Frequently he talked to his friends in later years of his boyhood, and
always with apparent pleasure. "Mr. Lincoln told this story" (of his
youth), says Leonard Swett, "as the story of a happy childhood. There
was nothing sad or pinched, and nothing of want, and no allusion to
want in any part of it. His own description of his youth was that of a
joyous, happy boyhood. It was told with mirth and glee, and
illustrated by pointed anecdote, often interrupted by his jocund
laugh."

And he was right. There was nothing ignoble or mean in this Indiana
pioneer life. It was rude, but it was only the rudeness which the
ambitious are willing to endure in order to push on to a better
condition than they otherwise could know. These people did not accept
their hardships apathetically. They did not regard them as permanent.
They were only the temporary deprivations necessary in order to
accomplish what they had come into the country to do. For this reason
they could endure hopefully all that was hard. It is worth notice,
too, that there was nothing belittling in their life, there was no
pauperism, no shirking. Each family provided for its own simple wants,
and had the conscious dignity which comes from being equal to a
situation.

[Illustration: SANGAMON TOWN IN 1831.
Drawn by J. McCan Davis with the aid of Mr. John E. Roll, a former
resident.]


FROM INDIANA TO ILLINOIS.

The company which emigrated to Illinois included the families of