The Life of Abraham Lincoln | Page 8

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 the telling of a humorous story and having always a plentiful supply. His speech-making proved so attractive that his father was forced to forbid him to practise it during working hours because the men would always leave their work to listen to him.
During these years he had no regular employment, but did odd jobs wherever he got a chance. At one time, for example, he worked on a ferryboat for the munificent wages of thirty-seven and one half cents a day.
When sixteen years old, Lincoln had his first lesson in oratory. He attended court at Boonville,