And wheresoever the story of Abraham Lincoln's life shall be told, this account of his first precious possession shall be also narrated for a memorial of him.

It is an odd fact, that may as well be recorded here, that Lincoln, as boy and man, almost invariably read aloud. When he studied it helped him, he said, to fix in his mind the matter in hand, if, while it passed before his eyes, he heard his own voice repeating what it so much desired to learn.

Thomas Lincoln's Second Marriage-Improvements in the Backwoods Home-More Books for the Boy-His Horizon Enlarges-He Learns to be Thorough-Down the Mississippi-A Glimpse of SlaveryComing out of the Wilderness.

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where into Kentucky, leaving the children to take care of themselves. What he went for, and where he went, the youngsters never thought of asking. But in December, early one morning, they heard a loud halloo from the edge of the forest; and, dashing to the door, they beheld the amazing sight of the returning traveller perched in a four-horse wagon, a pretty-looking woman by his side, and a stranger driving the spanking team. Was it a miracle? We might think so if we knew Thomas Lincoln as well as his son did afterwards; for Thomas had returned with a step-mother for his little ones. He had married, in Eliza. bethtown, Kentucky, Mrs. Sally Johnston, formerly Miss Sally Bush. It is believed that to Miss Sally, Thomas Lincoln had paid court before he married her who was the mother of Abraham Lincoln. She had been known to the lad, years ago, in Kentucky; and now that she had

come to be the new mother to Abe and his sister, they were glad to see her.

The gallant four-horse team was the property of Ralph Krume, who had married Sally Johnston's sister; and in the wagon was stored what seemed to these children of the wilderness a gorgeous array of housekeeping things. There were tables and chairs, a bureau with real drawers that pulled out and disclosed a stock of clothing, crockery to replace the rude tins that were used in the Lincoln homestead; bedding, knives and forks, and numerous things that to people nowadays are thought to be among the necessaries of life, but which Nancy Lincoln had been compelled to do without. By what magic Thomas Lincoln had persuaded this thrifty and "forehanded" widow to leave her home in Kentucky and migrate to the comfort less wilderness of Indiana, we can only guess. But Thomas was of a genial and even jovial disposition, and he had allured the good woman to come and save his motherless bairns from utter destitution and neglect.

The new Mrs. Lincoln, if she was disappointed in the home she found in Indiana, never showed her disappointment to her step-children. She took hold of the duties and labors of the day with a cheerful readiness that was long and gratefully remembered by her step-son, at least. They were good friends at once. Of him she said, years after: "He never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do any thing I requested of him." Of her he said: "She was a noble woman, affectionate, good, and kind, rather above the average

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