of the neighborhood, was let out by his father for six dollars a month
and board to a James Taylor, ferryman of Anderson's Creek and the Ohio
River. He was also expected to do the farmwork and other jobs, as well
as the chores in and about the house. This included tending to the
baby--the good wives uniting to pronounce Abe the best of helps as
"so handy," as Mrs. Toodles would say.

He had attained his fixed height, exactly six feet three inches. (This
is his own record.) He really did, with his unusual strength, more
than any man's stint, and failing to gain full man's wages, whether it
was his father or he handled it, he felt the injustice, which soured
him on that point. He enraged his employer's son by sitting up late to
read, so that the young man struck him to silence. But the young giant
refused from retaliating in kind, whether from natural magnanimity
belonging to giants, or from respect for the "young master," or from
self-acknowledgment that he was in the wrong. He learned the craft of
river boatman in this engagement. One day, on being asked to kill a
hog, he replied like the Irishman with the violin, "that he had never
done it, but he would try."

"If you will risk the hog," he said, "I will risk myself!"

Becoming hog-slaughterer added this branch occupation to the many of
"the man of all work." Taylor sub-let him out in this capacity for
thirty cents a day, saying:

"Abe will do any one thing about as well as another."


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