The Lincoln boy could have shielded himself, as to the damaged book, behind personal irresponsibility for an accident, or he could have flatly refused to make good. If so, we may well guess that he would never have been President of the United States, and would never have served America in its dire peril so as to be honored by the whole world. He was not that kind of a character. As we trace the steps of moral integrity, the trivial incident becomes powerfully significant. The Lincoln boy made good. He worked three days for the owner of the damaged book, so that another should not suffer loss through any kindness or good-will to him; also, beyond that, he could have no rest nor peace while any wrong existed between him and another man. From that time on he had before him the vision of a great American. Washington became his ideal type of character, and that ideal no doubt helped much to make him the patient power he was in the great crisis of his nation's existence. The rough and hard never hurt any one if they are healthy interests; the rude and uncultured wrong no taste if they are moral; and poverty injures nobody when it is clean and persevering and safe. So the hard requirements, rude living and destitute means only strengthened the boy more and more for the heroic responsibilities requiring such a type of manhood. It is said that he memorized and often repeated for self-encouragement the homely old verses of the song, "Try, Try Again." "When you strive, it's no disgrace Though you fail to win the race; Bravely, then, in such a case, Try, try again. That which other folks can do, Why, with patience, may not you? All that's been done, you may do, If you will but try." In a copy book the following lines, still preserved, were written by Lincoln: "Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen. he will be good but God knows when." This pathetic glimpse of the childhood dream may account for his profound interest in boys and boyhood. When he had reached world-wide fame he said, "The boy is the inventor and owner of the present, and he is our supreme hope for the future. Men and things everywhere minister unto him, and let no one slight his needs." [Illustration: Lincoln reading by Firelight.] CHAPTER III I. THE LINCOLN BOY AND HIS SISTER The wilderness never brought forth a more wonderful being than the child that became one of the greatest names in the history of America. Deep in the wild woods of Kentucky, in the humblest conditions of nature, farthest from the inventions of society, there arose a mind that gave great riches of thought to the making of civilization.