Papa Shall Come Home Christmas

The wife of a defaulting officer called upon Gen. Grant last December to implore the release of her husband from the Albany penitentiary. She told the President that crushing as the sorrow was to herself, she would try to bear it; but that every morning, without an exception, since her husband’s incarceration, her four little children had come to her bedside with the tearful inquiry, “ Will dear papa come home to-day?”

“This plea of my children will, I know, ere long drive me into insanity. And now,” said she, “my little ones have varied their agonizing questioning, with a pathos that is maddening, to ‘Won’t papa come home Christmas?” “Madam, I will consult the Attorney-General and do whatever I can for your husband with his approval.” “T know that will all be useless,” said the grief-stricken wife.

‘His decision will only be adverse, and I may as well go home and tell my children at once their papa can’t come home, and give up in despair.” “Wait a moment,” said the President, and sitting down, he hastily penned a note to Attorney-General Williams, and nervously handing it to her said, “Go and tell your children that their papa shall come Christmas!” Almost fainting, the woman was carried from the Executive office, with the open note in her hand. On examining it, it was found to be a peremptory order for the immediate release of the husband and father.

But this was not all. All over the page were great blots of the President’s fast-falling tears as he wrote. On the night before Christmas there was a house in Washington as joyous as it haa been desolate, and other eyes dropped great tears as the recital was made of President Grant’s tenderness and mercyin restoring their long-absent papa to the children of Paymaster Hodges.

Norwalk Gazette.