Every morning, except when there were chores to do at home, he and Sally
took a path through the woods to the log schoolhouse. Master Crawford
kept a "blab" school. The "scholars," as he called his pupils, studied
their lessons out loud. The louder they shouted, the better he liked it.
If a scholar didn't know his lesson, he had to stand in the corner with
a long pointed cap on his head. This was called a dunce cap.

One boy who never had to wear a dunce cap was Abe Lincoln. He was too
smart. His side won nearly every spelling match. He was good at
figuring, and he had the best handwriting of anyone at school. Master
Crawford taught reading from the Bible, but he had several other books
from which he read aloud. Among Abe's favorite stories were the ones
about some wise animals that talked. They were by a man named Aesop who
had lived hundreds of years before.

Abe even made up compositions of his own. He called them "sentences."
One day he found some of the boys being cruel to a terrapin, or turtle.
He made them stop. Then he wrote a composition in which he said that
animals had feelings the same as folks.

Sometimes Abe's sentences rhymed. There was one rhyme that the children
thought was a great joke:

"Abe Lincoln, his hand and pen,
He will be good, but God knows when."

"That Abe Lincoln is funny enough to make a cat laugh," they said.

They always had a good time watching Abe during the class in "Manners."
Once a week Master Crawford had them practice being ladies and
gentlemen. One scholar would pretend to be a stranger who had just
arrived in Pigeon Creek. He would leave the schoolhouse, come back,
and knock at the door. Another scholar would greet "the stranger," lead
him around the room, and introduce him.

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 mad