l the splendor that was around this little fellow in his new
home, he was so bravely and beautifully _himself_--and that only. A wild
flower transplanted from the prairie to the hot-house, he retained his
prairie habits, unalterably pure and simple, till he died. His leading
trait seemed to be a fearless and kindly frankness, willing that
everything should be as different as it pleased, but resting unmoved in
his own conscious single-heartedness. I found I was studying him
irresistibly, as one of the sweet problems of childhood that the world
is blessed with in rare places; and the news of his death (I was absent
from Washington, on a visit to my own children, at the time) came to me
like a knell heard unexpectedly at a merry-making.

"On the day of the funeral I went before the hour, to take a near
farewell look at the dear boy; for they had embalmed him to send home to
the West--to sleep under the sod of his own valley--and the coffin-lid
was to be closed before the service. The family had just taken their
leave of him, and the servants and nurses were seeing him for the last
time--and with tears and sobs wholly unrestrained, for he was loved like
an idol by every one of them. He lay with eyes closed--his brown hair
parted as we had known it--pale in the slumber of death; but otherwise
unchanged, for he was dressed as if for the evening, and held in one of
his hands, crossed upon his breast, a bunch of exquisite flowers--a
message coming from his mother, while we were looking upon him, that
those flowers might be preserved for her. She was lying sick in her bed,
worn out with grief and over-watching.

"The funeral was very touching. Of the entertainments in the East Room
the boy had been--for those who now assembled more especially--a most
life-giving variation. With his bright face, and his apt greetings and
replies, he was remembered in every part of that crimson-curtained hall,
built only for pleasure--of all the crowds, each night, certainly the
one least likely to be death's first mark. He was his father's
favorite. They were intimates--often seen hand in hand. And there sat
the man, with a burden on his brain at which the world marvels--bent now
with the load at both heart and brain--staggering under a blow like the
taking from him of his child! His men of power sat around
him--McClellan, with a moist eye when he bowed to the prayer, as I could
see from where I stood; and Chase and Seward, with their austere
fe