine o'clock now," he had said, " and you'd 
 better turn in, for you must be up and at work not 
 much after five in the morning. Sweep first, but 
 leave the door unlocked, so that any fellow that 
 comes to trade can get in. If I'm really wanted, 
 come over after me. Make the fire a good one. You 
 can take coals from our kitchen fire at the house." 
 
 Abe went to bed, but not before he had thor- 
 oughly enjoyed himself at the front door, locking 
 and unlocking it again and again, to see how it 
 worked. It was his first experience with a door- 
 lock. The bolts also, there and at the back door, 
 
 197 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 were objects of interest; they were such splendid 
 examples of human ingenuity. Besides, the very 
 windows of that store were provided with fasten- 
 ings of a remarkable character. 
 
 " Thar's a heap o' things here wuth stealing" he 
 said to himself, " and old man Sansom says you 
 can't always tell who's a robber an' who isn't. He 
 said he hunted for a week once with an entire stran- 
 ger, an' didn't find out he was a thief till one mornm' 
 he woke up an' found he was alone in the woods 
 without any rifle or bullet-pouch, an' he never sight- 
 ed that chap ag'in. Gentry says thar ain't any 
 thieves hereabouts, but it's his duty not to put temp- 
 tation in any man's way." 
 
 In a few minutes more Abe was sound asleep, 
 but with an anxiety floating around in his mind as 
 to how he was to be sure of waking and getting to 
 work anywhere near five o'clock next morning. He 
 was not half sure of being able to do so, but he was 
 to have unexpected help. He had been asleep less 
 than an hour when he suddenly found himself sit- 
 ting up and rubbing his head, which he had bumped 
 against the counter above his bunk. 
 
 198 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed, " what's that? If it isn't 
 that clock ! I heard it go off yesterday, but it didn't 
 make such a racket then." 
 
 He was young yet, and had never learned that 
 any clock which can strike at all can create its best 
 din in the silence of the night, although it may seem 
 to hammer gently in the daytime. As for Mr. Gen- 
 try's clock, it was an uncommonly powerful gong- 
 hitter. It appeared to be even reluctant to give it 
 up after having struck its appointed number. 
 
 " Ten," said Abe. " Now I can go to sleep again. 
 Reckon I won't jump in that way the next time — 
 not now I know what it is." 
 
 He was mistaken. He bumped his head again 
 at eleven. He did not do so quite so severely at 
 twelve. At one he did but awake and roll over. 
 Two, three, four, made him open his eyes unfail- 
 ingly, but when five was banged he lay still only 
 until he had counted the strokes. 
 
 " Thar ! " he exclaimed, as he rolled out of the 
 bunk. " I'll sweep first. Then for some coals, and 
 I'll have a fire in no time." 
 
 One long look at the gaping mouth of the Frank- 
 199 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 lin changed his purpose on that point. The door- 
 locks and bolts were attended to and the store was 
 opened for either thieves or customers. He took a 
 shovel with him, and the kitchen door of the Gentry 
 house was also found open. Ashes were scraped in 
 the fireplace. Red-hot coals in plenty were taken, 
 and then he was quickly in the store again. Not 
 long afterward the entire place was full of smoke, 
 while the Franklin and the chimney were coming to 
 an agreement on the subject of a draft. They did 
 agree shortly, and it was just grand to see how bla- 
 zing hickory could work the iron invention of the 
 great philosopher of whom Abe somewhat loosely 
 asserted that " he went an' discovered a new kind o' 
 lightiim'." 
 
 He could not linger to admire the stove and the 
 fire, for he now had before him the genuine enjoy- 
 ment of handling a first-class broom-corn broom. 
 There had never been one in the Lincoln cabin until 
 the arrival of its present mistress. When one did 
 come it had been a subject of almost jealous conten- 
 tion among the girls. They only had been instruct- 
 ed in the artistic uses of it, and the boys had been 
 
 200 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 compelled to let it alone. This was wise, for a really 
 well-made broom will last a long time with careful 
 handling and with only one floor to sweep. The 
 floor of the store was not exceedingly extensive. It 
 was swept, and Abe was ready to go over to the 
 house for breakfast as soon as Mr. Gentry arrived 
 to take charge of things. Not a solitary customer 
 had yet turned up, but one might come in at any mo- 
 ment, and the merchant took out his watch to com- 
 pare its time with the clock. 
 
 " Keeping together pretty well," he said of 
 them, and added : " But I needn't put on too much 
 fire just now. I'd as lief it'd be a little cold in the 
 front of the store. I reckon ice was made in the 
 creek last night." 
 
 Abe found it cold and clear when he went out, 
 but it was little he cared for the weather. More im- 
 portant by far than that were clocks and Franklin 
 stoves and miscellaneous merchandise. Thoughts 
 of these things may also have been in the minds of 
 his family at home, for by the middle of the fore- 
 noon his father had come to see what he was doing. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln walked into the store, and all the 
 201 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 way back to the end of it, exploringly, as a number 
 of his fellow citizens had done before him. Then 
 he came forward again and stood still to stare at his 
 tall, slim son tying up a parcel behind a counter. 
 
 " Wal, Abe," he said, " this is what your mother 
 did with your 'rithmetic an' readin\ I didn't reckon 
 anythin' 'd come of it as soon as this." 
 
 He was pleased that it had come, however, and 
 he went away contented after an examination of the 
 lock of his rifle, to be sure it was in good condition if 
 needed for a deer on his way home. 
 
 Customers were coming in, and every soul of 
 them went to the rear of the store for a long look at 
 the great stove and the fire. Three men and four 
 women came in before long, with Mr. Josiah Craw- 
 ford. One of the men was Jim Allen, the black- 
 smith, with a nailrod in one hand and a small ham- 
 mer in the other, and Abe heard a woman say to 
 him: 
 
 " It's all right, Jim, as fur as it goes, but it'll 
 make things awful cold in the front o' the store. All 
 the cold that gits in here'll jest be druv forrid. 
 Why, I could feel it when I kem in." 
 
 202 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 Abe shortly afterward found for that woman 
 precisely the kind of brown sugar she wanted, but 
 Mr. Gentry came to weigh it out for her, while all 
 of Abe's fingers were tingling to get hold of those 
 weights and scales. The weighing was a promotion, 
 a kind of shoulder-straps and feathers, which had 
 not yet been conferred upon him. Dennis Hanks 
 and John Johnston arrived before noon, but it was 
 not until later in the day that his mother came in, 
 attended by all three of the girls. Of the three, it 
 was evident that Nancy was several pegs the proud- 
 est, and they and Mrs. Lincoln sailed back for a look 
 at the fire. Mrs. Lincoln was interested deeply in 
 the clock. 
 
 " If I live an' do well," she said, " I'm gwine to 
 have one o' them things in my own house one o' 
 these days." 
 
 She was just the woman to fulfil her purposes, 
 but at present her clocks and other luxuries were 
 far away in the dim future. So it is with many of 
 the best of people; but Abe was wishing that he 
 could take that midnight hammerer right down 
 from the wall and give it to her. " Reckon 1 could 
 
 203 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 wake up in the mornin' without it," he said to him- 
 self. 
 
 It was not until after dark that the deep wisdom 
 of Mr. Gentry became fully manifest. It was not ex- 
 actly that he understood the great art of adverti- 
 sing, then in its infancy, or at least in its childhood, 
 but that he was making sure that no man within 
 reaching distance would fail of coming to see his 
 establishment sooner or later. Whether it was in 
 preparation for a parliament or a sociable, there 
 were two short benches and several chairs collected 
 in the neighborhood of the brilliant Franklin ; there 
 were also the counters to sit on or lean against. One 
 of the three lamps hung high over the flag-stones 
 in front of the stove, and somebody had brought 
 a newspaper up from one of the river landings. 
 There it was, handy, offering to bring in light from 
 the outer world and provide subjects for conversa- 
 tion for any around-the-fire assembly. Not that 
 then or afterward Abe ever saw there any knot of 
 men who appeared to be short of something to talk 
 about. 
 
 That very first evening a pretty full jam of de- 
 204 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 baters were busy with the fall elections which had 
 recently gone by. Abe was a listener. It was all 
 very vague to him, but it had a strange, unexpected 
 fascination, for it was his first lesson in practical 
 politics. He already knew that there were differ- 
 ences among men, that some were Whigs and some 
 were Democrats, but he had no idea how they hap- 
 pened to become so, and he was instantly deter- 
 mined to find out. Both kinds of men were duly 
 represented in the Gentryville parliament, and it 
 appeared to him that they were about evenly divid- 
 ed. As for Mr. Gentry himself, he was an acute 
 mercantile politician — that is, he was a Whig who 
 professed any amount of reverence for General 
 Jackson, and was ready to sell goods to any other 
 man who admired either Old Hickory or Henry 
 Clay, if the proposed customer could show a fair 
 prospect of eventually paying for the goods. Since 
 nearly all sales were made on the credit system, it 
 was well to be watchful in that particular. 
 
 When the session adjourned, it was too late for 
 any man who did not have a traveled road to go 
 home by, such as would be traceable by good moon- 
 
 205 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 light. A man from a greater distance, or with his 
 way to pick through the woods, might do better by 
 remaining in the village all night. The presence of 
 a nearly full moon and a clear sky, indeed, account- 
 ed in part for the number of outsiders who were in 
 Gentryville after six o'clock. Not one of them 
 had gone without supper, for Josiah Crawford's 
 place had almost risen to the dignity of a four- 
 corners tavern, such as every self-respecting vil- 
 lage ought to have. He was on hand, and Abe said 
 of him: 
 
 " He's got the longest, peakedest nose thar is 
 anywhar 'round. He's got loads o' books, though. 
 A feller told me that when he wants to go to sleep 
 he sets at work to read one on 'em." 
 
 Mr. Crawford's collection of books was what his 
 neighbors called his library, and it was extraordi- 
 nary. On a close count, there may have been forty 
 of them, including some which were badly dog's- 
 eared, and others from which the bindings had de- 
 parted or remained only in the shape of loose outer 
 clothing for the wisdom they wrapped around. 
 The nearness of such literary treasures, however, 
 
 206 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 was quite enough to set new lines of thought in mo- 
 tion in the mind of the young dry-goods clerk. 
 
 On the following evening the moon was one 
 shade nearer full, the sky was yet clearer, and there 
 was even a better attendance by the members of the 
 parliament. Abe had elected himself a kind of ser- 
 geant-at-arms, or it might be a reporter. The fire 
 burned brightly, almost extinguishing the fainter 
 illumination from the lamp that swung overhead. 
 The benches and chairs were all occupied. The one 
 defect in the striking picture that was making arose 
 from the fact that there was but one newspaper 
 among them all. It was in the hands of its owner, 
 an entire stranger from nobody knew where, who 
 proposed to spend the night at Josiah Crawford's. 
 He was a short, thick-set man, with red hair and a 
 shrill, exasperating voice. When Abe came back 
 from giving a feed of corn to one of Mr. Gentry's 
 horses at the barn, this man was reading aloud an 
 editorial from his newspaper, like a liberal soul who 
 was willing to give others a share. Abe put a stick 
 of wood on the fire and went and sat on a barrel, 
 but the stick of wood and the sparks and smoke it 
 
 207 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 brought out into the assembly caused an interrup- 
 tion of the reading. Into this opportunity old man 
 Sansom suddenly plunged with power and vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 " The feller that writ that," he exclaimed, " is 
 a wooden-headed fool ! Any man that's lived in the 
 South, as I have, knows that niggers is made to be 
 owned by somebody. They ain't fit for anythin' 
 else. I'm down on free niggers. We don't want 
 any on 'em 'round here. Why, I got out o' Ken- 
 tucky mostly to git away from 'em." 
 
 The stranger coughed loudly, as if he were get- 
 ting ready to reply, but several voices remarked 
 " Jest so ! " one after the other, and old man San- 
 som actually let his pipe go out as he continued : 
 
 " You see, Mister, wharever thar's free niggers 
 it ain't no place for poor white men, onless they're 
 willin' to be counted no better'n a nigger. If you 
 want to live 'mong 'em you must own 'em." 
 
 Low growls and other forms of assent came 
 from all sides, and the stranger read something 
 more from his newspaper before he said emphati- 
 cally : 
 
 208 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 " Fellow citizens, I am in agreement with you. 
 This is a great country. It is a land of freedom. 
 Our forefathers fought, bled, and died for it. I 
 could wish that every one of you might do the same. 
 But there is an awful question staring us in the face. 
 The black people are increasing rapidly. What are 
 we to do when there comes to be more of them than 
 we can sell? I ask you, will it not then be neces- 
 sary for us to set them free and make them support 
 themselves ? " 
 
 It was quickly evident to Abe that here was a 
 political question with which neither Josiah Craw- 
 ford, nor old man Sansom, nor Mr. Gentry himself, 
 had ever before been called upon to grapple. 
 
 44 If he isn't puttin' ashes into his pipe instead o' 
 tobacco ! " he said to himself. " And old Si Craw- 
 ford's lettin' the toe of his boot burn." 
 
 Neither of them was to be the next speaker, how- 
 ever, for young Bob Sansom broke into the debate 
 energetically : 
 
 44 Wal, I don't care so much about the niggers 
 as I do 'bout In j ins. Jest look over your paper an' 
 see'f thar's any news consarnin' them. We heard 
 
 209 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 tell, not long ago, that some o' the tribes o' the 
 Northwest was takin' up the hatchet. They 
 wouldn't make treaties for thar lands, to have 'em 
 settled onto by the whites. Let's know'f thar's any- 
 thin' doin'." 
 
 " Our national dealings with the red men," re- 
 sponded the reader, " open up another of the great 
 questions with which we are face to face. "We must 
 determine what we are to do with them. Our 
 great and glorious country has grown up to what 
 it is now by a steady process of removing the 
 aborigines westward, and turning the untrodden 
 forests into farm-lands and towns and cities and 
 villages." 
 
 " Wrong thar ! " roared old man Sansom. " I 
 reckon the most on 'em wasn't jest moved off the 
 land. They was largely put under it, an' some on 
 'em wasn't even kivered up. Fact is, I don't jest 
 now remember any time when thar wasn't more or 
 less trouble with the redskins. They never can see 
 the right side of a treaty, an' so they go to takin' 
 skelps." 
 
 " Wal," remarked Josiah Crawford, as he with- 
 210 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 drew his burnt boot-toe from its advanced position 
 on the hearth, " thar was a feller here, not long ago, 
 that said we were to have another war with England 
 pretty soon. Is thar anythin' in the paper about 
 it! I'd like to know. It'd raise the price o' pork, 
 an' some chaps that haven't anytln^ else to do 
 might sojer it." 
 
 " Our relations with the mother country," re- 
 plied the eloquent stranger, "have always been a 
 subject for deep solicitude. They always will be, 
 until republicanism takes the place of monarchy 
 among the worn-out and worm-eaten oligarchies of 
 the Old World. The great difficulty with England 
 is her persistent refusal to comprehend the true na- 
 ture of our institutions. I do not think there is any 
 probability of a war at present. We must raise the 
 tariff to a revenue producing " 
 
 He might as well have set some of the dry-goods 
 on fire as to have mentioned that dangerous ques- 
 tion in that parliament. Every man there had views 
 of his own. Several of them were strong supporters 
 of Andrew Jackson and the battle of New Orleans, 
 and the destruction of the United States Bank as 
 
 211 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 an overshadowing, tyrannical money-power. They 
 said so. 
 
 " It was tigerishly grasping at the bowels of the 
 commonwealth ! " declared the stranger ; but the 
 bung was out of the barrel of debate, and for a good 
 two hours there were negroes, Indians, British, tar- 
 iffs for revenue and tariffs for protection, mingled 
 with the smoke from the Franklin and the tobacco 
 pipes in a way which appeared to Abe to have let 
 him right into the middle of the politics of his coun- 
 try. It was true that he gathered only indistinct 
 ideas here and there, but he did gather them. It 
 was a good beginning, and he might look forward 
 to all the evenings of that winter for additional les- 
 sons of all sorts. It was something which could not 
 have come to him in front of the fireplace of his 
 own log-house home. 
 
 Shutting-up time came at last, and the debaters 
 arose one by one, with a feeling that they had all 
 passed a delightful evening. They would be sure to 
 come again, and Mr. Gentry was entirely repaid for 
 the cost of his lamp and his fire. He had even sold 
 things to some of the debaters which they had not 
 
 212 
 
THE DEBATES 
 
 thought of buying when they entered the store in the 
 early part of the evening. 
 
 It might have seemed, at first, that Abe had 
 really gained very little from his first political de- 
 bate, however carefully he had listened ; but when 
 he was sweeping out the store next morning, in 
 came Mr. Josiah Crawford to get a pipe which he 
 had left behind him. 
 
 " Mr. Crawford," said Abe, as he handed him 
 the pipe, " what was it that man said about our Rev- 
 olution an' 'bout our havin' been slaves to old King 
 George? I don't know." 
 
 " Of course you don't," said Mr. Crawford, who 
 seemed to be in a disturbed state of mind. " Tell 
 you what : I'll lend you a book that'll tell you heaps 
 o' things. You must read the Life of George Wash- 
 ington, the Father of his Country, by Weems. 
 Come over and get it by and by. It is one of the 
 greatest books that was ever written. I've read it 
 myself." 
 
 " Reckon I'd like to," said Abe. " I'll take good 
 care of it. I'll be ever so much obliged." 
 
 " An' you can do chores for me now and then," 
 213 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 said Mr. Crawford ; " and perhaps I'll let you look 
 at some other books. That thar chap that put up at 
 our house last night was a leetle too tonguey for 
 me. He lit out at daylight this mornin' without 
 payin' a cent for his keep. I want to see old man 
 Sansom an' tell him to count his hosses kind o' keer- 
 ful for a day or two. The critter that stranger rid 
 wasn't wuth the powder an' lead to shoot him. He 
 might like to trade with somebody." 
 
 " He couldn't make much out of old man San- 
 som on a hoss trade ! " Abe asserted confidently, 
 but he was only half right. 
 
 Before nightfall Mr. Sansom was in the store, 
 sonorously complaining that one of his best five- 
 year-olds was missing, and that in its place had been 
 left the sorry nag which had been ridden by the elo- 
 quent stranger who had read the newspaper for the 
 parliament. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 STUMP SPKAKING 
 
 I 
 
 HE sessions of the Gentryville parlia- 
 ment were brought to an end at last by 
 the arrival of spring and plowing-time 
 and the consequent dying out of the fire in the 
 Franklin stove. Another important change of life 
 came to Abe, for just as the month of May grew 
 warm enough for corn-dropping, a son of Mr. Gen- 
 try's returned from boarding-school to take his 
 place in the store. Abe had to go home, and there 
 were some reasons why he was not sorry for it. 
 He had not been having an easy time, by any means, 
 and his opportunities for making use of Josiah 
 Crawford's library had not been as good as he had 
 wished. His business-like employer had even for- 
 bidden him to consume store-time upon literature, 
 and the immortal volume of Weems, the biographer 
 of the Father of his Country, had been but 
 
 215 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 skimmed, and not committed to memory as it should 
 have been. 
 
 " He has been a very industrious little fellow," 
 said Mr. Gentry to Mrs. Lincoln, " and I trust that 
 he has learned things which will be of great value to 
 him in his future career." 
 
 " He'll learn all thar is to get hold on," she said. 
 " Trust him for that." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Lincoln, I can tell you one thing 
 about him," laughed Mr. Gentry. " I've watched 
 him. In the course of the winter about everybody 
 has been here. One way or another, Abe saw them 
 all, and he knows the name of every man, woman, 
 and child in all this region. He can tell you all 
 about them, too. He knows what their religion is, 
 if they have any, and whether they are Whigs or 
 Democrats." 
 
 " That's Abe ! " she exclaimed. " I always took 
 note o' that. He sees all that goes by him, an' he can 
 tell you what it's good for, whether it's a critter or 
 a human. I never saw such a boy for pickin' up 
 things." 
 
 Nevertheless, Abe felt a little queer when he 
 216 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 found himself once more following the furrows and 
 dropping corn. It was humdrum work compared to 
 the laziest days he had known at the store. It would 
 have been worse, if he had not now obtained a great 
 deal more time for reading. He finished Weems's 
 Washington, but he somehow neglected to carry it 
 home, and it lay on a rude shelf which had been 
 stuck against the logs near one of the windows, even 
 after other books had come and gone. 
 
 Corn-planting was nearly over when Mr. Craw- 
 ford sent for him to work for three days in his own 
 field. He rewarded him with the loan of a really 
 wonderful book. It was written by an Englishman 
 named Defoe. It told of the adventures of a com- 
 mon sailor fellow named Crusoe, who was wrecked 
 at sea and cast away upon an uninhabited island. 
 There and elsewhere he had a number of remarkable 
 experiences with cats and goats and parrots and 
 wild cannibals and lions and shipwrecked people. 
 Abe could have read that book all through the sum- 
 mer and fall and winter if it had not been a pretty 
 good-looking one, which Mr. Crawford insisted 
 upon getting back. He got more work out of Abe, 
 
 217 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 however, and lent him a small volume called The 
 Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan. There was 
 a great deal of religion in it, and Abe as yet knew 
 very little about religion. It was time he did, and 
 the book was the right thing for him ; but besides the 
 good teaching there were fights of all sorts, and sto- 
 ries of castles and giants and devils, and a long ex- 
 ploring expedition into a new country. After that 
 was read, and before the end of the next winter, he 
 would have been puzzled to say which of two books 
 he enjoyed the most, ^3Esop's Fables, or the His- 
 tory of the United States. Some of the stories in the 
 former were equal to the yarns of old man Sansom. 
 As for the history, it carried the new nation onward 
 only as far as the battle of New Orleans and the 
 close of the War of 1812. The account that it gave 
 of the great victory did not entirely agree with the 
 one he had received from Sansom, and he asked the 
 old soldier about it. He even carried the book all 
 the way over to his house and read it to him one 
 afternoon. Sansom listened to the end of it, all the 
 while smoking terrifically, and then he dropped his 
 pipe. 
 
 218 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 " Abe Linkin," he shouted, " the feller that writ 
 that is a liar! He wasn't thar, an' I was. 'Cordin' 
 to him, Gineral Jackson did all the fightin' himself. 
 What'd he ha' done without his army t It's kind o' 
 right thar, though, for the army wouldn't ha' been 
 thar if it hadn't been for the Gineral; he raised 'em 
 an' fetched 'em on. But the feller has missed it 
 'bout a good many other things. He hasn't said a 
 word 'bout the Barrataria pirates that worked our 
 cannon, nor 'bout the Injins that was with the Brit- 
 ish an' with us. They all ought to be put in. Tell 
 ye what, though, you mustn't read too many books ; 
 it'll spile ye for work." 
 
 It had not done so as yet, anyhow, and he was 
 shooting up taller and stronger all the while, so that 
 more work might be put upon him. He was ready 
 for anything, too, and many of the settlers whose 
 acquaintance he had made when he was a merchant 
 in Gentryville had fallen into a way of sending for 
 him to come and work for them a few days at a time. 
 He was always glad to do so, for the Lincoln cabin 
 was somewhat crowded, and three growing boys 
 were more than steady employment could be found 
 
 219 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 for at home. Money wages were generally out of 
 the question, but there were odds and ends of cloth- 
 ing to be earned, and bits of neighborly accommo- 
 dation which were transformed into earnings one 
 way or another. 
 
 It was during that next winter when Abe was 
 creeping on toward his fifteenth birthday, that he 
 began to think more deeply than ever upon the sub- 
 ject of lamps and candles. Mrs. Lincoln had pro- 
 cured a lamp, and she had candles also, but their em- 
 ployment was one of the exceptional extravagances, 
 and they were not on duty every evening. They 
 were as entirely shut out from Abe's ordinary cal- 
 culations as were paper, pens, and ink. He had long 
 ago discovered, however, that splits of hickory bark 
 would give a sufficient illumination for the pages of 
 any volume that he could borrow. It had been al- 
 most altogether by their aid that he had advanced 
 thus far into the library of Josiah Crawford, but he 
 had employed sunshine whenever that excellent sub- 
 stitute for hickory bark was available. 
 
 Evening light was all the more important, be- 
 cause during two whole winters the Pigeon Creek 
 
 220 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 school had been taught by another Crawford, named 
 Andrew, and he had been led to take especial inter- 
 est in his young pupil both as to scholarship and 
 good manners. All the while, however, Josiah had 
 managed to get a great deal out of Abe in return for 
 his books, and one of the transactions had not been 
 profitable to the reader. It was true that it made 
 him the owner of a book, or what was left of it, 
 but he paid dearly for the biography of George 
 Washington. It had been put with all care upon its 
 shelf near the window, but less attention had been 
 given to the clay with which the interstices of the 
 logs over that shelf had been " chinked." Just one 
 more ventilation in the wall of a log house was not a 
 matter which called for speedy action, but one night 
 there came a driving rain-storm, and its wind 
 hurled it upon that side of the cabin. No other harm 
 was done, but in the morning it was discovered that 
 George Washington had been soaked through and 
 through. The remaining beauty of its cover was 
 gone. Even after much drying, the leaves refused 
 to turn in their old way, and some of them would 
 never again be readable. It was a disaster which 
 
 221 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 had to be reported to Mr. Josiah Crawford at once, 
 and his face grew long and stern while he listened. 
 
 " Abe," he said, " that's a hard thing to bear. I 
 set great store by that book. It isn't easy to git 
 'em; they're seurse. I'm awful sorry, but I'll tell 
 you what I'll do : You keep it an' call it your own, 
 an' you come over an' pull corn fodder for the vally 
 on it. My corn's jest ready for you." 
 
 Abe consented, of course, but he did so with but 
 a faint idea of the price of soaked books, when they 
 are to be paid for in the work of a boy in a corn- 
 field. It would have made him much older if he 
 had gone on buying the Crawford library at that 
 rate, and he shortly lost a great deal of his previous 
 esteem for the librarian. 
 
 Abe's next important problem related to wri- 
 ting-paper, and he won a victory over it which did 
 him credit. The solution consisted mainly of shin- 
 gles and a draw-knife from his father's kit of car- 
 penter tools. He made the face of a shingle as 
 smooth as that of a sheet of paper, and upon it he 
 wrote figures or letters to his heart's content, with 
 a crayon of black charcoal from the fireplace. The 
 
 222 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 great wooden shovel that stood at the side of the 
 fire answered as well, and either shovel or shingle 
 might be put in order for further business with the 
 draw-knife. 
 
 Smooth wood can hardly be described as a step- 
 ping-stone, but it was so for Abe. The day of bet- 
 ter appliances came. Among the later mercantile 
 adventures of Mr. Gentry was a lot of cheap blank- 
 books, and he could not easily have explained why 
 he had thought of selling them to his usual custom- 
 ers. They did not sell at all, and shortly he was 
 ready to close a bargain with Abe for one of them. 
 Ink and steel pens were in the bargain, and from 
 that time onward the young student was in an upper 
 class of his own frontier academy. Anything in the 
 nature of original composition was to be written 
 upon shaven wood first, for economy, and then if it 
 were worthy of preservation it was transferred to 
 the pages of the copy-book. These, however, were 
 usually reserved for extracts from books. Passages 
 which were especially valuable or pleasing could not 
 be entrusted entirely to memory, but had to be kept 
 for reference after the necessary return of the bor- 
 
 223 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 rowed volume. Here and there Abe also began to 
 stumble upon poems of various kinds, and there 
 were many of these in his mother's hymn-book. 
 With these in his head as well as on his paper, he 
 shortly discovered how words might be made to jin- 
 gle, or rather to rattle, and he began to make rhymes 
 of his own which went into the blank-book as origi- 
 nal poetry. 
 
 The wisdom of legislators in Indiana and else- 
 where pushed all the fall elections on into Novem- 
 ber, that politics should not be interfered with by 
 the corn harvests. All the settlers were therefore 
 free at such times to take an interest in public af- 
 fairs, and were sure to avail themselves of their 
 privileges. In each successive election season there 
 were gatherings at central points to listen to the elo- 
 quence of stump orators, generally from a distance 
 and supposed to be great. Men of both parties 
 were sure to turn out at these political musters. Not 
 only were such occasions sociable holidays, but it 
 was dealing fairly by any speaker to come out and 
 hear what he had to say for himself. Old and young 
 attended, while the women brought their knitting 
 
 224 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 and their babies as if they were expecting to vote 
 at the November polls. In all this electioneering 
 and oratory and discussion there was an important 
 consequence to Abe. Every speech that he listened 
 to was like a new settler come to preempt something 
 or other that was in him. Thought after thought, 
 idea after idea, not only came to stay, but began be- 
 fore long to arouse his power of imitation. He was 
 just as well satisfied, however, that at first it was 
 not necessary for him to procure audiences. These 
 were things of the future. They might even have 
 been embarrassing, as audiences often are to older 
 speakers, and for the present a vacant lot would do 
 as well. 
 
 " Tom," said Mrs. Lincoln to her husband one 
 afternoon, as she stood in the doorway, " do come 
 out here ! I heard him, an' I was afraid somethin , 'd 
 happened to him. Jest do look at that boy ! " 
 
 " The young rascal ! " exclaimed Mr. Lincoln. 
 " I told him he'd got to come in an' shell corn, an' 
 thar he is, speakin' on that stump ! " 
 
 " Wal," said Mrs. Lincoln, " Fd heard tell of his 
 cuttin' up in that way before. He was over to the 
 
 225 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 Whig gatherin' last week. Jedge Hoskins an' all on 
 'em made speeches. He's makin' another." 
 
 That was what he was doing, with only an empty 
 corn-field to hear him, and he was mounted upon 
 one of the largest stumps in that clearing. In a few 
 minutes more he had all the Lincoln family before 
 him, with three or four of their neighbors ; but Tom 
 went and pulled him down. 
 
 " Look a' here," he said to his lanky son, " do 
 you jest go back to your corn-shellin' ; then you an' 
 John can make a trip to the mill. You know more 
 'bout pone than you do 'bout politics. Don't ye try 
 it on ag'in." 
 
 Down came Abe, but he had an unaccountable 
 feeling inside of him that his oration — not his first, 
 by any means — had been a kind of success, and that 
 his father's prohibition applied to only that one oc- 
 casion. It did not cover the whole of Indiana, nor 
 any of the other States, and there would always be 
 stumps somewhere for a fellow who was ready to 
 mount them. 
 
 The political orators were not the only examples 
 which Abe attempted to copy. There were no set- 
 
 226 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 tied pastors in that neighborhood, but there were 
 ministers who " rode the circuit " and preached as 
 missionaries from place to place. The days of their 
 coming were fixed long beforehand, and it made 
 not a great deal of difference what denomination 
 of Christians any of them nominally belonged to. 
 Among their hearers, if they came within her reach, 
 was sure to be good Mrs. Lincoln, and she was al- 
 most as sure to bring with her her husband, and 
 some of the children if possible. Abe was likely to 
 go on his own account, if he could, for a reason of 
 his own. The fact was that a preacher was as inter- 
 esting to him as any other stump orator, and was as 
 sure to be imitated, and possibly caricatured, at the 
 next opportunity. That might be found in the 
 woods, or in a corn-field, at any time, but something 
 more to his liking was to be had at the house itself 
 on any Sunday absence of his father and mother. 
 If Mrs. Lincoln and her husband went to meeting at 
 a distance which called for the horses, there being 
 no wagon, they did not thereby deprive the young 
 people of a sermon, for Abe could give them one 
 himself. The big table pulled into a corner pro- 
 
 227 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 vided him with a pulpit, and almost anything he 
 might think of furnished him with a text. Hymn 
 and sermon followed, with attentive listeners, and 
 the young fun-maker did not know that he was in 
 this way developing in himself a great deal of gen- 
 uine interest in religious matters. At all events, he 
 had been led to read the big Bible through and 
 through, and to pack away in his tenacious memory 
 a vast amount of its contents and teachings. 
 
 During those few years the local changes were 
 many, and there was a considerable increase of pop- 
 ulation. Neighbors were not now so far away as 
 they had been, and Gentryville was really a village. 
 The arrival of the new state of affairs, however, 
 was looked upon with different eyes and feelings by 
 different kinds of people. 
 
 " Abe," said old man Sansom one day, as they 
 stood together in front of Jim Allen's blacksmith 
 shop, "times is changin'! Sometimes it 'pears to 
 me like I'd have to pull up an' strike out West." 
 
 "I reckon thar isn't much difference 'round 
 here," said Abe, " 'cept thar are more farms, an' 
 more folks to go an' see." 
 
 228 
 
STUMP SPEAKING 
 
 " 'Tisn't that, Abe," groaned Sansom. " I'm 
 sellin' more hosses than I used to ; I'd have some- 
 thin' to go with, if I went. But game's gittin' awful 
 scurse, specially turkeys an' b'ar. You have to go 
 farther'n you used to to fetch in a deer. An' thar's 
 another thing I've noted: Jest look at them folks, 
 now, goin' into Gentry's store. 'Tisn't Sunday, 
 nuther. I jest can't stand that riggin'. Tell ye 
 what, Abe, I won't never give up my buckskins, not 
 if every other man I know's wearin' caliker an' 
 leather shoes." 
 
 " Wal," said Abe, " nobody wears shoes at home. 
 It's only when they go to the village or to a huskin* 
 or to a house-raisin' or to a dance or to a preachin'. 
 They go barefoot, too, an' only put on thar shoes an' 
 things jest before they git in. But old Gentry's at 
 work on 'em ; he stirs 'em up to buy his goods." 
 
 " Jest so all 'round the country," said Sansom 
 sadly. " If things go on in this way, I can't stay 
 much longer. I did want neighbors, but I didn't 
 want so many nor so close, nor to have 'em scarin' 
 off the game. I'd go any day if 'twasn't for my boys 
 an' thar wives." 
 
 229 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 Abe could not altogether sympathize with his 
 discontented friend on the subject of game. He had 
 discovered that he was not a hunter of wild beasts 
 or birds. Of course he could use a rifle, but he was 
 anything other than a sure shot. All his practise 
 shooting had been in a different direction, and it 
 was even beginning to unfit him for the woods. He 
 was less and less like an Indian with every year that 
 went by. There was yet another reason for his li- 
 king the changes which were so disagreeable to San- 
 som. Partly owing to his length, which made him 
 appear older, but much more to the amount of fun 
 that he could make, he had become a welcome guest 
 at all the backwoods merry-makings, and was sure 
 to be in attendance upon any that were near enough, 
 even if he had to borrow a horse to go. On some of 
 these festal occasions, indeed, the demand was for 
 horses and a wagon, that the whole Lincoln family 
 might go together, for the girls of the Pigeon Creek 
 settlement were as ready as the boys to dance all 
 night, whether barefooted or in shoes, if there was 
 light enough to dance by. 
 
 230 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE KAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 ?vj£«353NE more winter went by. Most of it was 
 ■L^sJjl spent by Abe in doing odd jobs of work 
 '<yj«^rl for the neighbors, whose clearings, wi- 
 
 dened by each winter's chopping, were crowding out 
 hunters like old man Sansom. There were deer in 
 plenty, as yet, and turkeys, if one went far enough 
 into the woods, but the cougars had nearly disap- 
 peared. As for the bears, their day also was over, 
 and the hollow trees of the southern Indiana for- 
 ests were likely thenceforth to have no better win- 
 ter occupants than opossums and raccoons. 
 
 It was on a bright sunshiny morning early in the 
 spring, and Abe was once more at old man San- 
 som's. One of his reasons for being there came out 
 in almost the first words that were spoken to him. 
 
 " Abe," said the old man, " I'm gwine. I can't 
 stand this sort o' thing no longer. The boys an' 
 
 231 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 gals are to keep this place, but Vm off for Illinoy. 
 Mebbe they'll foller me." 
 
 " What sort o' country's that? " asked Abe. 
 
 "All nat'ral medder," replied Sansom. "I've 
 never seen a real big prairie in my life, but I've 
 heard tell. No woods onto it. You can make a farm 
 without choppin'. Good land, too." 
 
 " What'll you do for a house f " asked Abe. 
 
 " Thar's timber enough for that, an' for f encin', 
 all along the creeks," he said, " an' your farm can 
 reach out into the open. Thar's loads o' game, spe- 
 cially prairie chickens an' wolves, but the buffler 
 has mostly gone West. Shows thar good sense. I'd 
 quit, if I was them ! Now tell me, what are ye gwine 
 to do with yerself ? " 
 
 " Reckon it's done," said Abe. " I heard you 
 were goin', an' I came over to say good-by. You 
 see, I'm not to stay much more at our house. I'm to 
 git out an' earn my own livin'." 
 
 " Whar can you do that ! " inquired his friend. 
 
 " Why," said Abe, " mother's fixed it with Mr. 
 Jim Taylor, at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, on 
 the river. I'm to put in this year with him. Six 
 
 232 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 dollars a month, an' father gits the money, but it 
 keeps me." 
 
 " Wal," responded Sansom thoughtfully, 
 " you're kind o' young to go out into the world in 
 that way. He owns the ferry, an' I s'pose you'll 
 have to row boats an' do all sorts o' things. Part of 
 every day you'll be in Injiany, an' the other part 
 over in Kentucky. 'Tisn't every man that can live 
 in two States at once. I knowed a man once that 
 lived in three without ever movin' off his own 
 farm. He owned an island in the Mississippi, down 
 at the lower p'int o' Tennessee. The river chan- 
 nel ran west of his place, an' the middle of it was 
 the boundary 'twixt Tennessee an' Arkansaw. All 
 the while the river was wearin' away the upper end 
 of his island, but at the same time it was settlin' 
 acres an' acres o' sand on its lower end an' makin' 
 it bigger'n 'twas before, givin' him land for nothin'. 
 Then kem a great fresh, a flood, that changed the 
 channel, an' the State line with it, for the river then 
 ran on his east side, an' he an' his farm were over in 
 Arkansaw. Then a surveyor was runnin' State 
 lines, an' he found the whole island had been drifted 
 
 233 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 down-stream below the Tennessee line ; and another 
 big fresh put back the channel to its old runnin', an' 
 thar was that thar plantashin h'isted along into the 
 State of Mississippi. Anyhow, you'll belong to the 
 State yon sleep in, an' you'll soon find out whar that 
 is if you don't git yourself drowned in the Ohio, or 
 floated off down-stream to New Orleans! I wish 
 you may have a good time ; but, bless my soul, Abe, 
 how you are growin' ! " 
 
 The talk was a long one, for Sansom had a num- 
 ber of stories to tell concerning river life, prairie 
 life, the things which had been and the things which 
 he had seen here and there. Abe was really sorry 
 to say what might be an everlasting good-by to him, 
 but he went home at last with a number of fresh 
 ideas of the new career which was opening before 
 him. 
 
 " Oh, Abe, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Lincoln, as the 
 family sat in front of the smoldering fire that eve- 
 ning, " it 'pears to me like you were gwine away a 
 thousand mile ! We shall see you once in a while, 
 too, but it's awful to have you away from us the 
 best part of a whole year." 
 
 234 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 " That's so, Sally," said Mr. Lincoln thought- 
 fully, " an' jest what sorts he'll be cuttin' up, I don't 
 know." 
 
 There was something to be considered in that, 
 and it appeared as if all the rest of the family were 
 disposed to put in a joint assent in one form or an- 
 other. The fact was that every one there was be- 
 coming aware that an important part of the life of 
 that household was now to be taken out of it. It was 
 a curiously effective way of making the young 
 story-teller and fun-maker better appreciated at 
 home. He was made to feel that he would be missed 
 exceedingly, and he did not know exactly what to 
 say about it. 
 
 "You'll see all sorts o' folks," remarked Mrs. 
 Lincoln, " an' some on 'em you won't know at all 
 what to do with. Jim Taylor himself is a hard kind 
 o' man, an' it won't be easy to deal with him. But I 
 tell you what, I saw one thing while I was thar that 
 I reckon you'll like." 
 
 " What's that, mother? " asked Abe. 
 
 " "Wal," she replied, " he told me 'bout it him- 
 self. He'd never ha' bought so many books on his 
 
 235 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 own 'count, but there was a kind o' doctor feller that 
 got to owin' him a pile o' money, an' he took them 
 books of him on the debt. Thar are dozens on 'em, 
 an' some are in prime new bindin's — look as if no 
 souFd ever opened 'em. You may git at 'em, some- 
 how." 
 
 "Beckon I will!" exclaimed Abe. "But it 
 doesn't do a book any harm to have it read. Eeadin' 
 a book doesn't wear it out. Eats will, though. Old 
 man Crawford lost some of his'n that way. An' 
 what kind o' good any rat can git out of a book I 
 don't know." 
 
 She was able to tell him a great deal about the 
 people and things at and about the mouth of Ander- 
 son's Creek and the landing. There were trading- 
 houses there and a tavern, or a house which had al- 
 most grown to the size and dignity of a tavern, and 
 it was vaguely reported to be a great center and 
 stopping-place for horse-thieves. The reason for 
 this was, she said, that when once a stolen beast 
 could be ferried across from one State into the other 
 it was almost of no use to follow him. 
 
 "Old man Sansom told me about that," said 
 236 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 [Abe. " He said he knew a man once that kept a 
 ferry of his own jest for the good it was in takm' 
 stolen critters across the river at night. But he was 
 caught out at it, at last, an' some fellers that'd had 
 horses ferried over put a stone at his neck an' hove 
 him into the river. Old man Sansom said he never 
 met him ag'in anywhar after that." 
 
 " He's gwine away, too," she said. " Wal, the 
 times are changin'. Let's go to bed, an' your 
 •father'll take you over in the wagon in the mornin'." 
 
 Abe did sleep that night, but he was out of the 
 house early the next morning, and it appeared to do 
 him good to get the chores half done before the 
 other boys were down out of the garret. Then they 
 took all that was left away from him, as if he were 
 interfering with affairs which were no longer under 
 his management. After that he was an exceedingly 
 quiet fellow for hours, until his father landed him 
 at the mouth of Anderson's Creek. Here his first 
 discovery was that to Mr. Taylor and his neighbors, 
 and the Ohio River itself, the arrival of one more 
 very young farm and ferry hand was of no conse- 
 quence whatever. His father went home, and then 
 
 237 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 there was no more excitement, except in his own 
 mind, than if a young muskrat had swum ashore at 
 the landing. Abe himself soon became cool and 
 calm externally, but he was at once a busy boy. 
 It was evident that his employer expected a great 
 deal from him for six dollars a month, and he set 
 him to earning his wages in a decidedly peremptory 
 manner. 
 
 Abe was ready for work. He had counted upon 
 it, but with it now came to him a very necessary 
 process of exploration. There would be no rest for 
 him until he should become entirely familiar with 
 his new surroundings. 
 
 Among the first things to be inspected, as soon 
 as an opportunity could be had, were the boats. 
 There were several at the landing, belonging to one 
 person or another, but his interests centered upon 
 those which were the property of Mr. Taylor. He 
 had two, and both of them were scows with snub 
 noses. One was designed for only two oars, or four 
 at the most, and Abe felt sure that he would soon be 
 able to manage it with any ordinary cargo. At the 
 same time, it was evident that no stolen horse would 
 
 238 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 ever cross the Ohio in that concern, unless he might 
 be persuaded to swim ahead and tow the boat. The 
 larger ferry-boat was really large, and required a 
 crew of three or four strong men, for it would every 
 now and then be laden with a wagon and its team. 
 As to any difficulties in ferrying, they would always 
 depend upon the condition of the river. During 
 flood times, of which there were sure to be several 
 every year, the narrow and shallow Ohio of the dry 
 seasons became a rushing and mighty torrent, like 
 a great people aroused by a great wrath. Then only 
 strong arms and courage and skilful piloting could 
 take a boat safely over. It was not to be forgotten 
 in flood-time that there might be danger also from 
 drifting tree-trunks or floating ice-floes. Collisions 
 with these might wreck any kind of craft, whether 
 a ferry-boat or a State or a nation. 
 
 " Why, Abe," Sansom had once told him, " I've 
 seen the Ohio boomin' up all over the bank an' 
 'round the houses at the landin'. You can't bet on 
 what a river won't do when it's up. I was down the 
 Mississippi once in a great fresh. Thar was what 
 they call a Red Rise kem down from the west moun- 
 
 239 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 tains. It ran through that kind o' mud, yon know, 
 an' it was red as blood. The big flatboat I was on 
 was clean ont o' sight o' land at the month o' the 
 Arkansaw River, an' we went on down to Orleens a 
 kitin'. Tell ye what, Abe, but wasn't I glad when 
 we took Orleens ! " 
 
 A day or so after his arrival, and at a short dis- 
 tance down the river bank, Abe saw a new flatboat 
 in course of construction. He studied it from end to 
 end, and determined that some day or other he 
 would get himself employed on a boat as large as 
 that, or larger. Then, he thought, he and the men 
 who would be with him would float on and on with 
 the current until they were carried out into the great 
 Mississippi. This would bear them southward, day 
 after day, night after night, week after week, 
 through new scenes all the while, until at last his 
 boat should be hauled up and hitched at the right 
 place. He thought that then he would manage 
 somehow to go on a little farther and have a long 
 look at the deep sea — at the wonderful, deep blue 
 sea, with its beauty and its eternal mystery. 
 
 It was hard work to please Mr. Taylor, and Abe 
 240 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 had anything but an easy time of it. All kinds of 
 farm work and chores and errands fell to his share, 
 and with them an unreasonable amount of fault- 
 finding. He soon learned that not even the most 
 faithful, painstaking performance of duties could 
 save a fellow from sharp and unjust criticism. He 
 toiled on, however, through heat and cold, good 
 words and bad words, and before long he made him- 
 self an expert boatman. He had not much to do 
 as yet with the management of the great ferry- 
 boat. That would surely come to him later, and 
 not at so very long a time, considering how fast he 
 was growing and what an extraordinary degree of 
 strength he was developing. 
 
 Abe had a great deal of ferrying to do, neverthe- 
 less, although it was confined to the scow, which he 
 could handle, and he had a large number and va- 
 riety of passengers from time to time. He noticed 
 that the men who crossed the Ohio in his care had 
 but little or nothing to say to him, as a rule, but that 
 every woman who entered that boat, without one 
 solitary exception, inquired whether or not he had 
 ever been upset. Most of them wished also to know 
 
 241 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 how many persons had ever been drowned at that 
 ferry. 
 
 As to the fact that the men passengers did not 
 talk with a mere ferry-boy, there was one remarka- 
 ble exception to the rule. It came toward the au- 
 tumn, when a great and entirely unexpected flood 
 had been caused by rain-storms in the Allegheny 
 Mountains, far away, in which the river takes its 
 rise. It was not at all necessary that there should 
 also be a great rain at the mouth of Anderson's 
 Creek. 
 
 The Ohio became very wide, muddy, angry, and 
 swept down with a swift rush, on the bosom of 
 which were carried all sorts of things, including 
 some log cabins, two or three frame houses, and the 
 bodies of drowned cattle and sheep and horses. 
 Abe stared long and anxiously at the wild water, 
 to know if there were also any bodies of men or 
 women or children, but he did not see any. While 
 he was looking at the flood and listening to its roar, 
 he heard the voice of Mr. Taylor calling out: 
 
 " Abe Lincoln, get the boat ready ! You've got 
 
 to take this man over." 
 
 242 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 " All right ! " shouted Abe, and he sprang away 
 after his oars. 
 
 In a few minutes more he was in the boat and 
 away from the landing, while on the stern seat sat 
 the solitary passenger, who had refused to wait in 
 Indiana until that flood should go down. He was 
 an elderly man, tall and thin, with a wrinkled, 
 closely shaven face, and remarkably good clothing. 
 All the baggage he had with him was a small port- 
 manteau. Abe decided not to ask him if he were 
 able to swim. The scow at first had its broadside 
 to the current, and this was sweeping it down- 
 stream rapidly, when the old gentleman quietly 
 commanded : 
 
 " Head her up-stream, young man. If you don't, 
 at this rate we shall get out into the Mississippi. I 
 wish to land in Kentucky." 
 
 " Thar it is, yonder," replied Abe. " We'll git 
 thar safe enough, onless they move the old State 
 while we're crossin'." 
 
 " States can't be moved from where they are 
 now," said the stranger. " You are pulling very 
 well. There! you are headed right now. Never 
 
 243 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 take the pains to run over a drowned horse; that 
 one has gone by. I'll keep a lookout and tell you 
 when another is coming." 
 
 Abe pulled his best, but before he knew it he was 
 answering all sorts of quietly put questions, and 
 every now and then the old gentleman would wrin- 
 kle his high, white forehead and grumble, " Good 
 for him!" 
 
 It was a long, exceedingly fatiguing passage, 
 but the Kentucky landing was reached, and the 
 passenger and crew of the ferry-scow stepped on 
 shore. 
 
 "Abe," said the former, handing him a silver 
 
 dollar, "take that for yourself; I have paid Mr. 
 
 Taylor. Now, I'll tell you just one thing for you tq 
 
 remember: You are fit for something better than 
 
 rowing a scow. God has put a great deal of brains 
 
 into your head ; you must learn to use them. It is 
 
 remarkable that you have already read so many 
 
 books, away out here in the wilderness. Go on! 
 
 Kead ! read ! read ! Make the most of yourself. Be 
 
 a man! This country of ours is dreadfully short 
 
 of men. Good-by." 
 
 244 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 He was gone, baggage and all, and Abe stood 
 still, looking after him. 
 
 " I didn't even git bis name," be said to bimself. 
 "I'm glad tbe old scow didn't upset witb bim. 
 Thar's a good deal of him. I never bad jest secb 
 a feller in tbis boat before. Go on? I'll do it. 
 Yes, that's wbat I'll do. I'll make tbe most 
 of myself ! " 
 
 Year after year tbe Obio swept on, on, on, at 
 flood-time or low water. Very many were tbe flat- 
 boats wbicb were built and went witb tbeir cargoes 
 down the Father of Waters, never to come back 
 again. On one of them Abe bimself made tbe trip 
 to New Orleans which he had hoped for, and he saw 
 whatever there was to be seen, going or coming. 
 
 Away westward, beyond the great river, during 
 all this time, the prairie country into which old man 
 Sansom fled from the too thickly settled forests of 
 Southern Indiana, became itself thickly settled. On 
 its broad surface were countless farms, hundreds 
 of hamlets, towns, cities, full of wonderful things 
 which had not been so much as dreamed of in that 
 
 245 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 earlier day. It was in one of the larger towns of 
 this Illinois prairie, in the spring of the year 1860, 
 and in an immense temporary hall called a " Wig- 
 wam," that a vast throng of excited citizens was as- 
 sembled. On the side of the wigwam opposite 
 its main entrance was an elevated platform. It had 
 many occupants, but the most conspicuous of them 
 all was a tall, dignified man, who arose and stepped 
 forward just as the great door was thrown open to 
 admit some important arrival. He stood in silence 
 and looked earnestly in that direction, while a short, 
 sturdy man walked slowly forward with a burden 
 on his shoulders. His load consisted of a pair of 
 fence rails, and from them arose a banner with an 
 inscription which might be read by all : 
 
 TWO KAILS 
 
 MADE BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND JOHN HANKS 
 
 IN THE SANGAMON BOTTOM 
 
 IN THE YEAR 1830. 
 
 The crowd arose to its feet and cheered vocif- 
 erously during several minutes. Then the tall 
 
 246 
 
THE RAIL-SPLITTER 
 
 man on the platform was silent a moment before 
 he said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, I suppose you want to know some- 
 thing about those things. Well, the truth is, John 
 Hanks and I did make rails in the Sangamon bot- 
 tom. I don't know whether we made those rails or 
 not. The fact is, I don't think they are a credit to 
 the makers. But I do know this : I made rails then, 
 and I think I could make better ones than those 
 now." 
 
 Once more the wigwam rang with cheering and 
 with laughter, and then a something of solemnity 
 followed, as if serious business were on hand. It 
 was indeed a serious and wonderful work that was 
 doing. The " Rail-splitter," the boy from the back- 
 woods, the log cabin, the flatboat, from poverty and 
 ignorance and desolation, was about to be nomi- 
 nated and then elected President of the United 
 States, that he might greatly serve his country in 
 its darkest hour, serving also the whole human race, 
 and serving God. He would do this, and then he 
 would pass on into that deep, far sea which is called 
 Eternity, leaving behind him a name and fame 
 
 247 
 
THE BOY LINCOLN 
 
 which will but grow brighter as the ages of the 
 earth roll slowly on. He had made of himself the 
 best that he could, and so he had been ready for his 
 work in the day of God's appointing. 
 
 (5) 
 
 THE END 
 
On the Old 
 Frontier 
 
 By W. O. Stoddard 
 
 Author of "Little Smoke," etc. 
 
 ■Him iniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii i ■"■mi mi mini mini 
 
 A story of the repulse of a raid by Iroquois 
 Indians upon a little settlement in the western 
 part of New York State in the early days. 
 
 This story is, as the author well says, "fiction 
 founded upon fact," but he has made it so in- 
 teresting and has been so careful to avoid in- 
 cluding material not of the times of which nc 
 writes that it is sure to have permanent value 
 because of the accuracy of the picture of old 
 frontier life as the author himself saw it. In 
 his own boyhood he often listened to the tradi- 
 tions of the pioneers, his kinsfolk and neigh- 
 bors; he inspected old log houses, old forts, 
 Indian battle grounds, canoes, implements and 
 weapons — for he himself had worn moccasins 
 and had carried a rifle. His first weapon was 
 a bow and arrow made for him by an Onon- 
 daga Indian. He knew the Indians well, and 
 this may account for his desire that both they 
 and the settlers should be better understood 
 by the reader of the present day. While many 
 Indians appear throughout the narrative it tells 
 more about the frontiersmen and women who 
 went out bravely to help open up and make 
 habitable an entirely unknown country for the 
 benefit of future generations: the boys and 
 girls, and the men and women of today. 
 
 $1.75 
 
 This u an AppMon Book 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 Publishers New York 
 
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Historical Fiction and Biographies 
 
 THE TRAIL OF TECUMSEH By Paul Tomlinson 
 
 This book tells what became of Tecumseh and his plans -when he decided to oust 
 the white settlers from his territory. Two Americans, a frontiersman and a trapper, 
 an Irishman and a Frenchman, match their wits and prowess against the Indians, 
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 THE TRAIL OF THE MOHAWK CHIEF By Everett T. Tomlinson 
 
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 THE TRAIL OF BLACK HAWK By Paul Tomlinson 
 
 This is a tale of a famous chief's struggle against the encroaching whites and 
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 go forth over prairies and through forest and swamp to subjugate Black Hawk's 
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 ON THE TRAIL OF WASHINGTON By Frederick Trevor Hill 
 
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 ON THE TRAIL OF GRANT AND LEE By Frederick Trevor Hill 
 
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 PAUL REVERE By Belle Moses 
 
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 ISRAEL PUTNAM By Louise S. Hasbiuuck 
 
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