It was a sad moment for me. I could not keep back the silent tears when I saw the old man lying there so still and so helpless, and remembered how rosy, and strong, and happy he looked years and years ago, when he first asked me to apply for his pension.
I wrote the Department that if the claims could be passed upon soon, I would keep my client up on stimulants a short time, but that he was failing fast. Then I went to the bedside of the old man, and watched him tenderly.
When he saw me come into his room, although he could not talk any more, he would feebly raise his right hand, and I would swear him to support the Constitution of the United States, and then he would be easier. It seemed to me like a ghastly joke for the old man to swear he would support the Constitution of the United States, when he couldn't begin to support his own constitution; but I never mentioned it to him.
At last the blow fell. The Surgeon-General wrote me that owing to the lack of clerical aid in that office, and a failure of Congress to make any appropriation for that purpose, he was behind hand, and could not possibly reach the claim referred to before the close of the following year.
Then the old man passed into the great untried realm of the hereafter. But he was prepared.
With the aid of the government, I had given him an idea of Eternity and its vastness, which could not fail to be of priceless benefit to him.
After the government had used this pension money as long as it needed it, and was, so to speak, once more on its feet, the money was sent, and the old man's great-grand-children got it, and purchased a lawn-mower, a Mexican hairless dog, and some other necessaries of life with it.
I am now out of the pension business. It is a good thing, for I find that I am too impatient to attend to it. I am too anxious for tangible results in the near future. My desire to accomplish anything speedily is too violent and too previous.