Though only seven years old, Abraham was unusually large and
strong for his age, and he helped his father in all this heavy
labor of clearing the farm. In after years, Mr. Lincoln said that
an ax "was put into his hands at once, and from that till within
his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most
useful instrument--less, of course, in ploughing and harvesting
seasons." At first the Lincolns and their seven or eight
neighbors lived in the unbroken forest. They had only the tools
and household goods they brought with them, or such things as
they could fashion with their own hands. There was no sawmill to
saw lumber. The village of Gentryville was not even begun.
Breadstuff could be had only by sending young Abraham seven miles
on horseback with a bag of corn to be ground in a hand
grist-mill.
About the time the new cabin was ready relatives and friends
followed from Kentucky, and some of these in turn occupied the
half-faced camp. During the autumn a severe and mysterious
sickness broke out in their little settlement, and a number of
people died, among them the mother of young Abraham. There was no
help to be had beyond what the neighbors could give each other.
The nearest doctor lived fully thirty miles away. There was not
even a minister to conduct the funerals. Thomas Lincoln made the
coffins for the dead out of green lumber cut from the forest
trees with a whip-saw, and they were laid to rest in a clearing
in the woods.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27