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Poles set up against the outer framework and "chinked in" with chips and clay made a shelter from the blasts that howled around. The open front was partially screened with "pelts," as the halfdressed skins of wild animals were called. A fireplace of sticks and clay, with a chimney of the same materials, occupied one corner of the hut. Here the future President of the republic spent his first winter in the new State of Indiana.

Let us consider the lad and some of the circumstances of the time. He was now in his eighth year, tall, ungainly, fast-growing, long-legged, and clad in the garb of the frontier. Cotton and linen goods were scarce and costly in those primitive days and in that far-off wilderness. Abraham wore a shirt of linsey-woolsey, a fabric home-spun of mixed cotton and wool, and dyed, if at all, with colors obtained from the roots and barks of the forest. According to his own statement, he never wore stockings until he was "a young man grown." His feet were covered with rough cowhide shoes, but oftener with moccasins fashioned deftly by his mother's hands. Deerskin leggings, or breeches, and a hunting-shirt of the same material completed his outfit, except for the coon-skin cap that adorned his shaggy head, the tail of the animal hanging down behind, at once an ornament and a convenient handle when occasion required.

A rifle only was needed to finish this picture of a backwoodsman in miniature. But the lad did not take kindly to hunting. He pursued the wild-woods game only when the family demand for meat could

not be satisfied in any other way. Once, as he used to tell of himself, while yet a child, he caught a glimpse of a flock of wild turkeys feeding near the camp, and, venturously taking down his father's rifle from its pegs on the wall, he took aim through a chink in the cabin and killed a noble bird. It was his first shot at a living thing, and he never forgot the mingled pain and pleasure that it brought-pain because he dreaded to take life, and pleasure because he had brought down his game.

It was a poor time all over the land in those early years of the Lincoln family in Indiana. The War of 1812 had just closed. The consequences of the long embargo, when all American ports were closed to commerce, none coming in and none going out, were still felt in every town, city, and hamlet in the land. The manufacturing industries of the republic were feeble, and imported articles were so dear as to be out of the reach of all but the rich. Thorns were used for pins, slices of cork covered with cloth, or ingeniously fashioned bits of bone, did duty for buttons; except in times of plenty, crusts of rye bread were substituted for coffee, and leaves of sundry dried herbs took the place of Bohea tea. Corn whiskey tempered with water was a common drink, and the stuff was one of the readiest forms of business currency in the country of the West.

As we have seen, the West was productive of the means of sustaining life. The woods swarmed with bears, deer, woodchucks, raccoons, wild turkeys, and other creatures, furry or feathered, useful for the

table or for furnishing forth the scanty wardrobe of the settlers. None need starve, so long as snares and ammunition were handy for the hunter and trapper. But it was a hard life, hard for children, and hardest of all for women. No neighbor dropped in for a few minutes' friendly gossip, with the small news of the day. No steamboat vexed the waters of the Western rivers, the first steam craft of any kind having been put on Lake Erie as late as 1818. A letter, provided the rude settler knew how to write, took weeks, even months, in a leisurely journey of one hundred miles. Only as a faint echo from out of another world came the news of domestic politics, foreign complications, and national affairs. James Madison was President of the United States, and Congress and the country were stirred greatly over the admission of Missouri, the extension of slavery westward of the Mississippi River, and other matters of great moment then and thereafter.

It was in the autumn of 1816 that the Lincolns took up their abode in the wilds of Indiana. In February of the following year, Thomas Lincoln, with the slight assistance of little Abe, felled the logs needed for a substantial cabin. These were cut to the proper lengths, notched near the ends so as to fit into each other when laid up; and then the neighbors from far and near were summoned to the "raisin'," which was an event in those days for much rude jollity and cordial good-fellowship. A raising was an occasion for merry-making, as well as for hard work; and these opportunities for social gatherings, few as they were, were enjoyed by young

and old. The helpful settlers "snaked" the logs out of the woods, fitted the sills in their places, rolled the other logs up by means of various rude contrivances, and, before nightfall, had in shape the four walls of the log cabin, with the gables fixed in position, and poles fastened on with wooden pins to serve as rafters, and even some progress was made in the way of covering the roof.

The floor of this primitive habitation was the solid ground, pounded hard. The cracks between the bark-covered logs were "chinked" with thin strips of wood split from the plentiful timber. Similar labor "rived" or split the "shakes" with which the roof was covered and from which the swinging door was made. Later on, after his second marriage, when Thomas Lincoln felt in a more industrious mood, huge slabs of wood, split from oak and hickory logs and known as "puncheons," were laid on floor joists of logs and were loosely pinned in place by long wooden pegs. In mature life, years afterwards, when the pioneer boy had become the tenant of the White House at Washington, he could remember how he lay in bed, of a cold morning, listening for his mother's footsteps rattling the slabs of the puncheon floor, as she came to rouse him from a pretended sleep.

Boys who have never lived in the Western wilderness can have no notion of the meagre fare, the rudeness of the furniture, and the absence of those things which we call the necessities of life, that characterized the humble homes of the Indiana settlers of those distant days. In one corner of the cabin, two of its

sides formed by the walls thereof, was built the bedstead of the father and mother. Only one leg was needed, and this was driven down into the ground, a forked top giving a chance to fit in the cross-pieces that served for foot and side of this simple bit of furniture. From these to the logs at the side and head of the bedstead were laid split "shakes," and sometimes thongs of deerskin were laced back and forth after the fashion of bedcording. On this was placed the mattress, filled with dried leaves, corn-husks, or whatever came handy. The children's bed, a smaller contrivance, was sometimes fixed in another corner, but when the wintry wind whistled around the cabin, and the dry snow sifted through the cracks, the little ones stole over to the parental bed for warmth.

In making all these preparations for home-life under their own roof, little Abe took an active part. He early learned the use of the axe, the maul, and the wedge. With the "froe," a clumsy iron tool, something like a long wedge with a wooden handle fitted into one end, he was taught to "rive" the shingle from the slab; and with maul and wedges— a highly-prized possession-he mastered the art of splitting rails and billets of wood for building purposes from the logs drawn from the forest. In labors like these the lad hardened his sinews, toughened his hands, and imbibed a knowledge of woodcraft and the practical uses of every variety of timber which he never lost while he lived. knew every tree, bush, and shrub, by its foliage and bark, as far as he could see it. The mysterious

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