• CHAPTER FOUR •

A NEW FAMILY

After that day Thomas Lincoln had hours of silent grieving that frightened his children. He sat by the hearth brooding, his head bowed. Often Abe wandered into the woods and sat on a log alone, thinking. His mother had taught him about God and had read from her Bible. Now, when he was lonely, “God” seemed just a name to say, and he couldn’t find the words that she had read in the Book.

A farm woman.

He missed little things he had hardly noticed before—her smile, the fragrant corn pones she had waiting for him, the new words she had helped him learn.

Sarah, going on twelve, did the best she knew, but nothing tasted right.

“I thought I could cook,” she told Abe and Dennis, “but Mammy was right thar. ‘Now turn hit,’ she’d say, ‘don’t let hit catch fire!’ An’ we’d laugh. Now I don’t know when hit’s done!”

Clothes got dirty, but the soap was used up and the creek water was too cold for laundry work. Sarah had milked the Lincolns’ two cows, but her mother had made the cheese. Now the bag was too worn to use. Abe tore his shirt and Sarah could not find a needle, though she was sure her mother had had two good ones.

In the spring the forest was beautiful with bloom and occasionally travelers went by. One day a traveling preacher passed; and when he was told of the three deaths, he agreed to wait over night and hold a service. The next morning he prayed and read the Bible by the graves. Abe knew that his mother would have liked that, and the comfort of doing something for her eased a little of his heartache.

A few weeks later Schoolmaster Andrew Crawford started a school about three miles from the Lincoln home. Sarah and Abe went to it for a little while; then it closed and Crawford went away.

Thomas Lincoln roused himself for the spring planting, but evenings when the children begged for stories he sat silent and morose. This dull living went on for about a year. Then, one fall morning in 1819 he rose with new vigor. Sarah saw that he had washed and combed his hair. Something had surely happened, but she didn’t know what it was. He ate a big breakfast and strode off toward Posey’s without saying a word to them.

He didn’t come back that evening. He didn’t come the next day. A fortnight later they still had heard nothing.

The children ate out of doors with no bother about dishes and pans. They had nuts and pawpaws, persimmons, and wild grapes. Abe ground corn with a stone in a hollow stump, and Sarah baked pones by the fire. Dennis snared quail, which they broiled on green sticks. The weather was fine; they seldom went into the cabin by daylight, so they didn’t notice how dirty it was.

Their father had been gone for some time, and picnic ways were getting irksome, when on a cool morning Dennis heard wild creatures scampering. The sounds came from the trail to the east. The children paused, listening.

“Someone’s comin’,” Abe whispered.

“Is that Pappy?” Sarah asked, thinking of the unmade beds. “Reck’n hit’s a team,” Dennis guessed. Most travelers walked or rode a horse.

“Pappy’s got no team,” Abe said. They waited, tense with listening.

Soon a strange caravan emerged from the forest. Thomas Lincoln strode ahead guiding a pair of oxen that pulled a covered wagon. A neatly bonneted woman held the reins, and sitting high on chests behind her were three children and a cat that was mewing plaintively. As the wagon drew near, his amazed children saw that Lincoln wore a new coat, had a town haircut, and that he looked happy.

“I brung you a new mammy!” he called, and gestured toward the woman on the wagon. Then he yelled, “Whoa!” to the oxen and helped the stranger down.

Dennis slipped away but Sarah and Abe stood silent, watching her. Probably Thomas Lincoln’s children never looked worse. Their days of freedom had left them with uncombed hair and dirty faces, torn clothing and mud-caked feet. The new Mrs. Lincoln had seen all that from a-top the wagon. But as she walked near she saw, too, that Abe was heartsick. With a quick, mothering gesture she put her arm around him and pressed his grimy head against her pretty dress. The tender gesture broke through his loneliness and Abe felt a comfort he had not known for a year.

Before either spoke, the small boy on the wagon shouted to his mother:

“Mama! Kin we git down now?” he asked.

“Yes, John. Help him slide down, Matilda,” Mrs. Lincoln answered; then she turned and drew Sarah close as she went on speaking. “Those are my children—Elizabeth, Matilda, and John. You Johnstons come and meet Sarah and Abe Lincoln. And that young man by the tree is Dennis Hanks, their cousin. We are all one big family now. We’re going to get on fine,” she added, as she stepped to the cabin door.

Thomas Lincoln had been watching her. Now he spoke hastily. “I’ll be tendin’ my team,” he said as he moved away.

“Not till you’ve fetched water,” Mrs. Lincoln called in a firm voice. She had seen the state of that cabin at her first glance. “Maybe you all better help him—I’ll need a lot of water. Matilda, bring soap—you know where it’s packed. Elizabeth, get the blue dress from the clothes chest. Sarah wears about your size; she’ll wear yours until I get to sewing.” Her vigorous tone got them moving, and as she talked, she put on a big apron and went to work.

Sarah and Abe were scrubbed from head to toe with hot water and soap. Abe’s shaggy locks were neatly trimmed and Sarah’s hair was dried with a towel till it had the sheen of a ripe chestnut. As she worked Mrs. Lincoln talked about their journey.

“Didn’t your father tell you he was going back to Kentucky?” This amazed her. “Well, I reckon he’s been half sick this last year. I knew your father long ago when I was Sarah Bush. Then I married Mr. Johnston, and we had these children. A day or so before going to Kentucky your father chanced to hear from a passing traveler that Mr. Johnston was dead. So he came to Kentucky thinking to marry me.” (Abe recalled that traveler, but neither he nor Sarah had guessed that the man had brought news.)

A sound outside made her step to the door; Lincoln was unloading the wagon.

“Leave my things there for the night, Thomas,” she said quickly. “I’ll not unpack till the cabin is scrubbed. The first thing we need is a floor. You’ve got some good logs over there; it wouldn’t take a smart man like you long to lay a floor and hang a door and a window frame. The floor comes first. We’ll camp outside till it is down.”

Without further comment she cooked a good supper and talked the children into feeling at home with each other. Abe never knew what she thought about the state of that cabin and his father’s probably persuasive accounts of life in Indiana. Sarah Bush Lincoln was a woman of character. She expected to see through a job that she took on and to be a good mother to children that were under her care. Abe liked and respected her, always.

The next morning Thomas Lincoln talked to Dennis and Abe as he sawed logs for that floor. He had collected money due him in Kentucky and with that had bought clothes and paid some small debts of Sarah Johnston’s. And then they were married. She owned nice things—they were in the wagon now—but she had little money. It was good for both of them to marry and bring up their families together.

Soon the floor was laid, the door and the window hung, and the furniture put in place. The clean cabin seemed like a palace to Sarah and Abe. The three boys, Dennis, Abe, and John, slept in the loft. The girls had pallets in a corner until Lincoln built a “lean-to” for them. The copper kettle shone now, and candles lighted the supper table. Food was tasty, and life became mannerly again. Abe began to thrive.

Now there was time for him to notice that Mrs. Lincoln had put a few books on a small shelf. Among them he saw Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim’s Progress, Sinbad the Sailor, and Aesop’s Fables. One day she found him fingering pages; he put the book back hastily.

“Read all you like, Abe,” she said kindly. “I’ll help you with words you don’t know.” That evening she remarked to her husband, “Abe ought to go to school. I’d like for all of them to go.”

“Not me!” Dennis warned hastily. “I’m growed.”

“Sarah and Abe went last year, but it didn’t come to much,” Lincoln told her, and grinned at Dennis. “Thar warn’t enough young’uns to make hit pay.”

“Schoolmaster Crawford larnt us nice ways,” Sarah remembered. “He had us git up an’ come in the door and say ‘Howdy’ like we was company come t’ visit.” She acted out entering a room and the Johnston children laughed till they tumbled off their stools.

“I’d rather larn to read an’ write,” Abe said.

“You shall, Abe,” Mrs. Lincoln promised. “And meanwhile you may read my books.”

Soon after that talk a new master came to Pigeon Creek, and the children attended school. But he stayed only a short time. A year or more later Azel Dorsey came to the neighborhood and opened a school about four miles from the Lincoln home. Mrs. Lincoln saw to it that all five children started at once.

Azel Dorsey was a good teacher, and it was from him that Abe Lincoln learned to write the fine, even script that he used all his life. From Dorsey, too, Abe got his first training in public speaking. The schoolmaster taught them how to stand and had them recite “pieces” they memorized from Scott’s Lessons in Elocution, a collection of prose and poetry. The Declaration of Independence was a popular selection for speaking, and it is likely that Abe memorized it at this time. Dorsey’s pupils learned arithmetic from Pike’s textbook, and the teacher was particular about their spelling.

Each Friday afternoon, school ended with a spelling match. Pupils chose sides and stood in rows along opposite walls. Abe was often the winner, and his rival was pretty Ann Roby.

One afternoon as Ann’s turn came, Dorsey called the word “defied.”

Glibly Ann began, “D-e-f-”—then she paused, uncertain of the next letter. She glanced wildly toward Abe—if she missed he would win again!

He saw her distress. With his right hand, the one away from the teacher, he pointed to his eye. Ann got his meaning.

“-i-e-d,” she finished triumphantly; and the match ended in a tie, as the time was up.

But that school, too, lasted only a short time. But little by little Abe learned to figure simple arithmetic problems, to write, and to read.

Unfortunately, it was not always easy to find time for reading, because Abe’s liking for books annoyed his father.

“Ye care more about readin’ than workin’,” Lincoln complained. Abe grinned. His father spoke truly. Abe liked to read and to think, but he hated physical labor. He was tall and strong now, and he worked along with his father and Dennis. They had cleared eighteen acres and planted corn, potatoes, and wheat; they built rail fences, dug wells (but found no water), and did the daily chores of a pioneer farmer—tending stock, getting firewood, and hunting. Wild game was still the family’s main source of meat.

Abe never cared for hunting, but he went along with his father until the day when he shot a turkey. He happened to be in the cabin when, through the door, he spied a handsome wild turkey. He picked up a gun and fired at it. A roar, a loud squawk, a flutter—and the bird lay still. Abe set the gun down and went to fetch the turkey to dress for cooking. As he picked it up, the bird’s stillness and its gay plumage, so stained with blood from his act, sickened him. He never went hunting again.

Toting corn to the mill was the only chore that Abe Lincoln really liked. He volunteered for that every time he had a chance. He rode the horse bareback, with the sack of corn laid in front of him. On a horse he had an easy grace that was a contrast to his awkward walk. He wore a coonskin cap, a deerskin shirt, homespun breeches, low shoes, and short socks. His breeches were always too short, perhaps because he was growing so fast. They usually missed his shoes by inches and his bony ankles were often blue with cold.

At the mill he stood around, agreeably, waiting his turn. Men liked the tall youth. He was neither shy, nor too forward, and he began to make friends.