the water poured out of his mouth.

"He was all right very soon. We promised each other that we would never
tell anybody about it, and never did for years. I never told any one of
it till after Lincoln was killed."

Abraham Lincoln's parents were religious in their simple way. The boy
was brought up to believe in the care of the Father in Heaven over the
affairs of this life. The family attended camp meetings and preaching
services, which were great events, because few and far between, in those
primitive days. Abe used afterward to get his playmates together and
preach to them in a way that sometimes frightened them and made them
cry.

No doubt young Lincoln learned more that was useful to him in after life
from the wandering preachers of his day than he did of his teachers
during the few months that he was permitted to go to school. But his
best teacher was his mother. She would have been proud to have her boy
grow up to be a traveling minister or exhorter, like Peter Cartwright,
"the backwoods preacher."

Nancy Hanks Lincoln "builded better than she knew." She would have been
satisfied with a cabin life for her son. She little knew that by her own
life and teaching she was raising up the greatest man of his age, and
one of the grandest men in all history, to become the ruler of the
greatest nation that the world has ever seen. She did her duty by her
little boy and he honored her always during her life and afterward. No
wonder he once exclaimed when he thought of her:

"All I am or hope to be I owe to my sainted mother."

And out of her poor, humble life, that devoted woman

"Gave us Lincoln and never knew!"

CHAPTER IV

LEARNING TO WORK

The little Lincoln boy learned to help his father and mother as soon as
he could, picking berries, dropping seeds and carrying water for the men
to drink. The farm at Knob Creek seems to have been a little more
fertile than the other two places on which his father had chosen to
live.

Once while living in the White House, President Lincoln was asked if he
could remember his "old Kentucky home." He replied with considerable
feeling:

"I remember that old home very well. Our farm was composed of three
fields. It lay in the valley, surrounded by high hills and deep gorges.
Sometimes, when there came a big rain in the hills, the water would come
down through the gorges and spread all over the farm. The last thing I
remember of doing there was one Saturday afternoo