drollery, and it would almost make you laugh to
look at him. I never saw but one other man whose quiet, droll look
excited in me the disposition to laugh, and that was 'Artemus Ward.'

"Mordecai was quite a story-teller, and in this Abe resembled his 'Uncle
Mord,' as we called him. He was an honest man, as tender-hearted as a
woman, and to the last degree charitable and benevolent.

"Abe Lincoln had a very high opinion of his uncle, and on one occasion
remarked, 'I have often said that Uncle Mord had run off with all the
talents of the family.'"

In a letter about his family history, just before he was nominated for
the presidency, Abraham Lincoln wrote:

"My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished
families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother was of a
family of the name of Hanks. My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln,
emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781 or 2,
where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians--not in battle, but
by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest. His
ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County,
Pennsylvania. An effort to identify them with the New England family of
the same name ended in nothing more definite than a similarity of
Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai,
Solomon, Abraham, and the like.

"My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age; and he
grew up, literally without education."

CHAPTER II

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S FATHER AND MOTHER

While Thomas Lincoln was living with a farmer and doing odd jobs of
carpentering, he met Nancy Hanks, a tall, slender woman, with dark skin,
dark brown hair and small, deep-set gray eyes. She had a full forehead,
a sharp, angular face and a sad expression. Yet her disposition was
generally cheerful. For her backwoods advantages she was considered well
educated. She read well and could write, too. It is stated that Nancy
Hanks taught Thomas Lincoln to write his own name. Thomas was
twenty-eight and Nancy twenty-three when their wedding day came.
Christopher Columbus Graham, when almost one hundred years old, gave
the following description of the marriage feast of the Lincoln bride
and groom:

"I am one of the two living men who can prove that Abraham Lincoln, or
Linkhorn, as the family was miscalled, was born in lawful wedlock, for I
saw Thomas Lincoln marry Nancy Hanks on the 12th day of June,