He Knew Lincoln

by Ida M. Tarbell

“‘Well’ he says, ‘you’ve got to have cards anyway.’ ‘Cards,’ I says, ‘what for? What kind?’ ‘Why,’ he says, ‘visitin’ cards—with your name on.’ ‘Well,’ I says, ‘it’s come to a pretty pass, if an old friend like me can’t see Mr. Lincoln without sendin’ him a piece of pasteboard. I’d be ashamed to do such a thing, Isaac Brown. Do you suppose he’s forgotten me? Needs to see my name printed out to know who I am? You can’t make me believe any such thing,’ and I walked right out of the room, and that night I footed it up to the Soldiers’ Home where Mr. Lincoln was livin’ then, right among the sick soldiers in their tents.

“There was lots of people settin’ around in a little room, waitin’ fer him, but there wan’t anybody there I knowed, and I was feelin’ a little funny when a door opened and out came little John Nicolay. He came from down this way, so I just went up and says, ‘How’d you do, John; where’s Mr Lincoln?’ Well, John didn’t seem over glad to see me.

“‘Have you an appintment with Mr. Lincoln?’ he says.

“‘No, sir,’ I says; ‘I ain’t, and it ain’t necessary. Mebbe it’s all right and fittin’ for them as wants post-offices to have appintments, but I reckon Mr. Lincoln’s old friends don’t need ’em, so you just trot along, Johnnie, and tell him Billy Brown’s here and see what he says.’ Well, he kind a flushed up and set his lips together, but he knowed me, and so he went off. In about two minutes the door popped open and out came Mr. Lincoln, his face all lit up. He saw me first thing, and he laid holt of me and just shook my hands fit to kill. ‘Billy,’ he says, ‘now I am glad to see you. Come right in. You’re goin’ to stay to supper with Mary and me.’

“We went out on the back stoop and sat down and talked and talked”

“Didn’t I know it? Think bein’ president would change him—not a mite. Well, he had a right smart lot of people to see, but soon as he was through we went out on the back stoop and set down and talked and talked. He asked me about pretty nigh everybody in Springfield. I just let loose and told him about the weddin’s and births and the funerals and the buildin’, and I guess there wan’t a yarn I’d heard in the three years and a half he’d been away that I didn’t spin for him. Laugh—you ought to a heard him laugh—just did my heart good, for I could see what they’d been doin’ to him. Always was a thin man, but, Lordy, he was thinner’n ever now, and his face was kind a drawn and gray—enough to make you cry.

“Well, we had supper and then talked some more, and about ten o’clock I started downtown. Wanted me to stay all night, but I says to myself, ‘Billy, don’t you overdo it. You’ve cheered him up, and you better light out and let him remember it when he’s tired.’ So I said, ‘Nope, Mr. Lincoln, can’t, goin’ back to Springfield to-morrow. Ma don’t like to have me away and my boy ain’t no great shakes keepin’ store.’ ‘Billy,’ he says, ‘what did you come down here for?’ ‘I come to see you, Mr. Lincoln.’ ‘But you ain’t asked me for anything, Billy. What is it? Out with it. Want a post-office?’ he said, gigglin’, for he knowed I didn’t. ‘No, Mr. Lincoln, just wanted to see you—felt kind a lonesome—been so long since I’d sen you, and I was afraid I’d forgit some of them yarns if I didn’t unload soon.’

“Well, sir, you ought to seen his face as he looked at me.

“‘Billy Brown,’ he says, slow-like, ‘do you mean to tell me you came all the way from Springfield, Illinois, just to have a visit with me, that you don’t want an office for anybody, nor a pardon for anybody, that you ain’t got no complaints in your pockets, nor any advice up your sleeve?’