Abe Lincoln folded the hot hands over the fevered breast, straightened the head on the pillow and turned the cover up. As he stood looking down on the clay tenement the baby cried. After a brief search the milk was found, and taking the little one from its dead mother, the gawky young man began the task of feeding it with a spoon. Scarcely had he finished this task than the ring of horse's hoofs sounded down the roadway. Good Dr. Allen was coming, and with Hannah Armstrong. "Too late, Doc," Abe Lincoln said quietly, looking toward the bed. Then holding the baby to Hannah Armstrong, he said, "I've fed calves and pups, but this one seems to leak about the ears. So far all the milk has gone down its neck." Hannah Armstrong took the baby. Doctor Allen was looking at the hot body, which even now was beginning to turn black under the finger nails and about the mouth. "Swamp poison," he said. "I could not have saved her--not to-day." After Dr. Allen and Hannah Armstrong had gone back to New Salem Abe Lincoln stayed long enough to help the woman's husband make a coffin. On her way home, Hannah Armstrong stopped at Rutledge Inn to consult Mrs. Rutledge as to what should be done for the baby, and it was through her Ann Rutledge heard a portion of the story. "If there's any preacher or elder or deacon or shoutin' saint in this whole country that's doin' more for his fellers than Abe Lincoln, I want to see the color of his eye," declared Hannah. "He's fulfillin' the Scripture what says, 'Let not one hand know what the other one's doing,' and yet they say he's a sinner." "I never heard Abe Lincoln called a sinner," Mrs. Rutledge protested in surprise. "Yes, they do. Jack Armstrong himself heard John McNeil telling a bunch at Hill's store that Peter Cartwright himself said Abe Lincoln was a poor, deluded sinner." Then she turned to Ann and said: "Ann, if I was you, I'd speak to John McNeil about talkin' about Abe Lincoln. John McNeil's a nice fellow, best there is, but 'tain't fair for him to be pointin' Abe Lincoln out as a sinner. 'Twix the two of them, John with his ten thousand, and Abe Lincoln with nothin', I guess Abe's doing his share." Ann gave Hannah Armstrong no answer. CHAPTER XIV THE SPELLING MATCH During the fall season there were husking-bees where merry parties gathered to put away great piles of corn, partake of bountiful dinners and play games in the evening. There were also a number of log-rollings and new barn-raisings, at all of which Abe Lincoln seemed to be a favorite. In fact, the ungainly clerk in Offutt's store had come to be about the most popular man in town among the men, boys and married women. He did not, however, pay any special attention to the girls, and this seemed out of the regular order, especially as they had a friendly feeling for him.