When he closed it he was a Whig, heart and soul, and he went on step by step till he became leader of the Republicans." These reminiscences of Dennis Hanks give the clearest and undoubtedly the most accurate glimpse of Lincoln's youth.

He says further, referring to the boy's unusual physical strength: "My, how he would chop! His axe would flash and bite into a sugar-tree or sycamore, and down it would come.

If you heard him fellin' trees in a clearin' you would say there was three men at work, the way the trees fell.

Abe was never sassy or quarrelsome.

I've seen him walk into a crowd of sawin' rowdies and tell some droll yarn and bust them all up.