Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/84

54 "quiltin or "corn-schuckin'," or "house-raisin on a week-day, an ill-disposed person might have ransacked the whole neighborhood without let or hindrance. That this never occurred indicates that this neighborhood was a rentable Arcadia.

While there was no especial spirit of caste, there was, nevertheless, a spirit of criticism and disparagement; and the social gamut had both a bass and treble clef, upon which the merits of all were hung. The conventional standing of Abraham Lincoln was not a product of the family tree. His father's extreme poverty and inability to extricate himself therefrom, prevented any social standing, but Abe, by his own individual merit, achieved a place for himself and sister, and likewise for his foster-brother and sisters, in the social life of the neighborhood.

Still another mental idiosyncrasy of that primitive community was its proneness to all varieties of superstition; no explanation can be vouch-safed why this habit and peculiarity was more rife here than elsewhere under like conditions, but so it was.

They performed various matters according to the phases of the moon; planted esculents by the dark of this luminary, and products of the vine by its light. They dug for water by the guidance of the hazel fork in the hands of the water-witch, and had a general belief in witchcraft. They had faith in the healing virtues of the madstone. They believed in dreams, signs, and omens, and were terrified at the chirping of the "death watch." They would commence no journey or undertaking on Friday. They were deceived by charlatans who plied the healing art