nclosed on three sides, for his family to live in that
winter. As this shed was made of saplings and poles, he put an ax in
Abe's hands, and the seven-year-old boy helped his father build their
first "home" in Indiana. It was Abe's first experience in the work that
afterward made him famous as "the rail splitter." It was with the ax, as
it were, that he hewed his way to the White House and became President
of the United States.

Of course, little Abe Lincoln had no idea of the White House then. He
may never have heard of "the President's Palace," as it used to be
called--for the White House was then a gruesome, blackened ruin, burned
by the British in the War of 1812. President Madison was living in a
rented house nearby, while the Executive Mansion was being restored.
The blackened stone walls, left standing after the fire, were _painted
white_, and on that account the President's mansion came to be known as
"the White House."

Little Abe, without a thought of his great future, was getting ready for
it by hacking away at poles and little trees and helping his father in
the very best way he knew. It was not long, then, before the "half-faced
camp" was ready for his mother and sister to move into.

Then there was the water question. Dennis Hanks afterward said: "Tom
Lincoln riddled his land like a honeycomb" trying to find good water. In
the fall and winter they caught rainwater or melted snow and strained
it, but that was not very healthful at best. So Abe and Sarah had to go
a mile to a spring and carry all the water they needed to drink, and,
when there had been no rain for a long time, all the water they used for
cooking and washing had to be brought from there, too.

When warmer weather came, after their "long and dreary winter" of
shivering in that poor shed, the "camp" did not seem so bad. Thomas
Lincoln soon set about building a warmer and more substantial cabin. Abe
was now eight years old, and had had some practice in the use of the
ax, so he was able to help his father still more by cutting and hewing
larger logs for the new cabin. They got it ready for the family to move
into before cold weather set in again.

They had to make their own furniture also. The table and chairs were
made of "puncheon," or slabs of wood, with holes bored under each corner
to stick the legs in. Their bedsteads were poles fitted into holes bored
in logs in the walls of the cabin, and the protruding ends supported by
poles or sta