The Lincoln children had almost forgotten how good bacon could taste.  Abe ate in silence, his eyes on his plate.  Sally seemed to feel much better.  Sitting between her stepsisters, she was soon chattering with them as though they were old friends.  Once she called the new Mrs. Lincoln “Mamma,” just as her own daughters did.  Dennis sat on the other side of Betsy.  He seemed to be enjoying himself most of all.  He sopped up his last drop of golden honey on his last piece of cornbread.

[Illustration]

“I declare,” he said, grinning, “we ain’t had a meal like this since Nancy died.”

Abe jumped up at the mention of his mother’s name.  He was afraid that he was going to cry.  He had started for the door, when he felt his father’s rough hand on his shoulder.

“Abe Lincoln, you set right down there and finish your cornbread.”

Abe looked up at Tom out of frightened gray eyes.  But he shook his head.  “I can’t, Pa.”

“A nice way to treat your new ma!” Tom Lincoln sounded both angry and embarrassed.  “You clean up your plate or I’ll give you a good hiding.”

The young Johnstons gasped.  Abe could hear Sally’s whisper:  “Please, Abe!  Do as Pa says.”  Then he heard another voice.

“Let the boy be, Tom.”  It was Sarah Lincoln speaking.

There was something about the way she said it that made Abe decide to come back and sit down.  He managed somehow to eat the rest of his cornbread.  He looked up and saw that she was smiling at him again.  He almost smiled back.

Sarah looked relieved.  “Abe and I,” she said, “are going to have plenty of chance to get acquainted.”

5

[Illustration]

Sarah Rose from the table.  “There’s a lot of work to be done here,” she announced, “before we can bring in my plunder.”  She meant her furniture and other possessions in the wagon.  “First, we’ll need plenty of hot water.  Who wants to go to the spring?”

She was looking at Abe.  “I’ll go, ma’am.”  He grabbed the water bucket and hurried through the door.

Abe made several trips to the spring that afternoon.  Each bucket full of water that he brought back was poured into the big iron kettle over the fireplace.  Higher and higher roared the flames.  When Sarah wasn’t asking for more water, she was asking for more wood.  The steady chop-chop of Tom’s ax could be heard from the wood lot.

Everyone was working, even Dennis.  Sarah gave him a pan of soap and hot water and told him to wash the cabin walls.  The girls scrubbed the table, the three-legged stools, and the corner cupboard inside and out.  Sarah climbed the peg ladder to peer into the loft.

“Tsch!  Tsch!” she said, when she saw the corn husks and dirty bearskins on which the boys had been sleeping.  “Take them out and burn them, Tom.”

“Burn them?” he protested.

“Yes, and burn the covers on the downstairs bed, too.  I reckon I have enough feather beds and blankets to go around.  We’re starting fresh in this house.  We’ll soon have it looking like a different place.”