He took the ax from the negro's hand, and patiently showed him how to hold and strike with it. The man apparently tried his best to learn, but it was a perspiring effort for him and the Deacon. The negro presently dropped his ax, sat down on the log, and wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve.
"'Fore God, Boss, dat's de hardest way ob cuttin' wood dat I ebber seed. Hit'll kill me done daid to chop wood dat a-way."
"Pshaw!" said the impatient Deacon. "You're simply stupid; that's all. That's the only way to handle an ax. You kin cut with half the work that way."
He was discovering what so many of us have found out, that among the hardest things in life is that of getting people to give up clumsy ways for those that are better.
In the meantime the boys had gotten breakfast. Then Shorty, who was dying to train their new acquisition for a winning fight with the Colonel's negro, took him behind the house for a little private instruction in boxing. The field-hand had never even heard of such a thing before, but Shorty was too much in earnest to care for a little thing like that. He went at his task with a will, making the negro double his fists just so, strike in a particular way, make a certain "guard," and hit out scientifically. Shorty was so enthusiastic that he did not stop to think that it was severe labor for the poor negro, and when he had to stop his lesson at the end of half an hour to go on battalion drill he left his pupil in a state of collapse.
Ignorant of the new ordeal through which his charge had been going, the Deacon went out in search of him. He had just finished reading the news in the Cincinnati Commercial, ending with an editorial on "Our Duty Toward the Freedmen," which impelled him to think that he could not begin Abraham Lincoln's education too soon.
"Now, Abe," said he briskly, "you've had a good rest, and it's time that you should be doin' some thing. You ought to learn to read as soon as possible, and you might as well begin to learn your letters at once. I'll give you your first lesson. Here are some nice large letters in this newspaper head, that you kin learn very easily. Now, the first one is T. You see it is a cross."
"Afo' de Lawd, Boss," wailed the desperate negro, "I jest can't l'arn no mo', now, nohow. 'Deed I can't. Hit's bin nuffin but l'arn, l'arn, ebbery minnit sense I got up dis mawnin', an' my haid's jest bustin', so hit is. I a'most wisht I wuz back wid my ole mas'r, who didn't want to l'arn me nuffin."
The astonished Deacon paused and reflected.