The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 55

The hazel-grey eyes gazed thoughtfully out the window across the shining river for a moment.

"I have two," he murmured, "and you have only one. It isn't fair. You shall have your boy."

He turned to his desk and wrote the order for his discharge. The mother pressed close, gently touched with the tips of her fingers his thick black hair and softly cried while he was writing.

She took the precious paper, tried to speak and choked.

"Go away now," the President whispered, "or you'll have me crying in a minute."

When the last man had gone he stood alone before his window in brooding silence. A tender smile overspread his face and he drew a deep breath.

In the hills of Pennsylvania he saw a picture--a mother in the door of a humble home waiting for her boy. He is coming down the road with swift, strong step. She sees and rushes to meet him with a cry of joy, holds him in her arms without words a long, long while and will not let him go. And then she leads him into the house, falls on her knees and thanks G.o.d.

He smiles again and forgets the burden of the day.

CHAPTER XVIII

DIPLOMACY

In the whirlwind of pa.s.sion, intrigue, slander and hate which had circled the head of the new President since the day of his Inauguration, the mother of his children had not been spared.

The First Lady of the Land had found her position as difficult in its way as her husband had found his. She had met the cynical criticism at first with dignity, reserve, and contempt. But as it increased in violence and virulence she had more than once lost her temper. She had never been blessed with the serenity of spirit that with Lincoln in his trying hours touched the heights of genius.

She was just a human little woman who loved her husband devotedly and hated every man and woman who hated him. And when her patience was exhausted she said things as she thought them, with a contempt for consequences as sublime as it was dangerous.

From the moment of the opening of the war she hated the South, not only because the Southern people had flung the shadow of death over her splendid social career and blighted the brightest dream of her life by war, but she had a more intimate and personal reason for this hatred.

Her own flesh and blood had gone into the struggle against her and the husband she loved. Both her brothers born in the South, were in the Confederate army fighting to tear the house down over her head. One of these brothers had been made the Commandant of Libby Prison in Richmond.

The woman in her could never forgive them.

And yet men in the North who sought the destruction of her husband saw how they might use the fact of her Southern kin to their own gain, and did it with the most cruel and bitter malignity.

One thing she was determined to do--maintain her position in a way to put it beyond the reach of petty spite and gossip. She had always resented the imputation of boorishness and lack of culture his enemies had made against the man she loved. She held it her first duty, therefore, to maintain her place as the First Lady of the Land in a way that would still those slanderous tongues. For this reason her dresses had been the most elaborate and expensive the wife of any Chief Magistrate of the Republic had ever worn. Her big-hearted, careless husband had no more idea of the cost of such things than a new-born babe.

Lizzie Garland, the negro dressmaker, to whom she had given her patronage, practically spent her entire time with the President's wife, who finally became so contemptuous of unreasonable public criticism in Washington that she was often seen going to Lizzie Garland's house to be fitted.

As Lizzie bent over her work basting the new seams in fitting her last dress, the Mistress of the White House suddenly stopped the nervous movement of her rocking-chair.

"He demands a thousand dollars to-night, Lizzie?"

"Swears he'll take the whole account to the President to-morrow unless he gets it, Madam."

"You tried to make him reasonable?"

"Begged him for an hour."

"That's what I get for trading with a little rat in Philadelphia. I'll stick to Stewart hereafter."

She rose with a gesture of nervous rage:

"Well, there's no help for it then. I must ask him. I dread it. Mr.

Lincoln calls me a child--a spoiled child. He's the child. He has no idea of what these things cost. Why can't a Nation that spends two millions a day on contractors and soldiers give its President a salary he can live on?"

She threw herself on the lounge and gave way for a moment to despair.

"He'll give it to you, of course, when you ask it," Lizzie ventured cheerfully.

"If I'm diplomatic, yes. But I hate to do it. He's hara.s.sed enough. I wonder sometimes if he's human to stand all he does. If he knew the truth--O my G.o.d----"

"Don't worry, Madam," Lizzie pleaded. "It will come out all right. The President is sure to be re-elected."

"That's it, is he? I'm beginning to lose faith. He'll never win if the scoundrels in Washington can prevent it. There's just one man in Congress his real friend. I can't make him see that the hypocrites he keeps in his Cabinet are waiting and watching to stab him in the back.

But what's the use to talk, I've got to face it to-day--ask Phoebe to come here."

"Let me go, Madam," Lizzie begged. "I hate the sight of that woman. I suspect her of nosing into our affairs."

"Nonsense!" was the contemptuous answer. "Phoebe's just a big, fat, black, good-natured fool. It rests me to look at her--she's so much fatter than I am."

With a shrug of her shoulders the dressmaker rose and rang for the colored maid, who had just entered Mrs. Lincoln's service.

Phoebe walked in with a glorious smile lighting her dusky face. Seeing her mistress lying down at the unusual hour of eleven o'clock in the morning, she rushed to her side:

"Laws of mussy, Ma'am, ain't you well!"

"Just a little spell of nerves, Phoebe, something that never worries your happy soul----"

"No, Ma'am, dat dey don't!" the black woman laughed.

"Hand me a pencil and pad of paper."

Phoebe executed her order with quick heavy tread, and stood looking while her mistress scribbled a note to her husband.

"Take that to the President, and see that he comes."

Phoebe courtesied heavily:

"Ya.s.sam, I fetch him!"

The Hon. Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, was engaged with the President when Phoebe presented herself at the door of the executive office.

John Hay tried in vain to persuade her to wait _a_ few minutes. Phoebe brushed the young diplomat aside with scant ceremony.

"G'way fum here, Boy!" she laughed. "Miss Ma'y sent me ter fetch 'im right away. An' I gwine ter fetch 'im!"

She threw her ponderous form straight through the door and made for the Chief Magistrate.

Mr. Chase was delivering an important argument, but it had no weight with her.