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VII.

BRIGHTER HOURS.

BRAHAM deeply felt the change that death had wrought in his cabin home, and for weeks his mind was absorbed in his loss. Perhaps his oppressive sense of loneliness and his grief would have continued, but for an unexpected blessing that came to him in the shape of a book. His father met with a copy of The Pilgrim's Progress at the house of an acquaintance, twenty miles away or more, and he borrowed it for Abraham. The boy was never more happily surprised than he was when his father, on his return, said:

"Look here, Abe, I've found somethin' for you," at the same time exhibiting the book.

"Found it!" exclaimed Abraham, supposing that his father meant that he picked it up in the woods or fields.

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'No, no; you don't understand me. I meant that I came across it at Pierson's house, and I borrowed it for you."

"Pilgrim's Progress," said Abraham, taking the book and reading the title; "that will be good, I should think." He knew nothing about the book; he had never heard of it before.

"I shall want to hear it," said his father. "I heard about that book many years ago, but I never heard it read."

"What is it about?" asked Abraham.

"You'll find that out by readin' it," answered his father.

"And I won't be long about it neither," continued Abraham. "I know I shall like it."

"I know you will, too."

"I don't see how you know, if you never heard it read." "On account of what I've heard about it,"

And it turned out to be so. Abraham sat down to read the volume very much as some other boys would sit down to a good dinner. He found it better even than he expected. It was the first volume that he was provided with after the spelling-book, Catechism, and Bible, and a better one could not have been found. He read it through once, and was half-way through it a second time, when he received a present of another volume, in which he became deeply interested. It was Æsop's Fables, presented to him, partly on account of his love of books, and partly because it would serve to occupy his mind and lighten his sorrow.

He read the fables over and over until he could repeat almost the entire contents of the volume. He was thoroughly interested in the moral lesson that each fable taught, and derived therefrom many valuable hints that he carried with him through life. On the whole, he spent more time over Æsop's Fables than he did over The Pilgrim's Progress, although he was really charmed by the latter. But there was a practical turn to the fables that interested him, and he could easily recollect the stories. Perhaps his early familiarity with this book laid the foundation for that facility at apt story-telling that distinguished him through life. It is easy to see how such a volume might beget and foster a taste in this direction. Single volumes have moulded the reader's character and decided his destiny more than once, and that, too, when far less absorbing interest was

manifested in the book. It is probable, then, that Æsop's Fables exerted a decided influence upon Abraham's character and life. The fact that he read the volume so much as to commit the larger part of it to memory adds force to this opinion.

With two new books of such absorbing interest, it was not strange that Abraham was disposed to neglect his daily labour. His father could readily discover that Æsop had more attractions for him than axe or hoe. Nor was he inclined to break the spell that bound him, until he actually feared that the books would make him "lazy."

"Come, Abe, you mustn't neglect your work; we've lots to do, and books must not interfere," was his father's gentle rebuke.

"In a minute," answered the boy, just like most other boys of that age who are "book-worms."

"That's what makes boys lazy, waitin' to play or read when they ought to be at work," continued his father. "All study and no work is 'most as bad as all work and no study."

"Only a minute, and I'll go," added Abraham, so absorbed in his book that he scarcely knew what answer he made.

"It must be a short minute," retorted his father, in a tone of injured authority.

"I'll work hard enough to make it up when I get at it," said Abraham, still delaying.

"I don't know about that. I'm feared that your thoughts will be somewhere else; so put down the book and come on."

With evident reluctance the young reader laid down his book, preliminary to obeying orders.

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"Good boys obey at once," continued his father; 'don't have to drive 'em like cattle."

"I only wanted to read a minute longer," answered Abraham, by way of palliating his offence.

"And I only wanted you shouldn't," exclaimed his father angrily. "I know what is best for you. I'm willin' you should read and write, but you must work when work drives."

It was altogether new for Abraham to exhibit so much disobedience as he did after he became enthusiastic over The Pilgrim's Progress and Æsop's Fables. Nor was he conscious of possessing a disobedient spirit, for no such spirit was in his heart. He was simply infatuated with the new books.

We must not conceal the fact that his father had been somewhat annoyed by the boy's method of improving his penmanship by writing with chalk or a charred stick upon almost any surface that came in his way. But for his paternal pride over this acquisition of his boy he might have checked him in this singular way of improvement. One incident occurred that served to reconcile his father in the main to his scrawls here and there, although he may have thought still that Abraham was carrying the matter too far.

An acquaintance came into the field where father and son were at work, when his eye was arrested by letters cut in the mellow soil.

"What's that?" he inquired.

Abraham smiled, and let his father answer.

"What's what?"

Why, this writing, it looks as if somebody had been writing on the ground."

"Abe's work, I s'pose."

"Abe didn't do that!" answered the neighbour.

"I did do it with a stick," said the boy.

"What is it?" The man couldn't read.

"It's my name."

"Your name, hey? Likely story."

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"Well, 'tis, whether you believe it or not; he proceeded to spell it out,-" A-B-R-A-H-A-M L-I-NC-O-L-N."

"Sure enough it is; and you certainly did it, Abe?” "Yes, sir; and I will do it again, if you want to see me;" and, without waiting for an answer, he caught up a stick and wrote his name again in the dirt.

"There 'tis," said Abraham.

"

I see it, and it's well done," answered the neighbour. And there, on the soil of Indiana, Abraham Lincoln wrote his name, with a stick, in large characters,—a sort of prophetic act, that students of history may love to ponder. For, since that day, he has written hist name, by public acts, on the annals of every State in the Union.

From the time, however, that Abraham became absorbed in The Pilgrim's Progress and Esop's Fables, he was subject to the charge of being "lazy." The charge gained force, too, as he grew older, and more books and increasing thirst for knowledge controlled him. Dennis Hanks said: "Abe was lazy, very lazy. He was always reading, scribbling, ciphering, writing poetry, and such like." John Romine declared that "Abe was awful lazy. He worked for me; was always reading and thinking; I used to get mad at him. He worked for me pulling fodder. I say Abe was awful lazy. He would laugh and talk, and crack jokes, and tell stories all the time; didn't love work, but did dearly love his pay. He worked for me frequently, a few days only at a time. He said to me one day, that his father taught him to work, but never learned him to love it."

Mrs. Crawford, for whose husband Abraham worked, and in whose cabin he read and told stories, said: "Abę

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