"You are your own man now," said his father.

“What of that?" was Abraham's reply, suspecting what thoughts were in his mind.

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Why, you can go or stay, though I don't see how I can get along without you."

"Nor I; and I want to go to Illinois more than you do, and I shall see you safely there, and settled down, before I leave you."

"I'm glad of that," continued his father. "I won't ask you to stay at home one minute after we get settled down. You ought to be lookin' out for yourself, now that you are of age."

"We'll talk about that when we get there. Perhaps I shall find enough to do for a while to get you fixed up, and I can attend to that better than you can."

"Well, it's a long ways there, and I'm almost sorry that I undertook it at my time of life. It looks like

a great job to get there, and begin new."

"It don't to me. We'll be there, and have a roof over our heads, in less than four weeks."

"If nothin' happens, you mean."

"There will something happen, I'm thinking," answered Abraham, dryly, "or we shall never get there."

"What?"

"I expect that it will happen that we shall go there in about two weeks, by hard travelling. If that don't happen, I shall be sorry."

"We shall see," added Mr. Lincoln.

The fact was, Abraham thought too much of his father and mother to leave them to undertake such a journey alone. No money could have hired him to leave them before they were settled in Illinois. Mr. Scripps, who knows all the circumstances well, says:

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"He was the only son of his father, now advanced in years, and it was not in his nature to desert his aged sire at a time when all the hardships, privations, and toil of making a new home in a new country were about to be entered upon. Whatever the future may have seemed to hold in it, as a reward for effort specially directed to that end, he cheerfully put aside in obedience to his sense of duty, and engaged at once and heartily in the work before him."

The above writer, a Western man himself, describes the manner of moving in those days as follows:

"In those days, when people changed their residence from one State or settlement to another, they took all their movable possessions with them,-their household goods, their kitchen utensils, including provisions for the journey, their farming inplements, their horses and cattle. The former were loaded into wagons, drawn, for the most part, by oxen; and the latter were driven by the smaller boys of the family, who were sometimes assisted by their sisters and mother. Thus arranged for a journey of weeks,-not unfrequently of months,— the emigrant set out, thinking but little of the hardships before him, of bad roads, of unbridged streams, of disagreeable weather, of sleeping on the ground or in the wagon, of sickness, accidents, and sometimes death by the way,-dwelling chiefly in thought upon the novelty and excitement of the trip, the rumoured attractions of the new country whither he was going, and of the probable advantages likely to result from the change. By ten or fifteen miles per day, over untravelled roads, now across mountains, swamps, and watercourses, and now through dense, umbrageous forests, and across broad prairies where the horizon alone bounded the vision, the caravan of wagons, men, women and children, flocks and herds, toiled onward

by day, sleeping under the broad canopy of stars at night, patiently accomplishing the destined journey, sometimes of weeks', sometimes of months' duration."

In this way the Lincoln, Hanks, and Hall families moved to Illinois. The distance was about two hundred miles not much of an undertaking for the perseverance and heroism of pioneer families.

The weather proved favourable nearly all the way, though the roads were excessively muddy. For miles Abraham walked through mud a foot deep. Often, for a long distance, he waded in water up to his knees (and it is well known that his knees were not very low down). When they had performed nearly one hundred and fifty miles of the journey, they came to the Kaskaskia River, where they found the bottom lands overflowed, and the old corduroy road nearly gone.

"We're done to now," said Hanks.

"I don't know about that," answered Abraham. "Let us see about it."

"It is plain enough to see, I should think. The man who directed us back there yesterday said, if the bottom was overflowed, it would be three miles through water, and I should think it was more than that."

"I don't care if it's twice three," replied Abraham, "if it's not too deep to wade."

"We can wait some days for the water to fall, or we can go up or down the river a few miles, and possibly find a better place to cross," suggested Hanks.

"That will take too much time. The water won't fall yet awhile. It is February yet, you know, and the rivers are always high. I am for going straight ahead through thick and thin.”

"That's the only way, I think," said Mr. Lincoln, who had listened to the conversation, while he was

looking rather doubtfully upon the flood of water before them.

"We can't stay here for the water to fall, that's certain," continued Abraham, "and as to finding a better place to cross, I don't believe we can, if we go around twenty miles."

"And that would take time, too," suggested his father.

"Yes, and I am for going right along. I will go forward; and if I go under, the rest of you may take warning." This remark was made rather in a strain of pleasantry, to inspire all hearts around him with courage. "Come, Dennis, what do you say? Will you follow me?"

"Of course; I can go where you can.”

It was settled to go forward, turning neither to the right hand nor left. And for three miles Abraham drove his team through water that was up to his waist, urging his oxen along, and cheering the hearts of the company with words of encouragement. Mr. Lamon says, "In crossing the swollen and tumultuous Kaskaskia the wagon and oxen were nearly swept away." But Abraham's pluck and energy overcame the difficulty, and, on the first day of March, 1830, they arrived at John Hanks' house, four miles north-west of Decatur. What kind of a cabin Uncle John possessed we do not know, but the advent of thirteen visitors must have fully occupied all the spare room in it. But squeezing the largest number of persons into the smallest space was incidental to pioneer life.

"I've fixed on the spot for you to settle," said Uncle John to Mr. Lincoln, "and there's a lot of logs there for a cabin, which I cut last year."

"How far away is it?" inquired Mr. Lincoln.

"Only a few miles; and it will be a short job to put

up a cabin, now the logs are all ready; and you are welcome to them."

"Well, that is a great lift," replied Mr. Lincoln; "with the logs all cut, Abe, Dennis, and I will make short work of building a shelter."

"And my help, too," added Uncle John; "nothin' to do now but to get you fixed."

"I'm going to have a better house than we had in Indiana," chimed in Abraham, who was listening to the conversation. "Hewed logs, and less mud."

"I'll second that project," interjected his mother. "A little more labour and expense upon a habitation will increase comforts tenfold."

The subject of a log-house was thus discussed, and the following day Mr. Lincoln, Uncle John, Abraham, and Dennis repaired to the location selected to investigate. It was on the north side of Sangamon River, about ten miles west of Decatur, and perhaps six miles, in a straight line, from Uncle John's cabin. All were delighted with the location, mainly because it was at the junction of the timber and prairie lands, and was well supplied with water.

Short work was made in erecting the best log-house the Lincoln family ever occupied. Abraham took charge of the work, because he was determined to have as good a house for his parents as could be built of logs. There was a good supply of material that Uncle John had prepared, from which Abraham selected the best logs, every one of which was carefully hewn, though the only tools they had to work with were a common axe, a broad-axe, a hand-saw, and a "drawer-knife."

After the cabin was built, a smoke-house and stable were erected near by. The doors and floor of the cabin were made of puncheon, and the gable-ends of the structure boarded up with plank "rived" by Abraham's