As soon as the store was fairly under way Lincoln began to look about
for books. Since leaving Indiana, in March, 1830, he had had, in his
drifting life, little leisure or opportunity for study--though he had
had a great deal for observation. Nevertheless his desire to learn
had increased, and his ambition to be somebody had been encouraged.
In that time he had found that he really was superior to many of those
who were called the "great" men of the country. Soon after entering
Macon County, in March, 1830, when he was only twenty-one years old,
he had found he could make a better speech than at least one man who
was before the public. A candidate had come along where John Hanks and
he were at work, and, as John Hanks tells the story, the man made a
speech. "It was a bad one, and I said Abe could beat it. I turned down
a box, and Abe made his speech. The other man was a candidate--Abe
wasn't. Abe beat him to death, his subject being the navigation of
the Sangamon River. The man, after Abe's speech was through, took him
aside, and asked him where he had learned so much and how he could do
so well. Abe replied, stating his manner and method of reading, what
he had read. The man encouraged him to persevere."
He had found that people listened to him, that they quoted his
opinions, and that his friends were already saying that he was able
to fill any position. Offutt even declared the country over that "Abe
knew more than any man in the United States," and "some day he would
be President."
[Illustration: JOHN A. CLARY.
John A. Clary was one of the "Clary's Grove Boys." He was a son of
John Clary, the head of the numerous Clary family which settled in the
vicinity of New Salem in 1818. He was born in Tennessee in 1815 and
died in 1880. He was an intimate associate of Lincoln during the
latter's New Salem days.]
Under this stimulus Lincoln's ambition increased. "I have talked with
great men," he told his fellow-clerk and friend, Greene, "and I do not
see how they differ from others." He made up his mind to put himself
before the public, and talked of his plans to his friends. In order
to keep in practice in speaking he walked seven or eight miles to
debating clubs. "Practising polemics" was what he called the exercise.
He seems now for the first time to have begun to study subjects.
Grammar was what he chose. He sought Mentor Graham, the schoolmaster,
and asked his advice. "If you are going before the public," Mr. Graham
told him, "you ought to do it." But where could he get a grammar?
There was but one, said Mr. Graham, in the neighborhood, and that was
six miles away. Without waiting further information the young man rose
from the breakfast-table, walked immediately to the place, borrowed
this rare copy of Kirkham's Grammar, and before night was deep into
its mysteries. From that time on for weeks he gave every moment of his
leisure to mastering the contents of the book. Frequently he asked his
friend Greene to "hold the book" while he recited, and, when puzzled
by a point, he would consult Mr. Graham.
Lincoln's eagerness to learn was such that the whole neighborhood
became interested. The Greenes lent him books, the schoolmaster kept
him in mind and helped him as he could, and even the village cooper
let him come into his shop and keep up a fire of shavings sufficiently
bright to read by at night. It was not long before the grammar was
mastered. "Well," Lincoln said to his fellow-clerk, Greene, "if that's
what they call a science, I think I'll go at another." He had made
another discovery--that he could conquer subjects.
[Illustration: SITE OF DENTON OFFUTT'S STORE.
From a photograph taken for this Magazine.
The building in which Lincoln clerked for Denton Offutt was standing
as late as 1836, and presumably stood until it rotted down. A slight
depression in the earth, evidently once a cellar, is all that remains
of Offutt's store. Out of this hole in the ground have grown three
trees, a locust, an elm, and a sycamore, seeming to spring from the
same roots, and curiously twined together; and high up on the sycamore
some genius has chiselled the face of Lincoln.]
Before the winter was ended he had become the most popular man in New
Salem. Although in February, 1832, he was but twenty-two years of age,
had never been at school an entire year in his life, had never made a
speech except in debating clubs and by the roadside, had read only the
books he could pick up, and known only the men who made up the poor,
out-of-the-way towns in which he had lived, "encouraged by his great
popularity among his immediate neighbors," as he says himself, he
decided to announce himself, in March, 1832, as a candidate for the
General Assembly of the State.
[Illustration: ZACHARY TAYLOR.
At the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, Zachary Taylor, afterwards
general in the Mexican War, and finally President of the United
States, was colonel of the First Infantry. He joined Atkinson at the
beginning of the war, and was in active service until the end of the
campaign.]