journey, was unaccustomed to business transactions, had never been much
upon the river, but his tact and ability and honesty were so far trusted
that the trader was willing to risk the cargo in his care. The delight
with which the youth swung loose from the shore upon his clumsy craft,
with the prospect of a ride of eighteen hundred miles before him, and a
vision of the great world of which he had read and thought so much, may
be imagined. At this time he had become a very tall and powerful young
man. He had reached the height of six feet and four inches, a length of
trunk and limb remarkable even among the tall race of pioneers to which
he belonged.

Just before the river expedition, Lincoln had walked with a young girl
down to the river to show her his flatboat. She relates a circumstance
of the evening which is full of significance. "We were sitting on the
banks of the Ohio, or rather on the boat he had made. I said to Abe that
the sun was going down. He said to me, 'That's not so; it don't really
go down; it seems so. The earth turns from west to east and the
revolution of the earth carries us under; we do the sinking, as you call
it. The sun, as to us, is comparatively still; the sun's sinking is only
an appearance.' I replied, 'Abe, what a fool you are!' I know now that I
was the fool, not Lincoln. I am now thoroughly satisfied that he knew
the general laws of astronomy and the movements of the heavenly bodies.
He was better read then than the world knows or is likely to know
exactly. No man could talk to me as he did that night unless he had
known something of geography as well as astronomy. He often commented or
talked to me about what he had read,--seemed to read it out of the book
as he went along. He was the learned boy among us unlearned folks. He
took great pains to explain; could do it so simply. He was diffident,
too."