“A few days before the completion of his eighth year,” he says, “in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin; and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and killed one of them.  He has never since pulled the trigger on any larger game.”

Any suffering thing, whether it was animal, man, woman, or child, was sure of his sympathy and aid.  Although he never touched intoxicating drinks himself, he pitied those who lost manhood by their use.  One night on his way home from a husking bee or house raising, he found an unfortunate man lying on the roadside overcome with drink.  If the man were allowed to remain there, he would freeze to death.  Lincoln raised him from the ground and carried him a long distance to the nearest house, where he remained with him during the night.  The man was his firm friend ever after.

Women admired him for his courtesy and rough gallantry, as well as for his strength and kindness of heart; and he, in his turn, reverenced women, as every noble, strong man does.  This big, bony, tall, awkward young fellow, who at eighteen measured six feet four, was as ready to care for a baby in the absence of its mother as he was to tell a good story or to fell a tree.  Was it any wonder that he was popular with all kinds of people?

His stepmother says of him:  “Abe was a good boy, and I can say what scarcely one woman—­a mother—­can say in a thousand; Abe never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused in fact or appearance to do anything I requested him.  I never gave him a cross word in all my life.  His mind and mine—­what little I had—­ seemed to run together.  He was here after he was elected president.  He was a dutiful son to me always.  I think he loved me truly.  I had a son, John, who was raised with Abe.  Both were good boys; but I must say, both now being dead, that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or expect to see.”

Wherever he went, or whatever he did, he studied men and things, and gathered knowledge as much by observation as from books and whatever news-papers or other publications he could get hold of.  He used to go regularly to the leading store in Gentryville, to read a Louisville paper, taken by the proprietor of the store, Mr. Jones.  He discussed its contents, and exchanged views with the farmers who made the store their place of meeting.  His love of oratory was great.  When the courts were in session in Boonville, a town fifteen miles distant from his home, whenever he could spare a day, he used to walk there in the morning and back at night, to hear the lawyers argue cases and make speeches.  By this time Abraham himself could make an impromptu speech on any subject with which he was at all familiar, good enough to win the applause of the Indiana farmers.