II.
| Bible | hoeing | supplied | strength |
| busy | plowing | chopping | taught |
In this camp the Lincoln family spent their first winter in Indiana. How very cold and dreary that winter must have been! Think of the stormy nights, of the howling wind, of the snow and the sleet and the bitter frost! It is not much wonder that the mother's strength began to fail before the spring months came.
It was a busy winter for Thomas Lincoln. Every day his ax was heard in the woods. He was clearing the ground, so that in the spring it might be planted. And he was cutting logs for his new house. For he had made up his mind, now, to have something better than a cabin to live in.
The woods were full of wild animals. It was easy for the boy and his father to kill plenty of game, and thus keep the family supplied with meat.
Lincoln, with chopping and hunting and trapping, was very busy. He had but little time to play. Since he had no playmates we do not know that he even wanted to play.
With his mother he read over and over the Bible stories which both of them loved so well. And, during the cold, stormy days, when he could not leave the camp, his mother taught him how to write.
In the spring the new house was built. It was only a log house, with one room below and a loft above. But it was so much better than the old cabin in Kentucky that it seemed like a palace.
The family moved into the new house before the floor was laid, or any door was hung at the doorway.
Then came the plowing and the planting and the hoeing. Everybody was busy from daylight to dark.