The Boys Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 5

the river, near a small stream known as Pigeon
Creek, he found a spot in the forest that suited him; and as his boat
could not be made to float up-stream, he sold it, stored his goods with
an obliging settler, and trudged back to Kentucky, all the way on foot,
to fetch his wife and children-- Sarah, who was now nine years old, and
Abraham, seven. This time the journey to Indiana was made with two
horses, used by the mother and children for riding, and to carry their
little camping outfit for the night. The distance from their old home
was, in a straight line, little more than fifty miles, but they had to go
double that distance because of the very few roads it was possible to
follow.
Reaching the Ohio River and crossing to the Indiana shore, Thomas
Lincoln hired a wagon which carried his family and their belongings
the remaining sixteen miles through the forest to the spot he had
chosen--a piece of heavily wooded land, one and a half miles east of
what has since become the village of Gentryville in Spencer County.
The lateness of the autumn made it necessary to put up a shelter as
quickly as possible, and he built what was known on the frontier as a
half-faced camp, about fourteen feet square. This differed from a cabin
in that it was closed on only three sides, being quite open to the
weather on the fourth. A fire was usually made in front of the open side,
and thus the necessity for having a chimney was done away with.
Thomas Lincoln doubtless intended this only for a temporary shelter,
and as such it would have done well enough in pleasant summer
weather; but it was a rude provision against the storms and winds of an
Indiana winter. It shows his want of energy that the family remained
housed in this poor camp for nearly a whole year; but, after all, he must
not be too hastily blamed. He was far from idle. A cabin was doubtless
begun, and there was the very heavy work of clearing away the
timber--cutting down large trees, chopping them into suitable lengths,
and rolling them together into great heaps to be burned, or of splitting
them into rails to fence the small field upon which he managed to raise
a patch of corn and other things during the following summer.
Though only seven years old, Abraham was unusually large and strong

for his age, and he helped his father in all this heavy labor of clearing
the farm. In after years, Mr. Lincoln said that an ax "was put into his
hands at once, and from that till within his twenty-third year he was
almost constantly handling that most useful instrument--less, of course,
in ploughing and harvesting seasons." At first the Lincolns and their
seven or eight neighbors lived in the unbroken forest. They had only
the tools and household goods they brought with them, or such things
as they could fashion with their own hands. There was no sawmill to
saw lumber. The village of Gentryville was not even begun. Breadstuff
could be had only by sending young Abraham seven miles on
horseback with a bag of corn to be ground in a hand grist-mill.
About the time the new cabin was ready relatives and friends followed
from Kentucky, and some of these in turn occupied the half-faced camp.
During the autumn a severe and mysterious sickness broke out in their
little settlement, and a number of people died, among them the mother
of young Abraham. There was no help to be had beyond what the
neighbors could give each other. The nearest doctor lived fully thirty
miles away. There was not even a minister to conduct the funerals.
Thomas Lincoln made the coffins for the dead out of green lumber cut
from the forest trees with a whip-saw, and they were laid to rest in a
clearing in the woods. Months afterward, largely through the efforts of
the sorrowing boy, a preacher who chanced to come that way was
induced to hold a service and preach a sermon over the grave of Mrs.
Lincoln.
Her death was indeed a serious blow to her husband and children.
Abraham's sister, Sarah, was only eleven years old, and the tasks and
cares of the little household were altogether too heavy for her years and
experience. Nevertheless they struggled bravely through the winter and
following summer; then in the autumn of 1819 Thomas Lincoln went
back to Kentucky and married Sarah Bush Johnston, whom he had
known, and it is said courted, when she was only Sally Bush. She had
married about the time Lincoln married Nancy Hanks, and her husband
had died, leaving her with three children.