Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/70

40 ended the explanation with the conclusive rejoinder, "Abe, you're a fool."

At the age of seventeen, he was six and a third feet high, his feet and hands were unusually large, and his legs and arms disproportionately long; his head was small and phrenologically defective; his body very diminutive for one of his height. His walk was awkward; his gestures still more so; his skin was of a dirty yellowish brown, and shrivelled and baggy, even at that age. He was attired in buckskin pants which failed to conceal his blue shinbones; his shirt was of a fabric known to pioneer, and to no other life, as linsey-woolsey; and in winter he was clad in what is known as a warmus; and finally, a coonskin cap, home-made, and moccasins, also home-made, protected and decorated respectively his upper and nether extremities. He was bizarre-looking, even in that primitive community. Abraham Lincoln, whether as boy or man, was not enamoured of steady, hard work; he preferred a variety of tasks, chiefly mental labor. He was by no means lazy, but was fond of frequent change. Accordingly, throughout his youthful career, he is seen to select such engagements and avocations as allowed him to interweave variety with industry and mental labor or recreation with muscular labor. "Going to mill" was a favorite avocation with him, as it had been with Henry Clay, "the Mill-boy of the Slashes." Abe rode seven miles to a treadmill, into which, on his arrival, he put his horse to furnish the power for grinding. On one of these occasions young Abe's horse kicked him, so that he was unconscious for quite a while. On recovering his senses, he completed a sentence that he was in