LINCOLN 



3437 



LINCOLN 



a small farm in what was then Hardin County 

 and is now La Rue County, Kentucky. Here, 

 on February 12, 1809, was born a son, who was 

 named Abraham, after his grandfather. This 

 Abraham, who was born in a hut and who thus 

 began life under the most inauspicious circum- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



"A blend of mirth and sadness, smiles and tears ; 

 A quaint 'knight errant' of the pioneers ; 

 A homely hero born of star and sod ; 

 A peasant prince ; a masterpiece of God." 



ANON. 



stances, became the sixteenth President of the 

 United States. 



His Boyhood. The boy began life in what 

 was called a "camp." It was a shelter about 

 fourteen feet square, without a floor, and was 

 made of poles. When Abraham was four years 

 old the family moved to another farm, fifteen 

 miles distant, and in 1816, when he was seven, 

 the wanderlust again seized them, and they 

 moved this time into Indiana, to a new farm 

 in Spencer County. So wild was the country 

 through which the Lincolns passed on this mi- 

 gration that in many places the father had to 

 cut a way through the forest. For a year, 

 winter and summer, the family lived in a half- 

 faced shed, entirely open on one side. In the 

 meantime, Abraham and his father worked on 

 a permanent dwelling, into which they all 

 moved before it was half completed. After 

 this effort Thomas Lincoln relaxed, and for 

 nearly two years made no attempt to finish the 

 house. There were no doors, windows or floor. 

 For chairs there were three-legged stools. The 



beds were made of poles stuck between the 

 logs in the corner of the cabin, the opposite 

 end of the beds being supported by crotched 

 sticks driven into the ground. Here, in this 

 bare shelter, Nancy Lincoln died in 1818. Her 

 husband made a coffin of green lumber, ,nd 

 taking his children and a few neighbors, him- 

 self laid her to rest in the grave. The story 

 is told that nine-year-old Abraham was much 

 disturbed by the lack of proper ceremony, and 

 a few months later, when an itinerant clergy- 

 man came that way, the boy induced him to 

 visit the grave and repeat over it the solemn 

 burial rites. 



The death of his wife drove Thomas Lin- 

 coln to move again, this time back to Ken- 

 tucky. There he met and married Sarah Bush 

 Johnson, a widow with three children. He 

 had courted her years before, when she was 

 still Sally Bush. The new Mrs. Lincoln was 

 the most prosperous woman the Lincolns had 

 ever known. She brought them furniture, 

 cooking utensils and real bedding. She forced 

 her lazy husband to put a floor and doors in 

 the cabin, and for the first time in their lives 

 Abraham and his sister had something which 

 resembled a home. Mrs. Lincoln also encour- 

 aged her stepson in his eagerness to learn. 

 Lincoln's schooling was of the slightest; he 

 once estimated that his entire schooling put 

 together would make about one year. He read 

 the Bible, and his literary style throughout his 



HIS BIRTHPLACE 



As it now appears. It may be seen in the me- 

 morial building on the Lincoln Farm. 



life showed that he read it diligently and with 

 understanding. But his favorite books were 

 Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, The Pil- 

 grim's Progress and Weems' Life of Washing- 

 ton. By the time he was fourteen he could 

 read and write with ease. He would write with 

 chalk on the cabin walls, or on a piece of 



