Then he would copy it, look at it, commit it to memory, and repeat
it."
When night came he would find a seat in the corner by the fireside, or
stretch out at length on the floor in front of it, and by the firelight
write, or work sums in arithmetic, on a wooden shovel, using a charred
stick for a pencil. After covering the shovel, he would shave it off and
use the surface over again.
The way in which he came to own a "Life of Washington" is interesting.
Having borrowed the book, he took it to bed with him in the loft and read
until his candle gave out. Then, before going to sleep, he tucked the book
into a crevice of the logs in order that he might have it at hand as soon
as daylight would permit him to read the next morning. But during the
night a storm came up, and the rain beat in upon the book, wetting it
through and through. With heavy heart Lincoln took it back to its owner,
who gave it to him on condition that he would work three days to pay for
it. Eagerly agreeing to do this, the boy carried his new possession home
in triumph. This book had a marked influence over his future.
But his time for reading was limited, for until he was twenty his father
hired him out to do all sorts of work, at which he sometimes earned six
dollars a month and sometimes thirty-one cents a day.
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