He lived near Marienthal, the Vale of Mary. It was a lovely place, and his heart loved it and all the old German villages, with their songs and children's festivals, churches, and graves. He bade farewell to Froebel. "I am going to study life," he said, "in the wilderness of the New World." He came to Pennsylvania, and met the Brethren there who had come from Germany, and then traveled with an Indian agent to Rock Island, Illinois, where he had met Black Hawk. Here he resolved to become a traveling teacher, preacher, and missionary, after the usages of his order, and he asked Black Hawk for an interpreter and guide. "Return to me in May," said the chief, "and I will provide you with as noble a son of the forest as ever breathed the air." He returned to Ohio, and was now on his way to visit the old chief again. The country was a wonder to him. Coming from middle Germany and the Rhine lands, everything seemed vast and limitless. The prairies with their bluebells, the prairie islands with their giant trees, the forests that shaded the streams, were all like a legend, a fairy story, a dream. He admired the heroic spirit of the pioneers, and he took the Indians to his heart. In this spirit he began to travel over the unbroken prairies of Indiana and Illinois. CHAPTER II. THOMAS LINCOLN'S FAMILY STORIES. The red sun was glimmering through the leafless boughs of the great oaks when Jasper again came to the gate of Thomas Lincoln's log cabin. Mr. Crawford had remained after school with the tall boy who had brought "obliquity" upon the spelling-class. Tradition reports that there was a great rattling of leather breeches, and expostulations, and lamentations at such solemn, private interviews. Mr. Crawford, who was "great on thrashing," no doubt did his duty as he understood it at that private session at sundown. Sticks were plenty in those days, and the will to use them strong among most pioneer schoolmasters. Abraham Lincoln and his sister accompanied Jasper to the log-house. They heard the lusty cry for consideration and mercy in the log school-house as they were going, and stopped to listen. Jasper did not approve of this rugged discipline. "I should not treat the boy in that way," said he philosophically. "You wouldn't?" said Abraham. "Why? Crawford is a great teacher; he knows everything. He can cipher as far as the rule of three."