She made him put a floor and windows in
his cabin, and she was a better mother to his children than their real
one had ever been. For the first time, young Abraham got some idea of
the comforts and decencies of life, and, as his step-mother put it,
"began to look a little human." He was not an attractive object, even at
best, for he was lanky and clumsy, with great hands and feet, and a
skin prematurely wrinkled and shrivelled. By the time he was seventeen,
he was six feet tall, and he soon added two more inches to his stature.
Needless to say, his clothes never caught up with him, but were always
too small.
His schooling was of the most meagre description; in fact, in his whole
life, he went to school less than one year. Yet there soon awakened
within the boy a trace of unusual spirit. He actually liked to read. He
saw few books, but such as he could lay his hands on, he read over and
over. That one fact alone set him apart at once from the other boys of
his class. To them reading was an irksome labor.
All this reading had its effect. He acquired a vocabulary. That is to
say, instead of the few hundred words which were all the other boys knew
by which to express their thoughts, he soon had twice as many; besides
that, he soon got a reputation as a wit and story-teller, and his
command of words made him fond of speechmaking.
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