"At that time we thought it nothing to go eight or ten miles. The ladies did not stop for the want of a shawl or riding dress, or horses. In the winter time they would put on their husbands' old overcoats, wrap up their little ones, and take two or three of them on their beasts, while their husbands would walk. "In winter time they would hold church in some of the neighbors' houses. At such times they were always treated with the utmost kindness; a basket of apples, or turnips--apples were scarce in those days--was set out. Sometimes potatoes were used for a 'treat.' In old Mr. Linkhorn's (Lincoln's) house a plate of potatoes, washed and pared nicely, was handed around." FEATS OF STRENGTH Meanwhile the boy was growing to tall manhood, both in body and in mind. The neighbors, who failed to mark his mental growth, were greatly impressed with his physical strength. The Richardson family, with whom Abe seemed to have lived as hired man, used to tell marvelous tales of his prowess, some of which may have grown somewhat in the telling. Mr. Richardson declared that the young man could carry as heavy a load as "three ordinary men." He saw Abe pick up and walk away with "a chicken house, made up of poles pinned together, and covered, that weighed at least six hundred if not much more." When the Richardsons were building their corn-crib, Abe saw three or four men getting ready to carry several huge posts or timbers on "sticks" between them. Watching his chance, he coolly stepped in, shouldered all the timbers at once and walked off alone with them, carrying them to the place desired. He performed these feats off-hand, smiling down in undisguised pleasure as the men around him expressed their amazement. It seemed to appeal to his sense of humor as well as his desire to help others out of their difficulties. Another neighbor, "old Mr. Wood," said of Abe: "He could strike, with a maul, a heavier blow than any other man. He could sink an ax deeper into wood than any man I ever saw." Dennis Hanks used to tell that if you heard Abe working in the woods alone, felling trees, you would think three men, at least, were at work there--the trees came crashing down so fast. On one occasion after he had been threshing wheat for Mr. Turnham, the farmer-constable whose "Revised Statutes of Indiana" Abe had devoured, Lincoln was walking back, late at night from Gentryville, where he and a number of cronies had spent the evening. As the youths were picking their way along the frozen road, they saw a dark object on the ground by the roadside. They found it to be an old sot they knew too well lying there, dead drunk. Lincoln stopped, and the rest, knowing the tenderness of his heart, exclaimed: "Aw, let him alone, Abe. 'Twon't do him no good. He's made his bed, let him lay in it!"