his man, and an offer to Lincoln, placing him in full charge of the venture, was accepted, as he afterwards said, with a beating heart. His good-fortune seemed wonderful. It was not the money to be made that young Abraham was thinking of; it was the delight of seeing the world. And when Lincoln and his companion, y ung Allen Gentry, cut loose from Gentryville and slowly drifted down Little Pigeon Creek into the Ohio, on a voyage of eighteen hundred miles, not Columbus sailing forth into unknown seas, nor the master of the first steamship that ploughed the Atlantic, could have been more impressed with the mightiness of the prospect before him, than the backwoods boy on his first expedition from the forests of southern Indiana.

It was a momentous trip, but solely because it opened a new field to the wide-open eyes of the youthful voyagers. As they descended the mighty Father of Waters, then flowing unvexed to the sea, plantations began to dot the landscape. Here and there friendly or inquisitive settlers came down to the bank to ask them about their "load," as a cargo is called on the Western waters. Or, when they made fast to the most convenient tree at nightfall, a far-wandering hunter came to share "pot-luck" and the gossip of the region with the youthful adventurers. In this way they picked up a store of information, useful and otherwise, and many a queer tale of frontier and settler's life, which at least one of the party held fast ever after in his tenacious memory. Now and again, too, they passed, or were passed by, other flatboats, and much rude chaffing

and hailing in outlandish slang went on from boat to boat.

Seven

One incident, however, was more exciting and dangerous than the fresh-water navigators had bargained for. Tied up to a bank at night, as was their custom, the twain slept soundly after their day of toil, when they were waked by a scrambling near at hand. Springing to his feet, Abraham shouted, "Who's there?" There was no reply, and, seizing a handspike, he made ready for an attack. negroes, evidently on an errand of plunder, now appeared. Abe held himself ready to "repel boarders, and the first man that jumped on board was received with a heavy blow that knocked him into the water. A second, a third, and a fourth, essaying the same thing, were similarly received. The other three, seeing that they were no match for the tall backwoodsman and his ally, took to their heels, pursued by Abe and Allen. Overtaking the negroes, a handto-hand fight ensued, but the thieves finally fled again, leaving on the future President a scar that he carried to his grave.

The voyage to the lower Mississippi and return occupied three months. The cargo was sold to good advantage before reaching New Orleans. Then, the empty boat being disposed of, for it would not pay to take it home up-stream, the two adventurers, elated with their first notable success, made their way homeward by steamboat. They had seen a bit of the great world. And Abraham Lincoln had seen what he never forgot, his first close view of human slavery: slaves toiling on the plantations, slaves

bending beneath their tasks on the levees of the river towns, and, what was more memorable than all, slaves in squads and coffles, torn from old homes and families far away, bound up the river on the steamboats that were now frequent on the busy Mississippi. He who was to be known through all coming time as The Emancipator had made his first study of his fellow-man in hopeless bondage.

It is well to consider here that Abraham Lincoln, up to this point, was what is called a self-made man in the strictest sense of that word. What he had learned, he had learned of himself. What he knew, he knew with absolute accuracy. Self-taught and self-dependent, he had all his resources, mental, moral, and physical, well in hand. So self-reliant and yet, withal, so modest and diffident a character was probably never known before. Growing up in the almost trackless forest, he had absorbed the influences of the wild-wood. He had been held close to nature, had had as much time for solitary meditation as was wholesome for him; and he had never been for an hour dependent on other people, or on other than the humblest means, for intellectual stimulus. Such as he was, it may be said, God had made and nurtured him in the wilderness. The man that was within him was thoroughly original. He was not a copy of any man, nor the imitator of human being.

any

Henceforth he was not to be hidden in the backwoods. The backwoods, indeed, had begun to recede before the onward march of civilization. Immigration was streaming into Indiana. It could be

no longer said of the settlers along Pigeon Creek that they were so far apart that the smoke of one fireside could not be seen from the next nearest. There were neighborhoods almost populous; and with these came social sports and occasional visitings, house-raisings, husking-bees, Sabbath worship, and something like a neighborly intimacy. In these changes the stalwart young pioneer, now six feet four inches tall, cut no mean figure. He could outrun and outwalk any one of his comrades, and, as has been said by those who knew him then,"he could strike the hardest blow with axe or maul, jump higher and farther than any of his fellows, and there was no one, far or near, that could lay him on his back."

These accomplishments, we may be sure, counted for much in a community where physical endurance and muscular strength were needed for every day's duties. But the honest-eyed and kindly youth, strong though he was, had a gentle manner that endeared him to everybody that came in contact with him. He had a wonderful power of narration. The fables of Æsop were new as they fell from his lips. A grotesque incident, a comical story, or one of the frontier traditions learned from his mother, was a dramatic entertainment in his hands. He kept his audiences at the country store until midnight, says one of his comrades, listening to his shrewd wisdom, native wit, and vivid recitals. Poor Dennis Hanks, weary and sleepy, was often obliged to trudge home without him, after vainly trying to coax the eloquent and fascinating story-teller from the group of which he was the admired centre.

Unconsciously to himself, this simple-hearted and humble-minded young man was absorbing into his own experience the rude lore of the backwoodsman. He was studying character, filling his mind with facts and experiences; and in after years, in other scenes and in a far busier life than this, the fresh and original pictures that he sketched in speech or story came from the panorama of human action unrolled before him in old Kentucky and southern Indiana.