doors, and open up windows. She was fond of the children and cared for
them tenderly, and to her the boy Abraham owed many pleasant hours.

As he grew older, his love for knowledge increased and he obtained
whatever books he could, studying by the firelight, and once walking
six miles for an English Grammar. After he read it, he walked the six
miles to return it. He needed the book no longer, for with this as
with his small collection of books, what he once read was his. He
absorbed the books he read.

During these early years he did "odd jobs" for the neighbors. Even at
this age, his gift of story telling was a notable one, as well as his
sterling honesty. His first knowledge of slavery in all its horrors
came to him when he was about twenty-one years old. He had made a trip
to New Orleans, and there in the old slave market he saw an auction.
His face paled, and his spirits rose in revolt at the coarse jest of
the auctioneer, and there he registered a vow within himself, "If ever
I have a chance to strike against slavery, I will strike and strike
hard." To this end he worked and for this he paid "the last full
measure of devotion."

His political life began with a defeat for the Illinois Legislature in
1830, but he was returned in 1834, 1836, 1838, and declined
re-election in 1840, preferring to study law and prepare for his
future. "Honest Abe" he has been called, and throughout Illinois that
characteristic was the prominent one known of him. From this time his
rise was rapid. Sent to the Congress of the nation, he seldom spoke,
but when he did his terse though simple expression always won him a
hearing. His simplicity and frankness was deceptive to the political
leaders, and from its very fearlessness often defeated them.