Part 9 (1/2)
It was one of the cruel sports of the boys, at the noonings and recesses of the school, to put coals of fire on the backs of wandering terrapins, and to joke at the struggles of the poor creatures to get to their homes in the ponds.
Abraham Lincoln from a boy had a tender heart, a horror of cruelty and of everything that would cause any creature pain. He was merciful to every one but the unmerciful, and charitable to every one but the uncharitable, and kind to everyone but the unkind. But his nature made war at once on any one who sought to injure another, and he was especially severe on any one who was so mean and cowardly as to disregard the natural rights of a dumb animal or reptile. He had in this respect the sensitiveness of a Burns. All great natures, as biography everywhere attests, have fine instincts--this chivalrous sympathy for the brute creation.
Lincoln's nature was that of a champion for the right. He was a born knight, and, strangely enough, his first battles in life were in defense of the turtles or terrapins. He was a boy of powerful strength, and he used it roughly to maintain his cause. He is said to have once exclaimed that the turtles were his brothers.
The early days of spring in the old forests are full of life. The Sun seems to be calling forth his children. The ponds become margined with green, and new creatures everywhere stir the earth and the waters. Life and matter become, as it were, a new creation, and one can believe anything when he sees how many forms life and matter can a.s.sume under the mellowing rays of the sun. The clod becomes a flower; the egg a reptile, fish, or bird. The cunning woodchuck, that looks out of his hole on the awakening earth and blue sky, seems almost to have a sense of the miracle that has been wrought. The boy who throws a stone at him, to drive him back into the earth, seems less sensible of nature than he.
It is a pleasing sight to see the little creature, as he stands on his haunches, wondering, and the brain of a young Webster would naturally seek to let such a groundling have all his right of birth.
One day, when the blue spring skies were beginning to glow, Abraham went out to play with his companions. It was one of his favorite amus.e.m.e.nts to declaim from a stump. He would sometimes in this way recite long selections from the school Reader and Speaker.
He had written a composition at school on the defense of the rights of dumb animals, and there was one piece in the school Reader in which he must have found a sympathetic chord, and which was probably one of those that he loved to recite. It was written by the sad poet Cowper, and began thus:
”I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail, That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.”
As Abraham and his companions were playing in the warm sun, one said:
”Make a speech for us, Abe. Hip, hurrah! You've only to nibble a pen to make poetry, and only to mount a stump to be a speaker. Now, Abe, speak for the cause of the people, or anybody's cause. Give it to us strong, and we will do the cheering.”
Abraham mounted a stump in the school-grounds, on which he had often declaimed before. He felt something stirring within him, half-fledged wings of his soul, that waited a cause. He would imitate the few preachers and speakers that he had heard--even an old Kentucky preacher named Elkins, whom his own mother had loved, and whose teachings the good woman had followed in her short and melancholy life.
He began his speech, throwing up his long arms, and lifting at proper periods his c.o.o.n-skin cap. The scholars cheered as he waxed earnest. In the midst of the speech a turtle came creeping into the grounds.
”h.e.l.lo!” said one of the boys, ”here's another turtle come to school!
He, too, has seen the need of learning.”
The terrapin crawled along awkwardly toward the house, his head protruding from his sh.e.l.l, and his tail moving to and fro.
At this point young Abraham grew loud and dramatic. The boys raised a shout, and the girls waved their hoods.
In the midst of the enthusiasm, one of the boys seized the turtle by the tail and slung it around his head, as an evidence of his delight at the ardor of the speaker.
”Throw it at him,” said one of the scholars. ”Johnson once threw a turtle at him, when he was preachin' to his sister, and it set him to runnin' on like a minister.”
Abraham was accustomed to preach to the young members of his family. He would do the preaching, and his sister the weeping; and he sometimes became so much affected by his own discourses that he would weep with her, and they would have a very ”moving service,” as such a scene was called.
The boy swung the turtle over his head again, and at last let go of it in the air, so as to project it toward Abraham.
The poor reptile fell crushed at the foot of the stump and writhed in pain.
Abraham ceased to speak. He looked down on the pitiful sight of suffering, and his heart yearned over the helpless creature, and then his brain became fired, and his eyes flashed with rage.
”Who did that?” he exclaimed. ”Brute! coward! wretch!” He looked down again, and saw the reptile trying to move away with its broken sh.e.l.l.
His anger turned to pity. He began to expostulate against all such heartlessness to the animal world as the scene exhibited before him. The poor turtle again tried to move away, his head just protruding, looking for some way out of the world that would deny him his right to the suns.h.i.+ne and the streams. The young orator saw it all; his lip curled bitterly, and his words burned. He awakened such a sympathy for the reptile, and such a feeling of resentment against the hand which had ruined this little life, that the offender shrank away from the scene, calling out defiantly:
”Come away, and let him talk. He's only chicken-hearted.”
The scholars knew that there was no cowardice in the heart of Lincoln.