Will all be great men by and by.’”
All of his comrades remembered his stories and his clearness in argument. “When he appeared in company,” says Nat Grigsby, “the boys would gather and cluster around him to hear him talk. Mr. Lincoln was figurative in his speech, talks, and conversation. He argued much from analogy, and explained things hard for us to understand by stories, maxims, tales, and figures. He would almost always point his lesson or idea by some story that was plain and near us, that we might instantly see the force and bearing of what he said.”
PIGEON CREEK CHURCH, WHICH THE LINCOLNS ATTENDED IN INDIANA.
From a photograph loaned by W. W. Admire of Chicago. This little log church, or “meetin’ house,” is where the Lincolns attended services in Indiana. The pulpit is said to have been made by Thomas Lincoln. The building was razed about fifteen years ago, after having been used for several years as a tobacco barn.
There are many proofs that he was an authority on all subjects, even the country jockeys bringing him their stories and seeking to inspire his enthusiasm. Captain John Lamar of Gentryville, who was a very small boy in the neighborhood when Lincoln was a young man, is still fond of describing a scene he witnessed once, which shows with what care even the “heroes” of the country tried to impress young Lincoln. “Uncle Jimmy Larkins, as everybody called him,” says Mr. Lamar, “was a great hero in my childish eyes. Why, I cannot now say, without it was his manners. There had been a big fox-chase, and Uncle Jimmy was telling about it. Of course he was the hero. I was only a little shaver, and I stood in front of Uncle Jimmy, looking up into his eyes; but he never noticed me. He looked at Abraham Lincoln, and said: ‘Abe, I’ve got the best horse in the world; he won the race and never drew a long breath.’ But Abe paid no attention to Uncle Jimmy, and I got mad at the big, overgrown fellow, and wanted him to listen to my hero’s story. Uncle Jimmy was determined that Abe should hear, and repeated the story. ‘I say, Abe, I have the best horse in the world; after all that running he never drew a long breath.’ Then Abe, looking down at my little dancing hero, said: ‘Well, Larkins, why don’t you tell us how many short breaths he drew?’ This raised a laugh on Uncle Jimmy, and he got mad, and declared he’d fight Abe if he wasn’t so big. He jumped around until Abe quietly said: ‘Now, Larkins, if you don’t shut up I’ll throw you in that water.’ I was very uneasy and angry at the way my hero was treated, but I lived to change my views about heroes.”
THE FIRST LINCOLN MONUMENT.
From a photograph made for this work. When Abraham Lincoln left Indiana, in 1830, his friend James Gentry planted, in remembrance of him, near the Lincoln cabin, a cedar tree. It still stands, sturdy and strong, though it is stripped of twigs as high as one can reach. Those who point out the tree explain the bareness by saying: “The folks who come lookin’ around have taken twigs until you can’t reach any more very handy.”
There is one other testimony to his character as a boy which should not be omitted. It is that of his step-mother:
“Abe was a good boy, and I can say what scarcely one woman—a mother—can say in a thousand: Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I requested him. I never gave him a cross word in all my life.... His mind and mine—what little I had—seemed to run together. He was here after he was elected President. He was a dutiful son to me always. I think he loved me truly. I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe. Both were good boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw, or expect to see.”
