“A gentleman told me a story recently which well illustrates Lincoln’s immense fund of anecdotes. Said he: ‘Just after Jeff Davis had been captured I called over at the White House to see President Lincoln. I was ushered in, and asked him: “Well, Mr. President, what are you going to do with Jeff Davis?” Lincoln looked at me for a moment, and then said, in his peculiar, humorous way: “That reminds me of a story. A boy ’way out West caught a coon and tamed it to a considerable extent, but the animal created such mischief about the house that his mother ordered him to take it away and not to come home until he could return without his pet. The boy went down-town with the coon, secured with a strong piece of twine, and in about an hour he was found sitting on the edge of the curbstone, holding the coon with one hand and crying as though his heart would break. A big-hearted gentleman, who was passing, stopped and kindly inquired: ‘Say, little boy, what is the matter?’ The boy wiped a tear from his eye with his sleeve, and in an injured tone, howled: ‘Matter! Ask me what’s the matter! You see that coon there? Well, I don’t know what to do with the darn thing. I can’t sell it, I can’t kill it, and ma won’t let me take it home.’ That,” continued Lincoln, “is precisely my case. I am like the boy with the coon. I can’t sell him, I can’t kill him, and I can’t take him home!”’” I have already remarked that Mr. Lincoln was superstitious. He seemed to be deeply impressed by dreams, and claimed to be notified in this way of the approach of important events. “On the Friday of his death he called his Cabinet together at noon, and he seemed dispirited. He said: ‘I wish I could hear from Sherman.’ General Grant, who was present, said: ‘You will hear well from Sherman.’ He said: ‘I don’t know. I have had a dream, the same that I had before the battles of Bull Run, of Chancellorsville, and of Swan River. It has,’ he said, ‘always boded disaster.’ It made a great impression on all of the Cabinet and on General Grant. Mr. Lincoln had been remonstrated with for going about unattended, but he said: ‘What is the use of precautions? If they want to kill me they will kill me.’ He was killed, but history will place him next to Washington in the list of beloved Presidents. The skill displayed by him in managing Chase, Stanton, Sumner, Fessenden, Wade, Seward, and other candidates for the Presidency, was wonderful, and when there was any hitch he was reminded of a story, illustrating the situation. His stories were, in short, ‘parables.’”--_Boston Budget._ Even in the hour of victory he was thoughtful, not jubilant.