The Lincoln Story Book Part 2

The Lincoln homestead in Indiana, in 1820-23, had at the first the primitive corn-mill in the Indian fashion--a burnt-out block with a pounder rigged to a well-sweep. A water-mill being set up ten miles off, on Anderson's Creek, that was superseded, as improvement marched, by a horse-power one. To this Lincoln, as a lad of sixteen or seventeen, would carry the corn in a bag upon an old flea-bitten gray mare. One day, on unhitching the animal and loading it, and running his arm through the head-gear loop to lead, he had no sooner struck it and cried "Get up, you de----," when the beast whirled around, and, lashing out, kicked him in the forehead so that he fell to the ground insensible.

The miller, Hoffman, ran out and carried the youth indoors, sending for his father, as he feared the victim would not revive. He did not do so until hours after having been carried home. When conscious, his faculties, as psychologically ordained, resumed operations from the instant of suspension, and he uttered the sequel to his outcry:

"----vil!"

Lincoln's own explanation is thus:

"Just before I struck the mare, my will, through the mind, had set the muscles of my tongue to utter the expression, and when her heels came in contact with my head, the whole thing stopped half-c.o.c.ked, as it were, and was only fired off when mental energy or force returned."

His friends interpreted the occurrence as a proof of his always finishing what he commenced.

"NO HEAPING COALS OF FIRE ON THAT HEAD."

The wantonly cruel experiment of testing the sensitiveness in reptiles armored, pa.s.sed into a proverb out West in pioneer times. Besides carving initials and dates on the sh.e.l.l of land tortoises, boys would fling the creatures against tree or rock to see it perish with its exposed and lacerated body, or literally place burning coals on the back. In such cases Lincoln, a boy in his teens, but a redoubtable young giant, would not only interfere vocally, but with his arms, if needed.

"Don't terrapins have feelings?" he inquired.

The torturer did not know the right answer, and, persisting in the treatment, had the shingle wrenched from his hand and the cinders stamped out, while the sufferer was allowed to go away.

"Well, feelings or none, he won't be burned any more while I am around!"

He did not always have to resort to force in his corrections, as he obtained the t.i.tle of "Peacemaker" by other means, and the spell in his tongue, at that age.

STUMPING THE STUMP-SPEAKER.

When Lincoln became a man and, divorced from his father's grasping tyranny, set up as a field-hand, he lightened the labor in Menard County by orating to his mates, and they gladly suspended their tasks to listen to him recite what he had read and invented--or, rather, adapted to their circ.u.mscribed understanding. Besides mimicry of the itinerant preachers, he imitated the electioneering advocates of all parties and local politics. One day, one such educator collected the farmers and their help around him to eulogize some looming-up candidate, when a cousin and admirer of young Lincoln cast a damper on him, crying out, with general approval, that Abe could talk him dry! Accepting the challenge, the professional spellbinder allowed his place on the stump of the cottonwood to be held by the raw Demosthenes. To his astonishment the country lad did display much fluency, intelligence, and talent for the craft. Frankly the stranger complimented him and wished him well in a career which he recommended him to adopt. From this cheering, Lincoln proceeded to speak in public--his limited public--"talking on all subjects till the questions were worn slick, greasy, and threadbare."

MAKING THE WOOL, NOT FEATHERS, FLY.

The "export trade" of the Indiana farmers was with New Orleans, the goods being carried on flatboats. The traffic called for a larger number of resolute, hardy, and honest men, as, besides the vicissitudes of fickle navigation, was the peril from thieves. Abraham early made acquaintance with this course as he accompanied his father in such a venture down the great river. Then pa.s.sed apprenticeship, he built a boat for Gentry--merchant of Gentryville--and "sailed" it, with the storekeeper's son Allen as bow-hand or first officer. He and his crew of one started from the Ohio River landing and safely reached the Crescent City--safely as to cargo and bodies, but not without a narrow escape. At Baton Rouge, a little ahead of the haven, the boat was tied up at a plantation, and the two were asleep, when they became objects of an attack from a river pest--a band of refugee negroes and similar lawless rogues.

Luckily their approach was heard and the two awoke. Having been warned that the desperadoes would not stand on trifles, the young men armed themselves with clubs and leaped ash.o.r.e, after driving the pirates off the deck. They pursued them, too, with such an uproar that their number was multiplied in the runaways' mind. Both returned wounded--Abraham retaining a mark over the right eye, noticeable in after life, and not to his facial improvement. They immediately unhitched the boat and stood out in the channel.

"I wish we had carried weapons," sighed Lincoln. "Going to war without shooting-irons is not what the Quakers hold it to be."

"If we had been armed," returned Allen, as regretfully, "we would have made the feathers fly!"

It had not been too dark for the shade of the enemy to be perceived, so his skipper gave one of his earnest laughs, and replied:

"You mean _wool_, I reckon!"

LOG-ROLLING TO SAVE LIVES.

It was in the spring after the deep snow of 1831, that three or four lumbermen, who had built a large flatboat for carrying a cargo to New Orleans, were on the Sangamon River, trying the rowboat, or scow, to accompany the vessel. The river was very high and on the run. Two of the men leaped into the boat to get the drink for being the first in, and sent her out into the current. They were unable to stem it and row back. Lincoln shouted for them to head up and try the sleeping, or dead water, along sh.o.r.e. But they were mastered, and paddled for a wrecked boat, which had a pole sticking up. But though the man who grabbed for it secured his hold, the boat was capsized and the other was flung into the tide.

Lincoln, as captain, shouted out to him:

"Carman, swim for that elm-tree down there! You can catch it! Keep calm. Lay hold of a branch."

The tree was at a convenient height, and Carman caught on and swung himself out; but the icy water chilled him to the bone. But he was safe for the present, seeing which the captain called out to the other to let go his pole and let himself be carried down to the tree, also.

If he hung on in the open there much longer, he would become stiff and unable to swim. The man managed to reach his mate, and the two were joined at the tree.

The manager of the rescue found a log and, attaching a rope, rolled it into the stream, with the help of others who had arrived on the scene.

They towed it up some distance to get a good send-off, and a young daredevil got on it with the intention of being floated down to the tree, where all three would become pa.s.sengers and be drawn home. But in his haste to do so, Jim Dorrell raised himself off his log by the branch he grasped and, along with the other unfortunates, made three men to be saved.

When the riderless log was hauled up insh.o.r.e, Lincoln mounted it to make the next cast in person. Having an extra rope with him, he la.s.soed the tree and soon drew the log up. Cold as they were, the three men dropped down and straddled beside him. At his orders the men on the bank held the rope taut, so that the log, allowed to swing off freely, slung around with the current to the side, and the four were disembarked. This made Abraham the hero of the Sangamon River among the boatmen.

(Narrated by John Rolls, of New Salem, a witness.)

LINCOLN'S FIRST DOLLAR.

As in all farming communities, where the only movement of currency is when the crop comes in and the debts acc.u.mulating during the growth are settled and the slight surplus spent, the Indiana pioneers little knew "extra" cash. To obtain it, the men used their off hours in guiding intending settlers, a.s.sisting surveyors and prospectors, felling and hewing trees, and horse-trading. Another source of income out of bounds was to send a stock of produce down the river to sell or barter for the Southern plantation produce. As there was talk at home of furnishing their house, Abraham bethought him of this resource. His father consented readily to any notion that might result in gain, and his mother, though believing nearly two thousand miles of water travel onerous, allowed her "yes." Besides, the young man, by excessive work on their place, had piled up a goodly stock of salable stuff. Abraham had only to make a boat. It was small, merely to hold the "venture"

and his hand-bundle of "plunder" for the trip and land cruise at New Orleans. Western country boys who had seen the Crescent City talked of the exploit as the Easterners of seeing Europe.

Abe was maneuvering his boat on the Ohio River, at Rockport, when he heard the whistle announcing the approach of a steamboat. These craft were not enabled to make a landing anywhere, even with a run-out gang-plank--but took pa.s.sengers and parcels aboard by lighters.

Lincoln's small boat seemed admirably placed to serve as a transport to a couple of gentlemen who came down to the sh.o.r.e to ship on the steamboat. Their trunks were taken out of their carriages, and they selected Lincoln's new boat among some others. In his homespun, the gawky youth looked what he was--not the owner of the craft and about to try a speculation on the river, but one of the "scrubs." The "scrubs," not from any relation with washing--quite otherwise--were those poor families on the outskirts of towns who lived in the scrub or dwarfed pines. Accordingly one of them asked, indicating the flatboat:

"Who owns this?"

The hero relates the story thus:

"'I answered, somewhat modestly: 'I do!'

"'Will you take us and our trunks out to the steamboat?'

"'Certainly,' glad of the chance of earning something. I supposed that each of them would give two or three _bits_--practically the dime of nowadays."

Lincoln carried the pa.s.sengers aboard the vessel and handed up their trunks. Each of the gentlemen drew out a piece of silver and threw it on the little deck.