Thomas Lincoln soon married again and, strangely enough, made a wise choice, for his new wife not only possessed furniture enough to fill a four-horse wagon, but, what was of more importance, was endowed with a thrifty and industrious temperament.  That she should have consented to marry the ne’er-do-well is a mystery; perhaps he was not without his redeeming virtues, after all.  She made him put a floor and windows in his cabin, and she was a better mother to his children than their real one had ever been.  For the first time, young Abraham got some idea of the comforts and decencies of life, and, as his step-mother put it, “began to look a little human.”  He was not an attractive object, even at best, for he was lanky and clumsy, with great hands and feet, and a skin prematurely wrinkled and shrivelled.  By the time he was seventeen, he was six feet tall, and he soon added two more inches to his stature.  Needless to say, his clothes never caught up with him, but were always too small.

His schooling was of the most meagre description; in fact, in his whole life, he went to school less than one year.  Yet there soon awakened within the boy a trace of unusual spirit.  He actually liked to read.  He saw few books, but such as he could lay his hands on, he read over and over.  That one fact alone set him apart at once from the other boys of his class.  To them reading was an irksome labor.

All this reading had its effect.  He acquired a vocabulary.  That is to say, instead of the few hundred words which were all the other boys knew by which to express their thoughts, he soon had twice as many; besides that, he soon got a reputation as a wit and story-teller, and his command of words made him fond of speechmaking.  He resembled most boys in liking to “show off.”  He had learned, too, that there were comforts in the world which he need never look for in his father’s house, and so, as soon as he was of age, he left that unattractive dwelling-place and struck out for himself, making a livelihood in various ways—­by splitting rails, running a river boat, managing a store, enlisting for the Black Hawk war—­doing anything, in a word, that came to hand and would serve to put a little money in his pocket.  He came to know a great many people and so, in 1832, he proclaimed himself a candidate for the state legislature for Sangamon County, Illinois, where he had made his home for some years.  No doubt to most people, his candidacy must have seemed in the nature of a joke, and though he stumped the county thoroughly and entertained the crowds with his stories and flashes of wit, he was defeated at the polls.