ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

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LINCOLN'S CHILDHOOD.

LL that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother-blessings on her memory.' So spoke Abraham Lincoln of his mother, after he had become famous. She died when he was yet a child. From his father he inherited his name, his humble condition, and his love of story-telling; but from his mother the nobility of character which made him great, and won the admiration of the world.

Abraham Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in a floorless log-hut that was little better than a novel, that stood near the banks of a creek in what is now La Rue County, Kentucky. His grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln, was one of the pioneers of Kentucky, and had been killed by the Indians in 1784, while plowing in his field. The Indian who fired the shot seized the youngest boy, Thomas, six years old, the father of the future President, and started off, when suddenly he fell

dead, shot by an older brother, Mordecai, a boy ten years old.

Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood in the wilds of Kentucky, and when twenty-eight years old married Nancy Hanks, daughter of Joseph Hanks, whose ancestors and those of her husband had been neighbors in the Shenandoah Valley half a century before.

Nancy Lincoln is described as "tall, darkhaired, comely, dignified, and winsome, by her grace and kindness. She seemed at times as if looking far away, seeing what others did not see. She had attended school in Virginia, and stood upon a higher intellectual plane than those around her. The Bible was read morning and evening, and her conduct was in accordance with its precepts. She was on the frontier, where few books were to be had to satisfy her thirst for knowledge, and where there was little intellectual culture."

To Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were born three children—a daughter and two sons. One boy died in childhood. The sister, named Sarah, lived to womanhood. Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were very poor, and they began life together in very humble circumstances. Their first home was a cabin in Elizabethtown. In 1809, Thomas Lincoln secured a quarter-section of land on Nolin's Creek, near Hodgensville, on which he built a one-room

cabin. Their needs were few, and with a Dutch oven, frying-pan, a few tin dishes, wooden plates, and a bucket, the family lived in comparative

comfort.

Nancy Lincoln was wife, mother, and teacher. From his wife, Thomas Lincoln learned the letters of the alphabet, as did also her children. On Sundays Nancy Lincoln would gather her children around her, and read to them the wonderful stories in the Bible, and pray with them. After he had become President, Lincoln, speaking of his mother, said: "I remember her prayers, and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."

These Bible stories not only interested him, but they molded his character, and aroused a desire to be able to read for himself—a desire that, in later years, developed into an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge.

In the week evenings, Thomas Lincoln would entertain his family with stories, many of which related to the adventures of Daniel Boone and other pioneers of Kentucky. The most interesting were those of the boy's grandfather, and the most thrilling of all, the account of the grandfather's death, and the escape of little Thomas himself.

Traveling preachers occasionally visited the neighborhood, and a log meeting-house had been

erected at Little Mound, about three miles from the Lincoln home. Here little Abe attended services with his parents, and, when only five years old, was so impressed with what he heard, that on his return home he would mount a stool, and preach a sermon of his own, shouting and pounding the table with his little fist in imitation of the preacher. His favorite among these itinerants was Rev. David Elkin.

Little Abe started to attend school when about five years old. It was "kept" by a Roman Catholic priest, named Zachariah Riney, who traveled through the settlements, teaching for a few weeks at a time. The school did not amount to much; but such as it was, the boys and girls, and even young men and young women of the country, for many miles around, attended it. The only textbook was a "Speller," with easy reading-lessons. Thanks to the careful instruction of his intelligent mother, little five-year-old Abe was soon head of the class, to the great chagrin of the older scholars.

In 1814, Thomas Lincoln, who had been unable to pay for his land on Nolin's Creek, bargained for a two-hundred-acre tract of land on Knob Creek, a few miles away. Here his son attended a school taught by George Hazel, whose only text-book was also a "Speller."

REMOVAL TO INDIANA.

LAVERY and imperfect land-titles together

SLAV

had made the lot of the poor white man in Kentucky exceedingly unpleasant. When Thomas Lincoln and his wife learned that fertile government land could be bought in Indiana for $2 an acre, they caught the "emigrant fever," and in 1817 decided to move to the free State where rich and poor were alike respected, and where the poorest could secure a home.

Thomas Lincoln had cleared a portion of the Knob Creek farm, built a cabin, dug a well, and made other improvements, and in consideration of these he found a purchaser who would pay him his price for the place-three hundred dollars. The man had but little money, but Lincoln accepted the terms offered-twenty dollars in money and ten barrels of whisky worth $28 a barrel. Whisky in those days was salable everywhere, and was considered as safe as money. But it was inconvenient to carry. This compelled Lincoln to construct a raft on which he placed his few carpenter tools and the whisky.