Dec. 24, 1848
Dear Johnston:
1 Your request for eighty dollars, I do not think it best to comply with now. At the various times when I have helped you a little, you have said to me, "We can get along very well now," but in a very short time I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can only happen by some defect in your conduct. What that defect is, I think I know. You are not lazy , and still you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's work, in any one day. You do not very much dislike to work, and still you do not work much, merely because it does not seem to you that you could get much for it.
2 The habit of uselessly wasting time, is the whole difficulty; it is vastly important to you, and still more so to your children, that you should break this habit. It is more important to them, because they have longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit before they are in it, easier than they can get out after they are in.
3 You are now in need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it.
4 Let father and your boys take charge of your things at home - prepare for a crop, and make the crop, and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise you that for every dollar you will, between this and the first of May, get for your own labor either in money or in your own indebtedness, I will then give you one other dollar.
5 By this, if you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a month for your work. In this, I do not mean you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or the gold mines, in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the best wages you can get close to home - in Coles County.
6 Now if you will do this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is better, you will have a habit that will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I should now clear you out, next year you will be just as deep in as ever. You say you would almost give your place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value your place in Heaven very cheaply, for I am sure you can with the offer I make you get the seventy or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. You say if I furnish you the money you will deed me the land, and if you don't pay the money back, you will deliver possession -
7 Nonsense! If you can't now live with the land, how will you then live without it? You have always been kind to me, and I do not now mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you will but follow my advice, you will find it worth more than eight times eighty dollars to you.
Affectionately
Your brother
A. Lincoln
From THE BOOK OF VIRTUES by William J. Bennett. Copyright © 1993 by William J. Bennett.
A. Johnston needs to supply them with a crop.
B. Johnston provides a poor example to follow.
C. Johnston is spending their money.
D. Johnston will live as long as they do.
A. be able to keep his land.
B. have three times as much money in the end.
C. have changed his life for the better.
D. be thought of as a man who cannot pay his debts.
A. important idea.
B. unfinished thought.
C. unpleasant situation.
D. unusual word.
A. It would not provide enough money to get Johnston out of debt.
B. Lincoln really does not want the farmland Johnston offers in return for the money.
C. If Lincoln did lend the money, it would ruin Johnston's reputation.
D. It would only be a temporary solution for Johnston's problems.
A. Johnston should be willing to pay Lincoln back all the money he owes him after he gets some money saved.
B. Johnston will be far better off going along with Lincoln's proposal than simply getting a loan.
C. Johnston will receive from Lincoln eight dollars for every dollar earned.
D. Johnston will be able to make $640 in the next year, if he works hard.
A. "There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses."
– George Bernard Shaw
B. "People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know
much say little."
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
C. "If little labor, little are the gains; man's fortunes are according to his
pains."
– Robert Herrick
D. "Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass."
– Benjamin Franklin