The time had passed when the boy could stay in the small surroundings of Pidgeon Creek. First he tried life on one of the river steamboats, then served as a clerk in a store at the town of New Salem, and there he began at odd moments to study law. A little later he knew enough law to become an attorney, and went to Springfield, and after that it was only a short time before he had won his clients. His cousin Denny came to hear him try one of his first cases. He watched the tall, lank young fellow, still as ungainly as in his early boyhood, and heard him tell the jury some of those same stories he had read aloud before the fire. When Abe had finished his cousin said to him, "Why did you tell those people so many stories?" "Why, Denny," said Abe, "a story teaches a lesson. God tells truths in parables; they are easier for common folks to understand, and recollect." Such was the simple boyhood of Abraham Lincoln, but its very simplicity, and the hardships he had to overcome to get an education, made him a strong man. He knew people, and when he came later to be President and to guide the country through the greatest trial in its history, it was those same qualities of perseverance and courage and trust in the people that made the simple-minded man the great helmsman of the Republic. XX Charles Dickens The Boy of the London Streets: 1812-1870 The little fellow who worked all day long in the tumble-down old house by the river Thames pasting oil-paper covers on boxes of blacking fell ill one afternoon. One of the workmen, a big man named Bob Fagin, made him lie down on a pile of straw in the corner and placed blacking-bottles filled with hot water beside him to keep him warm. There he lay until it was time for the men to stop work, and then his friend Fagin, looking down upon the small boy of twelve, asked if he felt able to go home. The boy got up looking so big-eyed, white-cheeked and thin that the man put his arm about his shoulder. "Never mind, Bob, I think I'm all right now," said the boy. "Don't you wait for me, go on home." "You ain't fit to go alone, Charley. I'm comin' along with you." "'Deed I am, Bob. I'm feelin' as spry as a cricket." The little fellow threw back his shoulders and headed for the stairs. Fagin, however, insisted on keeping him company, and so the two, the shabbily-dressed undersized boy, and the big strapping man came out into the murky London twilight and took their way over the Blackfriars Bridge. "Been spendin' your money at the pastry shops, Charley, again? That's what was the matter with you, I take it." The boy shook his head. "No, Bob. I'm tryin' to save. When I get my week's money I put it away in a bureau drawer, wrapped in six little paper packages with a day of the week on each one. Then I know just how much I've got to live on, and Sundays don't count. Sometimes I do get hungry though, so hungry! Then I look in at the windows and play at bein' rich."