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’Tis evidently so.

The woman she was taken

From under Adam’s arm,

So she must be protected

From injuries and harm.

Yet that dry volume of “The Revised Statutes of Indiana,” through which the woodchopper worked so bravely, contained the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States and the Ordinance of 1787, and he bound them on his heart like a seal and wore them till the hour of his cruel death.

As time went on Lincoln developed into a popular story-teller and oracle at Jones’ grocery store in the nearby village of Gentryville. His oratory grew at the expense of his farm-work. He went to all the trials in the local courts, and trudged fifteen miles to Booneville for the sake of hearing a lawsuit tried. Between times he wrote an essay on the American Government and another on temperance. He made speeches, he gossiped, he argued public questions, he cracked jokes, he made everybody his friend—sometimes he worked. Already he was an American politician, although he did not know it.