Helen: Don't you be too sure of that. I tell you that boy will be a great man. Some day you'll hear of him yet.
John: Just because he was fool enough to cut four cords of wood for a piece of a book?
Thomas: Well, I'd have had the whole book or nothing.
John: So would I (sneering). Why he was a fool. O, yes, we'll hear of him, of course. We'll read about him in the back part of the spelling book where the blank leaves are. But what's his name, do you know?
Helen: Yes, father told me. His name is Abraham Lincoln: remember it, boys, for I am quite sure you will hear it again some day.
Thomas: Of course we'll remember it; couldn't forget it if we tried. A boy that was as big a greeny as that.
John: I tell you, Helen, the next time that you have to write one of those things which you like so well—a composition—you can write it about "The Two Cuts, or The Wood That Was Cut for a Cut Book." My! but that will be fine. (Both laugh boisterously.)
Helen: Well, you may laugh, boys, but you'll find there'll be plenty of people to write about him, and it may be it will be done while you are yet alive to read the books, and more than that—
(Shouts heard from behind scenes.)
John (running off at right): Come on, Tom, I hear the boys forming for "There, old cat"; we'll be too late.