CHAPTER II.

Thomas Lincoln builds a boat.--Floats down to the Ohio.--Boat capsizes.--Lands in Perry County, Indiana.--Selects a location.--Walks back to Knob Creek for wife and children.--Makes his way through the wilderness.--Settles between the two Pigeon Creeks.--Gentry ville.--Selects a site.--Lincoln builds a half-faced camp.--Clears ground and raises a small crop.--Dennis Hanks.--Lincoln builds a cabin.--State of the country.--Indiana admitted to the Union.--Rise of Gentryville.--Character of the people.--Lincoln's patent for his land.--His farm, cabin, furniture.--The milk-sickness.--Death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln.--Funeral discourse by David Elkin.--Grave.--Tom Lincoln marries Sally Bush.--Her goods and chattels.--Her surprise at the poverty of the Lincoln cabin.--Clothes and comforts Abe and his sister.--Abe leads a new life.--Is sent to school.--Abe's appearance and dress.--Learning "manners"--Abe's essays.--Tenderness for animals.--The last of school.--Abe excelled the masters.--Studied privately.--Did not like to work.--Wrote on wooden shovel and boards.--How Abe studied.--The books he read.--The "Revised Statute of Indiana."--Did not read the Bible.--No religious opinions.--How he behaved at home.--Touching recital by Mrs. Lincoln.--Abe's memory.--Mimicks the preachers.--Makes "stump-speeches" in the field.--Cruelly maltreated by his father.--Works out cheerfully.--Universal favorite.--The kind of people he lived amongst.--Mrs. Crawford's reminiscences.--Society about Gentryville. --His step-mother.--His sister.--The Johnstons and Hankses.--Abe a ferryman and farm-servant.--His work and habits.--Works for Josiah Crawford.--Mrs. Crawford's account of him.--Crawford's books.--Becomes a wit and a poet.--Abe the tallest and strongest man in the settlement.--Hunting in the Pigeon Creek region.--His activity.--Love of talking and reading.--Fond of rustic sports.--Furnishes the literature.--Would not be slighted.--His satires.--Songs and chronicles.--Gentryville as "a centre of business."--Abe and other boys loiter about the village.--Very temperate.--"Clerks" for Col. Jones.--Abe saves a drunken man's life.--Fond of music.--Marriage of his sister Nancy.--Extracts from his copy-book.--His Chronicles.--Fight with the Grigs-bys.--Abe "the big buck of the lick."--"Speaking meetings" at Gentryville.--Dennis Hanks's account of the way he and Abe became so learned.--Abe attends a court.--Abe expects to be President.--Going to mill.--Kicked in the head by a horse.--Mr. Wood.--Piece on temperance.--On national politics.--Abe tired of home.--Works for Mr. Gentry.--Knowledge of astronomy and geography.--Goes to New Orleans.--Counterfeit money.--Fight with negroes.--Scar on his face. --An apocryphal story...........19