although he confessed to a yearning for some knowledge of the world outside of the circle in which he lived. This was gratified; but how? At the age of nineteen he went down the Mississippi to New Orleans as a flatboat hand, temporarily joining a trade many members of which at that time still took pride in being called “half horse and half alligator.” After his return he worked and lived in the old way until the spring of 1830, when his father “moved again,” this time to Illinois; and on the journey of fifteen days “Abe” had to drive the ox wagon which carried the household goods. Another log cabin was built, and then, fencing a field, Abraham Lincoln split those historic rails which were destined to play so picturesque a part in the presidential campaign twenty-eight years later.
Having come of age, Lincoln left the family, and “struck out for himself.” He had to “take jobs whenever he could get them.” The first of these carried him
