"It struggled vigorously during the operation of sewing on, and when released made a bee-line for home. Some larger dogs on the way, scenting coon, tracked the little animal home and apparently mistaking him for a real coon, speedily demolished him. The next morning, father found, lying in his yard, the lifeless remains of yellow 'Joe,' with strong circumstantial evidence, in the form of fragments of coon skin, against us. "Father was much incensed at his death, but as John and I, scantily protected from the morning wind, stood shivering in the doorway, we felt assured that little yellow Joe would never again be able to sound the alarm of another coon hunt." THE "CHIN FLY" AS AN INCENTIVE TO WORK While he was President, Mr. Lincoln told Henry J. Raymond, the founder of the New York _Times_, the following story of an experience he had about this time, while working with his stepbrother in a cornfield: "Raymond," said he, "you were brought up on a farm, were you not? Then you know what a 'chin fly' is. My brother and I were plowing corn once, I driving the horse and he holding the plow. The horse was lazy, but on one occasion he rushed across the field so that I, with my long legs, could scarcely keep pace with him. On reaching the end of the furrow I found an enormous chin fly fastened upon the horse and I knocked it off. My brother asked me what I did that for. I told him I didn't want the old horse bitten in that way. "'Why,' said my brother,'that's all that made him go.'" "Now if Mr. Chase (the Secretary of the Treasury) has a presidential 'chin fly' biting him, I'm not going to knock it off, if it will only make his department go." "OLD BLUE NOSE'S" HIRED MAN It seemed to be the "irony of fate" that Abe should have to work for "Old Blue Nose" as a farm hand. But the lad liked Mrs. Crawford, and Lincoln's sister Nancy lived there, at the same time, as maid-of-all-work. Another attraction, the Crawford family was rich, in Abe's eyes, in possessing several books, which he was glad of the chance to read. Mrs. Crawford told many things about young Lincoln that might otherwise have been lost. She said "Abe was very polite, in his awkward way, taking off his hat to me and bowing. He was a sensitive lad, never coming where he was not wanted. He was tender and kind--like his sister. "He liked to hang around and gossip and joke with the women. After he had wasted too much time this way, he would exclaim: "'Well, this won't buy the child a coat,' and the long-legged hired boy would stride away and catch up with the others." One day when he was asked to kill a hog, Abe answered promptly that he had never done that, "but if you'll risk the hog, I'll risk myself!" Mrs. Crawford told also about "going to meeting" in those primitive days: