, who read this composition, declared that
"the world couldn't beat it."

When the dreaded disease, known as the "milk-sick" created such havoc
in Indiana in 1829, the father of Abraham Lincoln, who was of a roving
disposition, sought and found a new home in Illinois, locating near the
town of Decatur, in Macon county, on a bluff overlooking the Sangamon
river. A short time thereafter Abraham Lincoln came of age, and having
done his duty to his father, began life on his own account.

His first employer was a man named Denton Offut, who engaged Lincoln,
together with his step-brother and John Hanks, to take a boat-load of
stock and provisions to New Orleans. Offut was so well pleased with the
energy and skill that Lincoln displayed on this trip that he engaged him
as clerk in a store which Offut opened a few months later at New Salem.

It was while clerking for Offut that Lincoln performed many of those
marvelous feats of strength for which he was noted in his youth, and
displayed his wonderful skill as a wrestler. In addition to being six
feet four inches high he now weighed two hundred and fourteen pounds.
And his strength and skill were so great combined that he could
out-wrestle and out-lift any man in that section of the country.

During his clerkship in Offut's store Lincoln continued to read and
study and made considerable progress in grammar and mathematics. Offut
failed in business and disappeared from the village. In the language of
Lincoln he "petered out," and his tall, muscular clerk had to seek other
employment.

ASSISTANT PILOT ON A STEAMBOAT.

In his first public speech, which had already been delivered, Lincoln
had contended that the Sangamon river was navigable, and it now fell to
his lot to assist in giving practical proof of his argument. A steamboat
had arrived at New Salem from Cincinnati, and Lincoln was hired as an
assistant in piloting the vessel through the uncertain channel of
the Sangamon river to the Illinois river. The way was obstructed by
a milldam. Lincoln insisted to the owners of the dam that under the
Federal Constitution and laws no one had a right to dam up or obstruct
a navigable stream and as he had already proved that the Sangamon was
navigable a portion of the dam was torn away and the boat passed safely
through.

"CAPTAIN LINCOLN" PLEASED HIM.

At this period in his career the Blackhawk War broke out, and Lincoln
was one of the first to respond to Governor R