Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/52

22 solace for prosaic and uneventful poverty and privation. That the mother, with an ambition and enterprise far above her situation, could read and write, is a basis of fact from which we may reasonably infer that she was wont to gather her little progeny at her knee and instil into their infant minds the rudiments of education which would lead them to a better condition of life than she had ever known.

Circumstances rendered it expedient for Thomas Lincoln to remove from this uninteresting place to one more desirable on the banks of Knob Creek, an affluent of Rolling Fork, about six miles distant from Hodgenville, which removal occurred in the spring of 1813, when young Abraham was four years of age.

Both father and mother appreciated the value and necessity of their children's education, the former superficially, the latter substantially and practically, and the only means and opportunities the country afforded for any means of education were eagerly embraced. One Zachariah Riney taught in the immediate neighborhood, and to his school Abraham and his sister faithfully went. He was a man of an excellent character, deep piety, and a fair education. He had been reared as a Catholic, but made no attempt to proselyte, and the still existing town of Rineysville in Hardin County is a tribute to the estimation in which his family is held. He was extremely popular with his scholars, and the great President always mentioned him in later years in terms of grateful respect. At a later period, Caleb Hazel, a youth with a little smattering of education, "took up" a school some four or five miles distant, and the faithful and