"'I can remember,' he said, 'our life in Kentucky: the cabin, the stinted living, the sale of our possessions, and the journey with my father and mother to Southern Indiana.' I think he said he was then about six years old. Shortly after his arrival in Indiana his mother died. 'It was pretty pinching times at first in Indiana, getting the cabin built, and the clearing for the crops, but presently we got reasonably comfortable, and my father married again.' "He had very faint recollections of his own mother, he was so young when she died; but he spoke most kindly of her and of his step-mother, and her cares for him in providing for his wants. "'My father,' he said, 'had suffered greatly for the want of an education, and he determined at an early day that I should be well educated. And what do you think his ideas of a good education were? We had a dog-eared arithmetic in our house, and father determined that somehow, or somehow else, I should cipher clear through that book.' "With this standard of an education, he started to a school in a log-house in the neighborhood, and began his educational career. He had attended this school but about six weeks, however, when a calamity befell his father. He had endorsed a man's note in the neighborhood for a considerable amount, and the prospect was he would have it to pay, and that would sweep away all their little possessions. His father, therefore, explained to him that he wanted to hire him out and receive the fruits of his labor and his aid in averting this calamity. Accordingly, at the expiration of six weeks, he left school and never returned to it again." [Illustration: Copyright, 1900 by McClure, Phillips & Co. ABRAHAM LINCOLN EARLY IN 1861, WHEN HE FIRST BEGAN TO WEAR A BEARD From a photograph in the collection of H. W. Fay, Esq., De Kalb, Illinois. By special permission]