to acquire a very definite
position in the community. In one way and another he gained the
reputation which the boys gave him of being not only the strongest, but
also "the cleverest fellow that had ever broke into the settlement."
There were many strong men in that country, but there were few really
clever ones, and the simple farmers were only too willing to admire
brains when they met them.

The time had passed when the boy could stay in the small surroundings of
Pidgeon Creek. First he tried life on one of the river steamboats, then
served as a clerk in a store at the town of New Salem, and there he
began at odd moments to study law.

A little later he knew enough law to become an attorney, and went to
Springfield, and after that it was only a short time before he had won
his clients. His cousin Denny came to hear him try one of his first
cases. He watched the tall, lank young fellow, still as ungainly as in
his early boyhood, and heard him tell the jury some of those same
stories he had read aloud before the fire.

When Abe had finished his cousin said to him, "Why did you tell those
people so many stories?"

"Why, Denny," said Abe, "a story teaches a lesson. God tells truths in
parables; they are easier for common folks to understand, and
recollect."

Such was the simple boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, but its very simplicity,
and the hardships he had to overcome to get an education, made him a
strong man. He knew people, and when he came later to be President and
to guide the country through the greatest trial in its history, it was
those same qualities of perseverance and courage and trust in the people
that made the simple-minded man the great helmsman of the Republic.

XX

Charles Dickens

The Boy of the London Streets: 1812-1870

The little fellow who worked all day long in the tumble-down old house
by the river Thames pasting oil-paper covers on boxes of blacking fell
ill one afternoon. One of the workmen, a big man named Bob Fagin, made
him lie down on a pile of straw in the corner and placed
blacking-bottles filled with hot water beside him to keep him warm.
There he lay until it was time for the men to stop work, and then his
friend Fagin, looking down upon the small boy of twelve, asked if he
felt able to go home. The boy got up looking so big-eyed, white-cheeked
and thin that the man put his arm about his shoulder.

"Never mind, Bob, I think I'm all right now," said the boy. "Don't you