ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S SON
Robert T. Lincoln was Secretary of War.
When Clara Barton handed her card to the porter, he asked, “What do you want to see him about?”
“Just because he is Abraham Lincoln’s son. I knew his father and merely want to pay my respects to him.”
Clara Barton was admitted. The War Secretary rose as she entered the office, and Miss Barton opened the conversation by saying: “I knew President Lincoln well. He was good and kind to me in whatever I tried to do for the soldiers. He seemed to appreciate the little things I had succeeded in doing; and when there came a great undertaking (referring to making a record of the missing soldiers), so great as to appal with its seeming impossibility, he encouraged me. Survivors of the missing entreated me to undertake the work and, when other officials said it could not be done, your father, with his big heart, said ‘I will help you.’ He smoothed the way and made it possible, assisting me until the work was done. When I came back to Washington, he was not here to receive my grateful thanks. He had gone beyond all that. It was a sad little burden to carry around with me unshared, but I have carried it. At home and beyond the sea, wherever I have been, it has gone with me, and I have come today to ask you, as his representative, to accept my burden of thanks for him.”
The tears were filling Miss Barton’s eyes before she had finished. She was abashed at her failure to control her emotions but, glancing up at the Secretary, she saw that he too was weeping. Looking at each other a moment in silence, the Secretary reached out his hand to Miss Barton and said “I do accept your tribute of thanks—for my father.”
LXIV
Clara Barton—intelligent and reclaiming, her leading attributes.
Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution.
Pity it is to slay the meanest thing. Hood.