“But he remembered what they said, and the way they said it. Used to get the youngsters together and try it on them. I heard him talkin’ in here one day about the early preachin’ and I remember his sayin’: ’I got to be quite a preacher myself in those days. You know how those old fellows felt they hadn’t done their duty if they didn’t get everybody in the church weepin’ for their sins. We never set much store by a preacher that didn’t draw tears and groans. Pretty strong doctrine, mostly hell-fire. There was a time when I preached myself to the children every week we didn’t have a minister. I didn’t think much of my sermon if I didn’t make ’em cry. I reckon there was more oratory than religion in what I had to say.’ “I reckon he was right about that, allus tryin’ to see if he could do what other folks did, sort of measurin’ himself. “Yes, sir, so far as preachin’ was concerned it was a God of wrath that Abraham Lincoln was brought up on, and there ain’t any denyin’ that he had to go through a lot that carried out that idea. A boy can’t grow up in a backwoods settlement like Gentryville, Indiana, without seein’ a lot that’s puzzlin’, sort of scares you and makes you miserable. Things was harsh and things was skimpy. There wa’n’t so much to eat. Sometimes there was fever and ague and rheumatiz and milk sick. Woman died from too much work. No medicine--no care, like his mother did. I expect there wa’n’t any human crime or sorrow he didn’t know about, didn’t wonder about. Thing couldn’t be so terrible he would keep away from it. Why I heard him tell once how a boy he knew went crazy, never got over it, used to sing to himself all night long, and Mr. Lincoln said that he couldn’t keep away, but used to slip out nights and listen to that poor idiot croonin’ to himself. He was like that, interested in strange things he didn’t understand, in signs and dreams and mysteries. “Still things have to be worse than they generally are anywhere to keep a boy down-hearted right along--specially a boy like Mr. Lincoln, with an investigatin’ turn of mind like his, so many new things comin’ along to surprise you. Why it was almost like Robinson Crusoe out there--wild land, havin’ to make everything for yourself--hunt your meat and grow your cotton, mighty excitin’ life for a boy--lots to do--lots of fun, too, winter and summer. Somehow when you grow up in the country you can’t make out that God ain’t kind, if he is severe. I reckon that was the way Mr. Lincoln sized it up early; world might be a vale of tears, like they taught, but he saw it was mighty interestin’ too, and a good deal of fun to be got along with the tears.