"Abe never give Nancy no trouble after he could walk excep" to keep him in clothes. Most o" the time he went bar"foot. Ever wear a wet buckskin glove? Them moccasins wasn"t no putection ag"inst the wet. Birch bark with hickory bark soles, strapped on over yarn socks, beat buckskin all holler, fur snow. Abe"n me got purty handy contrivin" things that way.
An" Abe was right out in the woods about as soon"s he was weaned, fishin" in the creek, settin" traps fur rabbits an" muskrats, goin" on c.o.o.n-hunts with Tom an" me an" the dogs, follerin" up bees to find bee-trees, an" drappin" corn fur his pappy. Mighty interestin" life fur a boy, but thar was a good many chances he wouldn"t live to grow up."
When little Abe was four years old his father and mother moved from Rock Spring Farm to a better place on k.n.o.b Creek, a few miles to the northeast of the farm where he was born.
CHAPTER III
THE BOY LINCOLN"S BEST TEACHER
At k.n.o.b Creek the boy began to go to an "A B C" school. His first teacher was Zachariah Riney. Of course, there were no regular schools in the backwoods then. When a man who "knew enough" happened to come along, especially if he had nothing else to do, he tried to teach the children of the pioneers in a poor log schoolhouse. It is not likely that little Abe went to school more than a few weeks at this time, for he never had a year"s schooling in his life. There was another teacher afterward at k.n.o.b Creek--a man named Caleb Hazel. Little is known of either of these teachers except that he taught little Abe Lincoln. If their pupil had not become famous the men and their schools would never have been mentioned in history.
An old man, named Austin Gollaher, used to like to tell of the days when he and little Abe went to school together. He said:
"Abe was an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster than any of his schoolmates.
Though so young, he studied very hard."
Although Nancy Lincoln insisted on sending the children to school, when there was any, she had a large share in Abe"s early education, just as she had taught his father to write his own name. She told them Bible stories and such others as she had picked up in her barren, backwoods life. She and her husband were too religious to believe in telling their children fairy tales.
The best thing of all was the reading of "The Pilgrim"s Progress" during the long Winter evenings, after the wood was brought in and Father Tom had set his traps and done his other work for the night. Nancy"s voice was low, with soft, southern tones and accents. Tom and the children enjoyed the story of Christian"s pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City the more because of her love for the story she was reading to them, as they lay on bearskin rugs before the blazing fire.
Abe was only six, but he was a thoughtful boy. He tried to think of some way to show his grat.i.tude to his mother for giving them so much pleasure. While out gathering sticks and cutting wood for the big fireplace, a happy thought came to him--he would cut off some spicewood branches, hack them up on a log, and secrete them behind the cabin.
Then, when the mother was ready to read again, and Sarah and the father were sitting and lying before the fire, he brought in the hidden branches and threw them on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of the others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood boughs not only added to the brightness of the scene but filled the whole house with the "sweet smelling savour" of a little boy"s love and grat.i.tude.
No one can fathom the pleasure of that precious memory throughout those four lives, as the story of Great Heart and Christiana followed Christian along the path that "shineth more and more unto the perfect day." While the father and sister were delighted with the crackle, sparkle and pleasant aroma of the bits of spicewood, as Abe tossed them upon the fire, no one could appreciate the thoughtful act of the boy so much as his mother. It would be strange if her eyes did not fill, as she read to her fascinated family, but that was not the sort of thing the fondest mother could speak of.
Little did Nancy dream that, in reading to her son of the devotion of Great Heart to his charges, she was fostering a spirit in her little son that would help him make the n.o.ble pilgrimage from their hovel to the highest home in the land, where another President of the United States would refer to him as "the Great Heart of the White House." If any one could have looked ahead fifty years to see all this, and could have told Nancy Hanks Lincoln, she would not have believed it. After her own life of toil and hardship it would have seemed to her "too good to be true."
But in the centuries following the humble yet beautiful career of "the Backwoods Boy" from the hut to the White House, history keeps the whole world saying with bated breath, "the half was never told!"
AN OLD MAN"S STORY OF SAVING ABRAHAM LINCOLN"S LIFE
Austin Gollaher, grown to manhood, still living in his old log cabin near the Lincoln house in k.n.o.b Creek nearly twenty years after Lincoln"s a.s.sa.s.sination, and gave the following account of an adventure he had with the little Lincoln boy:
"I once saved Lincoln"s life. We had been going to school together one year; but the next year we had no school, because there were so few scholars to attend, there being only about twenty in the school the year before.
"Consequently Abe and I had not much to do; but, as we did not go to school and our mothers were strict with us, we did not get to see each other very often. One Sunday morning my mother waked me up early, saying she was going to see Mrs. Lincoln, and that I could go along. Glad of the chance, I was soon dressed and ready to go. After my mother and I got there, Abe and I played all through the day.
"While we were wandering up and down the little stream called k.n.o.b Creek, Abe said: "Right up there"--pointing to the east--"we saw a covey of partridges yesterday. Let"s go over." The stream was too wide for us to jump across. Finally we saw a foot-log, and decided to try it. It was narrow, but Abe said, "Let"s c.o.o.n it."
"I went first and reached the other side all right. Abe went about half way across, when he got scared and began trembling. I hollered to him, "Don"t look down nor up nor sideways, but look right at me and hold on tight!" But he fell off into the creek, and, as the water was about seven or eight feet deep (I could not swim, and neither could Abe), I knew it would do no good for me to go in after him.
"So I got a stick--a long water sprout--and held it out to him. He came up, grabbing with both hands, and I put the stick into his hands. He clung to it, and I pulled him out on the bank, almost dead. I got him by the arms and shook him well, and then I rolled him on the ground, when the water poured out of his mouth.
"He was all right very soon. We promised each other that we would never tell anybody about it, and never did for years. I never told any one of it till after Lincoln was killed."
Abraham Lincoln"s parents were religious in their simple way. The boy was brought up to believe in the care of the Father in Heaven over the affairs of this life. The family attended camp meetings and preaching services, which were great events, because few and far between, in those primitive days. Abe used afterward to get his playmates together and preach to them in a way that sometimes frightened them and made them cry.
No doubt young Lincoln learned more that was useful to him in after life from the wandering preachers of his day than he did of his teachers during the few months that he was permitted to go to school. But his best teacher was his mother. She would have been proud to have her boy grow up to be a traveling minister or exhorter, like Peter Cartwright, "the backwoods preacher."
Nancy Hanks Lincoln "builded better than she knew." She would have been satisfied with a cabin life for her son. She little knew that by her own life and teaching she was raising up the greatest man of his age, and one of the grandest men in all history, to become the ruler of the greatest nation that the world has ever seen. She did her duty by her little boy and he honored her always during her life and afterward. No wonder he once exclaimed when he thought of her:
"All I am or hope to be I owe to my sainted mother."
And out of her poor, humble life, that devoted woman
"Gave us Lincoln and never knew!"
CHAPTER IV
LEARNING TO WORK
The little Lincoln boy learned to help his father and mother as soon as he could, picking berries, dropping seeds and carrying water for the men to drink. The farm at k.n.o.b Creek seems to have been a little more fertile than the other two places on which his father had chosen to live.
Once while living in the White House, President Lincoln was asked if he could remember his "old Kentucky home." He replied with considerable feeling:
"I remember that old home very well. Our farm was composed of three fields. It lay in the valley, surrounded by high hills and deep gorges.
Sometimes, when there came a big rain in the hills, the water would come down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing I remember of doing there was one Sat.u.r.day afternoon; the other boys planted the corn in what we called the big field--it contained seven acres--and I dropped the pumpkin seed. I dropped two seeds in every other row and every other hill. The next Sunday morning there came a big rain in the hills--it did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water, coming through the gorges, washed the ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and all, clear off the field!"
Although this was the last thing Lincoln could remember doing on that farm, it is not at all likely that it was the last thing he did there, for Thomas Lincoln was not the man to plant corn in a field he was about to leave. (The Lincolns moved away in the fall.)
Another baby boy was born at k.n.o.b Creek farm; a puny, pathetic little stranger. When this baby was about three years old, the father had to use his skill as a cabinet maker in making a tiny coffin, and the Lincoln family wept over a lonely little grave in the wilderness.
About this time Abe began to learn lessons in practical patriotism. Once when Mr. Lincoln was asked what he could remember of the War of 1812, he replied:
"Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish which I was taking home. I met a soldier on the road, and, having been told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish."
An old man, Major Alexander Sympson, who lived not far from the Lincolns at this period, left this description of "a mere spindle of a boy," in one of his earliest attempts to defend himself against odds, while waiting at the neighboring mill while a grist was being ground.
"He was the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and awkward-appearing, homeliest and worst-dressed of any in the crowd. So superlatively wretched a b.u.t.t could not hope to look on long unmolested. He was attacked one day as he stood near a tree by a larger boy with others at his back. But the crowd was greatly astonished when little Lincoln soundly thrashed the first, the second, and third boy in succession; and then, placing his back against the tree, he defied the whole crowd, and told them they were a lot of cowards."
Evidently Father Tom, who enjoyed quite a reputation as a wrestler, had give the small boy a few lessons in "the manly art of self-defense."
Meanwhile the little brother and sister were learning still better things at their mother"s knee, alternately hearing and reading stories from the Bible, "The Pilgrim"s Progress," "aesop"s Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," and other books, common now, but rare enough in the backwoods in those days.
There were hard times, even in the wilderness of Kentucky, after the War of 1812. Slavery was spreading, and Thomas and Nancy Lincoln heartily hated that "relic of barbarism." To avoid witnessing its wrongs which made it harder for self-respecting white men to rise above the cla.s.s referred to with contempt in the South as "poor white trash," Tom Lincoln determined to move farther north and west--and deeper into the wilds.
It is sometimes stated that Abraham Lincoln belonged to the indolent cla.s.s known as "poor whites," but this is not true. Shiftless and improvident though his father was, he had no use for that cla.s.s of white slaves, who seemed to fall even lower than the blacks.
There was trouble, too, about the t.i.tle to much of the land in Kentucky, while Indiana offered special inducements to settlers in that new territory.
In his carpenter work, Thomas Lincoln had learned how to build a flatboat, and had made at least one trip to New Orleans on a craft which he himself had put together. So, when he finally decided in the fall of 1816 to emigrate to Indiana, he at once began to build another boat, which he launched on the Rolling Fork, at the mouth of k.n.o.b Creek, about half a mile from his own cabin. He traded his farm for what movable property he could get, and loaded his raft with that and his carpenter tools. Waving good-bye to his wife and two children, he floated down the Rolling Fork, Salt River, and out into the Ohio River, which proved too rough for his shaky craft, and it soon went to pieces.