“What do you think, Tad? Don’t I look like one a little?” Lincoln dropped the knife, shambled bent across the room, his long arms dangling, his hands almost touching the floor. As the boy drew back aghast he bared his long teeth and snarled and Tad began to cry suddenly.
“No—no! Don’t do it!”
Lincoln laughed loudly, lifted him, setting the lad on his knee, holding him close. “For a man wearing the Union uniform, you scare easy, Colonel,” he teased. “Remember this, Tad. Names never hurt anybody. And the gorilla is one beast that’s never been tamed and only a heavy chain can master him.”
“Open the box,” gulped Tad, scrubbing his eyes with the cuff of his blue Union coat. “If anybody sent me a Christmas present, I’d want to know what it was.”
Lincoln dug the last seal away, cut the cord, and tore off the heavy paper. “Now, John Hay would say I’m a fool to open this,” he remarked. “He’ll say there could be something in it to blind or cripple me.”
“Maybe you’d better not, Papa,” Tad cried anxiously. “Let me call somebody.”
“No, Tad. I trust the man who brought it and I know what’s in it. It isn’t a Christmas present exactly. I earned it in a kind of a way. Look!” He opened the heavy box and the smaller one inside that was covered with gold-colored plush.
“A watch!” exclaimed the boy.
“A solid gold watch.” Lincoln held it out carefully on his big palm. “From Mr. James Hoes, Esquire, of Chicago. I won it, Tad. Mr. Hoes offered the watch as a prize for the one making the biggest contribution of funds to their Sanitary Commission fair. I sent them a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and they auctioned it off for three thousand dollars, so I won the watch.”
“You’ve already got a watch, Papa, but I haven’t got one,” said Tad eagerly.