Lincoln's Yarns and Stories

BOY WAS CARED FOR.

President Lincoln one day noticed a small, pale, delicate-looking boy, about thirteen years old, among the number in the White House antechamber.

The President saw him standing there, looking so feeble and faint, and said: “Come here, my boy, and tell me what you want.”

The boy advanced, placed his hand on the arm of the President’s chair, and, with a bowed head and timid accents, said: “Mr. President, I have been a drummer boy in a regiment for two years, and my colonel got angry with me and turned me off. I was taken sick and have been a long time in the hospital.”

The President discovered that the boy had no home, no father—he had died in the army—no mother.

“I have no father, no mother, no brothers, no sisters, and,” bursting into tears, “no friends—nobody cares for me.”

Lincoln’s eyes filled with tears, and the boy’s heart was soon made glad by a request to certain officials “to care for this poor boy.”