he craft, just below the
water-line, and worked by an odd but simple system of ropes and
pulleys. When the keel of the vessel grates against the sand or
obstruction, the bellows is filled with air; and, thus buoyed up, the
vessel is expected to float over the shoal. The model is about
eighteen or twenty inches long, and looks as if it had been whittled
with a knife out of a shingle and a cigar box. There is no elaboration
in the apparatus beyond that necessary to show the operation of
buoying the vessel over the obstructions.]

If they were far from being his "first and only rails," they certainly
were the most famous ones he or anybody else ever split. This was the
last work he did for his father, for in the summer of that year (1830)
he exercised the right of majority and started out to shift for
himself. When he left his home to start life for himself, he went
empty-handed. He was already some months over twenty-one years of
age, but he had nothing in the world, not even a suit of respectable
clothes; and one of the first pieces of work he did was "to split four
hundred rails for every yard of brown jeans dyed with white walnut
bark that would be necessary to make him a pair of trousers." He had
no trade, no profession, no spot of land, no patron, no influence. Two
things recommended him to his neighbors--he was strong, and he was a
good fellow.

[Footnote A: Short autobiography written in 1860 for use in preparing
a campaign biography. "Abraham Lincoln. Complete Works." Edited by
John G. Nicolay and John Hay. The Century Co. Volume I., page 639.]

[Illustration: LINCOLN IN 1857.

From a photograph loaned by H.W. Fay of De Kalb, Illinois. The
original was taken early in 1857 by Alex. Hesler of Chicago. Mr. Fay
writes of the picture: "I have a letter from Mr. Hesler stating that
one of the lawyers came in and made arrangements for the sitting so
that the members of the bar could get prints. Lincoln said at the time
that he did not know why the boys wanted such a homely face." Mr.
Joseph Medill of Chicago went with Mr. Lincoln to have the picture
taken. He says that the photographer insisted on smoothing down
Lincoln's hair, but Lincoln did not like the result, and ran his
fingers through it before sitting. The original negative was burned in
the Chicago fire.]

His strength made him a valuable laborer. Not that he was fond of hard
labor. Mrs. Crawford says: "Abe was no hand to pitch into work like
killing snake