me out smiling and happy, Patrick said to her: "Ah, ma'am, _'twas
the baby that did it_."

The shockingly careless appearance of the White House proved that
whatever may have been Mrs. Lincoln's other good qualities, she hadn't
earned the compliment which the Yankee farmer paid to his wife when he
said: "Ef my wife haint got an ear fer music, she's got an eye fer
dirt." When we reached the room of the President's Private Secretary,
my old friend, the Rev. Mr. Neill, of St. Paul's, told me that it was
military court day, when the President had to decide upon cases of army
discipline that came before him and when he received no calls. I told
Neill that my mother could never die happy if she had not seen Lincoln.
He took in our names to the President, who told him to bring us in. We
entered the room in which the Cabinet usually met--and there, before the
fire, stood the tall, gaunt form attired in a seedy frock-coat, with his
long hair unkempt, and his thin face the very picture of distress. "How
is Mrs. Lincoln?" inquired my mother. "Oh," said the President, "I have
not seen her since seven o'clock this morning; Tad, how is your mother?"
"She is pretty well," replied the little fellow, who was coiled up then
in an arm chair, the same lad we had seen playing down in the entrance
hall. We spent but a few moments with Mr. Lincoln, and when we came out
my mother exclaimed: "Oh, what a cruelty to keep that man here! Did you
ever see such a sad face in your life?" I never had, and I have given
this account of my call on him in order that my readers may not only
understand what democratic customs then prevailed in the White House,
but may get some faint idea of the terribly trying life that Mr. Lincoln
led.

Dr. Bellows, the President of the Sanitary Commission, once said to him:
"Mr. President, I am here at almost every hour of the day or night, and
I never saw you at the table, do you ever eat?" "I try to," replied the
President; "I manage to browse about pretty much as I can get it." After
the long wearing, nerve-taxing days were over in which he was glad to
relieve himself occasionally with a good story or a merry laugh, came
the nights of anxiety when sleep was often banished from his pillow. He
frequently wrapped himself in his Scotch shawl, and at midnight stole
across to the War Office, and listened to the click of the telegraph
instruments, which brought sometimes good news, and sometimes terrible
tales of defeat. On t