t a stump to be a speaker. Now, Abe, speak
for the cause of the people, or anybody's cause. Give it to us strong,
and we will do the cheering."

Abraham mounted a stump in the school-grounds, on which he had often
declaimed before. He felt something stirring within him, half-fledged
wings of his soul, that waited a cause. He would imitate the few
preachers and speakers that he had heard--even an old Kentucky preacher
named Elkins, whom his own mother had loved, and whose teachings the
good woman had followed in her short and melancholy life.

He began his speech, throwing up his long arms, and lifting at proper
periods his coon-skin cap. The scholars cheered as he waxed earnest. In
the midst of the speech a turtle came creeping into the grounds.

"Hello!" said one of the boys, "here's another turtle come to school!
He, too, has seen the need of learning."

The terrapin crawled along awkwardly toward the house, his head
protruding from his shell, and his tail moving to and fro.

At this point young Abraham grew loud and dramatic. The boys raised a
shout, and the girls waved their hoods.

In the midst of the enthusiasm, one of the boys seized the turtle by the
tail and slung it around his head, as an evidence of his delight at the
ardor of the speaker.

"Throw it at him," said one of the scholars. "Johnson once threw a
turtle at him, when he was preachin' to his sister, and it set him to
runnin' on like a minister."

Abraham was accustomed to preach to the young members of his family. He
would do the preaching, and his sister the weeping; and he sometimes
became so much affected by his own discourses that he would weep with
her, and they would have a very "moving service," as such a scene was
called.

The boy swung the turtle over his head again, and at last let go of it
in the air, so as to project it toward Abraham.

The poor reptile fell crushed at the foot of the stump and writhed in
pain.

Abraham ceased to speak. He looked down on the pitiful sight of
suffering, and his heart yearned over the helpless creature, and then
his brain became fired, and his eyes flashed with rage.

"Who did that?" he exclaimed. "Brute! coward! wretch!" He looked down
again, and saw the reptile trying to move away with its broken shell.
His anger turned to pity. He began to expostulate against all such
heartlessness to the animal world as the scene exhibited before him. The
poor turtle again tried to move away, his head just