take the oath of office, the sun, which had been obscured by rain-clouds, burst in splendor. In conversation the next day, the President asked:

"Did you notice that sun-burst? It made my heart jump."

Later in the month, Miss Anna Dickinson, in a lecture delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives, eloquently alluded to the sun-burst as a happy omen. The President sat directly in front of the speaker, and from the reporters' gallery, behind her, I had caught his eye, soon after he sat down. When Miss Dickinson referred to the sunbeam, he looked up to me, involuntarily, and I thought his eyes were suffused with moisture. Perhaps they were; but the next day he said:

"I wonder if Miss Dickinson saw me wink at you?"

KINDNESS OF HEART.

An old acquaintance of the President visited him in Washington. Lincoln desired to give him a place. Thus encouraged, the visitor, who was an honest man, but wholly inexperienced in public affairs or business, asked for a high office, Superintendent of the Mint. The President was aghast, and said: "Good gracious! Why didn't he ask to be Secretary of the Treasury, and have done with it?" Afterwards, he said: "Well, now, I never thought Mr. had anything more than average ability, when we were young men together. But, then, I suppose he thought the same thing about me, and-here I am!"

Lincoln was censured for appointing one that had zealously opposed his second term.

He replied: "Well, I suppose Judge E., having been disappointed before, did behave pretty ugly, but that wouldn't make him any less fit for the place; and I think I have Scriptural authority for appointing him. You remember when the Lord was on Mount Sinai getting out a commission for Aaron, that same Aaron was at the foot of the mountain making a false god for the people to worship. Yet Aaron got his commission, you know."

Stories of the War.

THE PRESIDENT "MAKING GENERALS."

H. C. Whitney wrote in 1866: "I was in Washington in the Indian service for a few days before August, 1861, and I merely said to Lincoln, one day, ‘Everything is drifting into the war, and I guess you will have to put me in the army.' The President looked up from his work and said, good-humoredly, 'I'm making generals now, in a few days I will be making quartermasters, and then I'll fix you.''

HARDTACK WANTED, NOT GENERALS. Secretary Stanton told the President the following that greatly amused him, as he was especially fond of a joke at the expense of some high military or civil dignity.

When Stanton was making a trip up the Broad river in North Carolina, in a tub boat, a Federal picket yelled out, "What have you got on board of that tug?"

The severe and dignified answer was, "The Secretary of War and Major-General Foster.".

Instantly the picket roared back, "We've got MajorGenerals enough up here. Why don't you bring us up some hardtack?"

WHIPPED AND THEN RAN.

Three or four days after the battle of Bull Run, some gentlemen who had been on the field called upon him.

He inquired very minutely regarding all the circumstances of the affair, and after listening with the utmost attention, said, with a touch of humor: "So it is your notion that we whipped the rebels and then ran away from them!"

A TOUCHING SONG INFLUENCES LINCOLN TO PARDON A REBEL PRISONER.

The following interesting particulars connected with the early life of Abraham Lincoln, are from the Virginia (I11.) Enquirer, of date of March 1, 1879:

"John McNamer was buried last Sunday, near Petersburg, Menard County. A long while ago he was Assessor and Treasurer of the County for several successive terms. Mr. McNamer was an early settler in that section, and before the town of Petersburg was laid out, in business in Old Salem, a village that existed many years ago two miles south of the present site of Petersburg. Abe Lincoln was then postmaster of the place and sold whisky to its inhabitants. There are old-timers yet living in Menard who bought many a jug of corn-juice from Old Abe when he lived at Salem. It was here that Annie Rutledge dwelt, and in whose grave Lincoln wrote that his heart was buried. As the story runs, the fair and gentle Annie was originally John McNamer's sweetheart, but Abe

took a 'shine' to the young lady, and succeeded in heading off McNamer and won her affections. But Annie Rutledge died, and Lincoln went to Springfield, where he some time afterwards married.

"It is related that during the war a lady belonging to a prominent Kentucky family visited Washington to beg for her son's pardon, who was then in prison under sentence of death for belonging to a band of guerrillas who had committed many murders and outrages. With the mother was her daughter, a beautiful young lady, who was an accomplished musician. Mr. Lincoln received the visitors in his usual kind manner, and the mother made known the object of her visit, accompanying her plea with tears and sobs and all the customary romantic incidents.

"There were probably extenuating circumstances in favor of the young rebel prisoner, and while the President seemed to be deeply pondering, the young lady moved to a piano near by and taking a seat commenced to sing 'Gentle Annie,' a very sweet and pathetic ballad which, before the war, was a familiar song in almost every household in the Union, and is not yet entirely forgotten, for that matter. It is to be presumed that the young lady sang the song with more plaintiveness and effect than Old Abe had ever heard it in Springfield. During its rendition, he arose from his seat, crossed the room to a window in the westward, through which he gazed for several minutes with a 'sad, far-away look,' which has so often been noted as one of his peculiarities. His memory, no doubt, went back to the days of his humble life on the Sangamon, and with visions of Old Salem and its rustic people, who once gathered in his primitive store,