"I WANTED TO SEE THEM SPREAD!"
It is related that the ushers and secret service officials on duty at the Executive Mansion during the war were prone to congregate in a little anteroom and exchange reminiscences. This was directly against instructions by the President.
One night the guard and ushers were gathered in the little room talking things over, when suddenly the door opened, and there stood President Lincoln, his shoes in his hand.
All the crowd scattered save one privileged individual, the Usher Pendel, of the President's own appointment, as he had been kind to the Lincoln children.
The intruder shook his finger at him and, with assumed ferocity, growled:
"Pendel, you people remind me of the boy who set a hen on forty-three eggs."
"How was that, Mr. President?" asked Pendel.
"A youngster put forty-three eggs under a hen, and then rushed in and told his mother what he had done.
"'But a hen can't set on forty-three eggs,' replied the mother.
"'No, I guess she can't, but I just wanted to see her spread herself.'
"That's what I wanted to see you boys do when I came in," said the President, as he left for his apartments.--(By Thomas Pendel, still usher, in 1900.)