stumbling-block had a "y" in it. All around the class it went, and half-way around again but just as it reached a favorite of his named Polly Roby, there was Abe's head at the open window behind the master, with a finger in one eye and a suggestive wink in the other.

Polly's quick wits caught the hint; the awful word was conquered in a second, and Andrew Crawford was sure there had been no unfair assistance given by Abraham Lincoln.

There was one other department of that primitive schooling in which Abe stood all alone. He was the only scholar who insisted on turning his writing-lessons into any kind of "compositions." It was altogether out of Andrew Crawford's line and beyond him. He would not have done any such thing himself, and he would not encourage in wild literary extravagance a lot of children whose life-business was to be the raising of corn and the making of pork. Perhaps even Abe might not have undertaken it so very early if he had not found a work of common humanity calling for the use of his pen.

There was not an animal in the woods for which he had not a kindly feeling. Even the woodchucks he dug out of their holes were in a manner his neighbors, and the land-turtles got out of his way, so far as any danger to them was concerned, mainly because he might carelessly step on them with his immense feet. The other boys were not by any means so tenderhearted, and a terrapin marching away from some of them with a live coal on his back offered a fine subject to Abe for an essay upon "Cruelty to Animals."

It was first given orally to the young savages who were maltreating the helpless terrapin. Then it came out in slowly written sentences in Abe's copy-book. Then it grew and widened into a full-sized "composition," and Abe's career as a writer had fairly begun. He had learned to spell words, and now he had discovered for himself the great art of making them stand in effective order upon paper. Still, paper was scarce, and it was necessary to be exceedingly economical in

the use of it. No word could go down upon such precious material until the writer felt very sure it was the best one he could use in that place, and no more could be employed than were needed to do the work in hand and express the exact meaning intended. The scarcity of paper, therefore, was itself an excellent teacher, continually forcing the young essayist to avoid the most common fault of all writers, trained and untrained.

There were ways to be invented, however, of overcoming the paper difficulty, in part, and of still obtaining an idea of how any given sentence would look in written characters. There was the great wooden shovel in the chimney-corner every night. The surface of it could be shaved clean with his father's "drawing-knife," and then, by the light of the fire, aided by that of a small torch of hickory or birch bark, the whole face of the shovel could be covered with figures and letters. By day and out of doors a basswood shingle would answer the same purpose, with a piece of charcoal for a crayon. A matter could be written and rewritten, and anything pronounced worthy of preservation could be carefully transferred with pen and ink to the pages of an old blank-book which was one of Abe's choicest treasures. Not all the contents of that miscellaneous collection were original, for it contained also copious quotations from every volume its owner managed to borrow.

More of these were now coming within reach, from time to time. Some of the books themselves were a kind of human being. No other settler came into that neighborhood in all those days who was more a real man, come to a real new country, than was Robinson Crusoe, and Abe learned most thoroughly all the ingenious methods of that wonderful castaway in dealing with dangers and difficulties.

Blackhawk and his warriors were only a few days' march northwestward, and, although there was no "man Friday" to be obtained among them, the print of a moccasined foot in the

mud would still have been a thing to cause alarm and astonishment, if found.

Yet another good arrival brought with him a "History of the United States," and this afforded abundant employment for the fire-shovel and the scrap-book.

There were other wonders of literature which were not to be borrowed, but to be read by the friendly light of the fireplaces from which they could not be carried away. Among these was a small book which told of more wonderful achievements than even the History, for it was Sindbad the Sailor's own account of his perilous voyages.

There was teaching in that book of a specially important nature, for it told of lands and peoples heretofore not so much as dreamed of by the overgrown stepson of Mrs. Sally Lincoln. It helped Robinson Crusoe to make the world wider for him; and when spring came and there were grass and dry leaves in the woods to lie down upon, he could loaf under the trees and dream of ships and oceans and far-away countries where all things were so different from the life he had known in Kentucky and Indiana.

He was now fifteen years old, and of course he had heard of George Washington. He knew by oral traditions, vague and fragmentary, that the Father of his Country had at one time lived in the backwoods and had fought hard battles with the Indians. His delight was great, therefore, when one day old Josiah Crawford, the crustiest of his neighbors, consented to let him carry home a copy of Weems's "Life of Washington." It was a small, thin book in a sheepskin cover, but no other or greater biographer has ever dealt with the deeds of any hero in a spirit of more exuberant enthusiasm. It was slow, intense, instructive reading. Each page had to be dwelt upon and gone over and over, and there were copious notes to be made on wood and copied into the scrap-book. Bedtime was a hateful intruder upon such delight as that, and it was hard to be forced away from it and compelled to lift himself, peg by peg, into

the dark loft above, and separated even from the very paper and binding.

Night after night, with special care, the book was deposited upon a little shelf against the wall of the room below. There were two stout pegs in the log, and a shingle laid across them made the shelf. The book should have been in safety there, if anywhere. It was a pity, however, that Abe should have failed to examine the mud "chinking" of those logs, for it had fallen out just above the shelf, leaving a crack which was full of peril to literature. There came a night, when he and Dennis Hanks were sound asleep, that was full of wind and rain. Gust after gust drove in the flying water through the cranny in the wall, and the shelf was flooded and the precious book was drowned.

When morning came, there lay the soaked and ruined relics of the only "Life of Washington" in all that part of Indiana. It was of little use to dry the leaves in the sun. Abe did so with sorrowful care, and then he bore them home to their owner; but old Josiah refused to receive them.

"Reckon I'll have to make it good somehow," said Abe, mournfully. "What's it wuth?"

"Seventy-five cents; and I don't know whar I'll git another." He might as well have said seventy-five thousand, and Abe very frankly told him so.

"Well, Abe," said old Josiah, at last, "seein' it's you, I tell ye what I'll do. You pull fodder for me three days, at twentyfive cents a day, and I'll call it squar."

"I'll do it, and I'll jest keep what thar is left of the book." It had been a well-thumbed, dog's-eared affair, and Crawford had sold it to Abe, after this fashion, at a remarkably high price. So high, in fact, that Abe's remorse did not prevent his sense of justice from rebelling even while he consented to come and pull the fodder. He and Josiah Crawford were never more good friends, and more than a little good-tempered “getting even" had to be performed for a long time afterwards.

CHAPTER VII.

FRONTIER TRAINING.

Oratorical Beginnings-Frontier Politics-Hiring Out-A Wedding and a Funeral-Studies among Plain People-A Glimpse into Law.

Now that there were so many settlers, the religious gatherings at the Little Pigeon Creek meeting-house became more frequent. Whenever there was preaching of any kind, Mrs. Sally Lincoln was sure to go, and to insist on taking her husband with her. It made small difference to Tom, indeed, to what sect the preacher of the day might belong. He himself had been, in his day, a member of several sects, and not a very shining ornament to either of them. No change whatever was required when he moved from one into another.

The young people were frequently left at home; but they had preaching among them nevertheless, albeit with more of rough fun than profitable doctrine in the sermons. No sooner were their elders out of sight among the trees than the family Bible would come down from its shelf, and Abe knew its contents quite well enough to find any text he wanted.

"Now, girls," he would say, "you and John and Dennis do the cryin'. I'll do the preachin'."

A hymn or so was given out and sung, and the sermon was only too likely to be a taking off of the style and eccentricities of some traveling exhorter they had heard at the meetinghouse. Not always, indeed; for Abe once preached a sermon, on his favorite theme of "cruelty to animals," which was remembered for many years by one little girl, a neighbor, who was that day a member of his childish congregation.

The born orator within him was coming to the surface, and