"Hoo-ray! hoo-ray! hoo-ray!" they said; and then they cheered all over again, and crowded round Uncle Henry and Caspar until the pair started home to put on dry clothes.
When little Caspar went home that night, he carried the flag that he had saved. Grandmother had washed and dried it, and it looked as good as new.
THE LOG CABIN BOY
How would you like to have begun life in a little log cabin set in the midst of a western wilderness? Suppose, too, that the cabin had no window and so many cracks that it let in the winter winds and even the snow!
That was how little Abe first saw life a long time ago, in February of 1809. It was rough life for a small boy. Even his mother had to know how to shoot, for the cabin was in the woods where wild beasts and Indians surrounded it. There was nothing to eat except what Abe's father raised or hunted. They had nothing to wear except the cloth his mother spun and wove, or the skins of animals.
By the time little Abe was six years old, though, he had learned more than a boy of that age to-day. He could fish and hunt. He was not afraid of Indians. He could catch hold of a sycamore tree on the edge of the brook outside the cabin, and swing himself way across the brook.
But little Abe's father was not satisfied with his boy's knowing only how to live an outdoor life. He could not read himself, but it was his great longing that little Abe should have this knowledge.
It was when Abe was seven years old and his sister, Sarah, a year younger, that their father spoke about this.
"I want the children to learn to read," he said. "There is a man in a shanty down the road who knows how. He can't write, but he could teach Abe and Sarah their letters."