uch would you be worth?" said the blacksmith.

"I call that a new way of keeping accounts," continued Thomas Lincoln,
earnestly. "Did you ever see anything of the kind before? No. It's a new
and original way. We do a great lot o' thinkin' down here in
winter-time, when we haven't much else to do. I'm goin' to put one o'
them new systems into the mill."

The meetings of the pioneers at the blacksmith's shop formed a kind of
merry-go-round club. One would tell a story in his own odd way, and
another would say, "That reminds me," and tell a similar story that was
intended to exceed the first in point of humor. One of Thomas Lincoln's
favorite stories was "GL-UK!" or, as he sometimes termed it--

"_HOW ABRAHAM WENT TO MILL._

"It was a mighty curi's happenin'," he would say. "I don't know how to
account for it--the human mind is a very strange thing. We go to sleep
and are lost to the world entirely, and we wake up again. We die, and
leave our bodies, and the soul-memory wakes again; if it have the new
life and sense, it wakes again somewhere. We're curi's critters, all on
us, and don't know what we are.

"When I first came to Indiana I made a mill of my own--Abe and I did.
'Twas just a big stone attached to a heavy pole like a well-sweep, so as
to pound heavy, up and down, up and down. You can see it now, though it
is all out of gear and kilter.

"Then, they built a mill 'way down on the river, and I used to send Abe
there on horseback. Took him all day to go and come: used to start early
in the mornin', and, as he had to wait his turn at the mill, he didn't
use to get back until sundown. Then came Gordon and built his mill
almost right here among us--a horse-mill with a windlass, all mighty
handy: just hitch the horse to a windlass and pole, and he goes round
and round, and never gets nowhere, but he grinds the corn and wheat.
Something like me: I go round and round, and never seem to get anywhere,
but something will come of it, you may depend.

"Well, one day I says to Abraham:

"You must hitch up the horse and go to Gordon's to mill. The meal-tub is
low, and there's a storm a-brewin'.'

"So Abe hitched up the horse and started. That horse is a mighty steady
animal--goes around just like a machine; hasn't any capers nor
antics--just as sober as a minister. I should have no more thought of
his kickin' than I should have thought of the millstones a-hoppin' out
of the hopper. 'Twas a mighty curi's affair.

"We