adapted from Training for the Presidency
by Orison Swett Marden
"I meant to take good care of your book, Mr. Crawford," said the boy, "but I've damaged it a good deal without intending to, and now I want to make it right with you. What shall I do to make it good?"
"Why, what happened to it, Abe?" asked the farmer, as he took the copy of Weems's Life of Washington which he had lent young Lincoln and looked at the stained pages and warped binding.
"It looks as if it had been out through all last night's storm. How come you forgot and left it out to get wet?"
"It was this way, Mr. Crawford," replied Abe. "I sat up late to read it, and when I went to bed, I put it away carefully in my bookcase, as I call it, a little opening between two logs in the wall of our cabin. I dreamed about General Washington all night, but when I woke up and took it out to read a page or two before I did the chores, you can't imagine how I felt when I found it in this shape. It seems the rain must have dripped on it three or four hours, through a crack, before I took it out. I'm sorry, Mr. Crawford, and want to fix it up with you, if you can tell me how, for I cannot pay for it right now."
"Well," said Mr. Crawford, "come and shell corn in my farm for three days, and the book is yours."
Had Mr. Crawford told young Abraham Lincoln that he had fallen heir to a fortune the boy could hardly have felt more elated. Shell corn only three days and earn the book that told all about his greatest hero!
"I don't intend to shell corn and the like always," he told Mrs. Crawford, after he had read the volume. "I'm going to fit myself for a profession."
"Why, what do you want to be, now?" asked Mrs. Crawford in surprise.
"Oh, I'll be president!" said Abe with a smile.
"You'd make a pretty president with all your tricks and jokes, now, wouldn't you?" said the farmer's wife.
"Oh, I'll study and get ready," replied the boy, "and then maybe the chance will come."
3
From the information in the fourth paragraph, what can the reader infer?
A.
Mr. Crawford was inconsiderate and wanted Abe to pay for the book.
B.
Young Abe valued books and wanted to take care of them.
C.
Young Abe had a large collection of books in his bookcase.
D.
Young Abe used to dream about George Washington everyday.