Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-10-22
ANECDOTES OF TAD LINCOLN.

St. Nicholas for November, which will be
issued on Wednesday of the current week,
is an especially interesting number. One
Of the most entertaining articles is by
Noah Brooks, and entitled "A Boy in the
White House." It is an account of Tad
Lincoln, now dead, the youngest son of
President Lincoln. From advance sheets
we make the following extracts:
If there was ever boy in danger of be-
ing spoiled" it was the youngest son of
President Lincoln. Much of the time it
was impossible that he should not be left
to run at large. He was foolishly caressed
and petted by people who wanted favors of
his father, and who took this way of max
ing friend in the family, as they thought;
and he was living in the midst of most
exciting epoch in the country's history,
when boy in the White house was in a
strange and somewhat unnatural atmos-
phere. But am bound to say that Tad,
although he doubtless had his wits sharp
ened by being in such strange surround
ings, was never anything else, while I
knew him, but boisterous, rollicking, and
absolutely real boy.
Great was Tad's curiosity, in 1864, to
know what was meant by the presidents
proclamation for day of fasting and
prayer. His inquiries were not satisfactO-
rily answered, but from the servants he
learned, to his great dismay, that there
would be nothing eaten in the White house
from sunrise to sunset on fast day. The
boy, who was blessed with vigorous appe-
tite. took measures to escape
from the rigors of the day. 1t happened
that, just before fast day came, the family
carriage was brought out of its house to
be cleaned and put in order. Tad stood by,
with feelings of alarm, while a general
overhauling of the vehicle went, on, the
coachman busting, rubbing and pulling
things about, quite unconscious of Tad's
anxious watch on the proceedings. Pretty
soon, drawing out queer looking bundle
from one of the boxes under the seat, the
man brought to light part of loaf of
bread, some bits of cold meat, and various
other fragments of food from 1.-THE larder.
Tad, now ready to burst
with anger and disappointment
cried, "Oh oh give that up, lfsay That's
my fast day picnic - The poor lad
FROM dread of going hungry, had eau
| tiously hidden, from day to-day. portion
of food against the day of fasting, and
had stood by while his hoard was in dan
ger, hoping that it might escape the eye of
/ the servants.
He was consoled by promise from his
mother, to whom he ran with his tale of
wee, that he should not suffer hunger on
fast day, even though his father, the
president, had proclaimed a day of fasting,
humiliation, and prayer for all the people.
| Mingled with his boyish simplicity. Tad
had great deal of native shrewdness.
The White house was infested with nu
| merous horde of office seekers. From day
to day these men crowded the corridors
leading to the presidents Office. Some
times they were 40 numerous as to line the
halls all the way down the stairs. 1t was
not long before Tad found out what
this assemblage meant, and it
then became one of his greatest diversions,
when other resources failed, to go around
among the Office seekers and sympathetic
l eally inquire what they wanted, how long
I they had waited, and how much longer
they proposed to wait. To some he gave
good advice, telling them to go home and
chop wood for a living. Others he tried to
dismiss by volunteering to speak to his
father in their behalf, if they would prom
Use not to come again. Many of these
people were at the White house for weeks
and even months, never missing a day,
unless they learned that the president was
out of town, or otherwise absent from the
house.
Tad levied tribute on the men whose
faces he had learned to know. Once he
mounted guard at the foot of the staircase
and compelled every passenger to pay an
| admission fee Of five cents,-"for the ben
| eft of the Sanitary Fund" az he explained
Most of the visitors took it in good part
and some of the fawning creatures, glad Of
an opportunity to earn the goodwill of
the little fellow, paid their way with a
STAMP" of some considerable value. This
venture was SO successful that
Tad resolved on having one of
the Sanitary Commission fairs
then 80 much in vogue all over the country.
He placed table in the grand corridor, OF
entrance hall of the White house, stocked
it with few broken toys, some purchases
of fruit, sundry articles of food begged
from the family pantry, and lot of mis-
cellaneous odcs and ends contributed by
admiring friends. Before night the sani-
tary fair of the White house was closed
out. No man who looked as if he had
money in his pocket was permitted to pass
into the house that day without first buy
ing something of Master Lincoln's stock
in trade.
His success in this venture emboldened
him soon afterward to branch out in a
larger speculation. Having saved up
quite a sum of pocket money, he bought
out the entire stock of an old woman who
sold apples and gingerbread near the
treasury building. A pair of trestles and
a board, extorted from the carpenters en-
ployed on the building, gave the young
merchant his counter, and he set up
his shop in the grand, historic por-
tico of the White house, much to the horror
of some of the eminently respectable peo-
pie who passed by and. beheld this most
undignifed proceeding. Before noon al
most every Office seeker who entered had
bought a luncheon, under compulsion,
from the alert young shop keeper,who drove
a brisk trade as long as his goods lasted.
When Tad sold out all he had to sell, a
goodly lot of the fractional currency of
those times was stuffed into his pockets,
his hat and his little fist. He was ''the
presidents son." and that was enough for
the fatterers. who were glad to buy of him.
But Tad was too generous and open
handed to be long a gamer by any such
operations. Before night capital and pro-