ood close to Pidgeon Creek, and not far away were roving bands of Sacs
and Sioux, and also wild animals--bears, wildcats, and lynxes. The
settlers fought the Indians, and made use of the wild creatures for
clothing and food, and to sell at the country stores. The children spent
practically all their time out-of-doors, and young Abe Lincoln learned
the habits of the wild creatures, and explored the far recesses of the
woods.

From his life in the woods the boy became very fond of animals. One day
some of the boys at school put a lighted coal on a turtle's back in
sport. Abe rescued the turtle, and when he got a chance wrote a
composition in school about cruel jokes on animals. It was a good paper,
and the teacher had the boy read it before the class. All the boys liked
Abe, and they took to heart what he had to say in the matter.

It was a rough sort of life that the children of the early settlers led,
and the chances were all in favor of the Lincoln boy growing up to be
like his father, a kind-hearted, ignorant, ne'er-do-well type of man.
His mother, however, who came of a good Virginia family, had done her
best to give him some ambition. Once she had said to him, "Abe, learn
all you can, and grow up to be of some account. You've got just as
good Virginia blood in you as George Washington had." Abe did not forget
that.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN]

Soon after the family moved to Pidgeon Creek his mother died, and a
little later a stepmother took her place. This woman soon learned that
the boy was not the ordinary type, and kept encouraging him to make
something of himself. She was always ready to listen when he read, to
help him with his lessons, to cheer him. When he got too old to wear his
bearskin suit she told him that if he would earn enough money to get
some muslin, she would make him some white shirts, so that he would not
be ashamed to go to people's houses. Abe earned the money, and Mrs.
Lincoln purchased the cloth and made the shirts. After that Abe cut
quite a figure in Gentryville, because he liked people, and knew so many
good stories that he was always popular with a crowd.

Small things showed the ability that was in the raw country lad. When he
was only fourteen a copy of Henry Clay's speeches fell into his hands,
and he learned most of them by heart, and what he learned from them
interested him in history. Then a little later his stepmother was ill
for some time, and Abe went to c