"Did Abraham Lincoln treat John D. Johnston well?" "I will say this much about it. I think Abe done more for John than he deserved. John thought that Abe did not do enough for the old people. They became enemies a while on this ground. I don't want to tell all the things that I know: it would not look well in history. I say this: Abe treated John well." "What kind of a man was Johnston?"--"I say this much: A kinder-hearted man never was in Coles County, Illinois, nor an honester man. I don't say this because he was my brother-in-law: I say it, knowing it. John did not love to work any the best. I flogged him for not working." "Did Thomas Lincoln treat Abe cruelly?"--"He loved him. I never could tell whether Abe loved his father very well or not. I don't think he did, for Abe was one of those forward boys. I have seen his father knock him down off the fence when a stranger would, ask the way to a neighbor's house. Abe always would have the first word. The old man loved his children." "Did any of the Johnston family ask for office?"--"No! Thomas Johnston went to Abe: he got this permit to take daguerrotypes in the army; this is all, for they are all dead except John's boys. They did not ask for any." "Did you or John Hanks ask Lincoln for any office?"--"I say this: that John Hanks, of Decatur, did solicit him for an Indian Agency; and John told me that Abe as good as told him he should have one. But John could not read or write. I think this was the reason that Abe did not give John the place. "As for myself, I did not ask Abe right out for an office, only this: I would like to have the post-office in Charleston; this was my wife that asked him. He told her that much was understood,--as much as to say that I would get it. I did not care much about it." "Do you think Lincoln cared much for his relations?"--"I will say this much: when he was with us, he seemed to think a great deal of us; but I thought sometimes it was hypocritical, but I am not sure." Abe left the Lincoln family late in March, or early in April. He did not go far away, but took jobs wherever he could get them, showing that he had separated himself from the family, not merely to rove, but to labor, and be an independent man. He made no engagement of a permanent character during this summer: his work was all done "by the job." If he ever split rails for Kirkpatrick, over whom he was subsequently elected captain of a volunteer company about to enter the Black Hawk War, it must have been at this time; but the story of his work for Kirkpatrick, like that of his making "a crap of corn" for Mr. Brown, is probably apocryphal.1 All this while he clung close to John Hanks, and either worked where he did, or not far away. In the winter following, he was employed by a Major Warrick to make rails, and walked daily three miles to his work, and three miles back again. 1 See Holland's Life of Lincoln, p. 40.