What did Mr. Lincoln enjoy doing?

[Troy Cowan]

Young Abraham Lincoln hitting a ball with a stick and running the bases did not happen.

Lincoln did play a game of fives in New Salem. My understanding of the game Lincoln played is different from the handball game that comes from England where you have to slap the ball with your hand. To play fives in New Salem, first you would get a small block of wood and whittle it into the shape of a sphere. Then you would throw the ball above some point on a wall and try to catch it before it hit the ground. The ball was not perfectly round and the wall was not flat making the trajectory off the bounce difficult to determine. If you were fortunate to have an opponent, he would throw the ball and you would have to catch it. Throwing the ball as fast as you caught it, made a fast paced game. When the ball hit the ground, the person making the successful throw got a point added to his score.

Why Lincoln stopped hunting and fishing is a mystery. At Pidgin Creek Abe went hunting with the men. The men took their rifles and young Abe took his bow and arrows. One story says that one day Abe noticed some turkeys near the cabin. He picked up one of the rifles and shot one of the turkeys. Watching the bird die depressed him to such an extent that he gave up hunting and fishing altogether.

Another story is that hunting and fishing reminded him of the family's poverty and difficulty of day to day survival. Hunting and fishing was absolutely necessary for subsistence then, and he did not want to be reminded of those days.

People that believe that he was one of the early animal rights activist and a vegetarian cannot be supported. He continued to eat meat and wear hats made of coonskin and beaver, wear deerskin britches and patch the holes in his pants with fox skin. He slept on a bed made from bear skin.

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