Lincoln Story Book, The

<h3>MAKING THE WOOL, NOT FEATHERS, FLY.</h3> <p>The "export trade" of the Indiana farmers was with New Orleans, the goods being carried on flatboats. The traffic called for a larger number of resolute, hardy, and honest men, as, besides the vicissitudes of fickle navigation, was the peril from thieves. Abraham early made acquaintance with this course as he accompanied his father in such a venture down the great river. Then passed apprenticeship, he built a boat for Gentry--merchant of Gentryville--and "sailed" it, with the storekeeper's son Allen as bow-hand or first officer. He and his crew of one started from the Ohio River landing and safely reached the Crescent City--safely as to cargo and bodies, but not without a narrow escape. At Baton Rouge, a little ahead of the haven, the boat was tied up at a plantation, and the two were asleep, when they became objects of an attack from a river pest--a band of refugee negroes and similar lawless rogues.</p> <p>Luckily their approach was heard and the two awoke. Having been warned that the desperadoes would not stand on trifles, the young men armed themselves with clubs and leaped ashore, after driving the pirates off the deck. They pursued them, too, with such an uproar that their number was multiplied in the runaways' mind. Both returned wounded--Abraham retaining a mark over the right eye, noticeable in after life, and not to his facial improvement. They immediately unhitched the boat and stood out in the channel.</p> <p>"I wish we had carried weapons," sighed Lincoln. "Going to war without shooting-irons is not what the Quakers hold it to be."</p> <p>"If we had been armed," returned Allen, as regretfully, "we would have made the feathers fly!"</p> <p>It had not been too dark for the shade of the enemy to be perceived, so his skipper gave one of his earnest laughs, and replied:</p> <p>"You mean <i>wool</i>, I reckon!" <br/> <br/> <br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />