distance is perhaps hardly one hundred miles, yet the journey had occupied them a whole week.

The place where Mr. Lincoln settled at the end of his journey, was near the present town of Gentryville, some distance back from the Ohio river, and was, under the earliest organization, in Perry county. Two years later, however, Spencer county was formed, embracing all that part of Perry west of Anderson's creek, and including the place of Mr. Lincoln's location.

Here, then, his emigrant wagon paused; and soon, with the help of his youthful son, a log cabin was built, which was to be their rough but comfortable home for many coming years.

This done, and a shelter provided for their cattle, the next work was to clear an opening in the forest, upon which to raise a crop of grain for their sustenance during the next season. Hard work had now begun in good earnest for the young Kentuckian, and the realities of genuine pioneer life were to be brought home to his comprehension in a very practical manner.

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 Northwest," in 1802. A separate territorial organization was made for each in 1809. 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, and under this Constitution, a month or two after Thomas Lincoln's arrival, in December, 1816, Indiana became, by act of Congress, a sovereign State. Its population, at this time, was about sixty-five thousand, distributed

chiefly south of a straight line drawn from Vincennes, on the Wabash, to Lawrenceburg, on the Ohio.

"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 plow. 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; very probably at times, in the language of the Hoosier bard, descriptive of such pioneer workers in general:

"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. The dignity of labor,' which is with demagogues such hollow cant, became to him a true and appreciable reality." Thus, by hardy out-door labor and exercise he laid the foundation of that iron constitution which proved such a blessing throughout his whole life, enabling him to endure fatigue and care to which an ordinary frame would have succumbed.

About this time, also, he took a start as a hunter, which was never much improved afterward. One day, toward the close of his eighth year, while his father happened to be absent, a flock of wild turkeys approached the cabin, and Abraham, standing inside, took aim with a rifle through a crevice of the log-house, and succeeded in killing one of the fowls. This was his first shot at living game, and, according to his own account, he has never since pulled a trigger on larger; but we can imagine, and participate in, the pride with which he exhibited his trophy to his delighted parents.

In the autumn of 1818, Abraham had the misfortune to lose his excellent mother. She was a truly noble woman, as her son's life attested. From her came that deep and abiding reverence for holy things-that profound trust in Providence and faith in the triumph of truth-and that gentleness and amiability of temper which, in the lofty station of Chief Magistrate, he displayed so strikingly during years of most appalling responsibility. From her he derived the spirit of humor and the desire to see others happy, which afterward formed so prominent a trait in his character. Though uneducated in books, she was wise in the wisdom of experience and truth, and was to her son a faithful mentor as well as a good mother. He never ceased to mourn her loss, and ever cherished her memory with the tenderest affection and respect. A year after her death, his father married Mrs. Sally Johnson, at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, a widow, with three children by her first marriage. She proved a good and kind mother to Abraham, and has lived to see him occupying the chief position in the land, and in the hearts of his

countrymen. There were no children by this second marriage.

Here, during his residence in Evansville, Mr. Lincoln's education may properly be said to have commenced. It is true that the schools of his neighborhood were of the same class, and little better than those in Kentucky, yet, aided by what he had already acquired, he managed to increase his slender stock of learning. His teachers, while here, were Andrew Crawford, Azel W. Dorsey, the latter of whom has lived to see his whilom pupil a giant leader among the people.

Sweeney, and

Abraham had achieved the art of reading before his own mother's death; and, subsequently, by the assistance of a young man of the neighborhood, had learned to write, an accomplishment which some of the friendly neighbors thought unnecessary, but his father quietly persisted, and the boy was set down as a prodigy when he wrote to an old friend of his mother's, a travelling preacher, and begged him to come and preach a sermon over his mother's grave. Three months after, Parson Elkins came, and friends assembled, a year after her death, to pay a last tribute of respect to one universally beloved and respected. Her son's share in securing the presence of the clergyman was not unmentioned, and Abraham soon found himself called upon to write letters for his neighbors.

So, when Mr. Crawford came into the vicinity, and at the solicitation of the people of the settlement, opened a school in his own cabin, Abraham's father embraced the opportunity to send him, in order that he might add some knowledge of arithmetic to his reading and writing. With buckskin clothes, a raccoon skin cap, and an old