Part 23

"He is a peculiar child. He was violently excited when I went to him. I said 'Tad, do you know you are making your father a great deal of trouble?' He burst into tears and at once gave me the key."

This little incident shows the affectionate side of tyrant Tad who could always be led, but never driven, and it was to his father's gentle diplomacy that the fiery, impulsive little fellow always responded.

Often Tad would perch on his father's knee, or even on his shoulder, while weighty conferences were going on, and sometimes would insist on spending a whole evening in the executive mansion, finally falling asleep on the floor, when the President would tenderly pick him up and carry him off to bed.

At other times, with affairs of the gravest importance awaiting his consideration, President Lincoln would sit with his arms around the boy, telling him anecdotes and stories of which he had an endless fund, until the boy's drowsy eyes closed, when President Lincoln would gently carry him to his room, and then go back to ponder on weighty matters of national importance far into the night, but never retiring for the night without a last look at the little fellow who was the supreme joy and comfort of his life.

He was very fond of animals, and for a long while goats were his special favourites, during which time a large and flourishing family of them decorated the lawns and roads about the White House, and that the goats were very important members of the family is shown by the fact that at a time when Mrs. Lincoln and Tad had gone away for a week and the family were living at the Soldiers' Home, Lincoln wrote to his wife: "Tell dear Tad that poor Nanny Goat is lost and we are in distress about it. The day you left, Nanny was found resting herself and chewing her little cud on the middle of Tad's bed, but now she's gone! The gardener kept complaining that she spoilt the flowers, till it was decided to bring her down to the White House, which was done, but on the second day she disappeared and has not been heard of since."

Tad was evidently consoled for this tragic event by not one goat, but a whole family of them, for about a year later Mr. Lincoln ended a business telegram to his wife in New York with the words: "Tell Tad the goats and father are very well," and with a gleam of that humour for which he was famous, the great-hearted, patient man added, "especially the goats!"

Again a friend of the Lincolns' sent them a fine live turkey to be used for the President's Christmas dinner, but long before that time the turkey and Tad had become bosom friends. Tad named him Jack and used more patience in trying to teach him tricks than he could ever be persuaded to give to his lessons. One day just before the holiday, while President Lincoln was discussing a matter of gravest importance with his cabinet ministers, Tad burst into the room as if shot out of a cannon and sobbing as if nothing could ever comfort him. Of course, business came to a standstill while Tad explained; Jack was about to be killed, he must not be killed, it was wicked, and Tad had forced the executioners to stay their hands while he laid the case before the President. Jack should not be killed! sobbed out the indignant little tyrant.

"But," said the President quietly, "Jack was sent to be killed and eaten for this very Christmas."

"I can't help it," roared Tad, between his sobs. "He's a good turkey and I don't want him killed."

The President of the United States paused in the midst of the important business under discussion, and with the gravity due to a solemn occasion, took a card and wrote on it an order of reprieve for the turkey, which Tad seized, and fled with all speed, and Jack's life was saved. He became very tame, and roamed peacefully about the grounds at will, enduring petting and teasing alternately, from his capricious young master. At that time the White House was guarded by a company of soldiers from Pennsylvania with whom the turkey was a great favourite. The tents of these soldiers were on the Potomac side of the White House, at the end of the South lawn, and in the summer of 1864 a commission was sent down from Pennsylvania to take the votes of the Pennsylvania soldiers in Washington for the coming election. Tad was, as usual, much interested in what was going on, and dragged his father to the window to see the soldiers voting, while Jack stalked around among them, apparently intelligent and interested.

"Does Jack vote?" asked Lincoln with a roguish twinkle in his eye.

For a moment Tad was nonplussed by the unexpected question, but he was as quick as he was keen, and rallying, he answered:

"Why no, of course not. He isn't of age yet!"

Another of Tad's great diversions was to stand around among the crowd of office-seekers who daily filled the corridors leading to President Lincoln's office, for their turn to see the President. Tad used to talk with them, while they waited, asking them all sorts of impertinent questions which were always taken in good faith, because he was the President's son, and known to be such a favourite that he might be a valuable ally. Some of the office-seekers came day after day without ever obtaining an interview with Lincoln, and with these Tad grew quite intimate; some of them he shrewdly advised to go home and chop wood for a living, others he tried to dismiss by promising them that he would speak to his father of their case, if they would not come back again unless they were sent for, and with one and all he was a great favourite, he was so bright and cunning, and too, all were eager to have the good will of the little fellow, for motives not always the highest. This, shrewd little Tad discovered, and he decided to put his popularity to use, so one morning when the line of callers began to form, they found Tad standing at the foot of the staircase, where he made every one who passed up pay him five cents for the benefit of the Sanitary Fund, as he explained while he was gathering in the nickels.

This enterprise was so satisfactory that he decided to give one of the Sanitary Commission Fairs which were then being held all over the country, and placing a table in the entrance hall of the White House he stocked it with all the odds and ends which his amused friends could be made to contribute, as well as with some food begged from the pantry, and some of his own broken toys. One can well imagine the difficulty of getting in or out of the White House that day with any change in one's pocket, and when night came Tad's accounts made him chuckle with delight, and decide on a still bolder enterprise. This required capital, however, but that did not daunt him, for he had quite an amount of pocket money saved up, and with it he bought out the entire stock of an old woman who sold gingerbread and apples near the Treasury Building, wheedled a pair of trestles and a board from a carpenter, and set up shop in the very shadow of the stately portico of the White House, to the horror of some who saw the performance, and to the intense amusement of others who were always watching to see what Tad would do next.

As long as his stock lasted, he did a heavy business, for it was an excellent chance for those who wished to buy his favour, to do so, and his pockets were well lined with bills when he shut up shop that night, but being as generous as he was shrewd, capital and profit were soon squandered, and it is said the little merchant went penniless to bed.

In vain were all attempts to make Tad study. He never had any time for such dull things as books, when there was all out-of-doors for his restless self to rove in, and his father did not seem grieved or worried when tutors came and went, shaking their heads over a boy who was such a whirlwind of activity that they had no chance to become acquainted with him, although he was keener than they, and weighed them each in the balance and found them wanting before any one of them had been with him twenty-four hours.

When appealed to in regard to the matter, the President would say:

"Let him run. There's time enough yet for him to learn his letters and get poky." And so the boy followed out his own impetuous desires, and although so backward in regard to books, he understood far more about mechanics and trade than other boys of his own age, and for all his impetuosity and despotism, he had a very tender conscience and a loving nature. A friend of Lincoln's tells of sitting with the President once when Tad tore into the room in search of some lost treasure, and having found it, flung himself on his father like a small whirlwind, gave him a wild fierce hug, and without a word, or even giving his father time to do or say anything, rushed out as impetuously as he had come in. It is needless to say that he was no respecter of persons, young Tyrant Tad; he knew no law, he had no restraint that barred him from any part of the house at any time, but came and went, and did and said whatever pleased his vagrant fancy. Not unfrequently while the President was occupied with his cabinet, Tad would burst into the room bubbling over with some personal grievance which demanded immediate attention or with some pathetic story about a shabbily dressed caller who was being sent away by the ushers, to Tad's great anger. At other times he would become deeply interested in some young person who had come to the President with a request which Tad had heard first himself, and insist on dragging him into the President's presence at once to tell the story, and make his request, and so thoroughly was the President in sympathy with this tender-hearted trait of his son, that he always received such proteges of Tad's with interest and helped them if he could.

Tad had his likes and dislikes, and took no pains to conceal them, and one morning when he broke in on his father's privacy and found with him a Cabinet officer for whom he had no liking, he cried out:

"Why are you here so early? What do you want?" probably to the chagrin of his father, who doubtless talked with him seriously later in the day about showing such discourtesy to an elder.

Quick to take up a new interest, and as quick to throw it aside, one day when the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, found Tad fussing around his office, Mr. Stanton, just for the fun of it, commissioned Tad a lieutenant of the United States Volunteers; this excited Tad so greatly that he hurried off and on his own responsibility ordered a quantity of muskets sent up to the White House at once, and then gathered together the house-servants and gardeners, and organised them into a company, drilled them for service, and then actually dismissed the regular sentries on the premises, and ordered his new recruits on duty as guards. Robert Lincoln, who was then at home, having discovered Tad's scheme, thought that the men who had been at work all day, ought to be free at night, and told Tad so, but Tad would not listen to him, so Robert appealed the case to his father, who only laughed, as he generally did at Tad's pranks, thought the whole thing a good joke, and gave no orders to the refractory young lieutenant. Tad, however, soon grew tired of being on watch himself, and went to bed, when his recruits were quietly relieved from duty, and there was no guard over the President's house that night.

While he sported his commission as lieutenant Tad looked the part, having from some source got a uniform suitable for the occasion, and in that proud costume he had himself photographed to the great delight of his admiring circle of friends.

Tad's tenth birthday was celebrated by a visit which he made with his father and a party of friends to the Army of the Potomac, which was then encamped on the banks of the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, the visit being made because the President thought a glimpse of the Nation's Chief Executive might put fresh courage into the weary soldiers. The visit was five days long and a more restless member of a party than Tad was, cannot be imagined. By the end of the first day he had exhausted all the resources of the encampment, and begged to go home, but there were any number of reviews and parades for which the President was obliged to stay, and these somewhat diverted Tad, for a handsome young soldier was detailed as the boy's special escort, and a little grey horse consoled him partially for the beloved pony left at home. It is said that those reviews and the part Tad played in them will never be forgotten by the men who saw or took part in them, and this is the way they have been described.

"Over hill and dale dashed the general-in-chief with his company of officers in gay uniforms, sparkling with gold lace, and escorted by the Philadelphia Lancers, a showy troop of soldiers. At their head, seen afar, rose the tall form of Lincoln, conspicuous always by his great height and lean awkward figure, and as they passed, ever on the flanks of the hurrying column flew, like a flag or a small banner, Tad's little grey riding coat. His short legs stuck out straight from his saddle, and sometimes there was danger that he would be shot out of his seat at some sharp turn in the road, but much to the astonishment of everybody, the hard-riding reckless youngster turned up at headquarters safe and sound every night, exhausted but flushed with the excitement of the day. Everywhere they went on horse-back he divided the honours with his father, and whenever the soldiers saw the tall figure of their much loved President, and fresh-faced merry Tad, they cheered themselves hoarse, but in response to the cheers Tad firmly refused to salute as he was told to do, saying:

"That's the way General Hooker and father do, but I am only a boy," and paid no attention to the notice he attracted.

Even with the excitement of the reviews, so restless was Tad during those days with the army of the Potomac, and so steadily did he plead with his father to go home, that finally to quiet him, the President said:

"Tad, I'll make a bargain with you. If you will agree not to say anything more about going home until we are ready to go, I will give you that dollar you want so badly."