come staring us in the face long after this suit is forgotten."

Morgan, in his biography, relates a memorable dream of Lincoln's. He thought he was in a vast assembly, and the people drew back to let him pass, whereupon Lincoln heard someone say: "He is a common-looking fellow." But in his dream Lincoln turned to the man and said: "Friend, the Lord prefers common-looking people; that is the reason why he made so many of them."

No wonder that on leaving Springfield for Washington, we hear this open-hearted illustrator of the charm of simple goodness saying to Herndon, his law partner: "Billy, over sixteen years together, and we have not had a cross word during all that time, have we?" "Not one." "Don't take down the sign, Billy; let it swing, that our clients may understand that the election of a President makes no change in the firm of Lincoln & Herndon. If I live, I'm coming back, and we will go right on practising law as if nothing had ever happened." Then they left the office, going down the stairs and across the town to the railroad station, Lincoln never to come back alive.

He was considerate of beast and bird as well as folk. One day when, as a country lawyer accompanied by friends he was going over the circuit, he

got down from his horse in a heavy storm and soiled his boots and clothing in the deep mire to release a pig that had become painfully entangled in a fence. When his companions laughed at him for his kindly interest in the animal, Lincoln answered: "I could not stand the look in that pig's eye as we rode past; it seemed to say to me: "There goes my last chance.'"

On another occasion, while riding the circuit in Illinois, Lincoln was missed by his fellow-lawyers. Joining them a few minutes later, he explained that he had caught two young birds which the wind had blown from their nest. "I could not have slept," he said, "unless I had restored those little creatures to their mother."

He never lost his special interest in the poor and the distressed. Located near the White House in Washington was a primary and intermediate school, the yard of which was separated by a fence from the rear end of the White House grounds. One of the events that stands out distinctly in the memory of some of those schoolboys is this: One day the teacher gave a lesson on neatness, asking each boy to come to school next day with his boots blacked. They all obeyed, excepting John S., a poor, one-armed lad, who brought down upon himself no end of ridicule, because he had used stove

blacking, the only kind of polish which his humble home afforded. Boys are sometimes merciless in their ridicule. This boy, only nine years old, and doubly sensitive because of his lost arm, tried to be brave, but his lips were quivering and the tears were in his eyes, when the jeering suddenly stopped, for there, leaning upon the fence and listening, stood the President.

Uttering no word of reproof, but entering the schoolhouse, Mr. Lincoln made inquiry of the teacher. He learned that John was a son of a dead soldier, and that his mother, who had other children, was a washerwoman. Then he went away, and it was many days before he returned again; but the next morning John was at school in a new suit, and with new shoes radiant of the best blacking. The change was so great the boys hardly recognized their companion. John reported that the afternoon before, the President and Mrs. Lincoln and another lady called at his home, in their carriage; that the President had taken him to a clothing store and bought him two suits; and that while he was doing this, the ladies made inquiries of his mother, which later were followed by clothing for the two little girls and a supply of coal and groceries. In addition to this information the lad brought to his teacher a scrap of paper

containing a verse of Scripture which Mr. Lincoln had requested to have written on the blackboard: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." Some weeks later, when Mr. Lincoln visited the school again, the verse was still on the blackboard and the teacher called his attention to it. Adjusting his spectacles, he read it; then, removing his eyeglasses and wiping them, the boys thought they saw tears in his kindly eyes. He quickly replaced his glasses, and, taking a crayon, said: "Boys, I have another quotation from the Bible, and I hope you will learn it, and come to know its truth as I have known and felt it." Then below the verse he wrote:

"It is more blessed to give than to receive."

CHAPTER XXXII

DISCIPLINED BY GRIEF

MR. LINCOLN's fondness for children was one of the most beautiful traits of his character. This trait doubtless accentuated his love for his own son Willie, whose death so rent the father's soul that for a time it seemed his mind would be unseated. But he emerged from his great sorrow disciplined into religious maturity.

Miss Ida Tarbell, in her excellent biography of Lincoln, says:

The protecting sympathy and tenderness of the President, extended to all children, became a passionate affection for his own. Willie and Tad had always been privileged at the White House, and their pranks and companionship did much to relieve the tremendous strain under which the President was suffering. Many visitors who saw him with the lads at this period have recorded their impressions how keenly he enjoyed their company, how indulgent and affectionate he was with them. When both children fell ill, when their father saw them suffering and when it became evident as it afterwards did, that Willie the elder of the two, would die, Mr. Lincoln's anguish was un