ms by the
flickering firelight. If he had no pencil, he could use charcoal, and
probably did so. When it was covered with figures he would take a
drawing-knife, shave it off clean, and begin again. Under these various
disadvantages, and by the help of such troublesome expedients, Abraham
Lincoln worked his way to so much of an education as placed him far
ahead of his schoolmates, and quickly abreast of the acquirements of his
various teachers. The field from which he could glean knowledge was very
limited, though he diligently borrowed every book in the neighborhood.
The list is a short one--"Robinson Crusoe," Aesop's "Fables," Bunyan's
"Pilgrim's Progress," Weems's "Life of Washington," and a "History of
the United States." When he had exhausted other books, he even
resolutely attacked the Revised Statutes of Indiana, which Dave Turnham,
the constable, had in daily use and permitted him to come to his house
and read.

It needs to be borne in mind that all this effort at self-education
extended from first to last over a period of twelve or thirteen years,
during which he was also performing hard manual labor, and proves a
degree of steady, unflinching perseverance in a line of conduct that
brings into strong relief a high aim and the consciousness of abundant
intellectual power. He was not permitted to forget that he was on an
uphill path, a stern struggle with adversity. The leisure hours which he
was able to devote to his reading, his penmanship, and his arithmetic
were by no means overabundant. Writing of his father's removal from
Kentucky to Indiana, he says:

"He settled in an unbroken forest, and the clearing away of surplus wood
was the great task ahead. Abraham, though very young, was large of his
age, and had an ax put into his hands at once; and from that till within
his twenty-third year he was almost constantly handling that most useful
instrument--less, of course, in plowing and harvesting seasons."

John Hanks mentions the character of his work a little more in detail.
"He and I worked barefoot, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, and cradled
together; plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn." The sum of it all
is that from his boyhood until after he was of age, most of his time was
spent in the hard and varied muscular labor of the farm and the forest,
sometimes on his father's place, sometimes as a hired hand for other
pioneers. In this very useful but commonplace occupation he had,
however, one advantage.