Abraham Lincoln

A man of little over the middle height, broad-shouldered, powerfully built, and somewhat rough-looking, leaned upon a long rifle and gazed at a forlorn log-house, not far from the roadside, in a wretched, ill-tended corn-field. At his side was a slim, overgrown boy of seven years, who might easily have passed for three years older. The growth which had come to him so fast was indicated not only by his size, but by the queer, thoughtful expression of his strongly marked, sunburned face. It was full of boyish fun, to recklessness; and yet it wore an unchildlike sadness also, as if the kind of human life into which he had been born were already teaching him its lessons and leaving upon him its forever indelible marks.

"They call it Rock Spring Farm," remarked his father. "Do they? Wall, I remember the spring well enough, and the rocks too; but, pop, whar's the farm?"

"All around, hereaway. It was the first piece of land I ever owned, sech as it was. I didn't own it very much, nuther."

He did not look like a man who had ever owned much of land or of anything else. He was barefooted, and his patched homespun trowsers barely reached his ankles: but that was

more than could be said of Abe's. On his head, too, was a coonskin cap, while his odd-looking son wore nothing above his uncombed shock of dark hair. A greasy buckskin shirt completed the outer garments of Tom Lincoln, with a powderhorn and bullet-pouch slung over his shoulders in lieu of all ornament. His leathern waist-belt marked yet one more difference in the apparel of the two, as Abe's left shoulder was crossed by the one suspender with which his trowsers were tied up, and it met no buttons at its lower ends.

"Pop, do you reckon you'll find anything meaner'n that over in Injianny?"

"I'll tell ye when I git back. We'd best be movin' now. I want to git out of Kaintucky; I jest do."

"Wall, pop, I don't know as I keer much whar we go to." Tom strode away down the road, but it was marvelous how easily the light-footed youngster kept up with him. Mile after mile they went on together, along roads which were only here and there bordered by anything which would nowadays be considered cultivation. The State of Kentucky was a very young one in the fall of the year 1816, and was barely beginning to work its way out of the backwoods into the long, toilsome path towards civilization. Still, if Abe Lincoln and his father had been on the lookout for a poorer piece of "improvement” than "Rock Spring Farm," they would probably have failed to find it during that day's walking.

A poor place indeed, both land and dwelling. There Abraham Lincoln was born, on the 12th day of February, 1809. He spent there the first four years of his life, and it was such life as was possible in such a hut as he had now been taken back to look at. Its hardening, narrowing, stunting conditions, creating barriers and fetters to be afterwards burst or broken, are worth a careful recognition and study.

The end of Abe's tramp gave him a chance to compare with the place of his birth the cabin he was now at home in. It was just a trifle better, and the land around presented less of an ap

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Abraham Lincoln: The True Story of a Great Life. Showing the Inner Growth ...