“Wonder where they keep the biscuits?” Tad began to explore. “You ought to know,” said his father. “You snoop everywhere.” Tad scurried about, opening ovens and cupboards, lifting lids of boxes and the great copper pots. “Bread,” he uncovered a stack of loaves, “but no biscuits.” “Your billy will eat bread, sir,” suggested Private Bullitt. “He eats hardtack. He’ll eat anything, Mr. President. He ate Sergeant Whipple’s box from home. Had a cake in it. Et box and all, sir.” “Well have to see to it that Sergeant Whipple gets another cake.” Lincoln took down a long knife from a rack on the wall and whacked off the end of a loaf of fresh bread. “Good bread.” He tasted a crumb. “Go good if we had some jam to put on it.” “There’s jampots up there, Papa.” Tad pointed to a high shelf. “So there are.” Lincoln reached a long arm, slit the paper that covered the top of a jar, dipped in a knife. “Blackberry.” He sliced off a hunk of bread, spread it thickly with jam, handed it to Private Bullitt. “Have some, boys.” He spread another slice for Gibson and one for Tad and himself. Perched on the edge of a table he ate, wiped his beard and fingers on a handy towel, passed the towel around. “Some drizzled on your jacket, Tad. Wipe it off. Now, I reckon somebody will get blamed for this piece of larceny, so I’d better take care of that.” The cooks’ pad and pencil lay on a shelf and Lincoln tore off a sheet and wrote rapidly: _All provisions missing from this kitchen requisitioned by order of the undersigned. A. Lincoln._ “That will fix it. You boys take this bread back to that billy goat and tell your sergeant I’ll see that he’s recompensed for his lost cake,” he said. “Now Tad, you come along to bed.” The wreaths of greenery were in place in the hall and up the stairs, and in the East Room a tall spruce tree awaited the lighting of the candles. Festival! And out there on the cold ground boys like Robert, boys like Tad would soon grow to be, kept warm in flimsy tents with little fires, slept on straw with blankets far too thin, and there were men he knew in the field, in grim military prisons, who likely had no blankets at all. The great bed in his room with its huge, soft bolster and tufted counterpane, its enormous headboard shutting off drafts and elaborately carved and scrolled, suddenly wore the aspect of sinful luxury. He would gladly have taken a blanket and gone out to join his men, but he knew sadly that that would not do. He had known the ground for a bed many times—in the Black Hawk War and on expeditions into the wilds—but now he was growing old and he had to uphold the dignity of high office. He pulled off Tad’s clothes, buttoned him into a long nightshirt, and tucked him into the big bed. Almost instantly the boy was asleep. Lincoln was struggling with his own boots when the door opened and Mary came in, buttoned into a vast blue wrapper, a ruffled cap on her head.