Tom Lincoln's Venture-Little Abe-The Trip through the WoodsFrom one Hut to another-1816.

Ar an early hour the next morning, the Lincoln family were gathered on the bank of the Rolling Fork to see the precious flatboat pushed away. She had been built and launched at the mouth of Knob Creek, a stream that ran past their own cabin, but with too little depth of water to float so ambitious a craft as Tom had now constructed.

"She'll do, Nancy. This 'ere's the biggest venter ever I made."

"Tom, do you reckon three weeks'll fetch ye home?"

"Sure as shootin'. It's only a float down Rollin' Fork to Salt River, and down that to the Ohio. Once I git thar, I kin sell out the cargo, all along shore. I'll make a location on the Injianny side, and then I'll come back a-kitin'. Good-by, Nancy. 'By, Sally. Abe, jest you look sharp, now, while I'm gone."

A chorus of Good-bys answered him, and then his wife stood on the bank, silently watching the drift of his awkward boat down the rapid current of the Rolling Fork.

"Abe," said his sister, "don't you wish he'd let you go?" "Reckon I do. I'd jest like to be thar when she lops over." "She can't upset."

"Can't she? Wall, all I know is, pop can swim."

Sally Lincoln was two years older than Abe and a good deal better-looking, but she was hardly as tall, and he was sure to keep ahead of her in mere size. She looked at him, too, as if

she were already beginning to regard him in the light of a "big brother." She had been originally named after her mother, but then, and in later years, there were too many "Nancies" under the Lincoln roof, and she is remembered only as Sally.

"I do hope he'll git through all right," muttered Tom's wife, as she turned moodily away. Then she added, in a louder key:

"Now you, Abe, Sally, jest you git for the Friend Farm. Tell Caleb Hazel he's only to hev three weeks more of ye." "Reckon 'twon't take more'n that to learn what he knows," chuckled Abe; but Sally answered him, a little sharply:

"Ef you don't take in more from him than you did from Zach Riney, it won't do you any sort o' good."

"Git each of ye a chunk of corn-bread," said Nancy, "and then you make yer tracks. It's only four mile to go, and you needn't be late ef you don't l'iter. He ain't pertikler 'bout bein' late, no how."

Whether that were true or not, Sally had a sad report to make of her brother on her return from school that evening. "Licked again!" exclaimed his mother. "Ef yer father was home, you know what 'd come to ye."

"Mom," added Sally, gravely, "that ain't all. He said he wished old Caleb and the entire school was onto pop's flatboat a-goin' down Rollin' Fork.”

"Did you say that, Abe?"

"It'd be more'n three weeks 'fore they'd git back," chuckled the young rebel. But it may be that Nancy Lincoln's heart was a little full that night, for she took no further notice of her son's misconduct. It was nothing new to find that he was more than seven years old in all manner of mischief. And yet his childish eyes were now following her own, sadly enough, as she looked around the one room inclosed by the log walls of the cabin. It had always been poorly furnished, even for such a home, and now Tom Lincoln's great venture had stripped it

almost bare. He had traded nearly everything tradable to obtain the cargo of his flatboat, and the place looked dreadfully desolate. For some reason he had even taken with him his kit of carpenter's tools,-for Tom was a jack-of-all-trades, -and the now empty corner where it once had stood spoke eloquently of the sure changes to come.

+ The going or remaining of the Lincoln family would make no changes in the little farm. There was a good deal of wild, rough beauty in the neighborhood. Knob Creek could not float a flatboat, and was only moderately good for fishing; but its banks, up and down through the heavy timber, had a reputation of their own for woodchucks, or "ground-hogs," and little Abe had long since discovered that there was more fun to be had in digging out one of these than in hunting for the right way to spell a word. He had learned to hunt woodchucks even before leaving Rock Spring Farm, along Nolin Creek, and on Knob Creek he had the company of his cousin, Dennis Hanks, in that and in the higher art of catching fish.

There was almost as much to be learned in the woods, and on the water and under it, as from Caleb Hazel; and yet Abe had prospered notably under both his present schoolmaster and Zachariah Riney, considering how very few months in all he received the benefit of their instructions.

He was yet to be a hard student, indeed, but without professional masters; so that in his ripe manhood he should be forced to say that all the "schooling" given him from the first had amounted to less than one year of regular tuition.

It was not likely that studious tendencies would be increased in a Kentucky boy of less than eight years by the prospect of a great journey into the mysterious wilderness of Indiana.

At that precise date this was still a "territory," and remained so until early in the following winter. The possession of its forests, and of the fertile prairies beyond them to the westward, was still sullenly disputed by the red Indians, and the tide of immigration was but beginning to set in that direction.

For more than a generation Kentucky itself had been, in the strife between the savages and the settlers, the same "dark and bloody ground" which it had been for ages before the white men came, in endless struggles for its hunting-grounds, between the warring tribes of the red men. It was yet to become the scene of bloodier battles, the causes and magnitude of which could not then have been imagined by any man. The especial cause existed and was fast increasing; but it is worthy of note that there were but a few score of negro slaves in the broad reach of country then known as Hardin County, and which contained the several temporary residences of Tom Lincoln; also that the emigrants from Kentucky and other slave States into Illinois and Indiana did not go to escape contact with human servitude, and did not even become antislavery men, to any extent, in their new homes.

Abraham Lincoln was in no sense whatever born or reared as an abolitionist, and such prejudices as his father may have had were not opposed to any one particular kind of labor.

Tom Lincoln came back, and he came by land and on foot, and he had a tale to tell when Nancy asked him how well he had sold his cargo.

"Sold it? Wal, ye-es, I sold what thar was left of it. The best part on it went off down the Ohio, 'bout the time that thar flatboat of mine got twisted into an eddy and upsot."

"So ye kem back afoot, an' nothin' to show for it."

"Not quite so bad as that. I saved my kit of tools, and my rifle, and some of the barr❜ls. I got the boat righted too, and I sold her, and I fished up some of the other things and I sold 'em. B-ut Nancy, I tell ye, I've located!"

"Found a place?"

"Best kind; and not a soul to interfere. It's jest about sixteen mile back from the Ohio River, and a sweeter spot you never seen. We'll light outen this to-morrer."

"I don't keer how soon we go."