From Carl Sandburg's "Always The Young Strangers"
Pioneers and Old-Timers Chapter
Out on the Seminary Street road were farms to which we drove our milk wagon for more milk when we had sold out and needed two or three gallons for our last customers. At no time did we drive the four miles out to the five-hundred-and-forty-seven acre farm of Daniel Green Burner. We had heard and read about Mr. Burner. He came to Knox County from New Salem, Illinois, where he had lived four years and had seen the young Abraham Lincoln march off to the Black Hawk War. He had traded at the grocery where Lincoln served customers and he had noticed young Lincoln's ways with people. Mr. Burner told a reporter for a Galesburg paper that Lincoln sold whiskey but never drank any himself, and "Lincoln would swear under strong provocations, but this was not often. I don't think he made any pretentions to special goodness. The community was raw and green and he was one of us. Lincoln was full of fun as a dog is of fleas....He would back up against a wall and stretch out his arms; I never saw a man with so great a stretch. He did little things like that to please people...He did not go to others for his amusement, but if they wanted fun they came to him and found him full of it...There was a singing school but Lincoln couldn't sign any more than a crow. So he did not go often." Mr. Burner had many memories of Lincoln and New Salem. I am sure that more than once he drove into town passing, as he had to from his farm, the Seventh Ward schoolhouse at noon or recess and that I saw Mr. Burner, though I didn't know who he was and his face meant nothing to me. It would have been nice if I could have worked on his farm in hay harvest and sat at table and heard him talk about New Salem days.
Pioneers and Old-Timers Chapter
Out on the Seminary Street road were farms to which we drove our milk wagon for more milk when we had sold out and needed two or three gallons for our last customers. At no time did we drive the four miles out to the five-hundred-and-forty-seven acre farm of Daniel Green Burner. We had heard and read about Mr. Burner. He came to Knox County from New Salem, Illinois, where he had lived four years and had seen the young Abraham Lincoln march off to the Black Hawk War. He had traded at the grocery where Lincoln served customers and he had noticed young Lincoln's ways with people. Mr. Burner told a reporter for a Galesburg paper that Lincoln sold whiskey but never drank any himself, and "Lincoln would swear under strong provocations, but this was not often. I don't think he made any pretentions to special goodness. The community was raw and green and he was one of us. Lincoln was full of fun as a dog is of fleas....He would back up against a wall and stretch out his arms; I never saw a man with so great a stretch. He did little things like that to please people...He did not go to others for his amusement, but if they wanted fun they came to him and found him full of it...There was a singing school but Lincoln couldn't sign any more than a crow. So he did not go often." Mr. Burner had many memories of Lincoln and New Salem. I am sure that more than once he drove into town passing, as he had to from his farm, the Seventh Ward schoolhouse at noon or recess and that I saw Mr. Burner, though I didn't know who he was and his face meant nothing to me. It would have been nice if I could have worked on his farm in hay harvest and sat at table and heard him talk about New Salem days.
From Carl Sandburg's "Always The Young Strangers"
Pioneers and Old-Timers Chapter
Out on the Seminary Street road were farms to which we drove our milk wagon for more milk when we had sold out and needed two or three gallons for our last customers. At no time did we drive the four miles out to the five-hundred-and-forty-seven acre farm of Daniel Green Burner. We had heard and read about Mr. Burner. He came to Knox County from New Salem, Illinois, where he had lived four years and had seen the young Abraham Lincoln march off to the Black Hawk War. He had traded at the grocery where Lincoln served customers and he had noticed young Lincoln's ways with people. Mr. Burner told a reporter for a Galesburg paper that Lincoln sold whiskey but never drank any himself, and "Lincoln would swear under strong provocations, but this was not often. I don't think he made any pretentions to special goodness. The community was raw and green and he was one of us. Lincoln was full of fun as a dog is of fleas....He would back up against a wall and stretch out his arms; I never saw a man with so great a stretch. He did little things like that to please people...He did not go to others for his amusement, but if they wanted fun they came to him and found him full of it...There was a singing school but Lincoln couldn't sign any more than a crow. So he did not go often." Mr. Burner had many memories of Lincoln and New Salem. I am sure that more than once he drove into town passing, as he had to from his farm, the Seventh Ward schoolhouse at noon or recess and that I saw Mr. Burner, though I didn't know who he was and his face meant nothing to me. It would have been nice if I could have worked on his farm in hay harvest and sat at table and heard him talk about New Salem days.
Pioneers and Old-Timers Chapter
Out on the Seminary Street road were farms to which we drove our milk wagon for more milk when we had sold out and needed two or three gallons for our last customers. At no time did we drive the four miles out to the five-hundred-and-forty-seven acre farm of Daniel Green Burner. We had heard and read about Mr. Burner. He came to Knox County from New Salem, Illinois, where he had lived four years and had seen the young Abraham Lincoln march off to the Black Hawk War. He had traded at the grocery where Lincoln served customers and he had noticed young Lincoln's ways with people. Mr. Burner told a reporter for a Galesburg paper that Lincoln sold whiskey but never drank any himself, and "Lincoln would swear under strong provocations, but this was not often. I don't think he made any pretentions to special goodness. The community was raw and green and he was one of us. Lincoln was full of fun as a dog is of fleas....He would back up against a wall and stretch out his arms; I never saw a man with so great a stretch. He did little things like that to please people...He did not go to others for his amusement, but if they wanted fun they came to him and found him full of it...There was a singing school but Lincoln couldn't sign any more than a crow. So he did not go often." Mr. Burner had many memories of Lincoln and New Salem. I am sure that more than once he drove into town passing, as he had to from his farm, the Seventh Ward schoolhouse at noon or recess and that I saw Mr. Burner, though I didn't know who he was and his face meant nothing to me. It would have been nice if I could have worked on his farm in hay harvest and sat at table and heard him talk about New Salem days.
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