Through the winter carpenter Lincoln was hewing timber for his future home, which was to be something more than a cabin. Although there would be but one room on the ground, he would build the walls high enough for a loft, which would give sleeping accommodations to Sarah and Abraham. Built of hewn logs, it would be palatial in comparison with his former homes. Picture it as we may, we shall not be able to portray the desolateness of the winter passed in the Pigeon Creek camp, and the weariness of spirit on the part of one endowed as was the mother to adorn a palace. We are not to think that Thomas Lincoln was idle, nor that he was altogether shiftless. He was in poverty. The family must have food. A home must be built. The ground must be cleared for planting corn. There is no evidence that he was idle. Other settlers, more industrious than he, could not accumulate much property in a section of country covered by a dense forest. Many sturdy blows must be given with the axe before he could complete his house and clear the ground for raising corn.

1818.

The new home was not finished when the family moved into it-the floor not laid, no boards provided for a door. The moving was hastened by the arrival of Thomas Sparrow, whose wife was Mrs. Lincoln's sister. Dennis Hanks, a nephew, came with them. Without doubt it was a glad day when they arrived, but the joy was quickly changed to mourning. A few weeks later Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow were borne to their graves. Sickness, which became epidemic, appeared throughout southern Indiana, attacking cattle and human beings alike, caused, as is supposed, by herbs which poisoned the milk of the cows. The physician had no counteracting medicine. The illness was brief; the result, in most cases, fatal.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln was thirty-three years old. Life as found by

her had presented few attractions. It seems probable that not much sunshine fell across her path, even during her girlhood, in Virginia. She had been dependent upon friends for a home. By circumstances beyond her control she had been compelled to accept uncongenial life on the frontier. Her aspirations were far different from those of her kind-hearted husband. She heard voices which he could not hear. Her discerning eyes beheld what he never would be able to see. Shall we wonder that the sadness deepened upon her countenance? Seemingly it was not much she could do to lift her offspring to a better life than her own had been; but human vision does not reach down to the springs which underlie character. The world never will know the greatness of its debt to her for doing what she could in stamping her own lofty conception of duty and obligation upon the hearts and consciences of her children.

October had come. The forest was arrayed in glory. The harvest was at hand. There had ever been loving intimacy and sympathy be

CAPSIZED.

[From a photograph taken by the author, 1890.]

tween Mrs. Lincoln and her children. She had discerned what the father had not seen in their boy

-a nature rich and rare: kindness of heart, sympathy with suffering, regard for what was right, impatience with wrong. She had watched the unfolding of his intellect. He had asked questions which others of his age did not ask. She knows that her work for this life is ended. Her boy stands by her bedside.

"I am going away from you, Abraham, and shall not return. I know

that you will be a good boy; that you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. I want you

to live as I have taught you, and to love your Heavenly Father." Through life he will hear her last words. In the full vigor of manhood he will not think it unmanly to say, with tearful eyes, "All that I am, all that I hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." () Death came. The husband made the coffin. No preacher was near, but sympathizing neighbors bore all that was mortal of her to the summit of a hill that overlooked the unfinished home-the site selected for her resting-place.

That his mother had been buried without a religious service cut Abraham Lincoln to the heart. In the lonesomeness and desolation of the winter's camp she had trained his hand in holding the pen. Is it probable that there was any other boy only ten years old in the State of Indiana-or in the country-who would have set himself to write a letter inviting a minister 100 miles distant to come and preach a funeral sermon? But Rev. David Elkin, at Little Mound, received such a letter. (') Abraham Lincoln! That must be Nancy Hanks Lincoln's boy. Yes, he would go, although it was so many miles to

Pigeon Creek. The appointment was made.

From far and near the settlers gathered round the newly-made grave. The hymn was sung, the sermon preached, the prayer offered. So the departed mother was committed to God's keeping.

NOTES TO CHAPTER II.

(1) In several of the biographies of Abraham Lincoln it is stated that the land selected on Nolin's Creek by Thomas Lincoln was worthless.

"The ground had nothing attractive about it but its cheapness. It was hardly more grateful than the rocky hill-sides of New England. It required full as earnest and intelligent industry to persuade a living out of those barren hillocks and weedy hollows, covered with stunted and scrubby underbrush, as it would amid the sands on the Northern coast."-Nicolay and Hay, vol. i.

"The land he occupied was sterile and broken-a mere barren glade, and destitute of timber. It required a persistent effort to coax a living out of it, and to one of his easygoing disposition life was a never-ending struggle.”—Herudon, vol. i., p. 18.

Having visited the spot where Abraham Lincoln was born, the farm on Nolin's Creek, and also the farm on Knob Creek, I do not coincide with these estimates of the quality of the land. That on Nolin's Creek is a fair representative section of the land in the immediate region. It was under cultivation (1890), yielding an average crop. The farm on Knob Creek, while embracing a rocky hill, has many acres which are very fertile. It would seem that his selections of land cannot with justice be cited as evidence of inefficiency or want of judgment.-Author.

(2) Austin Gollaher, schoolmate of Abraham Lincoln, to Author.

(3) William H. Herndon, "Lincoln," p. 19 (edition 1889).

(*) Nicolay and Hay, "Century Magazine," November, 1886.

(5) Joshua F. Speed, Lecture on Abraham Lincoln.

(*) J. G. Holland, "Life of Abraham Lincoln,” p. 29.

THE

1819.

CHAPTER III.

LIFE IN INDIANA.

HE unfinished cabin of Thomas Lincoln was a cheerless home. He had not found time to hew "puncheons" for a floor, saw boards for a door, make a sash for the window, or plaster the crevices between the timbers to exclude the driving rain or drifting snow. (') Sarah Lincoln, twelve years old, baked the corn-bread, fried the bacon, and did what she could to make the cabin cheerful; but no fire, be it ever so bright, during the winter days and nights could dissipate the cheerlessness of such a home. In the evening the shadows of the father, Sarah, Abraham, and that of Dennis Hanks danced on the walls in the flickering light, but the mother's was not there. The nearest neighbors were so far away that voices other than their own seldom broke the silence.

It is not strange that Abraham Lincoln became grave and thoughtful, or that a sadness like that seen in the countenance of his mother appeared on his face at times. Dennis Hanks found pleasure in treeing raccoons, but Abraham did not care much for 'coon hunting. Most of the boys in Pigeon Creek delighted to trap wild turkeys or bring down a deer with the rifle. Abraham once shot a turkey with his father's gun by firing through the crevice between the timbers, for he did not. like to see any animal put to death. He was growing rapidly, and was so strong that he could throw an iron bar farther than any other boy in Pigeon Creek.

It was a delightful book that came to his hands-"Esop's Fables;" also an arithmetic. Where he obtained them we do not know. For want of a slate and pencil he used a wooden shovel and a charred stick. When the shovel was covered with figures he wiped them off and began again. (*)

Sarah and Abraham were outgrowing their clothing. They needed some one to care for them. A year had gone since the death of their mother. Their father was silent and thoughtful. Suddenly he left