juices that gave healing to wounds and bruises, the roots that held medicinal virtues in their sap, and the uses to which every sort of woody fibre was best adapted, were all familiar to him.

It was impossible that a boy, so imaginative and full of fancy as young Abe certainly was, should grow up in these forests and shades without imbibing some queer notions, as the country folk said, about men and things. The times were superstitious. Men saw all sorts of signs and omens in clouds, in plants, and in other objects of nature. To the ignorant, the woods were peopled with strange and uncanny creatures, and Indian legends and stories were told of many a stretch of trackless forest. Even to the ear of the most practical of mankind there is an awesome solitude in unexplored forest wilderness; and the sighing of the winds, the roar of nightgrowling animals, the hollow murmur of distant streams, and the indescribable hum that goes up continually from the hidden life of the forest are ever after in the memory of those who have spent much of their childhood in scenes like these. It was from the trackless forest that stretched around their home, only faintly scarred by the woodman's axe, that the Lincoln family drew their sustenance and their clothing, even the simple remedies that they required in time of sickness. And it was a school in which the brooding lad took in many a lesson, and which suggested many a thought that could not be expressed in words. Here he acquired habits of reflection, for it must be confessed that he did not like work any better than other boys of his age, and he did like to

spend idle hours in roaming the wild-woods; and Lincoln never to the latest day of his life forgot the traditions and the scenery of the wilderness in which his childhood was spent, never lost the lesson of God's greatness and man's insignificance that the boundless forest, with its occasional glimpses of blue above and far-reaching vistas ahead, taught him.

It was during their first year in Indiana, and when Abraham was in his tenth year, that the children suffered their first great sorrow and loss. Hard work, exposure, and continual anxiety had told on the good mother, and when, during the summer of 1818, a mysterious disease called "the milk-sick" appeared in the region, the overworked woman was stricken down with it. Exactly what "the milk-sick" was, nobody nowadays seems to know. No physician acknowledges any such form of sickness; but there are traditions of it yet extant in the Western States, and Mr. Lincoln, later in life, described it as resembling a quick consumption. Cattle as well as human beings were destroyed by it, and in the far-off wilderness it was not then uncommon to find an entire household prostrated with the disease, while flocks and herds were dying uncared for. It was a sad and gloomy time all through southern Indiana and Kentucky when "the milk-sick" raged.

Nancy Lincoln, smitten with the disorder, was nursed and tended by her husband and children. No doctor ever came into that distant wilderness, and no help could be procured from any source. the preceding autumn, Mrs. Betsy Sparrow and her

In

husband and her little nephew, Dennis Hanks, had followed the Lincolns into Indiana and were settled not far away in the half-faced camp. Dennis Hanks was Abraham's playmate and distant cousin, for Mrs. Sparrow was Nancy Lincoln's aunt. The Sparrows, man and wife, were taken down with "the milksick" and were removed to the Lincoln cabin, with little Dennis Hanks, for better attendance. With plague-stricken Thomas and Betsy Sparrow and Mrs. Lincoln, the cares of housekeeping and nursing, and the duty of providing for this feeble household, poor Thomas Lincoln, unthrifty that he was, had his hands full. The children were all small, and thus early in life did Abraham find how hard was the lot of the poor.

And

Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow first died, and were buried on a little knoll in the forest within seeing distance of the cabin. On the 5th of October, a few days later, Nancy Lincoln died; and she too was buried in the forest, under the shade of a spreading and majestic sycamore. There were no funeral ceremonies, for there was no man of God to conduct them. when the wayworn form of the mother was lowered into the grave, enclosed in the rude casket of wood shaped by the hands of Thomas Lincoln, and all was over, little Abraham Lincoln, sitting alone on the mound of fresh earth until the shadows grew deep and dark in the forest, and the sound of night-birds began to echo through the dim aisles, wept his first bitter tears. Doubtless, he thought of all that his mother, the faithful teacher and devoted Christian guide and friend, had been to him. Long after,

when the spot where she was buried had been covered by the wreck of the forest and almost hidden, her son was wont to say, with tear-dimmed eyes, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

It was the custom of those days, and of that country, to have a funeral sermon preached by way of memorial, any time within the year following the death of a person. So, as soon as the good mother was buried, Abraham Lincoln composed what he used to say was his first letter, and addressed it to Parson Elkin, the Kentucky Baptist preacher who had sometimes tarried with the Lincolns in their humble home in Kentucky. It was a great favor to ask of the good man; for his journey to preach a sermon over the grave of Nancy Lincoln would take him one hundred miles or more, far from his customary "stamping-ground." But, in due time, Abraham received an answer to his letter, and the parson promised to come when his calls of duty led him near the Indiana line.

Early in the following summer, when the trees were in the greenest and the forest was most beautiful, the preacher came on his errand of kindness. It was a bright and sunny Sabbath morning, when, due notice having been sent around through all the region, men, women, and children gathered from far and near to hear the funeral sermon of Nancy Lincoln. There was the hardy forest ranger, come in

A stone has been placed over the site of the grave by Mr. P. E. Studebacker of South Bend, Indiana. The stone bears the following inscription: "Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died October 5th, A.D. 1818, aged 35 years. Erected by a friend of her martyred son, 1879.”

from his far-wandering quests to hear. There were the farmers and their families, borne hither in rude and home-made carts, new-comers some of them, and homesick for their distant birthplaces-two hundred of them, all told, some on foot, and some on horseback, and others drawn in ox-carts. All were intent on the great event of the season-the preaching of Nancy Lincoln's funeral sermon.

The waiting congregation was grouped around on "downtrees," stumps, and knots of bunch-grass, or on wagon-tongues, waiting for the coming of the little procession. The preacher led the way from the Lincoln cabin, followed by Thomas Lincoln, his son Abraham, his daughter Sarah, and little Dennis Hanks, bereft now of father and mother and a member of the Lincoln household. Tears shone on the sun-browned cheeks of the silent settlers as the good preacher told of the virtues and the patiently borne sufferings and sorrows of the departed mother of Abraham Lincoln. And every head was bowed in reverential solemnity as he lifted up his voice in prayer for the motherless children and the widowed man. To Abraham, listening as he did to the last words that should be said over the grave of his mother, this was a very memorable occasion. He had fulfilled a pious duty in bringing the preacher to the place where she was laid. And as the words, wonderful to him, dropped from the speaker's lips, he felt that this was the end, at last, of a lovely and gentle life. He might be drawn into busy and trying scenes hereafter, and he might have many and mighty cares laid on him, but that scene in the forest