Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance Part 13

"I'll come with you," said Abe. "I'll stay long enough to help you get the new farm started."

There were thirteen people in the Lincoln party: Tom and Sarah, Abe and Johnny, Betsy and Dennis Hanks who had been married for several years, Mathilda and her husband, and two sets of children. They made the journey in three big wagons, traveling over frozen roads and crossing icy streams. After two weeks they came to John Hanks' home on the prairies of Illinois. He made them welcome, then took them to see the place that he had selected for their farm. In the cold winter light it looked almost as desolate as Pigeon Creek had looked fourteen years before. Tom Lincoln was beginning all over again.

This time he had more help. John Hanks had a great pile of logs split and ready to be used for their new cabin. Abe was now able to do a man's work. After the cabin was finished, he split enough rails to build a fence around the farm. Some of the new neighbors hired him to split logs for them.

The following spring, he was offered other work that he liked much better. A man named Denton Offut was building a flatboat, which he planned to float down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. He hired Abe to help with the cargo. The two young men became friends. When Abe returned home after the long voyage, he had news for Sarah.

"Ma," he said, "Denton is fixing to start a store up in New Salem.

That's a village on the Sangamon River. He wants me to be his clerk."

Sarah said nothing for a moment. If Abe went away to stay, the cabin would seem mighty lonesome. She would miss him terribly. But she wanted him to do whatever was best for him.

"Mr. Offut said he'd pay me fifteen dollars a month," Abe added.

That was more money than he had ever earned, thought Sarah. And now that he was over twenty-one, he could keep his wages for himself. "I reckon you'll be leaving soon," she said aloud.

"Yes, Ma, I will." Telling her was harder than Abe had expected. "It is high time that I start out on my own."

Sarah set to work to get his clothes ready. He was wearing his only pair of jeans, and there wasn't much else for him to take. She washed his s.h.i.+rts and the extra pair of socks that she had knit for him. He wrapped these up in a big cloth and tied the bundle to the end of a long stick.

The next morning he was up early. After he told the rest of the family good-by, Sarah walked with him to the gate.

Abe thrust the stick with his bundle over his shoulder. He had looked forward to starting out on his own--and now he was scared. Almost as scared as he had felt on that cold winter afternoon when his new mother had first arrived in Pigeon Creek. Because she had believed in him, he had started believing in himself. Her faith in him was still s.h.i.+ning in her eyes as she looked up at him and tried to smile.

He gave her a quick hug and hurried down the path.

It was a long, long walk to New Salem, where Abe arrived on a hot summer day in 1831. This village, on a high bluff overlooking the Sangamon River, was bigger than Gentryville, bigger even than Rockport. As he wandered up and down the one street, bordered on both sides by a row of neat log houses, he counted more than twenty-five buildings. There were several stores, and he could see the mill down by the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

He pushed his way through a crowd that had gathered before one of the houses. A worried-looking man, about ten years older than Abe, sat behind a table on the little porch. He was writing in a big book.

"Howdy, Mister," said Abe. "What is all the excitement about?"

"This is election day," the man replied, "and I am the clerk in charge.

That is, I'm one of the clerks."

He stopped to write down the name of one of the men who stood in line.

He wrote the names of several other voters in his big book before he had a chance to talk to Abe again. Then he explained that the other clerk who was supposed to help him was sick.

"I'm mighty busy," he went on. "Say listen, stranger, do you know how to write?"

"I can make a few rabbit tracks," Abe said, grinning.

"Maybe I can hire you to help me keep a record of the votes." The man rose and shook hands. "My name is Mentor Graham."

By evening the younger man and the older one had become good friends.

Mr. Graham was a schoolmaster, and he promised to help Abe with his studies. Soon Abe began to make other friends. Jack Kelso took him fis.h.i.+ng. Abe did not care much about fis.h.i.+ng, but he liked to hear Jack recite poetry by Robert Burns and William Shakespeare. They were Jack's favorite poets, and they became Abe's favorites, too.

At the Rutledge Tavern, where Abe lived for a while, he met the owner's daughter, Ann Rutledge. Ann was sweet and pretty, with a glint of suns.h.i.+ne in her hair. They took long walks beside the river. It was easy to talk to Ann, and Abe told her some of his secret hopes. She thought that he was going to be a great man some day.

Her father, James Rutledge, also took an interest in him. Abe was invited to join the New Salem Debating Society. The first time that he got up to talk, the other members expected him to spend the time telling funny stories. Instead he made a serious speech--and a very good one.

"That young man has more than wit and fun in his head," Mr. Rutledge told his wife that night.

Abe liked to make speeches, but he knew that he did not always speak correctly. One morning he was having breakfast at Mentor Graham's house.

"I have a notion to study English grammar," he said.

"If you expect to go before the public," Mentor answered, "I think it the best thing you can do."

"If I had a grammar, I would commence now."

Mentor thought for a moment. "There is no one in town who owns a grammar," he said finally. "But Mr. Vaner out in the country has one. He might lend you his copy."

Abe got up from the table and walked six miles to the Vaner farm. When he returned, he carried an open book in his hands. He was studying grammar as he walked.

Meanwhile he worked as a clerk in Denton Offut's store. Customers could buy all sorts of things there--tools and nails, needles and thread, mittens and calico, and tallow for making candles. One day a woman bought several yards of calico. After she left, Abe discovered that he had charged her six cents too much. That evening he walked six miles to give her the money. He was always doing things like that, and people began to call him "Honest Abe."

Denton was so proud of his clerk that he could not help boasting. "Abe is the smartest man in the United States," he said. "Yes, and he can beat any man in the country running, jumping, or wrastling."

A bunch of young roughnecks lived a few miles away in another settlement called Clary Grove. "That Denton Offut talks too much with his mouth,"

they said angrily. They did not mind Abe being called smart. But they declared that no one could "out-wrastle" their leader, Jack Armstrong.

One day they rushed into the store and dared Abe to fight with Jack.

Abe laid down the book that he had been reading. "I don't hold with wooling and pulling," he said. "But if you want to fight, come on outside."

The Clary Grove boys soon realized that Denton's clerk was a good wrestler. Jack, afraid that he was going to lose the fight, stepped on Abe's foot with the sharp heel of his boot. The sudden pain made Abe angry. The next thing that Jack knew he was being shaken back and forth until his teeth rattled. Then he was lying flat on his back in the dust.

Jack's friends let out a howl of rage. Several of them rushed at Abe, all trying to fight him at the same time. He stood with his back against the store, his fists doubled up. He dared them to come closer. Jack picked himself up.

"Stop it, fellows," he said. "I was beaten in a fair fight. If you ask me, this Abe Lincoln is the cleverest fellow that ever broke into the settlement."

From then on Jack was one of Abe's best friends.

A short time later Abe enlisted as a soldier in the Black Hawk War to help drive the Indians out of Illinois. The Clary Grove boys were in his company, and Abe was elected captain. Before his company had a chance to do any fighting, Blackhawk was captured in another part of Illinois and the war was over.

When Abe came back to New Salem, he found himself out of a job. Denton Offut had left. The store had "winked out." Later, Abe and another young man, William Berry, decided to become partners. They borrowed money and started a store of their own.

One day a wagon piled high with furniture stopped out in front. A man jumped down and explained that he and his family were moving West. The wagon was too crowded, and he had a barrel of odds and ends that he wanted to sell. Abe, always glad to oblige, agreed to pay fifty cents for it. Later, when he opened it, he had a wonderful surprise.

The barrel contained a set of famous law books. He had seen those same books in Mr. Pitcher's law office in Rockport. Now that he owned a set of his own, he could read it any time he wished. Customers coming into the store usually found Abe lying on the counter, his nose buried in one of the new books. The more he read, the more interested he became.

Perhaps he spent too much time reading, instead of attending to business. William Berry was lazy, and not a very satisfactory partner.

The store of Lincoln and Berry did so little business that it had to close. The partners were left with many debts to pay. Then Berry died, and "Honest Abe" announced that he would pay all of the debts himself, no matter how long it took.

For a while he was postmaster. A man on horseback brought the mail twice a week, and there were so few letters that Abe often carried them around in his hat until he could deliver them. He liked the job because it gave him a chance to read the newspapers to which the people in New Salem subscribed. But the pay was small, and he had to do all sorts of odd Jobs to earn enough to eat. On many days he would have gone hungry if Jack Armstrong and his wife, Hannah, had not invited him to dinner. When work was scarce he stayed with them two or three weeks at a time.

He knew that he had to find a way to earn more money, and he decided to study surveying. It was a hard subject, but he borrowed some books and read them carefully. He studied so hard that in six weeks' time he took his first job as a surveyor.

Sometimes when he was measuring a farm or laying out a new road, he would be gone for several weeks. People miles from New Salem knew who Abe Lincoln was. They laughed at him because he was so tall and awkward.