The Lincoln Story Book | Page 5

his tongue, at that age.
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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."
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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!"
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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 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