ROUGHLY DISCIPLINED FOR BEING "FORWARD"
Abe was compelled to leave school on the slightest pretext to work for the neighbors. He was so big and strong--attaining his full height at seventeen--that his services were more in demand than those of his stepbrother, John Johnston, or of Cousin Dennis. Abe was called lazy because the neighbors shared the idea of Thomas Lincoln, that his reading and studying were only a pretext for shirking. Yet he was never so idle as either Dennis Hanks or John Johnston, who were permitted to go hunting or fishing with Tom Lincoln, while Abe stayed out of school to do the work that one of the three older men should have done.
Abe"s father was kinder in many ways to his stepchildren than he was to his own son. This may have been due to the fact that he did not wish to be thought "partial" to his own child. No doubt Abe was "forward." He liked to take part in any discussion, and sometimes he broke into the conversation when his opinion had not been asked. Besides, he got into arguments with his fellow-laborers, and wasted the time belonging to his employer.
One day, according to Dennis, they were all working together in the field, when a man rode up on horseback and asked a question. Abe was the first to mount the fence to answer the stranger and engage him in conversation. To teach his son better "manners" in the presence of his "superiors," Thomas Lincoln struck Abe a heavy blow which knocked him backward off the fence, and silenced him for a time.
Of course, every one present laughed at Abe"s discomfiture, and the neighbors approved of Thomas Lincoln"s rude act as a matter of discipline. In their opinion Abe Lincoln was getting altogether too smart. While they enjoyed his homely wit and good nature, they did not like to admit that he was in any way their superior. A visitor to Springfield, Ill., will even now find some of Lincoln"s old neighbors eager to say "there were a dozen smarter men in this city than Lincoln"
when he "happened to get nominated for the presidency!"
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
Abe was "hail fellow, well met" everywhere. The women comprehended his true greatness before the men did so. There was a rough gallantry about him, which, though lacking in "polish," was true, "heart-of-oak"
politeness. He wished every one well. His whole life pa.s.sed with "malice toward none, with charity for all."
When he "went out evenings" Abe Lincoln took the greatest pains to make everybody comfortable and happy. He was sure to bring in the biggest backlog and make the brightest fire. He read "the funniest fortunes" for the young people from the sparks as they flew up the chimney. He was the best helper in paring the apples, sh.e.l.ling the corn and cracking the nuts for the evening"s refreshments.
When he went to spelling school, after the first few times, he was not allowed to take part in the spelling match because everybody knew that the side that "chose first" would get Abe Lincoln and he always "spelled down." But he went just the same and had a good time himself if he could add to the enjoyment of the rest.
He went swimming, warm evenings, with the boys, and ran races, jumped and wrestled at noon-times, which was supposed to be given up to eating and resting. He was "the life" of the husking-bee and barn raising, and was always present, often as a judge because of his humor, fairness and tact, at horse races. He engaged heartily in every kind of "manly sport"
which did not entail unnecessary suffering upon helpless animals.
c.o.o.n hunting, however, was an exception. The c.o.o.n was a pest and a plague to the farmer, so it should be got rid of. He once told the following story:
THE LITTLE YELLOW "c.o.o.n DOG"
"My father had a little yellow house dog which invariably gave the alarm if we boys undertook to slip away un.o.bserved after night had set in--as we sometimes did--to go c.o.o.n hunting. One night my brother, John Johnston, and I, with the usual complement of boys required for a successful c.o.o.n hunt, took the insignificant little cur with us.
"We located the coveted c.o.o.n, killed him, and then in a sporting vein, sewed the c.o.o.n skin on the little dog.
"It struggled vigorously during the operation of sewing on, and when released made a bee-line for home. Some larger dogs on the way, scenting c.o.o.n, tracked the little animal home and apparently mistaking him for a real c.o.o.n, speedily demolished him. The next morning, father found, lying in his yard, the lifeless remains of yellow "Joe," with strong circ.u.mstantial evidence, in the form of fragments of c.o.o.n skin, against us.
"Father was much incensed at his death, but as John and I, scantily protected from the morning wind, stood shivering in the doorway, we felt a.s.sured that little yellow Joe would never again be able to sound the alarm of another c.o.o.n hunt."
THE "CHIN FLY" AS AN INCENTIVE TO WORK
While he was President, Mr. Lincoln told Henry J. Raymond, the founder of the New York _Times_, the following story of an experience he had about this time, while working with his stepbrother in a cornfield:
"Raymond," said he, "you were brought up on a farm, were you not? Then you know what a "chin fly" is. My brother and I were plowing corn once, I driving the horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on one occasion he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs, could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow I found an enormous chin fly fastened upon the horse and I knocked it off.
My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn"t want the old horse bitten in that way.
""Why," said my brother,"that"s all that made him go.""
"Now if Mr. Chase (the Secretary of the Treasury) has a presidential "chin fly" biting him, I"m not going to knock it off, if it will only make his department go."
"OLD BLUE NOSE"S" HIRED MAN
It seemed to be the "irony of fate" that Abe should have to work for "Old Blue Nose" as a farm hand. But the lad liked Mrs. Crawford, and Lincoln"s sister Nancy lived there, at the same time, as maid-of-all-work. Another attraction, the Crawford family was rich, in Abe"s eyes, in possessing several books, which he was glad of the chance to read.
Mrs. Crawford told many things about young Lincoln that might otherwise have been lost. She said "Abe was very polite, in his awkward way, taking off his hat to me and bowing. He was a sensitive lad, never coming where he was not wanted. He was tender and kind--like his sister.
"He liked to hang around and gossip and joke with the women. After he had wasted too much time this way, he would exclaim:
""Well, this won"t buy the child a coat," and the long-legged hired boy would stride away and catch up with the others."
One day when he was asked to kill a hog, Abe answered promptly that he had never done that, "but if you"ll risk the hog, I"ll risk myself!"
Mrs. Crawford told also about "going to meeting" in those primitive days:
"At that time we thought it nothing to go eight or ten miles. The ladies did not stop for the want of a shawl or riding dress, or horses. In the winter time they would put on their husbands" old overcoats, wrap up their little ones, and take two or three of them on their beasts, while their husbands would walk.
"In winter time they would hold church in some of the neighbors" houses.
At such times they were always treated with the utmost kindness; a basket of apples, or turnips--apples were scarce in those days--was set out. Sometimes potatoes were used for a "treat." In old Mr. Linkhorn"s (Lincoln"s) house a plate of potatoes, washed and pared nicely, was handed around."
FEATS OF STRENGTH
Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood, both in body and in mind.
The neighbors, who failed to mark his mental growth, were greatly impressed with his physical strength. The Richardson family, with whom Abe seemed to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous tales of his prowess, some of which may have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr.
Richardson declared that the young man could carry as heavy a load as "three ordinary men." He saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken house, made up of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at least six hundred if not much more."
When the Richardsons were building their corn-crib, Abe saw three or four men getting ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on "sticks" between them. Watching his chance, he coolly stepped in, shouldered all the timbers at once and walked off alone with them, carrying them to the place desired. He performed these feats off-hand, smiling down in undisguised pleasure as the men around him expressed their amazement. It seemed to appeal to his sense of humor as well as his desire to help others out of their difficulties.
Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of Abe: "He could strike, with a maul, a heavier blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper into wood than any man I ever saw."
Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard Abe working in the woods alone, felling trees, you would think three men, at least, were at work there--the trees came crashing down so fast.
On one occasion after he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured, Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness of his heart, exclaimed:
"Aw, let him alone, Abe. "Twon"t do him no good. He"s made his bed, let him lay in it!"
The rest laughed--for the "bed" was freezing mud. But Abe could see no humor in the situation. The man might be run over, or freeze to death.
To abandon any human being in such a plight seemed too monstrous to him.
The other young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging their shoulders and shaking their heads--"Poor Abe!--he"s a hopeless case," and left Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried, again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe gave him "a good talking to," and the unfortunate man is said to have been so deeply impressed by the young man"s kindness that he heeded the temperance lecture and never again risked his life as he had done that night. When the old man told John Hanks of Abe"s Herculean effort to save him, he added:
"It was mighty clever in Abe Lincoln to tote me to a warm fire that cold night."
IN JONES" STORE
While Abe was working for the farmers round about his father"s farm he spent many of his evenings in Jones" grocery "talking politics" and other things with the men, who also gathered there. Mr. Jones took a Louisville paper, which young Lincoln read eagerly. Slavery was a live political topic then, and Abe soon acquired quite a reputation as a stump orator.
As he read the "Indiana Statutes" he was supposed to "know more law than the constable." In fact, his taste for the law was so p.r.o.nounced at that early age that he went, sometimes, fifteen miles to Boonville, as a spectator in the county court. Once he heard a lawyer of ability, named Breckinridge, defend an accused murderer there. It was a great plea; the tall country boy knew it and, pushing through the crowd, reached out his long, coatless arm to congratulate the lawyer, who looked at the awkward youth in amazement and pa.s.sed on without acknowledging Abe"s compliment.
The two men met again in Washington, more than thirty years later, under very different circ.u.mstances.