One bright morning, just before Christmas day, an official stood in
the Executive chamber in my presence as Governor of Tennessee, and
said: "Governor, I have been implored by a poor miserable wretch in
the penitentiary to bring you this rude fiddle. It was made by his own
hands with a penknife during the hours allotted to him for rest. It is
absolutely valueless, it is true, but it is his petition to you for
mercy. He begged me to say that he has neither attorneys nor influential
friends to plead for him; that he is poor, and all he asks is, that when
the Governor shall sit at his own happy fireside on Christmas eve, with
his own happy children around him, he will play one tune on this rough
fiddle and think of a cabin far away in the mountains whose hearthstone
is cold and desolate and surrounded by a family of poor little wretched,
ragged children, crying for bread and waiting and listening for the
footsteps of their father."
Who would not have been touched by such an appeal? The record was
examined; Christmas eve came; the Governor sat that night at his own
happy fireside, surrounded by his own happy children; and he played one
tune to them on that rough fiddle. The hearthstone of the cabin in the
mountains was bright and warm; a pardoned prisoner sat with his baby on
his knee, surrounded by _his_ rejoicing children, and in the presence of
_his_ happy wife, and although there was naught but poverty around him,
his heart sang: "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;" and
then he reached up and snatched his fiddle down from the wall, and
played "Jordan is a hard road to travel."