Project Gutenberg's Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance, by Frances Cavanah

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Title: Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance

Author: Frances Cavanah

Illustrator: Paula Hutchison

Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17315]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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[Illustration]

~WEEKLY READER~

Children's Book Club

Education Center · Columbus 16, Ohio

PRESENTS


~Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance~

[Illustration]
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

_by_ ~FRANCES CAVANAH~

_illustrated by_ Paula Hutchison


RAND McNALLY & COMPANY

CHICAGO · NEW YORK · SAN FRANCISCO


_This book is dedicated to my grandnephew_

~PHILIP JAN NADELMAN~


~WEEKLY READER   Children's Book Club   Edition, 1959~

COPYRIGHT (c) 1959 BY RAND McNALLY & COMPANY

COPYRIGHT 1959 UNDER INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT UNION

BY RAND McNALLY & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

BY AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., N.Y.

A LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 59-5789




In writing this story of Abraham Lincoln, the author depended primarily
on Lincoln's own statements and on the statements of his family and
friends who had firsthand knowledge of his everyday life. In instances
when dialogue had to be imagined, the conversation might logically have
taken place in the light of known circumstances. Such descriptive
details as were necessarily added were based on authentic accounts of
pioneer times.

F.C.

[Illustration]
[Illustration: Map of States where Lincoln was born and lived]




1

[Illustration]


There was a new boy baby at the Lincoln cabin! By cracky! thought Dennis
Hanks as he hurried up the path, he was going to like having a boy
cousin. They could go swimming together. Maybe they could play Indian.
Dennis pushed open the cabin door.

"Where is he?" he shouted. "Where is he?"

"Sh!" A neighbor, who had come in to help, put her finger to her lips.
"The baby is asleep."

Nancy Lincoln was lying on the pole bed in a corner of the one-room
house. She looked very white under the dark bearskin covering, but when
she heard Dennis she raised her head. "It's all right, Denny," she said.
"You can see him now."

Dennis tiptoed over to the bed. A small bundle, wrapped in a homespun
shawl, rested in the curve of Nancy's arm. When she pulled back the
shawl, Dennis could not think of anything to say. The baby was so
wrinkled and so red. It looked just like a cherry after the juice had
been squeezed out.

Nancy touched one of the tiny hands with the tip of her finger. "See his
wee red fists and the way he throws them around!" she said.

"What's his name?" Dennis asked at last.

"We're calling him after his grandpappy. Abraham Lincoln!"

"That great big name for that scrawny little mite?"

Nancy sounded hurt. "Give him a chance to grow, will you?"

Then she saw that Dennis was only teasing. "You wait!" she went on. "It
won't be long before Abe will be running around in buckskin breeches and
a coonskin cap."

"Well, maybe--"

The door opened, and Tom Lincoln, the baby's father, came in. With him
was Aunt Betsy Sparrow. She kissed Nancy and carried the baby over to a
stool by the fireplace. Making little cooing noises under her breath,
she dressed him in a white shirt and a yellow flannel petticoat. Sally
Lincoln, two years old, who did not know quite what to make of the new
brother, came over and stood beside her. Dennis drew up another stool
and watched.

Aunt Betsy looked across at him and smiled. Dennis, an orphan, lived
with her and she knew that he was often lonely. There weren't many
people living in Kentucky in the year 1809, and Dennis had no boys to
play with.

"I reckon you're mighty tickled to have a new cousin," she said.

"I--I guess so," said Dennis slowly.

"Want to hold him?"

Dennis was not quite sure whether he did or not. Before he could answer,
Aunt Betsy laid the baby in his arms. Sally edged closer. She started to
put out her hand, but pulled it back. Abraham was so small that she was
afraid to touch him.

"Don't you fret, Sally," said Dennis. "Cousin Nancy said that he is
going to grow. And when he does, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm
going to teach him to swim."

[Illustration]

Looking down into the tiny red face, Dennis felt a sudden warm glow in
his heart. "Yes, and we can go fishing down at the creek. When I go to
the mill to get the corn ground, he can come along. He can ride behind
me on the horse, and when it goes cloppety-clop--"

Dennis swung the baby back and forth. It puckered up its face and began
to cry. Dennis caught his breath in dismay. How could such a large noise
come out of such a small body?

"Here, Aunt, take him quick!"

He looked at Cousin Nancy out of the corner of his eye. "I reckon he'll
never come to much."

"Now, Dennis Hanks, I want you to behave," said Aunt Betsy, but this
time Nancy paid no attention to his teasing. She held out her arms for
her son and cuddled him against her breast.

"As I told you," she said gaily, "you have to give him a chance to
grow."

It was almost dark by the time Aunt Betsy had tidied the one-room
cabin. She cooked some dried berries for Nancy, and fed Sally. Dennis
begged to spend the night. After his aunt had put on her shawl and left
for her own cabin, he curled up in a bearskin on the floor.

"Denny," asked Nancy, "what day is this?"

"It's Sunday--"

"I mean what day of the month."

"I don't rightly know, Cousin Nancy."

"I remember now," she went on. "It is the twelfth day of February.
February 12, 1809! Little Abe's birthday!"

Outside the wind rose, whistling through the bare branches of the trees.
There was a blast of cold air as the door opened. Tom came in, his arms
piled high with wood. He knelt on the dirt floor to build up the fire,
and the rising flames lit the log walls with a faint red glow.

"Are you glad it's a boy, Tom?" Nancy asked as he lay down beside her.
"I am."

"Yes," said Tom, but when she spoke to him again, he did not answer. He
was asleep. She could see his tired face in the firelight. Life had been
hard for Tom; it was hard for most pioneers. She hoped that their
children would have things a little easier. The baby whimpered, and she
held him closer.

Denny's voice piped up: "Cousin Nancy, will Abe ever grow to be as big
as me?"

"Bigger'n you are now," she told him.

"Will he grow as big as Cousin Tom?"

"Bigger'n anybody, maybe."

Nancy looked down at her son, now peacefully asleep. She made a song for
him, a song so soft it was almost a whisper: "Abe--Abe," she crooned.
"Abe Lincoln, you be going to grow--and grow--and grow!"




2

[Illustration]


Abraham Lincoln did grow. He seemed to grow bigger every day. By the
time he was seven, he was as tall as his sister, although Sally was two
years older. That fall their father made a trip up to Indiana.

"Why did Pappy go so far away?" Sally asked one afternoon.

"When is he coming home?" asked Abe.

"Pretty soon, most likely."

Nancy laid down her sewing and tried to explain. Their pa had had a hard
time making a living for them. He was looking for a better farm. Tom was
also a carpenter. Maybe some of the new settlers who were going to
Indiana to live would give him work. Anyway, he thought that poor folks
were better off up there.

Abe looked surprised. He had never thought about being poor. There were
so many things that he liked to do in Kentucky. He liked to go swimming
with Dennis after his chores were done. There were fish to be caught and
caves to explore. He and Sally had had a chance to go to school for a
few weeks. Abe could write his name, just like his father. He could read
much better. Tom knew a few words, but his children could read whole
sentences.

[Illustration]

Abe leaned up against his mother. "Tell us the story with our names," he
begged.

Nancy put her arm around him. She often told the children stories from
the Bible. One of their favorites was about Abraham and Sarah. "Now the
Lord said unto Abraham," she began--and stopped to listen.

The door opened, and Tom Lincoln stood grinning down at them. "Well,
folks," he said, "we're moving to Indiany."

Nancy and the children, taken by surprise, asked questions faster than
Tom could answer them. He had staked out a claim about a hundred miles
to the north, at a place called Pigeon Creek. He was buying the land
from the government and could take his time to pay for it. He wanted to
start for Indiana at once, before the weather got any colder.

[Illustration]

It did not take long to get ready. A few possessions--a skillet, several
pans, the water buckets, the fire shovel, a few clothes, a homespun
blanket, a patchwork quilt, and several bearskins--were packed on the
back of one of the horses. Nancy and Sally rode on the other horse. Abe
and his father walked. At night they camped along the way.

When at last they reached the Ohio River, Abe stared in surprise. It was
so blue, so wide, so much bigger than the creek where he and Dennis had
gone swimming. There were so many boats. One of them, a long low raft,
was called a ferry. The Lincolns went right on board with their pack
horses, and it carried them across the shining water to the wooded
shores of Indiana.

Indiana was a much wilder place than Kentucky. There was no road
leading to Pigeon Creek; only a path through the forest. It was so
narrow that sometimes Tom had to clear away some underbrush before they
could go on. Or else he had to stop to cut down a tree that stood in
their way. Abe, who was big and strong for his age, had his own little
ax. He helped his father all he could.

Fourteen miles north of the river, they came to a cleared place in the
forest. Tom called it his "farm." He hastily put up a shelter--a camp
made of poles and brush and leaves--where they could stay until he had
time to build a cabin. It had only three walls. The fourth side was left
open, and in this open space Tom built a fire. The children helped their
mother to unpack, and she mixed batter for cornbread in a big iron
skillet. She cut up a squirrel that Tom had shot earlier in the day, and
cooked it over the campfire.

"Now if you will fetch me your plates," she said, "we'll have our
supper."

The plates were only slabs of bark. On each slab Nancy put a piece of
fried squirrel and a hunk of cornbread. The children sank down on one of
the bearskins to eat their first meal in their new home. By this time it
was quite dark. They could see only a few feet beyond the circle of
light made by their campfire.

Nancy shivered. She knew that they had neighbors. Tom had told her there
were seven other families living at Pigeon Creek. But the trees were so
tall, the night so black, that she had a strange feeling that they were
the only people alive for miles around.

"Don't you like it here, Mammy?" Abe asked. To him this camping out was
an adventure, but he wanted his mother to like it, too.

"I'm just feeling a little cold," she told him.

"I like it," said Sally decidedly. "But it is sort of scary. Are you
scared, Abe?"

"Me?" Abe stuck out his chest. "What is there to be scared of?"

At that moment a long-drawn-out howl came from the forest. Another
seemed to come from just beyond their campfire. Then another and
another--each howl louder and closer. The black curtain of the night
was pierced by two green spots of light. The children huddled against
their mother, but Tom Lincoln laughed.

"I reckon I know what you're scared of. A wolf."

"A wolf?" Sally shrieked.

"Yep. See its green eyes. But it won't come near our fire."

He got up and threw on another log. As the flames blazed higher, the
green lights disappeared. There was a crashing sound in the underbrush.

"Hear him running away? Cowardly varmint!" Tom sat down again. "No wolf
will hurt us if we keep our fire going."

It was a busy winter. Abe worked side by side with his father. How that
boy can chop! thought Nancy, as she heard the sound of his ax biting
into wood. Tree after tree had to be cut down before crops could be
planted. With the coming of spring, he helped his father to plow the
stumpy ground. He learned to plow a straight furrow. He planted seeds in
the furrows.

In the meantime, some of the neighbors helped Tom build a cabin. It had
one room, with a tiny loft above. The floor was packed-down dirt. There
were no windows. The only door was a long, up-and-down hole cut in one
wall and covered by a bearskin. But Tom had made a table and several
three-legged stools, and there was a pole bed in one corner. Nancy was
glad to be living in a real house again, and she kept it neat and clean.

She was no longer lonely. Aunt Betsy and her husband, Uncle Thomas,
brought Dennis with them from Kentucky to live in the shelter near the
Lincoln cabin. Several other new settlers arrived, settlers with
children. A schoolmaster, Andrew Crawford, decided to start a school.

"Maybe you'll have a chance to go, Abe," Nancy told him. "You know what
the schoolmaster down in Kentucky said. He said you were a learner."

Abe looked up at her and smiled. He was going to like living in Indiana!




3

[Illustration]


But sad days were coming to Pigeon Creek. There was a terrible sickness.
Aunt Betsy and Uncle Thomas died, and Dennis came to live with the
Lincolns. Then Nancy was taken ill. After she died, her family felt that
nothing would ever be the same again.

Sally tried to keep house, but she was only twelve. The one little room
and the loft above looked dirtier and more and more gloomy as the weeks
went by. Sally found that cooking for four people was not easy. The
smoke from the fireplace got into her eyes. Some days Tom brought home a
rabbit or a squirrel for her to fry. On other days, it was too cold to
go hunting. Then there was only cornbread to eat and Sally's cornbread
wasn't very good.

It was hard to know who missed Nancy more--Tom or the children. He sat
around the cabin looking cross and glum. The ground was frozen, so very
little work could be done on the farm. He decided, when Andrew Crawford
started his school, that Abe and Sally might as well go. There was
nothing else for them to do, and Nancy would have wanted it.

For the first time since his mother's death Abe seemed to cheer up.
Every morning, except when there were chores to do at home, he and Sally
took a path through the woods to the log schoolhouse. Master Crawford
kept a "blab" school. The "scholars," as he called his pupils, studied
their lessons out loud. The louder they shouted, the better he liked it.
If a scholar didn't know his lesson, he had to stand in the corner with
a long pointed cap on his head. This was called a dunce cap.

One boy who never had to wear a dunce cap was Abe Lincoln. He was too
smart. His side won nearly every spelling match. He was good at
figuring, and he had the best handwriting of anyone at school. Master
Crawford taught reading from the Bible, but he had several other books
from which he read aloud. Among Abe's favorite stories were the ones
about some wise animals that talked. They were by a man named Aesop who
had lived hundreds of years before.

Abe even made up compositions of his own. He called them "sentences."
One day he found some of the boys being cruel to a terrapin, or turtle.
He made them stop. Then he wrote a composition in which he said that
animals had feelings the same as folks.

Sometimes Abe's sentences rhymed. There was one rhyme that the children
thought was a great joke:

  "Abe Lincoln, his hand and pen,
   He will be good, but God knows when."

"That Abe Lincoln is funny enough to make a cat laugh," they said.

They always had a good time watching Abe during the class in "Manners."
Once a week Master Crawford had them practice being ladies and
gentlemen. One scholar would pretend to be a stranger who had just
arrived in Pigeon Creek. He would leave the schoolhouse, come back,
and knock at the door. Another scholar would greet "the stranger," lead
him around the room, and introduce him.

One day it was Abe's turn to do the introducing. He opened the door to
find his best friend, Nat Grigsby, waiting outside. Nat bowed low, from
the waist. Abe bowed. His buckskin trousers, already too short, slipped
up still farther, showing several inches of his bare leg. He looked so
solemn that some of the girls giggled. The schoolmaster frowned and
pounded on his desk. The giggling stopped.

"Master Crawford," said Abe, "this here is Mr. Grigsby. His pa just
moved to these parts. He figures on coming to your school."

Andrew Crawford rose and bowed. "Welcome," he said. "Mr. Lincoln,
introduce Mr. Grigsby to the other scholars."

[Illustration]

The children sat on two long benches made of split logs. Abe led Nat
down the length of the front bench. Each girl rose and made a curtsy.
Nat bowed. Each boy rose and bowed. Nat returned the bow. Abe kept
saying funny things under his breath that the schoolmaster could not
hear. But the children heard, and they could hardly keep from laughing
out loud.

Sally sat on the second bench. "Mrs. Lincoln," said Abe in a high
falsetto voice, "this here be Mr. Grigsby."

While she was making her curtsy, Sally's cheeks suddenly grew red.
"Don't let on I told you, Mr. Grigsby," Abe whispered, "but Mrs. Lincoln
bakes the worst cornbread of anyone in Pigeon Creek."

Sally forgot that they were having a lesson in manners. "Don't you dare
talk about my cornbread," she said angrily.

The little log room rocked with laughter. This time Master Crawford had
also heard Abe's remark. He walked over to the corner where he kept a
bundle of switches. He picked one up and laid it across his desk.

"We'll have no more monkeyshines," he said severely. "Go on with the
introducing."

One day Abe almost got into real trouble. He had started for school
early, as he often did, so that he could read one of Master Crawford's
books. He was feeling sad as he walked through the woods; he seemed to
miss his mother more each day. When he went into the schoolhouse, he
looked up and saw a pair of deer antlers. Master Crawford had gone
hunting. He had shot a deer and nailed the antlers above the door.

What a wonderful place to swing! thought Abe. He leaped up and caught
hold of the prongs. He began swinging back and forth.

CRASH! One prong came off in his hand, and he fell to the floor. He
hurried to his seat, hoping that the master would not notice.

But Master Crawford was proud of those antlers. When he saw what had
happened, he picked up the switch on his desk. It made a swishing sound
as he swung it back and forth.

"Who broke my deer antlers?" he shouted.

No one answered. Abe hunched down as far as he could on the bench. He
seemed to be trying to hide inside his buckskin shirt.

Master Crawford repeated his question. "Who broke my deer antlers? I
aim to find out, if I have to thrash every scholar in this school."

All of the children looked scared, Abe most of all. But he stood up. He
marched up to Master Crawford's desk and held out the broken prong that
he had been hiding in his hand.

"I did it, sir," he said. "I didn't mean to do it, but I hung on the
antlers and they broke. I wouldn't have done it, if I had thought they'd
a broke."

The other scholars thought that Abe would get a licking. Instead, Master
Crawford told him to stay in after school. They had a long talk. He
liked Abe's honesty in owning up to what he had done. He knew how much
he missed his mother. Perhaps he understood that sometimes a boy "cuts
up" to try to forget how sad he feels.

Abe felt sadder than ever after Master Crawford moved away from Pigeon
Creek. Then Tom Lincoln left. One morning he rode off on horseback
without telling anyone where he was going. Several days went by. Even
easy-going Dennis was worried when Tom did not return.

Abe did most of the chores. In the evening he practiced his sums. Master
Crawford had taught him to do easy problems in arithmetic, and he did
not want to forget what he had learned. He had no pen, no ink, not even
a piece of paper. He took a burnt stick from the fireplace and worked
his sums on a flat board.

He wished that he had a book to read. Instead, he tried to remember the
stories that the schoolmaster had told. He repeated them to Sally and
Dennis, as they huddled close to the fire to keep warm. He said them
again to himself after he went to bed in the loft.

There were words in some of the stories that Abe did not understand. He
tried to figure out what the words meant. He thought about the people in
the stories. He thought about the places mentioned and wondered what
they were like.

There were thoughts inside Abraham Lincoln's head that even Sally did
not know anything about.




4

[Illustration]


Abe took another bite of cornbread and swallowed hard. "Don't you like
it?" asked Sally anxiously. "I know it doesn't taste like the cornbread
Mammy used to make."

She looked around the room. The furniture was the same as their mother
had used--a homemade table and a few three-legged stools. The same
bearskin hung before the hole in the wall that was their only door. But
Nancy had kept the cabin clean. She had known how to build a fire that
didn't smoke. Sally glanced down at her faded linsey-woolsey dress,
soiled with soot. The dirt floor felt cold to her bare feet. Her last
pair of moccasins had worn out weeks ago.

"I don't mind the cornbread--at least, not much." Abe finished his
piece, down to the last crumb. "If I seem down in the mouth, Sally, it
is just because--"

[Illustration]

He walked over to the fireplace, where he stood with his back to the
room.

"He misses Nancy," said Dennis bluntly, "the same as the rest of us.
Then Tom has been gone for quite a spell."

Sally put her hand on Abe's shoulder. "I'm scared. Do you reckon
something has happened to Pappy? Isn't he ever coming back?"

Abe stared into the fire. He was thinking of the wolves and panthers
loose in the woods. There were many dangers for a man riding alone over
the rough forest paths. The boy wanted to say something to comfort
Sally, but he had to tell the truth. "I don't know, I--"

He stopped to listen. Few travelers passed by their cabin in the winter,
but he was sure that he heard a faint noise in the distance. It sounded
like the creak of wheels. The noise came again--this time much closer. A
man's voice was shouting: "Get-up! Get-up!"

"Maybe it's Pappy!" Abe pushed aside the bearskin and rushed outside.
Sally and Dennis were right behind him.

"It _is_ Pappy," Sally cried. "But look--"

Tom Lincoln had left Pigeon Creek on horseback. He was returning in a
wagon drawn by four horses. He was not alone. A strange woman sat beside
him, holding a small boy in her lap. Two girls, one about Sally's age,
the other about eight, stood behind her. The wagon was piled high with
furniture--more furniture than the Lincoln children had ever seen.

"Whoa, there!" Tom Lincoln pulled at the reins and brought the wagon to
a stop before the door.

"Here we are, Sarah." He jumped down and held out his hand to help the
woman.

She was very neat looking, tall and straight, with neat little curls
showing at the edge of her brown hood. She said, "Tsch! Tsch!" when she
saw Tom's children. She stared at their soiled clothing, their matted
hair, their faces smudged with soot. "Tsch! Tsch!" she said again, and
Abe felt hot all over in spite of the cold wind. He dug the toe of his
moccasin into the frozen ground.

"Abe! Sally!" their father said. "I've brought you a new mammy. This
here is the Widow Johnston. That is, she was the Widow Johnston." He
cleared his throat. "She is Mrs. Lincoln now. I've been back to Kentucky
to get myself a wife."

"Howdy!" The new Mrs. Lincoln was trying to sound cheerful. She beckoned
to the children in the wagon. They jumped down and stood beside her.
"These here are my young ones," she went on. "The big gal is Betsy. The
other one is Mathilda. This little shaver is Johnny."

Dennis came forward to be introduced, but he had eyes only for Betsy.
She gave him a coy look out of her china-blue eyes. Tilda smiled shyly
at Sally. Both of the Johnston girls wore pretty linsey-woolsey dresses
under their shawls and neat moccasins on their feet. Sally, looking down
at her own soiled dress and bare toes, wished that she could run away
and hide. Abe said "Howdy" somewhere down inside his stomach.

Sarah, Tom's new wife, looked around the littered yard, then at the
cabin. It did not even have a window! It did not have a door that would
open and shut--only a ragged bearskin flapping in the wind. She had
known Tom since he was a boy and had always liked him. Her first
husband, Mr. Johnston, had died some time before, and when Tom had
returned to Kentucky and asked her to marry him, she had said yes. He
had told her that his children needed a mother's care, and he was right.

Poor young ones! she thought. Aloud she said, "Well, let's not all
stand out here and freeze. Can't we go inside and get warm?"

The inside of the cabin seemed almost as cold as the outdoors. And even
more untidy. Johnny clung to his mother's skirt and started to cry. He
wanted to go back to Kentucky. His sisters peered through the gloom,
trying to see in the dim light. Sally was sure that they were looking at
her. She sat down hastily and tucked her feet as far back as she could
under the stool. Abe stood quite still, watching this strange woman who
had come without warning to take his mother's place.

She smiled at him. He did not smile back.

Slowly she turned and looked around. Her clear gray eyes took in every
nook, every crack of the miserable little one-room house. She noticed
the dirty bearskins piled on the pole bed in the corner. She saw the
pegs in the wall that led to the loft. The fire smoldering in the
fireplace gave out more smoke than heat.

"The first thing we'd better do," she said, taking off her bonnet, "is
to build up that fire. Then we'll get some victuals ready. I reckon
everybody will feel better when we've had a bite to eat."

From that moment things began to happen in the Lincoln cabin. Tom went
out to the wagon to unhitch the horses. Dennis brought in more firewood.
Abe and Mathilda started for the spring, swinging the water pail between
them. Betsy mixed a fresh batch of cornbread in the iron skillet, and
Sally set it on the hearth to bake. Tom came back from the wagon,
carrying a comb of honey and a slab of bacon, and soon the magic smell
of frying bacon filled the air. There were no dishes, but Sally kept
large pieces of bark in the cupboard. Eight people sat down at the one
little table, but no one seemed to mind that it was crowded.

The Lincoln children had almost forgotten how good bacon could taste.
Abe ate in silence, his eyes on his plate. Sally seemed to feel much
better. Sitting between her stepsisters, she was soon chattering with
them as though they were old friends. Once she called the new Mrs.
Lincoln "Mamma," just as her own daughters did. Dennis sat on the other
side of Betsy. He seemed to be enjoying himself most of all. He sopped
up his last drop of golden honey on his last piece of cornbread.

[Illustration]

"I declare," he said, grinning, "we ain't had a meal like this since
Nancy died."

Abe jumped up at the mention of his mother's name. He was afraid that he
was going to cry. He had started for the door, when he felt his father's
rough hand on his shoulder.

"Abe Lincoln, you set right down there and finish your cornbread."

Abe looked up at Tom out of frightened gray eyes. But he shook his head.
"I can't, Pa."

"A nice way to treat your new ma!" Tom Lincoln sounded both angry and
embarrassed. "You clean up your plate or I'll give you a good hiding."

The young Johnstons gasped. Abe could hear Sally's whisper: "Please,
Abe! Do as Pa says." Then he heard another voice.

"Let the boy be, Tom." It was Sarah Lincoln speaking.

There was something about the way she said it that made Abe decide to
come back and sit down. He managed somehow to eat the rest of his
cornbread. He looked up and saw that she was smiling at him again. He
almost smiled back.

Sarah looked relieved. "Abe and I," she said, "are going to have plenty
of chance to get acquainted."




5

[Illustration]


Sarah Rose from the table. "There's a lot of work to be done here," she
announced, "before we can bring in my plunder." She meant her furniture
and other possessions in the wagon. "First, we'll need plenty of hot
water. Who wants to go to the spring?"

She was looking at Abe. "I'll go, ma'am." He grabbed the water bucket
and hurried through the door.

Abe made several trips to the spring that afternoon. Each bucket full of
water that he brought back was poured into the big iron kettle over the
fireplace. Higher and higher roared the flames. When Sarah wasn't asking
for more water, she was asking for more wood. The steady chop-chop of
Tom's ax could be heard from the wood lot.

Everyone was working, even Dennis. Sarah gave him a pan of soap and hot
water and told him to wash the cabin walls. The girls scrubbed the
table, the three-legged stools, and the corner cupboard inside and out.
Sarah climbed the peg ladder to peer into the loft.

"Tsch! Tsch!" she said, when she saw the corn husks and dirty bearskins
on which the boys had been sleeping. "Take them out and burn them, Tom."

"Burn them?" he protested.

"Yes, and burn the covers on the downstairs bed, too. I reckon I have
enough feather beds and blankets to go around. We're starting fresh in
this house. We'll soon have it looking like a different place."

Not since Nancy died had the cabin had such a thorough cleaning. Then
came the most remarkable part of that remarkable afternoon--the
unloading of the wagon. Sarah's pots and pans shone from much scouring.
Her wooden platters and dishes were spotless. And the furniture! She had
chairs with real backs, a table, and a big chest filled with clothes.
There was one bureau that had cost forty-five dollars. Abe ran his
finger over the shining dark wood. Sarah hung a small mirror above it
and he gasped when he looked at his reflection. This was the first
looking glass that he had ever seen.

Most remarkable of all were the feather beds. One was laid on the pole
bed, downstairs. Another was placed on a clean bearskin in the opposite
corner to provide a sleeping place for the girls. The third was carried
to the loft for the three boys. When Abe went to bed that night, he sank
down gratefully into the comfortable feathers. The homespun blanket that
covered him was soft and warm.

On either side, Dennis and Johnny were asleep. Abe lay between them,
wide awake, staring into the darkness. The new Mrs. Lincoln was good and
kind. He knew that. She had seemed pleased when Sally called her
"Mamma." Somehow he couldn't. There was still a lonesome place in his
heart for his own mother.

Something else was worrying him. Before going to bed, Sarah Lincoln had
looked at him and Sally out of her calm gray eyes. "Tomorrow I aim to
make you young ones look more human," she said. Abe wondered what she
meant.

He found out the next morning. Tom and Dennis left early to go hunting.
Abe went out to chop wood for the fireplace. When he came back, he met
the three girls going down the path. Sally was walking between her two
stepsisters, but what a different Sally! She wore a neat, pretty dress
that had belonged to Betsy. She had on Sarah's shawl. Her hair was
combed in two neat pigtails. Her face had a clean, scrubbed look. Her
eyes were sparkling. She was taking Betsy and Mathilda to call on one of
the neighbors.

"Good-by, Mamma," she called.

Sarah stood in the doorway, waving to the girls. Then she saw Abe, his
arms piled high with wood. "Come in," she said. "Sally has had her bath.
Now I've got a tub of good hot water and a gourd full of soap waiting
for you. Skedaddle out of those old clothes and throw them in the fire."

"I ain't got any others." Abe looked terrified.

"I don't aim to pluck your feathers without giving you some new ones."
Sarah laughed. "I sat up late last night, cutting down a pair of Mr.
Johnston's old pants. I got a shirt, too, laid out here on the bed."

Slowly Abe started taking off his shirt. He looked fearfully at the tub
of hot water.

"There's no call to be scared," said Sarah. "That tub won't bite. Now
I'm going down to the spring. By the time I get back, I want you to have
yourself scrubbed all over."

Abe stuck one toe into the water. He said, "Ouch!" and drew it out. He
then tried again, and put in his whole foot. He put in his other foot.
He sat down in the tub. By the time Sarah returned he was standing
before the fire, dressed in the cut-down trousers and shirt of the late
Mr. Johnston.

Sarah seemed pleased. "You look like a different boy," she said. "Those
trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them."

Abe was surprised how good it felt to be clean again. "Thank you, ma'am.
Now I'd better get in some more wood."

"We have plenty of wood," said Sarah. "You see that stool? You sit down
and let me get at your hair. It looks like a heap of underbrush."

Abe watched anxiously when she opened the top drawer of the bureau and
took out a haw comb and a pair of scissors. I'll stand for it this time,
he thought, because she's been so good to us. But if she pulls too
hard--

Mrs. Lincoln _did_ pull. But when Abe said "Ouch!" she patted his
shoulder and waited a moment. He closed his eyes and screwed up his
face, but he said nothing more. Perhaps she couldn't help pulling, he
decided. Lock after lock she snipped off. He began to wonder if he was
going to have any hair left by the time she got through.

"I've been watching you, Abe. You're a right smart boy," she said. "Had
much schooling?"

"I've just been to school by littles."

"Have you a mind to go again?"

"There ain't any school since Master Crawford left. Anyhow, Pappy
doesn't set much store by eddication."

[Illustration]

"What do you mean, Abe?"

"He says I know how to read and write and cipher and that's enough for
anyone."

"You can read?" she asked.

"Yes'm, but I haven't any books."

"You can read and you haven't any books. I have books and I can't read."

Abe looked at her, amazed. "You have _books_?"

Sarah nodded, but said nothing more until she had finished cutting his
hair. Then she led him over to the bureau.

"Now see if you don't like yourself better without that brush heap on
top of your head," she asked him.

A boy with short neat hair gazed back at Abe from the mirror.

"I still ain't the prettiest boy in Pigeon Creek," he drawled, "but
there ain't quite so much left to be ugly. I'm right glad, ma'am, you
cleared away the brush heap."

Was he joking? He looked so solemn that Sarah could not be sure. Then he
grinned. It was the first time that she had seen him smile.

"You're a caution, Abe," she said. "Now sit yourself down over there at
the table, and I'll show you my books."

She opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out four worn little
volumes. Although she could not read, she knew the titles: "Here they
are: _Robinson Crusoe_, _Pilgrim's Progress_, _Sinbad the Sailor_, and
_Aesop's Fables_."

"Oh, ma'am, this book by Mr. Aesop is one the schoolmaster had. The
stories are all about some smart talking animals."

He seemed to have forgotten her, as he bent his neat shorn head down
over the pages. He chuckled when he read something that amused him.
Sarah watched him curiously. He was not like her John. He was not like
any boy that she had ever known. But the hungry look in his eyes went
straight to her heart.

[Illustration]

He looked up at her shyly. "Ma'am," he said, "will you let me read these
books sometimes?"

"Why, Abe, you can read them any time you like. I'm giving them to you
to keep."

"Oh, _Mamma_!" The name slipped out as though he were used to saying it.
He had a feeling that Nancy, his own mother, had never gone away.

"You're my boy, now," Sarah told him, "and I aim to help you all I can.
The next time a school keeps in these parts, I'm going to ask your pappy
to let you and the other children go."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Abe. "I mean--thank you, Mamma."




6

[Illustration]


Many changes were taking place in the Lincoln cabin. Sarah persuaded Tom
to cut two holes in the walls for windows, and she covered them with
greased paper to let in the light. He made a wooden door that could be
shut against the cold winter winds. Abe and Dennis gave the walls and
low ceiling a coat of whitewash, and Sarah spread her bright rag rugs on
the new wooden floor.

"Aunt Sairy," Dennis told her, "you're some punkins. One just naturally
has to be somebody when you're around."

Abe smiled up at her shyly. "It is sort of like the magic in that story
of Sinbad you gave me."

The other children were asleep. Abe sprawled on the floor, making marks
on a wooden shovel with a pointed stick. Tom, seated in one of his
wife's chairs, was dozing on one side of the fireplace.

Sarah put down her knitting and looked around the cabin. "The place
does look right cozy," she replied. "What is that you're doing, Abe?"

"Working my sums."

Tom opened his eyes. "You know how to figure enough already. Put that
shovel up and go to bed."

Abe took a knife and scraped the figures from the wooden shovel. He
placed it against one side of the fireplace. "Good night, Mamma," he
said.

"Good night, Abe."

Sarah's eyes were troubled. She waited until Dennis had joined Abe in
the loft, then turned to her husband. "I've been meaning to tell you,
Tom, what a good pa you've been to my young ones."

She saw that he was pleased. "I've tried to be a good mother to Abe and
Sally, too," she went on.

"You have been, Sairy. They took to you right off."

"I'm right glad, but there's something else I want to talk to you about,
Tom." He was nodding again in his chair, and she paused to make sure
that he was listening. "Abe's a smart boy. I told him the next time a
school keeps in these parts, I'd ask you to let him and the other
children go."

"Humph!" Tom grunted. "There ain't any school for him to go to. Anyway,
he wastes enough time as 'tis. He's always got his nose buried in those
books you brought."

"That bothers me, too. I saw you cuff him the other day because he was
reading."

"I had to, Sairy. I told him to come out and chop some wood, but he up
and laughed in my face."

"He wasn't laughing at you, Tom. He was laughing at Sinbad."

"Who in tarnation is Sinbad?"

"A fellow in one of his books. Abe said that Sinbad sailed his flatboat
up to a rock, and the rock was magnetized and pulled all the nails out
of his boat. Then Sinbad fell into the water."

"That's what I mean," Tom exploded. "Dennis told him that book was most
likely lies, but Abe keeps on reading it. Where is all this book
learning going to get him? More'n I ever had."

"Maybe the Lord meant for young ones to be smarter than their parents,"
said Sarah, "or the world might never get any better."

Tom shook his head in dismay. "Women and their fool notions! If I don't
watch out, you'll be spoiling the boy more'n his own mammy did."

Sarah's cheeks were red as she bent over her knitting. Tom was right
about one thing. There was no school for Abe to go to. But some day
there would be. Every few weeks another clearing was made in the forest,
and the neighbors gathered for a "house raising" to help put up a cabin.
Then smoke would rise from a new chimney, and another new home would be
started in the wilderness.

With so many new settlers, there was usually plenty of work for Abe.
Whenever Tom did not need him at home, he hired out at twenty-five cents
a day. He gave this money to his father. That was the law, Tom said. Not
until Abe was twenty-one would he be allowed to keep his wages for
himself. As a hired boy, he plowed corn, chopped wood, and did all kinds
of chores. He did not like farming, but he managed to have fun.

"Pa taught me to work," Abe told one farmer who had hired him, "but he
never taught me to love it."

The farmer scratched his head. He couldn't understand a boy who was
always reading, and if Abe wasn't reading he was telling jokes. The
farmer thought that Abe was lazy.

"Sometimes," the farmer said, "I get awful mad at you, Abe Lincoln. You
crack your jokes and spin your yarns, if you want to, while the men are
eating their dinner. But don't you keep them from working."

The other farm hands liked to gather around Abe when they stopped to eat
their noon meal. Sometimes he would stand on a tree stump and
"speechify." The men would become so interested that they would be late
getting back to the fields. Other times he would tell them stories that
he had read in books or that he had heard from some traveler who had
passed through Pigeon Creek. He nearly always had a funny story to tell.

[Illustration]

Yet there was "something peculiarsome about Abe," as Dennis Hanks once
said. He would be laughing one minute; the next minute he would look
solemn and sad. He would walk along the narrow forest trails, a faraway
look in his eyes. Someone would say "Howdy, Abe." Then he would grin and
start "cracking jokes" again.

Although he worked such long hours, Abe still found time to read. He sat
up late and got up early in the morning, and Sarah made the children
keep quiet when he wanted to study. Sometimes he took a book to work
with him. Instead of talking to the other farm hands at noon, he'd go
off by himself and read a few pages while he ate his dinner. People for
miles around loaned him books. Sometimes he walked fifteen miles to
Rockport, the county seat, to borrow books from John Pitcher, the town
lawyer.

"Everything I want to know is in books," he told Dennis. "My best friend
is a man who can give me a book I ain't read."

Late one afternoon, about two years after Sarah had arrived, Abe came
home with a new book under his arm. Tom and Dennis had joined several of
their neighbors in a big bear hunt and planned to be gone for several
days. Abe planned to read--and read--and read.

"What do you think, Mamma?" he asked. "I have a chance to read the
Declaration of Independence."

Sarah smiled into his eager eyes. "Now isn't that nice?"

He showed her the book. It belonged to David Turnham, the constable. Mr.
Turnham had said that Abe might borrow it for several days, if he
promised to be careful.

"What is it about?" Sarah asked.

"It has the laws of Indiana in it, and it tells how the government of
our country was started." Abe's voice took on a new tone of excitement.
"It has the Declaration of Independence in it and the Constitution,
too."

He pulled a stool up to the fire and began to read. There was no sound
in the little cabin except the steady click-click of Sarah's knitting
needles. She glanced at him now and then. This tall, awkward boy had
become very dear to her. As dear as her own children, perhaps even
dearer, but he was harder to understand. No matter how much he learned,
he wanted to learn more. He was always hungry, hungry for knowledge--not
hungry for bacon and cornbread the way Johnny was. The idea made her
chuckle.

Abe did not hear. He laid the book on his knee and stared into the
flames. His lips were moving, although he made no sound.

"What are you saying to yourself?" Sarah asked. "You look so far away."

"Why, Mamma." Abe looked up with a start. "I was just recollecting some
of the words out of the Declaration of Independence. It says all men are
created equal."

"You don't mean to tell me!" Sarah was pleased because Abe was.

"I'm going to learn as much of the Declaration as I can by heart, before
I take the book back," he said. "That way I can always keep the words."

"I declare," said Sarah, "you grow new ideas inside your head as fast as
you add inches on top of it."




7

[Illustration]


Abe went right on adding inches. By the time he was fourteen he was as
tall as his father. Sally was working as a hired girl that summer for
Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Crawford. Abe worked for them off and on. One
afternoon he finished his chores early, and Mrs. Crawford sent him home.
Abe was glad. Josiah had lent him a new book--a life of George
Washington--and he wanted to start reading it.

When he reached the Lincoln cabin, he found Betsy and Mathilda waiting
outside for their mother. She stood before the mirror in the cabin
putting on her sunbonnet.

"Your pa and Dennis have gone squirrel hunting," she said, as she tied
the strings in a neat bow beneath her chin. "The gals and I are going to
visit a new neighbor. Will you keep an eye on Johnny and put some
'taters on to boil for supper?"

"Oh, Ma, not potatoes again?"

"They will be right tasty with a mess of squirrel. Before you put the
'taters on--"

Abe patted the book inside his shirt front. "I can read?" he asked.

"You can, after you go down to the horse trough and wash your head."

"Wash my head? How come?" Abe wailed.

"Take a look at that ceiling, and you'll know how come. See that dark
spot? Your head made that. You're getting so tall you bump into the
ceiling every time you climb into the loft."

Abe rolled his eyes upward. "If some of that learning I've got cooped up
in my head starts leaking out, how can I help it?"

Sarah refused to be put off by any of his foolishness. "When you track
dirt into the house, I can wash the floor," she said. "But I can't get
to the ceiling so easy. It needs a new coat of whitewash, but there's no
use in doing it if your head ain't clean."

"All right," said Abe meekly.

"Take a gourdful of soap with you," said Sarah. "And mind you, no
reading until you finish washing your hair."

He grumbled under his breath as he walked down to the horse trough. With
a new book waiting to be read, washing his hair seemed a waste of time.
But if that was what Sarah wanted, he would do it. He lathered his head
with soap and ducked it into the water. Some of the soap got into his
eyes and he began to sputter. He heard a giggle.

"Hey, Johnny, is that you?" he said. "Get a bucket of water--quick!"

Johnny, the eight-year-old stepbrother, was glad to oblige. He poured
bucket after bucket of water over Abe's head. Finally all of the soap was
rinsed out of his hair. Abe took the tail of his shirt and wiped the soap
out of his eyes. Both boys were covered with water. The ground around the
horse trough was like a muddy little swamp. Johnny was delighted. He liked
to feel the mud squish up between his toes.

[Illustration]

"Look at me, Abe," he shouted. "Ain't we having fun?"

Abe took his young stepbrother by the hand. His eyes were twinkling.
"I've thought of something else that's fun. Come on, we're going to play
a joke on Mamma."

When Sarah returned to the cabin late that afternoon, she noticed that
Abe's hair was still damp. He was very quiet as he stood by the
fireplace and swung the big kettle outward. He dipped out the potatoes
with an iron spoon. Tom and Dennis came in, both somewhat grumpy. They
had not brought back a single squirrel.

Only Johnny seemed in good spirits. He whispered in Mathilda's ear. They
both began to giggle. By the time the family had gathered around the
table, Betsy and Dennis had been let in on the secret, whatever it was.
They were red in the face from trying not to laugh.

"Quiet!" said Tom. "Quiet, while I say the blessing."

"We thank thee. Lord--" he began.

Tom usually gave thanks for each kind of food on the table. But today
there was only a dish of dried-up potatoes. "We thank Thee, Lord," he
went on, "for all these blessings."

"Mighty poor blessings," said Abe.

The girls giggled again. Dennis threw back his head and roared. Johnny
was laughing so hard that he fell off his stool. He lay on the floor,
rolling and shrieking.

"I wish you young ones would stop carrying on," said Sarah, "and tell me
what you're carrying on about."

[Illustration]

"Oh, Mamma, can't you see?" said Betsy. "Look up."

Sarah gasped. Marching across the cabin ceiling were the muddy marks of
two bare feet.

"Don't they look like Johnny's feet?" Mathilda asked.

"Johnny Johnston, you come right here," said Sarah sternly.

Johnny picked himself up from the rag rug before the fireplace. He went
over and stood before his mother. His blue eyes danced. This was one
scolding that he looked forward to.

"Now tell me the truth. What do you mean by--"

Sarah paused. She could hardly scold her son for walking on the ceiling.

Johnny had been told exactly what to say. "I got my feet all muddy down
at the horse trough," he explained. "Then I walked on the ceiling."

"You walked on the ceiling? Johnny Johnston, you know it's wicked to
lie."

"I'm not lying. Those are my footprints."

Sarah looked again. The footprints were too small to belong to anyone
but Johnny. She looked at Abe. He seemed to have taken a sudden liking
for boiled potatoes and kept his eyes on his plate.

"Abe Lincoln, is this some of your tomfoolery?"

"I--I reckon so."

"But how--"

"It was easy," Johnny interrupted. "I held my legs stiff and Abe held me
upside down, and I walked."

Abe stood up, pushing back his stool. He glanced toward the door.

Sarah was not often angry. When she was, she reminded her children of a
mother hen ruffling its feathers. "Well, Abe, have you got anything to
say for yourself?"

Abe shook his head. Suddenly his joke did not seem quite so funny.

"I declare!" said Sarah. "A big boy like you! You ought to be spanked."

The children looked at tall, lanky Abe towering over their mother. They
burst out laughing again. "Mamma's going to spank Abe!" they chanted.
"Mamma's going to spank Abe."

Dennis brought both hands down on the table with a loud whack. "That's a
good one, that is," he roared.

Sarah threw her apron over her head. The children watched the peculiar
way the apron began to shake. When she took it down, they saw that she
was laughing. She was laughing so hard that the tears ran down her
cheeks.

"I reckon I'll have to let you off, Abe," she said. "You'd be a mite too
big for me to handle."

Tom jumped up. "He ain't too big for me. He ain't too big for a
good-sized hickory switch."

Sarah bit her lip, her own brief anger forgotten. "Now, Tom," she
protested.

"You ain't going to talk me out of it this time."

"I--I was aiming to whitewash the ceiling, Pa," said Abe. "Ma said it
needed a fresh coat."

Sarah looked relieved. "That is exactly what he can do. Whitewash the
ceiling."

"He can after I've given him a licking."

Sarah put out her hand. "Sit down, Tom, and finish your 'taters before
they get cold. I figure it this way. Before Abe starts reading that new
book, he can whitewash the ceiling. The walls, too. That ought to learn
him not to cut up any more didos."

Sarah pulled down her mouth, trying to look stern. Tom sat down and
started to eat his potato.

"You're a good one, Sairy," he chuckled. "You sure know how to get work
out of him."

Abe looked at her gratefully. At the same time he was disappointed. He
had been thinking about that book all afternoon.

The next morning Sarah shooed everyone out of the cabin. Abe was down by
the horse trough, mixing the whitewash in a big tub. By the time he
returned, she had a bucket of hot water and a gourdful of soft soap
ready. After washing the inside of the cabin he got busy with the
whitewash. First he did the walls. Then he did the rafters and the
ceiling. He cocked his head, gazing at the muddy footprints.

"They make a right pretty picture, ma'am. Shall I leave them on for
decoration?"

Sarah, seated on a stool by the fireplace, looked up from her sewing.
"Abe, you big scamp. You get that ceiling nice and white, or I'll be
carrying out my threat."

The corners of her mouth were twitching. Abe grinned, glad to be at
peace with her again.

"After I finish here," he asked, "do you have any more chores?"

"No, Abe. I reckon there will be time for you to do some reading. But
first, you finish your whitewashing. Then there's something I want to
talk to you about."

Abe dipped his brush into the whitewash again and again, until he had
covered up the last telltale mark of Johnny's feet. The cabin was bright
and shining when he finished. He pulled another stool up to the
fireplace and sat facing Sarah.

"I wasn't meaning to tell you just yet," she said. "Leastways until I
had a chance to talk to your pa."

"What is it, Mamma?"

"There's a new neighbor come to Pigeon Creek," she said. "Man by the
name of James Swaney. He is farming now, but he is fixing to keep a
school next winter."

Abe jumped up and stood looking down at her. "Do you reckon that Pa--"

"Your pa is worried," Sarah interrupted. "Money-worried. He may have to
sell some of his land. That's why he gets riled so easy--like
yesterday."

Abe flushed.

"I want you to be careful," said Sarah. "Try not to get his dander up."

"I'll try not to."

"Maybe you recollect what I promised you when I first came. I said I'd
ask your pa to let you go to school again. Now I'm a body that believes
in keeping my promises. I just want to wait till he feels good."

Sarah's sewing basket spilled to the floor, as Abe pulled her to her
feet. He put his long arms around her waist and gave her a good bear
hug.

"Abe Lincoln, you're most choking me," she said breathlessly. "Here I
was thinking how grown up you were getting to be. Now you be acting like
a young one again."

Abe kissed her on the cheek.




8

[Illustration]


Abe sat up late, holding his book close to the flickering flames in the
fireplace. As the rain drummed on the roof, his thoughts were far away.
He was with General Washington in a small boat crossing the Delaware
River on a cold Christmas night many years before. He was fighting the
battle of Trenton with a handful of brave American soldiers. They must
have wanted very much to be free, he decided, to be willing to fight so
hard and suffer so much.

"Isn't it getting too dark for you to see?" Sarah called sleepily.

"Yes, Mamma."

Carefully Abe placed the precious little volume between two logs in the
wall of the cabin. This was his bookcase. As he climbed into the loft he
wondered if the book told about the time George Washington became
President. He would have to wait until morning to find out.

He was up early. But his face grew pale when he reached for the book.
During the night the rain had leaked in on it through a crack in the
logs. The pages were wet and stuck together. The binding was warped.
Sally was starting down the path toward the Crawford cabin when Abe
called after her.

"Wait! I'm coming with you."

He thrust the book inside his buckskin shirt. Sally tried to comfort
him, but Abe kept wondering what Mr. Crawford was going to say. He was a
little scared of Josiah. Some of the boys called him "Old Bluenose"
because of the large purple vein on the side of his nose. It made him
look rather cross. He probably would want Abe to pay for the book, and
Abe had no money.

He opened the Crawford gate and marched up to the kitchen door. Josiah,
his wife Elizabeth, and Sammy, their little boy, were having breakfast.
When Abe explained what had happened, Mrs. Crawford patted his shoulder.
He liked her. She was always nice to him, but he knew that her husband
was the one who would decide about the book. Josiah took it in his big
hands and looked at the stained pages.

"Well, Abe," he said slowly, "I won't be hard on you. If you want to
pull fodder three days for me, that ought to pay for the book."

"Starting right now?"

"Yep, starting right now." Josiah was actually smiling. "Then you can
have the book to keep."

Abe caught his breath. What a lucky boy he was! Three days' work and he
could keep the book! He would have a chance to read about George
Washington any time he wanted to.

Never had he worked harder or faster than he did that morning. When the
noon dinner bell rang, he seemed to be walking on air as he followed
Josiah into the cabin. Sally was putting dinner on the table. Abe
slipped up behind her and pulled one of her pigtails. Taken by surprise,
she jumped and dropped a pitcher of cream. The pitcher did not break,
but the cream spilled and spread over the kitchen floor.

[Illustration]

"Abe Lincoln! Look what you made me do!" cried Sally. "I just washed
that floor. And look at that good cream going to waste."

"'Tain't going to waste." Abe pointed to Elizabeth Crawford's cat, which
was lapping up the delicious yellow stream. Then he began to sing:
"Cat's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo!"

"Stop trying to show off!" said Sally.

She was angry, but Sammy, Elizabeth's little boy, shouted with delight.
That was all the encouragement Abe needed. The fact that he could not
carry a tune did not seem to bother him.

  "Cat's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo!
   Cat's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo!
     Skip to my Lou, my darling."

Sally was down on her hands and knees, wiping up the cream. "Stop
singing that silly song, and help me."

Instead, Abe danced a jig. He leaned down and pulled her other pigtail.

[Illustration]

"Sally's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo."

"That's enough, Abe," said Elizabeth Crawford.

"Skip to my Lou, my darling." He whirled around on his bare feet and
made a sweeping bow. Sally was close to tears.

"Abe, I told you to stop," said Elizabeth Crawford. "You ought to be
ashamed, teasing your sister. If you keep on acting that way, what do
you think is going to become of you?"

"Me?" Abe drew himself up. "What's going to become of me? I'm going to
be President."

Elizabeth looked at him, a lanky barefoot boy with trousers too short.
His shirt was in rags. His black hair was tousled. She sank into a
chair, shaking with laughter. "A pretty President you'd make, now
wouldn't you?"

She had no sooner spoken than she wanted to take back the words. All of
the joy went out of his face. Sally was too angry to notice.

"Maybe you're going to be President," she said. "But first you'd better
learn to behave."

"I--I was just funning, Sally."

Something in his voice made Sally look up. She saw the hurt expression
in his eyes. "I know you were," she said hastily. "I'm not mad any
more."

Abe ate his dinner in silence. He did not seem to be the same boy who
had been cutting up only a few minutes before. Elizabeth kept telling
herself that she should not have laughed at him. He did try to show off
sometimes. But he was a good boy. She thought more of him than of any of
the other young folks in Pigeon Creek. Not for anything would she have
hurt his feelings. When he pushed back his stool, she followed him out
into the yard.

"About your being President," she said. "I wasn't aiming to make fun of
you. I just meant that you--with all your tricks and jokes--"

"I reckon I know what you meant," said Abe quietly. "All the same, Mrs.
Crawford, I don't always mean to delve and grub and such like."

There was a look of determination on his face that she had not seen
before. "I think a heap of you," she went on, "and I don't want to see
you disappointed. It's a fine thing to be ambitious. But don't let
reading about George Washington give you notions that can't come to
anything."

Abe threw back his shoulders. "I aim to study and get ready and then the
chance will come."

He lifted his battered straw hat, and started down the path toward the
field. He walked with dignity. Elizabeth had not realized that he was so
tall.

"I declare," she said, "he really means it!"

Sammy had come up and heard her. "Means what. Mamma?" he asked.

Elizabeth took his hand. "Didn't you know, Sammy? Abe is fixing to be
President some day."




9

[Illustration]


On Sunday morning the Lincolns went to church. All except Sarah. She had
a headache.

"I'll go, Ma," said Abe. "When I come back, I'll tell you what the
preacher said."

Sarah smiled at him fondly. Abe could listen to a sermon, then come home
and repeat it almost word for word. "I'd rather hear you preachify," she
said, "than the preacher himself."

Tom and his family walked single file into the log meeting house and
took their places on one of the long wooden benches. John Carter,
sitting on the bench in front of them, turned and nodded. Carter had
promised to buy the Lincolns' south field. He would have the papers
ready for Tom to sign on Monday. Tom needed the money, but the very
thought of selling any of his land made him grumpy. He twisted and
turned on the hard wooden bench during the long sermon. He hardly heard
a word that the preacher was saying.

Abe leaned forward and listened eagerly. The preacher was a tall, thin
man. He flung his arms about. His voice grew louder and hoarser as the
morning passed. He paused only to catch his breath or when the members
of the congregation shouted, "Amen." After the final hymn, he stood at
the door shaking hands.

"Brother Lincoln," he said, "I want you to meet up with a new neighbor.
This here is Mr. Swaney."

Tom shook hands. Then the preacher introduced Abe.

"Are you the new schoolmaster?" Abe asked.

"I don't figure on starting school till after harvest," Mr. Swaney
replied. "Will you be one of my scholars?"

"I'd sure like to come." Abe glanced at his father.

"I reckon not," said Tom stiffly. "Abe has had as much schooling as he
needs."

Back at the cabin, Sarah had dinner on the table. Tom cheered up as he
and Dennis started "swapping yarns." Both were good storytellers and
each tried to tell a better story than the other.

Abe did not like being left out of the conversation. "Pa," he asked,
"can you answer me a question about something in the Bible?"

"I figure I can answer any question you got sense enough to ask."

Johnny and Mathilda nudged each other. They knew what was coming. One
day when the preacher stopped by, Abe had asked him the same question.
The preacher had been downright flustered when he couldn't answer.

"It's just this, Pa," Abe went on. "Who was the father of Zebedee's
children?"

Tom flushed. "Any uppity young one can ask a question. But can he answer
it? Suppose _you_ tell _me_ who was the father of Zebedee's children?"

"I sort of figured," said Abe, "that Zebedee was."

Everyone was laughing except Tom. Then he laughed, too. Sarah was glad.
Abe had told her that Mr. Swaney was at church. She was going to talk to
her husband that very afternoon about sending the children to school,
and she wanted him to be in a good humor.

"What did the preacher have to say?" she asked.

"Well--" Tom was trying to remember. "What he said sort of got lost in
the way he was saying it. How some of those preachers do hop and skip
about!"

"I like to hear a preacher who acts like he's fighting bees," said Abe.

Sarah nodded. The description fitted the preacher "like his own
moccasin," she said.

"You menfolks wait outside," she added. "Soon as the gals and I get the
dishes done, we'll be out to hear Abe preachify."

[Illustration]

The afternoon was warm. Sarah fanned herself with her apron as she sat
down at one end of a fallen log near the door. The rest of the family
lined up beside her. Abe stood before them, his arms folded, as he
repeated the sermon he had heard that morning. Now and then he paused
and shook his finger in the faces of his congregation. He pounded with
one fist on the palm of his other hand.

"Brethern and sisters," said Abe, "there ain't no chore too big for the
Lord, no chore too small. The Good Book says He knows when a sparrow
falls. Yet He had time to turn this great big wilderness into this here
land where we have our homes. Just think, folks, this Pigeon Creek had
no one but Indians living here a few years back. And today we got cabins
with smoke coming out of the chimneys. We got crops agrowing. We got a
meeting house where we can come together and praise the Lord--"

Abe paused.

"Amen!" said Tom.

"Amen!" said the others.

"Don't forget," Abe went on, "all of this was the Lord's doing. Let us
praise Him for His goodness."

He reached down, plucked a fistful of grass, and mopped his forehead. In
much the same way had the preacher used his bandanna handkerchief. The
Lincoln family rose, sang "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow," and
church was over.

The young folks drifted away. Tom stretched out on the grass for his
Sunday afternoon nap.

"Abe tells me that new Mr. Swaney was at church," Sarah said.

Tom opened his eyes. Before he had a chance to go back to sleep, she
spoke again.

"He's fixing to keep a school next winter."

"So I hear," said Tom cautiously.

"He charges seventy-five cents for each scholar. Some schoolmasters
charge a dollar."

"Sounds like a lot of money."

"Several of the neighbors are fixing to send their young ones," Sarah
went on. "Mr. Swaney doesn't ask for cash money. He'll take skins or
farm truck. We can manage that, I reckon."

Tom yawned. "Plumb foolishness, if you ask me. But Johnny and Mathilda
are your young ones. If you want to send them--"

"I want Sally and Abe to go, too," Sarah interrupted. "Abe most of all.
He is the one school will do the most good. He's the one who wants it
most."

Tom sat up. "I can spare the younger ones, but I need Abe. With us
poorer than Job's turkey, you ought to know that."

Sarah listened patiently. "I ain't talking about right now. Mr. Swaney
won't start his school till winter. Farm work will be slack then."

"I can hire Abe out to split rails, even in cold weather," Tom reminded
her. "Maybe I can get some odd jobs as a carpenter, and Abe can help
me."

"Abe ain't no great hand at carpentry."

"He can learn. Why, he's fourteen, Sairy. The idea, a big, strapping boy
like that going to school. I tell you, I won't have it."

"But I promised him."

It was the first time that Tom had ever heard a quaver in his wife's
voice. He looked away uneasily. "If you made a promise you can't keep,
that's your lookout. You might as well stop nagging me, Sairy. My mind
is made up."

To make sure that there would be no more conversation on the subject, he
got up and stalked across the grass. He lay down under another tree, out
of hearing distance. Sarah sat on the log for a long time. Abe came back
and sat down beside her. He could tell, by looking at her, that she had
been talking to his father about letting him go to school. He knew,
without asking any questions, that his father had said no.

Sarah laid her hand on his knee. "Your pa is a good man," she said
loyally. "Maybe he will change his mind."




10

[Illustration]


"Hurry up and eat your breakfast, Abe," said Tom the next morning. "We're
going to cut corn for that skinflint, John Carter."

Sarah passed her husband a plate of hot cornbread. "Why, Tom, it ain't
fitting to talk that way about a neighbor. Before the children, too."

Tom poured a generous helping of sorghum molasses over his bread. "I'm
an honest man. It's fitting that I call Carter what he is, and he's a
skinflint. He is only paying Abe and me ten cents a day."

"Other folks pay you two-bits."

"I ain't got any other work right now. Carter knows I need all the money
I can lay my hands on. The way he beat me down on the price for my south
field."

"I wish you didn't have to sell."

"Wishing won't do any good. I need cash money mighty bad. Remember, this
farm ain't paid for yet."

He got up and walked over to the chest. He picked up the sharp knife he
used for cutting corn. "Get your knife, Abe, and come along."

Abe walked behind his father along the path through the woods. "That Mr.
Swaney was right nice," he said.

Tom grunted.

"He is waiting to start his school until after harvest," Abe went on.
"Nat Grigsby is going. Allen Gentry is going, and he is two years older
than me."

"Allen's pa is a rich man," said Tom gruffly. "Maybe he's got money to
burn, but poor folks like us have to earn our keep."

"But, Pa--"

"I declare, your tongue is loose at both ends today. Can't you stop
plaguing me? First your ma, then you. You ought to see I'm worried."

Abe said nothing more. He pulled a book out of the front of his shirt
and began to read as he strode along the path. Tom looked back over his
shoulder.

"Don't let John Carter catch you with that book."

"I brought it along so I can read while I eat my dinner. I'll put it
away before we get to the Carter place."

"Eddication!" said Tom in disgust "I never had any, and I get along
better'n if I had. Take figuring. If a fellow owes me money, I take a
burnt stick and make a mark on the wall. When he pays me, I take a
dishrag and wipe the mark off. That's better than getting all hot and
bothered trying to figure.

"And writing? I can write my name and that's all the writing I need. But
the most tomfoolery of all is reading. You don't see _me_ waste _my_
time reading any books."

[Illustration]

The path ended at the edge of the woods, and Tom opened the gate into
the Carter cornfield. Row after row of tall corn stretched away in even,
straight lines. Mr. Carter was waiting.

"Ready to sign over that south field, Tom?" he asked. "A lawyer from
Rockport is drawing up the papers. He is riding up with them this
morning. I'll see you at dinner time."

After John Carter had gone back to his cabin, Tom and Abe set to work.
Using their sharp knives, they began cutting the corn close to the
ground. They stood the tall golden stalks on end, tying them together in
neat shocks or bundles. By the time the sun stood directly overhead,
several long rows had been cut and stacked, and John Carter was coming
toward them across the field. It was noon.

Abe laid aside his knife, sat down on the rail fence, and pulled out his
book. He took a piece of cornbread wrapped in a corn husk from his
pocket. As he ate, he read, paying no attention to the conversation
taking place a few feet away.

"Come and sit down, Tom," said Carter.

Tom sat on a tree stump. Carter was being more friendly than usual. He
was carrying a gourd full of ink, which he placed on another stump. He
set down a deerskin bag, which jingled pleasantly with coins. In one
pocket he found a turkey-buzzard pen. From another he brought out an
official-looking paper.

"Here is the deed for the south field," he explained. "Here's a pen.
I'll hold the ink for you. You make your mark right here."

"I don't need to make my mark," said Tom proudly. "I know how to sign my
name."

"Then hurry up and do it. Mrs. Carter has dinner ready, and I got to get
back to the house."

Tom took the paper and looked at it uncertainly. "I don't sign any paper
till I know what I'm signing. I want time to--to go over this careful
like."

He could make out a few of the words, and that was all. But not for
anything would he admit that he could not read it.

"You told me you wanted to sell," said Carter. "I said I would buy. I am
keeping my part of the bargain. I even brought the money with me."

Tom's face grew red. He looked down at the paper in his hand. He glanced
at Abe seated on the fence. A struggle was taking place between pride
and common sense. Common sense won.

"Abe, come here," he called.

Abe went on reading.

Tom raised his voice. "Abe! When I tell you to come, I mean for you to
come."

The boy looked up from his book with a start. "Yes, Pa. Did you want
me?"

"Hustle over here and look at this paper. Carter is in a mighty big
hurry for me to sign something I ain't had a chance to read."

"You have had plenty of time to read it," said Carter. "But if you don't
want to sell, I can call the whole deal off."

Abe reached out a long arm and took the paper. He read it slowly. "Pa,"
he asked, "don't you aim to sell Mr. Carter just the south field?"

"You know I'm selling him just the south field," said Tom.

"Then don't sign this."

Carter picked up the money bag clanking with coins. He tossed it into
the air and caught it neatly. Tom looked at it. He wanted that money! He
looked at Abe.

"Why shouldn't I sign?" he asked.

"If you do, you'll be selling Mr. Carter most of your farm."

John Carter was furious. "Don't try to tell me a country jake like you
can read! That paper says the south field, as plain as the nose on your
face."

"It says that and a sight more, Mr. Carter," Abe drawled. "It says the
north field, too. It says the east and the west fields. There wouldn't
be much farm left for Pa, except the part our cabin is setting on."

A dispute between men in Pigeon Creek usually ended in a fight. Tom
Lincoln doubled up his fists. "Put them up, Carter."

The two men rolled over and over in a confused tangle of arms and legs.
Now Tom Lincoln was on top. Now it was John Carter. "Go it, Pa," Abe
shouted from the fence. "Don't let that old skinflint get you down."
After a few minutes. Carter lay on his back gasping for breath.

"Nuf!" he cried, and Tom let him scramble to his feet.

Carter began brushing himself off. "It ain't fitting to fight a
neighbor," he whined, "just because of a mistake."

"Mistake nothing!" Tom snorted. "Somebody lied, and it wasn't Abe."

"I'll have a new paper made out, if you like," said Carter.

Tom looked at him with scorn. "You ain't got enough money to buy my
south field. But I'll thank you for the ten cents you owe us. Abe and I
each did a half day's work."

[Illustration]

Tom's right eye was swelling, and by the time he reached home it was
closed. The bump on the side of his head was the size of a hen's egg.
There was a long scratch down his cheek.

Sarah was kneeling before the fireplace, raking ashes over the potatoes
that she had put in to bake. She jumped up in alarm.

"What's the matter? What happened?" she asked.

"It was like Pa said," Abe told her. "Mr. Carter is a skinflint."

Sarah took Tom by the arm and made him sit down on a stool. She touched
the swollen eye with gentle fingers.

"It don't hurt much," he said.

"I reckon Mr. Carter hurts more," Abe spoke up again. "He has two black
eyes."

Tom slapped his thigh and roared with laughter. "He sure does. But if it
hadn't been for Abe--"

He stopped, embarrassed. Sarah was soaking a cloth in a basin of cold
water. She laid it on his eye.

"What started it all?"

"You tell them, Abe," said Tom.

"That Mr. Carter ain't as smart as he thinks he is," Abe explained. "He
had a paper for Pa to sign and tried to make out it was for just the
south field. And do you know what, Mamma? When Pa asked me to read it,
why, it was for almost our whole farm."

"You don't mean to tell me!" said Sarah.

"Carter said he'd have a new paper made out. But I told him," Tom added
with a touch of pride, "I could do without his money."

"Good for you!" Sarah said, beaming. "Don't you fret. We'll squeak
through somehow. But what if you had signed that paper? The farm would
have been sold right out from under us. I reckon we can feel mighty
proud of Abe."

"Well," Tom admitted, "it didn't hurt that he knew how to read. When did
you say Mr. Swaney aims to start his school?"

"Right after harvest," said Abe before his stepmother had a chance to
answer.

Tom ignored him and went on talking to his wife. "Now, mind you, Sairy,
I ain't saying Abe needs any more eddication. I ain't saying it is
fitting a son should know more'n his pa. But if you think the young ones
should go to this new school for a spell, I won't say no."

He rose and stalked out of the cabin. Then he came back and stuck his
head in at the door.

"Mind you, Abe, you forget to do your chores just one time, and that
schoolmaster won't be seeing you again."

"Come back in and sit down, Tom," said Sarah. "Supper is nearly ready.
Besides, Abe has something that needs saying."

Abe looked at his stepmother in surprise. Then he looked at his father.
"I'm much obliged, Pa," he said.




11

[Illustration]


After a few weeks at Master Swaney's school, Abe had to stop and go to
work again. When he was seventeen, he had a chance to attend another
school kept by Azel Dorsey. Nearly every Friday afternoon there were
special exercises and the scholars spoke pieces. For the final program
on the last day of school, the boys had built a platform outside the log
schoolhouse. Parents, brothers and sisters, and friends found seats on
fallen logs and on the grass. They listened proudly as, one by one, the
children came forward and each recited a poem or a speech.

Master Dorsey walked to the front of the platform. He held up his hand
for silence. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we come to the last
number on our program. Twenty-five years ago Thomas Jefferson became
President of these United States. We shall now hear the speech he made
that day. Abraham Lincoln will recite it for us."

Sarah Lincoln, from under her pink sunbonnet, stole a glance at Tom. "I
hope that Abe does well," she whispered.

Abe did do well. He forgot that he was growing too fast, that his hands
were too big, and that his trousers were too short. For a few minutes he
made his audience forget it. Master Dorsey seemed to swell with pride.
If that boy lives, he thought, he is going to be a noted man some day.
Elizabeth Crawford, sitting in the front row, remembered what he had
said about being President. If she closed her eyes, she could almost
imagine that Thomas Jefferson was speaking. When Abe finished and made
an awkward bow, she joined in the hearty burst of applause.

"Do you know where he got that piece?" she asked her husband in a low
voice. "From _The Kentucky Preceptor_, one of the books you loaned him.
It makes a body feel good to think we helped him. Look at Mrs. Lincoln!
She couldn't be more pleased if Abe was her own son."

Sarah waited to walk home with him. "I was mighty proud of you today,"
she said. "Why, what's the matter? You look mighty down-in-the-mouth for
a boy who spoke his piece so well on the last day."

"I was thinking that this is the last day," he answered. "The last day
I'll ever go to school, most likely."

"Well, you're seventeen now."

"Yes, I'm seventeen, and I ain't had a year's schooling all told. I
can't even talk proper. I forget and say 'ain't' though I know it
ain't--I mean isn't right."

"It seems to me you're educating yourself with all those books you
read," said Sarah cheerfully.

"I've already read all the books for miles around. Besides, I want to
see places. I can't help it, Ma, I want to get away."

Sarah looked at him fondly. She wished that she could find some way to
help him.

Abe found ways to help himself. He was never to go to school again, but
he could walk to Rockport to attend trials in the log courthouse. He
liked to listen to the lawyers argue their cases. Sometimes he would
write down what they said on a piece of paper. Now and then he had a
chance to borrow a book that he had not read before from some new
settler. He read the old books over and over again. He liked to read the
newspapers to which Mr. Gentry, Allen's father, subscribed. The papers
told what was going on in the big world outside of Pigeon Creek.

James Gentry owned the log store at the crossroads, where the little
town, Gentryville, had grown up. His partner, William Jones, was one of
Abe's best friends, and Abe spent nearly every evening at the store. It
became the favorite meeting place for the men and boys who lived close
by.

"Howdy, Abe!" Everyone seemed to be saying it at once when he came in.

"The Louisville paper came today," William Jones might add. "Here you
are! The fellows have been waiting for you to holler out the news."

[Illustration]

Abe sat on the counter, swinging his long legs, as he read the newspaper
out loud. The men sat quietly, except when William got up to throw
another log on the fire or to light another candle. Abe read on and on.
After he finished the paper, they talked about what he had read. They
argued about many things from politics to religion. They always wanted
to know what Abe thought. Many times they stayed until nearly midnight
listening to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

One evening, not long after Abe's nineteenth birthday, he walked home
from the store in great excitement. He had been very sad since his
sister Sally had died in January, but tonight he seemed more cheerful.
Sarah looked up to find him standing in the doorway.

"What do you think has happened, Ma?" he asked. "I am going to New
Orleans."

"How come, Abe?"

Sarah knew that prosperous farmers sometimes loaded their corn and other
farm products on big flatboats. These flatboats were floated down the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where the cargoes were sold.
But the Lincolns raised only enough for their own use. They never had
anything left over to sell. Nor could they afford to build a flatboat
for the long trip down the rivers.

"How come?" Sarah asked again.

Abe seized her around the waist and danced her across the floor. She was
out of breath but laughing when he let her go.

"Allen Gentry is taking a cargo of farm truck down to New Orleans to
sell," he explained. "His pa has hired me to help on the flatboat. Mr.
Gentry will pay me eight dollars a month. I reckon Pa will be pleased
about that."

Abe himself was pleased because he was going to see something of the
world. New Orleans was seven hundred miles away. It was a big and
important city. Sarah was pleased because this was the chance that Abe
had been wanting.

He had grown so tall that she had to throw back her head to look up at
him. "I'm right glad for you," she said.




12

[Illustration]


To a boy brought up in the backwoods, the trip down the rivers was one
long adventure. Abe sat at the forward oar, guiding the big flatboat
through the calm, blue waters of the Ohio, while Allen cooked supper on
deck. Afterwards Abe told stories.

After they had reached the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio
emptied into the yellow waters of the Mississippi, there was little time
for stories. The boys never knew what to expect next. One minute the
river would be quiet and calm. The next it would rise in the fury of a
sudden storm. The waves rose in a yellow flood that poured over the
deck. Allen at the back oar, Abe at the front oar, had a hard time
keeping the big flatboat from turning over.

At the end of each day, the boys tied up the boat at some place along
the shore. One night after they had gone to sleep, several robbers crept
on board. Abe and Allen awoke just in time. After a long, hard fight,
the robbers turned and fled.

[Illustration]

These dangers only made their adventures seem more exciting. It was
exciting, too, to be a part of the traffic of the river. They saw many
other flatboats like their own. The biggest thrill was in watching the
steamboats, with giant paddle wheels that turned the water into foam.
Their decks were painted a gleaming white, and their brass rails shone
in the sun. No wonder they were called "floating palaces," thought Abe.
Sometimes passengers standing by the rail waved to the boys.

Each day of their journey brought gentler breezes, warmer weather.
Cottonwood and magnolia trees grew on the low swampy banks of both
shores. The boys passed cotton fields, where gangs of Negro slaves were
at work. Some of them were singing as they bent to pick the snowy white
balls of cotton. A snatch of song came floating over the water:

  "Oh, brother, don't get weary,
   Oh, brother, don't get weary,
   Oh, brother, don't get weary,
     We're waiting for the Lord."

[Illustration]

Abe leaned on his oar to listen. A few minutes later he pointed to a big
house with tall white pillars in the middle of a beautiful garden.

"Nice little cabin those folks have," he said drily. "Don't recollect
seeing anything like that up in Pigeon Creek."

"Why, Abe, you haven't seen anything yet. Just wait till you get to New
Orleans."

This was Allen's second trip, and he was eager to show Abe the sights. A
few days later they were walking along the New Orleans waterfront. Ships
from many different countries were tied up at the wharves. Negro slaves
were rolling bales of cotton onto a steamboat. Other Negroes, toting
huge baskets on their heads, passed by. Sailors from many lands,
speaking strange tongues, rubbed elbows with fur trappers dressed in
buckskins from the far Northwest. A cotton planter in a white suit
glanced at the two youths from Pigeon Creek. He seemed amused. Abe
looked down at his homespun blue jeans. He had not realized that all
young men did not wear them.

"Reckon we do look different from some of the folks down here," he said,
as he and Allen turned into a narrow street.

Here there were more people--always more people. The public square was
crowded. Abe gazed in awe at the Cathedral. This tall Spanish church,
with its two graceful towers, was so different from the log meeting
house that the Lincolns attended.

Nor was there anything back in Pigeon Creek like the tall plaster houses
faded by time and weather into warm tones of pink and lavender and
yellow. The balconies, or porches, on the upper floors had wrought iron
railings, of such delicate design that they looked like iron lace.

Once the boys paused before a wrought iron gate. At the end of a long
passageway they could see a courtyard where flowers bloomed and a
fountain splashed in the sunshine. Abe turned to watch a handsome
carriage roll by over the cobblestones. He looked down the street toward
the river, which sheltered ships from all over the world.

"All this makes me feel a little like Sinbad," he said, "but I reckon
even Sinbad never visited New Orleans. I sure do like it here."

But soon Abe began to see other sights that made him sick at heart. He
and Allen passed a warehouse where slaves were being sold at auction. A
crowd had gathered inside. Several Negroes were standing on a platform
called an auction block. One by one they stepped forward. A man called
an auctioneer asked in a loud voice, "What am I offered? Who will make
the first bid?"

"Five hundred," called one man.

"Six hundred," called another.

The bids mounted higher. Each slave was sold to the man who bid, or
offered to pay, the most money. One field hand and his wife were sold to
different bidders. There were tears in the woman's dark eyes as he was
led away. She knew that she would never see her husband again.

"Let's get out of here," said Abe. "I can't stand any more."

They walked back to their own flatboat tied up at one of the wharves.
Allen got supper, but Abe could not eat.

"Don't look like that," said Allen. "Many of the folks down here
inherited their slaves, same as their land. Slavery ain't their fault."

"I never said it was anybody's fault--at least not anybody who's living
now. But it just ain't right for one man to own another."

"Well, stop worrying. There's nothing you can do about it."

"Maybe not," said Abe gloomily, "but I'm mighty glad there aren't any
slaves in Indiana."

Allen stayed on in New Orleans for several days to sell his cargo. It
brought a good price. He then sold his flatboat, which would be broken
up and used for lumber. Flatboats could not travel upstream. He and Abe
would either have to walk back to Indiana, or they could take a
steamboat.

"We'd better not walk, carrying all this money," said Allen. "Pretty
lonely country going home. We might get robbed."

The steamboat trip was a piece of good fortune that Abe had not
expected. He enjoyed talking with the other passengers. The speed at
which they traveled seemed a miracle. It had taken the boys a month to
make the trip downstream by flatboat. They were returning upstream in
little more than a week. They were standing together by the rail when
the cabins of Rockport, perched on a high wooded bluff, came into view.

"It sure was good of your pa to give me this chance," said Abe. "I've
seen some sights I wish I hadn't, but the trip has done me good. Sort of
stretched my eyes and ears! Stretched me all over--inside, I mean." He
laughed. "I don't need any stretching on the outside."

Allen looked at his tall friend. They had been together most of the
time. They had talked with the same people, visited the same places,
seen the same sights. Already Allen was beginning to forget them. Now
that he was almost home, it was as if he had never been away. But Abe
seemed different. Somehow he had changed.

"I can't figure it out," Allen told him. "You don't seem the same."

"Maybe I'm not," said Abe. "I keep thinking about some of the things I
saw."




13

[Illustration]


The Lincolns were leaving Pigeon Creek. One day a letter had arrived
from John Hanks, a cousin, who had gone to Illinois to live. The soil
was richer there, the letter said. Why didn't Tom come, too, and bring
his family? He would find it easier to make a living. Even the name of
the river near John's home had a pleasant sound. It was called the
Sangamon--an Indian word meaning "plenty to eat."

"We're going," Tom decided. "I'm going to sell this farm and buy
another. Do you want to come with us, Abe?"

Two years had passed since Abe's return from New Orleans. Two years of
hard work. Two years of looking forward to his next birthday. He was
nearly twenty-one and could leave home if he wanted to.

"Well, Pa--" he hesitated.

Sarah was watching him, waiting for his answer.

"I'll come with you," said Abe. "I'll stay long enough to help you get
the new farm started."

There were thirteen people in the Lincoln party: Tom and Sarah, Abe and
Johnny, Betsy and Dennis Hanks who had been married for several years,
Mathilda and her husband, and two sets of children. They made the
journey in three big wagons, traveling over frozen roads and crossing
icy streams. After two weeks they came to John Hanks' home on the
prairies of Illinois. He made them welcome, then took them to see the
place that he had selected for their farm. In the cold winter light it
looked almost as desolate as Pigeon Creek had looked fourteen years
before. Tom Lincoln was beginning all over again.

This time he had more help. John Hanks had a great pile of logs split
and ready to be used for their new cabin. Abe was now able to do a man's
work. After the cabin was finished, he split enough rails to build a
fence around the farm. Some of the new neighbors hired him to split logs
for them.

The following spring, he was offered other work that he liked much
better. A man named Denton Offut was building a flatboat, which he
planned to float down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and on to
New Orleans. He hired Abe to help with the cargo. The two young men
became friends. When Abe returned home after the long voyage, he had
news for Sarah.

"Ma," he said, "Denton is fixing to start a store up in New Salem.
That's a village on the Sangamon River. He wants me to be his clerk."

Sarah said nothing for a moment. If Abe went away to stay, the cabin
would seem mighty lonesome. She would miss him terribly. But she wanted
him to do whatever was best for him.

"Mr. Offut said he'd pay me fifteen dollars a month," Abe added.

That was more money than he had ever earned, thought Sarah. And now that
he was over twenty-one, he could keep his wages for himself. "I reckon
you'll be leaving soon," she said aloud.

"Yes, Ma, I will." Telling her was harder than Abe had expected. "It is
high time that I start out on my own."

Sarah set to work to get his clothes ready. He was wearing his only pair
of jeans, and there wasn't much else for him to take. She washed his
shirts and the extra pair of socks that she had knit for him. He wrapped
these up in a big cloth and tied the bundle to the end of a long stick.
The next morning he was up early. After he told the rest of the family
good-by, Sarah walked with him to the gate.

Abe thrust the stick with his bundle over his shoulder. He had looked
forward to starting out on his own--and now he was scared. Almost as
scared as he had felt on that cold winter afternoon when his new mother
had first arrived in Pigeon Creek. Because she had believed in him, he
had started believing in himself. Her faith in him was still shining in
her eyes as she looked up at him and tried to smile.

He gave her a quick hug and hurried down the path.

It was a long, long walk to New Salem, where Abe arrived on a hot summer
day in 1831. This village, on a high bluff overlooking the Sangamon
River, was bigger than Gentryville, bigger even than Rockport. As he
wandered up and down the one street, bordered on both sides by a row of
neat log houses, he counted more than twenty-five buildings. There were
several stores, and he could see the mill down by the river.

[Illustration]

He pushed his way through a crowd that had gathered before one of the
houses. A worried-looking man, about ten years older than Abe, sat
behind a table on the little porch. He was writing in a big book.

"Howdy, Mister," said Abe. "What is all the excitement about?"

"This is election day," the man replied, "and I am the clerk in charge.
That is, I'm one of the clerks."

He stopped to write down the name of one of the men who stood in line.
He wrote the names of several other voters in his big book before he had
a chance to talk to Abe again. Then he explained that the other clerk
who was supposed to help him was sick.

"I'm mighty busy," he went on. "Say listen, stranger, do you know how to
write?"

"I can make a few rabbit tracks," Abe said, grinning.

"Maybe I can hire you to help me keep a record of the votes." The man
rose and shook hands. "My name is Mentor Graham."

By evening the younger man and the older one had become good friends.
Mr. Graham was a schoolmaster, and he promised to help Abe with his
studies. Soon Abe began to make other friends. Jack Kelso took him
fishing. Abe did not care much about fishing, but he liked to hear Jack
recite poetry by Robert Burns and William Shakespeare. They were Jack's
favorite poets, and they became Abe's favorites, too.

At the Rutledge Tavern, where Abe lived for a while, he met the owner's
daughter, Ann Rutledge. Ann was sweet and pretty, with a glint of
sunshine in her hair. They took long walks beside the river. It was easy
to talk to Ann, and Abe told her some of his secret hopes. She thought
that he was going to be a great man some day.

Her father, James Rutledge, also took an interest in him. Abe was
invited to join the New Salem Debating Society. The first time that he
got up to talk, the other members expected him to spend the time telling
funny stories. Instead he made a serious speech--and a very good one.

"That young man has more than wit and fun in his head," Mr. Rutledge
told his wife that night.

Abe liked to make speeches, but he knew that he did not always speak
correctly. One morning he was having breakfast at Mentor Graham's house.
"I have a notion to study English grammar," he said.

"If you expect to go before the public," Mentor answered, "I think it
the best thing you can do."

"If I had a grammar, I would commence now."

Mentor thought for a moment. "There is no one in town who owns a
grammar," he said finally. "But Mr. Vaner out in the country has one. He
might lend you his copy."

Abe got up from the table and walked six miles to the Vaner farm. When
he returned, he carried an open book in his hands. He was studying
grammar as he walked.

Meanwhile he worked as a clerk in Denton Offut's store. Customers could
buy all sorts of things there--tools and nails, needles and thread,
mittens and calico, and tallow for making candles. One day a woman
bought several yards of calico. After she left, Abe discovered that he
had charged her six cents too much. That evening he walked six miles to
give her the money. He was always doing things like that, and people
began to call him "Honest Abe."

Denton was so proud of his clerk that he could not help boasting. "Abe
is the smartest man in the United States," he said. "Yes, and he can
beat any man in the country running, jumping, or wrastling."

A bunch of young roughnecks lived a few miles away in another settlement
called Clary Grove. "That Denton Offut talks too much with his mouth,"
they said angrily. They did not mind Abe being called smart. But they
declared that no one could "out-wrastle" their leader, Jack Armstrong.
One day they rushed into the store and dared Abe to fight with Jack.

Abe laid down the book that he had been reading. "I don't hold with
wooling and pulling," he said. "But if you want to fight, come on
outside."

The Clary Grove boys soon realized that Denton's clerk was a good
wrestler. Jack, afraid that he was going to lose the fight, stepped on
Abe's foot with the sharp heel of his boot. The sudden pain made Abe
angry. The next thing that Jack knew he was being shaken back and forth
until his teeth rattled. Then he was lying flat on his back in the dust.

Jack's friends let out a howl of rage. Several of them rushed at Abe,
all trying to fight him at the same time. He stood with his back against
the store, his fists doubled up. He dared them to come closer. Jack
picked himself up.

"Stop it, fellows," he said. "I was beaten in a fair fight. If you ask
me, this Abe Lincoln is the cleverest fellow that ever broke into the
settlement."

From then on Jack was one of Abe's best friends.

A short time later Abe enlisted as a soldier in the Black Hawk War to
help drive the Indians out of Illinois. The Clary Grove boys were in his
company, and Abe was elected captain. Before his company had a chance to
do any fighting, Blackhawk was captured in another part of Illinois and
the war was over.

When Abe came back to New Salem, he found himself out of a job. Denton
Offut had left. The store had "winked out." Later, Abe and another young
man, William Berry, decided to become partners. They borrowed money and
started a store of their own.

One day a wagon piled high with furniture stopped out in front. A man
jumped down and explained that he and his family were moving West. The
wagon was too crowded, and he had a barrel of odds and ends that he
wanted to sell. Abe, always glad to oblige, agreed to pay fifty cents
for it. Later, when he opened it, he had a wonderful surprise.

The barrel contained a set of famous law books. He had seen those same
books in Mr. Pitcher's law office in Rockport. Now that he owned a set
of his own, he could read it any time he wished. Customers coming into
the store usually found Abe lying on the counter, his nose buried in one
of the new books. The more he read, the more interested he became.

Perhaps he spent too much time reading, instead of attending to
business. William Berry was lazy, and not a very satisfactory partner.
The store of Lincoln and Berry did so little business that it had to
close. The partners were left with many debts to pay. Then Berry died,
and "Honest Abe" announced that he would pay all of the debts himself,
no matter how long it took.

For a while he was postmaster. A man on horseback brought the mail twice
a week, and there were so few letters that Abe often carried them around
in his hat until he could deliver them. He liked the job because it gave
him a chance to read the newspapers to which the people in New Salem
subscribed. But the pay was small, and he had to do all sorts of odd
Jobs to earn enough to eat. On many days he would have gone hungry if
Jack Armstrong and his wife, Hannah, had not invited him to dinner. When
work was scarce he stayed with them two or three weeks at a time.

He knew that he had to find a way to earn more money, and he decided to
study surveying. It was a hard subject, but he borrowed some books and
read them carefully. He studied so hard that in six weeks' time he took
his first job as a surveyor.

Sometimes when he was measuring a farm or laying out a new road, he
would be gone for several weeks. People miles from New Salem knew who
Abe Lincoln was. They laughed at him because he was so tall and awkward.
They thought it funny that his trousers were always too short. But they
also laughed at his jokes, and they liked him. He made so many new
friends that he decided to be a candidate for the Illinois legislature.

One day during the campaign he had a long talk with Major John T.
Stuart. Major Stuart had been Abe's commander in the Black Hawk War. He
was now a lawyer in Springfield, a larger town twenty miles away.

"Why don't you study law?" he asked.

Abe pursed his lips. "I'd sure like to," he drawled; then added with a
grin: "But I don't know if I have enough sense."

Major Stuart paid no attention to this last remark. "You have been
reading law for pleasure," he went on. "Now go at it in earnest. I'll
lend you the books you need."

This was a chance that Abe could not afford to miss. Every few days he
walked or rode on horseback to Springfield to borrow another volume.
Sometimes he read forty pages on the way home. He was twenty-five years
old, and there was no time to waste.

Meanwhile he was making many speeches. He asked the voters in his part
of Illinois to elect him to the legislature which made the laws for the
state. They felt that "Honest Abe" was a man to be trusted and he was
elected.

Late in November Abe boarded the stagecoach for the ride to Vandalia,
then the capital of the state. He looked very dignified in a new suit
and high plug hat. In the crowd that gathered to tell him good-by, he
could see many of his friends. There stood Coleman Smoot who had lent
him money to buy his new clothes. Farther back he could see Mr. Rutledge
and Ann, Hannah and Jack Armstrong, Mentor Graham, and others who had
encouraged and helped him. And now he was on his way to represent them
in the legislature. There was a chorus of "Good-by, Abe."

Then, like an echo, the words came again in Ann's high, sweet voice:
"Good-by, Abe!" He leaned far out the window and waved.

He was thinking of Ann as the coach rolled over the rough road. He was
thinking also of Sarah. If only she could see him now, he thought, as he
glanced at the new hat resting on his knee.

[Illustration]




14

[Illustration]


The Legislature met for several weeks at a time. Between sessions, Abe
worked at various jobs in New Salem and read his law books. Most of his
studying was done early in the morning and late at night. He still found
time to see a great deal of Ann Rutledge, and something of her gentle
sweetness was to live on forever in his heart. After Ann died, he tried
to forget his grief by studying harder than ever.

The year that he was twenty-eight he took his examination, and was
granted a lawyer's license. He decided to move to Springfield, which had
recently been made the capital of the state.

It was a cold March day when he rode into this thriving little town. He
hitched his horse to the hitching rack in the public square and entered
one of the stores. Joshua Speed, the owner, a young man about Abe's age,
looked up with a friendly smile.

"Howdy, Abe," he said. "So you are going to be one of us?"

"I reckon so," Abe answered. "Say, Speed, I just bought myself a
bedstead. How much would it cost me for a mattress and some pillows and
blankets?"

Joshua took a pencil from behind his ear. He did some figuring on a
piece of paper. "I can fix you up for about seventeen dollars."

Abe felt the money in his pocket. He had only seven dollars. His horse
was borrowed, and he was still a thousand dollars in debt. Joshua saw
that he was disappointed. He had heard Abe make speeches, and Abe was
called one of the most promising young men in the legislature. Joshua
liked him and wanted to know him better.

"Why don't you stay with me, until you can do better?" he suggested. "I
have a room over the store and a bed big enough for two."

A grin broke over Abe's homely features. "Good!" he said. "Where is it?"

"You'll find some stairs over there behind that pile of barrels. Go on
up and make yourself at home."

Abe enjoyed living with Joshua Speed, and he enjoyed living in
Springfield. He soon became as popular as he had once been in Pigeon
Creek and in New Salem. As the months and years went by, more and more
people came to him whenever they needed a lawyer to advise them. For a
long time he was poor, but little by little he paid off his debts. With
his first big fee he bought a quarter section of land for his stepmother
who had been so good to him.

The part of his work that Abe liked best was "riding the circuit." In
the spring and again in the fall, he saddled Old Buck, his horse, and
set out with a judge and several other lawyers to visit some of the
towns close by. These towns "on the circuit" were too small to have law
courts of their own. In each town the lawyers argued the cases and the
judge settled the disputes that had come up during the past six months.

After supper they liked to gather at the inn to listen to Abe tell funny
stories. "I laughed until I shook my ribs loose," said one dignified
judge.

The other lawyers often teased Abe. "You ought to charge your clients
more money," they said, "or you will always be as poor as Job's turkey."

One evening they held a mock trial. Abe was accused of charging such
small fees that the other lawyers could not charge as much as they
should. The judge looked as solemn as he did at a real trial.

"You are guilty of an awful crime against the pockets of your brother
lawyers," he said severely. "I hereby sentence you to pay a fine."

There was a shout of laughter. "I'll pay the fine," said Abe
good-naturedly. "But my own firm is never going to be known as Catchem &
Cheatem."

Meanwhile a young lady named Mary Todd had come to Springfield to live.
Her father was a rich and important man in Kentucky. Mary was pretty and
well educated. Abe was a little afraid of her, but one night at a party
he screwed up his courage to ask her for a dance.

[Illustration]

"Miss Todd," he said, "I would like to dance with you the worst way."

As he swept her around the dance floor, he bumped into other couples. He
stepped on her toes. "Mr. Lincoln," said Mary, as she limped over to a
chair, "you did dance with me the worst way--the very worst."

She did not mind that he was not a good dancer. As she looked up into
Abe's homely face, she decided that he had a great future ahead of him.
She remembered something she had once said as a little girl: "When I
grow up, I want to marry a man who will be President of the United
States."

Abe was not the only one who liked Mary Todd. Among the other young men
who came to see her was another lawyer, Stephen A. Douglas. He was no
taller than Mary herself, but he had such a large head and shoulders
that he had been nicknamed "the Little Giant." He was handsome, and
rich, and brilliant. His friends thought that he might be President some
day.

"No," said Mary, "Abe Lincoln has the better chance to succeed."

Anyway, Abe was the man she loved. The next year they were married.

"I mean to make him President of the United States," she wrote to a
friend in Kentucky. "You will see that, as I always told you, I will yet
be the President's wife."

At first Mary thought that her dream was coming true. In 1846 Abe was
elected a member of the United States Congress in Washington. He had
made a good start as a political leader, and she was disappointed when
he did not run for a second term. Back he came to Springfield to
practice law again. By 1854 there were three lively boys romping through
the rooms of the comfortable white house that he had bought for his
family. Robert was eleven, Willie was four, and Tad was still a baby.
The neighbors used to smile to see Lawyer Lincoln walking down the
street carrying Tad on his shoulders, while Willie clung to his
coattails. The boys adored their father.

Mary did, too, but she wished that Abe would be more dignified. He sat
reading in his shirt sleeves, and he got down on the floor to play with
the boys. His wife did not think that was any way for a successful
lawyer to act. It also worried her that he was no longer interested in
politics.

And then something happened that neither Mary nor Abe had ever expected.
Their old friend, Stephen A. Douglas, who was now a Senator in
Washington, suggested a new law. Thousands of settlers were going West
to live, and in time they would form new states. The new law would make
it possible for the people in each new state to own slaves, if most of
the voters wanted to.

Abraham Lincoln was so aroused and indignant that he almost forgot his
law practice. He traveled around Illinois making speeches. There were no
laws against having slaves in the South, but slavery must be kept out of
territory that was still free, he said. The new states should be places
"for poor people to go to better their condition." Not only that, but it
was wrong for one man to own another. Terribly wrong.

"If the Negro is a man," he told one audience, "then my ancient faith
teaches me that all men are created equal."

Perhaps he was thinking of the first time he had visited a slave market.
He was remembering the words in the Declaration of Independence that had
thrilled him as a boy.

Two years later Abraham Lincoln was asked to be a candidate for the
United States Senate. He would be running against Douglas. Abe wanted
very much to be a Senator. Even more he wanted to keep slavery out of
the new states. Taking part in the political campaign would give him a
chance to say the things that he felt so deeply.

"I am convinced I am good enough for it," he told a friend, "but in
spite of it all I am saying to myself every day, 'It is too big a thing
for you; you will never get it.' Mary insists, however, that I am going
to be Senator and President of the United States, too."

Perhaps it was his wife's faith in him that gave him the courage to
try. Never was there a more exciting campaign. Never had the people of
Illinois been so stirred as during that hot summer of 1858. A series of
debates was held in seven different towns. The two candidates--Douglas,
"the little Giant," and "Old Abe, the Giant Killer," as his friends
called him--argued about slavery. People came from miles around to hear
them.

On the day of a debate, an open platform for the speakers was decorated
with red-white-and-blue bunting. Flags flew from the housetops. When
Senator Douglas arrived at the railroad station, his friends and
admirers met him with a brass band. He drove to his hotel in a fine
carriage.

Abe had admirers, too. Sometimes a long procession met him at the
station. Then Abe would be embarrassed. He did not like what he called
"fizzlegigs and fireworks." But he laughed when his friends in one town
drove him to his hotel in a hay wagon. This was their way of making fun
of Douglas and his fine manners.

Senator Douglas was an eloquent orator. While he was talking, some of
Abe's friends would worry. Would Old Abe be able to answer? Would he be
able to hold his own? Then Abe would unfold his long legs and stand up.
"The Giant Killer" towered so high above "the Little Giant" that a
titter ran through the crowd.

When he came to the serious part of his speech, there was silence. His
voice reached to the farthest corners of the crowd, as he reminded them
what slavery really meant. He summed it up in a few words: "You work and
toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it."

Both men worked hard to be elected. And Douglas won. "I feel like the
boy," said Abe, "who stubbed his toe. It hurts too bad to laugh, and I
am too big to cry."

All of those who loved him--Mary, his wife, in her neat white house;
Sarah, his stepmother, in her little cabin, more than a hundred miles
away; and his many friends--were disappointed. But not for long. The
part he took in the Lincoln-Douglas debates made his name known
throughout the United States.

Abe Lincoln's chance was coming.




15

[Illustration]


During the next two years Abraham Lincoln was asked to make many
speeches. "Let us have faith that right makes might," he told one
audience in New York, "and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do
our duty as we understand it."

At the end of the speech, several thousand people rose to their feet,
cheering and waving their handkerchiefs. His words were printed in
newspapers. Throughout the Northern States, men and women began to think
of him as the friend of freedom.

By 1860 he was so well known that he was nominated for President of the
United States. Stephen A. Douglas was nominated by another political
party. Once more the two rivals were running for the same office.

Several thousands of Abraham Lincoln's admirers called themselves "Wide
Awakes." There were Wide Awake Clubs in near every Northern town. Night
after night they marched in parades, carrying flaming torches and
colored lanterns. And as they marched, they sang:

  "Hurrah! for our cause--of all causes the best!
   Hurrah! for Old Abe, Honest Abe of the West."

No one enjoyed the campaign excitement more than did Willie and Tad
Lincoln. They did their marching around the parlor carpet, singing
another song:

  "Old Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness,
   Out of the wilderness, out of the wilderness,
   Old Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness,
     Down in Illinois."

People everywhere were talking about Old Abe, and he received a great
deal of mail. Some of the letters came from Pigeon Creek. Nat Grigsby,
his old schoolmate, wrote that his Indiana friends were thinking of him.
Dave Turnham wrote. It was in Dave's book that Abe had first read the
Declaration of Independence. A package arrived from Josiah Crawford who
had given him his _Life of Washington_. The package contained a piece of
white oak wood. It was part of a rail that Abe had split when he was
sixteen years old. Josiah thought that he might like to have it made
into a cane.

Hundreds of other letters came from people he had never seen. One from
New York state made him smile.

"I am a little girl only eleven years old," the letter read, "but want
you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you
won't think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are.... I
have got four brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway and if
you will let your whiskers grow I will try to get the rest of them to
vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so
thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands
to vote for you and then you would be President...."

The letter was signed "Grace Bedell." In less than two weeks she
received an answer. Abraham Lincoln, who loved children, took her
advice. By election day on November 6, 1860, he had started to grow a
beard.

He spent the evening of election day in the telegraph office. Report
after report came in from different parts of the country. He was
gaining. He was winning. After a while he knew--his friends knew--all
Springfield knew--that Abraham Lincoln was to be the next President of
the United States. Outside in the streets the crowds were celebrating.
They were singing, shouting, shooting off cannons. Abe told his friends
that he was "well-nigh upset with joy."

"I guess I'd better go home now," he added. "There is a little woman
there who would like to hear the news."

Mary was asleep when he entered their bedroom. Her husband touched her
on the shoulder. "Mary, Mary," he said with a low chuckle, "we are
elected."

By February the Lincolns were ready to move. Abe tied up the trunks and
addressed them to "A. Lincoln, The White House, Washington, D.C." Before
he left Illinois there was a visit he wanted to make to a log farmhouse
a hundred and twenty-five miles southeast of Springfield. His father had
been dead for ten years, but his stepmother was still living there.

[Illustration]

Travel was slow in those days, and he had to change trains several
times. There was plenty of time to think. He knew that hard days lay
ahead. There were many Southerners who said that they were afraid to
live under a President who was against slavery. Several Southern states
had left the Union and were starting a country of their own. For the
United States to be broken up into two different nations seemed to him
the saddest thing that could possibly happen. As President, Abraham
Lincoln would have a chance--he must make the chance--to preserve the
Union. He could not know then that he would also have a chance to free
the slaves--a chance to serve his country as had no other President
since George Washington.

His thoughts went back to his boyhood. Even then he had wanted to be
President. What had once seemed an impossible dream was coming true. He
thought of all the people who had encouraged and helped him. He thought
of his mother who, more than any one person, had given him a chance to
get ahead.

"Mother!" Whenever Abe said the word, he was thinking of both Nancy and
Sarah.

Sarah was waiting by the window. A tall man in a high silk hat came
striding up the path.

"Abe! You've come!" She opened the door and looked up into the sad, wise
face.

"Of course, Mother." He gave her the kind of good bear hug he had given
her when he was a boy. "I am leaving soon for Washington. Did you think
I could go so far away without saying good-by?"

The word spread rapidly that he was there. One after another the
neighbors dropped in, until the little room was crowded. As he sat
before the fireplace, talking with all who came, Sarah seemed to see,
not a man about to become President, but a forlorn-looking little boy.
She had loved that little boy from the moment she first saw him. He had
always been a good son to her--a better son than her own John.

When the last visitor had gone, she drew her chair closer. It was good
to have a few minutes alone together.

"Abe," she told him, "I can say what scarcely one mother in a thousand
can say."

He looked at her inquiringly.

"You never gave me a cross word in your life. I reckon your mind and
mine, that is--" she laughed, embarrassed, "what little mind I had,
seemed to run together."

He reached over and laid a big hand on her knee. She put her wrinkled,
work-hardened hand on his.

When the time came to say good-by, she could hardly keep the tears back.
"Will I ever see you again?" she asked. "What if something should happen
to you, Abe? I feel it in my heart--"

"Now, now, Mother." He held her close. "Trust in the Lord and all will
be well."

"God bless you, Abraham."

[Illustration]

He kissed her and was gone. "He was the best boy I ever saw," she
thought, as she watched him drive away.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Growing up in southern Indiana, not far from where Abraham Lincoln spent
his boyhood, Frances Cavanah has always had a special interest in
Lincoln and the people who knew him. Furthermore, she is recognized
today as one of America's leading writers of historical books for boys
and girls. She has written many books for young people and has also been
associate editor of _Child Life Magazine_. One of her most interesting
and beautiful books is OUR COUNTRY'S STORY, a fascinating
introduction to American history, told in terms simple enough for
children under nine. Miss Cavanah now lives in Washington, D.C., and
devotes all of her time to writing.


ABOUT THE ARTIST

Paula Hutchison was born in Helena, Montana, and attended schools in the
State of Washington until she came east to attend Pratt Institute in
Brooklyn, New York. After graduating, she studied for several years in
Paris, London, and Florence and made painting trips to Cornwall, the
English lake district, and Scotland. She now lives in a small town on
the New Jersey shore where she and her husband have a six-acre farm, on
which she has her studio. Miss Hutchison has illustrated a great many
books for children and has also illustrated a number which she has
written herself.

The Library of Congress catalogs this book as follows:

     Cavanah, Frances. Abe Lincoln gets his chance. Illustrated by Paula
     Hutchison. Chicago, Rand McNally [1959] 92 p. illus. 24 cm. 1.
     Lincoln, Abraham, Pres. U.S.--Fiction. I. Title PZ7.C28Ab
     813.54 59-5789++






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