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LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN• 21suspenders and carried his sword even when going barefoot.Shortly after his marriage he moved to town and tried tomake a living as a carpenter. He got a job building a mill, bu<strong>the</strong> did not square his timbers or cut <strong>the</strong>m <strong>the</strong> right length. Sohis employer sharply refused to pay him for his bungling efforts,and three lawsuits followed.Tom <strong>Lincoln</strong> had come from <strong>the</strong> woods, and, dull as he was,he soon realized now that he belonged to <strong>the</strong> woods. He tookhis wife back to a poor, stony farm on <strong>the</strong> edge of <strong>the</strong> forest,and never again did he have <strong>the</strong> temerity to forsake <strong>the</strong> soilfor <strong>the</strong> village.Not far from Elizabethtown <strong>the</strong>re was a vast stretch of treelessland known as "<strong>the</strong> barrens." For generations <strong>the</strong> Indianshad started fires <strong>the</strong>re and burned away <strong>the</strong> forests and brushand undergrowth, so that <strong>the</strong> coarse prairie-grass could growin <strong>the</strong> sun, and <strong>the</strong> buffaloes would come <strong>the</strong>re to wallow andgraze.In December, 1808, Tom <strong>Lincoln</strong> purchased a farm on "<strong>the</strong>barrens" for sixty-six and two thirds cents per acre. There was ahunter's hut on it, a crude sort of cabin surrounded with wildcrab-apple trees; and half a mile away flowed <strong>the</strong> South Forkof Nolin Creek, where <strong>the</strong> dogwood blossomed in <strong>the</strong> spring.In <strong>the</strong> summertime, hawks circled lazily in <strong>the</strong> blue overhead,and <strong>the</strong> tall grasses surged in <strong>the</strong> wind like an illimitable seaof green. Few people had had <strong>the</strong> poor judgment to settle <strong>the</strong>re.So in <strong>the</strong> wintertime it was one of <strong>the</strong> most lonely and desolateregions in all Kentucky.And it was in a hunter's hut on <strong>the</strong> edge of <strong>the</strong>se lonely barrens,deep in <strong>the</strong> winter of 1809, that Abraham <strong>Lincoln</strong> cameinto <strong>the</strong> world. He was born on a Sunday morning—born ona bed of poles covered with corn husks. It was storming outside,and <strong>the</strong> February wind blew <strong>the</strong> snow through <strong>the</strong> cracks between<strong>the</strong> logs and drifted it across <strong>the</strong> bearskin that coveredNancy Hanks and her baby. She was destined to die nine yearslater, at <strong>the</strong> age of thirty-five, worn out by <strong>the</strong> strain and hardshipsof pioneer life. She never knew much of happiness. Wherevershe lived, she was hounded by gossip about her illegitimatebirth. What a pity she could not have looked into <strong>the</strong> futurethat morning, and seen <strong>the</strong> marble temple that a grateful peoplehave now erected on <strong>the</strong> spot which she <strong>the</strong>n consecrated withher suffering!