"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