7
“Bob,” Abraham Lincoln said, when he went back to the family rooms, “I need some help. Your mother has very graciously provided some little Christmas cheer for those boys out there of Company K. The things are all here in this big box. I’ll need you to help pass ’em out.”
He bent and shouldered the heavy box that Mary had packed with small, paper-wrapped bundles.
“Oh, Papa, let me call somebody! You shouldn’t carry that,” protested Robert.
“Little enough to do for those boys.” Lincoln bent under the burden. “It will mean more to them if I fetch it to them personally.”
“Ridiculous!” fumed Mary. “It’s beneath your dignity to lug that heavy box.”
“Put my hat on, Mary, and put it on tight so I won’t knock it off.” He ignored her protest calmly.
She jammed the high hat down over his rough hair, the bony knobs of his head. “You—the President of the United States!” she exploded. “With a house full of help and you lug that heavy thing!”
“He who would be greatest among you, let him seek out the lowest place,” quoted Lincoln, solemnly and a bit inaccurately. “Not near so heavy as a good stout oak rail and I’ve shouldered many of them in my day. Come along, Bob.”
“At least let me help carry, sir,” argued Robert as they went down the stairs.
“Don’t touch it or you’ll get it unbalanced and spill all Company K’s Christmas. Little enough, but I had John Hay fetch me a roll of greenbacks. I’ll give every man a dollar. A dollar is a right substantial present, Bob, when you’re marching and fighting for thirteen dollars a month and what you can eat, when you get a chance to eat.”
“I would do it gladly,” insisted Robert. “All I ask is a chance.”
“I know, son. Maybe we can talk your mother around by spring. I did some better in the Black Hawk War.” Lincoln went on, stepping heavily down the outer steps and across the rutted yard. “They paid me eighty-five dollars for ninety days fighting in that war but part of the time I ranked a captain. We had to shoot hogs to eat, though, and then fight the farmers that owned ’em. Swampy country, too. Like Grant’s army fought over around Vicksburg.”
“But you captured Black Hawk.”
“The regular Army said they did that. I got put in the guardhouse for two days for firing a pistol in camp and they made me carry a wooden sword after that. Discipline. You couldn’t make any worse record in the army, Bob, than your father did before you.”
“You couldn’t call that a real war, Papa,” Robert said.
“It was real enough to the men who got their scalps peeled off. I helped bury twelve of them. Now, look at that lieutenant! Sending an escort up here on the double and putting all those boys in line at attention, when I just came out here on a friendly visit.”
“Even Tad!” laughed Robert. “Even the confounded goat!”
The goat wore his military hat and Tad was holding him grimly into line by his horns. Lincoln let the two soldiers who came trotting up help him ease the box down to the ground.
“At ease, men,” he ordered. “This is old Father Christmas, not the commander in chief. File by, one at a time, and get your Christmas cheer.”
Robert passed out the packages one by one while Lincoln stood thumbing bills off a roll of money, stopping to wet his thumb occasionally, saying, “Here, son, spend this on some foolishness next time you get a pass into town.”
There were yells of thanks and a lined-up cheer for the President, the goat blatting an obligato. But Tad, who had straggled at the end of the line and received nothing, glared down into the empty box, whimpering.
“I’m a soldier. I didn’t get any present,” he complained.
“You got plenty of presents at the house, Tad,” said his father. “You’ve got candy there, too. Don’t you go bumming off these boys now. You have more Christmas than any of them.”
“But I want a soldier Christmas,” persisted Tad, “and I want my nanny goat back!”
“You’ve got a goat,” scolded Robert, “a blamed nuisance of a goat. You’re getting so you even smell like him.”
“He’s clean,” fumed Tad. “Joe washed him and curried him and the corporal even put hair oil on his whiskers. Can I take Billy in the house, Papa? Can I? I want him to have some candy.”
“No, Tad, no more goats in the house. That’s your mother’s order. Last time,” Lincoln explained to Robert, “Tad drove two of them, hitched to a chair, right through the middle of one of your mother’s social shindigs. Upset a couple of ladies and spilled claret punch on their dresses. Disgraced the whole Lincoln family and busted some good crockery too.”
“It’s cold out here! Billy’s cold.” Tad hung to his father’s coattail but refused to let go the goat. “Billy will catch cold.”
“Private Bullitt,” ordered Lincoln, “will you tie up this goat in a sheltered place? Tad, you come along inside. You’ll get the sniffles and your mother will scold all of us. Corporal, if you must provide escort for this family to their door, line ’em up. We’re ready to march.” Lincoln took a military stance, between two privates, who were very rigid with importance. Tad pulled back till Robert gave him a gentle, brotherly cuff.
“You act more like a baby than a colonel,” he said. “If you want to cry, hand over that sword. You’ll disgrace the army, bawling on the march.”
“Let loose of me!” shrilled Tad, jerking away. Turning he ran pelting back to the circle of tents, dove into one and vanished.
“You’d better go after him, Bob,” worried the President. “Your Mama will worry if he’s out in this cold too long.”
“Yes, sir,” said Robert, unenthusiastically, “but If I may make a suggestion, sir, that boy needs discipline. He’s getting out of hand.”
“Yes, sir, I stand reproved, sir,” said Lincoln meekly. “Just fetch him along in. I’ll wait here,” he told the escorting privates. “Stand at ease.”
“Mr. President, I hope Tad don’t run off again,” worried one soldier. “We try not to take our eyes off him when he’s out here with us. Could be some Rebel sympathizers hangin’ round that would think it was a smart move to catch up Tad and hold him. Know you’d be mighty near be willing to surrender Washington to get that boy back, your pardon, sir, for speaking so bold.”
Panic stiffened Abraham Lincoln’s long body. He broke into a long-legged trot back toward the tents, the escort panting after him. Robert emerged, pale-faced, from one tent and, with a dozen soldiers charging after him, hurried into another. He came out again, his hands outspread, helplessly.
“He’s hiding somewhere, Papa,” he said. “We can’t find him.”
“Spread out, men!” shouted the lieutenant. “Comb the area. Six of you guard the President. Corporal Barnes, form a guard detail.”
The corporal hustled Robert into the middle of the protecting group, who faced outward bayonets alerted. Robert was angry and full of expostulations.
“I don’t have to be guarded like a prisoner,” he protested. “I want to go and help search for Tad.”
“Private Bullitt, here, has just made a rather startling suggestion, Bob,” said Lincoln worriedly. “He thinks that if some Rebel sympathizer should catch up Tad and hold him I might be pressured into surrendering Washington to get the boy back. And it might be,” he added sadly, “that I would be weak enough to do it!”
“You never would! You couldn’t—with honor!” explained Robert. “But it would be a mighty tough decision, sir. Is that,” he asked sharply, “why you won’t let me go into the Army? For fear I might be captured and held as a hostage to force some concessions out of you? I want to tell you, sir, that if I can get into the Army—and no matter how I’m treated there or what happens to me, I’ll be a United States soldier, Mr. Lincoln—you can forget that I ever was your son.”
“Very nobly said, son,” Lincoln patted his shoulder. “I’ll try to abide by your decision if the occasion ever arises. But Tad is my son. A little helpless boy. A boy I’m mighty fond of, and they know it!”
“If I may speak plainly again, sir,” said Robert, “he needs his breeches tanned. And you are the one who ought to do it.”
“He couldn’t have gone far,” fretted Lincoln. “It’s beginning to snow again.” He moved across the yard, his escort keeping rigidly in formation on either side. “Tad!” he shouted. “You, Tad—come back here!”
“He wanted to be a soldier, Mr. President,” put in one of the soldiers. “Tad was bound he was a soldier.”
“All my boys,” said Lincoln, “wanting to be soldiers!”
There was a shout presently from beyond the fenced in confines of the yard. Men started running.
“They’ve seen him,” cried Robert relieved. “The ornery little devil!” He began to run himself, and Lincoln trotted too, almost outstripping his guards.
“There he is!” exclaimed a soldier. “Up on that scaffolding again!”
“They’re going after him. They’ll get him down.” Lincoln almost forgot to breathe. The little figure looked so small against the loom of that great half-finished monument—a tiny, struggling shape swarmed over by half a dozen men in blue who clung precariously to the spidery trestles, caught him and passed him down slowly, kicking and fighting, from one to another.
They brought him up in a few minutes, a pathetic, disheveled sight, tear-stained, dragging his feet, still kicking at the shins of the men who restrained him. His military cap was over one eye, his belt half off, the toy sword dragging.
“Fetch him here!” sternly ordered the President of the United States.
Tad stumbled close, held tight by the elbows by two privates. His chin was shaking, sobs shook him.
“Oh, Papa—Oh, Papa—” he gasped, trying to fling himself at the tall man with the suddenly grim and forbidding face.
But Lincoln was unrelenting. “Thomas Lincoln! Give me that sword!” he ordered in a terrible voice.
Trembling Tad jerked the sword loose, handed it over.
“Present the hilt, in proper military order!” snapped his father.
Tad reversed the sword, his hand shaking so that almost it fell to the ground.
“Yes, sir!” His voice was very thin and small.
Solemnly Lincoln broke the sword over his knee, tossed it to one side.
“You are now reduced to the rank of private, Thomas Lincoln,” he stated, “until such time as you can conduct yourself in the proper manner and discipline of an officer of the Army of the United States. Strip off his epaulets, Corporal.”
The corporal obeyed, looking unhappy and ill at ease, handing the gold-fringed boards into the hands of the commander in chief.
“Private Thomas Lincoln, you will now escort the President of the United States back to the White House,” ordered Abraham Lincoln. “Forward march!”
Every man of Company K fell in, marched in grave formation, eyes straight ahead, chins set, weapons held ready, to the side door of the house. Lincoln entered first, turned on the doorstep, and soberly saluted the ranks.
“My deepest gratitude, men of Company K,” he said, “for labor beyond the call of duty.”
Tad marched in stiffly; then, with a frightened look backward at this stranger who had been his adored and indulgent father, flew through the hall and up the stairs. His mother came hurrying out of the sitting room but he ignored her, flying past her to the room with the great high-topped bed. There Private Thomas Lincoln dived under the bed.
When the dinner gong sounded, he refused to come out, even at his father’s stern order.
“All right,” dismissed Abraham Lincoln. “Since you’re such a craven and a coward, Private Lincoln, you may remain in durance there. I can eat two drumsticks.”
Tad rolled out, swiftly, covered with dust and lint.
“I am not a coward!” he sobbed. “I climbed most to the top of that silly ole monument!”
“You are still a disgrace to the uniform,” declared his father. “A soldier who ran away. Now go and wash yourself before your mother comes in here and scolds both of us.”
“Yes, Papa dear!” whimpered Tad, hugging the long legs and snuffling. “And you can have both drumsticks.”