would freeze to death. Lincoln raised
him from the ground and carried him a long distance to the nearest
house, where he remained with him during the night. The man was his
firm friend ever after.

Women admired him for his courtesy and rough gallantry, as well as for
his strength and kindness of heart; and he, in his turn, reverenced
women, as every noble, strong man does. This big, bony, tall, awkward
young fellow, who at eighteen measured six feet four, was as ready to
care for a baby in the absence of its mother as he was to tell a good
story or to fell a tree. Was it any wonder that he was popular with all
kinds of people?

His stepmother says of him: "Abe was a good boy, and I can say what
scarcely one woman--a mother--can say in a thousand; Abe never gave me
a cross word or look, and never refused in fact or appearance to do
anything I requested him. I never gave him a cross word in all my life.
His mind and mine--what little I had--seemed to run together. He was
here after he was elected president. He was a dutiful son to me always.
I think he loved me truly. I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe.
Both were good boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was
the best boy I ever saw or expect to see."

Wherever he went, or whatever he did, he studied men and things, and
gathered knowledge as much by observation as from books and whatever
news-papers or other publications he could get hold of. He used to go
regularly to the leading store in Gentryville, to read a Louisville
paper, taken by the proprietor of the store, Mr. Jones. He discussed
its contents, and exchanged views with the farmers who made the store
their place of meeting. His love of oratory was great. When the courts
were in session in Boonville, a town fifteen miles distant from his
home, whenever he could spare a day, he used to walk there in the
morning and back at night, to hear the lawyers argue cases and make
speeches. By this time Abraham himself could make an impromptu speech
on any subject with which he was at all familiar, good enough to win
the applause of the Indiana farmers.

So, his boyhood days, rough, hard-working days, but not devoid of fun
and recreation, passed. Abraham did not love work any more than other
country boys of his age, but he never shirked his tasks. Whether it was
plowing, splitting rails, felling trees, doing chores, reaping,
threshing, or any of the multitude of things to be done on a farm, the
wor