himself as for another, was usually reading or telling stories. So when
a couple of strangers, Trent by name, offered to buy out the store, the
offer was accepted and more promissory notes changed hands. About the
time these last notes came due, the Trent brothers disappeared between
two days. Then Berry died.

The outcome of the whole series of transactions was that Lincoln was
left with an assortment of promissory notes bearing the names of the
Herndons, Radford, Greene, Rutledge, Berry, and the Trents. With one
exception, which will be duly narrated, his creditors told him to pay
when he was able. He promised to put all of his earnings, in excess of
modest living expenses, into the payment of these obligations. It was
the burden of many years and he always called it "the national debt."
But he kept his word, paying both principal and the high rate of
interest until 1848, or after fifteen years, when a member of congress,
he paid the last cent. He was still "honest Abe." This narrative ranks
the backwoodsman with Sir Walter Scott and Mark Twain, though no
dinners were tendered to him and no glowing eulogies were published
from ocean to ocean.

His only further experience in navigation was the piloting of a
Cincinnati steamboat, the _Talisman_, up the Sangamon River (during the
high water in spring time) to show that that stream was navigable.
Nothing came of it however, and Springfield was never made "the head of
navigation."

It was in the midst of the mercantile experiences above narrated that
the Black Hawk war broke out. Black Hawk was chief of the Sac Indians,
who, with some neighboring tribes, felt themselves wronged by the
whites. Some of them accordingly put on the paint, raised the whoop,