II.
| upright | forded | funeral | months |
| justice | earliest | sympathy | hymns |
| reward | preached | reverence | duty |
Months passed. The leaves were again on the trees. The wild flowers were blossoming in the woods. At last the preacher came.
He had ridden a hundred miles on horseback. He had forded rivers and traveled through pathless woods. He had dared the dangers of the wild forest. And all in answer to the lad's letter.
He had no hope of reward save that which is given to every man who does his duty. He did not know that there would come a time when the greatest preachers in the world would envy him his sad task.
And now the friends and neighbors gathered again under the great sycamore tree. The funeral sermon was preached. Hymns were sung. A prayer was offered, and words of comfort were spoken.
From that time forward the mind of Abraham Lincoln was filled with high and noble thoughts. In his earliest childhood his mother had taught him to love truth and justice, to be honest and upright among men, and to honor God. These lessons he never forgot.
Long afterward, when the world had come to know him as a very great man, he said: "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."
—James Baldwin.