time, his pantaloons
were stuffed. He wore a soft felt hat which had once been black, but
now, as its owner dryly remarked, 'was sunburned until it was a combine
of colors.'"

There was a sawmill in Sangamontown, and it was the custom for the "men
folks" of the neighborhood to assemble near it at noon and in the
evening, and sit on a peeled log which had been rolled out for the
purpose. Young Lincoln soon joined this group and at once became a great
favorite because of his stories and jokes. His stories were so funny
that "whenever he'd end 'em up in his unexpected way the boys on the log
would whoop and roll off." In this way the log was polished smooth as
glass, and came to be known in the neighborhood as "Abe's log."

A traveling juggler came one day while the boat was building and gave an
exhibition in the house of one of the neighbors. This magician asked for
Abe's hat to cook eggs in. Lincoln hesitated, but gave this explanation
for his delay: "It was out of respect for the eggs--not care for my
hat!"

ABE LINCOLN SAVES THREE LIVES

While they were at work on the flatboat the humorous young stranger from
Indiana became the hero of a thrilling adventure, described as follows
by John Roll, who was an eye witness to the whole scene:

"It was the spring following 'the winter of the deep snow.' Walter
Carman, John Seamon, myself, and at times others of the Carman boys, had
helped Abe in building the boat, and when we had finished we went to
work to make a dug-out, or canoe, to be used as a small boat with the
flat. We found a suitable log about an eighth of a mile up the river,
and with our axes went to work under Lincoln's direction. The river was
very high, fairly 'booming.' After the dug-out was ready to launch we
took it to the edge of the water, and made ready to 'let her go,' when
Walter Carman and John Seamon jumped in as the boat struck the water,
each one anxious to be the first to get a ride. As they shot out from
the shore they found they were unable to make any headway against the
strong current. Carman had the paddle, and Seamon was in the stern of
the boat. Lincoln shouted to them to head up-stream and 'work back to
shore,' but they found themselves powerless against the stream. At last
they began to pull for the wreck of an old flatboat, the first ever
built on the Sangamon, which had sunk and gone to pieces, leaving one of
the stanchions sticking above the water. Just as they reached it Seamon
m