ng the little girl by the
hand, he went through the streets of Springfield, a half-mile to the
railway station, put her and her trunk on the train, and sent her away
with a happiness in her heart that is still there.

TRAINING FOR THE PRESIDENCY

BY ORISON SWETT MARDEN

"I meant to take good care of your book, Mr. Crawford," said the boy,
"but I've damaged it a good deal without intending to, and now I want to
make it right with you. What shall I do to make it good?"

"Why, what happened to it, Abe?" asked the rich farmer, as he took the
copy of Weems's "Life of Washington" which he had lent young Lincoln,
and looked at the stained leaves and warped binding. "It looks as if it
had been out through all last night's storm. How came you to forget, and
leave it out to soak?"

"It was this way, Mr. Crawford," replied Abe. "I sat up late to read
it, and when I went to bed, I put it away carefully in my bookcase, as
I call it, a little opening between two logs in the wall of our cabin. I
dreamed about General Washington all night. When I woke up I took it out
to read a page or two before I did the chores, and you can't imagine how
I felt when I found it in this shape. It seems that the mud-daubing
had got out of the weather side of that crack, and the rain must have
dripped on it three or four hours before I took it out. I'm sorry, Mr.
Crawford, and want to fix it up with you, if you can tell me how, for I
have not got money to pay for it."

"Well," said Mr. Crawford, "come and shuck corn three days, and the book
's yours."

Had Mr. Crawford told young Abraham Lincoln that he had fallen heir to
a fortune the boy could hardly have felt more elated. Shuck corn only
three days, and earn the book that told all about his greatest hero!

"I don't intend to shuck corn, split rails, and the like always," he
told Mrs. Crawford, after he had read the volume. "I'm going to fit
myself for a profession."

"Why, what do you want to be, now?" asked Mrs. Crawford in surprise.

"Oh, I'll be President!" said Abe with a smile.

"You'd make a pretty President with all your tricks and jokes, now,
wouldn't you?" said the farmer's wife.

"Oh, I'll study and get ready," replied the boy, "and then maybe the
chance will come."

WHY LINCOLN WAS CALLED "HONEST ABE"

BY NOAH BROOKS

In managing the country store, as in everything that he undertook for
others, Lincoln did his very best. He was honest, civil, ready to do
anyt