letter, not thinking how highly we would have prized it years afterward.”

After two weeks of this kind of travel through the prairies and scattered villages, the thirteen relatives landed at a point about ten miles west of Decatur, Macon County, Illinois, a spot selected by John Hanks, a relative who already lived there. It was “just before the winter of the deep snow," which is accepted as a dividing line that makes the Lincolns pioneers. They speedily built a log cabin, in which they resided when that first winter in their new home brought them snow three feet deep, followed by rain which froze, after which the mercury remained at twelve below zero for two weeks. It was at Decatur that Lincoln made the first oratorical test of which anything is known. A man came to town and made a speech. John Hanks thereupon remarked that "Abe could beat it." John turned down a box, Lincoln mounted it, and did what John promised. The subject was the navigation of the Sangamon River.

That river saw the beginning of the first eventful trip of Abraham Lincoln's life. After spending the Illinois winter in odd jobs, largely railsplitting, for his father's benefit, the legal period for his emancipation arrived. After the separation Tom moved at least three times, and although he hereafter counts for little, he will

appear later briefly in Abraham's life. The young man's first chance grew out of the fact that Denton Offut, a business man, asked John Hanks to take a boat-load of provisions and stock to New Orleans. John engaged Lincoln and his stepbrother, John Johnson, and Offut was to pay fifty cents a day besides a sum of $60. Lincoln and Hanks started in a canoe down the Sangamon River in March, 1831, and landed at what is now Jamestown, five miles east of Springfield, where they were joined by Johnson, and all three went to Springfield to see Offut. That enterprising person had not prepared a boat, so the three young men constructed it themselves, taking "Congress land" timber and using the machinery of a neighboring mill. In four weeks it was ready, and the venturesome journey was begun. It was full of novelty, full of instruction, fun, and variety. A passing magician offered to cook eggs in Lincoln's hat. The owner hesitated, but finally lent it, and explained that his delay "was out of respect for the eggs, not for my hat." When they reached New Salem, April 19, the boat stranded on Rutledge's mill-dam, and hung helplessly over it for a day and a night. It was the ingenious Lincoln who finally solved the difficulty. He had the goods removed to another boat, and after their craft was empty he bored a hole in the end which projected over the

dam, thus allowing the water which had leaked in to run out, and the boat slid over. The company proceeded. At Blue Banks it was neces

sary to take on board a number of hogs, but these animals proved refractory, turning and rushing past the men who were endeavoring to drive them into the boat. Lincoln therefore suggested that their eyes be sewed shut, and he held the head and Hanks the tail while Offut accomplished the operation. The hogs, not so easily discouraged, stood still, until the navigators carried them one by one to their appointed place.

The many-colored trip down the Mississippi ended early in May in the arrival of the party in New Orleans. As it was Lincoln's first experience in a real city, and as he stayed until June, his mind must have received an avalanche of impressions, but nothing of interest has come down to us except a story, hopelessly exaggerated in the telling, of Lincoln's indignation at seeing a slave auction at which a vigorous and comely mulatto girl who was being sold had her flesh pinched and was made to trot up and down to show her soundness, like a horse. In June the four travellers took a steamboat up the river, disembarking at St. Louis, where Offut remained; Lincoln and his other two companions starting across Illinois on foot. At Edwardsville Hanks branched off toward Springfield, while Lincoln

and Johnson followed the road to Coles County, to which the father Thomas had meantime moved. Lincoln stopped there a short time, not doing anything more important than winning a victory from a well-known wrestler. In August he returned to New Salem, as he was under engagement to help dispose of a stock of goods which had been purchased by Offut. Awaiting their

arrival he spent the life of an active but social village man of comparative leisure, interrupted by a few stray bits of work. Shortly after his return he was hanging about the polls on election day when Schoolmaster Graham, the clerk, wishing a substitute for his sick assistant, asked Lincoln if he could write. Yes," was the reply, “I can make a few rabbit tracks." He also piloted a family on a flatboat down the rivers to Beardstown.

During his leisure he accomplished at least an increase of reputation for personal prowess by a wrestling match with one Jack Armstrong, leader of a gang of ordinary western toughs, known as the Clary Grove boys. On an attempt at foul play Lincoln, waxing indignant, seized Jack in his long arms and shook him readily. He also showed his good humor and tact by making him a friend, and later in life he saved one of the Armstrong family from the gallows. He also successfully taught Jack the golden rule in practice. Armstrong applied bad names to a stranger,

who thereupon backed to a woodpile, seized a weapon, and knocked his insulter down. When Jack was preparing for vengeance Lincoln asked him what he would do himself if some one called him unpleasant names.

'Whip him, by ," said Armstrong.

Well," said Lincoln, in substance, stranger was right on your own principles."

this

Even after Offut's return and Lincoln's instalment behind the counter of the store, he did not lack leisure. On the advice of Mentor Graham he procured Kirkham's grammar from a man in the neighborhood, and he also studied mathematics. He used to walk miles for a chance to argue at debating clubs. His intelligence, humor, and honesty had already made him popular. The grocery was full alike of his jokes and of his principles. He disliked waiting on women, but he took a man who swore in the store, when women were present, and rubbed smartweed in his eyes until his will was broken. He was also extremely punctilious in weights and change. Political discussion was his delight. In the uncertainty of parties his position cannot be precisely fixed at any one time. He was probably in succession "a whole-hog man," a " nominal Jackson man," and a Whig. The nominal Jackson men often voted with the Whigs, and, as Lincoln said later, he naturally "drifted" into