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Abraham Lincoln's early life was of the most miserable description. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a worthless rover; his mother, Nancy Hanks, was of a "poor white" Virginia family with an unenviable record. His birthplace was a squalid log cabin in Washington County, Kentucky. His surroundings were such as are commonly encountered in a coarse, low, ignorant, poverty-stricken family.
The night, considering that it was the month of November, was close and foggy such as frequently follows a calm day of incessant rain. The bottoms were plashing, the drams all full, and the small rivulets and streams about the country were above their hanks, whilst the larger rivers swept along with the hoarse continuous murmurs of an unusual flood.
"Come, monsieur, hand us out a bottle of some real stuff or other; I'm not fond of your pink vinegars," exclaimed Hanks, as he tossed off a tumbler of the claret. "This isn't bad for washing the dust out of a fellow's throat on a hot day, but there's no life-blood in it."
The bending of the staysail was no very serious matter; it simply meant letting go the halliards, dragging upon the downhaul, cutting the boltrope away from the hanks, passing the new seizings, hoisting the sail foot by foot until I had got all the seizings finished, bending the sheets afresh, and there we were. But to bend a topsail, single-handed, was a much more difficult job.
We got the new one out, into the nettings; seized on the tack, sheets, and halyards, and the hanks; manned the halyards, cut adrift the frapping lines, and hoisted away; but before it was half way up the stay, it was blown all to pieces. When we belayed the halyards, there was nothing left but the bolt-rope.
Crawford says: "Abe was no hand to pitch into work like killing snakes;" but when he did work, it was with an ease and effectiveness which compensated his employer for the time he spent in practical jokes and extemporaneous speeches. He would lift as much as three ordinary men, and "My, how he would chop!" says Dennis Hanks.
The door opened; and a fine, robust old fellow, with an open countenance and bronzed cheeks, marched into the midst of the assemblage, bearing on his shoulder 'two small triangular heart rails, surmounted by a banner with this inscription: 'Two rails from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks, in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830. The sturdy rail-bearer was old John Hanks himself, enjoying the great field-day of his life.
On reaching Portsmouth, I took a boat and pulled off to the cutter, which was lying out in the middle of the harbour. Hanks was walking the deck as I came alongside, but something having attracted his attention in the direction of Gosport, he did not observe me.
The Law of Compensation is kind: Lincoln lived, until the day of his death, bathed in the love of Nancy Hanks, that mother, worn, yellow and sad, who gave him birth, and yet whom he had never known. No child ever really lost its mother nothing is ever lost. Men are really only grown-up children, and the longing to be mothered is not effaced by the passing years.
How the three laughed and talked and enjoyed themselves over their supper, and how Bob revelled in the soft, warm blankets of Captain Hanks' berth when he finally, for the first time in weeks, was enabled to undress and crawl into bed, can better be imagined than described.
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