United States, too. But Blossom told her simple and straightforward story, and handed Mr. Lincoln Bonnie’s letter to read.
He read it carefully; then, taking up his pen, wrote a few hasty lines and rang his bell.
Blossom heard this order given: “Send this dispatch at once?”
The president then turned to the girl and said: “Go home, my child, and tell that father of yours, who could approve his country’s sentence even when it took the life of a child like that, that Abraham Lincoln thinks the life far too precious to be lost. Go back, or—wait until tomorrow. Bennie will need a change after he has so bravely faced death; he shall go with you.”
“God bless you, sir,” said Blossom; and who shall doubt that God heard and registered the request.
Two days after this interview the young soldier came to the White House with his little sister. He was called into the President’s private room and a strap fastened upon the shoulder. Mr. Lincoln then said: “The soldier that could carry a sick comrade’s baggage and die for the act so uncomplainingly, deserves well of his country.” Then Bennie and Blossom took their way to their Green Mountain home. A crowd gathered at the Mill depot to welcome them back; and as Farmer Owen’s hand grasped that of his boy, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he was heard to say fervently: “The Lord be praised!”—Selected.
LINCOLN.—A SONG.
Air.—“ Hold the Fort.”
W. W. STONE.
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O’er the land today is ringing
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He had sworn to do his duty,
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(Written for Lincoln Day, to be sung in 4th and 5th year classes.)
CONCLUSION OF THE FIRST INAUGURAL, MARCH 4, 1861.
Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal—the American people. By the frame of the Government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject! Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never have taken deliberately, that object would be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it, while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either.
