ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 268, 20 March 1873, Page 5

ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Lincoln now went to work in earnest, and studied law as faithfully as if he had never dreamed of any other busiuess in life. As a matter of course, his slender purse was uuequal to the purchase of the needful books ; but this circumstance gdve him little trouble ; for, although he was short of funds, he was long in the legs, and had nothing to do but to walk off to Springfield, where his friend John T. Stuart cheerfully supplied his wants. Mr. Stuart's partner, H. C. Drummer, says . s< He was an uncouth-looking lad, did not say much, but what he did say he raid straight and sharp." "He used to read, says Henry M'Henry, ''in 1832 or 1833, barefooted, seated in the shade of a tree, and would grind around with the shade, just opposite Berry's grocery store, a few feet south of the door," He occasionally varied the attitude by lying flat on his back, and " putting his foot up' the tree t " — a situation which might have been unfavorable to mental application in the case of a man with shorter extremities. " The first time I ever saw Abe with a law-book in Ins hand," says Squire Godbey, "he was sitting astrida of Jake Bule's woodpile in New Salem. Says I, ' Abe, what are you studying? ' " " Law," says Abe " Great God Almighty !" It was too much for Godbey ; he could not suppress the blasphemy at seeing such a figure acquiring science in such an odd situation. — Ward H. Lamon.