Little Abe | Page 6

would call "a gaf-topsail jacket." There were the usual and attractive brass buttons to the coat, drab knee-breeches, blue stockings, low tied shoes with buckles; and really everyone who knew Abe thought he was a proud young man. Perhaps he was, but it is not always an indication of pride when young people bestow more care upon their appearance than do their fellows; it may arise from a desire to appear respectable and be respected. No one will think I am trying to extenuate the foolish and extravagant love of dress which some people show, who adorn themselves in silks or broadcloth, for which they have to go into debt without the means of paying. Some are most unsparing in the way they lavish money on their own persons, but only ask them to bestow something on a charitable institution, or on the cause of God, and how poor they are; how careful not to be guilty of the sin of extravagance; how anxious not to be generous before being just.
There is a propriety which ought to be observed with regard to dress as well as other things, and it will commend itself to the judgment as well as to the eye. Some young people are the very opposite to Abe; they bestow scanty attentions on their appearance,--how can they think that any one else will pay them any regard? Their appearance is like the index to a book; you see in a minute what the work contains, and so you may generally form a correct idea of the character of an individual by his habitual personal appearance. "Character shows through," is a good saying, and would make a profitable study for most of us; it shows through the skin, the dress, the manners, the speech, through everything; people ought to remember this, and it would have a good influence on their conduct.
A few years after his mother's death his father married again, and removed about a mile further up the hill, to a place called Berry Brow. This village is situated about two miles out of Huddersfield, and is the notable place where "little Abe" spent the greater part of his days. It stands on the brow of a hill which bounds one side of the wealthy and picturesque valley that winds along from Huddersfield to Penistone. It boasts one main street, which sidles along down the hill-side with here and there a clever curve, just enough to prevent you from taking a full-length view of the street; on and down it goes, the houses on the one side looking down on those opposite, and evidently having the advantages of being higher up in the world than their neighbours, until it terminates in the highroad leading out of the village towards Honley and Penistone.
Run your eye down over the breast of the hill, and you have a delightful landscape picture, comprising almost everything which an artist would deem desirable for an effective painting, and a little to spare. There, nearly at the bottom of the gradient, stands the handsome old village church, with its tower and pinnacles, reaching up among the tall trees; and around it, a consecrated enclosure, guarding the monuments of the dead, which are mingled with melancholy shrubs, planted there by hands of mourners whose memories of the departed are fitly symbolized by those perpetual evergreens. On this side and beyond the sleeping graveyard, on either arm, are scattered, in pretty confusion, the houses of those who have retired from the main street for the sake of a little garden plot or other convenience. Now there is some pretence at a terrace, numbering two or three dwellings; then an abrupt break, and houses stand independent and alone as if quietly contemplating the lovely scenery of valley, hill, and forest, which are visible from that spot. Down there in the bottom of the valley, stand those mighty many-windowed cloth mills, whose great flat, unspeakable faces, seem to be covered all over with spectacles, out of which they can look for ever without winking; there the men, women, and children, born and bred in the hills, find honest toil with which to win bread and comforts; while with a twisting course there runs along the wealthy dale a little river, from which these giant mills suck up their daily drink. Across the narrow valley and you are into a dense woody growth, which climbs the hills to their very crown, and sweeps away, mingling with the sky.
To this village the Lockwood family removed; and coming more directly under religious influences, the father very soon became converted, and united with the Methodist Church, along with his wife. This had a great influence on Abe for good; he began to attend the Sunday-school, which was conducted in a room, in