The Lincoln family moved to the untamed settlement of Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana, when Abe was just seven years old. Bears, wolves, and other wild animals roamed the woods near his house. Sometimes Abe had to help his father kill animals for food. The meat filled their bellies, and the pelts kept them warm during the long frigid winter.

Even more dangerous than encounters with wild animals was the threat of contracting a deadly disease. Illnesses with scary names like ague, typhus, and the trembles could wipe out an entire settlement. You could get sick without knowing it, sometimes just by eating the wrong thing. That’s exactly what happened to Abe’s mother, Nancy. She ate the meat of a cow that had grazed on a poisonous plant and came down with a disease called milk sickness. A few days later, she died. Abe was just nine years old; his sister Sarah was only eleven. Both of them missed their mother terribly.

It took a long time for the Lincoln family to get over her death. An entire year passed. During that time, their cabin, which had always been a bit ramshackle, fell into disrepair. Snow cascaded through a hole in the roof, mounding in the loft where Abe slept. Wind whipped in through the moth-eaten bearskin that served as a door. Abe and his sister were forced to sleep on a floor covered with corncobs and straw. Their life in Little Pigeon Creek had never been easy, but now it seemed like they were worse off than ever.

Their father, Thomas, wasn’t doing so well either. He was lonely without his wife, and he longed for a companion to help him raise his children. In the autumn of 1819, Thomas told Abe and Sarah that he was going back to Kentucky to look for a new wife. He even had an idea whom she might be: Sarah Bush Johnston, a childhood friend, who had recently lost her husband and was raising three kids by herself.

Abe and his sister nervously awaited their father’s return. Thomas was away for three weeks, leaving the children alone to face the onset of winter—and many questions about their new mother. What would she be like? Would she favor her own children over them? Would she be a cruel and wicked stepmother?

Abe prepared for the worst, worrying right up until the day a covered wagon drawn by four horses arrived at the cabin door. Out of it stepped a smiling Thomas Lincoln, followed by three small children and a big-boned, rosy-cheeked woman with a kindly face.

Abe eyed the woman warily. She looked pleasant enough, and she was certainly warm to the touch. When she gathered Abe close, he felt like a little chick being taken under the wing of a soft-feathered bird. But could Abe trust her? He had gotten used to looking out for his big sister while Father was away, and he wasn’t about to let anyone come between them.

Well, one thing was for sure: it was about to get a lot more crowded in the cabin. The belongings Sarah brought from Kentucky filled the entire four-horse wagon. When Abe pitched in to carry some of them, he was amazed by what he saw: a spinning wheel, a featherbed with feather pillows, a beautiful black walnut bureau, a large clothes closet, a table, chairs, a set of pots and skillets, knives, forks, spoons …

Intrigued, Abe ran his fingers over the wooden bureau, plunged his hands into the soft pillows. He had never felt such fine things. Was it possible—could it be—that life might get better for them?

As soon as she was settled, Sarah began putting her own stamp on the Lincoln cabin. She cast aside the rough old corn husks that Abe and his sister had been sleeping on. “These are fit for a pigpen,” she declared, piling them in the yard. That night, Abe slept on a feathered mattress for the first time in his life.

“Bath time!” she proclaimed, and she proceeded to wash and rinse the grimy Lincoln children until they were as clean as her own.

There were changes in store for Thomas Lincoln as well. Sarah soon put him to work laying down a wood floor, patching the roof so the snow wouldn’t pile up on the children’s beds, and hanging a proper door to protect them from the elements. When Christmas came that year, the children feasted on wild turkey and venison, prepared in a well-stocked kitchen. They went to bed with warm blankets and full bellies.

Among all the kids in her blended family, Sarah took a special liking for Abe. She soon discovered that her new stepson was fond of reading. Although she was barely literate, she encouraged him to read and study as much as possible. To get him started, she gave him several books from her own collection, including Aesop’s Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and Sinbad the Sailor.

Spurred on by his stepmother, Abe began to educate himself. He read in the fields. He read in the kitchen. He read in the woodpile while chopping wood. When he ran out of candles, he read by the light of a log fire.

He copied arithmetic problems onto the back of an old wooden shovel. When it was covered with figures, he scraped them off and started again.

In the back of one of his schoolbooks he penned the following rhyme:

Abraham Lincoln is my name

And with my pen I wrote the same

I wrote in both haste and speed

And left it here for fools to read

As a grown-up, Abraham Lincoln became well known for wise and witty sayings, like “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” and for his moving speeches like “The Gettysburg Address.” If not for the arrival of his not-so-wicked stepmother, he might never have nurtured his passion for language and learning.

Indeed, Sarah Johnston Lincoln enriched her son’s life, making it possible for him to become first a state legislator, then a U.S. congressman, and finally the president of the United States. She cheered every great milestone of his political career and lived long enough to see him enter the White House. Although she was too old and frail to visit him, Abe remained close to her, always. He even kept a 40-acre plot of land for her to use at all times. As he once said, “All I am or ever hope to be, I owe to her”.