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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"Good for you!" Sarah said, beaming. "Don't you fret. We'll squeak through somehow. But what if you had signed that paper? The farm would have been sold right out from under us. I reckon we can feel mighty proud of Abe."
"Well," Tom admitted, "it didn't hurt that he knew how to read. When did you say Mr. Swaney aims to start his school?"
"Right after harvest," said Abe before his stepmother had a chance to answer.
Tom ignored him and went on talking to his wife. "Now, mind you, Sairy, I ain't saying Abe needs any more eddication. I ain't saying it is fitting a son should know more'n his pa. But if you think the young ones should go to this new school for a spell, I won't say no."
He rose and stalked out of the cabin. Then he came back and stuck his head in at the door.
"Mind you, Abe, you forget to do your chores just one time, and that schoolmaster won't be seeing you again."
"Come back in and sit down, Tom," said Sarah. "Supper is nearly ready. Besides, Abe has something that needs saying."
Abe looked at his stepmother in surprise. Then he looked at his father. "I'm much obliged, Pa," he said.
11After a few weeks at Master Swaney's school, Abe had to stop and go to work again. When he was seventeen, he had a chance to attend another school kept by Azel Dorsey. Nearly every Friday afternoon there were special exercises and the scholars spoke pieces. For the final program on the last day of school, the boys had built a platform outside the log schoolhouse. Parents, brothers and sisters, and friends found seats on fallen logs and on the grass. They listened proudly as, one by one, the children came forward and each recited a poem or a speech.
Master Dorsey walked to the front of the platform. He held up his hand for silence. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we come to the last number on our program. Twenty-five years ago Thomas Jefferson became President of these United States. We shall now hear the speech he made that day. Abraham Lincoln will recite it for us."
Sarah Lincoln, from under her pink sunbonnet, stole a glance at Tom. "I hope that Abe does well," she whispered.
Abe did do well. He forgot that he was growing too fast, that his hands were too big, and that his trousers were too short. For a few minutes he made his audience forget it. Master Dorsey seemed to swell with pride. If that boy lives, he thought, he is going to be a noted man some day. Elizabeth Crawford, sitting in the front row, remembered what he had said about being President. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that Thomas Jefferson was speaking. When Abe finished and made an awkward bow, she joined in the hearty burst of applause.
"Do you know where he got that piece?" she asked her husband in a low voice. "From The Kentucky Preceptor, one of the books you loaned him. It makes a body feel good to think we helped him. Look at Mrs. Lincoln! She couldn't be more pleased if Abe was her own son."
Sarah waited to walk home with him. "I was mighty proud of you today," she said. "Why, what's the matter? You look mighty down-in-the-mouth for a boy who spoke his piece so well on the last day."
"I was thinking that this is the last day," he answered. "The last day I'll ever go to school, most likely."
"Well, you're seventeen now."
"Yes, I'm seventeen, and I ain't had a year's schooling all told. I can't even talk proper. I forget and say 'ain't' though I know it ain'tβI mean isn't right."
"It seems to me you're educating yourself with all those books you read," said Sarah cheerfully.
"I've already read all the books for miles around. Besides, I want to see places. I can't help it, Ma, I want to get away."
Sarah looked at him fondly. She wished that she could find some way to help him.
Abe found ways to help himself. He was never to go to school again, but he could walk to Rockport to attend trials in the log courthouse. He liked to listen to the lawyers argue their cases. Sometimes he would write down what they said on a piece of paper. Now and then he had a chance to borrow a book that he had not read before from some new settler. He read the old books over and over again. He liked to read the newspapers to which Mr. Gentry, Allen's father, subscribed. The papers told what was going on in the big world outside of Pigeon Creek.
James Gentry owned the log store at the crossroads, where the little town, Gentryville, had grown up. His partner, William Jones, was one of Abe's best friends, and Abe spent nearly every evening at the store. It became the favorite meeting place for the men and boys who lived close by.
"Howdy, Abe!" Everyone seemed to be saying it at once when he came in.
"The Louisville paper came today," William Jones might add. "Here you are! The fellows have been waiting for you to holler out the news."
Abe sat on the counter, swinging his long legs, as he read the newspaper out loud. The men sat quietly, except when William got up to throw another log on the fire or to light another candle. Abe read on and on. After he finished the paper, they talked about what he had read. They argued about many things from politics to religion. They always wanted to know what Abe thought. Many times they stayed until nearly midnight listening to him.
One evening, not long after Abe's nineteenth birthday, he walked home from the store in great excitement. He had been very sad since his sister Sally had died in January, but tonight he seemed more cheerful. Sarah looked up to find him standing in the doorway.
"What do you think has happened, Ma?" he asked. "I am going to New Orleans."
"How come, Abe?"
Sarah knew that prosperous farmers sometimes loaded their corn and other farm products on big flatboats. These flatboats were floated down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where the cargoes were sold. But the Lincolns raised only enough for their own use. They never had anything left over to sell. Nor could they afford to build a flatboat for the long trip down the rivers.
"How come?" Sarah asked again.
Abe seized her around the waist and danced her across the floor. She was out of breath but laughing when he let her go.
"Allen Gentry is taking a cargo of farm truck down to New Orleans to sell," he explained. "His pa has hired me to help on the flatboat. Mr. Gentry will pay me eight dollars a month. I reckon Pa will be pleased about that."
Abe himself was pleased because he was going to see something of the world. New Orleans was seven hundred miles away. It was a big and important city. Sarah was pleased because this was the chance that Abe had been wanting.
He had grown so tall that she had to throw back her head to look up at him. "I'm right glad for you," she said.
12To a boy brought up in the backwoods, the trip down the rivers was one long adventure. Abe sat at the forward oar, guiding the big flatboat through the calm, blue waters of the Ohio, while Allen cooked supper on deck. Afterwards Abe told stories.
After they had reached the southern tip of Illinois, where the Ohio emptied into the yellow waters of the Mississippi, there was little time for stories. The boys never knew what to expect next. One minute the river would be quiet and calm. The next it would rise in the fury of a sudden storm. The waves rose in a yellow flood that poured over the deck. Allen at the back oar, Abe at the front oar, had a hard time keeping the big flatboat from turning over.
At the end of each day, the boys tied up the boat at some place along the shore. One night after they had gone to sleep, several robbers crept on board. Abe and Allen awoke just in time. After a long, hard fight, the robbers turned and fled.
These dangers only made their adventures seem more exciting. It was exciting, too, to be a part of the traffic of the river. They saw many other flatboats like their own. The biggest thrill was in watching the steamboats, with giant paddle wheels that turned the water into foam. Their decks were painted a gleaming white, and their brass rails shone in the sun. No wonder they were called "floating palaces," thought Abe. Sometimes passengers standing by the rail waved to the boys.
Each day of their journey brought gentler breezes, warmer weather. Cottonwood and magnolia trees grew on the low swampy banks of both shores. The boys passed cotton fields, where gangs of Negro slaves were at work. Some of them were singing as they bent to pick the snowy white balls of cotton. A snatch of song came floating over the water:
"Oh, brother, don't get weary,
Oh, brother, don't get weary,
Oh, brother, don't get weary,
We're waiting for the Lord."
Abe leaned on his oar to listen. A few minutes later he pointed to a big house with tall white pillars in the middle of a beautiful garden.
"Nice little cabin those folks have," he said drily. "Don't recollect seeing anything like that up in Pigeon Creek."
"Why, Abe, you haven't seen anything yet. Just wait till you get to New Orleans."
This was Allen's second trip, and he was eager to show Abe the sights. A few days later they were walking along the New Orleans waterfront. Ships from many different countries were tied up at the wharves. Negro slaves were rolling bales of cotton onto a steamboat. Other Negroes, toting huge baskets on their heads, passed by. Sailors from many lands, speaking strange tongues, rubbed elbows with fur trappers dressed in buckskins from the far Northwest. A cotton planter in a white suit glanced at the two youths from Pigeon Creek. He seemed amused. Abe looked down at his homespun blue jeans. He had not realized that all young men did not wear them.
"Reckon we do look different from some of the folks down here," he said, as he and Allen turned into a narrow street.
Here there were more peopleβalways more people. The public square was crowded. Abe gazed in awe at the Cathedral. This tall Spanish church, with its two graceful towers, was so different from the log meeting house that the Lincolns attended.
Nor was there anything back in Pigeon Creek like the tall plaster houses faded by time and weather into warm tones of pink and lavender and yellow. The balconies, or porches, on the upper floors had wrought iron railings, of such delicate design that they looked like iron lace.
Once the boys paused before a wrought iron gate. At the end of a long passageway they could see a courtyard where flowers bloomed and a fountain splashed in the sunshine. Abe turned to watch a handsome carriage roll by over the cobblestones. He looked down the street toward the river, which
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