this man to express his thoughts with such power was a mystery to this
reader. The editor's mastery of language aroused in Lincoln a burning
desire to obtain command of the English tongue. He applied for counsel
to a friend, a schoolmaster by the name of Mentor Graham. Graham
recommended him to study English grammar, and told him that a copy of
one was owned by a man who lived six miles away. Lincoln walked to the
house, borrowed the book--"collared" it, as he expressed it--and at the
end of six days had mastered it with his own thoroughness.

The first law book he read was "The Statutes of Indiana." This was when
he was a lad living in that state, and he read the book, not for any
special desire to know the subject but, because he was in the habit of
reading all that came into his hands.

His next book was Blackstone's "Commentaries." The accidental way
in which he gained possession of, and read, this book is of sufficient
interest to narrate in his own words. It was shortly after he got into
the grocery business:

"One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my
store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He
asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his
wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not
want it, but to oblige him I bought it, and paid him, I think, half a
dollar for it. Without further examination I put it away in the store
and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came
upon the barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see what it
contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of
Blackstone's "Commentaries." I began to read those famous works, and I
had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers