Now, Mr. Lincoln was not exactly the most handsome man in the world. Fact is, he was kinda on the homely or, well, ugly looking side. He was like a man I once knew who was a successful businessman, but rather ugly. He always joked and said, "When I was born, the Lord asked if I wanted any good looks and I thought he said 'good books,' and I said, no thanks, I can't read yet." Lincoln must have said the same thing.

However, little Grace Bedell suddenly had an idea about how this homely man who wanted to be president could look more handsome. And, because she believed that she could do about anything she wanted, she sat down and wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln. And here is exactly what she wrote:

"I am a little girl only eleven years old, but I want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you won't think me very bold to write such a great man as your are . . . . I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President."

As you know, a person who runs for president of the United States has to have a lot of �help, a big staff of workers. And Mr. Lincoln had a staff of people to open his mail and read the letters. Only the very important letters ever are given to him. So when little Grace Bedell's letter arrived, one of the staff members wanted to throw it in the trash, because it was just a letter from a little girl, while another staff member liked it and wanted to give it to Mr. Lincoln.

They were arguing about what to do when Mr. Lincoln came into the room, picked up the letter. He could tell by the writing on the envelope it was from a young person, and he stood there and read it because he liked children. And he liked her letter enough that he wrote a personal letter back to her, indicating he might just start growing a beard.

Well, several months later, on November 6, 1860, enough people voted for Abraham Lincoln that he became president of the United States.

Then, on February 16th of 1861, President Lincoln came to a town near where Grace lived and people from miles around went there to greet him. Grace's mother and father went, and so did she. There were flags on almost every building and banners waving across the streets. More than a thousand people were gathered at the railroad depot to greet the president. Finally, someone heard a train whistle in the distance and everyone began to shout, "The train is coming! President Lincoln will soon be here!"

The big train pulled into the railway station and screeched to a stop. Then a very tall man with a stove-pipe hat on his head stepped out onto a flat railway car and began to speak to the crowd. But from where she was, far back in the crowd, all she could see was the top of that stove-pipe hat.

She could hear him speaking, but she could hardly believe her ears when she heard him say that he had been given some good advice by a little girl near here and, if she were here, he wanted to speak with her. And the president said, "Her name is Grace Bedell. She wrote me that I would look better if I wore whiskers."

Well, you can imagine how excited and wonderful she felt for the president to call her name. The crowd urged her forward to the platform. President Lincoln himself reached down and lifted her high in the air, kissed her on her cheeks, and let her down. And that's when she saw it.

The beard. The president had grown a beard, just as she had suggested. And Mr. Lincoln said, "You see, Grace, I let it grow just for you."

The president waved goodbye to the crowd and the train huffed and puffed and pulled away from the railway station. Little Grace stood there waving until the trail was out of sight.

"I let it grow just for you," the president had said. "Just for you." And then she knew with all her heart that anyone, even a little girl or boy, can make good things happen.

_______________________________ End _____________________________________

Written at Snyder, Texas, on April 21, 1993. Revised at Edmond, Ok., on 9-14-96. This true story is based on "Lincoln's Famous Beard," told by Lucille and Bren Breneman, in Best-Loved Stories Told at the National Storytelling Festival (Jonesborough, Tenn.:National Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling, 1991), pp. 59-62.