In The Boyhood of Lincoln Part 14

Examination-day is an important time in country schools, and it excited more interest seventy years ago than now. Andrew Crawford was always ambitious that this day should do credit to his faithful work, and his pupils caught his inspiration.

There were great preparations for the examination at Crawford's this spring. The appearance of the German school-master in the place who could read Latin was an event. Years after, when the pure gold of fame was no longer a glimmering vision or a current of fate, but a wonderful fact, Abraham Lincoln wrote of such visits as Jasper's in the settlement a curious sentence in an odd hand in an autobiography, which we reproduce here:

[Ill.u.s.tration: If a straggler ^{supposed to understand latin?} happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizzard--]

With such a "wizard" as Jasper in the settlement, who would certainly attend the examination, it is no wonder that this special event excited the greatest interest in all the cabins between the two Pigeon Creeks of southern Indiana.

"May we decorate the school-house?" asked a girl of Mr. Crawford, before the appointed day. "May we decorate the school-house out of the woods?"

"I am chiefly desirous that you should decorate your minds out of the spelling-book," said Mr. Crawford; "but it is a commendable thing to have an eye to beauty, and to desire to present a good appearance. Yes, you may decorate the house out of the woods."

The timber was green in places with a vine called creeping Jenney, and laurels whose leaves were almost as green and waxy as those of the Southern magnolia. The creeping Jenney could be entwined with the laurel-leaves in such a way as to form long festoons. The boys and girls spent the mornings and recesses for several days in gathering Jenney, and in twining the vines with the laurel and making decorative festoons.

They hung these festoons about the wooden walls of the low building and over the door. Out of the tufts of boxberry leaves and plums they made the word "Welcome," which they hung over the door. They covered the rude chimney with pine-boughs, and in so doing filled the room with a resinous odor. They also covered the roof with boughs of evergreen.

The spelling-book was not neglected in the preparations of the eventful week. There was to be a spelling-match on the day, and, although it was already felt that Abraham Lincoln would easily win, there was hard study on the part of all.

One afternoon, after school, in the midst of these heroic preparations, a party of the scholars were pa.s.sing along the path in the timber. A dispute arose between two boys in regard to the spelling of a word.

"I spelled it just as Crawford did," said one.

"No, you didn't. Crawford spelled it with a _i_."

"He spelled it with a _y_, and that is just the way I spelled it."

"He didn't, now, I know! I heard Crawford spell it himself."

"He did!"

"Do you mean to tell me that I lie?"

"You do--it don't need telling."

"I won't be called a liar by anybody. I'll make you ache for that!"

"We'll see about that. You may ache yourself before this thing is settled. I've got fists as well as you, and I will not take such words as that from anybody. Come on!"

The two backwoods knights rushed toward each other with a wounded sense of honor in their hearts and with uplifted arms.

Suddenly a form like a giant pa.s.sed between them. It took one boy under one of its arms and the other under the other, and strode down the timber.

"He called me a liar," said one of the boys. "I won't stand that from any _man_."

"He _sa.s.sed_ me," said the other, "and I won't stand any sa.s.sin', not while my fists are alive."

"_You_ wouldn't be called a liar," said the first.

"Nor take any sa.s.sin'," said the second.

The tall form in blue-jean shirt and leather breeches strode on, with the two boys under its arms.

"I beg!" at last said one of the boys.

"I beg!" said the other.

"Then I'll let you go, and we'll all be friends again!"

"Yes, Abraham, I'll give in, if he will."

"I will. Let me go."

The tall form dropped the two boys, and soon all was peace in the April-like air.

"Abraham Lincoln will never allow any quarrels in our school," said another boy. "Where he is there has to be peace. It wouldn't be fair for him to use his strength so, only he's always right; and when strength is right it is all for the best."

The boy had a rather clear perception of the true principles of human government. A will to do right and the power to enforce it, make nations great as well as character powerful.

The eventful day came, with blue-birds in the glimmering timber, and a blue sky over all. People came from a distance to attend the examination, and were surprised to find the school-house changed into a green bower.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABRAHAM AS A PEACE-MAKER.]

The afternoon session had been a.s.signed to receiving company, and the pupils awaited the guests with trembling expectation. It was a warm day, and the oiled paper that served for panes of gla.s.s in the windows had been pushed aside to admit the air and make an outlook, and the door had been left open. The first to arrive was Jasper. The school saw him coming; but he looked so kindly, benevolent, and patriarchal, that the boys and girls did not stand greatly in awe of him. They seemed to feel instinctively that he was their friend and was with them. But a different feeling came over them when 'Squire Gentry, of Gentryville, came cantering on a horse that looked like a war-charger. 'Squire Gentry was a great man in those parts, and filled a continental s.p.a.ce in their young minds. The faces of all the scholars were turned silently and deferently to their books when the 'Squire banged with his whip-handle on the door. Aunt Olive was next seen coming down the timber. She was dressed in a manner to cause solicitude and trepidation. She wore knit mits, had a lofty poke bonnet, and a "checkered" gown gay enough for a valance, and, although it was yet very early spring, she carried a parasol over her head. There was deep interest in the books as her form also darkened the festooned door.

Then the pupils breathed freer. But only for a moment. Sarah Lincoln, Abraham's sister, looked out of the window, and beheld a sight which she was not slow to communicate.

"Abe," she whispered, "look there!"

"Blue-nose Crawford," whispered the tall boy, "as I live!"

In a few moments the school was all eyes and mouths. Blue-nose Crawford bore the reputation of being a very hard taskmaster, and of holding to the view that severe discipline was one of the virtues that wisdom ought to visit upon the youth. He once lent to Abraham Lincoln Weems's "Life of Washington." The boy read it with absorbing interest, but there came a driving storm, and the rain ran in the night through the walls of the log-cabin and wet and warped the cover of the book. Blue-nose Crawford charged young Lincoln seventy-five cents for the damage done to the book. "Abe," as he was called, worked three days, at twenty-five cents a day, pulling fodder, to pay the fine. He said, long after this hard incident, that he did his work well, and that, although his feelings were injured, he did not leave so much as a strip of fodder in the field.

"The cla.s.s in reading may take their places," said Andrew Crawford.

It was a tall cla.s.s, and it was provided with leather-covered English Readers. One of the best readers in the cla.s.s was a Miss Roby, a girl of some fifteen years of age, whom young Lincoln greatly liked, and whom he had once helped at a spelling match, by putting his finger on his eye (_i_) when she had spelled _defied_ with a _y_. This girl read a selection with real pathos.

"That gal reads well," said Blue-nose Crawford, or Josiah Crawford, as he should be called. "She ought to keep school. We're goin' to need teachers in Indiana. People are comin' fast."

Miss Roby colored. She had indeed won a triumph of which every pupil of Spencer County might be proud.

"Now, Nathaniel, let's hear you read. You're a strappin' feller, and you ought not to be outread by a gal."

Nathaniel raised his book so as to hide his face, like one near-sighted.

He spread his legs apart, and stood like a drum-major awaiting a word of command.

"You may read Section V in poetry," said Mr. Crawford, the teacher.

"Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk. Speak up loud, and mind your pauses."