CHAPTER III
LINCOLN S VIEW OF AGRICULTURE
PERCY had listened without interrupting, grieved at her disappointment, and open to any reasoning that might change his mind.
"Mother dearest," he said, "it was a year ago that you said I would have only till this fail to decide upon my college course and that it should be a special preparation for my life work. I have given much thought to it. You said that I should choose for myself, and I have not consulted much with others, but I have tried to consider the matter from different points of view.
"You know the Christmas present you gave me of the Lincoln books?"
"Yes, I know, and you have read them so much. I could not get you many books, but I knew there could be nothing better for my boy to read than the thoughts of that noble man. But, Percy dear, Lincoln was a lawyer, and he rose from the lowest walk in life to the highest position in the country, and with much less preparation than my own boy will have. Suppose he had remained a farmer! Surely no such success could ever have been reached. I am not so foolish as to have any such high hopes for you. Percy; but if you can only put yourself in the way of opportunity; and make such preparation as you can to fill with credit some position of responsibility that may be offered you! I had truly hoped that your study of Lincoln's life would influence yours. To me Lincoln was the noblest of all the noble men of our history, and I doubt not of all history, save Him who came to redeem the world."
Percy stepped to his little homemade bookcase and took a volume from the Lincoln set.
"May I read you some words of Lincoln?" he asked.
"Oh yes," she answered wonderingly.
"On September 30th, 1859," said Percy, "Lincoln gave an address at Milwaukee, before the State Agricultural Society of Wisconsin, and of all the addresses of Lincoln it seems to me that this is the greatest, because it deals with the greatest material problem of the United States. I think I have scarcely heard a public address in which the speaker has not dwelt upon the fact that the farmer must feed and clothe the world; and it seems to me that the missionaries always speak of the famines and starvation of so many people in India and other old countries. Do you remember the lecture by the medical missionary? Well, would it not he better to send agricultural missionaries to India and China to teach those people how to raise crops?