The raft was built at the junction of Knob Creek and the Rolling Fork River. Leaving his family, Lincoln floated down the Rolling Fork to Salt River; thence into the Ohio. The latter was at flood height, and the current very swift. The raft was capsized, and the whisky and the other freight went to the bottom. Lincoln swam ashore. He was penniless. What should he do? He decided to wait until the waters should recede. they did in a few days, when he recovered his property, secured another boat, and drifted down the Ohio to Thompson's Landing. He then traveled inland, until he reached Pigeon Creek, where he selected a quarter-section of land, went to Vincennes to enter it, and then returned to Kentucky.

This

The family moved to Indiana in November. There was no house for them to occupy, not even a cabin. Their only shelter was a shed or threefaced "camp," one side of which was open to the weather. This shelter was the home of the family during the winter, while the father was hewing timber and preparing it for the more pretentious house he was to build.

The family moved into the new home before the floor had been laid or the door hung. Soon afterward, an epidemic, known as "milk-sickness," broke out. It was attributed to the poisoning of the milk by herbs which the cows ate, and attacked

Physicians had no Nancy Lincoln was

human beings and cattle alike. remedy, and many people died. stricken, and, after a brief illness, died, at the age of thirty-five years.

Not long before her death, Mrs. Lincoln called little Abe to her bedside, and said to him: "I am going away from you, Abraham, and shall not return. I know that you will be a good boy; that you will be kind to Sarah and to your father. I want you to live as I have taught you, and to love your Heavenly Father." The husband made a coffin, and kind neighbors buried her on the summit of a hill within sight of her home.

That there was no religious service held weighed on little Abe's heart. Some time after he wrote to Rev. David Elkin, the itinerant he had heard preach at Little Mound, Ky., and asked him to preach the funeral sermon at his mother's grave. The preacher replied that he would come. An appointment was made, and the settlers from many miles around gathered to hear the sermon at Nancy Lincoln's grave. The grave is now marked by a marble slab and iron fence, erected by P. E. Studebaker, of South Bend, Indiana. On the stone is the inscription: "Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother of President Lincoln; died October 5, A. D., 1818, aged thirty-five years. Erected by a friend of her martyred son, 1879."

LINCOLN'S BOYHOOD.

HE death of his mother was the first great sor

THE

row of Abraham Lincoln's life. It left its impression upon his character forever. It was soon after that he began to exhibit that sadness and sympathy which characterized him throughout his life. His tenderness was also manifest at this early age, and he seldom indulged even in the most popular sport of the day-hunting-because it appeared to him to be cruel. Once he shot a wild turkey, but he fired through a crevice of the cabin so that he might not see the bird die.

Not long after Mrs. Lincoln's death, Thomas Lincoln, while visiting a friend about twenty miles distant, observed an old, soiled copy of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." "What a treasure that would be to Abe!" he thought. He asked his friend to loan him the book, and he did so. When he placed the book in Abe's hands the boy was so delighted, his eyes sparkled, and that day he could not eat, and that night he could not sleep.

It did not take Abe a great while to read the book through. So soon as he had finished it he

began a second time. When he was about half through a lady friend, who heard of his love for reading, presented him a copy of Æsop's Fables. Of this, his first book that he might call his own, he was no doubt more proud than of his election to the Presidency of the United States in later years. He read and re-read the fables until he knew them all by heart. He not only learned the story of each fable, but he caught the lesson it was designed to teach.

It was from this book he learned the value of a story as a teacher, of which he made such remarkable use when, to make men understand him, he would say, "That reminds me of a story," and then relate some incident that would convey his meaning as a statement of mere words could not.

A little more than a year after the death of his wife, Thomas Lincoln suddenly left home. A few weeks later he presented himself at the house of Sarah Bush Johnson, in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Lincoln had been playmates in childhood, but now she was a widow with three children. Mr. Lincoln asked her to marry him. She did not refuse, but said she owed some debts, and could not go away until they were paid. Mr. Lincoln inquired and found that the debts amounted to $12, which was a large sum to Mrs. Johnson. These he paid, and the next day they were married.

Mrs. Sarah Lincoln's possessions consisted of a bureau, a couple of feather-beds, a few chairs, and a heart so large that it at once received as her own the motherless children of Nancy Hanks. Her arrival with her two girls and boy brought cheer to the desolate home.

The new mother was a superior woman, and Lincoln loved her dearly. After he had become prominent as a lawyer, a friend who called at his office found him sitting before a table, on which was a small pile of money, which he was counting over and over.

case.

"Look here, Judge," said Lincoln. "See what a heap of money I've got from the Did you ever see anything like it? Why, I never had so much money in my life before, put it all together!" Then crossing his arms upon the table, his manner sobering down, he added: "I've got just five hundred dollars; if it were only seven hundred and fifty, I would go directly and purchase a quarter-section of land, and settle it upon my old stepmother."

His friend said that if the deficiency was all he needed, he would loan him the amount, taking his note, to which Mr. Lincoln instantly acceded.

His friend then said: "Lincoln, I would not do Just what you have indicated. Your stepmother is getting old, and will not probably live many years.