The exercise was not required by the teacher, but, as Nat Grigsby has said, "he took it up on his own account." At first he wrote only short sentences against cruelty to animals, but at last came forward with a regular composition on the subject.

He was annoyed and pained by the conduct of the boys who were in the habit of catching terrapins and putting coals of fire on their backs.

"He would chide us," says Grigsby, "tell us it was wrong, and would write against it." One who has had the privilege of looking over some of the boyish possessions of Lincoln says: "Among the most touching relics which I saw was an old copy-book in which, at the age of fourteen, Lincoln had taught himself to write and cipher.

Scratched in his boyish hand on the first page were these lines: _Abraham Lincoln his hand and pen.
he will be good but god knows When_" The boy's thirst for learning was not to be satisfied with the meagre knowledge furnished in the miserable schools he was able to attend at long intervals.

His step-mother says: "He read diligently.