[Illustration: This Certificate, or Marriage List (here shown in
reduced fac-simile), written by the Rev. Jesse Head, was lost sight of
for many years, and about 1886 was discovered through the efforts of
W. F. Booker, Clerk of Washington County, Kentucky.]

Of all these years of Abraham Lincoln's early childhood we know almost
nothing. He lived a solitary life in the woods, returning from his
lonesome little games to his cheerless home. He never talked of these
days to his most intimate friends. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy
footnote (2) relocated to chapter end.] Once, when asked what he
remembered about the war with Great Britain, he replied: "Nothing but
this. I had been fishing one day and caught a little fish which I was
taking home. I met a soldier in the road, and, having been always told
at home that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my fish."
This is only a faint glimpse, but what it shows is rather
pleasant--the generous child and the patriotic household. But there is
no question that these first years of his life had their lasting
effect upon the temperament of this great mirthful and melancholy man.
He had little schooling. He accompanied his sister Sarah [Footnote:
This daughter of Thomas Lincoln is sometimes called Nancy and
sometimes Sarah. She seems to have borne the former name during her
mother's life-time, and to have taken her stepmother's name after Mr.
Lincoln's second marriage.] to the only schools that existed in their
neighborhood, one kept by Zachariah Riney, another by Caleb Hazel,
where he learned his alphabet and a little more. But of all those
advantages for the cultivation of a young mind and spirit which every
home now offers to its children, the books, toys, ingenious games, and
daily devotion of parental love, he knew absolutely nothing.