his life; and
yet, by the use of a single book and the occasional aid of a village
schoolmaster, he became an expert surveyor in six weeks! At the age of
twenty-one he accompanied his family to Illinois. One morning, when
seated at the breakfast-table of his employer, Lincoln was told that a
man living six miles away had a copy of an English grammar. He left the
table at once, and went and borrowed the book. During the long winter
evenings that followed, in the light of the village cooper's shop, he
pored over the pages of that book,--studying the science of language,
the theory of human speech, and qualifying himself to become the author
of one of the three great State papers of modern times, by the light of
burning shavings!

But we leave that early life of his, which, in rude simplicity, repeats
"the short and simple annals of the poor."

In 1832 Black Hawk, the celebrated Indian chief, then in his
sixty-seventh year, crossed the Mississippi to regain the Rock River
valley,--the scene of his early trials and triumphs. His coming meant
war upon the pale-faced stranger, that had ventured to possess the
hunting-grounds of the red men. Several companies of volunteers were
raised to meet him, and Abraham Lincoln served as captain of one of
them.

When the war was over Lincoln returned to New Salem, his home in
Illinois, and shortly afterwards began the study of the law. He was
still poor in purse, his clothing was threadbare, but his ambition was
immense. He often pursued his study in the shade of a tree. One day
Squire Godbey--a very good man he was, too, so we are told--saw him
seated on a pile of wood, absorbed in a book, when, according to the
squire, the following dialogue took place: "Says I, 'Abe, what are you
studying?'--'Law,' says he. 'Great God Almighty!' says I." Studying law
astride of a wood-pile, probably barefooted, was too great a shock for
the squire's susceptible nature. He continued to study, then to practise
a little without fee, and finally was admitted to the bar in 1836.

Judge Davis, once on the Supreme Bench of the United States, a man
spotless alike upon the throne of justice and in his daily walk, was
upon intimate terms with Lincoln for upwards of twenty years, and during
more than half of that period sat upon the judicial bench before which
Lincoln most frequently practised. No one is abler than he to speak of
Lincoln as a lawyer,--a lawyer who became one of the first of the
Western bar