In The Boyhood of Lincoln / A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk

by Hezekiah Butterworth

"Hello!" said one of the boys, "here's another turtle come to school! He, too, has seen the need of learning."

The terrapin crawled along awkwardly toward the house, his head protruding from his shell, and his tail moving to and fro.

At this point young Abraham grew loud and dramatic. The boys raised a shout, and the girls waved their hoods.

In the midst of the enthusiasm, one of the boys seized the turtle by the tail and slung it around his head, as an evidence of his delight at the ardor of the speaker.

"Throw it at him," said one of the scholars. "Johnson once threw a turtle at him, when he was preachin' to his sister, and it set him to runnin' on like a minister."

Abraham was accustomed to preach to the young members of his family. He would do the preaching, and his sister the weeping; and he sometimes became so much affected by his own discourses that he would weep with her, and they would have a very "moving service," as such a scene was called.

The boy swung the turtle over his head again, and at last let go of it in the air, so as to project it toward Abraham.

The poor reptile fell crushed at the foot of the stump and writhed in pain.

Abraham ceased to speak. He looked down on the pitiful sight of suffering, and his heart yearned over the helpless creature, and then his brain became fired, and his eyes flashed with rage.

"Who did that?" he exclaimed. "Brute! coward! wretch!" He looked down again, and saw the reptile trying to move away with its broken shell. His anger turned to pity. He began to expostulate against all such heartlessness to the animal world as the scene exhibited before him. The poor turtle again tried to move away, his head just protruding, looking for some way out of the world that would deny him his right to the sunshine and the streams. The young orator saw it all; his lip curled bitterly, and his words burned. He awakened such a sympathy for the reptile, and such a feeling of resentment against the hand which had ruined this little life, that the offender shrank away from the scene, calling out defiantly: