Question

adapted from The Child's Book of American Biography
by Mary Stoyell Stimpson

There were four years when there was no school anywhere near Abraham Lincoln's home, so his mother read with him and kept him caught up with his lessons in reading and arithmetic all that time.
Hunters and traders rode sometimes through the way that passed Abraham's house, and if a traveler had a book with him, Abraham was sure to get a look at it. A new settler had the book, Life of Washington. Abraham looked at the book hungrily for weeks and finally worked up the courage to ask the loan of it and promised to take good care of it. He was then earning money to help his parents, and he had no time to read but in the evenings. One night the rain soaked through the cracks of the cabin, and the precious book that he had promised to take good care of was stained on every page. He had no money to pay for the book, but he hurried to the settler's cabin and told him what had happened. He offered to work in the cornfield for three days to pay Mr. Crawford for the loss of the book. It was heavy work, but he did it and, in the end, owned the stained Life of Washington, himself.
When Abraham was sixteen years old, he was six feet tall, and was like a real-life Hercules that all the neighbors hired for manual labor whenever he was not working for his father. Once, he helped to keep store for a man. It was here that he won a nickname that he kept all his life—"Honest Abe." A woman's bill came to two dollars and six cents, and later in the day, Abraham found he had charged her six cents too much. After he closed the store that night, he walked three miles to pay her back those six cents. Another time when he weighed tea for a woman, there was a weight on the scales so that she did not get as much tea as she paid for. That meant another long walk, but he was no Scrooge and had no wish to keep the money for himself. He was liked for his honesty and good nature.
4
What is the best reason the author refers to Scrooge?
A.
to show that Lincoln was not lacking in intelligence
B.
to show that Lincoln was confused
C.
to show that Lincoln was healthy
D.
to show that Lincoln was not selfish and miserly

Answer 1

D. to show that Lincoln was not selfish and miserly

(“Scrooge” refers to the miserly character from Dickens, so the author uses it to emphasize Lincoln’s honesty and unwillingness to keep money that didn’t belong to him.)