LINCOLN’S REPUTATION IN INDIANA.—REMINISCENCES OF HIS ASSOCIATES.
In spite of the crudeness of these early opportunities for learning; in
spite of the fact that he had no wise direction, that he was brought up
by a father with no settled purpose, and that he lived in a pioneer
community, where a young man’s life at best is but a series of
makeshifts, Lincoln soon developed a determination to make something out
of himself, and a desire to know, which led him to neglect no
opportunity to learn.
The only unbroken outside influence which directed and stimulated him in
his ambitions was that coming first from his mother, then from his
step-mother. These two women, both of them of unusual earnestness and
sweetness of spirit, were one or the other of them at his side
throughout his youth and young manhood. The ideal they held before him
was the simple ideal of the early American, that if a boy is upright and
industrious he may aspire to any place within the gift of the country.
The boy’s nature told him they were right. Everything he read confirmed
their teachings, and he cultivated, in every way open to him, his
passion to know and to be something.
[Illustration:
LINCOLN IN 1858.
From a photograph in the possession of Mr. Stuart Brown of
Springfield, Illinois. The original of this photograph was bought in
1860, in a Springfield gallery, by Mr. D. McWilliams of Dwight,
Illinois. Mr. McWilliams sent the picture to Mr. Milton Hay
Jopingfield, an intimate friend of Mr. Lincoln’s, and from him
received the following letter: “I am greatly pleased with this
picture of Lincoln. I think it reproduces the man as he was, in the
sober expression most habitual with him, better than any other
photograph I have seen of him; and this is the opinion of all the
old familiar acquaintances of his to whom I have shown it.”
]
There are many proofs that Lincoln’s characteristics were recognized at
this period by his associates; that his determination to excel, if not
appreciated, yet made its imprint. In 1865, thirty-five years after he
left Gentryville, a biographer, anxious to save all that was known of
Lincoln in Indiana, went among his old associates, and with a sincerity
and thoroughness worthy of respect, interviewed them. At that time there
were still living numbers of the people with whom Lincoln had been
brought up. They all remembered something of him. It is curious to note
that all of these people tell of his doing something different from what
other boys did, something sufficiently superior to have made a keen
impression upon them. In almost every case each person had his own
special reason for admiring Lincoln. A facility in making rhymes and
writing essays was the admiration of many, who considered it the more
remarkable because “essays and poetry were not taught in school,” and
“Abe took it up on his own account.”
[Illustration:
GREEN B. TAYLOR, A BOYHOOD FRIEND OF LINCOLN.
Son of James Taylor, for whom Lincoln ran the ferry-boat at the mouth
of Anderson Creek. Mr. Taylor, now in his eighty-second year, lives
in South Dakota. He remembers Mr. Lincoln perfectly, and says that
his father hired Abraham Lincoln for one year, at six dollars a
month, and that he was “well pleased with the boy.”
]
Many others were struck by the clever use he made of his gift for
writing. The wit he showed in taking revenge for a social slight by a
satire on the Grigsbys, who had failed to invite him to a wedding, made
a lasting impression in Gentryville. That he should write so well as to
be able to humiliate his enemies more deeply than if he had resorted to
the method of taking revenge current in the country, and thrashed them,
seemed to his friends a mark of surprising superiority.
Others remembered his quick-wittedness in helping his friends.
“We are indebted to Kate Roby,” says Mr. Herndon, “for an incident which
illustrates alike his proficiency in orthography and his natural
inclination to help another out of the mire. The word ‘defied’ had been
given out by Schoolmaster Crawford, but had been misspelled several
times when it came Miss Roby’s turn. ‘Abe stood on the opposite side of
the room,’ related Miss Roby to me in 1865, ‘and was watching me. I
began d-e-f—, and then I stopped, hesitating whether to proceed with an
i or a y. Looking up, I beheld Abe, a grin covering his face, and
pointing with his index finger to his eye. I took the hint, spelled the
word with an i, and it went through all right.’”
This same Miss Roby it was who said of Lincoln, “He was better read then
than the world knows or is likely to know exactly.... He often and often
commented or talked to me about what he had read—seemed to read it out
of the book as he went along—did so to others. He was the learned boy
among us unlearned folks. He took great pains to explain; could do it so
simply. He was diffident then, too.”
[Illustration:
CABINET MADE BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
This cabinet is now in the possession of Captain J. W. Wartmann of
Evansville, Indiana. It is of walnut, two feet in height, and very
well put together. Thomas Lincoln is said to have aided his son in
making it.
]
One man was impressed by the character of the sentences he had given him
for a copy. “It was considered at that time,” said he, “that Abe was the
best penman in the neighborhood. One day, while he was on a visit at my
mother’s, I asked him to write some copies for me. He very willingly
consented. He wrote several of them, but one of them I have never
forgotten, although a boy at that time. It was this:
“‘Good boys who to their books apply
Will all be great men by and by.’”
All of his comrades remembered his stories and his clearness in
argument. “When he appeared in company,” says Nat Grigsby, “the boys
would gather and cluster around him to hear him talk. Mr. Lincoln was
figurative in his speech, talks, and conversation. He argued much from
analogy, and explained things hard for us to understand by stories,
maxims, tales, and figures. He would almost always point his lesson or
idea by some story that was plain and near us, that we might instantly
see the force and bearing of what he said.”
[Illustration:
PIGEON CREEK CHURCH, WHICH THE LINCOLNS ATTENDED IN INDIANA.
From a photograph loaned by W. W. Admire of Chicago. This little log
church, or “meetin’ house,” is where the Lincolns attended services
in Indiana. The pulpit is said to have been made by Thomas Lincoln.
The building was razed about fifteen years ago, after having been
used for several years as a tobacco barn.
]
There are many proofs that he was an authority on all subjects, even the
country jockeys bringing him their stories and seeking to inspire his
enthusiasm. Captain John Lamar of Gentryville, who was a very small boy
in the neighborhood when Lincoln was a young man, is still fond of
describing a scene he witnessed once, which shows with what care even
the “heroes” of the country tried to impress young Lincoln. “Uncle Jimmy
Larkins, as everybody called him,” says Mr. Lamar, “was a great hero in
my childish eyes. Why, I cannot now say, without it was his manners.
There had been a big fox-chase, and Uncle Jimmy was telling about it. Of
course he was the hero. I was only a little shaver, and I stood in front
of Uncle Jimmy, looking up into his eyes; but he never noticed me. He
looked at Abraham Lincoln, and said: ‘Abe, I’ve got the best horse in
the world; he won the race and never drew a long breath.’ But Abe paid
no attention to Uncle Jimmy, and I got mad at the big, overgrown fellow,
and wanted him to listen to my hero’s story. Uncle Jimmy was determined
that Abe should hear, and repeated the story. ‘I say, Abe, I have the
best horse in the world; after all that running he never drew a long
breath.’ Then Abe, looking down at my little dancing hero, said: ‘Well,
Larkins, why don’t you tell us how many short breaths he drew?’ This
raised a laugh on Uncle Jimmy, and he got mad, and declared he’d fight
Abe if he wasn’t so big. He jumped around until Abe quietly said: ‘Now,
Larkins, if you don’t shut up I’ll throw you in that water.’ I was very
uneasy and angry at the way my hero was treated, but I lived to change
my views about _heroes_.”
[Illustration:
THE FIRST LINCOLN MONUMENT.
From a photograph made for this work. When Abraham Lincoln left
Indiana, in 1830, his friend James Gentry planted, in remembrance of
him, near the Lincoln cabin, a cedar tree. It still stands, sturdy
and strong, though it is stripped of twigs as high as one can reach.
Those who point out the tree explain the bareness by saying: “The
folks who come lookin’ around have taken twigs until you can’t reach
any more very handy.”
]
There is one other testimony to his character as a boy which should not
be omitted. It is that of his step-mother:
“Abe was a good boy, and I can say what scarcely one woman—a mother—can
say in a thousand: Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never
refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested him. I never
gave him a cross word in all my life.... His mind and mine—what little I
had—seemed to run together. He was here after he was elected President.
He was a dutiful son to me always. I think he loved me truly. I had a
son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys; but I must say,
both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw, or expect to
see.”
[Illustration:
OLD POST FORD ACROSS THE WABASH RIVER, WHERE THE LINCOLNS CROSSED FROM
INDIANA TO ILLINOIS.
From a photograph made for this work. The route by which the Lincolns
went into Illinois from Indiana has always been a question in
dispute. Some of the acquaintances of the family still living in
Indiana claim that they followed the line marked on our map (page
45). Others say that they went from Gentryville to the Old Post Ford
across the Wabash. The route on the map was drawn on the supposition
that they would have taken the road by which they would have avoided
the greatest number of watercourses. Information has come to us
since the map was made which shows that they went by Vincennes. Mr.
Jesse W. Weik says that Dennis Hanks, who was in the party, told him
in 1886 that they went through Vincennes. Colonel Chapman of
Charleston, the grandson of Sarah Bush Lincoln, told Mr. Weik that
in February, 1861, when Mr. Lincoln visited his mother for the last
time, he told him that the settlers passed through Vincennes, where
they remained a day. There, Lincoln said, they saw a printing-press
for the first time. At Palestine, on the Illinois side of the
Wabash, he remembered seeing a large crowd around the United States
Land Office, and a travelling juggler performing sleight-of-hand
tricks. We also know that they entered Decatur from the south, near
the present line of the Illinois Central. This Mr. Lincoln told Mr.
H. C. Whitney.
]