Page:Abraham Lincoln, A Story and a Play.djvu/14

 savages while he was busy with his two older sons making a clearing about his home. The youngest son, Thomas, who was afterwards Abraham's father, was playing near them. When their father fell, the older boys ran off to get help, telling Thomas to watch his father's dead body.

As soon as the child was left alone, the Indian, who was hiding near by, saw his chance. Terrible in his war paint, he crept up towards the child and was about to seize him and carry him away, when one of the brothers came hurrying back. Whiz flew a bullet from his rifle! The savage fell dead and the boy was safe.

In this kind of life, so full of danger, the boy Thomas grew up. There was no school where he could learn to read and write. The days were spent out of doors, cutting down the trees of the forest near by, hunting wild animals, and tending the little garden.

When Thomas became a young man he married a girl named Nancy Hanks who had been brought up in better circumstances than he. She had been to school, and though she had always lived in the "backwoods," she had the gentle and beautiful nature of a true lady.