xactly. No man could talk to me as he did that night unless he had
known something of geography as well as astronomy. He often commented or
talked to me about what he had read,--seemed to read it out of the book
as he went along. He was the learned boy among us unlearned folks. He
took great pains to explain; could do it so simply. He was diffident,
too."

But another change was about to come into the life of Abraham Lincoln.
In 1830 his father set forth once more on the trail of the emigrant. He
had become dissatisfied with his location in southern Indiana, and
hearing favorable reports of the prairie lands of Illinois hoped for
better fortunes there. He parted with his farm and prepared for the
journey to Macon County, Illinois. Abraham visited the neighbors and
bade them goodbye; but on the morning selected for their departure, when
it came time to start, he was missing. He was found weeping at his
mother's grave, whither he had gone as soon as it was light. The thought
of leaving her behind filled him with unspeakable anguish. The household
goods were loaded, the oxen yoked, the family got into the covered
wagon, and Lincoln took his place by the oxen to drive. One of the
neighbors has said of this incident: "Well do I remember the day the
Lincolns left for Illinois. Little did I think that I was looking at a
boy who would one day be President of the United States!"

An interesting personal sketch of Thomas Lincoln is given by Mr. George
B. Balch, who was for many years a resident of Lerna, Coles County,
Illinois. Among other things he says: "Thomas Lincoln, father of the
great President, was called Uncle Tommy by his friends and Old Tom
Lincoln by other people. His property consisted of an old horse, a pair
of oxen and a few sheep--seven or eight head. My father bought two of
the sheep, they being the first we owned after settling in Illinois.
Thomas Lincoln was a large, bulky man, six feet tall and weighing about
two hundred pounds. He was large-boned, coarse-featured, had a large
blunt nose, florid complexion, light sandy hair and whiskers. He was
slow in speech and slow in gait. His whole appearance denoted a man of
small intellect and less ambition. It is generally supposed that he was
a farmer; and such he was, if one who tilled so little land by such
primitive modes could be so called. He never planted more than a few
acres, and instead of gathering and hauling his crop in a wagon he
usually carried it in ba