Lincoln, the unknown

30 • LINCOLN THE UNKNOWNIn the winter of 1830 the "milk sick" came again, spreadingdeath once more through the Buckhorn Valley of Indiana.Filled with fear and discouragement, the roving and migratoryTom Lincoln disposed of his hogs and corn, sold his stumpinfestedfarm for eighty dollars, made a cumbersome wagonthe first he had ever owned—loaded his family and furnitureinto it, gave Abe the whip, yelled at the oxen, and started outfor a valley in Illinois which the Indians called the Sangamon,"the land of plenty to eat."For two weeks the oxen crept slowly forward as the heavywagon creaked and groaned over the hills and through the deepforests of Indiana and out across the bleak, desolate, uninhabitedprairies of Illinois, carpeted then with withered yellow grassthat grew six feet tall under the summer sun.At Vincennes Lincoln saw a printing-press for the first time;he was then twenty-one.At Decatur the emigrants camped in the court-house square;and, twenty-six years later, Lincoln pointed out the exact spotwhere the wagon had stood."I didn't know then that I had sense enough to be a lawyer,"he said.Herndon tellsus:Mr. Lincoln once described this journey to me. He saidthe ground had not yet yielded up the frosts of winter; thatduring the day the roads would thaw out on the surface andat night freeze over again, thus making travelling, especiallywith oxen, painfully slow and tiresome. There were, ofcourse, no bridges, and the party were consequently drivento ford the streams, unless by a circuitous route they couldavoid them. In the early part of the day the latter were alsofrozen slightly, and the oxen would break through a squareyard of thin ice at every step. Among other things whichthe party brought with them was a pet dog, which trottedalong after the wagon. One day the little fellow fell behindand failed to catch up till after they had crossed the stream.Missing him they looked back, and there, on the oppositebank, he stood, whining and jumping about in great distress.The water was running over the broken edges of theice, and the poor animal was afraid to cross. It would notpay to turn the oxen and wagon back and ford the streamagain in order to recover a dog, and so the majority, in