CHAPTER VIII.

BOY-OF-ALL-WORK.

Toil, Fun and Frolic-Books and Speaking Matches-A Severe Lesson in Caste-Practical Teachings on Temperance-1825.

THE Lincoln cabin was a small one. So large a family could hardly make themselves comfortable in one room and a loft, now that its younger members were so fast growing towards maturity. The farm, too, was limited in its capacity, and so there were reasons why Abe was permitted to have his own way in the matter of "working out." His longest hiring at any one place began in the year 1825, when he went to work for James Taylor, who owned the ferry across the Ohio River, at the mouth of Anderson's Creek. There were books to be had at Taylor's, and new ideas were to be picked up from the people of all sorts who from time to time were passengers in the rude ferryboat.

There were duties for Abe in great abundance, for he was man-of-all-work about the house and farm. Perhaps the most distasteful of all was grinding corn in a hand-mill, or grating the green ears for Mrs. Taylor's cookery. His hatred of cruelty to animals did not at all stand in the way of his being a good hand at butchering hogs in "killing time." His feelings, however, or his books, or his many industries, or all combined, prevented him from forming any taste for hunting. Game was so plentiful that the smaller varieties were a pest to the farmers. They were slaughtered to get rid of them, rather than for the table. Deer, bears, wild turkeys, were made to be eaten, and formed an important part of any man's calculations for his supply of provisions for the year. Wild

cats and even panthers were still sufficiently numerous to render uncomfortable at times the idea of lonely walks after nightfall.

It was a wild country if judged by standards accepted in older communities, but a change was creeping over the ways and manners of the Gentryville and Pigeon Creek settlers. They were becoming somewhat crowded by each other. Here and there were farms whose borders actually touched, and there was much more fencing required than in former days. There was greater sociability, of course, and there were larger gatherings at the meeting-house on Sundays. Right along with these, in growing size and frequency, came the cornshuckings, log-rollings, chopping-bees, shooting-matches, dances, and other contrivances for getting the neighbors together for a frolic.

Abraham Lincoln was not the boy to willingly miss a frolic of any kind, and as a general thing he was pretty sure of invitations, for he had faculties and accomplishments which were in demand. To his old-time capacity as a story-teller he was now adding a turn for satire and travesty, which now and then got him into difficulties, for his love of fun forbade him to spare anything worth taking off, and his reverence was as yet an undeveloped part of his character. Even in carefully listening to a sermon, he was too apt to remember with it every oddity and eccentricity of the preacher, and the whole would soon be reproduced, with ludicrous precision of gesture and intonation, before the uproarious congregations at the merry-makings. There was only too much that was odd and even grotesque in the frontier preaching of that day, good and useful as were some of the preachers, and the irreverent mimic had ample matter for his performances.

From reciting the poetry of others there was but a step to an attempt at manufacturing verses on his own account. It was not long before the ambitious boy of all work and devourer of all books made for himself a local reputation as a

rhymster. Almost any story, or any satirical attack upon an obnoxious neighbor, could be given a better point or a sharper sting by being thrown into the shape of a rude but jingling ballad. It was easy enough, moreover, to secure an attentive audience for that kind of "border minstrelsy."

Excepting religious services and funerals, there could hardly be a gathering of such a population without a part of the entertainment consisting of trials of bodily strength and skill among the younger and even the middle-aged men. Into these Abe entered with enthusiasm. There were many who could beat him with the rifle, but it began to be discovered that as he attained his full size, and his tough muscles filled out a little upon his bony frame, the rivals were fewer and fewer who could hope to excel him at wrestling, jumping, throwing the "maul" or heavy hammer, or in lifting a dead weight.

Physical power was of value for many reasons. The men upon whom his wit turned the laugh were not always contented to let the matter pass as a joke; but even the readiest of rough-and-tumble fighters was less prompt to quarrel with a young fellow who could laughingly pick up three or four times his weight and walk off with it. Nevertheless, every now and then, and even when trying to act as a peacemaker, Abe was sure to find a fight on his hands. The cheapness and abundance of whisky was generally at the bottom of such troubles; and they served him a good turn, by impressing him more and more deeply with the fact, then generally ignored, that a drinking or drunken man has little prospect of success in any competition with one who is wise enough to let drink alone. Frolic as much as he might, and be never so popular at all merry-makings, his somber and serious "inner man" was master always, and sure to keep him steady. As for mere trials of strength, even if forced upon him by the anger of others, they did but help him to acquire an exhaustless fund of confidence in his ability to pull himself and his friends safely through any difficulty which might be brought upon them.

More books were coming now. A man named Jones opened an opposition store at Gentryville, and he took a personal liking to Abe Lincoln. Apart from mere friendship, he saw that so popular a youngster could not fail to attract customers, and so, for a time that sufficed for reading every book owned by Mr. Jones, Abe acted as a sort of clerk and salesman for him. He kept no books of account and did not acquire the finer mysteries of merchandise; but he could pack and unpack goods, attend to customers, crack jokes with idlers, keep the place looking busy, and increase his peculiar knowledge of the world he was to live in. It was every way as valuable to him, as a piece of schooling, as would have been another winter term under Andrew Crawford.

During this part of his motley education Abe made himself the star orator of the Gentryville "speaking-matches." These were carried on in a rude kind of debating club, and the range of topics discussed was a wide one. Both the consciousness and the love of oratorical power began to grow strong within him. At the same time he was thirsting for a deeper knowledge of law and justice than could be sifted from the Revised Statutes of Indiana.

The county-seat of Warrick County was but fifteen miles from Gentryville. Courts were held there at certain seasons of the year, and judges sat to hear causes, and juries listened to testimony and arguments and rendered verdicts.

There, too, men were tried for crimes, and some received the penalty of their evil deeds. Others, again, came forth free and in a manner distinguished, with the thrilling story of their trial and escape to tell ever afterwards, as the choicest bit of frontier history known to them. It was no small thing for any man that he had been actually tried and acquitted of something serious, and he took a kind of rank proportioned to the magnitude and peril of his ordeal.

A little walk of fifteen miles in the early morning, and with no more to walk in returning after nightfall, could hardly in

terfere with the attendance at court of a student combining Abe's length of limb with his eagerness for law. He was sure to be among the audience in the court-room whenever he could escape from other duties. Not the judge himself, nor any jury, attended more zealously the fortunes of every case he heard.

One day a man was on trial for murder, and had secured for his defence a lawyer of more than common ability named John Breckinridge. Abraham Lincoln had been exceedingly interested in the case from the beginning; but when the time came for the prisoner's counsel to speak in his defence, there was a surprise prepared for the young Gentryville debater. He had never, until that day, listened to a really good argument, delivered by a man of learning and eloquence, but he had prepared himself to know and profit by such an experience when it came to him. He listened as if he had himself been the prisoner whose life depended upon the success of Mr. Breckinridge in persuading the jury of his innocence.

Other juries, long afterwards, were to learn how profound and successful had been the study the rough backwoods boy was then giving to the great art of persuading the minds of men. Millions of his fellow-citizens were to bear witness to the capacity he was then developing of so uttering a thought that those who heard or read the utterance could never afterwards tear that thought out of their memories.

Abraham Lincoln learned much from the great speech; but he had yet a deep and bitter lesson to receive that day. The lines of social caste were somewhat rigidly drawn at that time. A leading lawyer of good family like Mr. Breckinridge was a "gentleman," and a species of great man not to be carelessly addressed by half-clad boors from the new settlements.

Abe forgot all that; perhaps not knowing it very well. He could not repress his enthusiasm over that magnificent appeal to the judge and jury. The last sentence of the speech had hardly died away before he was pushing through the throng