I shall never forget the frolic with the little ones on Christmas Day. They all came to dinner, and the two youngest sat one on each side of him. He was comparatively free from pain at that time; indeed, for a month or more the excruciating tortures came only at intervals; and on this day he took his own place at the head of the table. The babies were allowed to talk as much as they pleased, and they pleased a great deal. They monopolized the conversation, and when their mammas endeavored to check them, the General interposed and declared that this was their day. So they prattled across their grandpapa, and made preposterous attempts at jokes in their broken English, at which everybody laughed, and no one more heartily than the great warrior, their progenitor. It was a delicious morsel of sweet in the midst of so much bitter care, a gleam of satisfaction in the gloom of that sad winter, with its fears, and certainties, and sorrows.
No one, indeed, can understand the character of General Grant who does not know the strength of his regard for his children. It was like the passion of a wild beast for its cubs, or the love of a mother for a sucking child,—instinctive, unreasoning, overweening; yet, what everyone can comprehend and appreciate; natural, and in this grim veteran touching in the extreme. He not only thought his sons able, wise, and pure; he had a trust in them that was absolute
