fterward married Kate Roby. A flatboat
belonging to Allen's father was loaded with bacon and other farm
merchandise for the southern market. Allen went in charge of the
expedition, and young Lincoln was engaged as "bow hand." They started in
April, 1828. There was nothing to do but steer the unwieldy craft with
the current. The flatboat was made to float down stream only. It was to
be broken up at New Orleans and sold for lumber.

The two young men from Indiana made the trip without incident until they
came to the plantation of Madame Duchesne, six miles from Baton Rouge,
where they moored their raft for the night. There they heard the
stealthy footsteps of midnight marauders on board.

Young Gentry was first aroused. He sprang up and found a gang of
lawless negroes on deck, evidently looking for plunder, and thinking so
many of them could easily cow or handle the two white men.

"Bring the guns, Abe!" shouted Allen. "Shoot them!" Abraham Lincoln was
among them, brandishing a club--they had no guns. The negroes were
frightened not only by the fierce, commanding form of their tall
adversary, but also by his giant strength. The two white men routed the
whole black crew, but Abraham Lincoln received a wound in the encounter,
and bore the scar of it to his dying day.

The trip required about three months, going and returning, and the two
adventurers from Gentryville came back in June, with good stories of
their experiences to tell in Jones' store.

Not long after this Thomas Lincoln, in response to an urgent invitation
from John Hanks, decided to move to Illinois. It took a long time, after
gathering in the fall crops, for Thomas Lincoln to have a "vandoo" and
sell his corn and hogs. As for selling his farm, it had never really
belonged to him. He simply turned it over to Mr. Gentry, who held a
mortgage on it. It was February, 1830, before the pioneer wagon got
under way. The emigrant family consisted of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah,
his wife, Abraham, and John Johnston; Sarah and Matilda Johnston were
both married, and, with their husbands, a young man named Hall and
Dennis Hanks, formed the rest of the party. The women rode with their
household goods in a great covered cart drawn by two yoke of oxen.

A TRAVELING PEDDLER

Merchant Jones, for whom Abe had worked that fall and winter, after his
return from New Orleans, sold the young man a pack of "notions" to
peddle along the road to Illinois. "A set of knives and for