It was a rough sort of life that the children of the early settlers led, and the chances were all in favor of the Lincoln boy growing up to be like his father, a kind-hearted, ignorant, ne'er-do-well type of man. His mother, however, who came of a good Virginia family, had done her best to give him some ambition. Once she had said to him, "Abe, learn all you can, and grow up to be of some account. You've got just as good Virginia blood in you as George Washington had." Abe did not forget that.
Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln
Soon after the family moved to Pidgeon Creek his mother died, and a little later a stepmother took her place. This woman soon learned that the boy was not the ordinary type, and kept encouraging him to make something of himself. She was always ready to listen when he read, to help him with his lessons, to cheer him. When he got too old to wear his bearskin suit she told him that if he would earn enough money to get some muslin, she would make him some white shirts, so that he would not be ashamed to go to people's houses. Abe earned the money, and Mrs. Lincoln purchased the cloth and made the shirts. After that Abe cut quite a figure in Gentryville, because he liked people, and knew so many good stories that he was always popular with a crowd.
Small things showed the ability that was in the raw country lad. When he was only fourteen a copy of Henry Clay's speeches fell into his hands, and he learned most of them by heart, and what he learned from them interested him in history. Then a little later his stepmother was ill for some time, and Abe went to church every Sunday, and on his return repeated the sermon almost word for word to her. Again he loved to argue, and would take up some question he had asked of a stranger and go on with it when the latter returned to the Creek, perhaps months after the first visit. Mrs. Lincoln noted these things, and made up her mind that her stepson would be a great man some day. Most frequently she thought he would be a great lawyer, because, as she said, "When Abe got started arguing, the other fellow'd pretty soon say he had enough."
Probably at this time Abe was more noted for his love of learning new things and for his great natural strength than for anything else. He was in no sense an infant prodigy. It took him a long time to learn, but when he had once acquired anything it stayed by him permanently. The books he had read he knew from cover to cover, and the words he had learned to spell at the school "spelling bees" he never forgot. Now and again he tried his hand at writing short compositions, usually on subjects he had read of in books, and these little essays were always to the point and showed that the boy knew what he was discussing. One or two of these papers got into the hands of a local newspaper and appeared in print, much to Abe's surprise and to his stepmother's delight.
Yet after all these qualities were not the ones which won him greatest admiration in the rough country life. The boys and young men admired his great size and strength, for when he was only nineteen he had reached his full growth, and stood six feet four inches tall. Countless stories were current about his feats of strength.
At one time, it was said, young Abe Lincoln was seen to pick up and carry away a chicken coop weighing six hundred pounds. At another time Abe happened to come upon some men who were building a contrivance for lifting some heavy posts from the ground. He stepped up to them and said, "Say, let me have a try," and in a few minutes he had shouldered the posts and carried them where they were wanted. As a rail-splitter he had no equal. A man for whom he worked told his father that Abe could sink his axe deeper into the wood than any man he ever saw.
This great strength was a very valuable gift in such a community as that of Gentryville, and made people respect this boy even more than would his learning and his kindness of heart.