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.”