In 1823 Abraham Lincoln went briefly to Crawford's school, a log house,
pleasing the teacher by his attention to the simple course. The boy had
read but a small library, principally "Weems' Life of Washington,"
which had impressed him deeply. This is shown by the following anecdote
told by Andrew Crawford, the Spencer County pedagogue: The latter saw
that a buck's head, nailed on the schoolhouse, was broken in one horn,
and asked the scholars who among them broke it. "I did it," answered
young Lincoln promptly. "I did not mean to do it, but I hung on it"--he
was very tall and reached it too easily--"and it broke!" Though lean,
he weighed fairly. "I wouldn't have done it if I had 'a' thought it
would break."
Other boys of that "class" would have tried to conceal what they did
and not own up until obliged to do so. His immediate friends believed
that the hatchet and cherry-tree incident in Washington's life traced
this truthful course.
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