Childish Rime
In a copybook, at the age of nine or ten:
Abraham Lincoln,
his hand and pen.
he will be good, but
god knows when.
The small “g” led a public speaker to denounce the sort of men—“sordid and ignorant”—who write “God with a small g and gold with a big one.” This was a scrapbook in humble imitation of the albums in the East.
Another copybook motto. (A year or so later.)
Good boys who to their books apply
Will all be great men by and by.