John Johnston, Lincoln's step-brother, was an honest, but uneasy and shiftless man, and gave him a great deal of trouble. He lived with his mother and step-father most of his life, but never contributed much to their support, and was always in debt, although Lincoln several times give him means to make a fresh start. Lincoln's letters to his step-brother, several of which have been preserved, throw considerable light upon his character. In 1851, after Thomas Lincoln's death, Johnston proposed to leave his mother and go to Missouri, where he thought he could do better than in Illinois, and asked permission to sell the farm which Lincoln had bought to secure his step-mother a home for life. "You propose to sell it for three hundred dollars," wrote Lincoln in his indignation, "take one hundred dollars away with you, and leave her two hundred dollars at eight per cent, making her the enormous sum of sixteen dollars a year. Now, if you are satisfied with seeing her in that way I am not." Then Johnston proposed that Lincoln should lend him eighty dollars to pay his expenses to Missouri. "You say you would give your place in heaven for seventy or eighty dollars," Lincoln wrote his step-brother. "Then you value your place in heaven very cheap, for I am sure you can, with the offer I make, get seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. What I propose is that you shall go to work 'tooth and nail' for somebody who will give you money for it.... I now promise you, that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor, either in money or as your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar.... In this I do not mean that you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close at home in Coles County. Now, if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and, what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But, if I should now clear you out of debt, next year you would be just as deep as ever." A few months later Lincoln wrote Johnston again in regard to his contemplated move to Missouri: