THE REST WAS VILE.

The Lincoln homestead in Indiana, in 1820-23, had at the first the
primitive corn-mill in the Indian fashion--a burnt-out block with a
pounder rigged to a well-sweep. A water-mill being set up ten miles
off, on Anderson's Creek, that was superseded, as improvement marched,
by a horse-power one. To this Lincoln, as a lad of sixteen or seventeen,
would carry the corn in a bag upon an old flea-bitten gray mare. One
day, on unhitching the animal and loading it, and running his arm
through the head-gear loop to lead, he had no sooner struck it and
cried "Get up, you de----," when the beast whirled around, and, lashing
out, kicked him in the forehead so that he fell to the ground insensible.
The miller, Hoffman, ran out and carried the youth indoors, sending for
his father, as he feared the victim would not revive. He did not do
so until hours after having been carried home. When conscious, his
faculties, as psychologically ordained, resumed operations from the
instant of suspension, and he uttered the sequel to his outcry:

"----vil!"

Lincoln's own explanation is thus:

"Just before I struck the mare, my will, through the mind, had set the
muscles of my tongue to utter the expression, and when her heels came
in contact with my head, the whole thing stopped half-cocked, as it
were, and was only fired off when mental energy or force returned."

His friends interpreted the occurrence as a proof of his always