AP Abraham Lincoln ERNEST BY FOSTER Author of "Heroes of the Indian Empire" "Men of Note: their ABRAHAM LINCOLN. CHAPTER I. THE CABIN IN THE WILDERNESS. EFORE a log fire there sits a boy, between eight BEFO and nine years old. In front of him is a rough slab of wood; in his hand is a short stick, which now and again he holds in the flames, and when the point of it is charred, he carefully forms letters and words with it on the board. Then, after he has thus covered the whole surface, he shaves off the writing with a knife, and begins again. The little lad is Abraham Lincoln, and it is with such strange substitutes for pencil and slate as these that he who in course of time will become President of the United States is teaching himself penmanship. Let us glance at the humble home, and the surroundings of Abraham at this time; then we shall be better able to understand how it was that he was occupied in the way we have seen. It was in a rough log cabin, in the midst of |