Abraham was by far the best speller in Crawford’s school. It was not expected by teacher or pupils that he would miss a word. More than that, he sometimes taxed his ingenuity to help others out of difficulty in their spelling classes. One day a class was spelling, and Crawford put out the word DEFIED. The girl to whom the word was given spelled it d-e-f-i-d-e. The next one, d-e-f-y-d; the third, d-e-f-y-d-e; the fourth, d-e-f-y-e-d; and soon, not one spelling the word correctly, Crawford became angry.

“What!” he bawled out, “these big boys and girls not able to spell the simple word defied! There shan’t one of you go home to-night if you don’t spell it, you lazy, ignorant louts!”

Just then a girl in the class, by the name of Roby, to whom Abraham was somewhat partial, looked up, and took a valuable hint from his smiling face. To use her own language, as she described the scene many years thereafter:—

“I saw Abe at the window; he had his finger in his eye, and a smile on his face. I immediately took the hint that I must change the letter y into an i. Hence I spelled the word,—the class was let out. I felt grateful to Abe for this simple thing.”

Notwithstanding Crawford’s was a “pioneer college,” he taught “manners.” He rather prided himself on teaching his pupils etiquette, at least as far as he knew. Imparting to his scholars some idea about cultivated society in thoroughly civilized places, he converted his school-room into a parlour of “ladies and gentlemen.” One pupil was required to go out, then re-enter in the rôle of a gentleman or lady stranger, whom another pupil introduced to every one in the room. Imagine Abraham, almost six feet high, though but fifteen years of age, homely as he could well be, clumsy and gawky in his appearance, clad in pioneer style, with legs and arms out of all proportion to his head and body, going through this ordeal of refinement! Nat Grigsby describes Abraham, at that time, thus: “He was long, wiry, and strong; while his big feet and hands, and the length of his legs and arms, were out of all proportion to his small trunk and head. His complexion was very swarthy, and his skin was shrivelled and yellow even then. He wore low shoes, buckskin breeches, linsey-wolsey shirt, and a cap made of the skin of an opossum or coon. The breeches clung close to his thighs and legs, but failed by a large space to reach the tops of his shoes. Twelve inches remained uncovered, and exposed that much of shin bone, sharp, blue, and narrow.” It must have been a comical sight, when this overgrown and awkward boy was required to play the gentleman, and was put through a course of “manners” indispensable to pioneers, as Crawford thought. It did him good, however, as we judge from the words of Mrs. Josiah Crawford, for whose husband Abraham subsequently worked. She said, “Abe was polite: lifted his hat on meeting strangers; and always removed it from his head on coming into the house.”

Three years after Abraham attended Crawford’s school he attended another, nearly five miles distant, taught by one Swaney. He continued but a short time at this school, since the great distance consumed too much of his time. But John Hoskins, who was a fellow-pupil, declares that “Abe took the lead, and was big in spellin’,” when “we would choose up, and spell every Friday night.”

Here Abraham’s school-days ended; and all his schooling amounted to less than one year. Nevertheless, according to David Turnham, he completely drained his teachers. We have his word for it, that “Abe beat all his masters, and it was no use for him to try to learn any more from them.”

We may add, in closing this chapter, that about this time Levi Hall, a relative of the Lincolns, removed from Kentucky with his family, and settled near them. Also John Hanks, cousin of the first Mrs. Lincoln, and son of Joseph Hanks of Elizabethtown, of whom Tom Lincoln learned the carpenter’s trade, came to live with the latter. John had no education, could neither read nor write; but he was a temperate, upright, truthful man, without a particle of Abraham’s wit, and none of his extreme awkwardness. He lived four years with Mr. Lincoln; then returned to Kentucky; whence he removed to Illinois, where we shall meet him again.