Abraham Lincoln gave a deep sigh.
"Washes himself as if he's afraid the water'd scald him," said the Deacon, watching the negro's awkward efforts. "He'll have to take more kindly to water, if he comes into a Baptist total immersion family. There's no salvation except by water, and plenty of it, too. Now," he continued, as the black man had finished, "pick up that ax and cut some wood to get breakfast with."
Abraham Lincoln took the ax, and began belaboring the wood, while the Deacon studied him with a critical eye. There was little that the Deacon prided himself on more than his skill as a wood chopper. People who think the ax is a simple, skill-less tool, dependent for its efficiency solely upon the strength and industry with which it is wielded, make a great mistake. There is as much difference in the way men handle axes, and in the result they produce, as there is in their playing the violin. Anybody can chop, it is true, as anybody can daub with a paint brush, but a real axman of the breed of the Deacon, who had gone into the wilderness with scarcely any other tool than an ax, can produce results with it of which the clumsy hacker can scarcely imagine. The Deacon watched the negro's work with disgust and impatience.
"Hadn't oughter named sich a clumsy pounder as that 'Abraham Lincoln,'" he mused. "Old Abe could handle an ax with the best of 'em. This feller handles it as if it was a handspike. If Si couldn't 've used an ax better'n that when he was 10 years old, I'd 'a' felt mortally ashamed o' him. Gracious, what a job I have before me o' makin' a first-class man out o' him."
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.