Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance by Frances Cavanah (web ebook reader txt) 📖

declared that no one could "out-wrastle" their leader, Jack Armstrong. One day they rushed into the store and dared Abe to fight with Jack.

Abe laid down the book that he had been reading. "I don't hold with wooling and pulling," he said. "But if you want to fight, come on outside."

The Clary Grove boys soon realized that Denton's clerk was a good wrestler. Jack, afraid that he was going to lose the fight, stepped on Abe's foot with the sharp heel of his boot. The sudden pain made Abe angry. The next thing that Jack knew he was being shaken back and forth until his teeth rattled. Then he was lying flat on his back in the dust.

Jack's friends let out a howl of rage. Several of them rushed at Abe, all trying to fight him at the same time. He stood with his back against the store, his fists doubled up. He dared them to come closer. Jack picked himself up.

"Stop it, fellows," he said. "I was beaten in a fair fight. If you ask me, this Abe Lincoln is the cleverest fellow that ever broke into the settlement."

From then on Jack was one of Abe's best friends.

A short time later Abe enlisted as a soldier in the Black Hawk War to help drive the Indians out of Illinois. The Clary Grove boys were in his company, and Abe was elected captain. Before his company had a chance to do any fighting, Blackhawk was captured in another part of Illinois and the war was over.

When Abe came back to New Salem, he found himself out of a job. Denton Offut had left. The store had "winked out." Later, Abe and another young man, William Berry, decided to become partners. They borrowed money and started a store of their own.

One day a wagon piled high with furniture stopped out in front. A man jumped down and explained that he and his family were moving West. The wagon was too crowded, and he had a barrel of odds and ends that he wanted to sell. Abe, always glad to oblige, agreed to pay fifty cents for it. Later, when he opened it, he had a wonderful surprise.

The barrel contained a set of famous law books. He had seen those same books in Mr. Pitcher's law office in Rockport. Now that he owned a set of his own, he could read it any time he wished. Customers coming into the store usually found Abe lying on the counter, his nose buried in one of the new books. The more he read, the more interested he became.

Perhaps he spent too much time reading, instead of attending to business. William Berry was lazy, and not a very satisfactory partner. The store of Lincoln and Berry did so little business that it had to close. The partners were left with many debts to pay. Then Berry died, and "Honest Abe" announced that he would pay all of the debts himself, no matter how long it took.

For a while he was postmaster. A man on horseback brought the mail twice a week, and there were so few letters that Abe often carried them around in his hat until he could deliver them. He liked the job because it gave him a chance to read the newspapers to which the people in New Salem subscribed. But the pay was small, and he had to do all sorts of odd Jobs to earn enough to eat. On many days he would have gone hungry if Jack Armstrong and his wife, Hannah, had not invited him to dinner. When work was scarce he stayed with them two or three weeks at a time.

He knew that he had to find a way to earn more money, and he decided to study surveying. It was a hard subject, but he borrowed some books and read them carefully. He studied so hard that in six weeks' time he took his first job as a surveyor.

Sometimes when he was measuring a farm or laying out a new road, he would be gone for several weeks. People miles from New Salem knew who Abe Lincoln was. They laughed at him because he was so tall and awkward. They thought it funny that his trousers were always too short. But they also laughed at his jokes, and they liked him. He made so many new friends that he decided to be a candidate for the Illinois legislature.

One day during the campaign he had a long talk with Major John T. Stuart. Major Stuart had been Abe's commander in the Black Hawk War. He was now a lawyer in Springfield, a larger town twenty miles away.

"Why don't you study law?" he asked.

Abe pursed his lips. "I'd sure like to," he drawled; then added with a grin: "But I don't know if I have enough sense."

Major Stuart paid no attention to this last remark. "You have been reading law for pleasure," he went on. "Now go at it in earnest. I'll lend you the books you need."

This was a chance that Abe could not afford to miss. Every few days he walked or rode on horseback to Springfield to borrow another volume. Sometimes he read forty pages on the way home. He was twenty-five years old, and there was no time to waste.

Meanwhile he was making many speeches. He asked the voters in his part of Illinois to elect him to the legislature which made the laws for the state. They felt that "Honest Abe" was a man to be trusted and he was elected.

Late in November Abe boarded the stagecoach for the ride to Vandalia, then the capital of the state. He looked very dignified in a new suit and high plug hat. In the crowd that gathered to tell him good-by, he could see many of his friends. There stood Coleman Smoot who had lent him money to buy his new clothes. Farther back he could see Mr. Rutledge and Ann, Hannah and Jack Armstrong, Mentor Graham, and others who had encouraged and helped him. And now he was on his way to represent them in the legislature. There was a chorus of "Good-by, Abe."

Then, like an echo, the words came again in Ann's high, sweet voice: "Good-by, Abe!" He leaned far out the window and waved.

He was thinking of Ann as the coach rolled over the rough road. He was thinking also of Sarah. If only she could see him now, he thought, as he glanced at the new hat resting on his knee.