The poetic spirit was strong in the young scholar just then for on another page of the same book he had written these two verses, which are supposed to have been original with him:
| “Time, what an empty vapor ‘tis, |
| And days, how swift they are; |
| Swift as an Indian arrow |
| Fly on like a shooting star. |
| The present moment just is here, |
| Then slides away in haste, |
| That we can never say they’re ours, |
| But only say they’re past.” |
Another specimen of the poetical, or rhyming ability, is found in the following couplet, written by him for his friend, Joseph C. Richardson:
| “Good boys who to their books apply, |
| Will all be great men by and by.” |
In all, Lincoln’s “schooling” did not amount to a year’s time, but he was a constant student outside of the schoolhouse. He read all the books he could borrow, and it was his chief delight during the day to lie under the shade of some tree, or at night in front of an open fireplace, reading and studying. His favorite books were the Bible and Aesop’s fables, which he kept always within reach and read time and again.
The first law book he ever read was “The Statutes of Indiana,” and it was from this work that he derived his ambition to be a lawyer.
MADE SPEECHES WHEN A BOY.
When he was but a barefoot boy he would often make political speeches to the boys in the neighborhood, and when he had reached young manhood and was engaged in the labor of chopping wood or splitting rails he continued this practice of speech-making with only the stumps and surrounding trees for hearers.
At the age of seventeen he had attained his full height of six feet four inches and it was at this time he engaged as a ferry boatman on the Ohio river, at thirty-seven cents a day.