At a late hour Good Friday night, that same week, little Tad came in alone at a bas.e.m.e.nt door of the White House from the National Theater, where he knew the manager, and some of the company, had made a great pet of him. He had often gone there alone or with his tutor. How he had heard the terrible news from Ford"s Theater is not known, but he came up the lower stairway with heartrending cries like a wounded animal.
Seeing Thomas Pendel, the faithful doorkeeper, he wailed from his breaking heart:
"Tom Pen, Tom Pen, they have killed Papa-day! They have killed my Papa-day!"
After the funeral the little fellow was more lonely than ever. It was hard to have his pony burned up in the stable. It was harder still to lose Brother Willie, his constant companion, and now his mother was desperately ill, and his father had been killed. Tad, of course, could not comprehend why any one could be so cruel and wicked as to wish to murder his darling Papa-day, who loved every one so!
He wandered through the empty rooms, aching with loneliness, murmuring softly to himself:
"Papa-day, where"s my Papa-day. I"m tired--tired of playing alone. I want to play together. Please, Papa-day, come back and play with your little Tad."
Young though he was he could not sleep long at night. His sense of loneliness penetrated his dreams. Sometimes he would chuckle and gurgle in an ecstacy, as he had done when riding on his father"s back, romping through the stately rooms. He would throw his arm about the neck of the doorkeeper or lifeguard who had lain down beside him to console the boy and try to get him to sleep. When the man spoke to comfort him, Tad would find out his terrible mistake, that his father was not with him.
Then he would wail again in the bitterness of his disappointment:
"Papa-day, where"s my Papa-day?"
"Your papa"s gone "way off"--said his companion, his voice breaking with emotion--"gone to heaven."
Tad opened his eyes wide with wonder. "Is Papa-day happy in heaven?" he asked eagerly.
"Yes, yes, I"m sure he"s happy there, Taddie dear; now go to sleep."
"Papa-day"s happy. I"m glad--_so_ glad!"--sighed the little boy--"for Papa-day never was happy here."
Then he fell into his first sweet sleep since that terrible night.
"GIVE THE BOYS A CHANCE"
The fond-hearted little fellow went abroad with his mother a few years after the tragedy that broke both their lives. By a surgical operation, and by struggling manfully, he had corrected the imperfection in his speech. But the heart of little Tad had been broken. While still a lad he joined his fond father in the Beyond.
"Give the boys a chance," had amounted to a pa.s.sion with Abraham Lincoln, yet through great wickedness and sad misunderstandings his own little son was robbed of this great boon. Little Tad had been denied the one chance he sorely needed for his very existence. For this, as for all the inequities the great heart of the White House was prepared. His spirit had shone through his whole life as if in letters of living fire:
"With malice toward none; with charity for all."
THE END