The Illinois roads were then nearly always very dusty or very muddy. One day their party saw a hog stuck in a deep mudhole, squealing loudly. The party rode by and laughed at the pig’s plight, but no one took the trouble to help it out. But those despairing squeals touched the heart of Abraham Lincoln.
He soon fell behind and galloped back to rescue the animal. Taking several rails from the roadside fence, he used one to pry over, and another to lift the pig out. By taking care and plenty of time, he managed to place the end of a rail under the hog without hurting it. The animal was now so weak that this took a long time, and Lawyer Lincoln’s clothes were badly smeared with mud.
At last, when the pig realized that it was free, it started off toward the farmhouse where it belonged, flopping its big ears and grunting gratefully. Mr. Lincoln did not catch up with his friends until they had arrived at the tavern in the next town.
When they saw his mud-plastered clothes, they all began to laugh, for Lawyer Lincoln did not often have a new suit of clothes. When they stopped chaffing him about helping his “dear brother” in distress, Lincoln said soberly,
“That farmer’s children might have to go barefoot next winter if he lost his hog.”
Another day Lincoln was missing. One of the party explained,
“I saw him an hour ago over the fence in a grove with a young bird screaming in each hand, while he was going around hunting for their nest.”
It took a long time to find it. Lawyer Lincoln had to let one bird go while he climbed the tree to put the other in its nest. Then he had to climb up again to put the other bird in. So it was after dark when he rejoined his friends at the tavern table. It seemed so absurd for a big man like Lincoln to waste hours on two birds that had fallen out of their nest, that even the judge scolded him. Mr. Lincoln replied with deep feeling,
“Gentlemen, you may laugh, but I could not have slept well to-night if I had not saved those birds. Their cries would have rung in my ears.”
The spring after he was twenty-one, Abraham Lincoln helped to build a flatboat and went on it to New Orleans to buy stock for a store in the village. While in the southern city with two companions, he witnessed the sale of a mulatto girl in a slave market. The sight filled his righteous soul with wrath. Clenching his fists, he exclaimed: