LINCOLN

THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE

His "Old Kentucky Home'

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HE parents of Abraham Lincoln lived in Kentucky, having moved to that state from Virginia. His father's people came from New England. The mother was Nancy Hanks Lincoln. She was tall, tall, dark-haired, and dignified. She was a woman full of pleasant ways and kindly deeds, and was a person to be loved. She had been taught to read her Bible, a thing that raised her above her neighbors and caused them to look up to her, for Kentucky was then a new state, and books were few and schools were scarce.

Thomas Lincoln, the father, did not know how to read, but his wife taught him

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to make the letters that spelled his name. The Lincolns were poor, so poor that they

From "Stories of Heroism," by Wm. H. Mace

The birthplace of Abraham Lincoln, Hodgenville, Kentucky. The window was added by later occupants. The cabin is now inclosed by a memorial building of granite

probably thought very little about it. They lived in a cabin. It had but one room, no windows, and no floor but the hard earth. Here, in the midst of poverty, our hero was born, February 12, 1809.

In after years Lincoln did not like to talk about those days of poverty. Nevertheless, to little Abe this home among the trees, with the neighbors far away, was not without its good fortune. He had an only sister a bit older than himself to play

with; but these two children had a wonderful playground: the great deep, dark forests of their neighborhood. Here they were free to roam about to their hearts' content.

Near by flowed a spring, in the bright waters of which they saw their own faces, and from which they took many a cooling drink by kneeling on the ground or by dipping up the water in the gourds they had raised.

Knob Creek ran near their cabin home, and in its quiet "holes" of water the children often saw fish, which sometimes made them a good meal.

On the edge of the clearing, where the giant Kentucky hills lifted their tall tops, the children wandered to pick the berries for their humble table. In the autumn they were kept busy gathering the brown nuts that came tumbling down from the trees.

Years afterwards, Lincoln was asked what he remembered about the War of 1812, then going on between the United

States and England. He replied: "Nothing but this. I had been fishing one day

Rock Spring, on the farm where Lincoln was born

and caught a little fish which I was taking home. I met a soldier in the road, and, having been always told at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish."

This picture gives us a glimpse into the Lincoln household and shows us what teachings were going on there.

From his good mother little Abe learned how to spell, and so quick and bright was he that when a strolling schoolmaster began a school, to which boys and girls in

their teens went, they were surprised to see Abe move up to the head of the class and stay there.

In that early day preachers and churches were as scarce as teachers and schools. But to the village, three miles from the Lincoln home, there sometimes came a preacher. Then all the people, for miles and miles around, went to hear him preach. After these meetings little Abe, then but five years old, went home, mounted a stool, and imitated the minister in all those ways that strike a boyish imagination.

In after years, when Lincoln sat in the White House, a friend one day said to him: "How would you like, when the war is over, to visit your old home in Kentucky?"

"I would like it very much," answered President Lincoln. "I remember that old home very well. Our farm was composed

of three fields.

It lay in the valley sur

rounded by high hills and deep gorges. Sometimes when there came a big rain