Offut hired them at twelve dollars a month, gave them permission to go onto Government timber-land and get out gunwales for the flatboat, while the rest of the needed lumber could come from Kirkpatrick’s sawmill, charged to Offut. They slung together a camp outfit and started building, with Lincoln calling himself “chief cook and bottle-washer.” A sleight-of-hand performer came along and giving his show asked for an empty hat to take eggs out of. Lincoln offered his hat in a hesitating way, saying he hesitated not so much out of respect for the hat as for the eggs.
Two men whose canoe turned over and got away from them were shivering in a tree on a raw April day with the freshet-flooded Sangamo River under them. Lincoln got out across the rampaging waters to the tree, on a log with a rope tied to it; the men in the tree straddled the log and were pulled on shore. People began talking about Lincoln’s cool wit.
Thirty days saw the flatboat finished, loaded, and on her way, with Lincoln on deck in blue homespun jeans, jacket, vest, rawhide boots with pantaloons stuffed in, and a felt hat once black but now, as the owner said, “sunburned till it was a combine of colors.” On April 19, rounding the curve of the Sangamo at the village of New Salem, the boat stuck on the Cameron mill-dam, and hung with one third of her slanted downward over the edge of the dam and filling slowly with water, while the cargo of pork-barrels was sliding slowly so as to overweight one end.
She hung there a day while all the people of New Salem came down to look at the river disaster, which Lincoln fixed by unloading the pork barrels into another boat, boring a hole in the end of the flatboat as it hung over the dam, letting the water out, dropping the boat over the dam and reloading. As she headed toward the Mississippi watercourse, New Salem talked about the cool head and ready wit of the long-shanked young man with his pantaloons stuffed in his rawhide boots.
Again Lincoln floated down the Mississippi River, four to six miles an hour, meeting strings of other flatboats, keel-boats, arks, sleds, proud white steamboats flying flags. Stepping off their flatboat at New Orleans, Lincoln and Hanks went nearly a mile, walking on flatboats, to reach shore. Stacks of pork and flour from the West, and piles of cotton bales from the South, stood on the wharves. Some shippers, about one in six, were cursing their luck; on the long haul from north of the Ohio River their pork and flour had spoiled; all they got for their trip was the view of the Mississippi River scenery. In New Orleans, Lincoln saw advertisements of traders offering to “pay the highest prices in cash for good and likely Negroes” or to “attend to the sale and purchase of Negroes on commission.” A firm advertised: “We have now on hand, and intend to keep throughout the entire year, a large and well-selected stock of Negroes, consisting of field hands, house servants, mechanics, cooks, seamstresses, washers, ironers, etc., which we can sell and will sell as low or lower than any other house here or in New Orleans; persons wishing to purchase would do well to call on us before making purchases elsewhere, as our fresh and regular arrivals will keep us supplied with a good and general assortment; our terms are liberal; give us a call.”
One trader gave notice: “I will at all times pay the highest cash prices for Negroes of every description, and will also attend to the sale of Negroes on commission, having a jail and yard fitted up expressly for boarding them.” Another announced: “The undersigned would respectfully state to the public that he has forty-five Negroes now on hand, having this day received a lot of twenty-five direct from Virginia, two or three good cooks, a carriage driver, a good house boy, a fiddler, a fine seamstress, and a likely lot of field men and women; all of whom he will sell at a small profit; he wishes to close out and go on to Virginia after a lot for the fall trade.” There were sellers advertising, “For sale—several likely girls from 10 to 18 years old, a woman 24, a very valuable woman 25, with three very likely children,” while buyers indicated wants after the manner of one advertising, “Wanted—I want to purchase twenty-five likely Negroes, between the ages of 18 and 25 years, male and female, for which I will pay the highest prices in cash.”
An Alabama planter advertised, “Runaway—Alfred, a bright mulatto boy, working on plantation; about 18 years old, pretty well grown, has blue eyes, light flaxen hair, skin disposed to freckles; he will try to pass as free-born.” Another Alabama planter gave notice: “One hundred dollars reward for return of a bright mulatto man slave, named Sam; light sandy hair, blue eyes, ruddy complexion, is so white as very easily to pass for a free white man.”
Lincoln saw one auction in New Orleans where an octoroon girl was sold, after being pinched, trotted up and down, and handled so the buyer could be satisfied she was sound of wind and limb. After a month’s stay he worked his passage, firing a steamboat furnace, up the Mississippi River, stayed a few weeks on his father’s farm in Coles County, Illinois, and then spoke the long good-by to home and the family roof.
Saying good-by to his father was easy, but it was not so easy to hug the mother, Sally Bush, and put his long arms around her, and lay his cheeks next to hers and say he was going out into the big world to make a place for himself.
The father laughed his good-by, and not so long after told a visitor: “I’s’pose Abe is still fooling hisself with eddication. I tried to stop it, but he has got that fool idea in his head, and it can’t be got out. Now I hain’t got no eddication, but I get along far better’n ef I had. Take bookkeepin’—why, I’m the best bookkeeper in the world! Look up at that rafter thar. Thar’s three straight lines made with a firebrand: ef I sell a peck of meal I draw a black line across, and when they pay, I take a dishcloth and jest rub it out; and that thar’s a heap better’n yer eddication.” And the visitor who heard this told friends that Thomas Lincoln was “one of the shrewdest ignorant men” he had ever seen.
With his few belongings wrapped in a handkerchief bundle tied to a stick over his shoulder, Abraham was on his way to New Salem.
Index of Titles for Stories and Poems
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
A
Again?, 175
Alice Corbin Is Gone, 221
Arithmetic, 225
Auctioneer, 220
B
Baby Face, 180
Baby Song of the Four Winds, 259
Baby Toes, 178
Basket, 233
Bee Song, 215
Be Ready, 218
Between Two Hills, 248
Bitter Summer Thoughts, 187
Blossom Themes, 249
Bluebird, What Do You Feed On?, 213
Blue Silver, 159
Boxes and Bags, 226
Broken Sky, 260
Brown Gold, 240
Bubbles, 215
Buffalo Bill, 224
Buffalo Dusk, 176
Bug Spots, 196
C
Cheap Blue, 237
Chicago Poet, 192
Child Margaret, 229
Child Moon, 177
Children of the Desert, 223
Children of the Wind, 256
Circles, 233
Cornfield Ridge and Stream, 244
Cornhuskers, 241
Crabapples, 254
Cricket March, 199
Crisscross, 252
D
Dan, 173
Daybreak, 214
Docks, 257
Dollar Watch and the Five Jackrabbits, The, 57
Doors, 230
Do You Want Affidavits?, 207
Drowsy, 248
E
Early Moon, 204
Evening Waterfall, 200
Even Numbers, 174
F
Family of Man, The, Prologue to, 230
Fish Crier, 189
Five Cent Balloons, 178
Flowers Tell Months, 251
Flux, 258
Fog, 186
Fourth of July Night, 216
Frog Songs, 239
From the Shore, 257
G
Goldwing Moth, 23
2
Good Morning, America, 258
Good Night, 201
Grassroots, 250
H
Happiness, 206
Harvest Sunset, 242
Hats, 233
Haystack Cricket and How Things Are Different Up in the Moon Towns, The, 139
Haystacks, 242
Haze Gold, 254
Helga, 179
Hits and Runs, 234
Home, 232
How a Skyscraper and a Railroad Train Got Picked Up and Carried Away from Pig’s Eye Valley Far in the Pickax Mountains, 152
How Bimbo the Snip’s Thumb Stuck to His Nose When the Wind Changed, 51
How Bozo the Button Buster Busted All His Buttons When a Mouse Came, 110
How Deep Red Roses Goes Back and Forth Between the Clock and the Looking Glass, 121
How Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where the Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion, 127
How Gimme the Ax Found Out About the Zigzag Railroad and Who Made It Zigzag, 31
How Googler and Gaggler, the Two Christmas Babies, Came Home with Monkey Wrenches, 113
How Henry Hagglyhoagly Played the Guitar with His Mittens On, 69
How Hot Balloons and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the Rootabaga Country, 131
How Johnny the Wham Sleeps in Money All the Time and Joe the Wimp Shines and Sees Things, 117
How Pink Peony Sent Spuds, the Ballplayer, Up to Pick Four Moons, 124
How Ragbag Mammy Kept Her Secret While the Wind Blew Away the Village of Hatpins, 100
How Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many Accidents and Six Telegrams, 103
How Six Umbrellas Took Off Their Straw Hats to Show Respect to the One Big Umbrella, 107
How the Animals Lost Their Tails and Got Them Back Traveling from Philadelphia to Medicine Hat, 81
How the Five Rusty Rats Helped Find a New Village, 19
How the Hat Ashes Shovel Helped Snoo Foo, 45
How the Potato Face Blind Man Enjoyed Himself on a Fine Spring Morning, 25
How the Three Wild Babylonian Baboons Went Away in the Rain Eating Bread and Butter, 106
How They Bring Back the Village of Cream Puffs When the Wind Blows It Away, 17
How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country, 11
How to Tell Corn Fairies If You See ’Em, 78
How Two Sweetheart Dippies Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumberyard Fence and Heard About the Sooners and the Boomers, 134
Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Popcorn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back, The, 145
I
I Am Chicago, 182
Illinois Farmer, 191
Improved Farm Land, 238
J
Jazz Fantasia, 190
Just Before April Came, 198
K
Kiss Me, 158
L
Landscape, 250
Laughing Child, 227
Laughing Corn, 195
Limited Crossing Wisconsin, 243
Lines Written for Gene Kelly to Dance to, 221
Little Girl, Be Careful What You Say, 223
Little Sketch, 251
Lost, 184
Lumber Yard Pools at Sunset, 202
M
Manual System, 192
Many, Many Weddings in One Corner House, 95
Margaret, 227
Maroon with Silver Frost, 198
Milk-White Moon, Put the Cows to Sleep, 201
Mother and Child, 237
My People, 233
Mysterious Biography, 189
N
Names, 230
Never Kick a Slipper at the Moon, 71
Never Two Songs the Same, 214
New Farm Tractor, 172
New Hampshire Again, 235
Niagara, 236
Night, 244
Nightsong, 217
Night Too Has Numbers, 246
Nocturn Cabbage, 202
Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard, 247
O
Old Deep Sing-Song, 215
On a Railroad Right of Way, 253
P
Paper I, 229
Paper II, 230
Pearl Cobwebs, 196
People of the Eaves, I Wish You Good Morning, 197
People Who Must, 171
People, Yes, The, 223, 231, 233, 236, 237, 242, 246, 256
Phizzog, 175
Pig Wisps, 155
Plowboy, 238
Plunger, 176
Pods, 248
Poems Done on a Late Night Car, 232
Poker Face the Baboon and Hot Dog the Tiger, 27
Portrait of a Child Settling Down for an Afternoon Nap, 217
Potato Face Blind Man Who Lost the Diamond Rabbit on His Gold Accordion, The, 23
Potomac Town in February, 171
Prairie, 240, 241, 242, 243
Prairie Barn, 242
Prairie Waters by Night, 245
Prayers of Steel, 206
Primer Lesson, 181
Proverbs, 231
Psalm of Those Who Go Forth Before Daylight, 193
R
Rat Riddles, 198
Ripe Corn, 241
River Moons, 246
River Roads, 253
Rolling Clouds, 259
S
Sand Flat Shadows, 73
Sandpipers, 186
Sand Scribblings, 184
Santa Fe Sketch, 260
Sea Slant, 185
Sea-Wash, 187
Sea Wisdom, 216
Sheep, 249
She Opens the Barn Door Every Morning, 239
Shush Shush, the Big Buff Banty Hen Who Laid an Egg in the Postmaster’s Hat, 97
Silver Point, 260
Sixteen Months, 227
Sketch, 185
Sky Pieces, 172
Sky Prayers, 258
Skyscraper to the Moon and How the Green Rat with the Rheumatism Ran a Thousand Miles Twice, The, 91
Sky Talk, 259
Sleep Impression, 247
Sleep Song, 220
Sleepyheads, 203
Slipfoot and How He Nearly Always Never Gets What He Goes After, 93
Slippery, 179
Slow Program, 174
Small Homes, 200
Smoke and Steel, 196
Smoke Rose Gold, 204
Songs, 243
So to Speak, 232
Soup, 193
Splinter, 199
Spring Grass, 197
Stars, 218
Story of Blixie Bimber and the Power of the Gold Buckskin Whincher, The, 33
Story of Jason Squiff and Why He Had a Popcorn Hat, Popcorn Mittens, and Popcorn Shoes, The, 36
Story of Rags Habakuk, the Two Blue Rats, and the Circus Man Who Came with Spot Cash Money, The, 39
Street Window, 191
Summer Grass, 252
Summer Morning, 240
Summer Stars, 202
Sunsets, 205
Sweeping Wendy: Study in Fugue, 229
T
Theme in Yellow, 179
Three Boys with Jugs of Molasses and Secret Ambitions, 46
Three Spring Notations on Bipeds, 227
Timber Moon, 246
To Beachey, 1912, 190
Toboggan-to-the-Moon Dream of the Potato Face Blind Man, The, 29
Trinity Place, 207
Two Skyscrapers Who Decided to Have a Child, The, 55
U
Under a Hat Rim, 234
Upstairs, 177
V
Valley Song, 205
W
Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It, The, 43
Weeds, 191
We Must Be Polite, 225
What Six Girls with Balloons Told the Gray Man on Horseback, 65
White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy, The, 63
Why the Big Ballgame Between Hot Grounders and the Grand Standers Was a Hot Game, 142
/> Wind Horses, 184
Window, 248
Winds of the Windy City, 255
Wind Song, 260
Windy City, The, 182, 244, 255
Winter Gold, 254
Winter Milk, 177
Winter Weather, 188
Wooden Indian and the Shaghorn Buffalo, The, 60
Y
Yang Yang and Hoo Hoo, or the Song of the Left Foot of the Shadow of the Goose in Oklahoma, 149
Young Sea, 181
About the Author
CARL SANDBURG (1878–1967) was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, first in 1940 for his biography of Abraham Lincoln and again in 1951 for Complete Poems. Before becoming known as a poet, he worked as a milkman, an ice harvester, a dishwasher, a salesman, a fireman, and a journalist. Among his classics are the Rootabaga Stories, which he wrote for his young daughters at the beginning of his long and distinguished literary career.
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Footnotes
** These words are from the Eleanor Atkinson interview with Dennis Hanks. Throughout this work conversational utterances are based word for word on sources deemed authentic.—The Author.
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The Sandburg Treasury Page 49