planted. With the coming of spring, he helped his father to plow the
stumpy ground. He learned to plow a straight furrow. He planted seeds in
the furrows.

In the meantime, some of the neighbors helped Tom build a cabin. It had
one room, with a tiny loft above. The floor was packed-down dirt. There
were no windows. The only door was a long, up-and-down hole cut in one
wall and covered by a bearskin. But Tom had made a table and several
three-legged stools, and there was a pole bed in one corner. Nancy was
glad to be living in a real house again, and she kept it neat and clean.

She was no longer lonely. Aunt Betsy and her husband, Uncle Thomas,
brought Dennis with them from Kentucky to live in the shelter near the
Lincoln cabin. Several other new settlers arrived, settlers with
children. A schoolmaster, Andrew Crawford, decided to start a school.

"Maybe you'll have a chance to go, Abe," Nancy told him. "You know what
the schoolmaster down in Kentucky said. He said you were a learner."

Abe looked up at her and smiled. He was going to like living in Indiana!




3

[Illustration]


But sad days were coming to Pigeon Creek. There was a terrible sickness.