Lincoln Story Book, The

<h3>"RISK THE HOGS AND I WILL RISK MYSELF!"</h3> <p>At the age of seventeen, Lincoln, the strongest and "longest" younker of the neighborhood, was let out by his father for six dollars a month and board to a James Taylor, ferryman of Anderson's Creek and the Ohio River. He was also expected to do the farmwork and other jobs, as well as the chores in and about the house. This included tending to the baby--the good wives uniting to pronounce Abe the best of helps as "so handy," as Mrs. Toodles would say.</p> <p>He had attained his fixed height, exactly six feet three inches. (This is his own record.) He really did, with his unusual strength, more than any man's stint, and failing to gain full man's wages, whether it was his father or he handled it, he felt the injustice, which soured him on that point. He enraged his employer's son by sitting up late to read, so that the young man struck him to silence. But the young giant refused from retaliating in kind, whether from natural magnanimity belonging to giants, or from respect for the "young master," or from self-acknowledgment that he was in the wrong. He learned the craft of river boatman in this engagement. One day, on being asked to kill a hog, he replied like the Irishman with the violin, "that he had never done it, but he would try."</p> <p>"If you will risk the hog," he said, "I will risk myself!"</p> <p>Becoming hog-slaughterer added this branch occupation to the many of "the man of all work." Taylor sub-let him out in this capacity for thirty cents a day, saying:</p> <p>"Abe will do any one thing about as well as another." <br/> <br/> <br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />