LEARNING TO WORK
The little Lincoln boy learned to help his father and mother as soon as
he could, picking berries, dropping seeds and carrying water for the men
to drink. The farm at Knob Creek seems to have been a little more
fertile than the other two places on which his father had chosen to
live.
Once while living in the White House, President Lincoln was asked if he
could remember his "old Kentucky home." He replied with considerable
feeling:
"I remember that old home very well. Our farm was composed of three
fields. It lay in the valley, surrounded by high hills and deep gorges.
Sometimes, when there came a big rain in the hills, the water would come
down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing I
remember of doing there was one Saturday afternoon; the other boys
planted the corn in what we called the big field--it contained seven
acres--and I dropped the pumpkin seed. I dropped two seeds in every
other row and every other hill. The next Sunday morning there came a big
rain in the hills--it did not rain a drop in the valley, but the water,
coming through the gorges, washed the ground, corn, pumpkin seeds and
all, clear off the field!"
Although this was the last thing Lincoln could remember doing on that
farm, it is not at all likely that it was the last thing he did there,
for Thomas Lincoln was not the man to plant corn in a field he was about
to leave. (The Lincolns moved away in the fall.)
Another baby boy was born at Knob Creek farm; a puny, pathetic little
stranger. When this baby was about three years old, the father had to
use his skill as a cabinet maker in making a tiny coffin, and the
Lincoln family wept over a lonely little grave in the wilderness.
About this time Abe began to learn lessons in practical patriotism. Once
when Mr. Lincoln was asked what he could remember of the War of 1812, he
replied:
"Nothing but this: I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish
which I was taking home. I met a soldier on the road, and, having been
told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish."
An old man, Major Alexander Sympson, who lived not far from the Lincolns
at this period, left this description of "a mere spindle of a boy," in
one of his earliest attempts to defend himself against odds, while
waiting at the neighboring mill while a grist was being ground.
"He was the shyest, most reticent, most uncouth and awkward-appearing,
homeliest and worst-dressed of any in the crowd. So superlatively
wretched a butt could not hope to look on long unmolested. He was
attacked one day as he stood near a tree by a larger boy with others at
his back. But the crowd was greatly astonished when little Lincoln
soundly thrashed the first, the second, and third boy in succession; and
then, placing his back against the tree, he defied the whole crowd, and
told them they were a lot of cowards."
Evidently Father Tom, who enjoyed quite a reputation as a wrestler, had
give the small boy a few lessons in "the manly art of self-defense."
Meanwhile the little brother and sister were learning still better
things at their mother's knee, alternately hearing and reading stories
from the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," "AEsop's Fables," "Robinson
Crusoe," and other books, common now, but rare enough in the backwoods
in those days.
There were hard times, even in the wilderness of Kentucky, after the War
of 1812. Slavery was spreading, and Thomas and Nancy Lincoln heartily
hated that "relic of barbarism." To avoid witnessing its wrongs which
made it harder for self-respecting white men to rise above the class
referred to with contempt in the South as "poor white trash," Tom
Lincoln determined to move farther north and west--and deeper into the
wilds.
It is sometimes stated that Abraham Lincoln belonged to the indolent
class known as "poor whites," but this is not true. Shiftless and
improvident though his father was, he had no use for that class of white
slaves, who seemed to fall even lower than the blacks.
There was trouble, too, about the title to much of the land in Kentucky,
while Indiana offered special inducements to settlers in that new
territory.
In his carpenter work, Thomas Lincoln had learned how to build a
flatboat, and had made at least one trip to New Orleans on a craft
which he himself had put together. So, when he finally decided in the
fall of 1816 to emigrate to Indiana, he at once began to build another
boat, which he launched on the Rolling Fork, at the mouth of Knob Creek,
about half a mile from his own cabin. He traded his farm for what
movable property he could get, and loaded his raft with that and his
carpenter tools. Waving good-bye to his wife and two children, he
floated down the Rolling Fork, Salt River, and out into the Ohio River,
which proved too rough for his shaky craft, and it soon went to pieces.
After fishing up the carpenter tools and most of his other effects, he
put together a crazy raft which held till he landed at Thompson's Ferry,
Perry County, in Southern Indiana. Here he unloaded his raft, left his
valuables in the care of a settler named Posey and journeyed on foot
through the woods to find a good location. After trudging about sixteen
miles, blazing a trail, he found a situation which suited him well
enough, he thought. Then he walked all the way back to the Kentucky home
they were about to leave.
He found his wife, with Sarah, aged nine, and Abraham, aged seven, ready
to migrate with him to a newer wilderness. The last thing Nancy Lincoln
had done before leaving their old home was to take the brother and
sister for a farewell visit to the grave of "the little boy that died."
OVER IN INDIANA
The place the father had selected for their home was a beautiful spot.
They could build their cabin on a little hill, sloping gently down on
all sides. The soil was excellent, but there was one serious
drawback--there was no water fit to drink within a mile! Thomas Lincoln
had neglected to observe this most important point while he was
prospecting. His wife, or even little Abe, would have had more common
sense. That was one reason why Thomas Lincoln, though a good man, who
tried hard enough at times, was always poor and looked down upon by his
thrifty neighbors.
Instead of taking his wife and children down the three streams by boat,
as he had gone, the father borrowed two horses of a neighbor and "packed
through to Posey's," where he had left his carpenter tools and the other
property he had saved from the wreck of his raft. Abe and Sarah must
have enjoyed the journey, especially camping out every night on the
way. The father's skill as a marksman furnished them with tempting
suppers and breakfasts of wild game.
On the horses they packed their bedding and the cooking utensils they
needed while on the journey, and for use after their arrival at the new
home. This stock was not large, for it consisted only of "one oven and
lid, one skillet and lid, and some tinware."
After they came to Posey's, Thomas Lincoln hired a wagon and loaded it
with the effects he had left there, as well as the bedding and the
cooking things they had brought with them on the two horses. It was a
rough wagon ride, jolting over stumps, logs, and roots of trees. An
earlier settler had cut out a path for a few miles, but the rest of the
way required many days, for the father had to cut down trees to make a
rough road wide enough for the wagon to pass. It is not likely that Abe
and Sarah minded the delays, for children generally enjoy new
experiences of that sort. As for their mother, she was accustomed to all
such hardships; she had learned to take life as it came and make the
best of it.
Nancy Lincoln needed all her Christian fortitude in that Indiana
home--if such a place could be called a home. At last they reached the
chosen place, in the "fork" made by Little Pigeon Creek emptying into
Big Pigeon Creek, about a mile and a half from a settlement which was
afterward called Gentryville.
As it was late in the fall, Thomas Lincoln decided not to wait to cut
down big trees and hew logs for a cabin, so he built a "half-faced
camp," or shed enclosed on three sides, for his family to live in that
winter. As this shed was made of saplings and poles, he put an ax in
Abe's hands, and the seven-year-old boy helped his father build their
first "home" in Indiana. It was Abe's first experience in the work that
afterward made him famous as "the rail splitter." It was with the ax, as
it were, that he hewed his way to the White House and became President
of the United States.
Of course, little Abe Lincoln had no idea of the White House then. He
may never have heard of "the President's Palace," as it used to be
called--for the White House was then a gruesome, blackened ruin, burned
by the British in the War of 1812. President Madison was living in a
rented house nearby, while the Executive Mansion was being restored.
The blackened stone walls, left standing after the fire, were _painted
white_, and on that account the President's mansion came to be known as
"the White House."
Little Abe, without a thought of his great future, was getting ready for
it by hacking away at poles and little trees and helping his father in
the very best way he knew. It was not long, then, before the "half-faced
camp" was ready for his mother and sister to move into.
Then there was the water question. Dennis Hanks afterward said: "Tom
Lincoln riddled his land like a honeycomb" trying to find good water. In
the fall and winter they caught rainwater or melted snow and strained
it, but that was not very healthful at best. So Abe and Sarah had to go
a mile to a spring and carry all the water they needed to drink, and,
when there had been no rain for a long time, all the water they used for
cooking and washing had to be brought from there, too.
When warmer weather came, after their "long and dreary winter" of
shivering in that poor shed, the "camp" did not seem so bad. Thomas
Lincoln soon set about building a warmer and more substantial cabin. Abe
was now eight years old, and had had some practice in the use of the
ax, so he was able to help his father still more by cutting and hewing
larger logs for the new cabin. They got it ready for the family to move
into before cold weather set in again.
They had to make their own furniture also. The table and chairs were
made of "puncheon," or slabs of wood, with holes bored under each corner
to stick the legs in. Their bedsteads were poles fitted into holes bored
in logs in the walls of the cabin, and the protruding ends supported by
poles or stakes driven into the ground, for Tom Lincoln had not yet laid
the puncheon floor of their cabin. Abe's bed was a pile of dry leaves
laid in one corner of the loft to which he climbed by means of a ladder
of pegs driven into the wall, instead of stairs.
Their surroundings were such as to delight the heart of a couple of
care-free children. The forest was filled with oaks, beeches, walnuts
and sugar-maple trees, growing close together and free from underbrush.
Now and then there was an open glade called a prairie or "lick," where
the wild animals came to drink and disport themselves. Game was
plentiful--deer, bears, pheasants, wild turkeys, ducks and birds of all
kinds. This, with Tom Lincoln's passion for hunting, promised good
things for the family to eat, as well as bearskin rugs for the bare
earth floor, and deerskin curtains for the still open door and window.
There were fish in the streams and wild fruits and nuts of many kinds to
be found in the woods during the summer and fall. For a long time the
corn for the "corndodgers" which they baked in the ashes, had to be
ground by pounding, or in primitive hand-mills. Potatoes were about the
only vegetable raised in large quantities, and pioneer families often
made the whole meal of roasted potatoes. Once when his father had "asked
the blessing" over an ashy heap of this staple, Abe remarked that they
were "mighty poor blessings!"
But there were few complaints. They were all accustomed to that way of
living, and they enjoyed the free and easy life of the forest. Their
only reason for complaint was because they had been compelled to live in
an open shed all winter, and because there was no floor to cover the
damp ground in their new cabin--no oiled paper for their one window, and
no door swinging in the single doorway--yet the father was carpenter and
cabinet maker! There is no record that Nancy Lincoln, weak and ailing
though she was, demurred even at such needless privations.
About the only reference to this period of their life that has been
preserved for us was in an odd little sketch in which Mr. Lincoln wrote
of himself as "he."
"A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of
his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and
Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and
killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger
game."
Though shooting was the principal sport of the youth and their fathers
in Lincoln's younger days, Abe was too kind to inflict needless
suffering upon any of God's creatures. He had real religion in his
loving heart. Even as a boy he seemed to know that
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God that loveth us,
He made and loveth all."