"NOT MUCH OF A HEAD, BUT HIS ONLY ONE!"
Although the life of a soldier sleeping on post was at stake, the pleader wished to forbear on finding that the supreme decider, the President, meant to make a personal matter of it. He suspended the execution while looking into it. But it was objected that this was a burden not intended to impose.
"Never mind," Lincoln answered. "This soldier's life is as valuable to him as any person's in the land. It reminds me of the old Scotch woman's saying about her laird going to be beheaded for participation in a Jacobite rebellion:
"'It waur na mickle of a head, but it is the only head the puir body ha' got.'"--(Assured, in substance, by L. E. Chittenden.)