Part 38

A little later he lived in a village named New Salem, and there he found a crowd of boys who were called the "Clary's Grove Boys," who were noted for the rough handling they gave to strangers. Many a new boy had been hardly dealt with at their hands. Sometimes they would lead him into a fight and then beat him black and blue, and sometimes they would nail the stranger into a hogshead and roll him down a steep hill.

When Abe Lincoln first came to the town they were afraid to tackle him, but when their friends taunted the crowd of young roughs with being afraid of Lincoln's strength, they decided to lay a trap for him. The leader of the gang was a very good wrestler, and he seized an opportunity when all the men of the town were gathered at the country store to challenge Abe to a wrestling match. Abe was not at all anxious to accept the challenge, but was finally driven to it by the taunts the gang threw at him. A ring was made in the road outside the store, and Abe and the bully set to.

The leader of the gang, however, found that he could not handle this tall young stranger as easily as he had handled other youths. He gave a signal for help. Thereupon the rest of the roughs swarmed about the two wrestlers and by kicking at Abe's legs and trying to trip him they nearly succeeded in bringing him to the ground. When he saw how set they were on downing him Abe's blood rose, and suddenly putting forth his whole strength he seized his opponent in his arms and very nearly choked the life out of him.

For a moment it looked as though the rest of the crowd would set upon Lincoln and that he would have to fight the lot of them single-handed. He sprang back against a wall and called to them to come on. But he looked so able to take care of any number that they faltered, and in a moment their first fury gave place to an honest admiration for Lincoln's nerve. That ended his initiation, and as long as he stayed in New Salem the "Clary's Grove Boys" were his devoted followers.

The leader of the gang, whom Abe had nearly throttled, became his sworn friend, and this bond lasted through life. When other men threatened Abe or spoke against him in any way, this youth was always first to stand up for him, and acted as his champion many times. Curiously enough, in after years, when Abe had become a lawyer, he defended his old opponent's son when the young man was on trial for his life, and succeeded in saving him.

Such an adventure as this with the "Clary's Grove Boys" was typical of the way in which Abe, as he grew up, came to acquire a very definite position in the community. In one way and another he gained the reputation which the boys gave him of being not only the strongest, but also "the cleverest fellow that had ever broke into the settlement." There were many strong men in that country, but there were few really clever ones, and the simple farmers were only too willing to admire brains when they met them.

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.

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."

They crossed the Bridge, the boy's big eyes seeming to take note of everything, the man, duller-witted, listening to his chatter. Several times the boy tried to say good-night, but Fagin would not be shaken off. "I'm goin' to see you to your door, Charley lad," he said each time.

At last they came into a little street near the Southwark Bridge. The boy stopped by the steps of a house. "Here 'tis, Bob. Good-night. It was good of you to take the trouble for me."

"Good-night, Charley."

The boy ran up the steps, and, as he noticed that Fagin still stopped, he pulled the door-bell. Then the man went on down the street. When the door opened the boy asked if Mr. Fagin lived there, and being told that he did not, said he must have made a mistake in the house. Turning about he saw that his friend had disappeared around a corner. With a little smile of triumph he made off in the other direction.

The door of the Marshalsea Prison stood open like a great black mouth. The boy, tired with his long tramp, was glad to reach it and to run in. Climbing several long flights of stairs he entered a room on the top story where he found his family, his father, a tall pompous-looking man dressed all in black, his mother, an amiable but extremely fragile woman, and a small brother and sister seated at a table eating supper. The room was very sparsely furnished; the only bright spot in it was a small fire in a rusty grate, flanked by two bricks to prevent burning too much fuel.

There was a vacant place at the table for Charles, and he sat down upon a stool and ate as ravenously as though he had not tasted food for months. Meanwhile the tall man at the head of the table talked solemnly to his wife at the other end, using strange long words which none of the children could understand.

Supper over Mr. and Mrs. Dickens (for that was their name) and the two younger children sat before the tiny fire, and Mr. Dickens talked of how he might raise enough money to pay his debts, leave the prison, and start fresh in some new business. Charles had heard these same plans from his father's lips a thousand times before, and so he took from the cupboard an old book which he had bought at a little second-hand shop a few days before, a small tattered copy of "Don Quixote," and read it by the light of a tallow candle in the corner.

The lines soon blurred before the boy's tired eyes, his head nodded, and he was fast asleep. He was awakened by his father's deep voice. "Time to be leaving, Charles, my son. You have not forgotten that my pecuniary situation prevents my choosing the hour at which I shall close the door of my house. Fortunately it is a predicament which I trust will soon be obviated to our mutual satisfaction."