ose.

They had few playmates, with whom they were allowed to play frequently,
except two boys, the sons of a government official, and the four boys'
fertile brains were keen to think out all sorts of exciting and
mischievous plans which kept their families on the alert to restrain
their actions within the bounds of safety and propriety. The boys who
were playmates of Tad and Willie were Budd and Hally Taft, and although
they were older than the Lincoln boys, they were much like them in
temperament and in looks, Budd was fair like Willie Lincoln, and Hally
dark, and more like Tad, whose eyes were bright and brown, in keeping
with his quick imperious disposition.

One evening in the spring, the four boys were taken to see a minstrel
show in the city. They were thrilled by what they heard and saw, and
decided on the spot that they would give a show themselves, and began
between the numbers to plan when and where to give it. But, on the
following day, when they discussed it again there seemed to be no room
suited to their plans either in the White House or at the Taft's, but
finally they decided that by having some partitions in the Taft attic,
which was roughly divided into small bedrooms, taken down, they could
be accommodated. However, fortune favoured the preservation of the Taft
home by a sudden shifting of the boys' interest in the direction of the
White House. Mrs. Lincoln was called to New York for a week; Willie and
Tad had such severe colds and the weather was so rainy, that she wished
them to be amused in the house during her absence, and that could only
be done by giving them the society of their playmates. Accordingly one
day Hally and Budd were thrown into a state of feverish excitement by
the arrival of a messenger with Mrs. Lincoln's invitation for them to
spend a whole week at the White House.

Besides delivering the invitation, the messenger also asked whether
Willie and Tad were there, as they had not been at home since breakfast
time, although they had been traced to the Capitol, where they had been
seen sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives, and later
treated to lunch in the restaurant of Congress by a gentleman whom the
boys always amused, then they had been seen playing marbles with some
of the pages in the Capitol, but now where were they? The messenger who
was well acquainted with the truants, seemed more amused than alarmed
over their disappearance, and soon carried back a note t