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LIFE IN INDIANA.--REMOVAL TO ILLINOIS.--LINCOLN STARTS OUT IN LIFE FOR HIMSELF AT TWENTY-ONE.--THE BUILDING OF THE FLATBOAT AND THE TRIP TO NEW ORLEANS.--LINCOLN HIRES OUT AS A GROCERY CLERK IN NEW SALEM.--HIS FIRST VOTE.
Abraham Lincoln grew to manhood in Southern Indiana. When he reached Spencer County in 1816, he was seven years of age; when he left in 1830, he had passed his twenty-first birthday. This period of a life shows usually the natural bent of the character, and we have found in these fourteen years of Lincoln's life signs of the qualities of greatness which distinguished him. We have seen that, in spite of the fact that he had no wise direction, that he was brought up by a father with no settled purpose, and that he lived in a pioneer community, where a young man's life at best is but a series of makeshifts, he had developed a determination to make something out of himself, and a desire to know, which led him to neglect no opportunity to learn.
The only unbroken outside influence which directed and stimulated him in his ambitions was that coming first from his mother, then from his step-mother. It should never be forgotten that these two women, both of them of unusual earnestness and sweetness of spirit, were one or the other of them at the boy's side throughout this period. The ideal they held before him was the simple ideal of the early American, that if a boy is upright and industrious he may aspire to any place within the gift of the country. The boy's nature told him they were right. Everything he read confirmed their teachings, and he cultivated, in every way open to him, his passion to know and to be something.
There are many proofs that young Lincoln's characteristics were recognized at this period by his associates, that his determination to excel, if not appreciated, yet made its imprint. In 1865, thirty-five years after he left Gentryville, Mr. Herndon, anxious to save all that was known of Lincoln in Indiana, went among his old associates, and with a sincerity and thoroughness worthy of great respect, interviewed them. At that time there were still living numbers of the people with whom he had been brought up. They all remembered something of him. It is curious to note that all of these people tell of his doing something different from what other boys did, something sufficiently superior to have made a keen impression upon them. In almost every case the person had his own special reason for admiring young Lincoln. His facility for making rhymes and writing essays was the admiration of many who considered it the more remarkable because "essays and poetry were not taught in school," and "Abe took it up on his own account."