The spring agrees to give her water, if she'll bring a cup. The tree will give her a cup, if she finds someone to shake its branches, and so on. Finally the dwarfs agree to help out without asking anything in return, and Cluck-cluck returns to each one who agreed to help until she finally brings water to Little Tuppen, who "drank water and stopped coughing. He ran chirping and scratching among the leaves as if nothing had happened."

If you're looking for a tale where a disobedient child gets punished, this isn't it. But you're looking for a light Scandinavian nursery tale that portrays a parent's undying love for her child, regardless of his behavior, then this one does the job. This book is a good one for preschool and kindergarten. Children will love the repetitive, cumulative words and Paul Galdone's playful four-color pen and ink illustrations.

Lincoln's words are supplemented with explanatory material which places the quotations in context. The quotations are drawn from his speeches and correspondence. Some contain well known phrases, such as the Gettysburg Address or the Second Inaugural. Others are drawn from correspondence, originally significant only to the writer and the addressee, but which are now provide windows into Lincoln's soul.

As I read through this book, I kept notes of significant quotes which I thought merited rereading.

Those entries which are not so memorable do provide insights into issues confronting Lincoln during his career in the Illinois Legislature, Congress, the practice of Law and in the White House. His correspondence to military and political leaders provide interesting views into particular issues of the conflict.

There are several quotations which I found to be of particular interest for their historical significance, their sound advise or just for their entertainment value.

One of his early quotations in which I found lasting wisdom concerned the source of a threat to our national existence. Lincoln asked:
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in atrial of a thousand years.
At what point the is the approach of danger to be expected?...If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

As a lawyer, I find his advise given to a member of our profession in 1850 still ring true today:
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can....
There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid."

As an historical matter, I find his assessment of the Know-Nothing Movement of the 1840s to be interesting:
"I am not a Know-Nothing. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of Negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people?...As a nation we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except Negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."

The final example of a quote which I will give is one which is relevant to our current calls for cultural diversity. Lincoln tells us that those Americans who have no blood ties to the signers of the Declaration of Independence are their heirs because:
"They feel that the moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as thought they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote the Declaration...That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world."

This is a book which I kept in my car for several years to read on overnight trips. It is excellent for this purpose. The entries are sufficiently independent to permit the book to be read in increments separate by weeks at a time. Overall this book is a worthwhile read.