proposed to tell them to her daughter, who would tell them to her husband, who would write them down and send them to Mr. Herndon. They are probably much curtailed by Mrs. Crawford's modesty, but still it is impossible to transcribe them. We give what we can to show how the first steps of Abe's fame as a great writer were won. It must be admitted that the literary taste of the community in which these rhymes were popular could not have been very high.

"I will tell you about Joel and Mary: it is neither joke or a story, for Reuben and Charles has married two girls, but Billy has married a boy."

"The girls he had tried on every side,

But none could he get to agree :
All was in vain; he went home again,
And, since that, he is married to Natty.

"So Billy and Natty agreed very well,
And mamma's well pleased at the match:
The
egg it is laid, but Natty's afraid

The shell is so soft it never will hatch;

But Betsey she said, 'You cursed bald head,
My suitor you never can be;

Besides'

Abe dropped "The Chronicles" at a point on the road where he was sure one of the Grigsbys would find them. The stratagem succeeded, and that delicate "satire " produced the desired effect. The Grigsbys were infuriated, — wild with a rage which would be satisfied only when Abe's face should be pounded into a jelly, and a couple of his ribs cracked by some member of the injured family. Honor, according to the Pigeon Creek code, demanded that somebody should be "licked" in expiation of an outrage so grievous, if not Abe, then some friend of Abe's, whom he would depute to stand the brunt in his stead. 66 'Billy," the eldest of the brothers, was selected to challenge him. Abe accepted generally; that is, agreed that there should be a fight about the matter in question. It was accordingly so ordered: the ground was selected a mile and a half from Gentryville, a ring was

marked out, and the bullies for twenty miles around attended. The friends of both parties were present in force, and excitement ran high. When the time arrived for the champions to step into the ring, Abe displayed his chivalry in a manner that must have struck the bystanders with admiration. He announced, that whereas Billy was confessedly his inferior in size, shape, and talents, unable to hit with pen or fist with any thing like his power, therefore he would forego the advantage which the challenge gave him, and "turn over" his stepbrother, John Johnston, to do battle in his behalf. If this near relative should be sacrificed, he would abide the issue : he was merely anxious to see a fair and honorable fight. This proposition was considered highly meritorious, and the battle commenced on those general terms. John started out with fine pluck and spirit; but in a little while Billy got in some clever hits, and Abe began to exhibit symptoms of great uneasiness. Another pass or two, and John flagged quite decidedly, and it became evident that Abe was anxiously casting about for some pretext to break the ring. At length, when John was fairly down, and Billy on top, and all the spectators cheering, swearing, and pressing up to the very edge of the ring, Abe cried out that " Bill Boland showed foul play," and, bursting out of the crowd, seized Grigsby by the heels, and flung him off. Having righted John, and cleared the battle-ground of all opponents, "he swung a whiskeybottle over his head, and swore that he was the big buck of the lick." It seems that nobody of the Grigsby faction, not one in that large assembly of bullies, cared to encounter the sweep of Abe's tremendously long and muscular arms; and so he remained master of the "lick." He was not content, however, with a naked triumph, but vaunted himself in the most offensive manner. He singled out the victorious but cheated Billy, and, making sundry hostile demonstrations, declared that he could whip him then and there. Billy meekly said "he did not doubt that," but that, if Abe would make things even between them by fighting with pistols, he would not be slow to grant him a meeting. But Abe replied that he was

not going "to fool away his life on a single shot;" and so Billy was fain to put up with the poor satisfaction he had already received.

At Gentryville "they had exhibitions or speaking meetings." "Some of the questions they spoke on were, The Bee and the Ant, Water and Fire: another was, Which had the most right to complain, the Negro or the Indian? Another, "Which was the strongest, Wind or Water?"1 (The views which Abe then entertained on the Indian and the negro question would be intensely interesting now. But just fancy him discoursing on wind and water! What treasures of natural science, what sallies of humor, he must have wasted upon that audience of bumpkins! A little farther on, we shall see that Abe made pretensions to an acquaintance with the laws of nature which was considered marvellous in that day and generation.

Dennis Hanks insists that Abe and he became learned men and expert disputants, not by a course of judicious reading, but by attending "speech-makings, gatherings," &c.

"How did Lincoln and yourself learn so much in Indiana under such disadvantages?" said Mr. Herndon to Dennis, on one of his two oral examinations. The question was artfully put; for it touched the jaunty Dennis on the side of his vanity, and elicited a characteristic reply. "We learned," said he, "by sight, scent, and hearing. We heard all that was said, and talked over and over the questions heard; wore them slick, greasy, and threadbare. Went to political and other speeches and gatherings, as you do now: we would hear all sides and opinions, talk them over, discuss them, agreeing or disagreeing. Abe, as I said before, was originally a Democrat after the order of Jackson, so was his father, so we all were.. He preached, made speeches, read for us, ex

1 "Lincoln did write what is called 'The Book of Chronicles,'-a satire on the Grigsbys and Josiah Crawford, not the schoolmaster, but the man who loaned Lincoln The Life of Washington.' The satire was good, sharp, cutting: it hurt us then, but it is all over now. There is no family in the land who, after this, loved Lincoln so well, and who now look upon him as so great a man. We all voted for him, all that could, — children and grandchildren, first, last, and always."-NAT GRIGSBY.

plained to us, &c. . . . Abe was a cheerful boy, a witty boy, was humorous always; sometimes would get sad, not very often. . . . Lincoln would frequently make political and other speeches to the boys: he was calm, logical, and clear always. He attended trials, went to court always, read the Revised Statute of Indiana, dated 1824, heard law speeches, and listened to law trials, &c. Lincoln was lazy, a very lazy man. He was always reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing poetry, and the like. . . . In Gentryville, about one mile west of Thomas Lincoln's farm, Lincoln would go and tell his jokes and stories, &c., and was so odd, original, and humorous and witty, that all the people in town would gather around him. He would keep them there till midnight. I would get tired, want to go home, cuss Abe most heartily. Abe was a good talker, a good reader, and was a kind of newsboy."

Boonville was the court-house town of Warrick County, and was situated about fifteen miles from Gentryville. Thither Abe walked whenever he had time to be present at the sittings of the court, where he could learn something of public business, amuse himself profitably, and withal pick up items of news and gossip, which made him an interesting personage when he returned home. During one of these visits he watched, with profound attention, the progress of a murder trial, in which a Mr. John Breckenridge was counsel for the defence. At the conclusion of the latter's speech, Abe, who had listened, literally entranced, accosted the man of eloquence, and ventured to compliment him on the success of his effort. "Breckenridge looked at the shabby boy" in amazement, and passed on his way. But many years afterwards, in 1862, when Abe was President, and Breckenridge a resident of Texas, probably needing executive clemency, they met a second time; when Abe said, "It was the best speech that I up to that time had ever heard. If I could, as I then thought, make as good a speech as that, my soul would be satisfied."

It is a curious fact, that through all Abe's childhood and boyhood, when he seemed to have as little prospect of the Presidency as any boy that ever was born, he was in the habit of saying, and perhaps sincerely believing, that that great prize would one day be his. When Mrs. Crawford reproved him for "fooling," and bedevilling the girls in her kitchen, and asked him "what he supposed would ever become of him," he answered that "he was going to be President of the United States."

Abe usually did the milling for the family, and had the neighbor boy, Dave Turnham, for his companion. At first they had to go a long distance, at least twelve or thirteen miles, to Hoffman's, on Anderson's Creek; but after a while a Mr. Gordon (the husband of Sister Gordon, about whom the "witty piece" was written) built a horse-mill within a few miles of the Lincolns. Here Abe had come one day with a grist, and Dave probably with him. He had duly hitched his "old mare," and started her with great impatience; when, just as he was sounding another "cluck," to stir up her imperturbable and lazy spirit, she let out with her heels, and laid Abe sprawling and insensible on the ground. He was taken up in that condition, and did not recover for many minutes; but the first use made of returning sense was to finish the interrupted" cluck." He and Mr. Herndon had many learned discussions in their quiet little office, at Springfield, respecting this remarkable phenomenon, involving so nice a question in "psychology."

Mr. William Wood, already referred to as "Uncle Wood," was a genuine friend and even a patron of Abe's. He lived only about a mile and a half from the Lincolns, and frequently had both old Tom and Abe to work for him, the one as a rough carpenter, and the other as a common laborer. He says that Abe was in the habit of carrying "his pieces" to him for criticism and encouragement. Mr. Wood took at least two newspapers, one of them devoted to politics, and

1 He frequently made use of similar expressions to several others.