stepbrother Johnston--a hopeless task enough. The following rigidly
truthful and yet kindly letters will show how mentor-like and
masterful, as well as generous, were the relations that Mr. Lincoln
held to these friends and companions of his childhood:

DEAR JOHNSTON: Your request for eighty dollars I do not think it best
to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a
little, you have said to me, "We can get along very well now," but in
a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this
can only happen by some defect in your conduct.

What that defect is I think I know. You are not _lazy_, and still
you are an _idler_. I doubt whether, since I saw you, you have
done a good whole day's work in any one day. You do not very much
dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it
does not seem to you that you could get much for it. This habit of
uselessly wasting time is the whole difficulty, and it is vastly
important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should
break the habit. It is more important to them because they have longer
to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it
easier than they can get out after they are in.

You are now in need of some money; and what I propose is that you
shall go to work "tooth and nail" for somebody who will give you money
for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home,
prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best
money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get;
and to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that
for every dollar you will, between this and the first of next May, get
for your own labor, either in money or as discharging your own