V

OME days passed before I again met the President. When I saw him I asked if he remembered William Scott.

“Of Company K, Third Vermont Volunteers?” he answered. “Certainly I do. He was the boy that Baldy Smith wanted to shoot at the Chain Bridge. What about William Scott?”

“He is dead. He was killed on the Peninsula,” I answered. “I have a message from him for you, which I have promised one of his comrades to deliver.”

A look of tenderness swept over his face as he exclaimed: “Poor boy! Poor boy! And so he is dead! And he sent me a message! Well, I think I will not have it now. I will come and see you.”

He kept his promise. Before many days he made one of his welcome visits to my office. He said he had come to hear Scott’s message. I gave it as nearly as possible in Scott’s own words. Mr. Lincoln had perfect control of his own countenance: when he chose, he could make it a blank; when he did not care to control it, his was the most readable of speaking human faces. He drew out from me all I knew about Scott and about the people among whom he lived. When I spoke of the intensity of their sympathies, especially in sorrow and trouble, as a characteristic trait of mountaineers, he interrupted me and said: “It is equally common on the prairies. It is the privilege of the poor. I know all about it from experience, and I hope I have my full share of it. Yes, I can sympathize with sorrow.”

“Mr. President,” I said, “I have never ceased to reproach myself for thrusting Scott’s case so unceremoniously before you—for causing you to take so much trouble for a private soldier. But I gave way to an impulse—I could not endure the thought that Scott should be shot. He was a fellow-Vermonter, and I knew there was no other way to save his life.”

“I advise you always to yield to such impulses,” he said. “You did me as great a favor as the boy. It was a new experience for me—a study that was interesting, though I have had more to do with people of his class than any other. Did you know that Scott and I had a long visit? I was much interested in the boy. I am truly sorry that he is dead, for he was a good boy—too good a boy to be shot for obeying nature. I am glad I interfered.”

“Mr. Lincoln, I wish your treatment of this matter could be written into history.”

“Tut! tut!” he broke in; “none of that. By-the-way, do you remember what Jeanie Deans said to Queen Caroline when the Duke of Argyle procured her an opportunity to beg for her sister’s life?”

“I remember the incident well, but not the language.”

“I remember both. This is the paragraph in point: ‘It is not when we sleep soft and wake merrily ourselves that we think on other people’s sufferings. Our hearts are waxed light within us then, and we are for righting our ain wrangs and fighting our ain battles. But when the hour of trouble comes to the mind or to the body—and when the hour of death comes, that comes to high and low—oh, then it isna what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune for others, that we think on maist pleasantly. And the thoughts that ye hae intervened to spare the puir thing’s life will be sweeter in that hour, come when it may, than if a word of your mouth could hang the whole Porteous mob at the tail of ae tow.’”

THE END