“Yes,” answered Thomas Lincoln. “That’s Abe with the long legs, and the other boy is his cousin Dennis.”
The new Mrs. Lincoln regarded with womanly compassion the three neglected children, and in her heart she resolved to make their lot more desirable. Perhaps the children read her face aright, for, as they scanned her kindly face, all fear of the new step-mother disappeared, and they responded shyly, but cordially, to her greeting.
When the new Mrs. Lincoln entered the humble log-cabin which was to be her future home, it may well be imagined that her heart sank within her at the primitive accommodations, or rather, lack of accommodations.
“How do you like it?” asked Thomas Lincoln, who was much more easily satisfied than his wife.
“Not at all at present. There are no doors or windows. There is not even a plank floor.”
“We have got along without them,” said her husband.
“We can’t get along without them any longer. You are a carpenter, and can easily provide them. I will put in my furniture, and after awhile we will have things more comfortable.”
“I don’t think we need the bureau. You say it cost forty dollars. You had better sell it. It is sinful extravagance to have so much money in furniture.”
“I can’t consent to that,” said Mrs. Lincoln decidedly. “I have nothing that is too good for us. I will see that you and the children live more comfortably in future.”
Abe and Nancy looked on with interest while the bureau and the other possessions of their new mother were taken from the wagon by their father and their uncle Ralph. They began to think they were going to live in city style. In particular they admired the bureau which had cost forty dollars. Why, their cabin had not cost that. They felt something like the country minister of sixty years since, to whom his parishioners presented a carpet for the “fore room.” When it was spread on the floor, he gazed at it admiringly and ejaculated, “What, all this and heaven too! This is too much!”
Mrs. Lincoln was quite in earnest, and set her husband to work the next day at the improvements she had specified. When after a time they were completed; when the earthen floor was succeeded by one of boards; when two windows had been set in the sides of the cabin, and a door closed up the entrance; when the primitive bed and bedstead had been superseded by the newcomer’s comfortable bedstead and bedding, and the three-legged stools had been removed to give place to chairs, the three children were very happy.