this time, and though the instruction he received from his five
teachers--two in Kentucky and three in Indiana--extended over a
period of nine years, it must be remembered that it made up in
all less than one twelve-month; "that the aggregate of all his
schooling did not amount to one year." The fact that he received
this instruction, as he himself said, "by littles," was doubtless
an advantage. A lazy or indifferent boy would of course have
forgotten what was taught him at one time before he had
opportunity at another; but Abraham was neither indifferent nor
lazy, and these widely separated fragments of instruction were
precious steps to self-help. He pursued his studies with very
unusual purpose and determination not only to understand them at
the moment, but to fix them firmly in his mind. His early
companions all agree that he employed every spare moment in
keeping on with some one of his studies. His stepmother tells us
that "When he came across a passage that struck him, he would
write it down on boards if he had no paper, and keep it there
until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it,
repeat it. He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap-book, in which he
put down all things, and thus preserved them." He spent long
evenings doing sums on the fire-shovel. Iron fire-shovels were a
rarity among pioneers. Instead they used a broad, thin clapboard
with one end narrowed to a handle, arranging with this the piles
of coals upon the hearth, over which they set their "skillet" and
"oven" to do their cooking. It was on such a wooden shovel that
Abraham worked his sums by the flickering firelight, making his
figures with a piece of charcoal, and, when the shovel was all
covered, taking a drawing-knife and shaving it off clean again.

The hours that he was able to devote to his penmanship, his