Lincoln, the unknown

24 • LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNthe summit of a thickly wooded hill, a quarter of a mile away,and buried her without service or ceremony.So perished the mother of Abraham Lincoln. We shall probablynever know what she looked like or what manner ofwoman she was, for she spent most of her short life in thegloomy forests, and made only a faint impression upon thefew people who crossed her path.Shortly after Lincoln's death one of his biographers set outto get some information about the President's mother. She hadbeen dead then for half a century. He interviewed the fewpeople living who had ever seen her, but their memories wereas vague as a faded dream. They were unable to agree even asto her physical appearance. One described her as a "heavy built,squatty woman," but another said she had a "spare, delicateform." One man thought she had black eyes, another describedthem as hazel, another was sure they were bluish green. DennisHanks, her cousin, who had lived under the same roof with herfor fifteen years, wrote that she had "lite hair." After furtherreflection, he reversed himself and said her hair was black.For sixty years after her death there was not so much as astone to mark her resting-place, so that to-day only the approximateposition of her grave is known. She is buried beside heraunt and uncle, who reared her; but it is impossible to saywhich of the three graves is hers.A short time before Nancy's death Tom Lincoln had builta new cabin. It had four sides, .but no floor, no windows, nodoor. A dirty bearskin hung over the entrance, and the interiorwas dark and foul. Tom Lincoln spent most of his time huntingin the woods, leaving his two motherless children to run theplace. Sarah did the cooking, while Abraham kept the fire goingand carried water from the spring a mile away. Having noknives and forks, they ate with their fingers, and with fingersthat were seldom clean, for water was hard to get and they hadno soap. Nancy had probably made her own soft lye soap, butthe small supply that she left at her death had long since vanished,and the children didn't know how to make more; andTom Lincoln wouldn't make it. So they lived on in their povertyand dirt.During the long, cold winter months they made no attemptto wash their bodies; and few, if any, attempts to wash theirsoiled and ragged garments. Their beds of leaves and skinsgrew filthy. No sunlight warmed and purified the cabin. The