beginning of love with me."

HOW ABE CAME TO OWN WEEMS'S "LIFE OF WASHINGTON"

Abe's chief delight, if permitted to do so, was to lie in the shade of
some inviting tree and read. He liked to lie on his stomach before the
fire at night, and often read as long as this flickering light lasted.
He sometimes took a book to bed to read as soon as the morning light
began to come through the chinks between the logs beside his bed. He
once placed a book between the logs to have it handy in the morning, and
a storm came up and soaked it with dirty water from the "mud-daubed"
mortar, plastered between the logs of the cabin.

The book happened to be Weems's "Life of Washington." Abe was in a sad
dilemma. What could he say to the owner of the book, which he had
borrowed from the meanest man in the neighborhood, Josiah Crawford, who
was so unpopular that he went by the nickname of "Old Blue Nose"?

The only course was to show the angry owner his precious volume, warped
and stained as it was, and offer to do anything he could to repay him.

"Abe," said "Old Blue Nose," with bloodcurdling friendliness, "bein' as
it's you, Abe, I won't be hard on you. You jest come over and pull
fodder for me, and the book is yours."

"All right," said Abe, his deep-set eyes twinkling in spite of himself
at the thought of owning the story of the life of the greatest of
heroes, "how much fodder?"

"Wal," said old Josiah, "that book's worth seventy-five cents, at least.
You kin earn twenty-five cents a day--that will make three days. You
come and pull all you can in three days and you may have the book."

That was an exorbitant price, even if the book were new, but Abe was at
the old man's mercy. He realized this, and made the best of a bad
bargain. He cheerfully did the work for a man who was mean enough to
take advantage of his misfortune. He comforted himself with the thought
that he would be the owner of the precious "Life of Washington." Long
afterward, in a speech before the New Jersey Legislature, on his way to
Washington to be inaugurated, like Washington, as President of the
United States, he referred to this strange book.

"THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH"

One morning, on his way to work, with an ax on his shoulder, his
stepsister, Matilda Johnston, though forbidden by her mother to follow
Abe, crept after him, and with a cat-like spring landed between his
shoulders and pressed her sharp knees into the small of his back