was a woman full of energy as well as kindness. She liked to have things about her look well. She had brought some fine furniture for those days; and she had no intention of having it in a house like that. She could not make Thomas Lincoln "hum"; for "humming," or spinning around was not in him. But she made him come as near to this as she could. It was not long before she had glass windows in the vacant frames, a door in the uncovered doorway, and good wooden flooring on the cabin, and other improvements which made it better fitted for the new furniture that looked so grand to the Lincoln children. For the new wife had "a fine bureau, a table, a set of chairs, a large clotheschest, cooking utensils, knives, forks, bedding, and other articles, the like of which had never before been carried under any roof of Tom Lincoln's."

But Mrs. Sally Bush Lincoln possessed not only a good heart and skilful hands; she had a wise head as well. So when the house had been put into order and the children made respectable by sharing some of the clothing of her own children, she began to try to find out what kind of step-son she had in the big, shy, keen-witted, quick-tongued, warm-hearted Abe. And soon the two began to love one another with a love that lasted all their lives, and when he was

assassinated, she mourned for him as if he had been her very own son.

She was a real American in this-she believed in learning; she loved a book. She understood the boy's ambition to make something of himself, and she delighted in it and helped him forward in every way she could. She set herself to find out what Abe knew, and how he had managed to pick it up. She found that from what his own mother had taught him and what he had learned the very few months he had gone to school with his sister in Kentucky, he had learned to read and write. He did not do either very well then. But she soon found out one thing about him which was the greatest encouragement. Abe had a wonderful memory and a grip on anything he had once learned that would never let it go again; it seemed as if he were just made up of determination to keep every scrap of knowledge he had ever gained, and from this to reach up to more. He was like a mountain climber who hews out for himself with his tools a foothold in the steep rock, and then puts his foot on this and stands on it until he has cut himself out a higher step. Then he mounts into this. And so, when there is no path, he makes one, on to the top.

Mrs. Lincoln gloried in Abe's studying. She would not let him be interrupted in it; he

must read until he put down his book of his own accord; and she made his father allow him to do this. It is not necessary to say that a woman like her wanted all the children to go to the best schools there were at that time and place.

And those were strange enough.

VI.

AXE AND SCHOOL-BOOK.

A schoolmaster of the old early days of Kentucky says that his first boarding place-for then schoolmasters boarded around in the homes of their pupils-was in a house consisting of a single room sixteen feet square. In this room lived the father and mother of the family, ten children, three dogs, two cats and himself.

But it was at about this time that the University of Lexington was founded, and opportunities began to open for a wider education and betters teachers than usually were willing to live in such wilds.

In the early days of Indiana things were a good deal after the same style. Abraham Lincoln wrote of those days: "It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There were some schools so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 'readin', writin' and

cipherin' to the Rule of Three.' If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education."

But on Little Pigeon Creek a mile and a half from the Lincoln farm, the settlers had built a log schoolhouse; it stood near what to them was a grand new meeting-house. Hazel Dorsey was the schoolmaster. To him Mrs. Lincoln sent the boys and girls of her family. To Abe this was the opening of a new world. For when he could read and write readily, he took his education into his own hands, since there was nobody else there to teach him, and read every book he could lay his hands on. Among the very few volumes in his own home was the Bible. He learned a great deal of that by heart. It is surprising how many men who have been great as writers and orators have been familiar with the Bible; they seem to have taken to it, at least at first, not because they knew it was the great teacher, not only in life but in expression also; but more, perhaps, because in households where books were very scarce there was usually a Bible.

"Esop's Fables" and "Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" were two of the other books that Abe read. But he did not read as we read,