The Dead Oxen

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"And Lincoln said Seward reminded him of a hired man out West who came to the farmer one afternoon with news that one of a yoke of oxen had dropped dead. And after hesitating and waiting a while, the hired man said the other ox in the team had dropped dead too. The farmer asked, 'Why didn't you tell me at once that both oxen were dead?' 'Because,' said the hired man, 'I didn't want to hurt you by telling you too much at one time.'"

Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, War Years, Volume I, p. 587.

William Seward
Lincoln's Secretary of State