It impresses us rather curiously to learn that the new teacher Crawford undertook to teach “manners” to the rough brood that was under his charge. It was certainly a desirable accomplishment, but the teaching must have been attended with some difficulties.
For the amusement of my young readers I will try to describe one of these lessons. Mr. Crawford wished the boys to learn how to enter a room and pay their respects to the assembled company.
“Abe, it is your turn,” he says.
Abe Lincoln, understanding what is meant, rose from his seat, and retires from the room. A moment later a knock is heard at the door. A scholar, specially deputed to do so—we will suppose Nat Grigsby—advances to the door and opens it.
Before him stands Abe—tall, awkward, with the lower part of his limbs exposed.
Nat bows, and, taking him by the arm, leads him from bench to bench, presenting him to his fellow-pupils, as though he were a guest going the rounds in a drawing-room. Abe, who was never without a sense of fun, no doubt stole timorous glances askance at his rustic garb as he strode here and there, bowing politely to the boys and girls whom he knew so well. Yet it is possible that this exercise may have made it less awkward for him in later days to attend to his social duties when events brought him prominently before the country.
So far from laughing at Master Crawford’s instruction in manners, I am disposed to think very favorably of it. He must on the whole have been a sensible man, and no doubt had a considerable influence over the rough boys who submitted willingly to what possibly struck them as ludicrous.
I doubt, however, with all his pains, whether he succeeded in making Abe Lincoln graceful or courtly. On the whole, he was rather unpromising material; being long, lank, and awkward. Yet this tall, gawky boy was laying the foundation of a noble manhood. He was making the most of his slender advantages, not dreaming what greatness the Future had in store for him.
CHAPTER III.
ABE AND HIS FAMILY.
My young readers may naturally feel some curiosity as to the Lincoln family and their previous history.