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Show ? IMMORTALITY ? FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS AGO pSS? I OUR FATHERS BROUGHT FORTH ON I I 1 THIS CONTINENT A NEW NATION CON- I I I CEIVED IN LIBERTY AND DEDICATED I 1 j I TO THE PROPOSITION THAT ALL MEN I ARE CREATED EQUAL. I I NOW WE ARE ENGAGED IN A GREAT 1 1 ! CIVIL WAR TESTING WHETHER -THAT NATION OR ANY--NATION SO CON- I I i CEIVED AND SO DEDICATED "CAN LONG I ENDURE. WE ARE METON A GREAT I i 1 BATTLEFIELD OF THAT WAR. AVE HAVE I 1 COME TO DEDICATE A PORTION OF I I f i THAT FIELD AS A FINAL RESTING PLACE I t I i FOR THOSE' WHO HERE GAVE THEIR I , LIVES THAT THAT NATION-MIGHT LIVE. I IT IS ALTOGETHER FITTING AND PROPER I THAT WE SHOULD- DO THIS. BUT IN A 1 ( LARGER SENSE WE CAN NOT DEDICATE- 1 1 WE CAN NOT CONSECRATE I WE CAN i 1 NOT HALLOW THIS GROUND. THE I I 1 BRAVE MENNJVING AND DEAD WHO I 1 STRUGGLED HERE HAVE CONSECRATED I ; I IT FAR ABOVE OUR POOR POWER TO I 1 ADD-OartJETRACT. THE WORLD WILL I i 1 LITTLE NOTE NOR LONG -REMEMBER I 1 WHAT WE SAY HERE BUT IT CAN NEVER I I I FORGET WHAT THEY DID HEREAIT IS 1 . 1 FOR?US THE LIVING R ATHER TO BETJeDI- I a A i i pi CATED HERE TO THE UNFINISHED WORK I ft ft f) ! I WHICH THEY WHO FOUGHT HERE HAVE I i ; ; THUS FAR SO NOBLY ADVANCED. IT IS I! ! ' I ' ' I RATHER FOR US TO BE HERE DEDICATED I J TO THE GREAT TASK REMAINING BE- ' ' 1 FORE. US -THAT FROM THESE HONORED ' 1 DEAD WE TAKE INCREASED DEVOTION . ! ! I TO THAT CAUSE FOR WHICH THEY GAVE j j I THE LAST FULL MEASURE OF DEVOTION I j -THAT WE HERE HIGHLY RESOLVE THAT I i I , I THESE DEAD SHALL NOT HAVE DIED IN I ! , M I VAIN THAT THIS NATION UNDER GOD I , pit 1 SHALL HAVE A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM I iMM M!;-T "AND THAT GOVERNMENT OF THE Hfmd 4iodo PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE 1 W' tL$P tC SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH, SWM- Rough Trail of Pioneers to History Tom Lincoln was looking for a woman wom-an to travel through life with, for better bet-ter or worse. He visited at the place of Christopher Bush, a hard-working funnel who came from German parents mid had raised a family of sons with muscle. Also there were two daughters with muscle and with shining faces and slip Csiii in W'CM TME E.OV LINCOLN LIVED steady ryes. Tom Lincoln passed m Hannah and gave his tiesi jokes to Sarah I'.ti.-h. P.ut It happened thai Surah tush wanted Daniel Johnson for a husband and he wauled her. Another woman Tom's eves fell on was a hnniotle sometimes called N;mi-, I Links hecause she was a daughler id Lucy I Links, and sometimes called Nancy Sparrow hecause she was an adopted daughler of Thomas and Kli.alu't h Sparrow and lived wilh rhe Sparrow family. Liny Hanks had welcomed her t-hihl Nancy into life in Virginia in 1TSI and had traveled the Wilderness road si Trying what was to her a precious handle through ('umherland gap into Kentucky. Sad With Sorrows. To:n Lincoln had siti this particti lar .Vam-.v Hanks (there- were several oilier Nancy llankes in Hardin conn ly) and noticed she was shrewd and dark and lonesome. . . . Her dark skin, dark hrown hair, keen little grin eyes, outstanding forehead, somewhat accented shin aid cheekbones, body of slender build, weighing about l.'M pounds these funned the outward -'.ape of a woman carrying something strange and cherished along her was ol life. She was sad with sorrows like dark stars in blue mist. . . . The day Cime when Thomas Lin coin signed a bond with his friend, Richard Berry, in the courthouse at Springfield, in Washington county, over near where his brother, Mordecai. was fanning and the bond gave notice: no-tice: "There is a marriage shortly intended in-tended between Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks." It was June 10, 1S06. Two days later, at Richard Berry'3 place, Beechland, a man twenty-eight years old and a woman twenty-three years old came before Rev. Jesse Head, who later gave the county clerk the names of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, as having been "joined together in the holy estate of matrimony matri-mony agreeable to the rules of the Methodist Episcopal church." . . . Carried Off His Bride. The new husband put his June bride on his horse and they rode away on the red clay road along the timber trails to Elizabethtown. Their new home was in a cabin close to the courthouse. court-house. Tom worked at the carpenter's trade, made cabinets, door frames, window win-dow sash and cofiins. A daughter was born and they named her Sarah. . . . The same year saw the Lincolns moved to a place on the Big South fork of Nolin's creek, about two and a half miles from Hodonville. They were trying to farm a little piece of ground and make a home. The house i hey lived in was a cabin of logs cut from the timber near by. due morning in February of thi.-year, thi.-year, lSt'1.). Tom Lincoln came out of his cabin to the road, stopped a neigh bur and asked him to tell "the granny woman," Ann"! l'eggy Walters, that Nancy would need help soon. Lincoln's Birth. (Hi the morning of February 12, a Sunday, the granny woman was there at the cabin. And she and Tom Lincoln Lin-coln and the moaning Nancy Hanks welcomed into a world of battle an! lib od. of whispering dreams and wist fill dust, a new child, a boy. A little hi tor that morning Tom Lin coin threw some extra wood on the tire, and an extra bearskin over lie moihcr. went out of the cabin, and walked iwo miles up the road 10 where the Sparrows, Tom and Kety. lived IViinis Hanks, the nine -j ear-old hoy adapted by the Sparrows-, met Tom a the door. In his slow way of talking he was a slow and quiet man Tom Lincoln told them, "Nancy's got a boy baby.' A half-sheopii-h look was in his eyes as though maybe more babies were no; wantid in Kentucky just then. The boy, Dennis Hanks, took to his feet down tiie road to the Lincoln cabin. There lie saw Nancy Hanks on a bed of poles cleated to a ce uer of the cabin, under a large, warm bearskin. bear-skin. She turned her dark head from looking at the baby to look at Dennis-and Dennis-and threw him a tired, white smile from her mouth and gray eyes. He stood by the bed, has eyes wide open, watching the even, quiet breaths, of this fresh, soft red baby. "What you goin' to name him, Nancy?" the boy asked. "Abraham," was the answer, "after his grandfather." Little Dennis Prediction. Little Dennis rolled up in a bearskin and slept by the fireplace that night. He listened for the crying of the newborn new-born child once in the night and the feet of the father moving on the dirt floor to help the mother and the little one. In the morning he tdok a long look at the baby and said to himself, "Its skin looks just like red cherry pulp squeezed dry, In wrinkles." And Dennis swung the baby back and forth, keeping up a chatter about bow tickled he was to have a new cousin to play with. The baby screwed up the muscles of its face and began crying wilh no let-up. Dennis turned to Betsy Sparrow, handed her the baby and said to her. "Aunt, take him! He'll never come to much." So came the birth of Abraham Lincoln Lin-coln that twelfth day of February in the year ISO!) in silence and pain from a wilderness mother on a bed of corn husks and bearskins with an ifiilii fcw.-..,.,,., j GROOVE OP NANCy "US LINCOLN early laughing child prophecy he would never come to much. And though he was horn in a houe with only one door am! one window, it was written he would come to know many (ioorST-nmny windows; lie would road many riddles and doors and in- : (lows. From "Abraham Lincoln, the l'rairie Years," by Carl Sandburg. j |