The Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 8

the funeral sermon. How he
contrived to get the letter to its destination we do not know, but it was
done. The kind-hearted preacher cheerfully consented, though it
involved a long and hard journey. He came at his earliest convenience,
which was some time the next year.
There was no church in which to hold the service. Lincoln never saw a
church building of any description until he was grown. But the
neighbors to the number of about two hundred assembled under the
trees, where the parson delivered the memorial sermon.
Lincoln was nine years old when his mother died, October 5th, 1818.
Her lot was hard, her horizon was narrow, her opportunities were
restricted, her life was one of toil and poverty. All through her life and
after her untimely death, many people would have said that she had had
at best but a poor chance in the world. Surely no one would have
predicted that her name would come to be known and reverenced from
ocean to ocean. But she was faithful, brave, cheerful. She did her duty
lovingly. In later years the nation joined with her son in paying honor
to the memory of this noble, overworked, uncomplaining woman.

CHAPTER IV.
IN INDIANA.
The death of his wife had left Thomas Lincoln with the care of three
young children: namely, Sarah, about eleven years old, Abe, ten years
old, and the foster brother, Dennis (Friend) Hanks, a year or two
younger. The father was not able to do woman's work as well as his
wife had been able to do man's work, and the condition of the home
was pitiable indeed. To the three motherless children and the bereaved
father it was a long and dreary winter. When spring came they had the
benefits of life in the woods and fields, and so lived through the season
until the edge of the following winter. It is not to be wondered at that
the father was unwilling to repeat the loneliness of the preceding year.
Early in December, 1819, he returned to Elizabethtown, Ky., and
proposed marriage to a widow, Mrs. Sally Bush Johnston. The proposal
must have been direct, with few preliminaries or none, for the couple
were married next morning. The new wife brought him a fortune, in
addition to three children of various ages, of sundry articles of
household furniture. Parents, children, and goods were shortly after
loaded into a wagon drawn by a four-horse team, and in all the style of
this frontier four-in-hand, were driven over indescribable roads,
through woods and fields, to their Indiana home.
The accession of Sally Bush's furniture made an important
improvement in the home. What was more important, she had her
husband finish the log cabin by providing window, door, and floor.
What was most important of all, she brought the sweet spirit of an
almost ideal motherhood into the home, giving to all the children alike
a generous portion of mother-love.
The children now numbered six, and not only were they company for
one another, but the craving for womanly affection, which is the most
persistent hunger of the heart of child or man, was beautifully met. She
did not humor them to the point of idleness, but wisely ruled with
strictness without imperiousness. She kept them from bad habits and

retained their affection to the last. The influence upon the growing lad
of two such women as Nancy Hanks and Sally Bush was worth more
than that of the best appointed college in all the land.
The boy grew into youth, and he grew very fast. While still in his teens
he reached the full stature of his manhood, six feet and four inches. His
strength was astonishing, and many stories were told of this and
subsequent periods to illustrate his physical prowess, such as: he once
lifted up a hencoop weighing six hundred pounds and carried it off
bodily; he could lift a full barrel of cider to his mouth and drink from
the bung-hole; he could sink an ax-halve deeper into a log than any
man in the country.
During the period of his growth into youth he spent much of his time in
reading, talking, and, after a fashion, making speeches. He also wrote
some. His political writings won great admiration from his neighbors.
He occasionally wrote satires which, while not refined, were very
stinging. This would not be worth mentioning were it not for the fact
that it shows that from boyhood he knew the force of this formidable
weapon which later he used with so much skill. The country store
furnished the frontier substitute for the club, and there the men were
wont to congregate. It is needless to say that young Lincoln was the life
of the gatherings, being an expert in