wages whenever he happened to lose a few minutes from steady work. The time came, however, when Abe got his "revenge" for all this petty brutality. Crawford was as ugly as he was surly. His nose was a monstrosity,--long and crooked, with a huge, misshapen "stub" at the end, surmounted by a host of pimples, and the whole as "blue" as the usual state of Mr. Crawford's spirits. Upon this member Abe levelled his attack in rhyme, song, and "chronicle;" and, though he could not reduce the nose, he gave it a fame as wide as to the Wabash and the Ohio. It is not improbable that he learned the art of making the doggerel rhymes in which he celebrated Crawford's nose from the study of Crawford's own "Kentucky Preceptor." At all events, his sallies upon this single topic achieved him great reputation as a "poet" and a wit, and caused Crawford intolerable anguish. It is likely that Abe was reconciled to his situation in this family by the presence of his sister, and the opportunity it gave him of being in the company of Mrs. Crawford, for whom he had a genuine attachment; for she was nothing that her husband was, and every thing that he was not. According to her account, he split rails, ploughed, threshed, and did whatever else he was ordered to do; but she distinctly affirms that "Abe was no hand to pitch into his work like killing snakes." He went about it "calmly," and generally took the opportunity to throw "Crawford" down two or three times "before they went to the field." It is fair to presume, that, when Abe managed to inveigle his disagreeable employer into a tussle, he hoisted him high and threw him hard, for he felt that he had no reason to be careful of his bones. After meals Abe "hung about," lingered long to gossip and joke with the women; and these pleasant, stolen conferences were generally broken up with the exclamation, "Well, this won't buy the child a coat!" and the long-legged hired boy would stride away to join his master. In the mean time Abe had become, not only the longest, but the strongest, man in the settlement. Some of his feats almost surpass belief, and those who beheld them with their own eyes stood literally amazed. Richardson, a neighbor, declares that he could carry a load to which the strength of "three ordinary men" would scarcely be equal. He saw him quietly pick up and walk away with "a chicken-house, made of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at least six hundred, if not much more." At another time the Richardsons were building a corn-crib: Abe was there; and, seeing three or four men preparing "sticks" upon which to carry some huge posts, he relieved them of all further trouble by shouldering the posts, single-handed, and walking away with them to the place where they were wanted. "He could strike with a mall," says old Mr. Wood, "a heavier blow than any man.... He could sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw."