He wanted to read and to study, but school was far away, and he had to stay at home to help on the farm. The hard work made him big and husky, and he could outrun and outwrestle all the other boys of his age. Even quicker than his legs ran his wit, so he became leader of all the boys who lived around Little Pigeon Creek. Abe hadn't much time to play, but sometimes at night he and his friends stole out to a salt lick in the woods. There they hid behind trees and watched the shy deer licking the salty slabs. But Abe never went hunting as other boys and menfolk did. He loved the animals and wouldn't harm them.

For two happy years Abe and his family lived in the home in the woods near wolves and grumbling bears. But when he was nine a dangerous sickness came to the wilderness, and his mother took sick and died. Then the woods seemed gloomy and dark, and the days grew long for Sally and Abe.

ABRAHAM
LINCOLN

by INGR & EDCAR PARIN D'AULAIRE

NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.

1939

One day the father shot a buck in the woods, and from
the skin the mother made Abe a pair of breeches. Abe
stood beside her, watching every stitch she sewed. He
felt very proud. Little children ran about in shirts and
petticoats only, but now he would be a big boy in
breeches. And Abe put on his buckskin breeches, washed
his face and hands in the brook, and went off to school
with his sister, Sally. The road to school was two miles
long. On the way they met other children who came
trotting down from the hills all about to the schoolhouse
in the valley. There they sat together, big and small,
reading and writing and reckoning aloud, all at one
time together. There was such a chatter that it could
be heard a long way off. But when Abe was six years
old he had learned both to read and write. After that
he didn't go much to school.

Deep in the wilderness down in Kentucky there stood a cabin built of roughly hewn logs. It was a poor little cabin of only one room. The Febru ary wind tore at the clumsy door and made it rattle on its leather hinges. Just a glimmer of daylight sifted in through the oiled deer hide stretched across the single window frame. But the flames flickered gaily on the hearth. In this cabin lived a man named Thomas Lincoln with his wife and his little daughter, Sally. And here it was that his son, Abraham Lincoln, first saw the world on a Sunday morning. It wasn't much of a house in which he was born, but it was just as good as most people had in Kentucky in 1809.

they spread bear skins over piles of dried leaves for Abe and Sally to sleep on. Then they unpacked the pots and pans and household goods, and settled down for the winter. And where Abe and his father had cut down the timber, they plowed and planted between the tree stumps.

But Abe's honesty wasn't enough to keep Offut's store going. The debts grew bigger and bigger, and one morning Offut was gone. There stood Abe without a job. But just then the men of New Salem were called to war, for an Indian chief, Black Hawk, had come back to Illinois with his warriors. His tribe had sold the land to the "paleface," but Black Hawk said: "Mancee-do, the great spirit, gave us the land, it couldn't be sold." "Sold is sold," said the people of Illinois, and went to war to chase the Indians out.

Abe Lincoln went to war as a captain. For the man from each village who had the longest row of men lined up behind him was elected captain. And twice as many men lined up behind Abe as behind his rival.

But his soldiers had never taken orders from any man before, and Captain Abe Lincoln struggled hard to make them obey him. That was all the fighting he had. For Black Hawk and his warriors fled before the soldiers. One day a peaceful old Indian came walking into camp. The soldiers were angry and wanted to kill him, but Abe said, "Anyone who touches him must fight me first." Because Abe was the strongest, they had to obey.

Soon after that Black Hawk was taken prisoner, and the Indian War was over.

When Abe grew too tired to read any more, he climbed up the pegs in the wall to his loft. Before going to sleep he hid the book he had been reading in a crack in the roof to keep it safe. But once a storm came up in the night, and when Abe woke up his book was soaking wet and spoiled. He had borrowed this book from a rich farmer, and for three long days Abe had to husk corn to pay for it. "No one can beat Abe Lincoln at farm work," said the neighbors. It was known for miles around how quick he was at splitting logs into fence rails. But when someone passed by, he would sit on the fence he had made and talk, asking questions to learn new things. Then the neighbors thought he was lazy. And when he walked between the handles of his plow reading a book, they thought he was queer.

"I reckon we'll be moving on," he said one day. So one early spring morning the Lincolns set off again, this time in a wagon so huge that a seven yoke oxteam had to pull it. The wagon was crowded, for many relatives moved with them. They traveled on for two whole weeks through forests and swamps and rolling prairie. On long legs Abe walked in front to peddle pins and buttons, when once in awhile they passed a farm. When they came to the Sangamon River in Illinois they liked the land, and put up a cabin. Abe split mountains of rails for fences. One thousand rails he split for a neighbor to get himself a pair of jeans. That was much work for a pair of pants, but then his legs were long, too, so it took many yards of cloth to cover them. And when spring came he said good-by to his father and his stepmother, put his belongings into a bundle, threw it over his shoulder, and set out into the world to try his luck. For now he had reached twenty-one years, and was free to do as he pleased.

Abe grew straight up into the air like a fir tree. Long and thin he was, with big hands and feet jutting out. His buckskin breeches were always too short and too tight, and made blue circles on his legs where they squeezed him. "I can always wash your muddy footsteps from the floor," teased his stepmother, "but keep your head clean, Abe, so you won't be leaving tracks along my whitewashed ceiling." Abe grinned, scratched his head, and thought of a joke. When his stepmother went out for a while he took a little boy with muddy feet, lifted him up and walked him like a fly across the ceiling. "Abe, I should thrash you," said the stepmother when she came back. But she laughed at the joke instead. And with a pail of whitewash Abe made the ceiling white and clean again.

But Abe hadn't much time to grieve over his loss, too
many things happened on the river. He looked wide-
eyed at the boats, and listened to tales of the outside
world. Then one day one of the neighboring farmers
sent Abe himself out into the world. With a flatboat
loaded with hogs and corn, the farmer's son and Abe
set off to go all the way down to New Orleans to trade.
They drifted with their boat down the Ohio and into
the great Mississippi River. There Abe needed all his
strength and quick thinking to steer clear of the many
dangers. Paddle wheel steamers splashed up and down
the river so hard that the water churned in a foam about
them. Flatboats and keelboats and houseboats in strings
drifted into their path. Dangers lurked behind every
bend. Sandbars were washed up by the current and
straggling trees, sticking up from the bottom, threat-
ened to pin the boat up in the air like a beetle. Along
the shores river pirates lay in hiding, waiting for night-
fall to come.

One night, as Abe and his friend had made fast their
boat at the bank, five vicious pirates came sneaking on
board to rob them. But they hadn't counted on the
strength of big Abe. He grabbed an oar, fought them all
at once, and chased them far into the swamp. Abe
could never forget this night, for the rest of his life he
had a white scar over his eyebrow.

The Civil War had come to an end. The slaves were free, and the Union was saved. Most people in the Northern States wanted to make the Southerners pay for the four terrible years of war. But Lincoln said they should be received back into the Union "with malice towards none, with charity to all." He felt like the father of a great flock of children. Some had run away, but were now returning to their home. He stood on a balcony of the White House, looking out over the cheering people who cried: "Speak, Father Abraham." Abraham Lincoln didn't answer with words. But he made the band play "Dixie," the favorite song of the Southerners, which had not been heard in Washington since the Civil War began. Then he sat down on his rocking chair to rest.
He had done what he should do. He had held together the great nation brought forth upon this continent by his forefathers.

The stranger laughed, and so the judges laughed and the whole prairie laughed when Abe Lincoln joked. "Abe, you can even make a cat laugh," everyone said. The years passed and people began to call him Old Abe. But he never changed. When the people of Illinois sent him to Congress, he walked up the Capitol Hill in Washington with his pack of books in a red handkerchief slung over his shoulder. After his term was over he came home again to Springfield, and hitched his horse to his buggy as before and rattled out over the prairie to far-away courthouses. There he sat with his feet on the table and seemed to be asleep. But when his turn came he stretched himself into shape, ruffled his hair and took off his coat and necktie. Then he began to speak, and everyone listened. There wasn't a man on the wide prairie who hadn't heard of Old Abe.

In the meantime Berry took care of the store. But in-
stead of selling the goods, he ate and drank the whole
day long, and at last he died. There was Abe with all
the debts. It was more than a thousand dollars he owed.
His store was taken away from him, and all that he
owned was sold at an auction.

Abe's father had taught him: "If you make a bad bar-
gain, hug it all the tighter." So instead of running away
Abe stayed and toiled to pay back all the debts.

His friends believed in him, and most of all a girl, whose
name was Ann Rutledge. She was sure he would be-
come a great man some day, if he would just go on
with his studies. And then they would be married, and
be happy ever after.

But one day Ann Rutledge took sick and nothing could
be done to save her life. From that day on it was as if
there were two Abes. The one was gay and full of
funny stories, the other was so sad and sorrowful that
no one dared to approach him. But he did his work and
finished his studies, and one morning he took leave of
his friends in New Salem. He borrowed a horse, and
sad and penniless he rode off to Springfield, the capital
of Illinois, to become a lawyer.

The soldiers all loved their long, gangling President
and his little son, Tad, who often rode at his side. For
Mrs. Lincoln used to send Tad along with his father to
make him take better care of himself.

Lincoln was father and friend to all the soldiers. They
could go to him with their troubles, and he was never
too busy to tell a story or laugh at a joke. One day
when he was reviewing the troops, one of the generals
gave him a wild horse to ride. But Abe Lincoln was an
old ranger who knew how to keep in the saddle. He
raced up and down the field, without even losing his
hat. And the soldiers cheered till they were hoarse.

"We are coming, Father Abraham, four hundred
thousand strong," they answered from all the Northern
States, when Lincoln called for more soldiers.

And Lincoln helped them and grieved over those that
fell on the battlefields as though they were his own
sons. It was in memory of those men who had fallen at
Gettysburg that he made his most famous speech, the
Gettysburg Address.