about the room as a child will, looking
at whatever interested him for the time, and when the interview with his
father was over he was ready to go.

But Mr. Lincoln, ever interested in little children, called the lad to
him and took him upon his great knee.

"My impression of him all the time I had been playing about the room,"
said Mr. Anthony, "was that he was a terribly homely man. I was rather
repelled. But no sooner did he speak to me than the expression of his
face changed completely, or, rather, my view of it changed. It at
once became kindly and attractive. He asked me some questions, seeming
instantly to find in the turmoil of all the great questions that must
have been heavy upon him, the very ones that would go to the thought of
a child. I answered him without hesitation, and after a moment he patted
my shoulder and said:

"'Well, you'll be a man before your mother yet,' and put me down.

"I had never before heard the homely old expression, and it puzzled me
for a time. After a moment I understood it, but he looked at me while I
was puzzling over it, and seemed to be amused, as no doubt he was."

The incident simply illustrates the ease and readiness with which
Lincoln could turn from the mighty questions before the nation, give a
moment's interested attention to a child, and return at once to matters
of state.

"LEFT IT THE WOMEN TO HOWL ABOUT ME."

Donn Piatt, one of the brightest newspaper writers in the country, told
a good story on the President in regard to the refusal of the latter to
sanction the death penalty in cases of desertion from the Union Army.

"There was far more policy in this course," said Piatt, "than kind
feeling. To assert the contrary is to detract from Lincoln's force of
character, as well as intellect. Our War President was not lost in his
high admiration of brigadiers and major-generals, and had a positive
dislike for their methods and the despotism upon which an army is based.
He knew that he was dependent upon volunteers for soldiers, and to force
upon such men as those the stern discipline of the Regular Army was to
render the service unpopular. And it pleased him to be the source of
mercy, as well as the fountain of honor, in this direction.

"I was sitting with General Dan Tyler, of Connecticut, in the
antechamber of the War Department, shortly after the adjournment of the
Buell Court of Inquiry, of which we had been members, when President
Lincoln came in from