“No, sir—no, sir, I won’t,” he stammered, his palate tripping him again. “Mind now! And get along with you!” His father gave him a little shove, as he entered the office door. Even on a holiday he was not free from intrusion, of being faced with the woeful problems of the people. A lad of about seventeen, in the faded uniform of a private, was standing, twisting thin hands together, his face scared and anxious. “Sit down, son,” ordered Lincoln, closing the door. “How did you get in here and what did you want to see me about?” The boy dropped on the edge of a chair, twisted his legs about each other nervously. “Nobody let me in, sir,” he stammered. “I just told the man downstairs that I had to see the President and he searched me, and I didn’t have no gun or nothing so he told me to come on up here and wait. And what I wanted to see you about, Mr. President—I want to be a captain.” Lincoln’s long lips drew back and quirked up a little at one corner. “I see. And what military organization did you want to be captain of?” “No organization, Mr. President, but I been a private in the Sixty-third Ohio a long time, sir—” “How long a time?” “Four months, Mr. President.” “And you have a company organized, maybe, that you want me to make you captain of?” “No, sir—I haven’t got any company organized. But I just want to be a captain. My mother says I should be a captain. She told me to see you about it.” Lincoln clasped his bony hands around a knee. “What’s your name, soldier?” “Milo, sir. Milo Potter.” “Milo, did you ever hear the story about the farmer out in Illinois, where I was raised? Well, this fellow he was a good farmer and a dutiful son to his mother but he got up towards forty years old and he’d never married a wife. So his mother fretted at him, said she was getting too old to churn and milk and he ought to fetch a wife home to take some of the work off of her. So this farmer, call him Jim, he goes down to the church and hunts up the preacher. ‘Preacher’, says Jim ‘I got to get married. Mammy says so.’ ‘All right, Jim,’ agrees the preacher, ‘I’ll be proud to marry you. You go get your license and bring the woman here with you and I’ll give you a real good marrying.’ ‘But I haven’t got any woman, Preacher,’ Jim argues kind of dashed. ‘Well, you can’t get married without a woman, Jim’, the preacher tells him. That’s your problem, Milo. You want to be a captain and you haven’t got any organization to captain. What made you think you could be a captain, anyway?” “Well, Mr. President,” the boy flushed unhappily, “it was that captain we got in B Company. That last battle—he made us retreat. And right there in front of us there was a hole in that Rebel line I could have drove four wagons through. There wasn’t no sense in that retreat, Mr. President. All of us boys said so. All of us was mad. So I thought I can be a better captain than that.”