“He frequently amused his young companions by repeating to them long passages from the books he had been reading. On Monday mornings he would mount a stump and deliver, with a wonderful approach to exactness, the sermon he had heard the day before. His taste for public speaking appeared to be natural and irresistible.” Let me describe one of the scenes in which Abe often took part. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln have gone to church, for it is Sunday morning. The children are excused on account of the distance, and are left at home to fill up the time as they may. “Come in,” said Abe, appearing at the door of the cabin, “I’m going to preach.” With more willingness, perhaps, than if the services were to be conducted by a grown-up minister, the other young people in the family enter and sit down in decorous style, while Abe pulls down the Bible, reads a passage, and gives out a hymn. This is sung with more earnestness than musical taste, and then the young preacher begins his sermon. I am sure we should all like to have been present, and should have listened with interest while the gaunt, awkward boy, gesticulating with his long arms, delivered a homily not original with himself, but no doubt marked by some of his peculiarities. We are told that this young audience, the girls probably, were sometimes affected to tears. One might have been tempted to predict that the boy would develop into a preacher when he grew to man’s estate. But Abe did not confine himself to “preaching.” He was just as fond of other kinds of public speaking. Sometimes in the harvest field he mounted a stump and began to talk on political subjects. More than once Thomas Lincoln, going out to the field, found work at a standstill, and a little group collected at one point, Abe being the central figure. “What’s all this?” he would ask angrily. “It’s Abe,” one of the hands would answer. “He’s givin’ us a rousin’ speech on politics.” “I’ll rouse him!” said the incensed father. “Only let me get at him!” So he would push his way into the crowd unseen by Abe, and would suddenly seize his son by the collar and drag him from his extemporized rostrum. “Now go to work!” he would exclaim in irritation. “You can’t make your living by talking.” Abe, with a comical smile, would close his speech, to resume it on some more auspicious occasion. I have already said that Thomas Lincoln was a carpenter, though a poor one. Abe sometimes worked with him in the shop, but had no idea of learning the trade. He preferred to work in the field, and, as he could not fill up his time on the four acres his father cultivated, he hired out to any one of the neighbors who required his services. No prediction could have surprised his employers more than that the tall, awkward youth, who had grown out of his clothes, would hereafter hold in his hands the destinies of the country, and guide it triumphantly to the end of a protracted and bloody struggle.