Abraham Lincoln's forefathers
        were pioneers
          --men who left their homes
              to open up the wilderness
                  and make the way plain
                       for others
                  to follow them.

    For one hundred
           and seventy years,
         ever since
               the first American Lincoln
            came from England to Massachusetts
                   in 1638,
      they had been moving
           slowly westward
               as new settlements
            were made in the forest.

    They faced solitude,
           privation,
         and all the dangers
               and hardships
             that beset men
               who take up their homes
             where only beasts
                   and wild men
                  have had
                 homes before;
        but they continued
               to press steadily forward,
           though they lost
               fortune and sometimes
             even life itself,
         in their westward progress.

    Back in Pennsylvania
           and New Jersey
               some of the Lincolns
        had been men
               of wealth and influence.

    In Kentucky,
           where the future President
            was born on February 12,
         1809,
           his parents
           lived in deep poverty
                   Their home
            was a small log cabin
                   of the rudest kind,
         and nothing
            seemed more unlikely than
             that their child,
           coming into the world
               in such humble surroundings,
         was destined
              to be the greatest man
                   of his time.

    True to his race,
           he also
            was to be a pioneer
          --not indeed,
           like his ancestors,
         a leader
               into new woods
                   and unexplored fields,
           but a pioneer
               of a nobler
             and grander sort,
         directing the thoughts
               of men ever
             toward the right,
           and leading the American people,
         through difficulties
               and dangers
             and a mighty war,
           to peace and freedom.

    The story
           of this wonderful man
        begins and ends
               with a tragedy,
           for his grandfather,
         also named Abraham,
           was killed
               by a shot
                   from an Indian's rifle
             while peaceably
                   at work
                 with his three sons
                   on the edge
                       of their frontier clearing.

    Eighty-one years later
           the President himself
          met death
               by an assassin's bullet.

    The murderer of one
        was a savage
               of the forest;
        the murderer of the other
             that far more cruel thing,
           a savage of civilization.

    When the Indian's shot
           laid the pioneer farmer low,
         his second son,
         Josiah,
           ran to a neighboring fort
               for help,
         and Mordecai,
           the eldest,
         hurried to the cabin
               for his rifle.

    Thomas,
           a child of six years,
         was left alone
               beside the dead body
                   of his father;
        and as Mordecai
              snatched the gun
                   from its resting-place
                 over the door
                       of the cabin,
           he saw,
         to his horror,
           an Indian in his war-paint,
         just stooping
              to seize the child.

    Taking quick aim
           at a medal
         on the breast
               of the savage,
           he fired,
         and the Indian fell dead.

    The little boy,
           thus released,
         ran to the house,
           where Mordecai,
         firing through the loopholes,
           kept the Indians at bay
             until help
                arrived from the fort.

    It was this child Thomas
         who grew up
              to be the father
                   of President Abraham Lincoln.

    After the murder
           of his father the fortunes
         of the little family
        grew rapidly worse,
           and doubtless because of poverty,
         as well as
               by reason
                   of the marriage
                 of his older brothers
                   and sisters,
           their home was broken up,
         and Thomas found himself,
           long before he was grown,
         a wandering laboring boy.

    He lived
           for a time
         with an uncle
           as his hired servant,
         and later
             he learned
                   the trade of carpenter.

    He grew to manhood entirely
         without education,
           and when
             he was twenty-eight years old
                could neither read nor write.

    At that time
         he married Nancy Hanks,
           a good-looking young woman
               of twenty-three,
         as poor as himself,
           but so much better off
               as to learning
             that she
                was able