250. The Lincolns move to Illinois; what Abraham did; hunting frolics; how Abraham chopped; how he bought his clothes.--Not long after young Lincoln's return, his father moved to Illinois.[5] It was a two weeks' journey through the woods with ox-teams. Abraham helped his father build a comfortable log cabin; then he and a man named John Hanks split walnut rails, and fenced in fifteen acres of land for a cornfield. [Illustration: THE LOG CABIN IN ILLINOIS WHICH LINCOLN HELPED HIS FATHER BUILD.] That part of the country had but few settlers, and it was still full of wild beasts. When the men got tired of work and wanted a frolic, they had a grand wolf-hunt. First, a tall pole was set up in a clearing;[6] next, the hunters in the woods formed a great circle of perhaps ten miles in extent. Then they began to move nearer and nearer together, beating the bushes and yelling with all their might. The frightened wolves, deer, and other wild creatures inside of the circle of hunters were driven to the pole in the clearing; there they were shot down in heaps. Young Lincoln was not much of a hunter, but he always tried to do his part. Yet, after all, he liked the axe better than he did the rifle. He would start off before light in the morning and walk to his work in the woods, five or six miles away. There he would chop steadily all day. The neighbors knew, when they hired him, that he wouldn't sit down on the first log he came to and fall asleep. Once when he needed a new pair of trousers, he made a bargain for them with a Mrs. Nancy Miller. She agreed to make him a certain number of yards of tow cloth,[7] and dye it brown with walnut bark. For every yard she made, Lincoln bound himself to split four hundred good fence-rails for her. In this way he made his axe pay for all his clothes. [Illustration: LINCOLN SPLITTING LOGS FOR RAILS.] [Footnote 5: Illinois: he moved to a farm on the North Fork (or branch) of the Sangamon River, Macon County, Illinois. Springfield, the capital of the state, is in the next county west.] [Footnote 6: Clearing: an open space made in a forest.] [Footnote 7: Tow cloth: a kind of coarse, cheap, but very strong cloth, made of flax or hemp.]