Chapter 2

Dennis came forward to be introduced, but he had eyes only for Betsy. She gave him a coy look out of her china-blue eyes. Tilda smiled shyly at Sally. Both of the Johnston girls wore pretty linsey-woolsey dresses under their shawls and neat moccasins on their feet. Sally, looking down at her own soiled dress and bare toes, wished that she could run away and hide. Abe said "Howdy" somewhere down inside his stomach.

Sarah, Tom's new wife, looked around the littered yard, then at the cabin. It did not even have a window! It did not have a door that would open and shut--only a ragged bearskin flapping in the wind. She had known Tom since he was a boy and had always liked him. Her first husband, Mr. Johnston, had died some time before, and when Tom had returned to Kentucky and asked her to marry him, she had said yes. He had told her that his children needed a mother's care, and he was right.

Poor young ones! she thought. Aloud she said, "Well, let's not all stand out here and freeze. Can't we go inside and get warm?"

The inside of the cabin seemed almost as cold as the outdoors. And even more untidy. Johnny clung to his mother's skirt and started to cry. He wanted to go back to Kentucky. His sisters peered through the gloom, trying to see in the dim light. Sally was sure that they were looking at her. She sat down hastily and tucked her feet as far back as she could under the stool. Abe stood quite still, watching this strange woman who had come without warning to take his mother's place.

She smiled at him. He did not smile back.

Slowly she turned and looked around. Her clear gray eyes took in every nook, every crack of the miserable little one-room house. She noticed the dirty bearskins piled on the pole bed in the corner. She saw the pegs in the wall that led to the loft. The fire smoldering in the fireplace gave out more smoke than heat.

"The first thing we'd better do," she said, taking off her bonnet, "is to build up that fire. Then we'll get some victuals ready. I reckon everybody will feel better when we've had a bite to eat."

From that moment things began to happen in the Lincoln cabin. Tom went out to the wagon to unhitch the horses. Dennis brought in more firewood. Abe and Mathilda started for the spring, swinging the water pail between them. Betsy mixed a fresh batch of cornbread in the iron skillet, and Sally set it on the hearth to bake. Tom came back from the wagon, carrying a comb of honey and a slab of bacon, and soon the magic smell of frying bacon filled the air. There were no dishes, but Sally kept large pieces of bark in the cupboard. Eight people sat down at the one little table, but no one seemed to mind that it was crowded.

The Lincoln children had almost forgotten how good bacon could taste. Abe ate in silence, his eyes on his plate. Sally seemed to feel much better. Sitting between her stepsisters, she was soon chattering with them as though they were old friends. Once she called the new Mrs. Lincoln "Mamma," just as her own daughters did. Dennis sat on the other side of Betsy. He seemed to be enjoying himself most of all. He sopped up his last drop of golden honey on his last piece of cornbread.

"I declare," he said, grinning, "we ain't had a meal like this since Nancy died."

Abe jumped up at the mention of his mother's name. He was afraid that he was going to cry. He had started for the door, when he felt his father's rough hand on his shoulder.

"Abe Lincoln, you set right down there and finish your cornbread."

Abe looked up at Tom out of frightened gray eyes. But he shook his head. "I can't, Pa."

"A nice way to treat your new ma!" Tom Lincoln sounded both angry and embarrassed. "You clean up your plate or I'll give you a good hiding."

The young Johnstons gasped. Abe could hear Sally's whisper: "Please, Abe! Do as Pa says." Then he heard another voice.

"Let the boy be, Tom." It was Sarah Lincoln speaking.

There was something about the way she said it that made Abe decide to come back and sit down. He managed somehow to eat the rest of his cornbread. He looked up and saw that she was smiling at him again. He almost smiled back.

Sarah looked relieved. "Abe and I," she said, "are going to have plenty of chance to get acquainted."

5

Sarah Rose from the table. "There's a lot of work to be done here," she announced, "before we can bring in my plunder." She meant her furniture and other possessions in the wagon. "First, we'll need plenty of hot water. Who wants to go to the spring?"

She was looking at Abe. "I'll go, ma'am." He grabbed the water bucket and hurried through the door.

Abe made several trips to the spring that afternoon. Each bucket full of water that he brought back was poured into the big iron kettle over the fireplace. Higher and higher roared the flames. When Sarah wasn't asking for more water, she was asking for more wood. The steady chop-chop of Tom's ax could be heard from the wood lot.

Everyone was working, even Dennis. Sarah gave him a pan of soap and hot water and told him to wash the cabin walls. The girls scrubbed the table, the three-legged stools, and the corner cupboard inside and out. Sarah climbed the peg ladder to peer into the loft.

"Tsch! Tsch!" she said, when she saw the corn husks and dirty bearskins on which the boys had been sleeping. "Take them out and burn them, Tom."

"Burn them?" he protested.

"Yes, and burn the covers on the downstairs bed, too. I reckon I have enough feather beds and blankets to go around. We're starting fresh in this house. We'll soon have it looking like a different place."

Not since Nancy died had the cabin had such a thorough cleaning. Then came the most remarkable part of that remarkable afternoon--the unloading of the wagon. Sarah's pots and pans shone from much scouring. Her wooden platters and dishes were spotless. And the furniture! She had chairs with real backs, a table, and a big chest filled with clothes. There was one bureau that had cost forty-five dollars. Abe ran his finger over the shining dark wood. Sarah hung a small mirror above it and he gasped when he looked at his reflection. This was the first looking glass that he had ever seen.

Most remarkable of all were the feather beds. One was laid on the pole bed, downstairs. Another was placed on a clean bearskin in the opposite corner to provide a sleeping place for the girls. The third was carried to the loft for the three boys. When Abe went to bed that night, he sank down gratefully into the comfortable feathers. The homespun blanket that covered him was soft and warm.

On either side, Dennis and Johnny were asleep. Abe lay between them, wide awake, staring into the darkness. The new Mrs. Lincoln was good and kind. He knew that. She had seemed pleased when Sally called her "Mamma." Somehow he couldn't. There was still a lonesome place in his heart for his own mother.

Something else was worrying him. Before going to bed, Sarah Lincoln had looked at him and Sally out of her calm gray eyes. "Tomorrow I aim to make you young ones look more human," she said. Abe wondered what she meant.

He found out the next morning. Tom and Dennis left early to go hunting. Abe went out to chop wood for the fireplace. When he came back, he met the three girls going down the path. Sally was walking between her two stepsisters, but what a different Sally! She wore a neat, pretty dress that had belonged to Betsy. She had on Sarah's shawl. Her hair was combed in two neat pigtails. Her face had a clean, scrubbed look. Her eyes were sparkling. She was taking Betsy and Mathilda to call on one of the neighbors.

"Good-by, Mamma," she called.

Sarah stood in the doorway, waving to the girls. Then she saw Abe, his arms piled high with wood. "Come in," she said. "Sally has had her bath. Now I've got a tub of good hot water and a gourd full of soap waiting for you. Skedaddle out of those old clothes and throw them in the fire."

"I ain't got any others." Abe looked terrified.

"I don't aim to pluck your feathers without giving you some new ones." Sarah laughed. "I sat up late last night, cutting down a pair of Mr. Johnston's old pants. I got a shirt, too, laid out here on the bed."

Slowly Abe started taking off his shirt. He looked fearfully at the tub of hot water.

"There's no call to be scared," said Sarah. "That tub won't bite. Now I'm going down to the spring. By the time I get back, I want you to have yourself scrubbed all over."

Abe stuck one toe into the water. He said, "Ouch!" and drew it out. He then tried again, and put in his whole foot. He put in his other foot. He sat down in the tub. By the time Sarah returned he was standing before the fire, dressed in the cut-down trousers and shirt of the late Mr. Johnston.

Sarah seemed pleased. "You look like a different boy," she said. "Those trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them."

Abe was surprised how good it felt to be clean again. "Thank you, ma'am. Now I'd better get in some more wood."

"We have plenty of wood," said Sarah. "You see that stool? You sit down and let me get at your hair. It looks like a heap of underbrush."

Abe watched anxiously when she opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out a haw comb and a pair of scissors. I'll stand for it this time, he thought, because she's been so good to us. But if she pulls too hard--

Mrs. Lincoln _did_ pull. But when Abe said "Ouch!" she patted his shoulder and waited a moment. He closed his eyes and screwed up his face, but he said nothing more. Perhaps she couldn't help pulling, he decided. Lock after lock she snipped off. He began to wonder if he was going to have any hair left by the time she got through.

"I've been watching you, Abe. You're a right smart boy," she said. "Had much schooling?"

"I've just been to school by littles."

"Have you a mind to go again?"

"There ain't any school since Master Crawford left. Anyhow, Pappy doesn't set much store by eddication."

"What do you mean, Abe?"

"He says I know how to read and write and cipher and that's enough for anyone."

"You can read?" she asked.

"Yes'm, but I haven't any books."

"You can read and you haven't any books. I have books and I can't read."

Abe looked at her, amazed. "You have _books_?"

Sarah nodded, but said nothing more until she had finished cutting his hair. Then she led him over to the bureau.

"Now see if you don't like yourself better without that brush heap on top of your head," she asked him.

A boy with short neat hair gazed back at Abe from the mirror.

"I still ain't the prettiest boy in Pigeon Creek," he drawled, "but there ain't quite so much left to be ugly. I'm right glad, ma'am, you cleared away the brush heap."

Was he joking? He looked so solemn that Sarah could not be sure. Then he grinned. It was the first time that she had seen him smile.

"You're a caution, Abe," she said. "Now sit yourself down over there at the table, and I'll show you my books."

She opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out four worn little volumes. Although she could not read, she knew the titles: "Here they are: _Robinson Crusoe_, _Pilgrim's Progress_, _Sinbad the Sailor_, and _Aesop's Fables_."

"Oh, ma'am, this book by Mr. Aesop is one the schoolmaster had. The stories are all about some smart talking animals."

He seemed to have forgotten her, as he bent his neat shorn head down over the pages. He chuckled when he read something that amused him. Sarah watched him curiously. He was not like her John. He was not like any boy that she had ever known. But the hungry look in his eyes went straight to her heart.

He looked up at her shyly. "Ma'am," he said, "will you let me read these books sometimes?"

"Why, Abe, you can read them any time you like. I'm giving them to you to keep."

"Oh, _Mamma_!" The name slipped out as though he were used to saying it. He had a feeling that Nancy, his own mother, had never gone away.

"You're my boy, now," Sarah told him, "and I aim to help you all I can. The next time a school keeps in these parts, I'm going to ask your pappy to let you and the other children go."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Abe. "I mean--thank you, Mamma."

6

Many changes were taking place in the Lincoln cabin. Sarah persuaded Tom to cut two holes in the walls for windows, and she covered them with greased paper to let in the light. He made a wooden door that could be shut against the cold winter winds. Abe and Dennis gave the walls and low ceiling a coat of whitewash, and Sarah spread her bright rag rugs on the new wooden floor.

"Aunt Sairy," Dennis told her, "you're some punkins. One just naturally has to be somebody when you're around."

Abe smiled up at her shyly. "It is sort of like the magic in that story of Sinbad you gave me."

The other children were asleep. Abe sprawled on the floor, making marks on a wooden shovel with a pointed stick. Tom, seated in one of his wife's chairs, was dozing on one side of the fireplace.

Sarah put down her knitting and looked around the cabin. "The place does look right cozy," she replied. "What is that you're doing, Abe?"

"Working my sums."

Tom opened his eyes. "You know how to figure enough already. Put that shovel up and go to bed."

Abe took a knife and scraped the figures from the wooden shovel. He placed it against one side of the fireplace. "Good night, Mamma," he said.

"Good night, Abe."

Sarah's eyes were troubled. She waited until Dennis had joined Abe in the loft, then turned to her husband. "I've been meaning to tell you, Tom, what a good pa you've been to my young ones."

She saw that he was pleased. "I've tried to be a good mother to Abe and Sally, too," she went on.

"You have been, Sairy. They took to you right off."

"I'm right glad, but there's something else I want to talk to you about, Tom." He was nodding again in his chair, and she paused to make sure that he was listening. "Abe's a smart boy. I told him the next time a school keeps in these parts, I'd ask you to let him and the other children go."

"Humph!" Tom grunted. "There ain't any school for him to go to. Anyway, he wastes enough time as 'tis. He's always got his nose buried in those books you brought."

"That bothers me, too. I saw you cuff him the other day because he was reading."

"I had to, Sairy. I told him to come out and chop some wood, but he up and laughed in my face."

"He wasn't laughing at you, Tom. He was laughing at Sinbad."

"Who in tarnation is Sinbad?"

"A fellow in one of his books. Abe said that Sinbad sailed his flatboat up to a rock, and the rock was magnetized and pulled all the nails out of his boat. Then Sinbad fell into the water."

"That's what I mean," Tom exploded. "Dennis told him that book was most likely lies, but Abe keeps on reading it. Where is all this book learning going to get him? More'n I ever had."

"Maybe the Lord meant for young ones to be smarter than their parents," said Sarah, "or the world might never get any better."

Tom shook his head in dismay. "Women and their fool notions! If I don't watch out, you'll be spoiling the boy more'n his own mammy did."

Sarah's cheeks were red as she bent over her knitting. Tom was right about one thing. There was no school for Abe to go to. But some day there would be. Every few weeks another clearing was made in the forest, and the neighbors gathered for a "house raising" to help put up a cabin. Then smoke would rise from a new chimney, and another new home would be started in the wilderness.

With so many new settlers, there was usually plenty of work for Abe. Whenever Tom did not need him at home, he hired out at twenty-five cents a day. He gave this money to his father. That was the law, Tom said. Not until Abe was twenty-one would he be allowed to keep his wages for himself. As a hired boy, he plowed corn, chopped wood, and did all kinds of chores. He did not like farming, but he managed to have fun.

"Pa taught me to work," Abe told one farmer who had hired him, "but he never taught me to love it."

The farmer scratched his head. He couldn't understand a boy who was always reading, and if Abe wasn't reading he was telling jokes. The farmer thought that Abe was lazy.

"Sometimes," the farmer said, "I get awful mad at you, Abe Lincoln. You crack your jokes and spin your yarns, if you want to, while the men are eating their dinner. But don't you keep them from working."

The other farm hands liked to gather around Abe when they stopped to eat their noon meal. Sometimes he would stand on a tree stump and "speechify." The men would become so interested that they would be late getting back to the fields. Other times he would tell them stories that he had read in books or that he had heard from some traveler who had passed through Pigeon Creek. He nearly always had a funny story to tell.

Yet there was "something peculiarsome about Abe," as Dennis Hanks once said. He would be laughing one minute; the next minute he would look solemn and sad. He would walk along the narrow forest trails, a faraway look in his eyes. Someone would say "Howdy, Abe." Then he would grin and start "cracking jokes" again.

Although he worked such long hours, Abe still found time to read. He sat up late and got up early in the morning, and Sarah made the children keep quiet when he wanted to study. Sometimes he took a book to work with him. Instead of talking to the other farm hands at noon, he'd go off by himself and read a few pages while he ate his dinner. People for miles around loaned him books. Sometimes he walked fifteen miles to Rockport, the county seat, to borrow books from John Pitcher, the town lawyer.

"Everything I want to know is in books," he told Dennis. "My best friend is a man who can give me a book I ain't read."

Late one afternoon, about two years after Sarah had arrived, Abe came home with a new book under his arm. Tom and Dennis had joined several of their neighbors in a big bear hunt and planned to be gone for several days. Abe planned to read--and read--and read.

"What do you think, Mamma?" he asked. "I have a chance to read the Declaration of Independence."

Sarah smiled into his eager eyes. "Now isn't that nice?"

He showed her the book. It belonged to David Turnham, the constable. Mr. Turnham had said that Abe might borrow it for several days, if he promised to be careful.

"What is it about?" Sarah asked.

"It has the laws of Indiana in it, and it tells how the government of our country was started." Abe's voice took on a new tone of excitement. "It has the Declaration of Independence in it and the Constitution, too."

He pulled a stool up to the fire and began to read. There was no sound in the little cabin except the steady click-click of Sarah's knitting needles. She glanced at him now and then. This tall, awkward boy had become very dear to her. As dear as her own children, perhaps even dearer, but he was harder to understand. No matter how much he learned, he wanted to learn more. He was always hungry, hungry for knowledge--not hungry for bacon and cornbread the way Johnny was. The idea made her chuckle.

Abe did not hear. He laid the book on his knee and stared into the flames. His lips were moving, although he made no sound.

"What are you saying to yourself?" Sarah asked. "You look so far away."

"Why, Mamma." Abe looked up with a start. "I was just recollecting some of the words out of the Declaration of Independence. It says all men are created equal."

"You don't mean to tell me!" Sarah was pleased because Abe was.

"I'm going to learn as much of the Declaration as I can by heart, before I take the book back," he said. "That way I can always keep the words."

"I declare," said Sarah, "you grow new ideas inside your head as fast as you add inches on top of it."

7

Abe went right on adding inches. By the time he was fourteen he was as tall as his father. Sally was working as a hired girl that summer for Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Crawford. Abe worked for them off and on. One afternoon he finished his chores early, and Mrs. Crawford sent him home. Abe was glad. Josiah had lent him a new book--a life of George Washington--and he wanted to start reading it.

When he reached the Lincoln cabin, he found Betsy and Mathilda waiting outside for their mother. She stood before the mirror in the cabin putting on her sunbonnet.

"Your pa and Dennis have gone squirrel hunting," she said, as she tied the strings in a neat bow beneath her chin. "The gals and I are going to visit a new neighbor. Will you keep an eye on Johnny and put some 'taters on to boil for supper?"

"Oh, Ma, not potatoes again?"

"They will be right tasty with a mess of squirrel. Before you put the 'taters on--"

Abe patted the book inside his shirt front. "I can read?" he asked.

"You can, after you go down to the horse trough and wash your head."

"Wash my head? How come?" Abe wailed.

"Take a look at that ceiling, and you'll know how come. See that dark spot? Your head made that. You're getting so tall you bump into the ceiling every time you climb into the loft."

Abe rolled his eyes upward. "If some of that learning I've got cooped up in my head starts leaking out, how can I help it?"

Sarah refused to be put off by any of his foolishness. "When you track dirt into the house, I can wash the floor," she said. "But I can't get to the ceiling so easy. It needs a new coat of whitewash, but there's no use in doing it if your head ain't clean."

"All right," said Abe meekly.

"Take a gourdful of soap with you," said Sarah. "And mind you, no reading until you finish washing your hair."

He grumbled under his breath as he walked down to the horse trough. With a new book waiting to be read, washing his hair seemed a waste of time. But if that was what Sarah wanted, he would do it. He lathered his head with soap and ducked it into the water. Some of the soap got into his eyes and he began to sputter. He heard a giggle.

"Hey, Johnny, is that you?" he said. "Get a bucket of water--quick!"

Johnny, the eight-year-old stepbrother, was glad to oblige. He poured bucket after bucket of water over Abe's head. Finally all of the soap was rinsed out of his hair. Abe took the tail of his shirt and wiped the soap out of his eyes. Both boys were covered with water. The ground around the horse trough was like a muddy little swamp. Johnny was delighted. He liked to feel the mud squish up between his toes.

"Look at me, Abe," he shouted. "Ain't we having fun?"

Abe took his young stepbrother by the hand. His eyes were twinkling. "I've thought of something else that's fun. Come on, we're going to play a joke on Mamma."

When Sarah returned to the cabin late that afternoon, she noticed that Abe's hair was still damp. He was very quiet as he stood by the fireplace and swung the big kettle outward. He dipped out the potatoes with an iron spoon. Tom and Dennis came in, both somewhat grumpy. They had not brought back a single squirrel.

Only Johnny seemed in good spirits. He whispered in Mathilda's ear. They both began to giggle. By the time the family had gathered around the table, Betsy and Dennis had been let in on the secret, whatever it was. They were red in the face from trying not to laugh.

"Quiet!" said Tom. "Quiet, while I say the blessing."

"We thank thee. Lord--" he began.

Tom usually gave thanks for each kind of food on the table. But today there was only a dish of dried-up potatoes. "We thank Thee, Lord," he went on, "for all these blessings."

"Mighty poor blessings," said Abe.

The girls giggled again. Dennis threw back his head and roared. Johnny was laughing so hard that he fell off his stool. He lay on the floor, rolling and shrieking.

"I wish you young ones would stop carrying on," said Sarah, "and tell me what you're carrying on about."

"Oh, Mamma, can't you see?" said Betsy. "Look up."

Sarah gasped. Marching across the cabin ceiling were the muddy marks of two bare feet.