Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Lincoln Day/Justice tempered with Mercy
JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY.
[Little Blossom’s Visit to President Lincoln.]
“Well, my little child,” he said, in his pleasant, cheerful tone, “what do you want, so bright and early in the morning?”
“Bennie’s life, please, sir,” faltered Blossom.
“Bennie? Who is Bennie?”
“My brother, sir. They are going to shoot him for sleeping at his post.”
“Oh, yes;” and Mr. Lincoln ran his eye over the papers before him. “I remember. It was a fatal sleep. You see, child, it was a time of special danger. Thousands of lives might have been lost for his culpable negligence.”
“So my father said,” replied Blossom, gravely; “but poor Bennie was so tired and Jemmie so weak. He did the work of two, sir, and it was Jemmie’s night, not his; but Jemmie was too tired, and Bennie never thought about himself, that he was tired, too.”
“What is this you say, child? Come here; I do not understand,” and the kind man caught eagerly, as ever, at what seemed to be a justification of an offense.
Blossom went to him; he put his hand tenderly on her shoulder and turned up the pale, anxious face towards his. How tall he seemed! and he was President of the 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.