THE BOY LINCOLN'S BEST TEACHER
At Knob Creek the boy began to go to an "A B C" school. His first
teacher was Zachariah Riney. Of course, there were no regular schools in
the backwoods then. When a man who "knew enough" happened to come along,
especially if he had nothing else to do, he tried to teach the children
of the pioneers in a poor log schoolhouse. It is not likely that little
Abe went to school more than a few weeks at this time, for he never had
a year's schooling in his life. There was another teacher afterward at
Knob Creek--a man named Caleb Hazel. Little is known of either of these
teachers except that he taught little Abe Lincoln. If their pupil had
not become famous the men and their schools would never have been
mentioned in history.
An old man, named Austin Gollaher, used to like to tell of the days when
he and little Abe went to school together. He said:
"Abe was an unusually bright boy at school, and made splendid progress
in his studies. Indeed, he learned faster than any of his schoolmates.
Though so young, he studied very hard."
Although Nancy Lincoln insisted on sending the children to school, when
there was any, she had a large share in Abe's early education, just as
she had taught his father to write his own name. She told them Bible
stories and such others as she had picked up in her barren, backwoods
life. She and her husband were too religious to believe in telling their
children fairy tales.
The best thing of all was the reading of "The Pilgrim's Progress" during
the long Winter evenings, after the wood was brought in and Father Tom
had set his traps and done his other work for the night. Nancy's voice
was low, with soft, southern tones and accents. Tom and the children
enjoyed the story of Christian's pilgrimage from the City of Destruction
to the Celestial City the more because of her love for the story she was
reading to them, as they lay on bearskin rugs before the blazing fire.
Abe was only six, but he was a thoughtful boy. He tried to think of some
way to show his gratitude to his mother for giving them so much
pleasure. While out gathering sticks and cutting wood for the big
fireplace, a happy thought came to him--he would cut off some spicewood
branches, hack them up on a log, and secrete them behind the cabin.
Then, when the mother was ready to read again, and Sarah and the father
were sitting and lying before the fire, he brought in the hidden
branches and threw them on, a few twigs at a time, to the surprise of
the others. It worked like a charm; the spicewood boughs not only added
to the brightness of the scene but filled the whole house with the
"sweet smelling savour" of a little boy's love and gratitude.
No one can fathom the pleasure of that precious memory throughout those
four lives, as the story of Great Heart and Christiana followed
Christian along the path that "shineth more and more unto the perfect
day." While the father and sister were delighted with the crackle,
sparkle and pleasant aroma of the bits of spicewood, as Abe tossed them
upon the fire, no one could appreciate the thoughtful act of the boy so
much as his mother. It would be strange if her eyes did not fill, as she
read to her fascinated family, but that was not the sort of thing the
fondest mother could speak of.
Little did Nancy dream that, in reading to her son of the devotion of
Great Heart to his charges, she was fostering a spirit in her little son
that would help him make the noble pilgrimage from their hovel to the
highest home in the land, where another President of the United States
would refer to him as "the Great Heart of the White House." If any one
could have looked ahead fifty years to see all this, and could have told
Nancy Hanks Lincoln, she would not have believed it. After her own life
of toil and hardship it would have seemed to her "too good to be true."
But in the centuries following the humble yet beautiful career of "the
Backwoods Boy" from the hut to the White House, history keeps the whole
world saying with bated breath, "the half was never told!"
AN OLD MAN'S STORY OF SAVING ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S LIFE
Austin Gollaher, grown to manhood, still living in his old log cabin
near the Lincoln house in Knob Creek nearly twenty years after
Lincoln's assassination, and gave the following account of an adventure
he had with the little Lincoln boy:
"I once saved Lincoln's life. We had been going to school together one
year; but the next year we had no school, because there were so few
scholars to attend, there being only about twenty in the school the year
before.
"Consequently Abe and I had not much to do; but, as we did not go to
school and our mothers were strict with us, we did not get to see each
other very often. One Sunday morning my mother waked me up early, saying
she was going to see Mrs. Lincoln, and that I could go along. Glad of
the chance, I was soon dressed and ready to go. After my mother and I
got there, Abe and I played all through the day.
"While we were wandering up and down the little stream called Knob
Creek, Abe said: 'Right up there'--pointing to the east--'we saw a covey
of partridges yesterday. Let's go over.' The stream was too wide for us
to jump across. Finally we saw a foot-log, and decided to try it. It was
narrow, but Abe said, 'Let's coon it.'
"I went first and reached the other side all right. Abe went about half
way across, when he got scared and began trembling. I hollered to him,
'Don't look down nor up nor sideways, but look right at me and hold on
tight!' But he fell off into the creek, and, as the water was about
seven or eight feet deep (I could not swim, and neither could Abe), I
knew it would do no good for me to go in after him.
"So I got a stick--a long water sprout--and held it out to him. He came
up, grabbing with both hands, and I put the stick into his hands. He
clung to it, and I pulled him out on the bank, almost dead. I got him by
the arms and shook him well, and then I rolled him on the ground, when
the water poured out of his mouth.
"He was all right very soon. We promised each other that we would never
tell anybody about it, and never did for years. I never told any one of
it till after Lincoln was killed."
Abraham Lincoln's parents were religious in their simple way. The boy
was brought up to believe in the care of the Father in Heaven over the
affairs of this life. The family attended camp meetings and preaching
services, which were great events, because few and far between, in those
primitive days. Abe used afterward to get his playmates together and
preach to them in a way that sometimes frightened them and made them
cry.
No doubt young Lincoln learned more that was useful to him in after life
from the wandering preachers of his day than he did of his teachers
during the few months that he was permitted to go to school. But his
best teacher was his mother. She would have been proud to have her boy
grow up to be a traveling minister or exhorter, like Peter Cartwright,
"the backwoods preacher."
Nancy Hanks Lincoln "builded better than she knew." She would have been
satisfied with a cabin life for her son. She little knew that by her own
life and teaching she was raising up the greatest man of his age, and
one of the grandest men in all history, to become the ruler of the
greatest nation that the world has ever seen. She did her duty by her
little boy and he honored her always during her life and afterward. No
wonder he once exclaimed when he thought of her:
"All I am or hope to be I owe to my sainted mother."
And out of her poor, humble life, that devoted woman
"Gave us Lincoln and never knew!"