Show I 1 I 1 HM H M I 1 II 11 I I I 1 I 1 1 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 I 1 tho things 1 want to know are in books my best friend Is the man git me a book I 1 aint read A lincoln MM ill MM II 11 II 11 II 11 III 1 by dewitt J MASON HE story of abraham alln coin s thirst for knowl edge when he was a boy growing up in his indiana home Is one that Is in to this day the farm boys in their evenings at jonea store in talked about how abe lincoln was always reading digging into books stretched out hat on his stomach in front of the fireplace studying till midnight ind past mid night picking a piece of charcoal to write on the fire shovel shaving off what he wrote and then writing more till midnight and past midnight the next thing abe would be reading books between the plow handles it seemed to them and once trying to a last w ord dennis hanks said there a euthan pecullar some about abe ne wanted to learn to know to live to reach out he wanted to satis fy hungers and thirsts he coulden couldn t tell about this big boy of the back woodi and some of what he wanted so much so deep down seemed to be in the books maybe in books he would find the answers to dark questions pushing around in the pools of his thoughts and the drifts of his mind he told dennis and other people the things I 1 want to know are in books my best friend Is the man who 11 git me a book I 1 aint read and sometimes friends answered well books aint as plenty as wildcats in these parts 0 Ind lanny this was one tiling meant by dennis when he said there was suthon pe cullar some about abe it seemed that abe made the books tell him more than they told other people all the other farm boys had gone to school and read the kentucky preceptor but abe picked out questions from it tuch as who has the most right to complain the indian or the negro and abe would talk about it up one way and down the other while they were in the cornfield pulling fodder for the winter when abe got bold of a story book and acid about a boat that came near a rock and how the magnets in the rock pulled all the nails out of the boat so it went to pieces and alie people in the boat found themselves floundering in water abe thought it was funny and told it to other people after abe read poetry especially bobby burns poems abe began writing rimes himself when abe sat with a girl with their bare feet in the creek water and she spoke of the moon rising he explained to her it was the earth not the moon the moon only seemed to rise what he got in the schools dlan t satisfy him he went to three differ schools in indiana besides two in kentucky altogether about four months of school he learned hla a b cs how to spell read write and he had been with the other barefoot boys in butternut jeans man ners under the school teacher andrew crawford who biad them open a floor walk in and say do yet what he tasted of books in school was only a beginning only made him hungry and thirsty shook him with a wanting of more and more of what was hidden between the covers of books lie kept on saying the things I 1 want to know are in books my best friend Is the man who 11 git me a book I 1 aint read besides reading the family bible and figuring his way all through the old arithmetic they had at home he got hold of aesoph Ae sops fables pilgrims progress robinson crusoe and weems the life of washington the book of tables written or col lecter thousands of years ago by the greek slave known as aesop sank deep in his mind As he read through the book a second and third time he had a feeling there fables all around him that everything he touched and handled everything he saw and learned had a fable wrapped in it somewhere one fable was about a bundle of sticks and a farmer whose sons were quarreling and fighting instead of sticking together and the farmer took a bundle of sticks gave them each a stick asking them it they were strong enough to break it which they did easily then he handed them a bundle of sticks and asked them it they were strong enough to break it and they tried their strength to the limit but could not break the bundle of sticks whereupon the farmer told them in union there Is strength the style of the bible of aesop s fables the hearts and minds back of those books were much in ills thoughts ills favorite pages in them he read over and over behind such proverbs as muzzle not the ox that tr eadeth out the corn and lie that his own spirit Is greater than he that a city there was a music of simple wisdom and a mystery of common ev cry day life that touched deep spots in him while out of the fables of the ancient greek slave he came to see eliat cats rats dogs horses plows hammers fingers toes people all had tables connected with their lives characters places there was perhaps an outside for each thing as it stood alone while inside of it was its fable one book came titled the life 0 george washington with curious an ec dotes equally honorable to him gelt and exemplary to ills loung countrymen with als steel engravings by M L weems formerly rector of ML vernon parish it pictured men of passion and proud ignorance in the government of eng land driving their country into war on the american colonies it quoted the far v warning of chatham to the british parliament for god a sake then my lords let the way be instantly opened or reconciliation I 1 say instantly or it will be too late forea er the weems book reached some deep spots in the boy lie asked himself what it meant eliat men should march fight bleed go cold and hungry or tha sake of what they called freedom few great men are great in every thing said this book and there waa a cool sap in the passage washing tons delight was in that of the manliest sort which by stringing the limbs and swelling the muscles promotes the kindliest kind liest flow of blood ana spirits at jumping with a long pole or heaving heavy weights for hla years he hardly had an equal such book talk was a comfort against the same thing over again day after day so many mornings the same kind of water from the same spring the same fried pork and corn meal to eat the same drizzle of rain spring plowing summer weeds fall fodder pulling each coming every year lincoln was thankful to the writer of aesoph Ae sops fables because that writer stood by him and walked with him an invisible companion when he pulled fodder or chopped wood books lighted lamps in the dark rooms of hla gloomy hours well he would live on maybe the time would come whee he would be free from work for a few weeks or a few months with books and then he would read god then he would read he would go and get at the proud secrets of his books ills father would he be like his faglier when he grew up he hoped not why should his father knock him off n fence rail when lie was ask ing a neighbor passing by a ques alon kven it it was a smart question too pert and too quick it was no way to handle a boy in front of a neigh bor vo he wis going to be a man different from his faglier the books his father hated the books already abe knew more than his father he was writing letters for the neighbors they hunted out the lincoln farm to get young abe to find his bottle of ink with blackberry brier root and copperas in it and his pen made from a turkey buzzards feather and write letters abe had a suspicion some times hla father was n little proud to have a boy that could write letters and tell about things in books and outrun end outwrestle and rough and tumble any boy or man in spencer county yes lie would be different from his father lie was already so it coulden couldn t be helped |