When he was ten years old, the saintly mother faded like a flower amid these hardships of pioneer life, died of consumption, and was buried in a plain box under the trees near the cabin. The blow for the girl, who also died at fifteen, was hard; but for the boy the loss was irreparable. Day after day he sat on the grave and wept. A sad, far-away look crept into his eyes, which those who saw him in the perils of his later life well remember.
Nine months after this, Abraham wrote a letter to Parson Elkins, a good minister whom they used to know in Kentucky, asking him to come and preach a funeral sermon on his mother. He came, riding on horseback over one hundred miles; and one bright Sabbath morning, when the neighbors from the whole country around had gathered, some in carts and some on horseback, he spoke, over the open grave, of the precious, Christian life of her who slept beneath. She died early, but not till she had laid well the foundation-stones in one of the grandest characters in history.
The boy, communing with himself, longed to read and know something beyond the stumps between which he planted his corn. He borrowed a copy of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and read and re-read it till he could repeat much of it. Then some one loaned him "Æsop's Fables" and "Robinson Crusoe," and these he pored over with eager delight. There surely was a great world beyond Kentucky and Indiana, and perhaps he would some day see it.
After a time Thomas Lincoln married a widow, an old friend of Nancy Hanks, and she came to the cabin, bringing her three children; besides, she brought what to Abraham and Sarah seemed unheard-of elegance,--a bureau, some chairs, a table, and bedding. Abraham had heretofore climbed to the loft of the cabin on pegs, and had slept on a sack filled with corn-husks: now a real bed would seem indeed luxurious.
The children were glad to welcome the new mother to the desolate home; and a good, true mother she became to the orphans. She put new energy into her somewhat easy-going husband, and made the cabin comfortable, even attractive. What was better still, she encouraged Abraham to read more and more, to be thorough, and to be somebody. Besides, she gave his great heart something to love, and well she repaid the affection.