Abe's long legs when he was toddlin' round the cabin. He
growed out o' his clothes faster'n Nancy could make 'em.

"But he was mighty good comp'ny, solemn as a papoose, but interested in
everything. An' he always did have fits o' cuttin' up. I've seen him
when he was a little feller, settin' on a stool, starin' at a visitor.
All of a sudden he'd bu'st out laughin' fit to kill. If he told us what
he was laughin' at, half the time we couldn't see no joke.

"Abe never give Nancy no trouble after he could walk excep' to keep him
in clothes. Most o' the time he went bar'foot. Ever wear a wet buckskin
glove? Them moccasins wasn't no putection ag'inst the wet. Birch bark
with hickory bark soles, strapped on over yarn socks, beat buckskin all
holler, fur snow. Abe'n me got purty handy contrivin' things that way.
An' Abe was right out in the woods about as soon's he was weaned,
fishin' in the creek, settin' traps fur rabbits an' muskrats, goin' on
coon-hunts with Tom an' me an' the dogs, follerin' up bees to find
bee-trees, an' drappin' corn fur his pappy. Mighty interestin' life fur
a boy, but thar was a good many chances he wouldn't live to grow up."

When little Abe was four years old his father and mother moved from Rock
Spring Farm to a better place on Knob Creek, a few miles to the
northeast of the farm where he was born.

CHAPTER III

THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER

At Knob Creek the boy began to go to an "A B C" school. His first
teacher was Zachariah Riney. Of course, there were no regular schools in
the backwoods then. When a man who "knew enough" happened to come along,
especially if he had nothing else to do, he tried to teach the children
of the pioneers in a poor log schoolhouse. It is not likely that little
Abe went to school more than a few weeks at this time, for he never had
a year's schooling in his life. There was another teacher afterward at
Knob Creek--a man named Caleb Hazel. Little is known of either of these
teachers except that he taught little Abe Lincoln. If their pupil had
not become famous the men and their schools would never have been
mentioned in history.

An old man, named Austin Gollaher, used to like to tell of the days when
he and little Abe went to school together. He said:

"Abe was an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress
in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster than any of his schoolmates.
Though so young, he studied very hard."

Although Nancy Linc