Another teacher, on whose instructions the boy afterwards attended, while living in Kentucky, was named Caleb Hazel. His was also a neighborhood school, sustained by private patronage.

With the aid of these two schools, and with such further assistance as he received at home, there is no doubt that he had become able to read well, though without having made any great literary progress, at the age of seven. That he was not a dull or inapt scholar, is manifest from his subsequent attainments. With the alluremenes of the rifle and the wild game which then abounded in the country, however, and with the meagre advantages he had, in regard to books, it is certain that his perceptive faculties and his muscular powers, were much more fully developed by exercise than his scholastic talents.

While he lived in Kentucky, he never saw even the exterior of what was properly a church edifice. The religious services he attended were held either at a private dwelling, or in some log school-house.

Unsatisfactory results of these many years' toil on the lands of Nolin Creek, or a restless spirit of adventure and fondness for more genuine pioneer excitements than this region continued to afford, led Thomas Lincoln, now verging on the age of forty, and his son beginning to be of essential service in manual labor, to seek a new place of abode, far to the west, beyond the Ohio river.

Early in the autumn of 1816, Thomas Lincoln determined to pull up stakes as his fathers had done, and emigrate to some new wild. The game was getting scarce, and people began to live uncomfortably near to each

other. A backwoodsman can endure a neighbor within twenty miles or so of him, but when they begin to settle any closer, he feels too much crowded, and moves away to lonelier wilds.

Crossing the Ohio, then called the Beautiful River by the Indians, in an emigrant's wagon, the mother and daughter huddled with their beds and household utensils in the body of the vehicle, the father driving the jaded team, and the stripling keeping the indispensable cow up to her proper pace, his adventurous family safely reached the Indiana shore by means of a raft. They landed at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, about 140 miles below Louis ville, by the river, but hardly 100 miles from their formerclearing."

Here their difficulties began. They were destined to a point near the present town of Ventryville, some twenty miles back from the river. The whole intermediate distance was a dense forest. There was no help for it; the road had to be cut through with the axe.

The story goes that Thomas sold his farm in Kentucky for a lot of whiskey, but we can find no substantial evidence for this version. His whiskey is said to have been lost while crossing the Ohio. But we discredit the entire tale.

In a week's time the arduous journey was performed, and the big-fisted Kentuckian had the satisfaction of reaching the scene of his future hopes without any further accident. During this period the lanky young Abraham, shoeless and hatless, made himself generally useful in A pair of breeches a world too wide for his shrunken shanks.

These breeches, reaching nearly to his neck, were supported by a single short strap over his shoulder, and with a checked shirt which the owner had neglected to send to the laundry for a long time, made up the entire costume of the future president of the United States.

Fortune plays queer tricks with us all, but she never committed a more extraordinary freak than when she made this little ragged urchin the chief magistrate of a great nation.

Indiana, at this date, was still a Territory, having been originally united under the same government with Illinois, after the admission of Ohio as a State, "the first-born of the great North-west," 1802. A separate territorial organization was made for each in 1809. A few months before the arrival of Thomas Lincoln, namely, in June, 1816, pursuant to a Congressional "enabling act," a Convention had been held which adopted a State Constitution, preparatory to admission into the Union. Under this Constitution, a month or two later, in December, 1816, Indiana became, by act of Congress, a sovereign State.

The next thirteen years Abraham Lincoln spent here, in Southern Indiana, near the Ohio, nearly midway between Louisville and Evansville. He was now old enough to begin to take an active part in the farm labors of his father, and he manfully performed his share of hard work. He learned to use the axe and to hold the plough. He became inured to all the duties of seed-time and harvest. On many a day, during every one of those thirteen years, this Kentucky boy might have been seen with a long "gad” in his hand, driving his father's team in the field,

or from the woods with a heavy draught, or on the rough path to the mill, the store, or the river-landing.

A vigorous constitution, and a cheerful, unrepining disposition, made all his labors comparatively light. To such a one, this sort of life has in it much of pleasant excitement to compensate for its hardships. He learned to derive enjoyment from the severest lot.

At occasional intervals Abraham derived instruction in the rudiments from the school teachers of the neighborhood. A Mr. Crawford had one, and a Mr. Dorsey another.

That we may estimate Mr. Lincoln in his true character, as chiefly a self-educated man, it should be stated that, summing up all the days of his actual attendance upon school instruction, the amount would hardly exceed one year. The rest he had accomplished for himself in his own way. As a youth he read with avidity such instructive works as he could obtain, and in winter evenings read them by the mere light of the blazing fire-place, when no better resource was at hand.

An incident having its appropriate connection here, and illustrating several traits of the man, as already developed in early boyhood, is vouched for by a citizen of Evansville, who knew him in the days referred to. In his eagerness to acquire knowldege, young Lincoln had borrowed of Mr. Crawford a copy of Weems' Life of Washington-the only one known to be in existence in the neighborhood. Before he had finished reading the book, it had been left, by a not unnatural oversight, in a window. Meantime, a rain storm came on, and the book was

so thoroughly wet as to make it nearly worthless. This mishap caused him much pain; but he went, in all honesty, to Crawford, with the rained book, explained the calamity that had happened through his neglect, and offered, not having sufficient money, to "work out" the value of the book.

"Well, Abe," said Crawford, "as it's you I won't be hard on you. Come over and pull fodder for me for two days, and we will call our accounts even."

The offer was accepted and the engagement literally fulfilled.

The book was of course worth the labor. There is therefore nothing to be admired in the way of generosity. But the honorable part of the incident lies in the quick acknowledgment of the injury Abraham had caused to the book, and the eagerness he displayed to furnish an equivalent for it to its owner.

At the age of nineteen, Abraham, tired of the farm and longing for adventure, with an eye, too, to profit, tried his hand at flat-boating. He sailed down the Ohio and the Mississippi on a raft, doing service as one of the laborers. Naturally lively and fond of a joke, the vocation rather improved his faculties of humor. He worked, sang, danced, cracked jokes, wrestled, fished, cooked his own meals, and made himself agreeable and loveable with all. The incidents of this voyage to New Orleans and back have since formed the groundwork for many of the statesman's sallies of wit.

If there had been any forebodings at the time of departure from their first home on Nolin Creek, these were to