The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-07-04
LINcoLN.s FRIEND.
iParis itlls.l oaze,,e.l

I Rev. Robert Mcintyre, of Charleston, regarding the early life of President Abraham Lincoln, and which appeared in the Charleston Courier, will be of great interest to our readers. Uncle Dennis, as he is familiarly known, makes his home in Paris with his daugh. ter, Mrs. James Shaoff. found him hale and erect, ready to account for the benefit of a younger generation the in- cidents which marked the youth of the matyred president. His name is Dem his Hanks, and he is a cousin of fLincoln. Uncle Dennis, as he is called, is a typi- cal Kentuckian. born in Hardin county in I79o His face is sun-bronzed and plowe1 with furrows of time; a resolute mouth with firm grip of the jaws, and a broad forehead above pair of unweari. ble eyes.
 To our query he replied cheerily:
 Certainly, certainly, sir, I'll talk to you about Abe. kin talk, too, bein' as Pm the only livin' man that knows all about him."
 How old was Mir. Lincoln when you first met him."
 About 24 hours-hardly that l rik- kilect run all the way, over two miles, to see Nancy Hanks boy baby. Twas common then for connection to gether in them days to see new babies. Her name was Nancy Hanks before she married Thomas Lincoln. held the wee one a minnit. l was 10 years old, and it tickled me to hold the pulpy, red little Lincoln"
 In the Life of Lincoln,' published after his nomination, it is stated that you taught him to read"
 "Yes, sir, did. taught him to spell, read and cipher. He knew his letters pretty wellish but no more. His mother taught him his letters. If ever there was good woman on earth she was one, true christian of the Baptist church but she died soon after we ar. rived, and left him without a teacher his father couldn't read a word ?"
 "ls it possible he had no schooling p
 Only about one quarter, scarcely that. then set in to help him didn't know much. but did the best could"
 "What books did he read frstl"
 Webster's speller. When l got him through that only had a copy of h. diana statutes. Then he got hold of a book; can't rikkilect the name; maybe you kln if tell you somethin' ct was in it. It told of yarn about a feller, a nigger or suthin', that sailed a fiat boat up to a rock, and the rock was magne- tized and drawed the nails out of his boat, an he got duckin', or drowned, or suthin forget now"
 "That is the story of Sinbad in the Arabian Nights"
 "That's 1t, that's the book. Abe would lay on the floor with a chair un- der his head and laugh over them ' Rabian Nights by the hour. told him it was likely lies from end to end, but he learned to read right we'll in it."
 Had he any other books ?"
 "Yes; borrowed for him the Life of Washington and the Speeches of Hen. " Clay They had a powerful infiu- ence on him. He told me afterwards in the White House, he wanted to live like Washington. His speeches show that but the other book did the most amaz- ing work. He was democrat like his father and all of us when he began to read it. When he closed it. he was whig, heart and soul, and he went step by step until he became leader of the republicans"
 "Will you describe him when a boy p
 "Well, he was at this time not grown, only six feet two inches high. He was six feet four and onehan inches when grown-tall, lathy, and gangling-not much appearance, not handsome, not ugly, but peculiar. This kind of a fel- low: If man rode up horseback, Abe would be tho first one out, up on tho fence and asking questions till his father would give him knock side O the head then he'd go throw at snowbirds or suth- in, but ponderin' all the while"
 "Was he active and strong?'
 He was that. was 10 years older, but couldn't rassle him down. His legs was too long for me to throw him. Ho would fling ono foot upon my shoulder and make me swing corners swift, and his arms so long and strong | My, how he would chop! His ax would nash and bite into a sugar.tree or sycamore, and down it wonld come. IfI you heard him fallin' trees in a clearin' you would say there were three men at work by the way trees fell. Blu, he never was sassy or quarrelsome I've seen him | walk into crowd of sawin' rowdies, and | tell some droll yarn and bust them all up. | ~ was ShC Sdklh0 WuCu uS WAS L6WYoTs | all eyes whenever he riz were on him there was suthiA' peculiarsome about him."
 "What did you teach him to write with ?"
 Sometimes he would write with a | piece of charcoal, or the pint of burnt stick, on the fence or floor. We got a | little paper at the country town, and l | made ink out of blackberry briar-root and little copperas in 1t. It was black, | but the coppesas would eat the pa- per after while 1 made his first pen | out of a turkey b4zzdrd 0feather; them's | good for pens. We had no geese them | days. Alter he learned to write he was scrawlin' his name everywhere; some times he would write it on the white | sand do ~n by the crick bank, and leave it till the fresh would blot it out"
 "Did he take to books eagerly2'