The hearth was of dirt with a hole in the middle made by much sweeping. There was a puncheon table with forked sticks for legs, and wooden trenchers for plates. Sharp pieces of cane were used for forks; there was one knife without a handle, and one tin cup for the use of the entire family. In one corner was a pallet of leaves on a post frame with a thin quilt over it. When Abe Lincoln entered the one room he found the mother bending over the hearth, and a small girl, with a black eye, trying to quiet a dirty baby which kicked on the post bed. At a first glance Lincoln saw that the woman was in trouble, and, while she thanked him in a crude way for the return of the pennies and took them eagerly, her mind was thus only partially diverted from the trouble. Hungry for pity, and led to believe she might get it from this tall youth who had come so far to return her change, the woman poured out her tale of woe. Her pig was gone--her only pig--the pig which the children had divided food with that they might have a bit of meat for the winter. Her husband would not fix the pen and the pig had escaped and gone some days before. The bitter loss was too much for the poor woman, and she broke down and wept. Moved with pity, Abe Lincoln asked what kind of a pig it was. "Black, with a white spot on its left shank, and a white eye, and its ear was fresh cut with two slits and a cross mark--like this," and bending over the hearth she made some marks in the ashes which Lincoln looked at carefully. "I suppose some wolf or cat smelled the blood, cause nobody would steal a pig in these parts, would they?" and there was appeal in her voice as she asked the question. Further discussion about the pig was cut off by a screech from the child, whose face suddenly took on an expression of great fear, while her eyes seemed fixed in horror on something she saw coming toward the house. Abe Lincoln glanced out. "It's her Pap coming," the woman explained. "He beat her somethin' fearful yesterday cause she got in the mud. And he told her he'd throw her in up to her neck to-day if she got in the mud, and let her stick there till the buzzards eat 'er up. And how is the poor child to help it when her Pap has brought her here where there ain't nothing but mud to fall in?" Then, turning to the child, she said: "'Tain't no use to have fits. Nobody but God can keep him from gittin' ye." "Nobody but God, eh?" Abe Lincoln said. "We'll see." The man came staggering toward the house, cursing and growling, his drunken wrath seeming to centre itself on the child whose face was transfixed with terror. The child screamed just as he was about to enter the house to make good his threats. Then there suddenly pounced upon him, from just inside, something that caught him in a grip like that of a vise, and pulled him back outside. And then this something, which was a very tall youth, began shaking him and slowly making his way, as he did so, toward the creek.