Part 32 (1/2)
”YOU HAVE ONE, AND I HAVE ONE--THAT IS RIGHT!”
An elderly woman was among the suitors of the President, when the commander-in-chief by virtue of office was besought to release her eldest son of three, her husband and two younger sons having been slain in action.
”Certainly,” returned the chief, ”if you have given us all, and your prop has been taken away, you are justly ent.i.tled to one of your boys.”
The woman took the discharge, and gratefully went away. But she was compelled to return more grieved than before, as she had found the son she sought dying in a hospital at the front. The surgeon made a note of the fatality, with which, unable to speak, she presented herself to the President. He knew what she wished this time, and proceeded to write out the release of the second son. On handing her the paper, he said--a new judgment of a kinder judge than Solomon:
”Now, you have one, and I the other of the two left; that is no more than right!”
”SHOOTING A MAN DOES HIM NO GOOD!”
Judge Kellogg, of New York, begged off the son of a voter in his district, condemned for military infraction; in fact, the judge did not know much of the case, but his insistence prevailed over the rectifier of the law and articles of war. Lincoln dryly remarked, as he appended his signature to the pardon:
”I do not believe that shooting a man does him any good!”
BENEVOLENCE IS BEAUTIFUL.
Thaddeus Stevens accompanied a lady of his const.i.tuents to beg a pardon of the President, her son being under death sentence of a court-martial. The senator backing up the pet.i.tion, it was granted.
The grateful woman was choking, and was led away by her escort, without speaking in thankfulness. But at the exit she found her voice, and burst forth feelingly:
”Mr. Stevens, they told me that the President was homely looking!
It is a lie! He is the handsomest man I ever saw!”
”IT WAS THE BABY THAT DID IT.”
A young mother came to Was.h.i.+ngton to sue for the life of her husband, a deserter, condemned to die. Such was the crowd of besiegers for grace, offices, and simple greeting by the host of the White House that she was kept out in the hall. But one day, the master pa.s.sing through the corridor ”to hold the show,” heard a baby's pitiful wail. He halted, listened again to make sure, and on entering his reception-parlor asked his favorite usher if he had not heard that odd thing--there--an infant's cry.
The attendant promptly related that a woman with a babe was without, who had been losing her time three days.
”Go at once, and send her to me,” he ordered, expressing regret that she should have been overlooked.
As there were several extenuating points in her plea, or the benign official leaned that way, he wrote his pardon and gave it to the woman, whose still plaintive smile shone through tears of grat.i.tude.
”Take that, my poor woman, and it will bring you back your husband,”