by DL Fowler
Along our journey we encounter ice-laden rivers swelling over their banks. I often jump down from the wagon and drive the oxen by foot, stumbling in knee-deep mud, or I put my shoulder to a wheel and help them along. When the road turns and runs along the Kaskaskia River, I lead the oxen through long stretches that are submerged by flood waters. As the current churns past, I ponder our best course.
Between the thundering stream and my deep concentration, the argument between Mama and Father escapes my attention. At least it eludes me until Father yells, “We ain’t turnin’ back.”
I slog back to the wagon and find Mama crying. “What’s goin’ on?”
Father mumbles. “She wants to turn back.”
Her face is pallid; her eyes beg me for assurance.
“Mama, everything will be fine.”
She nods as she wipes away tears.
I walk forward and lead the oxen ahead. Within a few hundred yards, a portion of the road has been completely cut away, and rapids are raging over our intended path. My fingers ache as I grip on the oxen’s lead and forge into the rising current with its icy spray soaking my shirt and face. The water quickly deepens, reaching the animals’ chests. The wagon starts to drift.
One of the oxen stumbles, and I yank on the lead, drawing it toward the near bank in hopes of guiding it to more secure footing. The other ox falters, as well. I grab onto the yoke and pull with all my might. Once the wagon’s back on solid ground, I drop to my knees and pant from exhaustion. Mud and sweat drip from my forehead, and my shirt clings to my aching shoulders and back. I catch my breath and stumble back to the water’s edge to splash myself with clean, chilly water.
A few miles later we come to a less treacherous spot where the road crosses the river. After making it to the other side without incident, my dog starts yelping from the opposite bank. He must have jumped out when we stopped to survey the best route for our crossing. As I turn back and wade into the frigid water, Father berates me. I pay him no mind and trudge across the current to retrieve the poor mutt. As I carry him to the wagon, my wayward pet licks my face.
Two weeks after our departure, our trek ends near Decatur, Illinois at the homestead of Mother’s cousin John Hanks, a round-faced affable fellow, seven years my senior. He preceded Dennis in moving here from Indiana about four years ago, convinced that opportunities are greater here than in Indiana. After a hearty meal and good night’s rest, John guides us to the homestead he’s staked out for Father. In the ensuing months, he also helps us raise a cabin. As I’m now expert with an axe and have a keen eye, I’m the one notching up the ends of the logs and making sure the corners fit snugly.
We finish the cabin and clear the fields in time for a late spring planting, but the crop will be sparse and Father isn’t well. I look for paying work to support him and Mama and turn over my wages even though it is no longer a burden of the law. It’s a gamble I take, hoping Father will finally make a go of it once the coming winter has passed and he has a good harvest next autumn.
Although jobs are not plentiful, I earn enough to keep us from starving by hiring onto crews for splitting rails, clearing land, and building cabins for other new settlers. Most of the work is several miles away, adding to my already long work days. On occasion, an employer provides meals and lodging on top of a meager wage. One kind woman sews me a new set of clothes on noticing my only pair of pants is worn through in both knees, and my one shirt is torn and threadbare.
When I board away from home I’m not weighed down by Father’s oppression, which I should have thrown off by now. I’m also cheered whenever there’s an audience to hear my jokes and stories. I’ve become proficient at telling them—like one Uncle Mordecai taught me. He was the one who saved Father’s life when the Indians scalped Grandfather Abraham.
A country meeting-house, that was used once a month, was quite a distance from any other house.
The preacher, an old-line Baptist, was dressed in coarse linen pantaloons and a shirt of the same material. The pants were the old fashion type with baggy legs and a flap in the front. They were held to his slight frame without the aid of suspenders.
A single button at the collar kept the shirt from falling off his narrow shoulders. On one particular occasion, he rose up in the pulpit and with a loud squeaky voice announced his text thus: “I am the Christ whom I shall represent today.”
About this time a little blue lizard ran up his roomy pantaloons. The old preacher, not wishing to interrupt the steady flow of his sermon, slapped away on his leg, expecting to arrest the intruder. Unfortunately, his efforts were unavailing, and the little fellow kept ascending higher and higher.
Continuing the sermon, the preacher loosened the central button on the waistband of his pantaloons, and with a kick, off came the easy-fitting garment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Lizard had passed the equatorial line of the waistband, moving northward, and was calmly exploring the part of the preacher's anatomy that was covered by the back of his shirt.
Things were now growing interesting, though the sermon was merely grinding on. The preacher’s next move was to undo the collar button, and with one sweep of his arm, off came the tow linen shirt.
The congregation sat for an instant as if dazed; all the while the preacher kept sermonizing. At length, one old lady in the back of the room rose up, and, staring at the excited preacher, shouted: “If you represent Christ, then I'm done with the Bible.”
During the summer election canvass, a few political candidates make the rounds of the newly plowed prairie farms. Among them is a Methodist circuit preacher by the name of Cartwright who aims at becoming a state legislator. When he stops at the farm where I’m working, his voice booms out a speech that’s too dogmatic for my liking. I look him over; he’s a square-jawed, weather-faced man dressed in the finery of a bishop. He surveys me, as well, thinking I’m an ignorant farmer with whom he can have some fun. When he engages me in debate, I best him on every point of argument. After we finish, he asks how I’ve come to be so articulate and well informed.
Days later, another candidate named Posey draws a crowd near John Hanks’ place where I’m helping split firewood. Hanks and I drop our axes and wander over to see what the man has to say. Posey’s speech is poorly given and shallow in content. John turns over a crate and says to me, “You can do better than him.”
I scratch my head. “If folks promise not to laugh.”
Urged on by several bystanders, I step up on the crate and make a strong case for navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. Their applause is so raucous I fear for Mr. Posey’s embarrassment. He’s not the least bit chagrined, however, and encourages me to persevere in my studies and to practice my oratory. He says I could make a bright future for myself and anyone who cast his lot with me.
On my hike back to Father’s that evening, I consider Mr. Posey’s assessment. How different his vision is from my reality—an impoverished young man encumbered by the obligation to care for aging parents. The day of my emancipation cannot come soon enough.
As summer progresses, my dream becomes even more distant. An attack of malaria spoils Father’s effort to open up more land for farming, and his hunting suffers as well. Every time he seems to recover, he falls back into fever, chills, and melancholy. Mama is afflicted as well, but her condition is not as grave as Mother’s was when she died of the milk-sick. Just the same, I’m gripped by fear over the prospect of losing another angel I love so dearly. My burden is lightened by Mama’s daughter Elizabeth, who has a brood of her own. Although she suffers from fever, too, she attends to our parents until I’m home from a full day’s work to nurse them through the night.
By November, their misery is so complete that Father vows to “git outta thar” as soon as both are well. His plans are ruined, however, as early winter storms set in before their health returns. While unexpected snows drive out the disease-ridden mosquitoes, our food stores are fast depleted. A sparse harvest and my meager wages
have not been sufficient for us to store enough food to make it through until spring.
My chest tightens as I join Mama’s son, John, to hunt for game. My boyhood vow to never again shoot anything as large as a turkey must be broken. Father’s flintlock resists me like an anchor when I pick it up and rest it on my shoulder. My stomach knots up like it did the day Mr. Taylor put me to work slaughtering hogs.
After a bit, John and I split up so we can cover more ground. Not much later, I come across a deer at the edge of a small brook, trapped in thin ice. On seeing me, the critter thrashes all the harder, hastening to extricate itself. Its struggle is to no avail. At last, it drops its head and pants from exhaustion.
I tell myself, “These animals aren’t faring any better than the rest of us.”
Tears cloud my vision as the rifle stock comes to rest in the fold of my shoulder. I nearly choke on the lump in my throat and then hold my breath for what seems like an eternity.
The gun’s report rattles my jaw. My eyes slam shut, and my head throbs as if I were the one shot. I have no memory of squeezing the trigger, but when my eyes open, my treachery is evident. The deer lies still in the water, the current lapping at the ridge of its back. Blood-stained shards of ice float downstream.
From behind me, twigs snap under John’s weight as he makes his way down to the creek. He pauses at the bank and surveys our prey. Still looking down on the critter he says, “Was worried the spring thaw would get here before you mustered the nerve to shoot.”
After hauling the deer home and dressing it, I beg at a neighbor’s for grain. Running low himself, he points me to the bins where he keeps his store of corn. With my near-frozen hands, I sweep up loose kernels at the base of the tubs and scoop out no more than what we need to survive a few more days. My head hung low, I brace against howling wind and hike for miles toward the nearest mill, pushing through biting cold and deep snow. After passing a farmer who’s for digging in snow drifts, scavenging for frozen ears of corn, I reflect on his advantage over me. At least he has his own corn and not scraps gleaned from a neighbor’s harvest.
As the snows begin to melt in the early part of 1831, Father and Mama start back to Indiana, abandoning the farm to creditors. Dennis and his brood, along with my step-brother, John Johnston, remain in Decatur. Mama wraps all my earthly belongings in a blanket, ties the ends together to make a bundle, and runs a long stick through the knot. With the sum total of my wealth slung over my shoulder, I kiss her goodbye and leave my Father’s house for the last time.
John Hanks takes me in, and we cast our lot together cutting and selling cords of wood as well as splitting rails for fences. When we collect our pay, I tuck mine in my shirt and grin from ear to ear. For the first time my wages are truly my own.
Several days later, Hanks tells me about a man named Denton Offut who does business up and down the Sangamon River. Mr. Offut has asked him to run a flatboat loaded with merchandise down to New Orleans. Hanks tells me he’s been pondering the idea and intends to give an answer straight away. The only hitch is he’ll agree to take the job only if I join him. I push aside memories of New Orleans slave markets and contemplate the adventure to be had floating down the Mississippi.
I consider Hanks’ invitation for a couple of days before accepting it, and on condition that we recruit my step-brother, John, to accompany us. Hanks agrees and says Mr. Offut intends on having his boat ready in early March. We’ll each be paid fifty cents per day plus sixty dollars.
Hanks and I continue hiring out our arms and axes until one morning he says, “Time to go and see if the boat’s ready.” We say good-bye to his family and head over to the Sangamon where we procure a canoe and paddle downriver to a landing five miles from Springfield. It doesn’t take long to find a buyer to take the canoe off our hands before we walk the remaining distance into town to meet up with John.
Mr. Offut is not easy to find, but we eventually locate him entertaining associates at the Buckhorn Inn. In stature and frame, he reminds me of Father, but unlike Father, he gives the initial impression he’ll do whatever work it takes to achieve his dreams. On closer inspection, however, his glazed eyes and rosy cheeks suggest he’s a drunken likeness of Father. His condition brings to mind the humiliation I suffered in Little Pigeon Creek over drinking too much apple-jack. I fell face down in a creek and would have drowned if I’d not been discovered by pretty Lizzy Tuley. I fancied her at the time, but her father wouldn’t allow her to see me anymore. I pled for forgiveness, pointing out it was my only moral lapse, but Mr. Tuley was resolute, and Lizzy obediently ended our friendship. The thought haunts me still—if I’d been one of the handsome boys in town, her father might have overlooked my transgression.
Offut’s words are all a slur as he makes excuses for failing to have our boat ready over by where Spring Creek joins the Sangamon. Hanks, who’s an experienced riverman, turns to me and says, “Lincoln, here, once helped build a flatboat out by Pigeon Creek. Took it all the way down to New Orleans. Ain’t that so, Abe."
“After a fashion.”
He looks at Offut. “It’ll cost ya for our labor, but we can build ya a boat.”
Offut belches, wobbles, and says, “How does twelve dollars a month suit you fellows?”
Hanks extends his hand. “We’ll build your boat.”
Offut grabs Hanks’ hand and jerks it up and down. “You’ve got a deal.”
I rub the back of my neck, “Any place near the river to cut timber?”
“Sure,” Offut says, pulling back his shoulders. “There’s some federal land northwest of here, by Sangamo Town. Kirkpatrick’s mill is close by. When it’s finished, you can float it down the Sangamon to the Illinois.”
Down at the so-called Congress land, we slap together a shanty to sleep in and begin cutting timbers. I’m elected camp cook. Before I was big enough to swing an axe, I used to sit in our cabin and watch Mother make soups, bread, and other vittles, but I scarcely remember how she went about it. Hopefully, my cooking doesn’t kill the lot of us. I reckon they could also die from my smutty stories and jokes, but they seem to like them. One of their favorites is another one I learned from Uncle Mordecai:
There’s Busey. He pretends to be a great heart smasher. Claims he does wonderful things with the girls. I'll venture he’s never entered into anyone’s flesh but once, and that’s when he fell down and stuck his finger into his own.
The boat is bigger than the one Allen Gentry and I cobbled together three years ago. For this one, we cut down two of the tallest trees in the area and mill them into beams for the eighty foot gunwales. We use the trim pieces plus other milled lumber for floorboards, sideboards, decking, and roof planks.
Smaller trees measuring about eighteen feet are used for girders that run across between the gunwales. Once the girders are attached, we fasten the floorboards then haul the boat down to the river and turn it over. Next, we lay the deck planks and add studs to the ends of the girders to create the framing for our sidewalls. Longer studs are attached at the ends of the girders at the vessel’s midsection so we can add a roof. The area under the roof is partitioned to separate the sleeping quarters from the section where we keep livestock and perishable cargo.
After four weeks, the boat is ready for launch. Offut is nearly delirious when he brings a supply of libations from the Buckhorn Inn to help us celebrate upstairs in the home of one of his friends. The evening’s entertainment is provided by a traveling juggler who is also a magician. To his chagrin, however, we get distracted by political banter. Our spirits are so high we find Jackson men and Whigs agreeing on a few things, a feat of magic in itself. Any other time or place, each side would swear the other does the devil’s bidding.
To commandeer our attention, the juggler asks for a hat in which he says he’ll cook some eggs. John offers mine—a humble, low-crowned, broad-brimmed affair—which I hesitate to hand over. The others complain loudly that I’m being haughty.
I hold the hat clo
se to my chest. “I’m not protecting my hat; it’s out of deference to the eggs that I object.”
After much cajoling, I give up the hat, and sure enough, out of it he pulls two cooked eggs. His trick yields plenty of laughter.
As the evening continues, I take a seat in the back of the room, drawing my knees up to my chest in as compact a form as I can manage, and watch the revelry.
The following day we load the boat with hogs, corn, bacon, and barrels of cured pork, as well as other merchandise. Then we use one of our two twenty-foot poles to push off from shore. The poles can be converted to oars by pegging flat boards onto the ends. Forked branches anchored on either side of the roof serve as oarlocks. Another longer pole set up in a similar way serves as a rudder for steering from the roof. It’s Hanks’ idea to build sails out of leftover lumber and some cloth. His sails don’t provide much propulsion, but do give spectators a source of amusement.
Offut is on board with us, since he intends to conduct business at towns along the Sangamon. His first stop is the fledgling village of New Salem about ten miles downriver from our launch site. As we approach shore at the small bluff-top settlement, a submerged wooden mill dam catches us hard. We all tumble to the deck.
I turn and look aft. My breath catches as water covers our stern. All the cargo has shifted back and pushed the rear of the boat down, leaving our bow pointing skyward. The boat begins to rock as we teeter on the dam.
Offut and Hanks begin arguing over who’s at fault. “Stop,” I shout. With everyone staring at me I begin giving orders. “Unload everything that’s weighing down the stern.”
Hanks stuffs his hands in his pockets and asks, “How do you propose we do that?”
