E457 .R37 .V ^°--^. ^"*^^. <^, i. x.^*^' ym-- \.^' '-'Mk-.X/^ ■-■.. ..^: -^-^ c o^-^i:-;^ r; cA t-o^ V -^x(//i^.' '^^ « .^:^ 0^- ^0^ : ^v 0' '^0^. > 4 o '• J^'i"^^-^'' .-0- -f. » ■ <; ^ . "f^^ O c ° " ° t o ^^^ 40^ ^^ ''^> ^ ^, K^ •^ o^ >>v / "^^ .._^ / 'N <* 0^ oV.= '.'^o_ ^^ .•^^_'. "<^ c^ ,^ > /.^^5^,-:.^ ^ ^^ '^V^r^:?^', \ -^--0^ No. 5. L4sn Ua€^ Statue of Lincoln, I.incdln I'ark, Chicago. /W^j/- The Story of Lincoln. BOUT the time that the colo- iiios ill America had thrown off the British yoke and gained their freedom, a great tide of immigration set in toward the West. The people who had heen west of the Alleghanies returned with wonderful tales of the beautiful country- which they had seen. Although the way was beset by many dangers, and cruel savages waited to waylay and kill the new settlers, many were willing and anxious to risk all to find a home in this new land of Kentucky. Among others that traveled along the wilder- ness road leading into Kentucky, was a family by the name of Lincoln. When they reached their journey's end, Mr. Lincoln obtained a large tract of land. The lurking savages were still dangerous, so the new settlers had to hve in or near the forts. 4 THE STORY OF LINCOLN Mr. Lincoln at once bep^'an to clear the timber from his land. This was a very danvith a strong and ready arm to keep the big bo3^s in order. Abraham was a very bright bo.y in school, in- deed he went far ahead of the rest of his class- mates. He was not satisfied with what he learned in the daytime but studied in the even- ings. As the}^ could not afford caniites, he cut up spicewood twigs and burned them for a light. In those early limes preaching services were THE STORY C)F LINCOLN 7 licld out ofdoors. with the forest trees for a temple and a stump for an altar. The preach- ers traveled long distances from place to place, with somethnes months between visits. Abra- ham thought these traveling preachers most wonderful men, and would ride long distances to hear them. Ke admired them so much that he tried to do as they did. lie would gather his play] nates around him and preach and l^ound, until his audi^nice were frightened into tears. Thomas Lincoln grew tired of livijig in Ken- tucky. He decided he would seek a new home across the river in Indiana. He loaded his goods on a raft and started for the Ohio River. ]]iit when he reached the middle of the river, tlie raft was upset, and all he owned was at the bottom of the Ohio. He managed to save a few things, borrowed an ox team, and stnrted to iind a good place to locate. Meanwhile, his family remained at the old liome anxiously awaiting his return. He came back with good news and the famil}' set out on tlieir journey. There were Mr. and Mrs. Lin- coln. Abe and his sister Sarah, and a cousin, 4 U THE STORY OF LINCOLN 9 Dennis Hanks. No doubt the children en- joyed the journey. The forest with its green trees, singing birds, and strange animals, was a never-ending wonder to these young people making their first journey away from home. When the travelers arrived at the spot Mr. Lincoln had chosen for his home, an axe was put into seven year old Abe's hand, and he was told to go to work to help make a clearing for the camp. There was no time to build a house, so a half-faced camp was put up to shelter them from the winter storms. Four posts were set in the ground, poles i)ut across the top and rude slabs fastened to them for a roof. Three sides were enclosed with poles chinked in with clay. The open side was screened with a cur- tain of skins. In one corner was a great fire- place made of sticks and mud. Times grew very hard for the Lincolns. Their furniture Avas at the bottom of the Ohio. They made chairs of rude slabs with pegs driven in for legs. The frame work of their bed was made of poles and covered with skins. The children slept on the floor on a pile of leaves. 10 THE STORY OF LINCOLN They had to use thorns for pins. No cloth was to be had, unless the mother spun and wove it herself. Little Abe wore buckskin trousers, a linsey-woolsey shirt dyed with bark or berries and buttoned with bits of cork covered with cloth. For a hat ho wore a coon skin cap with the tail hanging down behind. This Avas used both to trim the cap and for a handle to pull it off. In February, Mr. Lincoln and the boys be .i>:an to get the logs ready for tlie new home. The cabin, when it was finished, had only one room with a loft above. There was no door or window, not even a deer skin hung before the opening or a greased pa|)er over the hole that admitted the light. There was no floor but the liard packed earth. When the children went to bed at night they climbed to the loft by means of pegs driven into the walls. Is it any wonder that through all this suffer- ing and hardship the poor mother fell sick? Little Abe saw his first great sorrow when his mother folded her tired hands and went to her long rest. No one can imagine a more forlorn family than the Lincolns. Abe grieved bitterly THE STORY OF LINCOLN 11 in his loneliness. Lono* years after he said, "All that I am, or hope to he, I owe to my angel mother/' It was the custom in pioneer days to have a memorial sermon preached at any time within a year after the death of a person, as a preacher could rarely he had at the time of the funeral. So as soon as Mrs. Lincoln was huried, Abra- ham sat down and wrote his first letter to Parson Elkin in Kentucky, asking him to come and preach his mother's funeral sermon. After a long time he received an answer from the good man, and in the early summer, he kept his promise and preached Nancy Lincoln's funeral sermon. It was a most miserable household with little twelve year old Sarah at its liead. The three children soon grew shabby and ragged. Their principal food was venison and birds broiled over the coals or an ash cake of meal, which the father mixed. But the children seemed to flourish under this hard fare and Abe had one joy — books. The first books he read w(U'e the Bible, Aesop's Fables, and The Pilgrim's Prog- ress. He read and re-read these books. He 12 THE STORY OF LINCOLN knew many passages in them by heart and everyone of Aesop's Fables. He also read a life of Henry Clay, and Ram- sey's Life of Washington. He once borrowed Weem's Life of Washington from a neighbor and carried the treasure home in the bosom of his hunting shirt. He read late by the light of a tallow dip and then put the book in a crack between the logs for safe keeping. But the hiding place proved anything but safe, for a storm came up in the night and the book got wet. Abe hardly knew what to do, he certainly had no money to pay for the book. He carried it back to the owner, who pretended to be very cross and asked him what he proposed to do about it. The little boy offered to do what Mr. Crawford thought was right, so they bargained that Abe was to pull fodder three days. "Does that pay for the book or for the damage done to it?" asked wise Abe. "Wall I, allow," said Mr. Crawford, "that it won't be much account to me or anybody else now, and the bargain is that you pull fodder three days, and the book is yours." THE STORY OF LI^X^OLN 13 This was the first book that Abe ever bought. In reading the Hfe of our great Washington his heart was stirred with a growing love for his country. He never forgot the lessons he learned reading of the brave struggles of our forefathers for independence. Mr. Lincoln went to Kentucky on a visit and returned with a new wife. This woman proved a very kind and wise mother to the neglected Lincoln children. She brought with her new furniture, a floor was put down in the cabin, a door made, and glass put into the windows. Everything began to look more homelike and comfortable. The house was full to over-flow- ing with children, for besides the three in the Lincoln family, Mrs. Lincoln had brought her own three children. The three boys climbed to their bed in the loft at night, and slept on a husk mattress so narrow, that, when one turned over, all three had to turn. Abe, about this time, got some new books. His mother said, "He read everything he could lay his hands on." Lincoln himself said that he read everything in the country for fifty miles around. Whenever he heard of a new book he 14 THE STORY OF LINCOLN forthwith went and borrowed it. The parts he wished to remember he copied down on a board with charcoal. Then when he got hold of paper, he would re -copy and memorize them. The wooden fireshovel was one of his favorite places for writing' and ciphering. When it became covered, he would shave the black part off and begin again. When he plowed a long furrow and stopped to let the horses rest, out came his book and he would read awhile, sit- ting on top of the rail fence. He could only go to school a few days each year, but it did not make much difference, as he soon knew all the rude teachers of the frontier could teach him. He had to work very hard. He said of those early days, that the axe was rarely out of his hand. When his father had no work, he hired out to the neighbors, for whom he did all kinds of work from carpenter- ing to tending the baby. But as much as he loved to read, and as hard as he had to work, he still found time to be with his friends. He knew so many jokes and could toll a story so well that he was a general favorite, and no gathering was complete with- THE STORY OF LINCOLN 15 out him. IIo was uinisually tall and strong for his aji'o and oxcollod in all the rude sports of pioneer days. He was known far and wide for his skill as a wrestler. He had a ])erfect passion for speech making; and often walked many miles to hear a speech. He had such a fine memory that he could re- peat sermons and speeches he heard, imitating' the orator even to the tones of voice and ges- ture. He practiced so much that his angry father said that he neglected his work, and that there was no getting any work from the hired men when Abe mounted a stump. In the habit of careful study, in the memorizing of the best in the books he read, and m his speech mak- ing, he was unconsciously fitting himself to ho a great leader of m(^n. Even then everyone listened eagerly to what he had to say. The only way the western people had of get- ting their produce to market was by taking it down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Abe begged his parents to let him build a fiat boat and make a trip down the river. Their con- sent was finally given, and he went to Avork on his boat. AVheii h<» liad it finishes] lie stood 16 THE vSTORY OF LINCOLN looking at it, wondering; what he could do to mako it stronger. Some men came up looking- for a boat to take them out to a waiting steam ])oat. J^incoln's boat was chosen and he pad- dled them out. When they were on board, Abe called to them that they had not paid him. Each then threw him a half dollar. He was so surprised for he had expected much less. He himself said, "I could not credit that I, a poor bo\', had earned a dollar in less than a day : that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time." Soon after, a man hired him at eight dollars a month, to take a flat boat of produce to New Orleans. This trip was a great education to the back-woods boy, who was now seeing the world beyond his home for the first time. On this trip he got his first near view of slavery, and in seeing squads of human beings driven off to be sold he no doubt realized as he never had before, how serious a blot this custom was on a country said to be free. AVhen Abraham was twenty-one his father decided to move again, this time to Illinois. THE STORY OF LINCOLN 17 Youii^' Lincoln was a tall strong fellow of six feet and four inches. It was said, "he could strike the hardest blow with the axe or maul, jump higher and farther than any of his fel- lows, and that there was no one, far or near, that could lay him on his back. He helped his father get settled in his new home. He and Thomas Hanks split rails to fence ten acres of land. These were not the first rails by many, that he had made, yet these were the rails that gave him the nickname of "The Eail Splitter." Soon after he decided to start out in life for himself. He had another chance to go to New Orleans in a flat boat. Here again was he much impressed by seeing the slave markets. It is said that he remarked, "If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard." When Abraham came back from his river trip he went to clerk in a country store. Here, as everywhere, he became popular by his wit, learning, and honesty. Once when a man per- sisted in swearing when women w^ere present Lincoln took him out with the remark, "Well if you must bo whipped, I suppose I might as 18 THE STORY OF LINCOLN well whip you as any other man. " He knocked him down, rid)l>ed smart Aveed on his face until the man howled for mercy, then took him to the pump and washed his eyes for him. While Lincoln never fought for thr love of lighting, yet he was the unfailing- friend of law and order and the terror of every rogue. He still kept on with his studies, and tliat he might improve in speech making, he walked several mil(\s to attend the meetings of a debat- ing society. He vralked six miles to get the only English grammar to he had in the coun- try, and studied it diligently until he had it thoroughly mastered. In all his life he had had less than a year's schooling all told, but his experience had taught him that only through knowledge could he gain power over men. So knowledge he determined to have. He already saw that he was the equal of the great men of the country and could make a better speech than many. One day, hearing a candidate making a poor speech he mounted a box and made a far bett(>r one. The candidate was much interested and asked him ''where he had learned so much and THE :STORY OF LIXCOLX 19 how he could do so Avell. " Ho thoii urged Lincohi to keep on with his study. Youn«: Lincohi soon announced tliat lie was a candidate for a public office , l>ut before the election, a war broke out with the Black Hawk Indians. Lincoln volunteered. He went to the north to join the regular troops at the head of a company of men from his own county. There he was chosen captain. A man by the name of Kirkpatrick wanted to be captain hut his own men insisted on Lincoln. So it was decided that all in favor of him should form a line on one side of the road, and all in favor of Kirkpatrick on the other. When tbo lines were formed, Lincoln's was found to be twice as long as the other, so he was declared elected. He afterwards said that nothing in his life had ever given him so much pleasure. Robert Anderson, a lieutenant, received Lin- coln's company into tbe service. This same Anderson was the man who commanded Fort Sumter when the first shot Avas fired that opened the great Civil War. TJio Black Hawk war was soon over and Lincoln was free to look after the office he wanted, but ho Avas defeated. 20 THE vSTORY OF LINCOLN He was not much disappointed for he ran well in his own county, and had become so much better known over the state, that the next time he tried for office he was successful. He tried keeping* store but failed. He said his store "winked out" leaving him with a load of debt. It seemed to him so large that he spuke of it always as "the national debt.'' He began studying law, the lawyers good-naturedly lending him their books. Soon he took small ^Qses for his neighbors, and was appointed jjostmaster of a village postoffice. As he could not be in one place all the time, he carried the postoffice in his hat. When anyone asked for mail he would take off his hat and sort over what w^as there. The newspapers that came, he always took time to read, before they were called, for by their owners. The little village melted away, as is the habit of western towns, and with it the postofhce. Lincoln then turned his attention to surveying, which he worked at for some time, still keeping up his law studies. When he was twenty-five he again ran for the State Legislature, and this time was elected. When his term was out he THE STORY OF LINCOLN 21 was again elected. During- this term he voted against slavery being extended, and he also met Stephen A. Douglas who Avas afterward to be his great rival. In 1837 Lincoln moved to Springfield, the new capital of Illinois, and there he lived until he was elected President. He had his few possessions packed into a pair of saddle bags thrown over the back of a borrowed h'^rse. So far he had been able to make only a very meager living, being ham- pered by his "national debt.'' He went to his friend, Josiah Speed's general store, and was dismayed to find that it would cost seventeen dollars to furnish a room. Mr. Speed felt so sorry for him when he saw his sadness, that he told liini he could share his room. Lincoln asked where it was and carried up his saddle bags. He came down laughing and said, "Speed, I am moved." Times grew more prosperous and he steadily gained favor and friends. He was very populai* in society because of his entertaining stories and his wit. He met and married Marv Todd. 22 THE STORY OF LINCOLN a witty, highly educated girl, who proved a good wife to him. Lincoln now turned longing eyes toward Con- gress and Washington, hut he had several times to step aside for other men, whom he thought had the hotter right to go. But his time came finally and he was elected. In Congress he attracted much attention. Every one listened when he got up to speak on any suhject. He had a style all his own, and he kept any com- pany in which he might he, in a perfect roar of laughter hy his droll stories. He was once taken hy a party of friends to see Ex-President Van Buren who was stopping at a dull hotel in a small town. ; Mr. Yan Buren said that the only drawback the visit had, was that his sides were sore for a week from laugh- ing at Lincoln's stories. When Mr. Lincoln's term at Washington was ended he went hack to Springfield and his law practice. He had met eastern men of great refinement and culture, and he felt his own lack of early training. So again he took up his studying, determined that h(^ would make himself the equal of the college- bred men. 24 THE STORY OF LINCOLN As the years went by, the country became more and more aroused over the question of slavery. The people of the North said that there should be no more slave states, while the South were determined to extend slavery. This question was discussed at all political meet- ings, and at last Lincoln felt that it was his duty once more to enter into a public life. He ran for State Senator against Stephen A. Douglas. Meetings were held all over the state by these men. Douglas w^ould make a speech and Lin- coln would follow^ him with another speech, answering him and asking such shrewd ques- tions that Douglas was often much embarrased to answer them. These speeches were printed all over the country. Lincoln was defeated, but by these great speeches he had become w^idely known all over the United States. People began asking who this man was who had worsted Stephen A. Douglas, the greatest speaker of that time. And, on learning of his early struggles, a great reverence filled their hearts for this won- derful man, who had won such great victories in his oAvii lif(\ Thev felt that he was the onlv THE STORY OF LINCOLN 25 man great enough and strong enough to save our country. In November, 1860, Abraham Lineohi was elected to the highest office in our land. AVhen the southern states heard of his election they began to announce that they were going to leave the United States and set up a govern- ment of their own. It was yet several months until Lincoln would be in office, so he could do nothing to stop the dreadful calamity that was coming upon the country. The President then in office helped the rebel states by sending government stores and arms to the southern forts. The seceding states seized these stores to help them carry on a Avar, should one come. The 4th of March finally came and Lincoln took the oath of office. The country was in an uproar. Everyone was asking what the new president would do. Would he be equal to the great task before him, of saving the Union? The question was soon answered. People soon found what a powerful man stood at the head of the nation. On the 12th of April Fort Sumter in Charles- ton harbor was fired upon, and brave Major 26 THE STORY OP^ LINCOLN Anderson was forced to surrender. The South had fired the first shot and the whole North responded to Lincohis call for men to preserve and protect the UnioiL Troops were sent to tlie front, but many hoped that war would yet be avoided. Lincoln did all that could be done, but with no effect. The South went on with i)rei)arations for war, and was joined l)y yet more states. The bitter strug,2:le began between the slave states and the free states was to txo on for four lonjj^ years. It only ended when the South had used all her wealth and resources, and many, many brave men of both North and South had answered to the last roll call. Lincoln at first had had no idea of freeinyiJ1. The ship is anchor'.! safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, , 1 • i. From fearful trip the victor ship comes m with object won. Exult, O shores, and ring O bells ! But I with mournful tread Walk the deck my Captain lies Fiillen cold and dead. Jl^dJi II lii/tii'ii . i MB-24 School Classic Senes (Continued) I.ITKRATURK 2s The Miraculous Pitcher 90 Selections from Lougfellow— I ( Hawthorne) 26 The Minotaur (Hawthorne) 91 Story of Kugeiie Field 119 Bryant's Thanatopsis, and Other Poems 120 Selections from Longfellow— II FIFTH YEAR 121 Selections from Holmes 122 The Pied Piper of Hamelin NATURE (Browning) Q^ Story of Silk 96 What We Uriuk (Tea, Coffee and Cocoa) SEVENTH YEAR HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY LITERATURE 16 Western Pioneers 13 Courtship of Miles Standish 97 Story of tlie Xorsenie:i (Longfellow) 99 Storj of Jefferson 14 Evangeline (Longfellow) loi Story of Robert K. Lee 15 Snowbound (Whi'tier) 141 Story of Grant 20 The Great Stone Face (Hawthorne) 123 Selections from Wordswort'.i LITERATURE 124 Selections from Shelley and Keats 8 Kingof the Golden River (Ruskin) 125 Selections from, tiie Merchant of Venice 9 The Golden Touch (Hawthorne) 107 Story of Robert Louis Stevenson loS History in Verse (Sheridan's Ride Independence Bell, The Blue and EIGHl H YEAR the Graj', etc.) LITERATI'RE SIXTH YEAR 17 F'noch Arden (Tennyson) 18 Vision of Sir Launfal (Lowell) LITERATURE ig Colter's Saturdav Nig!it ( Burns) 23 The Deserted Viflage (Goldsmith) 10 The Snow Image (Hawthorne) 126 Rime of tlie Ancient Mariner II Rip Van Winkle (Irving) (Coleridge) 12 Legeni^ of Sleepy Hollovv (Irving) 128 Speeches of Lincoln 22 Rah and His Friends I U Selections from Macbeth 24 Three Golden Apples (Hawthorne) 142 Scott's Lady of tlie Lake— Canto I Order by Number. Price Five Cents, Sixty Cents per Dozen. Add Two Cents per copy for postage on orde rs for less than five Copies. 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