Brooks's Readers, Third Year Part 21

This fire was kept burning all the time. It warmed the inside of the camp. A big iron kettle was hung over it by means of a chain and pole.

In the kettle the fat bacon, the beans, and the corn were boiled for the family's dinner and supper. In the hot ashes the good mother baked corn cakes, and sometimes, perhaps, a few potatoes.

One end of the camp was used as a kitchen. The rest of the s.p.a.ce was the family sitting room and bedroom. The floor was covered with leaves, and on these were spread the furry skins of deer and bears and other animals.

II.

Bible hoeing supplied strength busy plowing chopping taught

In this camp the Lincoln family spent their first winter in Indiana.

How very cold and dreary that winter must have been! Think of the stormy nights, of the howling wind, of the snow and the sleet and the bitter frost! It is not much wonder that the mother's strength began to fail before the spring months came.

It was a busy winter for Thomas Lincoln. Every day his ax was heard in the woods. He was clearing the ground, so that in the spring it might be planted. And he was cutting logs for his new house. For he had made up his mind, now, to have something better than a cabin to live in.

The woods were full of wild animals. It was easy for the boy and his father to kill plenty of game, and thus keep the family supplied with meat.

Lincoln, with chopping and hunting and trapping, was very busy. He had but little time to play. Since he had no playmates we do not know that he even wanted to play.

With his mother he read over and over the Bible stories which both of them loved so well. And, during the cold, stormy days, when he could not leave the camp, his mother taught him how to write.

In the spring the new house was built. It was only a log house, with one room below and a loft above. But it was so much better than the old cabin in Kentucky that it seemed like a palace.

The family moved into the new house before the floor was laid, or any door was hung at the doorway.

Then came the plowing and the planting and the hoeing. Everybody was busy from daylight to dark.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

HIS FIRST GREAT SORROW

I.

silence postage autumn duties finished preacher sycamore comfort buried grieving minister feeble

The summer pa.s.sed, and autumn came. Then the poor mother's strength gave out. She could no longer go about her household duties. She had to depend more and more upon the help that her children could give her.

At length she became too feeble to leave her bed. She called the boy to her side. She put her arm around him and said: "My boy, I shall very soon leave you. I know that you will always be good and kind to your sister and father. Try to live as I have taught you, and to love your heavenly Father."

Then she fell asleep, never to wake again on this earth.

Under a big sycamore tree, half a mile from the house, the neighbors dug the grave for the mother of Abraham Lincoln. And there they buried her in silence and in great sorrow.

In all that new country there was no church; and no minister could be found to speak words of comfort and hope to the grieving ones around the grave.

But the boy remembered a preacher whom they had known in Kentucky. The name of this preacher was David Elkin. If he would only come!

And so, after all was over, the lad sat down and wrote a letter to David Elkin. Abraham was only a child nine years old, but he believed that the good man would remember his mother, and come.

It was no easy task to write a letter. Paper and ink were not things of common use, as they are with us. A pen had to be made from the quill of a goose.

But at last the letter was finished and sent to Kentucky. How it was carried I do not know, for the mails were few in those days, and postage was very high.

II.

upright forded funeral months justice earliest sympathy hymns reward preached reverence duty

Months pa.s.sed. The leaves were again on the trees. The wild flowers were blossoming in the woods. At last the preacher came.

He had ridden a hundred miles on horseback. He had forded rivers and traveled through pathless woods. He had dared the dangers of the wild forest. And all in answer to the lad's letter.

He had no hope of reward save that which is given to every man who does his duty. He did not know that there would come a time when the greatest preachers in the world would envy him his sad task.

And now the friends and neighbors gathered again under the great sycamore tree. The funeral sermon was preached. Hymns were sung. A prayer was offered, and words of comfort were spoken.

From that time forward the mind of Abraham Lincoln was filled with high and n.o.ble thoughts. In his earliest childhood his mother had taught him to love truth and justice, to be honest and upright among men, and to honor G.o.d. These lessons he never forgot.

Long afterward, when the world had come to know him as a very great man, he said: "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

--JAMES BALDWIN.

HANA AND TORA

THEIR HOME

I.

Tora j.a.pan j.a.panese gowns Hana mirror carriage hastens

Hana is a little j.a.panese girl. Her name, in the language of j.a.pan, means flower or blossom. If you should see her you would say that she is as beautiful as the gayest flower in the garden.

Tora is her brother and his name means tiger. He is called Tora because his father and mother wish him to be as strong and as brave as a tiger.

Hana and Tora live in one of the beautiful islands of j.a.pan. Let us visit them in their home on the other side of the world.

We must cross the ocean to reach this far away land. So we go on board a great steamer and for days and days we sail over the sea.

At last we come to the city where our little friends live. We leave the ship and climb into a two-wheeled carriage which is drawn by a man. He runs along the street with our carriage almost as fast as a horse can trot.

[Ill.u.s.tration]