Story of Abraham Lincoln

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COPYRIGHT 189U

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THE WYATT COMPANY.

"3C0HB MC

No. 2.

I

BIOGRAPHICAL

SERIES

\

STORY OF j

ABRAHAM 1

. LINCOLN \

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STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The Lincolns came from England. Samuel was
the first one who lived in America. He came to
Massachusetts in 1637.

From Massachusetts his sons and grandsons
moved to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The)- were strong, hardy men, who loved liberty and
did not fear work or hardships.

One of them was called Abraham Lincoln, and he
was the grandfather of our Abraham Lincoln. He
moved to Kentucky from Virginia in [780. That
was a long time ago !

A great many people moved to Kentucky at that
time. Daniel Boone urged his Virginia friends to
go there. He told them thrilling stories of the rich
and beautiful lands west of the Blue Mountains.
Kentucky was then a part of Virginia.

Abraham Lincoln was a rich man ; he owned much
laud in Virginia, but he sold his farm there and
bought three farms in Kentucky. He then took his
wife and five children, three boys and two girls, on
the long journey over the mountains to their new

2 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

home. Most of them rode on horseback ; the girls
too, for in those days girls lived out of doors a great
deal and were as hardy as their brothers.

All were brave and bold and were eager to go to
the wonderful land over the mountains. It was a fine
time for the boys ! There were great woods, wide
rivers, and high hills on the way. Thomas, the
youngest boy, six years old, had a grand time all
the way.

The whole of Kentucky was than a vast forest.
Indians lived there, who roamed through the forest
hunting. They killed bears, wolves, deer, raccoons
and squirrels for a living.

The woods were alive with birds, the streams
with fish and the ponds alive with ducks. The In-
dians had fine times hunting and fishing. They led
an easy and lazy life, and were very angry because
the white men cut down the trees, cleared the fields,
and drove away the game. So they killed a great
many of the white people.

It was into this forest that Abraham Lincoln
brought his family. The}- settled at Hughes Stat-
ion, on Floydes Creek.

The Indians were lurking about, so the white
people built their houses close together. They built
them on the four sides of an open field, called a
court, and made the doors and windows on the inside
toward the court. When the gate into the court was
shut, the Indians could not get in.

STORY i)l ABRAHAM UNCol.N. 3

The house made a sort of fort which they called
a stockade. For a long time the white people lived
in stockades. The children had fine times playing
together in this big play-ground.

The cows, horses, and carts were put in it at
night. The men worked the farms by day and came
to the stockade for the night.

Abraham Lincoln and his boys, with great spirit,
worked the new farm. They cleared away the W(
and planted corn. They raised calves and colts.
Soon the new farm began to look thrifty like the old
one in Virginia.

All went well for two years. Then one day,
while they were at work on the farm, a sly Indian
shot Abraham Lincoln. The Indian, as he lay hid-
den in a clump of bushes by the side of the field, had
watched Lincoln for a long time.

Lincoln's rifle stood by a stump in the field, for
they alwa3's carried a gun with them to their work.
The oldest boy ran for the rifle, and the next boy
ran to the stockade to alarm the people. The Indian
seized little Thomas and started to carry him off.

The oldest brother could shoot as well as the In-
dian. He shot and the Indian fell. Little Thomas
ran to the stockade.

Abraham Lincoln's death was a sad blow. It
broke up the family. The hardest lot fell to little
Thomas, who was a lad of only eight years, but he
had to begin to take care of himself.

4 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

At first he did all kinds of farm work, but in a
few years he began to work at the carpenter's trade.
This was a poor trade then as most of the houses
were log cabins. The doors often only bear-skins
hung up and the windows, if there were any, were
oiled paper. In many pioneer huts the floor was the
ground.

Thomas Lincoln worked hard to get a poor liv-
ing. It is doubtful if he ever went to school a day in
his life. Many other boys did not. There were few
schools in Kentucky then and the terms were short,
the teachers poor and the school-books scarce.

Thomas Lincoln learned to write his name, but
he never could write much more. He learned to read
a little, but he never could read very well, and it is
said that he had to spell nearly every word. Many
people in that new country could read no better then
he.

When Thomas Lincoln was twenty-eight years
old, he married Nancy Hanks. She could write and
read well, and she tried to teach him to read. But it
was very hard work. He was sorry that he could
not read and write well, as it kept him back all his
life. Ignorant people never get on very well.

By and by, on February 12th, 1S09, a baby boy
was born in Thomas Lincoln's home. He was a fine
little fellow. A real sun-beam in the house ! They
named him Abraham, after his grandfather whom
the Indian had shot. They loved the name.

STORY or ABRAHAM LINCOLN S

His father meant his little Abe should learn to
read and write and be a fine scholar. But the car-
penter's business was poor and the schools few and
costly. So Abe did not go to school a whole year
before he was eight years old, and he never went
afterward.

Abe's mother was his best teacher. She had no
children's books, but she made letters and words on
pieces of paper and on shingles and taught little Abe
to read them. She also taught him from the Bible.
He learned easily and could read almost as soon as
he could walk. They were very proud of the baby's
reading.

As he grew older he was very eager to learn, and
would stick to a book when other boys were at play.
He read all the books there were in the house and
then borrowed all in the neighborhood.

He gathered dry spice-wood branches and burned
them, as candles to read by. He borrowed an old
arithmetic and copied its rules and sums on bits of
paper. That was the only arithmetic he ever owned.

Abe had a sister Sarah two years older than he.
A little brother had died.

His mother often read to Abe and his sister and
told them Bible stories. She read them the wonder-
ful story of Bunyan's Pilgrim. It was a real journey
to Abe. He thought it was like his father's journey,
when he was a boy, from Virginia oylt the Blue
Ridge into Kentucky.

6 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

When Nancy Lincoln had read all the books she
had, she told them her own stories. She was a great
story-teller. The children used to sit at her feet for
hours and listen to them. No one else could tell
such fine stories.

Frontier life was full of adventures, and Nancy
Lincoln thrilled the children's hearts with stories of
the wild scenes of those days. They sat spell-bound
while the stories lasted.

Every neighborhood had its tale of some wild ad-
venture with Indians, bears, or wolves. These were
common events. The Lincolns had a tale that never
lost its interest. " Mamma, tell how the Indian shot
Grandpa," was an oft-repeated request. That story
thrilled the heart of the boy and prolonged the story-
telling hour.

Abe learned to love stories and learned from his
father and mother the love and skill of story-telling.
They had no daily newspapers and very few books,
so telling stories took their place.

But Thomas Lincoln's business did not thrive.
He had moved once when Abe was four years old,
and he must move again. He felt the pioneer rest-
lessness. His brother had settled in Indiana on the
big, blue river. Stories of the rich lands and easy
living there came to Thomas Lincoln and he grew
more restless. Then, too, he did not like the slavery
in Kentucky, for he believed slavery to be wrong.
He thought Indiana would be a better state to live

STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 7

in; so he built a flat boat, put in sonic of his goods
aud started to see the new country. lie sailed down
the rolling fork, down the Salt River for a time, and
then down the Ohio. It was easy going down stream ;
but his boat struck a snag and upset him and his
goods into the water. He had a great time getting
out; the boat was lost with most of his goods. He
was in Indiana but easy times were not there.

He left what goods he had saved near the river,
and hunted for a good place to live.

He was gone a long time, and Nancy Lincoln and
the children were in great straits while he was away.
Often they had not enough to eat. Nancy Lincoln
knew how to handle a gun and sometimes went to
the woods and tried to shoot wild turkeys ; some-
times she looked for wild ducks around the ponds.
Abe trapped rabbits and shot squirrels and birds.
He cried the first bird he shot ; but the times were
very hard.

At length the father came back, but he brought
a sad story of shipwreck and loss. Still he thought
the}' could live better and more easily in Indiana.
He said the soil was rich, the land rolling, the trees
tall aud the country beautiful. So they were glad to
go. The}- went most of the way on horseback, for
the roads were only forest paths.

The children had a grand time ! Everything was
new. Abe was delighted with the woods, the birds,
the saucy squirrels aud the wide wonderful river.

8 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

For Nancy Lincoln, the journey was a hard and
sad one ; she had left old friends and a dear little
grave in Kentucky.

At length they reached the place where Thomas
Lincoln had left the goods. They took these and
started into the forest.

For fifteen miles they picked their way, or cut a
path through thickets. After some time they found
an opening on a hillside which they thought a good
place for a house. They believed they would have a
happy home there.

It was late in the fall and the cool winds began
to whistle and bite.

Thomas Lincoln was full of energy and his ax
rang on the trunks of the trees. Abe was eight
years old, brave and stout, and his ax rang on the
boughs of the trees and on the bushes.

By hard work they built a hut on the hillside be-
fore winter. The chimney, built of sticks and mud,
was in one corner, and a bearskin was the door.

It was a rude house, like a hunter's camp ; but
Thomas Lincoln said, " We can keep warm here, and
we will have a better house some day."

Food was scarce. They had raised no corn that
year. The neighbors were miles awaj' and as poor
as the Lincolns.

Times were hard and they were often hungry ;
sometimes they had bear's meat and sometimes deer's
meat. Sometimes they had "corn-dodgers" and

STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 9

sometimes potatoes. Sometimes a rabbit or squirrel,
and sometimes none of them.

These were pinching times ; cold pinched and
li linger pinched. And they pinched the poor hard-
working mother hardest.

The next year Thomas Lincoln built a new
house, and made it like the old one in Kentucky.
He and Abe cut logs the same length and notched
them near the ends to make them fit nicely over each
other. Then they had a " Bee " and invited all the
neighbors for miles around to help them raise the
house. They called it a " Bee '' because all the
workers were as busy as bees.

The women and children planned for it for weeks.
There were no meetings and no schools there then,
so the people rarely met together. They came from
all quarters to the " Bee.'" It was a merry time !

The men at the word " Heave-away ! " rolled up
the logs and raised the house. The}- put up long
poles for rafters and pinned them together with
wooden pins. They split and shaved oak staves for
shingles and fastened them on with pole-binders,
held down by withes. There was not a nail in the
house. They cut openings for the door and windows.
The log cabin went up in an afternoon with joy and
fun. The women had not met in months, and they
had all the news of the neighborhood to tell.

They roasted sirloins of bear and deer and baked
piles of " corn-dodgers."

IO STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The children ran and frolicked in great glee as
they watched the logs go np.

When the cabin was done, they had a wild woods
feast, with pioneer appetites. They told stories and
sang songs and went home late at night on foot, or
in ox carts, as happy as princes.

The new Liucoln house was only a log hut, but
they were glad and proud of it. There was no better
house for miles around.

Thomas Lincoln made the furniture. There was
a bedstead made of poles, driven into the logs of the
cabin ; there was a plain pine table and stools ; plates
of wood, and a few of pewter ; knives and forks ; a
bucket, a dutch oven and a " gritter." The " gritter "
was made of old tin, punched full of holes and fast-
ened on a board. With this they grated the corn.
If the corn was green, it made royal bread for a
hungry boy.

The beds were made of boughs, leaves and dry
grass. Abe climbed to his little bed in the loft on
wooden pins driven into the logs.

Abe's clothes were not like those that boys wear
now. They were pioneer in style and make. His
trousers and shoes were made of deer-skin rough ty
tanned. His shirt was a blouse of linsey-woolsey and
his cap was made of coon-skin. They were all made
by his mother, but no boy in the region was better
clothed. Abe was happy and contented. But Nancy
Lincoln was neither contented nor happy ; she felt

STORY OK ABRAHAM LINCOLN. II

the hardships and loneliness of the great forest and
became thin and weak. She was sick in mind and
body. With the warm weather of spring, fevers came;
malaria was in the swamps and sluggish streams.
She had no doctor and her only medicine was bitter
barks, which they peeled from the trees, or roots -which
they dug in the swamp.

The poor mother grew weaker and lost courage ;
she talked to little Abe in a sad tone, he was her
favorite, but in a little while she ceased to talk.
Abe's mother was dead; the light of the house had
gone out.

The little boy's home was empty; his teacher
was gone. His sister Sarah was now the only house-
keeper and the cooking was poor and the food
scanty.

Their clothes grew old and ragged and life was
sad and hard. These times lasted for more than a
year after the mother's death.

Then Thomas Lincoln went back to Kentucky
and returned with a new wife. New furniture came
with her ; but the best furnishing she brought was a
new spirit and life. A spirit of thrift and neatness
came with her into the lonely cabin. The new dishes,
chairs, bureau and beds which she brought filled Abe
and Sarah with wonder. They had never seen such
fine furniture. But best of all was the tact, hope and
cheery voice of the new mother.

12 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The life of the cabin changed at once, a door was
hung in the place of the old bearskin and oiled paper
was put in the windows.

Abe was ten years old, large and strong, and he
was kept bus}^. His ax rang in the woods ; he drove
the oxen, held the shovel-plow, shelled corn and car-
ried the grist to the mill. He was a smart boy at all
kinds of work.

The new mother had three children of her own,
and she said they must all go to school. Then came
a few school days for Abe. He was eager to learn,
and led his class. The teacher saw he was in earnest
and helped him. These were happy days for Abe,
but they were few.

He could earn twenty-five cents a day, and his
father hired him out to the neighbors. Then school
days were over, but Abe's eagerness to learn was not
over.

He carried a book in his pocket and when the
team stopped to rest, he was on the fence or a stump
with his book.

He picked out fine passages to cop}', and read
them to his mother. He made speeches to the birds
in the cornfield and to the boys at the village store.
He was the best story-teller among the evening
loungers there.

He wrote on bits of paper and on shingles, and
covered the logs of the house with quotations.

STORY OV ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 3

He ciphered on the back of the wooden fire-shovel
with a burnt stick, and cleared his shite, when full,
with his father's jack-plane.

He read all sorts of books. He would walk miles
to get a book. He said that he borrowed all he
could find for fifty miles around.

One book he kept in a crack between the logs of
the house at the head of his bed. He would get it
and read as soon as he could see in the morning.

This book met with a sad mishap. One night it
rained and the water ran down over the logs and
plaster and wet the book. The leaves were stained
and loose and the cover warped. Abe thought it was
spoiled. He felt so badly that he nearly cried ; but
he carried the book to the owner and told him how it
happened. Abe wanted to pay for it but had no
money. What could he do ? Could he work for the
man? He would do anything.

"Can you cut up corn, Abe?" "Yes, sir!"
" You are a good boy, Abe, and I will not be hard on
you. You work for me three days and I will be
satisfied."

" The book will be mine then ? " " Yes."

Abe worked hard for three days and then owned
the book. It was the first book he ever bought, and
it was the proudest day of his life. He had paid for
it by hard work and it was his own. The book was
soiled and some leaves were gone ; but it was a treas-
ure. It was a " Life of Washington," and Abe read it

14 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

again and again. It fired the heart of the boy.
Could other boys be good and great like Washing-
ton ?

Many years afterward Abraham Lincoln said,
" That book helped to make me President."

No boy had a poorer chance or worked harder for
an education.

He read all sorts of books and did all kinds of
work. He was ferry man on the river, and went
once as bow-hand on a flat boat to New Orleans. He
was postmaster for a time ; he studied surveying and
measured old farms and straightened old roads. He
studied law and walked fifteen miles to the Boonville
court-house to hear the lawyers plead their cases.
Afterwards he repeated what he had heard and often
improved it in the telling.

But life in Indiana had not proved the easy thing
that Thomas Lincoln had expected. So he decided
to move again. This time they went to Illinois.

They put their goods in an ox-cart and started
on their long journey. The mother and girls rode
in the cart, but Abraham Lincoln trudged along the
road through the mud guiding the oxen.

He was twenty-one years old, tall and lank, but
sturdy and muscular. No one could outdo him in
running or wrestling.

Everyone liked him and gave him a good word
for he was always kind and obliging.

STORY OK ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15

When in 1832 the Indians attacked the scattered
settlements on the frontiers of Illinois, Lincoln en-
listed as a soldier. His old neighbors chose him
captain of the company, and he led them during the
Black Hawk war. But the)' did not have a chance
to do much real fighting.

x-\bont this time he began to make political
speeches, and became a popular stump orator.

He had great power with the common people.
They began to say : " Lincoln will be a great man.
He is honest, and we can trust him.11

A great and perplexing question had arisen in
our land, and the people were looking for the best
and wisest leader. Some said, " Abraham Lincoln
is the man.''

He was chosen President. His duties were new
and difficult ; no one ever had harder problems to
solve and more terrible events to meet.

The)' nearly crushed the strong and wise Lin-
coln; but he was patient, kindhearted, unselfish,
simple and true through it all.

He was one of the best and wisest Presidents our
country ever had, and when he was killed in 1
no one was ever more deeply mourned.

He was a poor boy and never went to school a
year in his life, but he worked hard to get an educa-
tion. He had to borrow his school books and some-
times to copy them, but he never grew discouraged
and gave up trying.

1 6 STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

He wrote with great care and became a beautiful
penman. A boy once wanted Lincoln to set a copy
for him in his writing book. Abraham Lincoln set
this copy :

"Good boys who to their books apply,
Will all be great men by and by."

Never forget how Abraham Lincoln studied and
worked to become such a great and good man.

Abraham Lincoln aud George Washington are
our greatest Americans.

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