hurch every Sunday, and on his return
repeated the sermon almost word for word to her. Again he loved to
argue, and would take up some question he had asked of a stranger and go
on with it when the latter returned to the Creek, perhaps months after
the first visit. Mrs. Lincoln noted these things, and made up her mind
that her stepson would be a great man some day. Most frequently she
thought he would be a great lawyer, because, as she said, "When Abe got
started arguing, the other fellow'd pretty soon say he had enough."

Probably at this time Abe was more noted for his love of learning new
things and for his great natural strength than for anything else. He was
in no sense an infant prodigy. It took him a long time to learn, but
when he had once acquired anything it stayed by him permanently. The
books he had read he knew from cover to cover, and the words he had
learned to spell at the school "spelling bees" he never forgot. Now and
again he tried his hand at writing short compositions, usually on
subjects he had read of in books, and these little essays were always to
the point and showed that the boy knew what he was discussing. One or
two of these papers got into the hands of a local newspaper and appeared
in print, much to Abe's surprise and to his stepmother's delight.

Yet after all these qualities were not the ones which won him greatest
admiration in the rough country life. The boys and young men admired his
great size and strength, for when he was only nineteen he had reached
his full growth, and stood six feet four inches tall. Countless stories
were current about his feats of strength.

At one time, it was said, young Abe Lincoln was seen to pick up and
carry away a chicken coop weighing six hundred pounds. At another time
Abe happened to come upon some men who were building a contrivance for
lifting some heavy posts from the ground. He stepped up to them and
said, "Say, let me have a try," and in a few minutes he had shouldered
the posts and carried them where they were wanted. As a rail-splitter he
had no equal. A man for whom he worked told his father that Abe could
sink his axe deeper into the wood than any man he ever saw.

This great strength was a very valuable gift in such a community as that
of Gentryville, and made people respect this boy even more than would
his learning and his kindness of heart.

A little later he lived in a village named New Salem, and there he found
a crowd of boys who w