ABE AND THE NEIGHBORS
"PREACHING" AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
Nat Grigsby stated once that writing compositions was not required by
Schoolmaster Crawford, but "Abe took it up on his own account," and his
first essay was against cruelty to animals.
The boys of the neighborhood made a practice of catching terrapins and
laying live coals on their backs. Abe caught a group of them at this
cruel sport one day, and rushed to the relief of the helpless turtle.
Snatching the shingle that one of the boys was using to handle the
coals, he brushed them off the turtle's shell, and with angry tears in
his eyes, proceeded to use it on one of the offenders, while he called
the rest a lot of cowards.
One day his stepbrother, John Johnston, according to his sister Matilda,
"caught a terrapin, brought it to the place where Abe was 'preaching,'
threw it against a tree and crushed its shell." Abe then preached
against cruelty to animals, contending that "an ant's life is as sweet
to it as ours is to us."
ROUGHLY DISCIPLINED FOR BEING "FORWARD"
Abe was compelled to leave school on the slightest pretext to work for
the neighbors. He was so big and strong--attaining his full height at
seventeen--that his services were more in demand than those of his
stepbrother, John Johnston, or of Cousin Dennis. Abe was called lazy
because the neighbors shared the idea of Thomas Lincoln, that his
reading and studying were only a pretext for shirking. Yet he was never
so idle as either Dennis Hanks or John Johnston, who were permitted to
go hunting or fishing with Tom Lincoln, while Abe stayed out of school
to do the work that one of the three older men should have done.
Abe's father was kinder in many ways to his stepchildren than he was to
his own son. This may have been due to the fact that he did not wish to
be thought "partial" to his own child. No doubt Abe was "forward." He
liked to take part in any discussion, and sometimes he broke into the
conversation when his opinion had not been asked. Besides, he got into
arguments with his fellow-laborers, and wasted the time belonging to his
employer.
One day, according to Dennis, they were all working together in the
field, when a man rode up on horseback and asked a question. Abe was the
first to mount the fence to answer the stranger and engage him in
conversation. To teach his son better "manners" in the presence of his
"superiors," Thomas Lincoln struck Abe a heavy blow which knocked him
backward off the fence, and silenced him for a time.
Of course, every one present laughed at Abe's discomfiture, and the
neighbors approved of Thomas Lincoln's rude act as a matter of
discipline. In their opinion Abe Lincoln was getting altogether too
smart. While they enjoyed his homely wit and good nature, they did not
like to admit that he was in any way their superior. A visitor to
Springfield, Ill., will even now find some of Lincoln's old neighbors
eager to say "there were a dozen smarter men in this city than Lincoln"
when he "happened to get nominated for the presidency!"
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
Abe was "hail fellow, well met" everywhere. The women comprehended his
true greatness before the men did so. There was a rough gallantry about
him, which, though lacking in "polish," was true, "heart-of-oak"
politeness. He wished every one well. His whole life passed with "malice
toward none, with charity for all."
When he "went out evenings" Abe Lincoln took the greatest pains to make
everybody comfortable and happy. He was sure to bring in the biggest
backlog and make the brightest fire. He read "the funniest fortunes" for
the young people from the sparks as they flew up the chimney. He was the
best helper in paring the apples, shelling the corn and cracking the
nuts for the evening's refreshments.
When he went to spelling school, after the first few times, he was not
allowed to take part in the spelling match because everybody knew that
the side that "chose first" would get Abe Lincoln and he always "spelled
down." But he went just the same and had a good time himself if he could
add to the enjoyment of the rest.
He went swimming, warm evenings, with the boys, and ran races, jumped
and wrestled at noon-times, which was supposed to be given up to eating
and resting. He was "the life" of the husking-bee and barn raising, and
was always present, often as a judge because of his humor, fairness and
tact, at horse races. He engaged heartily in every kind of "manly sport"
which did not entail unnecessary suffering upon helpless animals.
Coon hunting, however, was an exception. The coon was a pest and a
plague to the farmer, so it should be got rid of. He once told the
following story:
THE LITTLE YELLOW "COON DOG"
"My father had a little yellow house dog which invariably gave the alarm
if we boys undertook to slip away unobserved after night had set in--as
we sometimes did--to go coon hunting. One night my brother, John
Johnston, and I, with the usual complement of boys required for a
successful coon hunt, took the insignificant little cur with us.
"We located the coveted coon, killed him, and then in a sporting vein,
sewed the coon skin on the little dog.
"It struggled vigorously during the operation of sewing on, and when
released made a bee-line for home. Some larger dogs on the way, scenting
coon, tracked the little animal home and apparently mistaking him for a
real coon, speedily demolished him. The next morning, father found,
lying in his yard, the lifeless remains of yellow 'Joe,' with strong
circumstantial evidence, in the form of fragments of coon skin, against
us.
"Father was much incensed at his death, but as John and I, scantily
protected from the morning wind, stood shivering in the doorway, we felt
assured that little yellow Joe would never again be able to sound the
alarm of another coon hunt."
THE "CHIN FLY" AS AN INCENTIVE TO WORK
While he was President, Mr. Lincoln told Henry J. Raymond, the founder
of the New York _Times_, the following story of an experience he had
about this time, while working with his stepbrother in a cornfield:
"Raymond," said he, "you were brought up on a farm, were you not? Then
you know what a 'chin fly' is. My brother and I were plowing corn once,
I driving the horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on
one occasion he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs,
could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow I
found an enormous chin fly fastened upon the horse and I knocked it off.
My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn't want the
old horse bitten in that way.
"'Why,' said my brother,'that's all that made him go.'"
"Now if Mr. Chase (the Secretary of the Treasury) has a presidential
'chin fly' biting him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will only
make his department go."
"OLD BLUE NOSE'S" HIRED MAN
It seemed to be the "irony of fate" that Abe should have to work for
"Old Blue Nose" as a farm hand. But the lad liked Mrs. Crawford, and
Lincoln's sister Nancy lived there, at the same time, as
maid-of-all-work. Another attraction, the Crawford family was rich, in
Abe's eyes, in possessing several books, which he was glad of the chance
to read.
Mrs. Crawford told many things about young Lincoln that might otherwise
have been lost. She said "Abe was very polite, in his awkward way,
taking off his hat to me and bowing. He was a sensitive lad, never
coming where he was not wanted. He was tender and kind--like his sister.
"He liked to hang around and gossip and joke with the women. After he
had wasted too much time this way, he would exclaim:
"'Well, this won't buy the child a coat,' and the long-legged hired boy
would stride away and catch up with the others."
One day when he was asked to kill a hog, Abe answered promptly that he
had never done that, "but if you'll risk the hog, I'll risk myself!"
Mrs. Crawford told also about "going to meeting" in those primitive
days:
"At that time we thought it nothing to go eight or ten miles. The ladies
did not stop for the want of a shawl or riding dress, or horses. In the
winter time they would put on their husbands' old overcoats, wrap up
their little ones, and take two or three of them on their beasts, while
their husbands would walk.
"In winter time they would hold church in some of the neighbors' houses.
At such times they were always treated with the utmost kindness; a
basket of apples, or turnips--apples were scarce in those days--was set
out. Sometimes potatoes were used for a 'treat.' In old Mr. Linkhorn's
(Lincoln's) house a plate of potatoes, washed and pared nicely, was
handed around."
FEATS OF STRENGTH
Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood, both in body and in mind.
The neighbors, who failed to mark his mental growth, were greatly
impressed with his physical strength. The Richardson family, with whom
Abe seemed to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous tales of
his prowess, some of which may have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr.
Richardson declared that the young man could carry as heavy a load as
"three ordinary men." He saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken
house, made up of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at
least six hundred if not much more."
When the Richardsons were building their corn-crib, Abe saw three or
four men getting ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on
"sticks" between them. Watching his chance, he coolly stepped in,
shouldered all the timbers at once and walked off alone with them,
carrying them to the place desired. He performed these feats off-hand,
smiling down in undisguised pleasure as the men around him expressed
their amazement. It seemed to appeal to his sense of humor as well as
his desire to help others out of their difficulties.
Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of Abe: "He could strike, with a
maul, a heavier blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper
into wood than any man I ever saw."
Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard Abe working in the woods
alone, felling trees, you would think three men, at least, were at work
there--the trees came crashing down so fast.
On one occasion after he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the
farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured,
Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a
number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking
their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by
the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying
there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness
of his heart, exclaimed:
"Aw, let him alone, Abe. 'Twon't do him no good. He's made his bed, let
him lay in it!"
The rest laughed--for the "bed" was freezing mud. But Abe could see no
humor in the situation. The man might be run over, or freeze to death.
To abandon any human being in such a plight seemed too monstrous to him.
The other young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging their shoulders
and shaking their heads--"Poor Abe!--he's a hopeless case," and left
Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on
which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried,
again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At
last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the
mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile
to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the
old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe gave him "a good talking
to," and the unfortunate man is said to have been so deeply impressed by
the young man's kindness that he heeded the temperance lecture and never
again risked his life as he had done that night. When the old man told
John Hanks of Abe's Herculean effort to save him, he added:
"It was mighty clever in Abe Lincoln to tote me to a warm fire that cold
night."
IN JONES' STORE
While Abe was working for the farmers round about his father's farm he
spent many of his evenings in Jones' grocery "talking politics" and
other things with the men, who also gathered there. Mr. Jones took a
Louisville paper, which young Lincoln read eagerly. Slavery was a live
political topic then, and Abe soon acquired quite a reputation as a
stump orator.
As he read the "Indiana Statutes" he was supposed to "know more law than
the constable." In fact, his taste for the law was so pronounced at that
early age that he went, sometimes, fifteen miles to Boonville, as a
spectator in the county court. Once he heard a lawyer of ability, named
Breckinridge, defend an accused murderer there. It was a great plea; the
tall country boy knew it and, pushing through the crowd, reached out his
long, coatless arm to congratulate the lawyer, who looked at the awkward
youth in amazement and passed on without acknowledging Abe's compliment.
The two men met again in Washington, more than thirty years later, under
very different circumstances.
But there were things other than politics discussed at the country
store, and Abe Lincoln often raised a laugh at the expense of some
braggart or bully. There was "Uncle Jimmy" Larkins, who posed as the
hero of his own stories. In acknowledgment of Abe's authority as a
judge of horse flesh, "Uncle Jimmy" was boasting of his horse's
superiority in a recent fox chase. But young Lincoln seemed to pay no
heed. Larkins repeated:
"Abe, I've got the best horse in the world; he won the race and never
drew a long breath."
Young Lincoln still appeared not to be paying attention. "Uncle Jimmy"
persisted. He was bound to make Abe hear. He reiterated:
"I say, Abe, I have got the best horse in the world; after all that
running he never drew a long breath."
"Well, Larkins," drawled young Lincoln, "why don't you tell us how many
_short_ breaths he drew." The laugh was on the boastful and discomfited
Larkins.
TRYING TO TEACH ASTRONOMY TO A YOUNG GIRL
Abe's efforts were not always so well received, for he was sometimes
misunderstood. The neighbors used to think the Lincoln boy was secretly
in love with Kate Roby, the pretty girl he had helped out of a dilemma
in the spelling class. Several years after that episode, Abe and Kate
were sitting on a log, about sunset, talking:
"Abe," said Kate, "the sun's goin' down."
"Reckon not," Abe answered, "we're coming up, that's all."
"Don't you s'pose I got eyes?"
"Yes, I know you have; but it's the earth that goes round. The sun
stands as still as a tree. When we're swung round so we can't see it any
more, the light's cut off and we call it night."
"What a fool you are, Abe Lincoln!" exclaimed Kate, who was not to blame
for her ignorance, for astronomy had never been taught in Crawford's
school.
THE EARLY DEATH OF SISTER NANCY
While brother and sister were working for "Old Blue Nose," Aaron
Grigsby, "Nat's" brother, was "paying attention" to Nancy Lincoln. They
were soon married. Nancy was only eighteen. When she was nineteen Mrs.
Aaron Grigsby died. Her love for Abe had almost amounted to idolatry. In
some ways she resembled him. He, in turn, was deeply devoted to his only
sister.
The family did not stay long at Pigeon Creek after the loss of Nancy,
who was buried, not beside her mother, but with the Grigsbys in the
churchyard of the old Pigeon Creek meeting-house.
EARNING HIS FIRST DOLLAR
Much as Abraham Lincoln had "worked out" as a hired man, his father kept
the money, as he had a legal right to do, not giving the boy any of the
results of his hard labor, for, strong as he was, his pay was only
twenty-five or thirty cents a day. Abe accepted this as right and
proper. He never complained of it.
After he became President, Lincoln told his Secretary of State the
following story of the first dollar he ever had for his own:
"Seward," he said, "did you ever hear how I earned my first dollar?"
"No," replied Seward. "Well," said he, "I was about eighteen years of
age . . . and had constructed a flatboat. . . . A steamer was going down
the river. We have, you know, no wharves on the western streams, and
the custom was, if passengers were at any of the landings they had to
go out in a boat, the steamer stopping and taking them on board. I
was contemplating my new boat, and wondering whether I could make it
stronger or improve it in any part, when two men with trunks came down
to the shore in carriages, and looking at the different boats, singled
out mine, and asked:
"'Who owns this?'
"I answered modestly, 'I do.'
"'Will you,' said one of them, 'take us and our trunks out to the
steamer?'
"'Certainly,' said I. I was very glad to have a chance of earning
something, and supposed that they would give me a couple of 'bits.' The
trunks were put in my boat, the passengers seated themselves on them,
and I sculled them out to the steamer. They got on board, and I lifted
the trunks and put them on deck. The steamer was moving away when I
called out:
"'You have forgotten to pay me.'
"Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on
the bottom of my boat. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I picked up
the money. You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days
it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my
life. I could scarcely credit that I, a poor boy, had earned a dollar in
less than a day--that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was a more
hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time."