from which he read aloud. Among Abe's favorite stories were the ones
about some wise animals that talked. They were by a man named Aesop who
had lived hundreds of years before.

Abe even made up compositions of his own. He called them "sentences."
One day he found some of the boys being cruel to a terrapin, or turtle.
He made them stop. Then he wrote a composition in which he said that
animals had feelings the same as folks.

Sometimes Abe's sentences rhymed. There was one rhyme that the children
thought was a great joke:

"Abe Lincoln, his hand and pen,
He will be good, but God knows when."

"That Abe Lincoln is funny enough to make a cat laugh," they said.

They always had a good time watching Abe during the class in "Manners."
Once a week Master Crawford had them practice being ladies and
gentlemen. One scholar would pretend to be a stranger who had just
arrived in Pigeon Creek. He would leave the schoolhouse, come back,
and knock at the door. Another scholar would greet "the stranger," lead
him around the room, and introduce him.

One day it was Abe's turn to do the introducing. He opened the door to
find his best friend, Nat Grigsby, waiting outside. Nat bowed low, from
the waist. Abe bowed. His buckskin trousers, already too short, slipped
up still farther, showing several inches of his bare leg. He looked so
solemn that some of the girls giggled. The schoolmaster frowned and
pounded on his desk. The giggling stopped.