ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
When Abraham Lincoln was a little boy, he lived in a log house in the woods.
He could not go to school, for he worked on a farm with his father. He went to school only one year.
His mother taught him how to read and write in the evenings. When everybody had gone to bed, he would sit and read by the light of a log fire.
There were only two or three books in the house. Lincoln read them over and over.
One day a man let him take a book about George Washington. When he went to bed, Lincoln put it between the logs of the house.
When he awoke he found that the snow had fallen upon the book and spoiled it. He took it back to the man and told him he was very sorry.
The man said, “You must either pay for the book, or work three days in my corn-field.”
At the end of the three days the man said, “You are an honest boy, Abe. You may keep the book.”
Lincoln did not like to see any one unkind to animals.
Once, when he was a boy, Lincoln was standing on a log making a speech. The boys were clapping their hands and shouting.
One of the boys saw a turtle. He picked it up and threw it down at Lincoln’s feet. The poor turtle could not crawl away with its broken shell.
Lincoln did not like this. He jumped off the log and said, “Whoever did that is a coward!”
The boys were sorry for the poor turtle. They gently picked it up and carried it down to the water.
One day when Lincoln was a man, he saw a pig trying to get out of the mud.
Lincoln had on some new clothes. He did not want to get them muddy, so he passed on.
But he could not help thinking about the poor pig. He turned back and helped the pig out.
Lincoln became a very great man. He was so wise and kind that the people made him President.
He did so much for his country that we keep his birthday on the 12th of February.