The Lincoln Story Book | Page 5

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 title 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 circumscribed 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 passed 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 ashore, 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 shore. 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