LOSING HIS MOTHER
In the fall of 1817, when the Lincoln family had moved from the shed
into the rough log cabin, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow came and occupied the
"darned little half-faced camp," as Dennis Hanks called it. Betsy
Sparrow was the aunt who had brought up Nancy Hanks, and she was now a
foster-mother to Dennis, her nephew. Dennis became the constant
companion of the two Lincoln children. He has told most of the stories
that are known of this sad time in the Lincoln boy's life.
The two families had lived there for nearly a year when Thomas and Betsy
Sparrow were both seized with a terrible disease known to the settlers
as the "milk-sick" because it attacked the cattle. The stricken uncle
and aunt died, early in October, within a few days of each other. While
his wife was ill with the same dread disease, Thomas Lincoln was at
work, cutting down trees and ripping boards out of the logs with a long
whipsaw with a handle at each end, which little Abe had to help him use.
It was a sorrowful task for the young lad, for Abe must have known that
he would soon be helping his father make his mother's coffin. They
buried the Sparrows under the trees "without benefit of clergy," for
ministers came seldom to that remote region.
Nancy Lincoln did not long survive the devoted aunt and uncle. She had
suffered too much from exposure and privation to recover her strength
when she was seized by the strange malady. One who was near her during
her last illness wrote, long afterward:
"She struggled on, day by day, like the patient Christian woman she was.
Abe and his sister Sarah waited on their mother, and did the little jobs
and errands required of them. There was no physician nearer than
thirty-five miles.
"The mother knew that she was going to die, and called the children to
her bedside. She was very weak and the boy and girl leaned over her
while she gave them her dying message. Placing her feeble hand on little
Abe's head, she told him to be kind and good to his father and sister.
"'Be good to one another,' she said to them both. While expressing her
hope that they might live, as she had taught them to live, in the love
of their kindred and the service of God, Nancy Hanks Lincoln passed from
the miserable surroundings of her poor life on earth to the brightness
of the Beyond, on the seventh day after she was taken sick."
To the motherless boy the thought of his blessed mother being buried
without any religious service whatever added a keen pang to the
bitterness of his lot. Dennis Hanks once told how eagerly Abe learned to
write:
"Sometimes he would write with a piece of charcoal, or the p'int of a
burnt stick, on the fence or floor. We got a little paper at the country
town, and I made ink out of blackberry juice, briar root and a little
copperas in it. It was black, but the copperas would eat the paper after
a while. I made his first pen out of a turkey-buzzard feather. We hadn't
no geese them days--to make good pens of goose quills."
As soon as he was able Abe Lincoln wrote his first letter. It was
addressed to Parson Elkin, the Baptist preacher, who had sometimes
stayed over night with the family when they lived in Kentucky, to ask
that elder to come and preach a sermon over his mother's grave. It had
been a long struggle to learn to write "good enough for a
preacher"--especially for a small boy who is asking such a favor of a
man as "high and mighty" as a minister of the Gospel seemed to him.
It was a heartbroken plea, but the lad did not realize it. It was a
short, straightforward note, but the good preacher's eyes filled with
tears as he read it.
The great undertaking was not finished when the letter was written. The
postage was a large matter for a little boy. It cost sixpence (equal to
twelve-and-a-half cents today) to send a letter a short distance--up to
thirty miles. Some letters required twenty-five cents--equal to fifty in
modern money. Sometimes, when the sender could not advance the postage,
the receiver had to pay it before the letter could be opened and read.
On this account letters were almost as rare and as expensive as
telegrams are today. When the person getting a letter could not pay the
postage, it was returned to the writer, who had to pay double to get it
back.
In those days one person could annoy another and put him to expense by
writing him and forcing him to pay the postage--then when the letter
was opened, it was found to be full of abuse, thus making a man pay for
insults to himself!
There was a great general who had suffered in this way, so he made a
rule that he would receive no letters unless the postage was prepaid.
One day there came to his address a long envelope containing what seemed
to be an important document. But it was not stamped, and the servant had
been instructed not to receive that kind of mail. So it was returned to
the sender. When it came back it was discovered that it had been mailed
by mistake without a stamp. That letter announced to General Zachary
Taylor that he had been nominated by a great convention as candidate for
President of the United States!
All this seems very strange now that a letter can be sent around the
world for a few cents. Besides, the mails did not go often and were
carried on horseback. For a long time one half-sick old man carried the
mail on a good-for-nothing horse, once a week, between New York and
Philadelphia, though they were the largest cities in the country.
So it was many months before Abe received an answer to his letter.
Elder Elkin may have been away from home on one of the long circuits
covered by pioneer preachers. As the days and weeks went by without the
lad's receiving any reply he was filled with misgivings lest he had
imposed upon the good man's former friendship.
At last the answer came and poor Abe's anxiety was turned to joy. The
kind elder not only said he would come, but he also named the Sunday
when it would be, so that the Lincoln family could invite all their
friends from far and near to the postponed service--for it often
happened in this new country that the funeral could not take place for
months after the burial.
It was late in the following Summer, nearly a year after Nancy's death,
that the devoted minister came. The word had gone out to all the region
round about. It was the religious event of the season. Hundreds of
people of all ages came from twenty miles around on horseback--a father,
mother and two children on one horse--also in oxcarts, and on foot. They
sat in groups in the wagons, and on the green grass, as at the feeding
of the multitudes in the time of the Christ. But these people brought
their own refreshments as if it were a picnic.
They talked together in low, solemn tones while waiting for the poor
little funeral procession to march out from the Lincoln cabin to the
grass-covered grave. Pioneer etiquette required the formalities of a
funeral. Elder Elkin was followed by the widowed husband, with Abraham
and Sarah and poor Cousin Dennis, also bereaved of his foster-parents,
and now a member of the Lincoln family.
There were tender hearts behind those hardened faces, and tears
glistened on the tanned cheeks of many in that motley assemblage of
eager listeners, while the good elder was paying the last tribute of
earth to the sweet and patient memory of his departed friend of other
days.
The words of the man of God, telling that assembled multitude what a
lovely and devoted girl and woman his mother had been, gave sweet and
solemn joy to the soul of the little Lincoln boy. It was all for her
dear sake, and she was, of all women, worthy of this sacred respect. As
he gazed around on the weeping people, he thought of the hopes and fears
of the months that had passed since he wrote his first letter to bring
this about.
"God bless my angel mother!" burst from his lonely lips--"how glad I am
I've learned to write!"
THE COMING OF ANOTHER MOTHER
All that a young girl of twelve could do, assisted by a willing brother
of ten, was done by Sarah and Abraham Lincoln to make that desolate
cabin a home for their lonesome father, and for cousin Dennis Hanks,
whose young life had been twice darkened by a double bereavement. But
"what is home without a mother?" Thomas Lincoln, missing the balance and
inspiration of a patient wife, became more and more restless, and, after
a year, wandered back again to his former homes and haunts in Kentucky.
While visiting Elizabethtown he saw a former sweetheart, the Sally Bush
of younger days, now Mrs. Daniel Johnston, widow of the county jailer
who had recently died, leaving three children and considerable property,
for that time and place. Thomas renewed his suit and won the pitying
heart of Sarah Johnston, and according to the story of the county clerk:
"The next morning, December 2, 1819, I issued the license, and the same
day they were married, bundled up, and started for home."
Imagine the glad surprise of the three children who had been left at
home for weeks, when they saw a smart, covered wagon, drawn by four
horses, driven up before the cabin door one bright winter day, and their
father, active and alert, spring out and assist a pleasant-looking woman
and three children to alight! Then they were told that this woman was to
be their mother and they had two more sisters and another brother!
To the poor forlorn Lincoln children and their still more desolate
cousin, it seemed too good to be true. They quickly learned the names of
their new brother and sisters. The Johnston children were called John,
Sarah and Matilda, so Sarah Lincoln's name was promptly changed to Nancy
for her dead mother, as there were two Sarahs already in the combined
family.
Mrs. Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln lost no time in taking poor Abe and
Nancy Lincoln to her great motherly heart, as if they were her own. They
were dirty, for they had been neglected, ill-used and deserted. She
washed their wasted bodies clean and dressed them in nice warm clothing
provided for her own children, till she, as she expressed it, "made
them look more human."
Dennis Hanks told afterward of the great difference the stepmother made
in their young lives:
"In fact, in a few weeks all had changed; and where everything had been
wanting, all was snug and comfortable. She was a woman of great energy,
of remarkable good sense, very industrious and saving, also very neat
and tidy in her person and manners. She took an especial liking for
young Abe. Her love for him was warmly returned, and continued to the
day of his death. But few children love their parents as he loved his
stepmother. She dressed him up in entire new clothes, and from that time
on he appeared to lead a new life. He was encouraged by her to study,
and a wish on his part was gratified when it could be done. The two sets
of children got along finely together, as if they all had been the
children of the same parents."
Dennis also referred to the "large supply of household goods" the new
mother brought with her:
"One fine bureau (worth $40), one table, one set of chairs, one large
clothes chest, cooking utensils, knives, forks, bedding and other
articles."
It must have been a glorious day when such a splendid array of household
furniture was carried into the rude cabin of Thomas Lincoln. But best of
all, the new wife had sufficient tact and force of will to induce her
good-hearted but shiftless husband to lay a floor, put in a window, and
hang a door to protect his doubled family from the cold. It was about
Christmas time, and the Lincoln children, as they nestled in warm beds
for the first time in their lives, must have thanked their second mother
from the bottoms of their grateful hearts.