"He was always at school early, and attended to his studies. He lost no time at home, and when not at work was at his books. He kept up his studies on Sunday, and carried his books with him to work, so that he might read when he rested from labor." Thomas Lincoln had no use for "eddication," as he called it. "It will spile the boy," he kept saying. He--the father--had got along better without going to school, and why should Abe have a better education than his father? He thought Abe's studious habits were due to "pure laziness, jest to git shet o' workin'." So, whenever there was the slightest excuse, he took Abe out of school and set him to work at home or for one of the neighbors, while he himself went hunting or loafed about the house. This must have been very trying to a boy as hungry to learn as Abe Lincoln was. His new mother saw and sympathized with him, and in her quiet way, managed to get the boy started to school, for a few weeks at most. For some reason Hazel Dorsey stopped "keeping" the school, and there was a long "vacation" for all the children. But a new man, Andrew Crawford, came and settled near Gentryville. Having nothing better to do at first, he was urged to reopen the school. One evening Abe came in from his work and his stepmother greeted him with: "Another chance for you to go to school." "Where?" "That man Crawford that moved in a while ago is to begin school next week, and two miles and back every day will be just about enough for you to walk to keep your legs limber." The tactful wife accomplished it somehow and Abe started off to school with Nancy, and a light heart. A neighbor described him as he appeared in Crawford's school, as "long, wiry and strong, while his big feet and hands, and the length of his legs and arms, were out of all proportion to his small trunk and head. His complexion was swarthy, and his skin shriveled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a coonskin cap. The breeches hung close to his legs, but were far from meeting the tops of his shoes, exposing 'twelve inches of shinbone, sharp, blue and narrow.'" "Yet," said Nat Grigsby, "he was always in good health, never sick, and had an excellent constitution." HELPING KATE ROBY SPELL Andrew Crawford must have been an unusual man, for he tried to teach "manners" in his backwoods school! Spelling was considered a great accomplishment. Abe shone as a speller in school and at the spelling-matches. One day, evidently during a period when young Lincoln was kept from school to do some outside work for his father, he appeared at the window when the class in spelling was on the floor. The word "defied" was given out and several pupils had misspelled it. Kate Roby, the pretty girl of the village, was stammering over it. "D-e-f," said Kate, then she hesitated over the next letter. Abe pointed to his eye and winked significantly. The girl took the hint and went on glibly "i-e-d," and "went up head."