"If that be true, I shall see my boy again!" He said:
"Colonel, did you ever dream of a lost friend, and feel that you were holding sweet communion with that friend, and yet have a sad consciousness that it was not reality? Just so I dream of my boy Willie!"
(Colonel Lamon, the presidential body-guard-in-chief, was the recipient of this spiritual confidence.)
MORE PRAYING AND LESS SWEARING!
On accompanying Mrs. Pomeroy, military nurse, to her hospital, the President discovered that the authorities of the house had forbidden praying to the patients, or even reading the Bible to them, as it was denominational. He promptly removed the restriction, and furthered the visiting missionaries in holding prayer-meetings, read the Scriptures to "his boys in blue," and pray with them as much as they pleased.
"If there was more praying," he said, "and less swearing, it would be far better for our country."
GLOVES OR NO GLOVES.
An old acquaintance of the President's visited him at Washington. Each man's wife insisted on the gentleman, her lord, donning gloves. For they were going as a square party out in the presidential carriage, and the Washingtonians would not accept a king as such unless he dressed as a king. Mr. Lincoln, as a shrewd politician, and married man, put his gloves in his pocket, not to don them until there was no wriggling out of the fix; the other one had his on at the hotel where the carriage came to take that couple up.
They went out and took seats in the vehicle, whereupon the newcomer, seeing that his host was ungloved, went on the rule of leaving the fence bars as you find them. He set to drawing off his kids at the same time as Mr. Lincoln commenced to tug at his to get them on.
"No, no, no!" protested the caller, fetching away his kids, one at a time, "it is none of my doings! Put up your mittens, Lincoln!"