The mirror., 1922-02-09

A year after her death his father mar
ried a former sweetheart Sarah Bush
Johnston, Kentucky widow, and brought
her into the desolate home. Her coming
was a godsend. She brought her own
three children with her, and the two adults
and five children formed happy and
united household. Soon after her arrival
the family were much improved in ap-
pearance and behavior, as well as in self
respect. Of course there were always
plenty of hard work to be done, and young
Lincoln did his share and more. He
chopped timber and split rails and hoed
corn and pulled fodder along with the
other boys around him.
But thirst for learning as means Of
rising in the world was born in him.
Each day when his work was ended, his
studies became the chief pleasure of his
life. He read, wrote and ciphered in
cessantly. His voracity for anything
printed was Unsuitable. He would sit in
the twilight and read dictionary as long
as he could see. He would go to the town
constable's cabin four miles and a half
away and devour-the Revised Statutes of
Indiana. He would sit by the fire at night
and cover the wooden shovel (he could
not afford to waste paper) with essays
and sums which he would shave off and
begin again. All his schooling amounted
to less than year, and the last of it
stopped when he was fifteen.
1t was while he was clerk in Offutt's
store at New Salem that he began to feel
the need of some knowledge of English
grammar and, hearing of vagrant book
on the subject, he set off at once on a walk
of twelve miles and, returning with the
coveted prize, devoted himself to the new
study with his usual intensity of applica-
ton until he knew all that can be known
about it from rules. Think of this great
spirited lad, battling year after year
against his evil star, wasting his ingenuity
upon devices and makeshifts, his intelli-
gence starving for want of the simple
means of education which are now free to
all. Yet touching as the picture is, there
is something inspiring about it too; some
thing which appeals to our Americanism
in this surmounting of obstacles and over
coming of dificultes and it is with GER
tain thrill of pride in the achievement, that
we read how when John Calhoun, the sur
veyor of Sangamon County, offered young
Lincoln book on the principles of sur
veying and told him that when he had
mastered it he should have employment,
the youth with steady self-reliance ac-
cepted the offer and, armed with the book,
went out and by six weeks close applica-
ton made himself surveyor-and an ex-
cellent one.
1t must not be inferred that because of
his noble rage for learning he was in the
least degree bookworm. If at nineteen
he could spell down" the whole county
in their spelling matches, he could also
down" any man in the county at
wrestling bout Already at this early age
he had gained his full height of six feet
four inches, and his strength was equally
gigantic. He once picked up and carried
off chicken house weighing six hundred
pounds. On another occasion of later date,
at Rutledge's mill, he lifted box of stones
weighing over half ton. At still another
time, seeing some men preparing con-
trivance for lifting some large posts, he
quickly shouldered the posts page 4. 0sl ~