to
boys of to-day? Here is a further glimpse of the way in which he
prepared himself to be president of the United States. The quotation is
from Ida M. Tarbell's "Life of Lincoln."

"Every lull in his daily labor he used for reading, rarely going to his
work without a book. When plowing or cultivating the rough fields of
Spencer County, he found frequently a half hour for reading, for at the
end of every long row the horse was allowed to rest, and Lincoln had
his book out and was perched on stump or fence, almost as soon as the
plow had come to a standstill. One of the few people left in
Gentryville who still remembers Lincoln, Captain John Lamar, tells to
this day of riding to mill with his father, and seeing, as they drove
along, a boy sitting on the top rail of an old-fashioned,
stake-and-rider worm fence, reading so intently that he did not notice
their approach. His father, turning to him, said: 'John, look at that
boy yonder, and mark my words, he will make a smart man out of himself.
I may not see it, but you'll see if my words don't come true.' 'That
boy was Abraham Lincoln,' adds Mr. Lamar, impressively."

Lincoln's father was illiterate, and had no sympathy with his son's
efforts to educate himself. Fortunately for him, however, his
stepmother helped and encouraged him in every way possible. Shortly
before her death she said to a biographer of Lincoln: "I induced my
husband to permit Abe to read and study at home, as well as at school.
At first he was not easily reconciled to it, but finally he too seemed
willing to encourage him to a certain extent. Abe was a dutiful son to
me always, and we took particular care when he was reading not to
disturb him,--would let him read on and on till he quit of his own
accord."

Lincoln fully appreciated his stepmother's sympathy and love for him,
and returned them in equal measure. It added greatly to his enjoyment
of his reading and studies to have some one to whom he could talk about
them, and in after life he always gratefully remembered what his second
mother did for him in those early days of toil and effort.

If there was a book to be borrowed anywhere in his neighborhood, he was
sure to hear about it and borrow it if possible. He said himself that
he "read through every book he had ever heard of in that county for a
circuit of fifty miles."

And how he read! Boys who have books and magazines and papers in
abundance in their homes, besides having thousands of v