ened wolves, deer, and other wild creatures inside of the
circle of hunters were driven to the pole in the clearing; there they
were shot down in heaps.

Young Lincoln was not much of a hunter, but he always tried to do
his part. Yet, after all, he liked the axe better than he did the
rifle. He would start off before light in the morning and walk to
his work in the woods, five or six miles away. There he would chop
steadily all day. The neighbors knew, when they hired him, that he
wouldn't sit down on the first log he came to and fall asleep. Once
when he needed a new pair of trousers, he made a bargain for them
with a Mrs. Nancy Miller. She agreed to make him a certain number
of yards of tow cloth,[7] and dye it brown with walnut bark. For every
yard she made, Lincoln bound himself to split four hundred good
fence-rails for her. In this way he made his axe pay for all his
clothes.

[Illustration: LINCOLN SPLITTING LOGS FOR RAILS.]

[Footnote 5: Illinois: he moved to a farm on the North Fork (or
branch) of the Sangamon River, Macon County, Illinois. Springfield,
the capital of the state, is in the next county west.]

[Footnote 6: Clearing: an open space made in a forest.]

[Footnote 7: Tow cloth: a kind of coarse, cheap, but very strong cloth,
made of flax or hemp.]

251. Lincoln hires out to tend store; the gang of ruffians in New
Salem; Jack Armstrong and "Tall Abe."--The year after young Lincoln
came of age he hired out to tend a grocery and variety store in New
Salem, Illinois.[8] There was a gang of young ruffians in that
neighborhood who made it a point to pick a fight with every stranger.
Sometimes they mauled him black and blue; sometimes they amused
themselves with nailing him up in a hogshead and rolling him down
a hill. The leader of this gang was a fellow named Jack Armstrong.
He made up his mind that he would try his hand on "Tall Abe," as
Lincoln was called. He attacked Lincoln, and he was so astonished
at what happened to him that he never wanted to try it again. From
that time Abraham Lincoln had no better friends than young Armstrong
and the Armstrong family. Later on we shall see what he was able to
do for them.

[Footnote 8: New Salem is on the Sangamon River, in Menard County,
about twenty miles northwest of Springfield, the capital of
Illinois.]

252. Lincoln's faithfulness in little things; the six cents; "Honest
Abe."--In his work in the store Lincoln soon won everybody's respect
a