The Project Gutenberg EBook of McClure's Magazine December, 1895
by Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: McClure's Magazine December, 1895

Author: Edited by Ida M. Tarbell

Release Date: May 4, 2004 [EBook #11548]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE DECEMBER, 1895 ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.

MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. VI. DECEMBER, 1895. No. I.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EDITED BY IDA M. TARBELL.

II.

LIFE IN INDIANA.--REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS.--LINCOLN STARTS OUT IN LIFE FOR
HIMSELF AT TWENTY-ONE.--THE BUILDING OF THE FLATBOAT AND THE TRIP TO
NEW ORLEANS.--LINCOLN HIRES OUT AS A GROCERY CLERK IN NEW SALEM.--HIS
FIRST VOTE.

INDIANA REMINISCENCES OF LINCOLN.

Abraham Lincoln grew to manhood in Southern Indiana. When he reached
Spencer County in 1816, he was seven years of age; when he left in
1830, he had passed his twenty-first birthday. This period of a life
shows usually the natural bent of the character, and we have found in
these fourteen years of Lincoln's life signs of the qualities of
greatness which distinguished him. We have seen that, in spite of the
fact that he had no wise direction, that he was brought up by a father
with no settled purpose, and that he lived in a pioneer community,
where a young man's life at best is but a series of makeshifts, he had
developed a determination to make something out of himself, and a
desire to know, which led him to neglect no opportunity to learn.

The only unbroken outside influence which directed and stimulated him
in his ambitions was that coming first from his mother, then from his
step-mother. It should never be forgotten that these two women, both
of them of unusual earnestness and sweetness of spirit, were one or
the other of them at the boy's side throughout this period. The ideal
they held before him was the simple ideal of the early American, that
if a boy is upright and industrious he may aspire to any place within
the gift of the country. The boy's nature told him they were right.
Everything he read confirmed their teachings, a