The Lincoln Story Book / A Judicious Collection of the Best Stories and Anecdotes of the Great President, Many Appearing Here for the First Time in Book Form

by Unknown

THE LITTLE HATCHET DID IT.

In 1823 Abraham Lincoln went briefly to Crawford's school, a log house, pleasing the teacher by his attention to the simple course. The boy had read but a small library, principally "Weems' Life of Washington," which had impressed him deeply. This is shown by the following anecdote told by Andrew Crawford, the Spencer County pedagogue: The latter saw that a buck's head, nailed on the schoolhouse, was broken in one horn, and asked the scholars who among them broke it. "I did it," answered young Lincoln promptly. "I did not mean to do it, but I hung on it"--he was very tall and reached it too easily--"and it broke!" Though lean, he weighed fairly. "I wouldn't have done it if I had 'a' thought it would break."

Other boys of that "class" would have tried to conceal what they did and not own up until obliged to do so. His immediate friends believed that the hatchet and cherry-tree incident in Washington's life traced this truthful course.