Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance by Frances Cavanah (most popular novels of all time TXT) π
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.
"Master Crawford," said Abe, "this here is Mr. Grigsby. His pa just moved to these parts. He figures on coming to your school."
Andrew Crawford rose and bowed. "Welcome," he said. "Mr. Lincoln, introduce Mr. Grigsby to the other scholars."
[Illustration]
The children sat on two long benches made of split logs. Abe led Nat down the length of the front bench. Each girl rose and made a curtsy. Nat bowed. Each boy rose and bowed. Nat returned the bow. Abe kept saying funny things under his breath that
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Sarah's sewing basket spilled to the floor, as Abe pulled her to her feet. He put his long arms around her waist and gave her a good bear hug.
"Abe Lincoln, you're most choking me," she said breathlessly. "Here I was thinking how grown up you were getting to be. Now you be acting like a young one again."
Abe kissed her on the cheek.
8Abe sat up late, holding his book close to the flickering flames in the fireplace. As the rain drummed on the roof, his thoughts were far away. He was with General Washington in a small boat crossing the Delaware River on a cold Christmas night many years before. He was fighting the battle of Trenton with a handful of brave American soldiers. They must have wanted very much to be free, he decided, to be willing to fight so hard and suffer so much.
"Isn't it getting too dark for you to see?" Sarah called sleepily.
"Yes, Mamma."
Carefully Abe placed the precious little volume between two logs in the wall of the cabin. This was his bookcase. As he climbed into the loft he wondered if the book told about the time George Washington became President. He would have to wait until morning to find out.
He was up early. But his face grew pale when he reached for the book. During the night the rain had leaked in on it through a crack in the logs. The pages were wet and stuck together. The binding was warped. Sally was starting down the path toward the Crawford cabin when Abe called after her.
"Wait! I'm coming with you."
He thrust the book inside his buckskin shirt. Sally tried to comfort him, but Abe kept wondering what Mr. Crawford was going to say. He was a little scared of Josiah. Some of the boys called him "Old Bluenose" because of the large purple vein on the side of his nose. It made him look rather cross. He probably would want Abe to pay for the book, and Abe had no money.
He opened the Crawford gate and marched up to the kitchen door. Josiah, his wife Elizabeth, and Sammy, their little boy, were having breakfast. When Abe explained what had happened, Mrs. Crawford patted his shoulder. He liked her. She was always nice to him, but he knew that her husband was the one who would decide about the book. Josiah took it in his big hands and looked at the stained pages.
"Well, Abe," he said slowly, "I won't be hard on you. If you want to pull fodder three days for me, that ought to pay for the book."
"Starting right now?"
"Yep, starting right now." Josiah was actually smiling. "Then you can have the book to keep."
Abe caught his breath. What a lucky boy he was! Three days' work and he could keep the book! He would have a chance to read about George Washington any time he wanted to.
Never had he worked harder or faster than he did that morning. When the noon dinner bell rang, he seemed to be walking on air as he followed Josiah into the cabin. Sally was putting dinner on the table. Abe slipped up behind her and pulled one of her pigtails. Taken by surprise, she jumped and dropped a pitcher of cream. The pitcher did not break, but the cream spilled and spread over the kitchen floor.
"Abe Lincoln! Look what you made me do!" cried Sally. "I just washed that floor. And look at that good cream going to waste."
"'Tain't going to waste." Abe pointed to Elizabeth Crawford's cat, which was lapping up the delicious yellow stream. Then he began to sing: "Cat's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo!"
"Stop trying to show off!" said Sally.
She was angry, but Sammy, Elizabeth's little boy, shouted with delight. That was all the encouragement Abe needed. The fact that he could not carry a tune did not seem to bother him.
"Cat's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo!
Cat's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo!
Skip to my Lou, my darling."
Sally was down on her hands and knees, wiping up the cream. "Stop singing that silly song, and help me."
Instead, Abe danced a jig. He leaned down and pulled her other pigtail.
"Sally's in the cream jar, shoo, shoo, shoo."
"That's enough, Abe," said Elizabeth Crawford.
"Skip to my Lou, my darling." He whirled around on his bare feet and made a sweeping bow. Sally was close to tears.
"Abe, I told you to stop," said Elizabeth Crawford. "You ought to be ashamed, teasing your sister. If you keep on acting that way, what do you think is going to become of you?"
"Me?" Abe drew himself up. "What's going to become of me? I'm going to be President."
Elizabeth looked at him, a lanky barefoot boy with trousers too short. His shirt was in rags. His black hair was tousled. She sank into a chair, shaking with laughter. "A pretty President you'd make, now wouldn't you?"
She had no sooner spoken than she wanted to take back the words. All of the joy went out of his face. Sally was too angry to notice.
"Maybe you're going to be President," she said. "But first you'd better learn to behave."
"IβI was just funning, Sally."
Something in his voice made Sally look up. She saw the hurt expression in his eyes. "I know you were," she said hastily. "I'm not mad any more."
Abe ate his dinner in silence. He did not seem to be the same boy who had been cutting up only a few minutes before. Elizabeth kept telling herself that she should not have laughed at him. He did try to show off sometimes. But he was a good boy. She thought more of him than of any of the other young folks in Pigeon Creek. Not for anything would she have hurt his feelings. When he pushed back his stool, she followed him out into the yard.
"About your being President," she said. "I wasn't aiming to make fun of you. I just meant that youβwith all your tricks and jokesβ"
"I reckon I know what you meant," said Abe quietly. "All the same, Mrs. Crawford, I don't always mean to delve and grub and such like."
There was a look of determination on his face that she had not seen before. "I think a heap of you," she went on, "and I don't want to see you disappointed. It's a fine thing to be ambitious. But don't let reading about George Washington give you notions that can't come to anything."
Abe threw back his shoulders. "I aim to study and get ready and then the chance will come."
He lifted his battered straw hat, and started down the path toward the field. He walked with dignity. Elizabeth had not realized that he was so tall.
"I declare," she said, "he really means it!"
Sammy had come up and heard her. "Means what. Mamma?" he asked.
Elizabeth took his hand. "Didn't you know, Sammy? Abe is fixing to be President some day."
9On Sunday morning the Lincolns went to church. All except Sarah. She had a headache.
"I'll go, Ma," said Abe. "When I come back, I'll tell you what the preacher said."
Sarah smiled at him fondly. Abe could listen to a sermon, then come home and repeat it almost word for word. "I'd rather hear you preachify," she said, "than the preacher himself."
Tom and his family walked single file into the log meeting house and took their places on one of the long wooden benches. John Carter, sitting on the bench in front of them, turned and nodded. Carter had promised to buy the Lincolns' south field. He would have the papers ready for Tom to sign on Monday. Tom needed the money, but the very thought of selling any of his land made him grumpy. He twisted and turned on the hard wooden bench during the long sermon. He hardly heard a word that the preacher was saying.
Abe leaned forward and listened eagerly. The preacher was a tall, thin man. He flung his arms about. His voice grew louder and hoarser as the morning passed. He paused only to catch his breath or when the members of the congregation shouted, "Amen." After the final hymn, he stood at the door shaking hands.
"Brother Lincoln," he said, "I want you to meet up with a new neighbor. This here is Mr. Swaney."
Tom shook hands. Then the preacher introduced Abe.
"Are you the new schoolmaster?" Abe asked.
"I don't figure on starting school till after harvest," Mr. Swaney replied. "Will you be one of my scholars?"
"I'd sure like to come." Abe glanced at his father.
"I reckon not," said Tom stiffly. "Abe has had as much schooling as he needs."
Back at the cabin, Sarah had dinner on the table. Tom cheered up as he and Dennis started "swapping yarns." Both were good storytellers and each tried to tell a better story than the other.
Abe did not like being left out of the conversation. "Pa," he asked, "can you answer me a question about something in the Bible?"
"I figure I can answer any question you got sense enough to ask."
Johnny and Mathilda nudged each other. They knew what was coming. One day when the preacher stopped by, Abe had asked him the same question. The preacher had been downright flustered when he couldn't answer.
"It's just this, Pa," Abe went on. "Who was the father of Zebedee's children?"
Tom flushed. "Any uppity young one can ask a question. But can he answer it? Suppose you tell me who was the father of Zebedee's children?"
"I sort of figured," said Abe, "that Zebedee was."
Everyone was laughing except Tom. Then he laughed, too. Sarah was glad. Abe had told her that Mr. Swaney was at church. She was going to talk to her husband that very afternoon about sending the children to school, and she wanted him to be in a good humor.
"What did the preacher have to say?" she asked.
"Wellβ" Tom was trying to remember. "What he said sort of got lost in the way he was saying it. How some of those preachers do hop and skip about!"
"I like to hear a preacher who acts like he's fighting bees," said Abe.
Sarah nodded. The description fitted the preacher "like his own moccasin," she said.
"You menfolks wait outside," she added. "Soon as the gals and I get the dishes done, we'll be out to hear Abe preachify."
The afternoon was warm. Sarah fanned herself with her apron as she sat down at one end of a fallen log near the door. The rest of the family lined up beside her. Abe stood before them, his arms folded, as he repeated the sermon he had heard that morning. Now and then he paused and shook his finger in the faces of his congregation. He pounded with one fist on the palm of his other hand.
"Brethern and sisters," said Abe, "there ain't no chore too big for the Lord, no chore too small. The Good Book says He knows when a sparrow falls. Yet He had time to turn this great big wilderness into this here land where we have our homes. Just think, folks, this Pigeon Creek had no one but Indians living here a few years back. And today we got cabins with smoke coming out of the chimneys. We got crops agrowing. We got a meeting house where we can come together
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