[Illustration: THE NEW SALEM MILL TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

The Rutledge and Cameron mill, of which Lincoln at one time had
charge, stood on the same spot as the mill in the picture, and had the
same foundation. From the map on page 18 it will be seen that the mill
was below the bluff and east of the town.]

His strength won him popularity, but his good-nature, his wit, his
skill in debate, his stories, were still more efficient in gaining him
good-will. People liked to have him around, and voted him a good
fellow to work with. Yet such were the conditions of his life at this
time that, in spite of his popularity, nothing was open to him but
hard manual labor. To take the first "job" which he happened
upon--rail-splitting, ploughing, lumbering, boating, store-keeping--and
make the most of it, thankful if thereby he earned his bed and board
and yearly suit of jeans, was apparently all there was before Abraham
Lincoln in 1830 when he started out for himself.


FIRST INDEPENDENT WORK.

Through the summer and fall of 1830 and the early winter of 1831, Mr.
Lincoln worked in the vicinity of his father's new home, usually as a
farm-hand and rail-splitter. Most of his work was done in company with
John Hanks. Before the end of the winter he secured employment which
he has given an account of himself (writing again in the third
person):[A]

"During that winter Abraham, together with his stepmother's son, John
D. Johnston, and John Hanks, yet residing in Macon County, hired