GREEN B. TAYLOR, A BOYHOOD FRIEND OF LINCOLN.
Son of James Taylor, for whom Lincoln ran the ferry-boat at the mouth of Anderson Creek. Mr. Taylor, now in his eighty-second year, lives in South Dakota. He remembers Mr. Lincoln perfectly, and says that his father hired Abraham Lincoln for one year, at six dollars a month, and that he was “well pleased with the boy.”
Many others were struck by the clever use he made of his gift for writing. The wit he showed in taking revenge for a social slight by a satire on the Grigsbys, who had failed to invite him to a wedding, made a lasting impression in Gentryville. That he should write so well as to be able to humiliate his enemies more deeply than if he had resorted to the method of taking revenge current in the country, and thrashed them, seemed to his friends a mark of surprising superiority.
Others remembered his quick-wittedness in helping his friends.
“We are indebted to Kate Roby,” says Mr. Herndon, “for an incident which illustrates alike his proficiency in orthography and his natural inclination to help another out of the mire. The word ‘defied’ had been given out by Schoolmaster Crawford, but had been misspelled several times when it came Miss Roby’s turn. ‘Abe stood on the opposite side of the room,’ related Miss Roby to me in 1865, ‘and was watching me. I began d-e-f—, and then I stopped, hesitating whether to proceed with an i or a y. Looking up, I beheld Abe, a grin covering his face, and pointing with his index finger to his eye. I took the hint, spelled the word with an i, and it went through all right.’”
This same Miss Roby it was who said of Lincoln, “He was better read then than the world knows or is likely to know exactly.... He often and often commented or talked to me about what he had read—seemed to read it out of the book as he went along—did so to others. He was the learned boy among us unlearned folks. He took great pains to explain; could do it so simply. He was diffident then, too.”
CABINET MADE BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
This cabinet is now in the possession of Captain J. W. Wartmann of Evansville, Indiana. It is of walnut, two feet in height, and very well put together. Thomas Lincoln is said to have aided his son in making it.
One man was impressed by the character of the sentences he had given him for a copy. “It was considered at that time,” said he, “that Abe was the best penman in the neighborhood. One day, while he was on a visit at my mother’s, I asked him to write some copies for me. He very willingly consented. He wrote several of them, but one of them I have never forgotten, although a boy at that time. It was this:
“‘Good boys who to their books apply