ho are said to disobey their parents, and every one of them
are poor scholars, and they use profane language."

Virtue so immaculate at so tender an age seems to us, we are forced to
admit, unnatural. The boys that have fallen in our way have never been
in the habit of making profound moral reflections, and we cannot resist
the unpleasant suspicion that Nat had just been playing at marbles for
"havings" with Cole, Fowle, and both the Drakes at the village-inn, and,
having found this vegetable repast too strong for his digestion, went
home to his mother and wreaked his discomfort on edifying moral maxims.
Or else he was a prig.

The unusual and highly exciting nature of the incidents recorded in
these biographies must be their excuse for a seeming violation of
privacy. When a rare and precious gem is in question, one must not be
over-scrupulous about breaking open the casket. What puerile prejudice
in favor of privacy can rear its head in face of the statement which
tells us that at the age of seven years our honored President--may he
still continue such!--"devoted himself to learning to read with an
energy and enthusiasm that insured success"?--such success that we learn
"he could read _some_ when he left school."

At the age of nine he shot a turkey!

Soon after,--for here we are involved in a chronological haze,--he began
to "take lessons in penmanship with the most enthusiastic ardor."

Subsequently, "there, on the soil of Indiana, ABRAHAM LINCOLN WROTE HIS
NAME, WITH A STICK, in large characters,--a sort of prophetic act, that
students of history may love to ponder. For, since that day, he has
'gone up higher,' and written his name, by public acts, on the annals of
every State in the Union."

He wrote a letter.

He rescued a toad from cruel boys,--for, though "he could kill game for
food as a necessity, and dangerous wild animals, his soul shrunk from
torturing even a fly." Dear heart, we can easily believe that!

He bought a Ramsay's "Life of Washington," and paid for it with the
labor of his own hands.

He helped to save a drunkard's life. "He thought more of the drunkard's
safety than he did of his own ease. And there are many of his personal
acquaintances in our land who will bear witness, that, from that day to
this, this amiable quality of heart has won him admiring friends."

He took a flat-boat to New Orleans, and defended her against the
negroes, who, poor fellows, were not prophetic enough to se