Literature and Art 757 



the death of the brave, patient mother, and of the 

 lonely, uncomfortable days that followed. You may 

 also read how at last a kindly woman came as a new 

 mother to care for the neglected home and children, 

 and you will be glad that she took such good care 

 of the poorly dressed, homely little boy. Happier 

 days agreed with him well, and at fifteen years of 

 age he could run the swiftest, jump the highest, 

 throw the farthest, split wood the best, and plow 

 the deepest of any boy in his neighborhood. He 

 was good-natured, obliging, and kind to every liv- 

 ing thing, and so honest and true in all that he did 

 that he was called ''Honest Abe." All the time he 

 had spent in school put together would not make 

 more than a year, but he had read every good 

 book he could get hold of, and he remembered 

 and thought about what he had read. 



Soon after Lincoln was fifteen years old he made 

 up his mind to become a lawyer. He went on work- 

 ing, on the farm, on the river, in a store, or in the 

 forest, earning what money he could to help his 

 family, but reading and studying law in his spare 

 time, and thinking as he worked. 



Lincoln's family moved to Illinois when he was 

 twenty-one years old, and as the years went by he 



