This Monument was erected in 1902 by Col. J. S. Culver of Springfield, Ill., from Stone taken from the Monument of Abraham Lincoln when it was undergoing repairs.

numbers. Dennis Hanks' parents both died. Dennis, thus left alone, was taken into the Lincoln home. Abraham's mother was taken sick. There was not a doctor within fifty miles. Abraham and Sarah did all they could for her. One night as the dark was beginning to creep into the cabin, she called Abraham to her, put her arm about him, and said that she was going away and would never come back. She wanted him to be good to Sarah and to his father and be a good boy always. Then she closed her eyes and went to sleep never again to awaken in this world.

Now Abraham's heart was sad, indeed. The mother who understood him was gone. He knew that his father did not understand him and often was very unkind, thought he was lazy because he liked to sit and hear people talk. What would they do?

The next morning the father and Abraham and Dennis went into the forest and cut down a tree and, by hand, sawed out boards. These Thomas Lincoln made into a coffin. Into this the sorrowing children and father put the body of Nancy Hanks Lincoln and laid it away in a little cleared spot in the forest. No one was there to say a prayer or speak a kind word to the sorrowing children. They went back to the cabin in the solitary woods. Though the sun shone in the daytime and the birds sang in the bushes, darkness came and the owls hooted and cried at night. Sarah was eleven, and Abraham was nine. It was said of Jesus "he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Abraham Lincoln was surely a child of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Though he always loved fun and could be as happy as anybody, the time never came when the cloud of sadness was lifted from his life. When he was a man many people said that his was the saddest face which they had ever seen.

The mother gone, they took up life as best they could. Sarah tried to take the mother's place. Abe and his father and Dennis helped her all they could. Winter came on, but the cabin was made no more comfortable. What a lonely and bitter life it must have been. All the suffering and work could not make Abraham forget his mother. He grieved most because she was laid away without a hymn being sung or a prayer offered up. He managed some way to send word to a traveling minister, whom he had known in Kentucky. Some say he wrote a letter. It is more likely that he sent word by some one who went back to their former home. He asked the minister if he would come to Indiana and preach a funeral sermon over the grave of his mother. The good man came as soon as he could. The neighbors came from a great distance. The preacher spoke of the good character of the mother, who had gone, and said the kind words which Abraham wished so much to hear. He now felt that proper respect had been shown to his mother and he was more content.

THE NEW MOTHER AND BETTER TIMES.

In the late fall of 1819 one year after the death of Abe's mother the father said he was going to Kentucky. The crop of corn, wheat, and potatoes had been raised, meat was provided from the pigs that ran

THE LINCOLN CABIN NEAR GENTRYVILLE, INDIANA.

From an old engraving. The home of Lincoln for thirteen years and where his mother died. This is as it appeared when it was improved. Reproduced by permission from 'How Abraham Lincoln Became President," by J. McCan Davis.