nightly and daily hand--the Bible, "Aesop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe,"
"The Pilgrim's Progress," a history of the United States, and Weem's
"Life of Washington." These were the best, and these he read over and
over till he knew them almost by heart. But his voracity for anything
printed was insatiable. He would sit in the twilight and read a
dictionary as long as he could see. He used to go to David Turnham's,
the town constable, and devour the "Revised Statutes of Indiana," as
boys in our day do the "Three Guardsmen." Of the books he did not own
he took voluminous notes, filling his copy-book with choice extracts,
and poring over them until they were fixed in his memory. He could not
afford to waste paper upon his original compositions. He would sit by
the fire at night and cover the wooden shovel with essays and
arithmetical exercises, which he would shave off and then begin again.
It is touching to think of this great-spirited child, battling year
after year against his evil star, wasting his ingenuity upon devices
and makeshifts, his high intelligence starving for want of the simple
appliances of education that are now offered gratis to the poorest and
most indifferent. He did a man's work from the time he left school;
his strength and stature were already far beyond those of ordinary
men. He wrought his appointed tasks ungrudgingly, though without
enthusiasm; but when his employer's day was over, his own began. John
Hanks says: "When Abe and I returned to the house from work he would
go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn-bread, take down a book,
sit down, cock his legs up as high as his head, and read." The picture
may be lacking in grace, but its truthfulness is beyond question. The
habit remained with him always. Some of his greatest work in later
years was done in this grotesque Western fashion,--"sitting on his
shoulder-blades."

[Sidenote: W. H. Lamou "Life of Lincoln," p. 37.]