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
reading, and his arithmetic were by no means many; for, save for
the short time that he was actually in school, he was, during all
these years, laboring hard on his father's farm, or hiring his
youthful strength to neighbors who had need of help in the work
of field or forest. In pursuit of his knowledge he was on an
up-hill path; yet in spite of all obstacles he worked his way to
so much of an education as placed him far ahead of his
schoolmates and quickly abreast of his various teachers.
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