“Call it ornery and I’ll agree. Now quit bothering me. I’ve got to figure where to put up two Christmas trees.”
“Two?” Tad’s eyes widened.
“One down here and one up yonder—private, for you I reckon. So everybody wants to get a favor out of your Pa can send you a present.”
“All I want,” sighed Tad, backing off to watch the man ascend the ladder, “is my nanny goat back.”
“Your nanny goat has likely been made into stew by this time. You won’t be driving a goat team through this house any more, busting up things and ruinin’ the floors.”
“I bet I get her back,” bragged Tad. “All Company K is helping me look for her.”
“Soldiers have got more important things to do than hunt goats,” stated the man from his perch. “They got to find out who put that bullet through your old man’s hat.”
Tad was galvanized with excitement. “Hey! He never told me.” He tore back up the stairs.
Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, was just coming out of his father’s office. Tad backed off and flattened himself against the wall. Mr. Stanton was running the war; he was tall and grim with a long gray beard but no mustache to soften a stern mouth, and his eyes could look very hard and coldly at a boy through his round spectacles. Behind Stanton marched Senator Sumner and Tad knew him too. Senator Sumner was always mad about something and now, as he strode past the boy, Tad heard him mutter angrily, “Amnesty! Amnesty! I’d give North Carolina amnesty at the end of a rope!”
Tad wriggled behind the visitor and slipped in before anyone closed the door. He marched straight to the desk where John Hay was putting papers in envelopes and licking the flaps.