And I do not now know what I
told him,--of emigration, and the means of it,--of steamboats and
railroads and telegraphs,--of inventions and books and literature,--of
the colleges and West Point and the Naval School,--but with the queerest
interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking
all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years:
"I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I
told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He
said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at
some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like
himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from
the ranks. 'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that. As I have
brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those
regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my
visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman,
Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian and the Exploring Expedition;
I told him about the Capitol,--and the statues for the pediment,--and
Crawford's Liberty,--and Greenough's Washington: Ingham, I told him
everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country
and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word
about this infernal Rebellion!
"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you.
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