第11章 The Hunger for Self-Education (3)

"I am so sorry we are just going out to dinner," said Mrs.Grant, "for the general had some excellent photographs just taken of himself, and he signed one for you, and put it aside, intending to send it to you when yours came." Then, turning to the general, she said: "Ulysses, send up for it.We have a few moments.""I'll go and get it.I know just where it is," returned the general.

"Let me have yours," he said, turning to Edward."I am glad to exchange photographs with you, boy."To Edward's surprise, when the general returned he brought with him, not a duplicate of the small carte-de-visite size which he had given the general--all that he could afford--but a large, full cabinet size.

"They make 'em too big," said the general, as he handed it to Edward.

But the boy didn't think so!

That evening was one that the boy was long to remember.It suddenly came to him that he had read a few days before of Mrs.Abraham Lincoln's arrival in New York at Doctor Holbrook's sanitarium.Thither Edward went; and within half an hour from the time he had been talking with General Grant he was sitting at the bedside of Mrs.Lincoln, showing her the wonderful photograph just presented to him.Edward saw that the widow of the great Lincoln did not mentally respond to his pleasure in his possession.It was apparent even to the boy that mental and physical illness had done their work with the frail frame.But he had the memory, at least, of having got that close to the great President.

Mrs.Abraham Lincoln, October 13th 1881

The eventful evening, however, was not yet over.Edward had boarded a Broadway stage to take him to his Brooklyn home when, glancing at the newspaper of a man sitting next to him, he saw the headline: "Jefferson Davis arrives in New York." He read enough to see that the Confederate President was stopping at the Metropolitan Hotel, in lower Broadway, and as he looked out of the stage-window the sign "Metropolitan Hotel"stared him in the face.In a moment he was out of the stage; he wrote a little note, asked the clerk to send it to Mr.Davis, and within five minutes was talking to the Confederate President and telling of his remarkable evening.

Mr.Davis was keenly interested in the coincidence and in the boy before him.He asked about the famous collection, and promised to secure for Edward a letter written by each member of the Confederate Cabinet.This he subsequently did.Edward remained with Mr.Davis until ten o'clock, and that evening brought about an interchange of letters between the Brooklyn boy and Mr.Davis at Beauvoir, Mississippi, that lasted until the latter passed away.