"
"It's his song," Stanton said to himself, and with the air came a rush of
strange feelings. He remembered a thousand things, which before had been
only a background of which he had been scarcely conscious. The constant
kindliness, the gentle healing sympathy, the homely humour which he once
thought had irritated but which he now knew had soothed him. . . . This
man had been twined round the roots of every heart. All night he had been
in an ecstasy of admiration, but now that was forgotten in a yearning love.
The President had been part of his being, closer to him than wife or child.
The boy sang--
"But I can't forget, until I die
Ole Massa an' de blue-tailed fly."
Stanton's eyes filled with hot tears. He had not wept since his daughter died.
The breathing from the bed was growing faint. Suddenly the Surgeon-General
held up his hand. He felt the heart and shook his head. "Fetch your
mother," he said to Robert Lincoln. The minister had dropped on his knees
by the bedside and was praying.
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