Читать книгу Why We Love Lincoln онлайн

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Abraham Lincoln,

His hand and pen,

He will be good,

But God knows when.

All this has been told of him many times and in many ways; yet the nation he saved loves to dwell on the picture of the tall, tanned, awkward woodchopper and farm drudge; gawky, angular, iron-muscled, with bare feet or moccasins, deerhide breeches and coonskin cap, battling out in the forest against his own ignorance and, by sheer force of will power, conquering knowledge and commanding destiny.

Not a whimper against fate, not a word against youths more successful than himself, no complaint of the hard work and coarse food—simply the strivings of a soul not yet conscious of its own greatness, but already superior to its squalid environments.

It is probable that there is not a youth in all America to-day, however poor, ignorant, and forlorn, that has not a better chance to rise in life than Abraham Lincoln had when he started to climb the ladder of light by courage and persistent application.

He attended spelling matches, log-rollings and horse races. He wrote vulgar and sometimes silly verse. He outraged the farmers who employed him by delivering comic addresses and buffoonery in the form of sermons from tree-stumps, to the snickering field hands. Sometimes he thrashed a bully. His strength was tremendous. No man in the country could withstand him. It is said that he once lifted half a ton. Yet his temper was cool, his heart gentle and generous, and back of his singsongy, rollicking, spraddling youth, with its swinging axe-blows, forest-prowlings, and coarse humor, there was a gravity, dignity, sanity, fairness, generosity and deep, straightout eloquence that made him a power in that small community.