"So, the boy wrote a letter to a good Baptist minister his mother had known back in Kentucky and told him what was wanted. It was nearly one year later that he came a distance of eighty miles to preach the sermon. All the people in the country came; not before had a funeral been preached when a woman had so long been sleepin' in her grave. And, as they gathered about, their faces were wet with tears. The boy never forgot it, nor the preacher's words.
"That little boy is a man now. Early one mornin' years ago he went for a last time to the lonely grave and kneelin' there, promised his mother's God again that he would be honest and tender. And whatever that boy is now or ever may be, he will owe to that angel mother lyin' under the wild tangle at the edge of the forest with God's stars watchin' it until the judgment-day."
It was quite still around the low-burning fire when he ended his story. Then John Rutledge spoke abruptly, "Davy, don't you see the fire needs a log? Sonny, put Tige out, he's scratching down the house. Ann, bring a pitcher of cider and a plate of apples."
"Put a few sweet turnips in," Abe Lincoln added; "there's nothing better than a turnip."
ONLY WASTING TIME
After Abe Lincoln went to Rutledges' to board, time seemed to go faster and more pleasantly than ever in his life for him. John Rutledge was not only an agreeable gentleman, but he was an unusually well-informed man for a pioneer, and he and the little coterie of friends passed many winter evenings discussing topics of local and national interest.
Abe Lincoln spent very little time, however, at the Rutledge home. There were many debates and public meetings during the Winter, all of which he attended. His treasured Blackstone was being read and digested with the same thoroughness he had given Washington and the Constitution and the Bible. In addition to this he had secured, at no small outlay of time and expense, a grammar, said to be the only one in the county, which he was eagerly learning. He was also making the acquaintance of Shakespeare, with which he was immoderately delighted, and which he had announced he would learn by heart, as he had much of the text in the few books he possessed.