I have bought a farm out there
and I don't care if I again earn only twenty-five
cents a day. Tad has a mule team, and we are
going to plant onions.''
Then he asked me, ``Were you brought up on a
farm?'' I said, ``Yes; in the Berkshire Hills of
Massachusetts.'' He then threw his leg over the
corner of the big chair and said, ``I have heard
many a time, ever since I was young, that up
there in those hills you have to sharpen the noses
of the sheep in order to get down to the grass
between the rocks.'' He was so familiar, so everyday,
so farmer-like, that I felt right at home with
him at once.
He then took hold of another roll of paper, and
looked up at me and said, ``Good morning.'' I
took the hint then and got up and went out.
After I had gotten out I could not realize I had
seen the President of the United States at all.
But a few days later, when still in the city, I saw
the crowd pass through the East Room by the
coffin of Abraham Lincoln, and when I looked
at the upturned face of the murdered President
I felt then that the man I had seen such a short
time before, who, so simple a man, so plain a
man, was one of the greatest men that God ever
raised up to lead a nation on to ultimate liberty.
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