So it happened that the events of Harry’s morning found their place in the diary which Sarah and Samson kept.  Long afterward Harry added the sentences about the razor.

That evening Harry read aloud from the Life of Henry Clay, while Sarah and Samson sat listening by the fireside.  It was the first of many evenings which they spent in a like fashion that winter.  When the book was finished they read, on Abe’s recommendation, Weem’s Life of Washington.

Every other Sunday they went down to the schoolhouse to hear John Cameron preach.  He was a working man, noted for good common sense, who talked simply and often effectively of the temptations of the frontier, notably those of drinking, gaming and swearing.  One evening they went to a debate in the tavern on the issues of the day, in which Abe won the praise of all for an able presentation of the claim of Internal Improvements.  During that evening Alexander Ferguson declared that he would not cut his hair until Henry Clay became president, the news of which resolution led to a like insanity in others and an age of unexampled hairiness on that part of the border.

For Samson and Sarah the most notable social event of the winter was a chicken dinner at which they and Mr. and Mrs. James Rutledge and Ann and Abe Lincoln and Dr. Allen were the guests of the Kelsos.  That night Harry stayed at home with the children.

Kelso was in his best mood.

“Come,” he said, when dinner was ready.  “Life is more than friendship.  It is partly meat.”

“And mostly Kelso,” said Dr. Allen.

“Ah, Doctor!  Long life has made you as smooth as an old shilling and nimbler than a sixpence,” Kelso declared.  “And, speaking of life, Aristotle said that the learned and the unlearned were as the living and the dead.”

“It is true,” Abe interposed.  “I say it, in spite of the fact that it slays me.”

“You?  No!  You are alive to your finger tips,” Kelso answered.

“But I have mastered only eight books,” said Abe.

“And one—­the book of common sense, and that has wised you,” Kelso went on.  “Since I came to this country I have learned to beware of the one-book man.  There are more living men in America than in any land I have seen.  The man who reads one good book thoughtfully is alive and often my master in wit or wisdom.  Reading is the gate and thought is the pathway of real life.”

“I think that most of the men I know have read the Bible,” said Abe.

“A wonderful and a saving fact!  It is a sure foundation to build your life upon.”

Kelso paused to pour whisky from a jug at his side for those who would take it.

“Let us drink to our friend Abe and his new ambition,” he proposed.

“What is it?” Samson asked.

“I am going to try for a seat in the Legislature,” said Abe.  “I reckon it’s rather bold.  Old Samuel Legg was a good deal of a nuisance down in Hardin County.  He was always talking about going to Lexington, but never went.