"There was one event that happened at the time about which I have heard the old folks tell, with staring eyes, and I will never forget it. The Indians came one night to attack a log-house in which were a man, his wife, and daughter, named Merrill. They did not wish to burn the cabin, but to enter it and make captives of the family; so they cut a hole in the door, with their hatchets, large enough to crawl through one at a time. They wounded Mr. Merrill outright. "But Mrs. Merrill was a host in herself. Her only weapon was an axe, and there never was fought in Kentucky, or anywhere else in the world, I'm thinkin', such another battle as that. "The leader of the Indians put his head through the hole in the door and began to crawl into the room, slowly--slowly--so--" Mr. Lincoln put out his great arms, and moved his hands mysteriously. "Well," he continued, "what do you suppose happened? Mrs. Merrill she dealt that Indian a death-blow on the head with the axe, just like _that_, and then drew him in slowly, slowly. The Indians without thought that he had crawled in himself, and another Indian followed him slowly, slowly. That Indian received his death-blow on the head, and was pulled in like the first, slowly. Another and another Indian were treated in the same way, until the dark cabin floor presented an awful scene for the morning. "Only one or two were left without. The women felt that they were now the masters in the contest, and stood looking on what they had done. There fell a silence over the place. Still, awful still everywhere. What a silence it was! The two Indians outside listened. Why were their comrades so still? What had happened? Why was everything so still? One of them tried to look through the hole in the door into the dark and bloody room. Then the two attempted to climb down the chimney from the low roof of the cabin, but Mrs. Merrill put her bed into the fireplace and set it on fire. "Such were some of the scenes of my father's few years of life in Kentucky; and now comes the most dreadful memory of all. Oh, it makes me wild to think o' it! Preacher, as I said, my father was killed by the Indians. You did not know that before, did you? No; well, it was so. Abraham Lincoln was shot by the red-skins. I was with him at the time, a little boy then, and I shall never forget that awful morning--never, never!--Abraham, mind the potatoes; you've heard the story a hundred times." Young Abraham Lincoln turned the potatoes and brightened the fire. Thomas Lincoln bent over and rested his body on his knees, and held his pipe out in one hand. "Preacher, listen. One morning father looked out of the cabin door, and said to mother: "'I must go to the field and build a fence to-day. I will let Tommy go with me.' "I was Tommy. I was six years old then. He loved me, and liked to have me with him. It was in the year 1784--I never shall forget the dark days of that year!--never, never.