ABE LINCOLN'S FEATS OF STRENGTH
Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood, both in body and in mind. The neighbors,] who failed to mark his mental growth, were greatly impressed with his physical strength. The Richardson family, with whom Abe seemed to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous tales of his prowess, some of which may have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr. Richardson declared that the young man could carry as heavy a load as "three ordinary men." He saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken house, made up of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at least six hundred if not much more."
When the Richardsons were building their corn-crib, Abe saw three or four men getting ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on "sticks" between them. Watching his chance, he coolly stepped in, shouldered all the timbers at once and walked off alone with them, carrying them to the place desired. He performed these feats off-hand, smiling down in undisguised pleasure as the men around him expressed their amazement. It seemed to appeal to his sense of humor as well as his desire to help others out of their difficulties.
Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of Abe: "He could strike, with a maul, a heavier
blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper into wood than any man I ever saw."
blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper into wood than any man I ever saw."
Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard Abe working in the woods alone, felling trees, you would think three men, at least, were at work there—the trees came crashing down so fast.
On one occasion
after
he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured, Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness of his heart, exclaimed:
after
he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured, Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness of his heart, exclaimed:
"Aw, let him alone, Abe. 'Twon't do him no good. He's made his bed, let him lay in it!"
The rest laughed—for the "bed" was freezing mud. But Abe could see no humor in the situation. The man might be run over, or freeze to death. To abandon any human being in such a plight seemed too monstrous to him. The other
young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging their shoulders and shaking their heads—"Poor Abe!—he's a hopeless case," and left Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried, again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe gave him "a good talking to," and the unfortunate man is said to have been so deeply impressed by the young man's kindness that he heeded the temperance lecture and never again risked his life as he had done that night. When the old man told John Hanks of Abe's Herculean effort to save him, he added:
young men hurried on in the cold, shrugging their shoulders and shaking their heads—"Poor Abe!—he's a hopeless case," and left Lincoln to do the work of a Good Samaritan alone. He had no beast on which to carry the dead weight of the drunken man, whom he vainly tried, again and again, to arouse to a sense of the predicament he was in. At last the young man took up the apparently lifeless body of the mud-covered man in his strong arms, and carried him a quarter of a mile to a deserted cabin, where he made up a fire and warmed and nursed the old drunkard the rest of that night. Then Abe gave him "a good talking to," and the unfortunate man is said to have been so deeply impressed by the young man's kindness that he heeded the temperance lecture and never again risked his life as he had done that night. When the old man told John Hanks of Abe's Herculean effort to save him, he added:
"It was mighty clever in Abe Lincoln to tote me to a warm fire that cold night."
