s first compositions. The
exercise was not required by the teacher, but, as Nat Grigsby has said,
"he took it up on his own account." At first he wrote only short
sentences against cruelty to animals, but at last came forward with a
regular composition on the subject. He was annoyed and pained by the
conduct of the boys who were in the habit of catching terrapins and
putting coals of fire on their backs. "He would chide us," says Grigsby,
"tell us it was wrong, and would write against it."

One who has had the privilege of looking over some of the boyish
possessions of Lincoln says: "Among the most touching relics which I saw
was an old copy-book in which, at the age of fourteen, Lincoln had
taught himself to write and cipher. Scratched in his boyish hand on the
first page were these lines:

_Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen.
he will be good but
god knows When_"

The boy's thirst for learning was not to be satisfied with the meagre
knowledge furnished in the miserable schools he was able to attend at
long intervals. His step-mother says: "He read diligently. He read
everything he could lay his hands on, and when he came across a passage
that struck him he would write it down on boards, if he had no paper,
and keep it until he had got paper. Then he would copy it, look at it,
commit it to memory, and repeat it. He kept a scrap-book into which he
copied everything which particularly pleased him." Mr. Arnold further
states: "There were no libraries and but few books in the back
settlements in which Lincoln lived. If by chance he heard of a book that
he had not read he would walk miles to borrow it. Among other volumes
borrowed from Crawford was Weems's Life of Washington. He read it with
great earnestness. He took it to bed with him in the loft and read till
his 'nubbin' of candle burned out. Then he placed the book between the
logs of the cabin, that it might be near as soon as it was light enough
in the morning to read. In the night a heavy rain came up and he awoke
to find his book wet through and through. Drying it as well as he could,
he went to Crawford and told him of the mishap. As he had no money to
pay for the injured book, he offered to work out the value of it.
Crawford fixed the price at three days' work, and the future President
pulled corn for three days, thus becoming owner of the coveted volume."
In addition to this, he was fortunate enough to get hold of AEsop's
Fables, Pilgrim's Prog