following lines, still preserved, were written by Lincoln:

This pathetic glimpse of the childhood dream may account for his profound interest in boys and boyhood. When he had reached world-wide fame he said, “The boy is the inventor and owner of the present, and he is our supreme hope for the future. Men and things everywhere minister unto him, and let no one slight his needs.”

Lincoln reading by Firelight.

CHAPTER III

I. THE LINCOLN BOY AND HIS SISTER

The wilderness never brought forth a more wonderful being than the child that became one of the greatest names in the history of America. Deep in the wild woods of Kentucky, in the humblest conditions of nature, farthest from the inventions of society, there arose a mind that gave great riches of thought to the making of civilization.

Lincoln and his sister “hired out,” and the position of servant can hardly be servile or menial with such an illustrious American example, unless the master make it so. One woman, whose family had hired them both, testified to their lovable characters. Lincoln slept in the hay-loft during the period of his work, and he was noted for being remarkably considerate in “keeping his place,” and for not coming in “where he was not wanted.” It is said that he would lift his hat and bow when he entered the house, and that he was reliable, tender and kind, “like his sister.” We wonder if his employers had only known of “the angel” they were “entertaining unawares,” what would have been “his place” and where he would have been “wanted.” Every such soul may, somewhere along the immortal way, be “an angel” “unaware” some time in the meaning of the great moral universe.

As showing the making of Lincoln’s mind, one of his first attempts at essay writing was on the subject of “Cruelty to Animals” and another on “Temperance.”

During his earliest acquaintance with the first lawyer he had known, he wrote a paper on “American Government,” and he anxiously asked the lawyer to read it and pass an opinion on its merits. The lawyer did so, declaring that the “world couldn’t beat it,” and expressing the opinion that some day the people would “hear from that boy.”

His repugnance toward acts of cruelty is shown by the first fist fight he ever had.

Some boys had caught a mud-turtle and were having great sport in putting a coal of fire on its back to see it open up its shell and run. Lincoln was then not as large as some of the tormentors of the poor animal, but, coming by and seeing what they were doing, he dashed in among them, knocked the firebrand from the boy’s hand, and fought them all away from the turtle. Then he gave them a fierce scolding for their cruelty. With tears in his eyes he declared that the terrapin’s life was as sweet to it as theirs was to them. His appeal was successful and there was freedom henceforth in that community for the American turtle.

II. HOW THE LINCOLN BOY MADE THE LINCOLN MAN

The American boy, seeing anything of great interest accomplished, wants to know how it was done. That is true all the way from winning some game at play to making a million in some great enterprise. But far more, in fact immeasurably more, is the making of a masterful mind, the development of a nation-making character, and of a world-historical man. Such was Abraham Lincoln, who was built up from what seems to be nothing on to the very highest worth of mankind. How did he do it? “If I only knew how,” said a philosopher-mathematician, “I could turn the world over with a lever.” “If I only knew how,” said a philosopher-farmer, “I could make a three-year-old calf between now and next Christmas.” In other words, the belief has always prevailed that by thought made into will anything can be accomplished, provided thinking perseveres in the right way for the right thing. Successful “might” always promotes the belief that it is right because it is successful, but the “successful” is no more than a temporary expedient toward coming failure, if it is not the righteousness of an immortal social system.

So let us see how Lincoln did it. It is not much of a mystery how he became a masterful man. There must be a beginning place, and, for such a person, it must be a divine beginning place. He had a loving mother and a home. It was the basis of his belief in humanity. The heart of the world he believed to be like the two noble-souled women who mothered his young heart and growing mind. He says himself that he didn’t do it but that they did it. So, the first thing for a boy who wants to be a masterful man is to take the advice of Oliver Wendell Holmes to have the right kind of ancestors. At least, it seems quite necessary for him to choose a loving mother and it will be a lightened task for him to do the rest.

In 1823, while going to the Crawford school, there occurred an incident representing his invariable sense of honor. A buck’s head was nailed to the wall and one day, probably experimenting as all boys do, he pulled too hard on one of the horns and broke it off. No one saw him and when the teacher inquired for the mischief maker Lincoln promptly told how it happened. The teacher believed him and said no more about it.

The first reprehensible thing known of the Lincoln boy was done soon after the death of his sister. She married at nineteen and died the next year. Lincoln believed, as most others believed, that she died of ill-treatment. There was no way to express his fierce resentment but in writing, and he wrote some scurrilous letters to the ones against whom he was so angry. Some biographers, in the supposed cause of history, have published some alleged copies of those letters, but at worst they merely show what a boy could do in the distress occasioned by what he believed to be the murder of his sister, whom we may believe was the one great love of his life after the death of his mother.

Being a good penman, Lincoln was often called on to write a line in copybooks. Among the proud possessors of a copybook so favored was Joe Richardson. In his book Lincoln wrote these commonplace, yet significant lines: