"How come?" Sarah asked again.
Abe seized her around the waist and danced her across the floor. She was out of breath but laughing when he let her go.
"Allen Gentry is taking a cargo of farm truck down to New Orleans to sell," he explained. "His pa has hired me to help on the flatboat. Mr. Gentry will pay me eight dollars a month. I reckon Pa will be pleased about that."
Abe himself was pleased because he was going to see something of the world. New Orleans was seven hundred miles away. It was a big and important city. Sarah was pleased because this was the chance that Abe had been wanting.
He had grown so tall that she had to throw back her head to look up at him. "I'm right glad for you," she said.
12
To a boy brought up in the backwoods, the trip down the rivers was one long adventure. Abe sat at the forward oar, guiding the big flatboat through the calm, blue waters of the Ohio, while Allen cooked supper on deck. Afterwards Abe told stories.