by Ida M.Tatell
MIS STRUGGLES AND $
eJOVS IN INDIANA,WiiERE
if : : . lib ..... jiiiB ,
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ST IDA M. TAr.BKI.U
IN 1M6. When he was 7, a great event
happened to the little boy. Abraham
Lincoln. His fatt er rmigrnted to In
diana. "This removal was partly on ac
count of slavery, hut chiefly on account
of the difficulty in land titles in Ken
tucky." says his son. It may be tha4
Thomas Lincoln was tempted into In
diana by the reports of his brother
Josiah. who had already settled on the
Big Blue River of that state. At all
events. In the Fall of 1S1. he started
with wife and children and household
stores- to journey by horseback and by
wagon to a farm selected on a previous
trip be had made. This farm, located
near Little Piet-on Creek, about 15 miles
north of the Ohio River, and a mile and
a half east of Gentryville, Spencer Coun
ty, was in a forest so dense that the
road for the travelers had to be hewed
out as they went.
To a boy of 7 years, free from all re
sponsibility, and too vigorous to feel its
hardships, such a journey must have been
"a panorama of delightful novelty." Life
suddenly ceased its routine, and every
day brought forth new and strange scenes
and adventure. Little Abraham saw
forests gTeater than he had ever dreamed
of. peopled by strange new birds and
beasts, and he crossed a river so wide
that it must have seemed to him like
the sea. To Thomas and Nancy Lincoln
the journey was probably a hard and
sod one: but to the children beside them
it was a wonderful voyage into the un
known. Abraham Helps to Build His Home.
On arriving at the new farm an axe
was put into the boy's hands, and he was
net to work to help build the "half-face
, caxtp." which for a year was the home of
' the Lincolns. and to aid in clearing a
field for corn. There were few more
primitive homes in the wilderness of In
diana in 1818 than this of young Lin-
coin s, and there were few families, even
in that day. who were forced to prac
tice more makeshifts to get a living. The
cabin which took the place of the "half
face camp" had but one room, with a loft
above. For a long time there was no
window, door, or floor: not even the tra
ditional deer-ekin hung before the exit,
nor the oiled paper over the opening for
lieht. nor the puncheon covering on the
ground on which they trod.
The furniture was palnfuUy primitive.
Their bedstead, or. rather, bed frame, was
ftiU made of poles held up by two outer
posts, and the ends made firm by insert
ing the poles in augur-holes that bad
been bored in a log which was a Part of
the wall of the cabin: skins were its chief
covering. Little Abraham was not so
well off as this even, his bed being a
heap of drv leaves in the corner of the
loft, to which he mounted by means of
pegs driven into the wall. The table and
chairs were of the rudest sort rough
Flabs of wood In which holes were bored
and legs fitted in.
The food, if coarse, was usually abun
dant, though sometimes the variety was
j.ainfully small. Of game there was
plenty deer, bcar' Peasants- wild tur"
keys. duck, birds of all kinds. There
were fish In the streams, and wild fruits
of many kinds In the woods in the Sum
mer and r these were dried for Winter
vso; but the difficulty of raising and
milling corn and wheat was very great.
-Corn dodger" was the every-day bread
of the Lincoln household, the wheat cake
being a reserved dainty for Sunday
mornings.
Potatoes Only for Dinner.
Potatoes were the only "vegetables
raised in any quantity, and there were
times in the Lincoln family when they
were the only food on the table; a fact
j.rowd to prosterlty by the oft-repeated
remark of, Abraham to his father after
the latter had asked a bk-ssiag over a
dish of roasted potatoes that they were
mighty poor blessings." Not only were
potatoes all the Lincolns had for din
ner sometimes, t; ..- were all tney had on
occasions to offer guests: for one of
their neighbors' tells of calling there once
when raw potatoes, pared and washed,
were passed around and eaten as apples.
Abraham wore little cotton or linsey
woolsey. His trousers were of roughly
tanned deer-skin, his foot covering a
home-made moccasin, his cap a coon
ekin, hia coat a bl- of linsey-woolsey.
These "pretty pinching times," as Ab
raham Lincoln once described the early
days in Indiana, lasted until 1S19. The
year before, Nancy Lincoln had died,
and for many months no more forlorn
place could bo conceived than the bereft
household: but finally Thomas Lincoln
went back to Kentucky and returned
with a new wife Sally Bush Johnston, a
widow with three children, John, Sarah
and Matilda. The new mother came well
provided with household furniture things
unheard of before by little Abraham
"one line bureau, owe table, one set of
chairs, one large clothes-chest, cooking
utensils, knives, forks, bedding, and other
articles." She at once made the cabin
habitable and taught the children habits
of cleanliness and comfort.
By this time Abraham had become an
Important member of the family. He
was remarkably strong for his years, and
Ire work ho couid do In a day was a de
cided advantage to Thomas Lincoln. The
x which had been put into his hand to
help in making the first clearing, he had
never been allowed to drop; indeed, as
he tavs himself, "from that till within
Mr 23d year he was almost con
stantly handling that most useful instru
ment." Besides, he drove the team, cut
t Via elm fi nA linn brush with which
Jho-stock as -often, fed, -learned lo-han-
.ito:. - .
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. 3 .
I w ppji1 f '
rrNrcoT-ifsrv
INIIajSC!oL HOME ,
TO.BUILD..
die the old shovel plow, to wield the
sickle, to thresh the wheat with a flail,
to fan and clean it with a sheet, to ga
to mill and turn the hard-earned grist
into flour; in short, he learned all the
trades the settler s boy must know, and
well enough so that when his father did
not need him he could hire to the neigh
bors. Thomas Lincoln also taught him
the rudiments of carpentry and. cabinet
making, and kept him buBy some of the
time as his assistant In his trade. There
are houses still standing, in and near
Gentryville. on which it is said he worked
Hired Boy t Two Bits a Day.
As he grew older he became one of
the strongest and most popular '."hands"
in the vicinity, and much of his time
was spent as a "hired boy" on some
neighbor's farm. For 25 cens a day
paid to his father he was hostler, plow
man, woodchopper and carpenter, besides
helping the women with the "chores."
For them, so say the legends, he was
ready to -carry water, make the fire, even
tend the baby. No wonder that a laborer
who never-refused to do anything asked
of him, who could "strike with a mallet
heavier blows" and "sink an ax deeper
into the wood" than anybody else in the
community, and who at the same time
was general help for the women, never
lacked for a Job In Gentryville.
In VS!B he added to his other accom
plishments that of ferryman, being em
ployed for some nine months at the
mouth of Anderson Creek, where it joins
the Ohio. This experience opened new
possibilities to him, and he became am
bitious to try the river as a boatman. It
was a custom among the farmers of
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois at this date
to collect a quantity of produce, build
a raft, and float down to New Orleans
to sell it. Young Lincoln saw this, and
wanted to try his fortune as a produce
merchant. An incident of his projected
trip he related once to Mr. Seward:
How Lincoln Earned His First
Dollar.
"Seward," he said, "you never heard,
did you, how I earned my first dollar?"
"No," said Mr. Seward.
"Well," replied he, "I was about' J!
years of age and belonged, as you kno n,
to what they call down South the
'scrubs', people who do not own land
and slaves are nobody there; but we
had succeeded In raising, chiefly by my
labor, sufficient produce, as I thought,
to justify me in taking it down the river
to evil. After much persuasion I had
got the consent of my mother to go, and
had constructed a flat boat large enough
to take the few barrels of things we had
gathered down to New Orleans. A
steamer was going down the river. We
have, you know, no wharves on the
Western streams, and the custom was,
if passengers were at any of the land
ings, they were to go out in a boat, the
steamer stopping and taking them on
board. I was contemplating my new
boat and wondering whether I could
make it stronger or improve it in any
part, when two men with trunks came
down to the shore In carriages, and,
looking at the different boats, singled out
mine, end asked: 'Who owns this?' I
answered modest, 'I do." 'Will you,' said
one of them, 'take us and our trunks
out to the steamer?" "Certainly,' said I
I was very glad to have the chance of
earning something, and supposed that
each of them would give me a couple of
bits. The trunks were put in my boat,
the passengera seated themselves on
them and I sculled them out to the
steamer. They got on board and I lift
ed the trunks and put them on the deck.
The steamer was about to put on steam
again, when I called out, 'You have for
gotten to pay nie.' Each of them took
from his- pocket a silver half-dollar and
threw it on the bottom of my boat. I
could scarcely believe my eyes as I
picked up the money. You may think it
was a very little thing, and in these days
it seems to me like a trifle, but it was
a most Important incident in my life. I
could Scarcely credit that I, the poor
boy, had earned a dollar in less than a
day; that by honest work I had earned
a dollar. The world seemed wider and
fairer -before me. I was a more hope
ful and thoughtful boy from that time."
Soon after this, while he was working
for Mr. Gentry, the leading citizen of
Gentryville, his employer decided to
send, his son to New Orleans with a load
of produce, and chose young Lincoln to
go as "bow-handi" "to work the front
oars." For this trip he received J8 a
month and his passage back as- a deck
passenger on a steamer.
Straggling for an Education.
With all this hard living and hard
work Lincoln was getting In this period
a desultory kind of education. Not tfiat
he received much schooling. He went
"by littles." he says; "in all It did not
amount to more than a year." But more
or less of the schoolroom is a matter of
small importance if a boy had learned to
rad and to think of what he reads. And
that this boy had learned. His stock of
books was email, but he knew them
Jxhmoiishljv-said: icy wero good books to
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III Wl villi J WW.
V i x
Hf XXNCOUNT WHILE
lOivnsrG- est xcsTdxnc ,
rr ig ere' walnut.abou'i
3TWO TEET.HKH.
know: The Bible, Esop's "Fables,"
"Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's
Progress." a "History of the United
States." Weem's "Life of Washington."
and the "Statutes of Indiana." These are
the chief ones we know about. He did
not own them all. but sometimes had to
borrow them from the neighbors, a prac
tice which resulted in at least one cas
ualty, for Weem'a "Life of Washington"
he allowed to get wet. and to make good
the loss he had to pull fodder three days.
No matter. The book became his
then, and he could read it as he would.
Fortunately he took this curious work
in profound seriousness, which a wide
awake boy would hardly be expected to
do today. Washington became the ex
alted figure in his imagination, and he
always contended later, when the ques
tion of the real character of the first
President was brought up, that It wan
wiser to regard uim as a godlike char
acter, heroic in nature and deeds, as
Weems did. than to contend that he was
only a man who; if wise and good, still
made mistakes and indulged in follies
like other men.
In addressing the Senate of the
State of New Jersey, he said:
"May I be pardoned if, upon this occa
sion. I mention that away back in my
childhood, the earliest days of my being
able to read, I got hold of a small book,
such a one as few; of the younger mem
bers have ever seen Weem's 'Life of
Washington." I remember all the accounts
there given of the battlefields and strug
gles for the liberties of the country, and
none fixed themselves upon my imagina
tion so deeply as the struggle here at
Trenton, New Jersey. The crossing of
the river, the contest with the Hessians,
the gTeat hardships endured at that
time, all fixed themselves on my mem
ory more than any single Revolutionary
event; and you all know-, for you have
all been boys, how these early impres
sions last longer than any others. I
recollect thinking then, boy even though
I was, that there must have been some
thing more than common that these men
struggled for."
Besides these books he borrowed many.
He once told a friend that he "read"
through every book he had ever heard
of in that country, for a circuit of 50
miles.
From everything he read he made
long extracts, using a turkey-buzzard
pen and brier-root ink. When he had
no paper he would write on a board,
and thus preserve his selections until
he secured a copy-book. The wooden
fire-shovel was his usual slate, and
on its back he would cipher with a
charred stick, shaving it off when cov
ered. The logs and boards in his vicin
ity were always filled with his figures
(This tribute appeared in the London Punch, which, up
to the time of the -assassination of Mr. Lincoln, had ridi
culed and maligned him with all Its well-known powers of
pen and pencil.)
You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier,
l"ou, who with mocking pencil wont to trace
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face.
His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair.
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease.
His lack of all we prize as debonair.
Of power or will to shine, of art to please;
Tou. whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
Judging each step as though the way were plain.
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain:
Besides this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew.
Between the mourners at his head and feet, '
Say, scurrlle jester, is there room for you?
Yes; he had lived to shame me from my sneer,
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen;
To make me own this hind of Princes peer.
This rail-splitter a true-born king of men.
My shallow Judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more truoj
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows.
How humble, yet how hopeful, he could be;
How, in good fortune and in ill, the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he.
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.
He went about his work. such work as few
Ever had laid on head and heart and hand,
As one who knows, where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;
Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes Instruments to work his will.
If but that w ill we can arrive to know.
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.
If
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M I 1
THE OLD SWIMMING;, iTOXJS
NEAB -LINCOLN
IMDiAJSCA. HOME
WHEKE J-INO
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TIME FiiOTOOOeAFTlIC
and quotations. By night he read and
worked as longf as there was light, and
he kept a book in the crack of the
logs in his loft, to have it at hand at
peep of day.
In his habits of reading and study
the boy had little encouragement from
his father, but his step-mother did all
she could for him. Indeed, between
the two there soon grew up a relation
1 Ylte
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Foully Assassinated April 14. 1865
So he went forth to battle, on the side
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights.
The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,
The iron-bark, that turns the lumberer's axe,
The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks.
The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear,
Such were the deeds that helped his youth to train;
Rough culture, but such trees large fruit may bear,
If but their stocks be of right girth and grain.
So he grew up, a destined work to do.
And lived to do it; four long-suffering years.
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, Ill-report, lived through,
And then he heard the hisses change to cheers,
The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise.
And took both with the same unwavering mood;
. Till, as he came on light, from darkling days.
And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood,
A felon hand, between the goal and him,
Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest.
And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim.
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest!
The words of mercy were upon his lips.
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen,
When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse
To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men.
The Old World and the New, from sea to sea,
Utter one voice of sympathy and shame;
Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high;
Sad life, cut short just as Its triumph came!
A deed accurst! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out
Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife,
Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven;
And with the martyr's crown crownest a life
With much to praise, little to -be forgiven.
Tom Taylor.
CI
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IS.
mi-
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of touching gentleness and confidence.
No newspaper ever escaped him. One
man in Gentryville, a Mr. Jones, the
storekeeper, took a Louisville paper,
and here Lincoln went regularly to
read and discuss its contents. All the
men and boys of the neighborhood
gathered there, and everything which
the paper related was subjected to
their keen, shrewd common-sense. It
.1
HE LIVED FROM THE
TIME HEWAS SEVEN
UNTIL HE EECAME
OF AGE
ABOUT 1BE TIME OF
ttTHE OETTVcSncrfs-
speech:.
was not long before young Lincoln be
came the favorite member of the group
and the one listened to most eagerly.
Politics were warmly disruss-ed by
these Gentryville citizens, and it may
be that sitting on the counter of Jones'
grocery Lincoln even discussed slav
ery. It certainly was one of the live
questions in Indiana at that date.
A Debater and aJoker.
Young Lincoln was not only winning
in these days in the Jones grocery
store a reputation as a debater and
story-teller; he was becoming known
as a kind of backwoods orator. He
could repeat with effect all the poems
and speeches in his various school
readers, he could imitate to perfection
the wandering preachers who came to
Gentryville, and he could make a polit
ical speech so stirring that he drew a
crowd about him every time he mount
ed a stump. The applause he won was
sweet; and frequently he indulged hie
gifts when ho ought to have been at
work so thought his employers and
Thomas, his father. It was trying, no
doubt, to the hard-pushed farmers, to
6ee the men who ought to have been
cutting grass or chopping wood throw
down their sickles or axes to group
around a boy whenever he mounted a
stump to develop a pet theory or re
peat with variations yesterday's ser
mon.' In his fondness for speech-making
he attended all the trials of the
neighborhood, and frequently walked
15 miles to Boonsville to attend court.
If his struggle for both livelihood
and education was rough and hard, his
life was not without amusements. The
sports he preferred were . those which
brought men together; the spelling
school, the husking-bee, the "raising";
and of all of these he was the life by
his wit, his stories, his good n-ture,
his dogserel verses, his practical jokes,
and by a rough kind of politeness. Lin
coln's old comrades and friends in In
diana have left many tales of how he
"went to see the girls"; of how he
brought in the biggest back-log and
made the brightest fire;-then of how,
"sitting around" it, watching the way
the sparks flew, the young folks told
their fortunes. He helred pare apples,
shell corn and crack nuts. He took
the girls to meeting and to spelllng
school, although he was not often al
lowed to take part in the spelling
match, for the one who "chose first"
always chose "Abe Lincoln," and that
was equivalent to winning, as the oth
ers knew that "he would stand up the
longest."
"The Beginning of Love in Me."
The nearest approach to sentiment at
this time of which we know is a story
he once told to an acquaintance in
Springfield. It was a rainy day, and
he was sitting with his feet on the
wood-sill, his eyes on the street,
watching the rain. Suddenly he looked
up and said:
"Did you ever writ) out a story in your
rriind? I did when I was a little codger.
One day a wagon with a lady and two
girls and a man broke down near us.
and while they were fixing up, they
cooked in our kitchen. The woman had
books and read us stories, and they were
the first I ever had heard. I took a
great fancy to one of the girls; and when
they were gone I thought of her a great
deal, and one day when I was sitting out
in the sun by the house I wrote out a
story in my mind. I thought I took
my father's horse and followed the
wagon, and tinaiiy i iouna it, ana tney
w surprised te-me, lf-Ulke4--wita
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the girl and persuaded her to elope with
me; and that night I put' her on my
horse, und we started off across the1
prairie. After several hours we came to'
a camp: and when we rode up we found!
It was the one we had left a few hours
before, and we went in. The next night
we tried again, and the same thing hap
pened the hone came back to the same
places and then we concluded that we
ought not to elope. I stayed until I had
persuaded her father to give her to mo.
I always meant to write that story out
and publish it, and I began once; but I
concluded It was not mut-h of a story.
But I think that was the beginning of
love wilh me."
Two Tragedies of Lincoln's Boyhood
His life had its tragedies tragedies so
real and profound that they gave dig
nity to all the crudeness and poverty
which surrounded him, and quickened I
and intensified the melancholy tempera
ment he had inherited from his mother.
Away back in 1S16, when Thomas Lin-,
coin had started to find a farm in Jn-;
dlana, bidding his wife be ready to go
into the wilderness on his return, Nancy
Lincoln had taken her boy and girl to a
tiny grave, that cf her youngest child;
and the three had there said good-bye to
a little one whom the cliildren had
scarcely known, but for whom the
mother's grief was so keen that the boy
never forgot the scene. Two years later
he saw lis father make a green pine
box and put his dead mother into it, and
he saw her buried not far from their
cabin, almost without prayer. Young as
he was. It is said that it was his efforts
which brought a parson from Kentucky,
three months later, to preach the sermon
and conduct the service which seemed to
the child a necessary honor to the dead.
As sad as the death of iis mother had
been was that of his only sister, Sarah,
Married to Aaron GrlgRby in IRiii, sTi'o
had died a year and a half later in child
birth, a death which to her brother must
have seemed a horror and aniystery.
Apart from these family sorrows he
even saw in those days one of his com
panions go suddenly mad. The young
man never recovered his reason, but sank
into idiocy. All night ho would croon
plaintive songs, and Lincoln himself tells
how, fascinated by this mysterious mal
ady, - he used to rise before daylight to
cross the fields and listen to this funeral
dirge of the reason. In Fplte of the
poverty and rudeness of his life the
depth of his nature had not been blunted.
He could feel Intensely, and his imagina
tion was quick to respond to tiw touch
of mystery.
(Copyright. 19US. by the McCiure Co.
Copyright, 1S35. by S. S. McCluro
Limited.
"WHAT THEX?"
BY JUD POTTER.
If T rmild pail the seas whore icr billows
mil
And T'ftnt the Nation's emblem at North
and .niilhorn pole:
Climb up far mountain heights, an yet un
reached by mn
And master all the unknown arts after
that, what then?
Could I attain the icreatest wealth, and all
the world command,
Know all tlio noitders of the sea and
those upon the land:
Diacovcr why the flowers bloom in every
vale and sicn,
And even know where tim was born
after that, what then?
Could I the sinple problem solve that fills
the world with ptrife.
That most mysterious of all the prin
ciple of life
And write it on , the vaulted sky. where ail
rould read, and when
At laEt, with problem solved, after that
what then?
Through faith T see, in future years, the
problem all unrolled;
"Unrest, with Its incessant lash, its mean
ing must unfold.
And down the coming ages 'twill be re
vealed to men.
The questions sealed for eons past "the
wherefores and the when."
Arleta. Or.
Housing Berlin's Toor.
Harper's.
Berlin has co-operative tenements
whose inmates have light and air In
plenty, and where there Is every evidence
of scientific thought in housing the poor.
On the other hand, there are over 9".000
people living In underground tenements
in that imperial city, whose dark holes
are still unregulated by law. Beicgins is
a penal offence, in Berlin, and professional
vagahondsee is "sternly punished," yet
Sno.nno people seek refuse In Uvo municipal
night shelters 01 Juerun all'ne la out
elnste -year, i