Pegs
driven into the wall served as a stairway to the loft, where there was
another bed of leaves. Here little Abe slept.
Abraham Lincoln's schooling was brief--not more than a year in all, and
the schools he attended were like those we became acquainted with in the
early settlements of Kentucky and Tennessee. During his last school-days
he had to go daily a distance of four and one-half miles from his home,
with probably no roadway except the deer path through the forest. His
midday lunch was a corn dodger, which he carried in his pocket.
In spite of this meagre schooling however, the boy, by his self-reliance,
resolute purpose, and good reading habits, acquired the very best sort of
training for his future life. He had no books at his home, and, of course,
there were but few to be had in that wild country from other homes. But
among those he read over and over again, while a boy, were the Bible,
"AEsop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," "Pilgrim's Progress," "A History of
the United States," and Weems's "Life of Washington," all books of the
right kind.
[Illustration: Lincoln Studying by Firelight.]
His stepmother said of him: "He read everything he could lay his hands on,
and when he came across a passage that struck him, he would write it down
on boards, if he had no paper, and keep it before him until he could get
paper.
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