Old settler stories . helf forthe precious pewter. This was home. LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY In March of the year 1830, the year be-fore the memorable big snow, ThomasLincoln, an Indiana squatter, started Westwith his family. There were with him hiswife, two daughters and their husbands, anda long, lanky youth of twenty-one, his sonAbraham. Although winter was not yetover, there was a hint of spring in the air,and the boy, feeling it, urged forward hisslow ox team, while his eyes hopefully soughtthe prairie stretching endlessly to the him followed his father, driving theother wagon, w
Old settler stories . helf forthe precious pewter. This was home. LINCOLN IN MACON COUNTY In March of the year 1830, the year be-fore the memorable big snow, ThomasLincoln, an Indiana squatter, started Westwith his family. There were with him hiswife, two daughters and their husbands, anda long, lanky youth of twenty-one, his sonAbraham. Although winter was not yetover, there was a hint of spring in the air,and the boy, feeling it, urged forward hisslow ox team, while his eyes hopefully soughtthe prairie stretching endlessly to the him followed his father, driving theother wagon, which was pulled by oxen evenslower. The spring thaw had begun, andthe thick mud in places came to the axles ofthe heavy movers wagons. Here and there in the leafless trees the boysaw a bluebird or a tufted titmouse, and once 167 168 OLD SETTLER STORIES a Kentucky cardinal called cheerily to himfrom the top of a dead oak. He greeted itwith a slow wave of his long arm as he spiedit, a scarlet spot on the topmost Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln. Between the sucking sounds made by theoxens feet as they plunged in and out of theheavy black mire, he heard the cawing ofcrows and the scream of the bluejays, andonce the clear call of a quail. To help pass the time, for the wagons trav- LINCOLN IN IMACON COUNTY 169 eled more and more slowly, he tried to namethe trees he passed. He found that he knewfew of them except the burr oaks, the wal-nuts and hickories, the elms and the willow^ Haw! he called suddenly to the oxen,who had swerved too far to the right, andwere about to plunge the wagon into a ditchfull of stagnant water. John Hanks, who was seven years olderthan Abraham Lincoln, and who had boughta piece of land next the Lincoln farm inIndiana, had improved it, returning then toKentucky, whence both families had 1828 he had decided to move to Illinois, and-on his way to the new home he had stoppedfor a while with the Lincolns in Indiana. Write to us, said Thomas Lin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfrontierandpioneerli
