school' in the same little school-house which had been the scene of
Dorsey's labors, and the windows were still adorned with the greased
leaves of old copybooks that had come down from Dorsey's time. Abe was
now in his fifteenth year, and began to exhibit symptoms of gallantry
toward the other sex. He was growing at a tremendous rate, and two years
later attained his full height of six feet and four inches. He wore low
shoes, buckskin breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a cap made of the
skin of a 'possum or a coon. The breeches clung close to his thighs and
legs, and failed by a large space to meet the tops of his shoes. He
would always come to school thus, good-humoredly and laughing. He was
always in good health, never sick, had an excellent constitution and
took care of it."

Crawford taught "manners"--a feature of backwoods education to which
Dorsey had not aspired. Crawford had doubtless introduced it as a
refinement which would put to shame the humble efforts of his
predecessor. One of the scholars was required to retire, and then to
re-enter the room as a polite gentleman is supposed to enter a
drawing-room. He was received at the door by another scholar and
conducted from bench to bench until he had been introduced to all the
young ladies and gentlemen in the room. Lincoln went through the ordeal
countless times. If he took a serious view of the performance it must
have put him to exquisite torture, for he was conscious that he was not
a perfect type of manly beauty. If, however, it struck him as at all
funny, it must have filled him with unspeakable mirth to be thus gravely
led about, angular and gawky, under the eyes of the precise Crawford, to
be introduced to the boys and girls of his acquaintance.

While in Crawford's school the lad wrote his first compositions. The
exercise was not required by the teacher, but, as Nat Grigsby has said,