That part of the country had but few settlers, and it was still full of wild beasts. When the men got tired of work and wanted a frolic, they had a grand wolf-hunt. First, a tall pole was set up in a clearing;[6] next, the hunters in the woods formed a great circle of perhaps ten miles in extent. Then they began to move nearer and nearer together, beating the bushes and yelling with all their might. The frightened wolves, deer, and other wild creatures inside of the circle of hunters were driven to the pole in the clearing; there they were shot down in heaps.
| LINCOLN SPLITTING LOGS FOR RAILS. |
Young Lincoln was not much of a hunter, but he always tried to do his part. Yet, after all, he liked the axe better than he did the rifle. He would start off before light in the morning and walk to his work in the woods, five or six miles away. There he would chop steadily all day. The neighbors knew, when they hired him, that he wouldn't sit down on the first log he came to and fall asleep. Once when he needed a new pair of trousers, he made a bargain for them with a Mrs. Nancy Miller. She agreed to make him a certain number of yards of tow cloth,[7] and dye it brown with walnut bark. For every yard she made, Lincoln bound himself to split four hundred good fence-rails for her. In this way he made his axe pay for all his clothes.
5 Illinois: he moved to a farm on the North Fork (or branch) of the Sangamon River, Macon County, Illinois. Springfield, the capital of the state, is in the next county west.
6 Clearing: an open space made in a forest.
7 Tow cloth: a kind of coarse, cheap, but very strong cloth, made of flax or hemp.
[251. Lincoln hires out to tend store; the gang of ruffians in New Salem; Jack Armstrong and "Tall Abe."]—The year after young Lincoln came of age he hired out to tend a grocery and variety store in New Salem, Illinois.[8] There was a gang of young ruffians in that neighborhood who made it a point to pick a fight with every stranger. Sometimes they mauled him black and blue; sometimes they amused themselves with nailing him up in a hogshead and rolling him down a hill. The leader of this gang was a fellow named Jack Armstrong. He made up his mind that he would try his hand on "Tall Abe," as Lincoln was called. He attacked Lincoln, and he was so astonished at what happened to him that he never wanted to try it again. From that time Abraham Lincoln had no better friends than young Armstrong and the Armstrong family. Later on we shall see what he was able to do for them.
8 New Salem is on the Sangamon River, in Menard County, about twenty miles northwest of Springfield, the capital of Illinois.
[252. Lincoln's faithfulness in little things; the six cents; "Honest Abe."]—In his work in the store Lincoln soon won everybody's respect and confidence. He was faithful in little things, and in that way he made himself able to deal with great ones.
Once a woman made a mistake in paying for something she had bought, and gave the young man six cents too much. He did not notice it at the time, but after his customer had gone he saw that she had overpaid him. That night, after the store was closed, Lincoln walked to the woman's house, some five or six miles out of the village, and paid her back the six cents. It was such things as this that first made the people give him the name of "Honest Abe."