I wanted to see the sun rise through the trees! You remember the day you cut down your first tree to begin the clearing and the sunlight came through the hole you'd made to the sky---- ABE Yes--I remember. NANCY You called me to come and see it---- ABE [_In a whisper._] Yes---- NANCY I was proud that morning as I saw you stand with your ax on that big log--anything my boy starts to do--he does---- [_Pauses._] Your father taught you to use the ax and---- [_Turns and looks at_ ABE.] Your father's a good man, my son--kind-hearted and true and everybody likes him. They made him road supervisor of his township in Kentucky once. If he could read and write he would have gone to the legislature---- [TOM _enters from the cabin with the rock and Bible, he crosses to_ NANCY, _and_ ABE _takes the rock and puts it under her feet_--SARAH _kneels and helps him._ NANCY'S _hand drops on the bench._ TOM _picks up her hand, and the chill of it worries him._] [ABE _and_ SARAH _rise._] NANCY Read to me, son--I like to hear your voice---- ABE [_Brightly._] All right--what----? NANCY The Twenty-third Psalm. [ABE _looks for the place._] I love to hear you read, my boy. It means that you can do what any other man can--it means so much! ABE [_Reads._] The Lord is my shepherd--I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake---- NANCY [_In a whisper._] Yea, tho' I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me---- [ABE _stops, looks up at his mother in amazement._] ABE Ma---- NANCY Remember always, my boy, that God _is_ with you! He is in the day and the night. He is in the sun and the wind, the trees and the grass--and not a sparrow falls to the ground without He knows. You recollect the year you put up those gourds there---- [_She points to the pole._] for your martins----? You cried when they circled away in the fall---- [ABE _nods._] I told you God would send them back in the spring, didn't I----? [_She laughs softly._] You said that He'd forget to tell them and they'd never find the way--but they came--didn't they----? ABE Yes, Ma, and I know now they'll come again next spring. NANCY