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He became a great reader. He read every book and newspaper he could get hold of, and if he came across anything in his reading that he wished to remember he would copy it on a links of london shingle, because writing paper was scarce, and either learn it by heart or hide the shingle away until he could get some paper to copy it on. His father thought he read too much. “It will spike him for work,” he said. “He doesn’t do half enough about the place, as it is, now, and books and papers aren’t no good.” But Abraham, with all his reading, did more work than his father any day; his stepmother, too, took his side and at last got links of london jewellery her husband to let the boy read and study at home. “Abe was a good son to me,” she said, many years after, “and we took particular care when he was reading not to disturb him. We would just let him read on and on till he quit of his own accord.” The boy kept a sort of shingle scrap-book; he kept a paper scrap-book, too. Into these he would put whatever he cared to keep—poetry, history, funny sayings, fine passages. He had a scrap-book for his arithmetic “sums,” too, and one of these is still in links of london existence with this boyish rhyme in a boyish scrawl, underneath one of his tables of weights and measures:
Abraham LincolnGod did know when; and that boy, all unconsciously, was working toward the day when his hand and pen were to do more for humanity than any other hand or pen of modern times. Lamps and candles were almost links of london bracelet unknown in his home, and Abraham, flat on his stomach, would often do his reading, writing, and ciphering in the firelight, as it flashed and flickered on the big hearth of his log-cabin home. An older cousin, John Hanks, who lived for a while with the Lincolns, says that when “Abe,” as he always called the great President, would come home, as a boy, from his work, he would go to links of london the cupboard, take a piece of corn bread for his supper, sit down on a chair, stretch out his long legs until they were higher than his head—and read, and read, and read. “Abe and I,” said John Hanks, “worked barefoot; grubbed it, ploughed it, mowed and cradled it; ploughed corn, gathered corn, and shucked corn, and Abe read constantly whenever he could get a chance.” One day Abraham found that a man for whom he sometimes worked owned a copy of Weems’s “Life of Washington.” This was a famous book in its day. Abraham borrowed it at once. When he was not reading it, he put it away on a shelf—a clapboard resting on wooden pins. There was a big crack between the logs, behind the shelf, and one links of london sale rainy day the “Life of Washington” fell into the crack and was soaked almost into pulp. Old Mr. Crawford, from whom Abraham borrowed the book, was a cross, cranky, and sour old fellow, and when the boy told him of the accident he said Abraham must “work the book out.” The boy agreed, and the old farmer kept him so strictly to his promise that he made him “pull fodder” for the cattle three days, as payment for the book! And that is the way that Abraham Lincoln Links of London bangle bought his first book. For he dried the copy of Weems’s “Life of Washington” and put it in his “library.” But what boy or girl of today would like to buy books at such a price?