Abe did do well. He forgot that he was growing too fast, that his hands were too big, and that his trousers were too short. For a few minutes he made his audience forget it. Master Dorsey seemed to swell with pride. If that boy lives, he thought, he is going to be a noted man some day. Elizabeth Crawford, sitting in the front row, remembered what he had said about being President. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that Thomas Jefferson was speaking. When Abe finished and made an awkward bow, she joined in the hearty burst of applause.
"Do you know where he got that piece?" she asked her husband in a low voice. "From The Kentucky Preceptor, one of the books you loaned him. It makes a body feel good to think we helped him. Look at Mrs. Lincoln! She couldn't be more pleased if Abe was her own son."
Sarah waited to walk home with him. "I was mighty proud of you today," she said. "Why, what's the matter? You look mighty down-in-the-mouth for a boy who spoke his piece so well on the last day."
"I was thinking that this is the last day," he answered. "The last day I'll ever go to school, most likely."
"Well, you're seventeen now."
"Yes, I'm seventeen, and I ain't had a year's schooling all told. I can't even talk proper. I forget and say 'ain't' though I know it ain't—I mean isn't right."
"It seems to me you're educating yourself with all those books you read," said Sarah cheerfully.
"I've already read all the books for miles around. Besides, I want to see places. I can't help it, Ma, I want to get away."
Sarah looked at him fondly. She wished that she could find some way to help him.
Abe found ways to help himself. He was never to go to school again, but he could walk to Rockport to attend trials in the log courthouse. He liked to listen to the lawyers argue their cases. Sometimes he would write down what they said on a piece of paper. Now and then he had a chance to borrow a book that he had not read before from some new settler. He read the old books over and over again. He liked to read the newspapers to which Mr. Gentry, Allen's father, subscribed. The papers told what was going on in the big world outside of Pigeon Creek.