L 
 
 i (I I 
 
 h 
 
 Y ^j 
 
 
 ' B B-" 
 
 :,m^r 
 
 H6e @ounU&ifr (^ Wany Oaten* 
 
 OLIVE CARRUTHERS and R. GERALD McMURTRY 
 
 
$2.50 
 
 LINCOLN'S 
 OTHER 
 MARY 
 
 By OLIVE CARRUTHERS 
 and R. GERALD McMURTRY 
 
 Abraham Lincoln eventually married Mary 
 Todd. But he had known and loved another 
 Mary before that — loved and courted her in 
 his own halting, bashful, confused way. And 
 Mary Owens could have had him. She could 
 have gone with him and stood beside him on 
 the high mountain, close to that blazing star. 
 She had held greatness in her hands, but with 
 her eyes open had chosen instead contentment 
 and a woman's kind of happiness. 
 
 Mary Owens was young, and beautiful. She 
 was educated and a daughter of wealth. She first 
 met Abe when she left the comfort and gracious 
 living of her home in Kentucky to visit a mar- 
 ried sister, who had settled on a farm in the 
 valley of the Sangamon, near New Salem. In 
 spite of herself she was drawn to this tall, un- 
 gainly, uncultured backwoodsman and he, in 
 turn, was greatly taken with Mary's charm and 
 beauty, the like of which he had never known 
 before. 
 
 Shy and diffident, and keenly aware of the gap 
 between them, Abe lacked the courage to speak 
 until she returned again on another visit three 
 years later. In the meantime his ambitions had 
 begun to take form. He had become a surveyor, 
 he had won a seat in the Legislature and was 
 becoming a power in his party. He had started 
 his study of law and now had a goal in life. 
 Although his earnings were meagre he felt that 
 he had something to offer Mary. 
 
 The book follows the course of the strangely 
 thwarted romance and the authors have drawn 
 
 (continued on back flap) 
 
 1 
 
LINCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
 and 
 
 HENRIETTA CALHOUN HORNER 
 
^iucoU't Otfa* TH^vttf, 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/lincolnsothermarOOilcarr 
 
ufisto^y/tAjLa^ 6L. /f /f^ 
 
 O%^*~0C fa 
 
 y, 
 
 
 &***</ ^U- 
 
 Otnx. ££Z*4«J teas** trp O^x^ 1*4^. \s £&*.*^j ZA-sgu^e-ts, c»st±jt^c<s ola^ ***-i 
 
 ,/t**4s 
 
 ^rCBJ^ r /?Ua<w A^t^^eo '{Li&rus- e^t-i^A, A/x&KruCT <jU*st.'C&ks >£<^$y-- 
 
 <<-C<^£0^ys Ay^^O / /k^Jt-L^y &*Zi, <^-^V. <^Cw: £.*++), /*~ CX* t*y£ <CT t*r\7~£Z 
 
 /fat^OCal, ^ Auw a* •tj&c&e*,, <? ttxrus .'?+^ y S/?JTs V^w <V^ 
 

 fr^U**^ j*r fujzfin- -Ue <U^<cf~ /£7l^~, ' /fa&A ~-& aco +sC*4? <'- Stkc 
 
 'J, 
 
 Z7 .' . ~yj. 
 
 /<-/ /CZX, U r *4~£^' fU+J-f^l+yJ *yy <,fjj~ ?»W. ■' /fo/CcZy„ t^*U.£<X. 7u*+j4u^ S?U^ 
 
 /toy, /UL^J^JUC^ /*f~ys*~*/ 4^?'' 
 
LINCOLN'S 
 
 MARY 
 
 by 
 
 OLIVE CARRUTHERS 
 
 Appendix by 
 R. GERALD McMURTRY 
 
 .*' ° A h 
 
 ZIFF-DAVIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO • NEW YORK 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY ZIFF-DAVIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 All Rights reserved. No portion of this boo\ may 
 be reprinted without permission of the publisher. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 

 
 rfc&metded$me*tt& 
 
 or. 
 
 E WISH TO EXPRESS OUR DEEP INDEBTEDNESS TO THE FOL- 
 
 lowing: Ralph G. Newman, of the Abraham Lincoln Book 
 Shop, who conceived the idea for our collaboration; Dr. 
 Harry E. Pratt, of Beloit, Wisconsin, recent Executive Secre- 
 tary of the Abraham Lincoln Association; William H. 
 Townsend, Lincoln student and collector, of Lexington, 
 Kentucky; Dr. F. Lauriston Bullard, formerly chief editorial 
 writer for the Boston Herald; Paul M. Angle, Director of 
 the Chicago Historical Society; Dr. William E. Baringer, 
 Springfield, Illinois, present Executive Secretary of the 
 Abraham Lincoln Association of Illinois; Carl Sandburg, 
 of Flat Rock, North Carolina; John M. Hamer, Lincoln 
 student and collector, of Chicago, Illinois; Dr. Stewart W. 
 McClelland and Dr. Robert L. Kincaid, President and Vice- 
 President respectively of Lincoln Memorial University, 
 Harrogate, Tennessee, all of whom contributed their time, 
 interest, and judgment; and particularly to Dr. Otto Eisen- 
 schiml, of Chicago, without whose constant guidance, criti- 
 cism, and unfailing faith the book could never have been 
 written. 
 
w 
 
 I A/ G? / 
 
 
 liiOii' 
 
 A 
 
 r O 
 
 ^XlMNC^N 
 
 "^vaH** 
 
 S&imited to 250 copies 
 each signed by the authors 
 of which this is No..% _X 
 
 Hip 
 
 KJW& 
 
 MILLER T- 
 
 ISSUED EXCLUSIVELY FOR 
 
 BOOK SHOP 
 
 m 
 
 FILLER -KELSO 
 
^ittcMt Otfot yttevuf 
 
Autumn, 1808 
 
 cf, 
 
 LL THROUGH THE BRIGHT, GOLDEN DAYS OF SEPTEMBER, 
 
 the great plantation of Nathaniel Owens on Little Brush 
 Creek in Kentucky prepared for its fifth birthing. 
 
 It was a long time since there had been a birth in the 
 house. The three boys were big fellows now, and Betsey, 
 the least one, was four years old. 
 
 The household had planned long and carefully for the 
 event. The house slaves had laid out the fine linen weeks in 
 advance, and cautioned the midwife to take no other calls 
 that last week of the month. One of the field hands had 
 brought in a great, hard lump of rock salt for the mistress 
 to clutch during her labor, and another had sharpened the 
 axe and hid it under her bed, with the bit turned upward, 
 to cut the pain. 
 
 In the negro cabins, great prophecies were conjured up 
 for the new child, which was coming like an afterthought 
 to the rest of the family. "The youngest like to be poorly, 
 but 'e always the smartest," they told one another. "If hit a 
 boy, mebbe he be Governor, or a great gemmun an' have a 
 hund'ed slaves, an' sit on de gallery an' drink mint juleps 
 all day long. If hit come a girl, she be a fine lady an' be 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 co'ted by all de gemmuns, an' mebbe have a duel fit for 
 her han\" 
 
 At last the blue-eyed baby arrived. It was a girl, with a 
 dusting of dark fuzz on its head that promised dancing curls, 
 and a prediction of beauty in the tiny features. Looking at 
 her, Nathe Owens knew that this child would become pecu- 
 liarly his own, his personal fulfilment. She would be his 
 special project. She would have every advantage that his 
 wealth could give her, and would be his companion and 
 comfort in his old age. 
 
 The darkies were delirious. This girl baby would be their 
 special charge, too, and would grow up to be the most beau- 
 tiful, the most genteel, the most sought-after young lady in 
 all Kentucky. And they sang incantations and mixed new, 
 strange conjures for the health and happiness of little Mary. 
 
 But even the fond negroes could not forsee that one day, 
 in the far away, wild Sangamon country, Mary Owens would 
 walk on the edge of fame; that, for a little while, she would 
 hold greatness in her hands, hers to keep or toss away; that 
 she might, for her own choosing, have the highest position 
 of any lady in the land. 
 
 Spring, 1833 
 
 The woman wiped the last of the scouring sand from the 
 smooth pine table and rinsed out the cloth. She called inquir- 
 ingly up toward the loft for one of the boys to come and 
 carry out the dishwater, but no one answered. The young 
 ones must be all out in the field with their father. Well, 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 she reckoned it was a good thing, for the bigger boys were 
 right helpful with the farm work, and the plowing was late 
 this year. It had been a long, hard winter, with snow drift- 
 ing into the hollows and the corners of the fields long after 
 the crops should have been in. 
 
 One thing she missed in this Illinois country — if she 
 missed any part of her childhood life — was the sweet, early 
 Kentucky spring, with golden Easter flowers underfoot in 
 April, and the sunshine so thick and warm it was like melted 
 butter — you wanted to spread it on your cornbread and eat it. 
 
 Here, the winter chill lingered into May, and sometimes 
 June, and then suddenly, almost overnight, it was summer, 
 and the wind from the prairie was hot and heavy with the 
 odors of fruition. 
 
 Still, Betsey wasn't sorry she'd followed Bennett Abell 
 so far away from her home and all the things she'd known. 
 It seemed like a dream now: her father's far-flung planta- 
 tion on Little Brush Creek, and the big brick house, two 
 stories high, with room for everybody, room enough even 
 after her mother died and Nathe Owens married again 
 and the second family began to come. Spring in Kentucky, 
 and the darkies singing as they worked in the fields and 
 about the house. Eleven slaves the Squire had had, brought 
 from Virginia after his father died — almost one to a head 
 of his own family — and not a black one of them who did 
 as much work in a day as Betsey did now. But it was all 
 unreal to her, the easy, lazy life, and the smell of locust 
 blossoms, and the clear, thin, crooning voices. 
 
 She wasn't sorry she'd come, Elizabeth Owens, daughter 
 of one of the proudest landowners in Green County. She 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 had lost nothing that mattered in leaving her father's home, 
 for she had followed her man blindly, and they had found 
 their own fulfilment in the rich Sangamon basin, in the 
 richer fertility of their love. What if her house was crowded, 
 and her work was hard ? She was pleased with her husband, 
 and their children were strong and healthy — the boys hand- 
 some, the girls pretty and well-mannered. And there was a 
 whole untrampled empire here, waiting to be mastered. 
 
 Betsey Abell was content. The hardest years of their pio- 
 neering were over. They'd made their mistakes — like build- 
 ing their first house on top of the hill where it got all the 
 angry gale from the prairie, and trying to raise tobacco in 
 the over-rich Sangamon loam. Now they were beginning 
 to reap the good seed they had sown. 
 
 Only, whenever she went to the door, as she did now to 
 toss out the dishwater, Betsey looked for a long moment 
 to the east, toward the high, ragged blufT that blocked off 
 the river, as though to draw strength from the hill. Higher, 
 rougher than the rounded knobs of Kentucky, it was still 
 the only thing here in Illinois that could remind her of 
 home 
 
 Glancing now, from long habit, toward the bluff, she 
 saw that there was a creeping shadow of green edging over 
 its thrusting height. Spring was really coming! 
 
 Her heart quickened, and started a song. Flowers again 
 in the dooryard; sunshine on the floor; fresh, sweet straw 
 for the bed ticks; the hard slap of the children's bare feet 
 on the sandy clearing; and long, lush evenings when, the 
 day's work done and the young ones asleep, she and her 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 man were tired with the delicious langour of toil, but still 
 
 not too tired for love 
 
 It was a long way back to Little Brush Creek in Kentucky. 
 Pioneering had taken a great deal out of her. She was no 
 longer beautiful. The heavy work and lack of comfort and 
 repeated child-bearing had coarsened her figure, roughened 
 her hands, put lines in her face. There wasn't time for mak- 
 ing pretty curls or pretty dresses. She and Bennett had 
 grown close to the earth that gave them their substance. 
 Close to the sun and the wind and the driving gales. Close 
 to the stars. 
 
 They could have stayed in Kentucky, and they could have 
 lived easily there. Sooner or later, perhaps even now, they 
 could have had a house like her father's, a colored servant 
 or two, racing horses in the stable. They could have had the 
 graceful living that is spelled with mint juleps and light 
 conversation, and fox hunts by moonlight. And they never 
 would have known each other. She would have been occu- 
 pied with ladies' tea parties, children's dancing lessons, con- 
 tinued obeisance to her father. And eventually, Bennett 
 would have taken to wandering down to the negro cabins 
 along the river on the nights of spring days like this, as all 
 the other young gentlemen did. She would have had half 
 as many children, and a closet full of clothes, and a heart 
 
 that was never free of pain Here, they had discovered 
 
 essentials, and had become elemental as rain, one in each 
 other. 
 
 It was a long way back to Green County, Kentucky, and 
 Betsey Abell was glad of the distance. 
 
 Once in a while, she was lonely. Bennett worked all day 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 about the farm, the children took care of themselves, and 
 she grew hungry for the easy come-and-go of neighbors, 
 for light talk and laughter. Their old friends, the Nances — 
 neighbors and schoolmates at home — were here, as well as 
 the Grahams, who were kinfolk on her mother's side; she 
 and Bennett could count every one in the village their 
 friends. But it took time to go visiting. The distances were 
 greater, and the work of house and farm wouldn't wait 
 while you went gallivanting. Her days, crowded as they 
 were with a thousand tasks, were still lonely. 
 
 She turned now and looked down the long road toward 
 the village a mile and a half away. Friends and strangers, 
 peddlers and preachers, came by that road, and they always 
 found the Abell latchstring out, in the Kentucky way. 
 
 There was some one coming now, and there was only 
 one man she knew who was so tall, or who loped along 
 with such loose-jointed, awkward easiness. 
 
 Betsey hurried out toward the lilac bushes that grew in 
 a circle with a hollow in the center, where the little girls 
 were playing house. 
 
 "Nancy! Mary!" she called. "Go fetch your father from 
 the north field!" 
 
 For Abe Lincoln was coming to call, to sit a spell with 
 his friends, and talk over the latest news of the village. 
 
 Betsey surveyed her family crowded about the long deal 
 table, and felt that she could be honestly proud. At the 
 head of the table, Bennett presided with an air of substan- 
 tial worth that was almost reminiscent of her father. The 
 children's scrubbed faces shone, up and down both sides of 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 the table: the big boys, John and Samuel (Sam named for 
 her brother who had gone pioneering out to Missouri), 
 strapping fellows; Nancy, who was already taking on the 
 mannerisms of a "young lady." Betsey had put Oliver, the 
 little boy, on one side of Abe, and Mary (called after her 
 sister) on the other, so that he could help them with their 
 eating. She kept the baby herself, balancing him against 
 one hip as she moved back and forth from the fire to the 
 table, carrying the food with her one free hand. You learn 
 to be handy waiting on eight people at one time! But this 
 was good, this was living, she thought now: the children 
 washed and hungry, and a friend to share their food. 
 
 "It's a right smart thing I knocked that rooster in the 
 head this morning, isn't it, Mama?" bragged John. "I 
 must've had a tremor we were goin' to have company!" 
 
 "You're a good boy, John," she replied, with a warning 
 frown. For it was no secret in the family that Betsey was 
 concerned about Abe's sketchy living, and tried to put a 
 real meal on the table whenever he came. She hoped to 
 heaven the young ones wouldn't make any remark about 
 the white-flour biscuits she'd stirred up at the last minute, 
 for white biscuits were a Sunday treat. On week days, she 
 gave them cornbread. 
 
 Blessedly, Bennett caught her concern, and began to talk 
 crops. "I'm goin' to have a right good stand of corn in the 
 far field this year, Abe," he remarked in his slow, drawling 
 way, "if the weather's favorable. It's taken me ten years to 
 work up that field to do me any good. Seems as if I never 
 had time to grub out the stumps and get it cultivated right. 
 But the boys pitched in and helped me this spring, and with 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 any luck, I may grow a barrel of whiskey on that field this 
 summer!" 
 
 "Bennett," interjected Abe thoughtfully, "I'm goin' to get 
 out of the store." 
 
 "Why, Abe?" protested Betsey. For the store, while it 
 didn't give Abe much of a living (he was too honest to make 
 money off his friends), did give him prestige in the village, 
 and he had seemed happy there. Moreover, it was the only 
 place where the women could go to shop. Abe had kept it 
 decent, and a woman could go in without fear of being 
 insulted by drunken loafers. You knew, too, that you'd get 
 your money's worth from Abe, and maybe more. 
 
 "Well, I reckon I wasn't cut out to be a business man. 
 Seems like I can't sell enough over the counter to pay for 
 what Berry takes out of the barrel. Anyhow, he's fixin' to 
 get a license to sell whiskey by the drink, and I can't hold 
 with that." 
 
 "That'll mean drinkin' all over the place, won't it?" re- 
 marked Bennett. 
 
 "It'd be mighty hard to stop it," replied Abe. 
 
 Bennett frowned. If there was one thing he had hung 
 onto in the years of pioneering, it was his respect and con- 
 cern for women, nice women like his wife, and the wives 
 of the other men who had settled to make homes in the 
 Sangamon. Betsey had had to do menial tasks that had hurt 
 his pride, and hurt his heart to see her doing, but she had 
 always been treated by every man in the community with 
 the deference that was due a lady. "I don't guess there'll be 
 any store in town fit for you to go into then," he told her 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 now, "you'll have to learn to trust me to get your thread 
 and coffee." 
 
 Betsy pushed that thought aside impatiently. There were 
 more important things to consider. "What will you do for 
 a living then, Abe?" she pressed him. 
 
 "Oh, I kin always get along," he replied easily. And then, 
 hesitantly lest they think he was bragging, "I'm goin' to get 
 the appointment as postmaster, it looks like." 
 
 "Are you sure? When?" Betsey was excited again now. 
 For the office of postmaster carried dignity, and a little bit 
 of glory. It would be a real step up for their friend. 
 
 "Well," he said, almost sheepishly, "seems as though the 
 folks got up a petition around town, and sent it to President 
 Jackson. I told 'em not to, because I didn't want any man 
 unseated for my benefit, but they were gettin' a little bit 
 tired of Sam Hill's foolin' around an' neglectin' the mail, 
 like it wasn't much account." 
 
 "They were right, too! That's a responsible position, a 
 government position! A man ought to take it seriously!" 
 
 "And they told me they were goin' to protest about him, 
 whether I wanted the appointment or not. So I reckon I'll 
 get it. Nigh every man in town signed the petition — exceptin' 
 Jack Kelso, he was off fishin' someplace — and all the ladies." 
 
 "There be much of anything in it for you, Abe?" put in 
 the practical Bennett. 
 
 "I can't rightly guess. The postmaster takes his pay in 
 commissions. You all better start writin' letters to your folks, 
 so you'll get answers back." 
 
 "Will you frank our letters for us, Abe?" bubbled young 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Samuel. "We're your best friends. Will you give us Grand- 
 father's letters free, will you?" 
 
 "The office of postmaster is a very responsible position, 
 son," replied Abe, with exaggerated gravity. "Tell you what, 
 though: I'll bring your mail out to you, on foot, as soon's it 
 comes in, and you won't have to trek into town after it!" 
 
 It was time to hustle the children off to bed. "You'll stop 
 over night, won't you Abe?" Betsey urged him. 
 
 Abe slipped his rough brogues off, to give his feet a rest. 
 "Oh, I reckon so, since you mention it. It's a right fur piece 
 back to town." 
 
 "That's fine," and Betsey hurried the smaller youngsters 
 up the ladder to the loft so that Abe wouldn't hear Mary's 
 protests. Little Mary liked Abe — he had a way with all 
 children — but she didn't like to have him stay over night, 
 for that meant that he would sleep with the big boys and 
 she would be tucked into the foot of the bed — with three 
 pairs of feet in her face. But there was no other way for 
 Betsey to manage: Nancy was such a big girl that she had 
 to be given the one single bed, and Oliver kicked in his 
 sleep and couldn't be put in with Abe and the others. But 
 Betsey Abell wasn't one to turn a guest out at nightfall, 
 whether the young ones liked it or not! 
 
 It took a little time to get them all settled, and when she 
 came down from the loft, the men had gone out into the 
 yard to sit under the oak tree. Betsey lingered to set the 
 food away and put out the candles, and their man-talk 
 drifted in to her. 
 
 "Well," she heard Abe say thoughtfully, "chances are the 
 man was guilty. I was purty sure myself that he was. But 
 
 10 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 purty sure and legal proof, Bennett, are two different things. 
 The prosecutor had some fancy witnesses — who hadn't seen 
 anything. Character witnesses, who argued that if a man 
 was caught stealin' a hawg two years ago next Tuesday, why 
 it stands to reason he stole money last winter. And Bennett, 
 according to the Statute, you can't sentence a cat for killin' a 
 bird, unless somebody saw her do it — not even if you catch 
 her with feathers in her whiskers. And then the witness 
 has got to prove he has good eyesight and a reputation for 
 tellin' the truth. But Springfield's a mighty lively town. I 
 rode over with Rowan Herndon, and Rowan says to me, 
 'Abe,' he says, 'there's plenty men here makin' a livin' with 
 their heads instead of their hands. They aren't grubbin' 
 stumps for a livin'.' I told him, 'Just the same, you don't 
 have to convince a stump — you just grub her out.' " 
 
 But Betsey heard him sigh, and she knew the fascination 
 that the courtroom had for him — the drama of oratory, the 
 excitement of matching wits against an opponent, the battle 
 of personalities that might hang a man or free him. And 
 she felt again that premonition she'd had, often before, that 
 Abe was a little different from the rest of them, that his 
 thoughts, hidden behind his casual banter, traveled strange 
 roads, where they couldn't follow. What was it he wanted ? 
 What was the restlessness that wouldn't let him set his foot 
 down in one place long enough to make a track? It was 
 more — she hoped — than just the pioneer urge to be going 
 on to some other place, any place but here. It wasn't physical 
 restlessness, wanderlust. It was more as though, no matter 
 what he was doing — clerking in a store, fighting Indians, 
 chopping trees — his mind was somewhere else, dreaming 
 
 11 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 some dream that took him far away from the job he was 
 doing. It was a shame he had lost his run for the legislature 
 a year ago. That might have been the answer, but he hadn't 
 been well enough known in the county, and instead of cam- 
 paigning to make up for that, he had gone off chasing 
 Black Hawk. No, thought Betsey, it was something else, 
 some longing in him that hadn't yet found enough expres- 
 sion for him to recognize it and do something about it. He 
 was still growing, painfully, like her own boys, who at times 
 had so much energy they didn't know what to do with it, 
 and they wore themselves out chasing each other around the 
 yard, pointlessly. Abe was chasing himself around the yard, 
 without knowing what he was running for, or where 
 
 She went out to join the men, and their talk at once be- 
 came casual. She sat down on the ground beside Bennett, 
 and sighed contentedly. "There's goin' to be a moon to- 
 night," she said. 
 
 Bennett took one of her calloused hands in his, and she 
 leaned closer to him to see the moon inching up over the 
 top of the bluff. They all three sat silent, and the spring 
 night was like a caress upon their faces. Somewhere over 
 by the river a hoot owl called, and a guinea hen fluttered 
 sleepily in the oak boughs overhead. They could smell the 
 fresh-turned earth of the fields, and the moonlight was 
 almost fit to drink. 
 
 "Time for bed, woman," Bennett told Betsey, gently. 
 
 Abe got up abruptly, almost brusquely. "I just recalled," 
 he said in a strained voice, "I've got to draw a deed for one 
 of the Clarys in the morning. He's comin' in early. I'd 
 better get along." 
 
 12 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 And he started out of the yard without tying his shoe 
 laces, and was a good way down the road before they could 
 make startled protest. 
 
 "Well, I'll be daggoned," breathed Bennett, "now what 
 did we do wrong ? Folks in town say he's been edgy lately, 
 not hardly sociable any more. Walks right away from cus- 
 tomers, or closes the store up and goes off wanderin' in the 
 woods for days at a time. Jack Armstrong's right worried 
 about him. They think he's touched in the head." 
 
 "I do believe," Betsey replied wonderingly, "that he's 
 jealous of us. Bennett, he ought to have a wife!" 
 
 "Oh shucks, Honey, if he needs a woman he knows where 
 to get one!" 
 
 "Not that kind!" she protested hotly. "A nice, sensible, 
 decent woman, who'd make a home for him, and care about 
 him, and have children for him! Something he could anchor 
 to!" 
 
 "I don't know where he'd find that kind of woman around 
 here," Bennett was serious again, "the good ones are all 
 taken." He put his arm around her and urged her silently 
 toward the house. As always at his touch, her spirit leaped 
 to meet him. But only a part of her responded, for Betsey 
 was thinking. Abe Lincoln needed a wife 
 
 13 
 
(fyafat&i *7tv* 
 
 a, 
 
 BE CLIMBED UP TO HIS BED AT THE RUTLEDGE TAVERN 
 
 without speaking to anyone. The place was dark, but he 
 didn't light a candle. He took ofr his shoes, and slipped the 
 single gallus from his shoulder, and sat down on the edge 
 of the bed. 
 
 The night air drifted into the room through the solitary 
 window, the same promise-laden spring breeze that had 
 stirred his friends to an emotion that shut him out, and 
 made him alien and lonely. 
 
 God! Would he always be lonely, even when he sought 
 company? There had been times when he was in the midst 
 of a crowd, at a gander pulling or a political meeting, when 
 that sense of aloneness had taken and possessed him until 
 he was afraid to speak to the man next to him, for fear the 
 fellow wouldn't understand his talk. Why should he feel 
 different from the people around him? He came from the 
 same kind of folk as the majority of settlers about New 
 Salem — maybe poorer than most — and he did the same kind 
 of work for a living. They were no more restless than he, 
 with their forever pushing on to fields that looked greener 
 
 14 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 until they got to them. And yet, his was a different kind of 
 restlessness from theirs. For they knew they wanted the 
 next pasture. He didn't know what he wanted 
 
 Maybe it was an easier way of living. His father had taught 
 him to do physical work, and to do it well, but he had never 
 taught him to like it. Perhaps he wanted to work, like the 
 lawyers he'd seen in Springfield, with his head instead of 
 his hands. Maybe it was the excitement of politics that could 
 feed the hunger that food didn't help. It might be that. 
 
 It might be a woman 
 
 Not just any woman. But one who could understand him 
 better than he did himself, and who could love him for 
 what he was even while she tried to help him to be some- 
 thing different 
 
 A woman who could love him 
 
 Would any woman flame to his touch as Betsey had to- 
 night for Abell— after more than ten years with the man? 
 
 Was it a woman he needed ? Was it only a woman ? 
 
 Two women hadn't stayed the restlessness in Tom Lin- 
 coln. Could one do any more for his son? 
 
 Just the other day, Hannah Armstrong— Jack's wife—had 
 told him it was time he settled down. "It wouldn't matter 
 so much to you what you did for a living, or how hard you 
 worked, if you had a good girl waiting for you at home, 
 Abe," she had said. "You'd have something to tie to, some- 
 thing to work for." 
 
 Something to work for. Something besides himself; a self 
 that, after all, wasn't very important. And yet, an anchor 
 
 15 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 could weight a man, hold him down, clip his wings, and 
 keep him earth-bound forever. 
 
 But his thoughts kept circling back to the man and wife 
 he had just left, the woman who had given up ease and 
 luxury to go pioneering with her mate, who had learned a 
 whole new way of living and had borne him six children, 
 and still went breathless at his touch 
 
 Abe got up from the bed and lit the home-made candle. 
 He carried it over to the streaky mirror above the wash 
 stand, and looked long and searchingly at his reflection in 
 the glass. 
 
 Then with a sigh, he put out the light, and stretched his 
 long length on the bed. He wouldn't sleep much tonight. 
 For what woman that he would ever want could be expected 
 to take him? 
 
 16 
 
@&aftten *76nee 
 
 of, 
 
 T LAST THE BIG HOUSE WAS QUIET. THE TWO YOUNG 
 
 ladies, perfumed and giggling, had gone off with their beaus, 
 and Mary's stepmother was upstairs hearing the children's 
 prayers. Nathe Owens had retreated to the gun room, which 
 he used for a study. 
 
 Mary started to follow him, to tell him of the letter she'd 
 received from Betsey that morning. She knew he was curi- 
 ous, for he had brought it in from town himself, and it was 
 one of the few from Illinois addressed specially to Mary. 
 Most of Betsey's letters were written to their father, but 
 meant for the whole family. Nathe hadn't asked to see the 
 letter, but Mary knew that he expected her to tell him, for 
 she had never kept anything from him. 
 
 Yet, this was something that she didn't want to share 
 with him. She would have to tell him, sketchily, what Bet- 
 sey had written, but she couldn't show him the letter. 
 
 For Betsey had said: "If you got away from Papa for a 
 little while, you might find that things look very different 
 to you. There are a lot of fine people here, who will make 
 their mark in the world. Not many of them went to dancing 
 school when they were young, but they are all good stock — 
 
 17 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 our kind of folks, from Kentucky and Tennessee and the 
 Carolinas — and we're building a new nation out here, just 
 as surely as Papa helped build Kentucky. But it's been a 
 long time since Papa had only a wagon and a team to his 
 name, and he's forgotten that women were ever anything 
 but ornaments. We have one friend in particular .... he's 
 just been appointed Postmaster at New Salem, and Bennett 
 and I think he will go far " 
 
 Betsey went on to urge Mary to come to visit her in Illi- 
 nois. She had seen none of her kinfolk since she left Ken- 
 tucky over ten years ago, and though she was very happy, 
 and their neighbors the Nances, and the Graham cousins 
 were almost like one family, still she'd like to see her only 
 true whole sister. 
 
 But of course Mary couldn't go. A long, dangerous jour- 
 ney like that, unattended — why, it was only a year ago 
 Betsey had written that all the young men had gone off to 
 fight Indians! And all the houses were built of logs, and 
 the streets of the town nothing but mudholes, and the mail 
 came only twice a week. Mary had never been able to under- 
 stand how Betsey, her own blood, had been able to go off 
 to the wilderness to live, so far from everything that she 
 had ever known or been taught to value. 
 
 Still — perhaps it wasn't so bad. There was a Baptist min- 
 ister in New Salem, a Mr. Camron from Georgia, who ran 
 a grist and sawmill during the week and preached on Sun- 
 day in the schoolhouse. There were two doctors, though 
 Betsey had written that Dr. Regnier was drinking himself 
 to death. The other one, a Dr. Allen, was a violent Prohi- 
 bitionist, so maybe that evened things up. Anyhow, Betsey 
 
 18 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 had had her babies quite successfully, and from all reports, 
 they were healthy youngsters. 
 
 She'd never seen one of Betsey's children. Six of them, 
 there were now. Where had the years gone since Betsey 
 went away? 
 
 For Mary, they had been filled with an endless and not 
 unenjoyable minutiae of small tasks and small events — 
 helping to bring up the children of her father's second mar- 
 riage, who had come along as rapidly as his first family; 
 sharing the management of the house and servants with 
 her stepmother; church, books, occasional shopping and 
 business trips with her father to Bardstown and Louisville 
 and Elizabethtown; long talks with her father who, in spite 
 of his remarriage, seemed to look to the last child of his first 
 love for his real companionship; weddings and births and 
 sicknesses and deaths in the negro cabins. 
 
 Lately, Mary had found an enlivening interest outside the 
 circumscribed orbit of her duties: the growing temperance 
 movement. There was evidence aplenty of the evils of drink 
 near at hand, among the small farmers in the knoblands 
 who nearly all had their own "stills" for making whiskey; 
 over in Nelson County where the distilleries were large and 
 well built; and among the darkies in the neighborhood and 
 on their own plantation. Squire Owens had got mighty 
 worked up over the situation, and, harking back to the time 
 when he had been a high sheriff, argued that the problem 
 was entirely one of enforcing the law, and talked about how 
 much better things were handled in the old days. But Mary 
 was inclined to agree with a song that was becoming popular 
 among temperance advocates, that went, "a man can get 
 
 19 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 drunk in a licensed saloon just as well as in one that's free." 
 The question was one of education toward self-control, she 
 argued with the Squire, and he listened respectfully, as 
 though she were another man, but he was never convinced. 
 
 Mary found a great deal of satisfaction in working for the 
 temperance cause. But it was cold comfort, and she knew 
 quite well that it was a small substitute for the normal life 
 that every woman has a right to expect. 
 
 And while the years had slipped unobtrusively away until 
 Mary was twenty-five and young no longer, Betsey had been 
 living fully, strenuously. Betsey had known both the hard- 
 ship and the excitement of going to a new country with the 
 man she loved, and of working shoulder to shoulder with 
 him for their good and that of their children. Betsey had 
 known the deep fires of a man's love, and the recurring 
 glory of motherhood. 
 
 Betsey's life had been real, alive, and pulsing, while Mary's 
 had been filled, like a schoolgirl's, with time-killing pre- 
 tenses 
 
 Mary knew that she shouldn't be discontented, when Papa 
 was so kind to her, giving her everything she wanted. She 
 had had the privilege of book learning far beyond that of 
 most women of her time, and she had a beautiful home, fine 
 clothes, a definite social position as Squire Owens' "smart" 
 daughter. She was loved and respected by her father, his 
 wife, their children, and the servants. 
 
 But she felt the futility of her life again and again, espe- 
 cially at night when, the daily tasks done — and her young 
 half-sisters, aged seventeen and fifteen, were out cavorting 
 about the county with their beaus — she lay in bed wonder- 
 
 20 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 ing what was in store for her, what might happen tomorrow. 
 But tomorrow always turned out just like today, not un- 
 pleasant, not exciting, just the same. 
 
 She had a good and well-trained mind, and she had been 
 told that she was beautiful. But nothing had come of her 
 looks and her education except her companionship with her 
 father, her position in his household as a sort of second hos- 
 tess. She loved her four half-sisters and half-brother, but 
 they were not her own children. What would become of 
 her if Papa died — when he died ? Bereft of her one congeni- 
 ality, an extra female in this house or the home of one of her 
 sisters or brothers, with no intimates and no rightful place 
 of her own — an old maid? Sometimes, in her troubled 
 nightly questions, she reached out a hand in the dark and 
 touched the smooth, uncreased pillow next to hers, half 
 caressingly, not knowing why she did it 
 
 She had had beaus. But it seemed that nearly all the really 
 promising young men had gone away to Illinois, or Indiana, 
 or Missouri. Some restlessness had taken hold of them in the 
 unsettled decade after the war with England, and they had 
 gone hunting moonstones, like Betsey and Bennett. By the 
 time she was fifteen or sixteen, there were precious few left 
 that a girl with her upbringing could be interested in. And 
 there was something about every boy who'd ever courted 
 her that Papa didn't like. One drank too much, and another 
 was reckless with horses, and another gambled. Still another 
 found the negro cabins too attractive. 
 
 Now Mary was twenty-five, and mature beyond those 
 years from constant companionship with her father. And it 
 
 21 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 was certain that before long, that young Vineyard boy who 
 came to see her half-sister Nancy every night, would be 
 speaking to Papa. Even Ellen, only fifteen, was such an 
 outrageous flirt that she didn't show promise of remaining 
 single much longer than Nancy 
 
 Betsey had written, "If you got away from Papa " 
 
 There were strong men in the West, in the Sangamon 
 country. Betsey had said so. And they were lonely men, for 
 there weren't many women there. Perhaps a woman's age 
 wouldn't matter so much 
 
 "I'll go," Mary promised herself. "I'll get around Papa 
 some way. I have a right to visit my only true sister. And 
 besides, there may be temperance work to do there." 
 
 So, her conscience quieted, she went off to find the Squire. 
 
 22 
 
@6afet&i *pom 
 
 cf, 
 
 BE LINCOLN SAT UNDER A TREE IN THE YARD OF SAM 
 
 Hill's store, trying to figure out some way to lick the August 
 heat that rose like steam from the prairie. He removed one 
 brogan, then the other, and rubbed his feet against the grass. 
 But the grass was parched and dry, and hot to his touch. 
 He sighed, fanning himself with his old straw hat, and 
 looked again at the paper in his hand. 
 
 He knew well enough what it said. It was a summons to 
 appear in the Sangamon Circuit Court — along with Dave 
 Rutledge and William Greene (young William) — on the 
 bond they'd executed to Alexander and Martin Trent in 
 January, "to secure the conveyance of the east half of Lot 
 number five South of Main Street in the first survey of the 
 town of New Salem." The bond was for a hundred fifty 
 dollars, but as far as Abe was concerned, it could have been 
 for a hundred fifty thousand. He'd be just as likely to get 
 hold of one sum as the other. 
 
 That wasn't the only court action that was staring him 
 in the face, either. Only a week ago, he'd been served with 
 a similar paper by Sheriff Henry, who'd got tired of waiting 
 
 23 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 for Captain Bogue, of the unhappy little wood-fed steamer 
 "Talisman," to return and pay up the note that Abe and 
 Nelson Alley, in a great flush of friendliness, had signed 
 better than a year ago when it looked as if the captain would 
 surely open up traffic on the river. It had seemed safe enough 
 at the time. If a man is your friend, and appears honest, why, 
 you sign his note just as you'd recommend him for member- 
 ship in the church. Nobody around New Salem had much 
 of any collateral. A man borrowed on his character, his 
 face — and hope. So when Bogue had asked Abe and Alley 
 to go his paper, and had said he'd sure take care of it, they 
 had taken it for granted that he would. Then Bogue had 
 disappeared, and now Henry wanted the money. 
 
 Well, it was a funny thing, mused Abe. The Trents and 
 Henry were within their legal rights. Abe and Alley had 
 signed the note, and they rightfully owed the money in the 
 absence of Bogue. And yet, suing on a note that was executed 
 in friendship was something Abe Lincoln couldn't have 
 done. He'd have taken his loss and forgotten about it. 
 
 However, a man can't forget his debts. These obligations 
 of Abe's were honest, and they'd have to be met. His name 
 might not mean much — yet — in the world of men, but 
 people were beginning to call him Honest Abe, and he 
 could think of worse handles to a name. Just the same, pay- 
 ing those debts called for hard cash money, beyond his few 
 personal wants. And where it would come from, Abe had 
 no idea at all. 
 
 Sitting there in the hot shade, faced with two lawsuits, 
 Abe tried to figure out what was wrong with him. Over- 
 optimism? He didn't think so. At least, he was no more 
 
 24 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 optimistic than anyone else here in the Sangamon, where 
 opportunity seemed to be lying around like gold in the 
 streets, just waiting for somebody to pick it up. Was his 
 trouble poor judgment ? He had a sneaking notion that was 
 it. He should have known, for instance, that he wasn't cut 
 out to be a businessman. The store had looked like a good 
 idea, just as signing those notes had looked like a good idea. 
 A storekeeper is a man of importance in a small community, 
 and is respected. The picture of himself as a merchant was 
 very attractive. And everyone in New Salem liked him, and 
 was anxious to trade with him. When he started in the store, 
 it had just seemed like he couldn't lose. 
 
 But somehow, he couldn't haggle over a penny, or weigh 
 coffee or sugar down to the quarter-ounce, or refuse credit 
 where he knew there was need but no money or hope of it. 
 Abe realized too, that it takes application to run any busi- 
 ness, and that if a merchant is to be successful, he must plan 
 ahead, reckon probable sales, and buy cannily with an eye 
 to profit and turnover. He understood that the smartest 
 buying and the shrewdest selling wouldn't avail much unless 
 a man kept careful track of inventory and income and outgo. 
 But it seemed like whenever he started to make plans for the 
 store, or to work on the records, somebody came in, and he 
 just couldn't keep from passing the time of day. Then, be- 
 fore he knew it, the afternoon had been talked away, with 
 nothing accomplished but the keeping of a friend. 
 
 Moreover, last winter Jack Kelso had helped Abe dis- 
 cover poetry, and he had become acquainted with the sound 
 of words that rippled like running water, or stood out stark 
 
 25 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 and shocking as a leafless tree in the moonlight. He read: 
 
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, 
 Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
 Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy, 
 
 and the crude log cabin that housed his merchandise fell 
 away from him, and he was alone and shaken before the 
 sight of pure beauty, so perfect that it squeezed his heart 
 and took the breath from his throat. 
 He read: 
 
 But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, 
 In proving forsight may be vain: 
 
 The best laid plans of mice an' men 
 Gang aft a-gley, 
 
 An' lea'e us nought but grief an* pain 
 For promis'd joy, 
 
 and he thought that Robert Burns must have known life as 
 he, Abe, had found it, with more disappointments than 
 reward for his hard work, and the sincerest charts and inten- 
 tions leading him off on by-roads that ended in quagmires 
 of futility. 
 
 When he went back to Shakespeare, he found, as though 
 it had been written just for him: 
 
 When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought 
 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste — 
 
 That was Abe Lincoln all right, in the flesh. Where were 
 26 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 the things he sought? How had they eluded him? What 
 was he seeking, anyhow? 
 
 Well, he didn't wail the loss of the store. It was better to 
 realize now than later that he wasn't a tradesman. He'd let 
 go his interest in the same way he got it, by a transfer of 
 paper. To those same Trent brothers who were suing him 
 now. And even if there was no profit in the transfer, there 
 was no loss, either. 
 
 The postmastership, coming along so soon after he'd let 
 the store go, had appeared to be a godsend. Manna from 
 heaven, like the story in the Old Testament. But he knew 
 already that its benefits were less material than personal. 
 There were all the papers coming in by the week, to various 
 subscribers — the Louisville Journal, the Sangamo Journal, 
 the National Intelligencer from Washington, and the Mis- 
 souri Republican, and he could read them as he delivered 
 them, and know what was going on all over the country. 
 The uproar over the South Carolina Ordinance of Nullifi- 
 cation had hardly died down, and the papers were still dis- 
 cussing the pros and cons of the Tariff Acts which had led 
 up to the Ordinance. The journals had published letters 
 and opinions on both sides and the President's proclamation 
 in full. Abe was no Jackson man, but the President's speech 
 struck him as mighty fine. The mixed loyalties of the Illinois 
 settlers and the lack of local events kept the arguments alive 
 among them long after the question was actually settled. 
 The speeches and arguments excited Abe, and he studied 
 them carefully, pouncing on a tactical blunder here, an 
 illogical assumption there. He became one of the best- 
 informed men in the county on political events. 
 
 27 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 The postmastership kept Abe close to the people. Folks 
 whom he might not see in a month of Sundays if he didn't 
 deliver their mail to them. 
 
 But there was very little money in the job. With his re- 
 muneration dependent on commissions, he couldn't hope to 
 make more than seventy-five or eighty dollars in a year's 
 time. 
 
 Well, a man could live. He could eat and sleep by picking 
 up odd jobs from the farmers, clerking in Hill's store — where 
 he was keeping the post-office — or helping out at the mill. 
 
 He could live, but he couldn't pay any debts that way. 
 Money. Hard cash money to pay off those ill-begotten notes. 
 Now, immediately, he would have to find some way, within 
 the limits of whatever abilities or handicaps he had, to earn 
 more than a living. 
 
 But what? If there were only some one he could talk to 
 about it. Some one whose vision was long, who could help 
 him see into the future, who could understand and even aid 
 him in crystallizing his half-formed dreams. Some one who 
 could realize that, without conceit, he felt there was a differ- 
 ent plan for him than for the others in New Salem, dear 
 friends though they were. He almost needed, he told him- 
 self wryly, some one who could make up his mind for 
 him 
 
 Betsey ? Betsey Abell, who seemed at times to catch some 
 inkling of his hopes, his vague ambitions? Betsey could 
 understand, and Betsey had ability for something besides 
 baby cleaning. But he shied away from the thought. Betsey 
 was another man's woman, whose first thoughts were pos- 
 sessed elsewhere 
 
 28 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Jing, but it was hot! If the farmers didn't get rain soon 
 even the corn would burn up in the fields. 
 
 A man was approaching the store yard, slowly, hesitantly. 
 
 "Howdy," Abe offered casually. "When you reckon we're 
 due for rain?" 
 
 "I dunno," the other replied, "but Abe, my wife's ailin' 
 again. She's expectin' a letter from 'er mother, sayin' whether 
 she kin come out here to take care of 'Liza an' the younguns, 
 and when she's comin' and all. But we bin mighty hard up 
 this summer — " 
 
 Abe got the implication without forcing the plea any 
 farther. "I think there's a letter in there for her now," he 
 said, "bin layin' around a couple days till you come in or I 
 should have call to go out your way." Then he turned, and 
 pointed over toward the bluff. "Looks like a rain cloud 
 caught on the hill, don't it?" he remarked. Then, "Reckon 
 I owe yore wife plenty for free meals an' such. Take yore 
 letter an' fergit it." 
 
 After the man had gone, Abe sighed. It wasn't much to 
 do for a friend, but that was the way all his money seemed 
 to go. 
 
 29 
 
(fyaftten 'pive 
 
 ^^HE WOMEN IN THE NEXT BED HAD QUIETED DOWN AT LAST, 
 
 and Mary closed her eyes and tried to relax. She was for- 
 tunate to have got a single cot in the women's dormitory at 
 the Inn. If she'd had to share a bed with some strange 
 woman — she shuddered at the thought, and wondered what- 
 ever had lured her away from her father's home. 
 
 Those awful women! Talking half the night away about 
 their confinements, each one trying to outdo the other in 
 sordid and vulgar details. They had glanced slyly at her as 
 they talked, knowing as women will, that they were speak- 
 ing of experiences she hadn't shared. And when they saw 
 her distaste for their conversation, they had gone gleefully 
 on into intimate stories of their husbands, using words that 
 she had never heard before, the meaning of which she could 
 only conjecture. Well, she'd put them in their places, she 
 hoped, when she rang for the chambermaid to clean the 
 bowl after they'd used it, before she washed her face. And 
 she'd waited until they put out the light, and had undressed 
 in the dark, though she'd flirted for a moment with the 
 idea of making them jealous of her fine, hand-tucked petti- 
 coats, made of real imported Irish linen. But she thought 
 
 30 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 better of that, for she couldn't expose herself to these com- 
 mon women who discussed the most private phases of their 
 lives as though they were comparing recipes for spoon bread. 
 
 Lying sleepless on the hard cot, Mary's thoughts wandered 
 back over the long day's travel — the tiresome jogging of the 
 stagecoach, the fussing of a tired child, the taste of the cold 
 fried chicken she'd brought along, the smell of the whiskey 
 salesman's cigar, and the singing of the colored coachman. 
 She was alone, among strangers, for the first time in her life. 
 
 It had seemed a simple thing to undertake this long 
 journey, but now she was frightened and bewildered, partly 
 by her surroundings, but mostly by the realization of what 
 she was really doing. She had quarreled all summer with her 
 father to get this trip, and she never would have persuaded 
 him without the intercession of Miss Mary Ann, her step- 
 mother. The two of them had always been friends, and had 
 never clashed, though Mary wondered at times how the 
 Squire's wife could endure his deep attachment to the young- 
 est child of his first marriage. Mary had been a little surprised 
 at Miss Mary Ann's aid, nevertheless, and suspected that her 
 stepmother guessed her hope in visiting Betsey, and wanted 
 to help. For Nancy's marriage, just ten days ago, to that 
 Vineyard boy, had been searingly embarrassing for Mary. 
 She wanted little Nancy to be happy, and she had gladly 
 postponed her trip until after the wedding, to help out with 
 the extra work, but after all — 
 
 And Nancy's marriage had made Mary all the more deter- 
 mined to go to Illinois, to do something, anything, to change 
 the narcotic routine of her life. So now, in October, Mary 
 was on her way to New Salem, with a trunk full of clothes, 
 
 31 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 a carton of food — Squire Owens had been sure that the food 
 at the inns along the way wouldn't be fit for a white woman 
 to eat, and it wasn't — and his last injunction, "Don't take up 
 with strangers on the way, daughter. Remember you're a 
 lady." 
 
 As though she'd ever been allowed to forget it! she mused 
 ruefully. She'd speculated often as to what it would be like, 
 just occasionally, not to be a lady "born and bred," and to 
 be able to do as she pleased, unhampered by the shackles and 
 obligations of her birth and upbringing. What a relief she 
 might find in shouting at some obstinate darky, or in slap- 
 ping the face of that woman from across the creek who tried 
 to run all the church affairs ! But Nathaniel Owens' daughter 
 couldn't do those things. There was precious little that his 
 daughter could do, though of course Papa was right. Good 
 fortune in family and training imposed responsibility, an 
 attitude of noblesse oblige toward all those less happily 
 situated, until women like Mary spent their whole days being 
 polite and gracious, and wondering what they were missing 
 from life. 
 
 Well, there was one thing Nathe Owens' daughter could 
 do, and was doing. She could go to visit her sister in Illinois. 
 And this visit to Betsey might easily become an adventure 
 that would break up the pleasant, dull pattern of her living, 
 and bring her happiness of a different quality from the calm 
 contentment she had known. 
 
 But now that she was actually embarked upon her adven- 
 ture, she was beset with doubt. What would the wilderness 
 really be like? Would Illinois be like this wide, unbroken 
 plain of Indiana, with never a hill or a hollow to relieve the 
 
 32 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 sight or tease the imagination? Betsey had written that the 
 Sangamon country was beautiful, but Betsey had seen it first 
 through the eyes of her lover, and it might not look the same 
 to one who came alone. 
 
 How did people live on the frontier? Were there good 
 shops ? Were there any servants available at all ? Betsey had 
 never had any. What did one do for reading so far away 
 from any cultural center? What kind of house did Betsey 
 live in, and how could she manage her swarming brood in 
 such close quarters? 
 
 And if Mary should find romance in the West, how could 
 she bear to leave the younger children of her father's second 
 marriage ? Sarah, only seven, was still almost a baby, and she 
 had clung to Mary and cried heartbrokenly when she said 
 goodbye. John, turning twelve, was a handsome lad, serious, 
 studious as her own brothers had never been. Margarite, in 
 between the two, was becoming a bit wilful, something like 
 Mary herself. No one but Mary could really understand her 
 imperiousness. If Mary should leave for good, what unhappi- 
 ness might Margarite encounter from want of careful guid- 
 ance ? The older girls wouldn't miss Mary at all. Nancy was 
 already married, with her own adventure secure, and it 
 looked as though Ellen would soon follow her example. But 
 the little ones — it was almost as though they were Mary's 
 own, for she had helped with their care since they were born, 
 and they had become part of her 
 
 Slowly, through the maze of her confused thinking, Mary 
 came at last to the question which had to be faced, for which 
 she knew no answer. If she should find romance in the 
 wilderness — what was marriage? Was it what those two 
 
 33 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 awful women, now snoring lustily in the bed next to hers, 
 had spoken of so freely? Was it an ordinary, common, 
 animal relationship, with no finesse, no privacy, no restraint ? 
 She didn't know. No one had ever told her. Miss Mary Ann 
 had ignored the question entirely, treating her stepdaughter 
 like some neuter companion whose mind was not capable of 
 anything but servant problems. Once, long ago, when Mary 
 had first become conscious of her blossoming maturity, she 
 had asked one of the darkies. But the answer had been only, 
 "You wait till de right man come along, honey-chile. A good 
 man be kind to you, teach you ever'thing you need to know." 
 Betsey? She couldn't ask Betsey, either. She had passed the 
 age for asking such questions. But even Nancy, little Nancy 
 with her head as empty as a blown up paper sack, knew now 
 what Mary didn't. 
 
 No, she told herself fiercely in the dark, with people of 
 taste and upbringing, marriage couldn't be what those two 
 women had talked about. It must be a dignified, beautiful 
 thing, based on mutual respect and courtesy; a mental rela- 
 tionship as deep and satisfying as that between herself and 
 her father, with love besides 
 
 She slept at last, and dreamed of a handsome stranger, 
 clothed in deerskin, who kissed her hands and told her that 
 she was beautiful. But in the morning, when she tried to 
 recapture the dream, she couldn't remember his face 
 
 34 
 
(tyafiten, Six 
 
 0, 
 
 NE MORNING IN OCTOBER, ABE GOT UP, AND KNEW THAT 
 
 the glooms had left him, at least for a spell. He was a little 
 afraid of those fits of despondency which overtook him peri- 
 odically without warning and for no known reason, and, 
 while they were on him, made him feel that he was helpless 
 and imprisoned, his work futile, his whole life a mistake. 
 He couldn't understand those black moods. He knew every 
 human being had his ups and downs — Doc Allen, religion- 
 crazy though he was, or Dave Rutledge, or John Camron. 
 Jack Kelso's drinking was an attempt to escape such melan- 
 choly; and even the Clary's Grove boys, elemental as they 
 v/ere, had their bad days. Robert Burns and Shakespeare 
 knew moments of doubt, too, if you could judge by their 
 poetry. But he didn't believe any of them got as low in 
 their minds as Abe Lincoln did, and he didn't know how 
 to lick the thing. 
 
 You can fight a bear, or an Indian, or a roughneck pio- 
 neer, or anything that you can take by the neck and wrestle 
 with. But how do you take hold of a mood to choke the 
 evil breath out of it? 
 
 35 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 This autumn morning, however, there was nothing to 
 choke. It was a different kind of a day. The sky was as vivid 
 as a bluebird's wing, and the sunshine was like spun gold. 
 You wanted to break off a hunk of it to keep. And there 
 was a tang in the air that stung his senses, whipped a chal- 
 lenge in his face. Why, nothing could throw Abe Lincoln! 
 He was young, he was strong — and not so dumb, either — 
 and it was a big, free country, and he'd get his debts paid 
 somehow. He'd find his way, too, to something bigger, 
 something better than he'd ever dreamed of! It was almost 
 within his reach; he could almost see and touch it. He was 
 as sure of it as he was of tomorrow morning. 
 
 He hummed a dance tune off-key — "Bow to your pardner 
 and down the outside" — as he sorted the mail, and he felt 
 so good he just had to do something about it. If he didn't, 
 he'd surely bust! 
 
 He found the Louisville paper and a letter for Betsey Abell 
 in the pile of mail, and they gave him a start. 
 
 "I haven't seen Betsey and Bennett in a month of Sun- 
 days," he thought. "Reckon I better take this out first thing." 
 
 The walk out into the country would be fine. It would 
 take care of some of this exuberance that was bursting his 
 insides. And he hadn't eaten any of Betsey's cooking in a 
 long spell, either. 
 
 "Why Betsey, that hill looks just like the knobs at home!" 
 It was Mary's first morning at the Abell farm, and she had 
 already spied the bluff. An early frost had turned the oak 
 leaves, and the whole countryside was ablaze with color, 
 like campfires burning, and a blue mist from the river hung 
 
 3* 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 over the peak of the bluff like smoke. "It must be a real 
 comfort to you. I became weary of the flat prairies in Indiana, 
 on the way." 
 
 They had done their weeping and exclaiming the night 
 before, and now they were ready for a real visit. 
 
 "It is a comfort," replied Betsey, setting the baby down 
 on the floor. "I guess I wrote you about our first house. When 
 we came, we were right taken with the view from the high 
 land, so we built up there. It was wonderful — we could sit 
 on top of our hill and look every way, clear out over the 
 country. But when winter came, we like to froze. I don't 
 know how we lived through that first winter, with the snow, 
 and the wind blowin' in off the prairies and not a thing to 
 stop it. As soon as the ground thawed in the spring, Bennett 
 started this house down here in the hollow. Though with 
 the children comin' so fast, it looks like we'll soon outgrow 
 it." 
 
 Was there a shade of smugness in her voice? thought 
 Mary. But Betsey looked old, ten years older than Mary 
 instead of the actual four. Her figure had spread, her hair 
 and hands had coarsened from hard work and neglect. Her 
 speech was careless. "You'd never know we'd been brought 
 up in the same house, in the same way," Mary told herself. 
 And yet, there was something in Betsey's face that Mary 
 couldn't find in her own: contentment, and strength that 
 was more than will power, and a look that suggested deep 
 burning fires, only lightly banked. Betsey was happy as 
 Mary had never been! 
 
 On an impulse, Mary picked the baby up from the floor 
 where he was playing with some empty spools strung on a 
 
 37 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 cord. He was warm and soft and unexpectedly heavy in 
 her arms. 
 
 "I haven't held a baby since Sarah was little," she re- 
 marked, as though her act needed explanation. 
 
 "He'll ruin your clothes," protested Betsey, but she couldn't 
 keep the pride from her voice. "He's my best baby, though. 
 Never a bit of trouble, beyond what you'd expect from a 
 
 young one. I kind of hate " But no, she wouldn't tell 
 
 Mary that before spring, Brooks would no longer be the 
 baby. Not yet. Not until they were better acquainted after 
 their ten years apart. She changed the subject quickly. 
 "That's a mighty fancy dress you're wearing, Mary. Didn't 
 you know you were coming to the back woods ? You know, 
 once in a long time, I get homesick rememberin' how things 
 were at home. How we used to dress up every afternoon, 
 and have tea in the livin' room. And the firecrackers and 
 eggnogs at Christmas. They don't drink eggnogs here — 
 they just drink whiskey. And they don't wait for holidays 
 to do it either. Thank goodness, Bennett's never taken up 
 with the rounders in town, their drinkin' and wrestlin' and 
 cock fights every Saturday night. I've got a good man, Mary. 
 What's this Vineyard boy like? Do you think Nancy will 
 be happy?" Nancy had been just a little girl when Betsey 
 went away. It was hard to believe that the child was mar- 
 ried, settling down to maturity and responsibility. 
 
 "I don't know," replied Mary indifferently. "I never saw 
 much of him. He comes from a good family." 
 
 Betsey smiled secretly, for she knew by Mary's tone that 
 her sister was jealous, and that she was ready to think defi- 
 nitely about marriage for herself. 
 
 38 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "I wish you'd let me do something with your hair while 
 I'm here," Mary went on, still on the defensive. 
 
 But before Betsey could answer, little Mary danced in 
 from the yard where she'd been playing. 
 
 "He's comin', Mama ! He's comin' up the road now ! You 
 said he'd come back when he got good an' ready, and here 
 he comes!" 
 
 "Who's coming?" demanded Betsey, though she knew 
 quite well. 
 
 "Why, Abe! He's bringin' the paper from Lo'ville!" She 
 turned to her aunt. "He makes whistles for the boys," she 
 explained, "an' once he made me a doll out of a stick of 
 wood, but it wasn't much good. He tells us stories about 
 bear hunts an' Indians, and how he got the boat off the dam 
 when it stuck, and revival meetin's in Indianny!" And out 
 she pranced, to meet the guest in the dooryard. 
 
 39 
 
(fyafiten Seven 
 
 or. 
 
 HO IS HEf MARY ASKED, TRYING TO SOUND CASUAL. 
 
 "Well," Betsey felt her way carefully, for Mary had always 
 been difficult to handle, and she wanted to say just the right 
 thing, to whet Mary's interest just enough and not prejudice 
 her against Abe by too much praise, "I wrote you about him. 
 He's our best friend here. He's postmaster in the village, and 
 he isn't much to look at, but he's got a good headpiece on 
 him. Cousin Mentor thinks he'll go a long way before he's 
 through." 
 
 She had to stop her recital, for Abe stood in the doorway, 
 stooping to get through, with little Mary tugging at one 
 big hand. 
 
 "The mud wagon jist got in," he explained, "so I brought 
 you out your mail first thing." Then he caught sight of 
 Mary, and colored in confusion. He'd heard gossip in the 
 village that Betsey's sister was coming to visit her, but he 
 hadn't known when, and he was unprepared for the splen- 
 did stranger in Betsey's living-room. He stammered for a 
 couple of minutes, and then stopped entirely. 
 
 Betsey jumped in quickly to fill the gap. Why must the 
 man be so bashful? Yet, it was one of the most appealing 
 
 40 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 things about him, once you got to know him. "This is Mr. 
 Lincoln, my sister Mary. He always delivers our mail first — 
 walks clear out here with it. He had a store in town, too, 
 until last spring," she prattled on, "we were right sorry 
 when you sold the store, Abe. It was the only place in the 
 village fit for a woman to go into." 
 
 Abe had taken a chair, and kept little Mary nearby with 
 one long encircling arm, though nothing could have pried 
 her loose. He was too discomfited to glance toward the guest, 
 for he was acutely conscious of his coarse trousers and calico 
 shirt flung open at the throat, and of the dust on his boots 
 from the long walk. He tried to appear at ease by talking 
 to Betsey. 
 
 "Well, ma'am, I was mighty sorry to let it go," he replied, 
 "but there can't anybody sell whiskey after it's drunk up, 
 and Berry was drinkin' it 'fore I could git it sold. And then," 
 he knew he'd told Betsey all this before, but he had to say 
 something, "we didn't see eye to eye about sellin' liquor by 
 the drink. You know you womenfolks couldn't go into the 
 store to trade if there was men there drinkin', jist like a 
 saloon" 
 
 "I reckon not," admitted Betsey regretfully, "but now 
 you're postmaster, you come to see us instead of our having 
 to go into town to see you. And maybe something else will 
 turn up. How's your case coming?" If she could only keep 
 him talking, Mary would discover what a fine mind he had, 
 and perhaps she wouldn't be so disappointed in his looks. 
 
 "Which one?" asked Abe ruefully. "The Trents — we set- 
 tled up with them, and the case was thrown out." 
 
 "And I'll bet you got the worst end of the deal, too!" 
 
 41 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 stormed Betsey. "You'd give away the shirt from your own 
 back! 
 
 "I wanted it settled. I don't like debt." 
 
 Betsey didn't know quite what to say next, so she got up 
 and moved the coffee pot closer to the fire. There was noth- 
 ing like food to foster congeniality ! And she knew that Abe 
 was nearly always hungry. "I just made fresh coffee, Abe," 
 she said, "I'll call Bennett in, and we'll all have a cup. Mary, 
 stop hanging on Abe, and go out and play! Abe comes to 
 see us, too, you know. Get Nancy to make you a doll dress!" 
 She shooed the child out the door like a little chicken. "She's 
 goin' to look like you, Mary," she told her sister. She wanted 
 Abe to look at Mary, to see how lovely she was, to see her 
 as a person, as a woman. 
 
 When Mary rose to help Betsey with the cups and the 
 fresh-baked bread, Abe did steal a guarded glance at her. 
 
 There was no more than the faintest family resemblance 
 between the two, he found. For Mary was a lady, as care- 
 fully tended and sheltered as a rare flower. With her elabor- 
 ately arranged hair, her flounced "morning dress," and her 
 fine soft hands, she was grotesquely out of place in Betsey's 
 crude house. She was tall, and not slim, but she carried her- 
 self well, with an assurance that he supposed came from 
 both wealth and training. The two women were talking in 
 undertones, and while he caught only a word now and then, 
 Abe noticed that, in contrast with Betsey's speech, which 
 had become roughened like her hands by her years on the 
 frontier, Mary's enunciation was more careful, her voice 
 better modulated, with a marked Virginian inflection. Her 
 
 42 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 r's were not just forgotten, but became soft "ah" sounds, 
 and when she said "out" it was almost "oot.' 
 
 Abe had never seen anything like her before. All the 
 women he had ever known — his mother, Sarah Bush, the 
 wives of the men in and about New Salem — were pioneers' 
 women, primitive, functional females, bent and warped by 
 the stringencies of their lives, having long ago forgotten any 
 niceties or amenities of living they had ever learned. Mary 
 Owens was like a princess out of some fairy story, with her 
 curls and her pretty clothes and her pretty manners. She 
 was pure landed southern aristocracy, and compared to her, 
 there wasn't much of the old plantation left in Betsey. Just 
 the same, Betsey was comfortable. A man knew where he 
 stood with her, and what to say to her. What in the world 
 could he find to talk about with her sister? 
 
 Strangely enough, he had already said something that 
 interested her, and when Bennett came in and they all sat 
 down to their coffee, Mary spoke to him directly. "Betsey 
 tells me, Mr. Lincoln," she said, "that the temperance move- 
 ment is getting some foothold here, and that there's sore 
 need of it. Are the crusaders really having any success ?" 
 
 "Not that you would notice, Miss," he stammered, flus- 
 tered by her attention, "Doc Allen, he does a lot of temper- 
 ance talkin', but there seems to be jist about as much drinkin' 
 as ever. I don't hold with it myself — nor chewin' nor cursin' 
 either — but pioneer life ain't easy. The men work mighty 
 hard, and it gits right cold in the winter time." 
 
 "Do you think the women could be roused to any enthus- 
 iasm?" demanded Mary. 
 
 "I couldn't rightly say," he replied earnestly, "they don't 
 
 43 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 have much time for anything but washhV and cookin' and 
 scrubbin' and takin' care of their babies. Betsey could tell 
 you better." 
 
 This temperance talk bewildered him. Miss Owens was 
 so obviously a gentlewoman, you wouldn't expect her to 
 have a thought in her head except of beaus and doodads. 
 Then he recalled that this was Betsey's "educated" sister, 
 who had gone to a convent school, and whom their father 
 had raised to be a mental companion to him. This recollec- 
 tion confused him more than her looks and her manner, 
 and Abe suddenly made an excuse to get back to town. 
 There was the rest of the mail to be delivered. 
 
 "I'll come to see you again, if you don't mind," he floun- 
 dered, and got out of the house somehow. 
 
 Bennett went with him as far as the road, and came back 
 chuckling. 
 
 "What's so funny, Bennett Abell?" demanded Betsey. 
 "You act like you'd swallowed the wrong way." 
 
 "Oh, Abe told me a funny story. About a preacher and 
 an old maid — I'll tell you some other time," for a quick 
 look at Mary stopped the tale, and he ducked out of the 
 house toward the wood lot. 
 
 Abe Lincoln walked slowly back toward the village, his 
 thoughts in a strange confusion. 
 
 44 
 
(Z&afite 1 Sty6& 
 
 3, 
 
 ETSEY HAD FORGOTTEN HOW STRONG-HEADED MARY COULD 
 
 be. But now, on the third day of her visit, when Mary started 
 talking about going to call on the Nances, Betsey remem- 
 bered that Mary had pretty nearly always managed to get 
 her own way about things, even when they were children. 
 And the habit had seemed to grow on the younger sister 
 with the years. 
 
 It was perfectly natural for Mary to want to see Parthena 
 Nance. For the Nances were neighbors from home, who'd 
 come to Illinois about the same time as Betsey and Bennett. 
 The girls had practically grown up together — Parthena had 
 studied with Betsey and Mary, for Nathe Owens had been 
 eager to share his children's tutor with the neighbors' young- 
 sters. As a matter of fact, Betsey hadn't seen Parthena for 
 several weeks herself, and it would be right nice to take a 
 day off and go visiting. 
 
 She didn't want to fuss at Mary during this visit, either. 
 She was anxious to become better acquainted with the sister 
 who had been only a child when she left home, and to get 
 to be real friends with her, as adult kinfolk can be. 
 
 45 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 But what if Abe Lincoln came to call while they were 
 gone? It wasn't only because of her interest in Abe that 
 Betsey wanted Mary to like him. She was thinking of Mary, 
 too. Of that soft, padded, unreal, sterile life Mary seemed 
 to be condemned to at home, shadowed and imprisoned by 
 her father's domineering, empty of any personal meaning 
 or happiness. 
 
 Betsey often wondered, when she thought of her old home 
 in Kentucky, whether living there hadn't degenerated into 
 a question of manners, of doing things in the "proper" way, 
 until the form became more important than the substance. 
 Nearly all the young people she knew had migrated, come 
 west to the frontiers where life was hard, and dangerous, 
 and real, and what a man was and did meant more than 
 the way he did it. 
 
 There was a sickness on the South, the illness of the old 
 who cannot accept new ideas, new ways to fit the needs of 
 the day. They tried to force the problems to fit the old 
 manner, the old pattern. Why, if Papa could see her now, 
 Betsey, in a calico house dress, her hair combed but uncurled, 
 her hands rough from dishwater and wash water, he'd think 
 she'd sold her birthright! Perhaps she had, but she had been 
 born again, into a life of essentials, of elemental forces which 
 were as tremendous as life itself, and as compelling. She was 
 living in things as they were, not as a southern gentleman 
 pretended they were. 
 
 She didn't envy Mary a whit. For Mary, beautiful, culti- 
 vated, well tended, was as meaningless and worthless as the 
 old grandfather's clock at home that had stopped running. 
 The clock was a lovely thing, but it had no use, you couldn't 
 
 46 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 tell time by it. Time had stopped for that clock, and it had 
 stopped for Mary. For ten years, almost, Mary had just gone 
 through the motions of eating, sleeping, making herself 
 pretty, and being polite to people. She had become absorbed 
 into the pattern. 
 
 Because they had come away so young, Betsey and Ben- 
 nett had broken through and out of the pattern. They had 
 grown together, accepting the new ways because they had 
 each other. It would take a shockingly powerful Pygmalion 
 to make a human being out of Mary. Abe Lincoln could be 
 that Pygmalion, Abe whose life had never known any soft- 
 ness, who had, of necessity, been better able at five to distin- 
 guish chaff from wheat than Mary could do at twenty-five! 
 
 Abe Lincoln could bring reality into Mary's life, and Mary 
 could give him that softness, that graciousness, which he 
 had never had and was hungry for without recognizing his 
 hunger. 
 
 If they only would marry. 
 
 But here was Mary, two days after Abe's visit, demanding 
 to be taken to the Nances, which would mean a whole day's 
 trip, and Abe, if he were ever to come again of his own 
 volition, would be almost sure to come today ! And Abe was 
 as hard to handle as Mary — if he came and found them gone, 
 he'd get discouraged, and think that he wasn't important 
 enough for them to stay home for, and he'd shy away from 
 Mary like a colt caught in the wrong pasture! He had to be 
 teased and led along without his discovering that he was 
 being led. But no, Mary had to go chasing off to the Nances, 
 and make Abe think — if he should come — that she was too 
 
 47 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 good for anyone who didn't come from Green County! 
 
 "I don't know why it's so important to go today, Mary," 
 Betsey protested, "it isn't as if you were goin' back home 
 tomorrow. Why, you haven't even been around the farm 
 yet, and Bennett will be right disappointed if you don't 
 show some interest in his place!" 
 
 "Betsey," Mary answered patiently, explaining as she 
 would to Sarah at home something the child had never 
 heard of before, "Parthena was my dearest friend, all the 
 time I was growing up. We were like sisters. I knew her 
 even better than I did you, because you were so busy courtin' 
 with Bennett. I want to see her. It's been — lonely — since she 
 left Kentucky." 
 
 It was that cry of loneliness that defeated Betsey. Mary 
 had been lonely there at home. She couldn't have been any- 
 thing else. But good gracious, you can see a girl friend any 
 time, when there are no men around at all! 
 
 "Well," she gave in, "we can't start before noon. I'll have 
 to take the three least ones with me, and Bennett can't hitch 
 up the team until he comes in to dinner." 
 
 "Oh my goodness, can't you hitch a team yourself?" ex- 
 ploded Mary. "You grew up with horses!" 
 
 "Not this kind of horses," replied Betsey dryly, "and not 
 with democrat wagons." — Oh, the riding horses at home! 
 Bennett had promised her a horse of her own, but somehow, 
 they never got money enough ahead for that. Everything 
 had to go back into the farm. — She tried once more to dis- 
 suade Mary. 
 
 "I should think you'd be much more anxious to see Cousin 
 Mentor than the Nances. After all, he's your own kin." For 
 
 48 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 she was thinking, perhaps Abe would show up at Graham's 
 if he found no one at home here. He was always borrowing 
 books from the schoolmaster. 
 
 Mary had an answer for that, too. "Cousin Mentor will be 
 teaching on a week day, won't he ? And from all I hear tell, 
 he needs his fees." 
 
 Betsey was stopped there, and she knew it. What she didn't 
 know was that Mary was thinking, "Why hasn't he come 
 again? Doesn't he like me? What is he really like, under 
 that shyness? What does he want? What does he think of 
 politics, and religion — and women ? And — me ? Why doesn't 
 he come again? I can't just sit here, waiting! I have to go 
 somewhere, do something! There's a strange, faraway look 
 in his eyes, as if he were seeing you and still not seeing you 
 at all — what does he see when he looks at a woman, a pretty 
 woman, that way?" 
 
 To Betsey she said, trying to sound diffident, "What does 
 Cousin Mentor think of this — this Mr. Lincoln who was 
 here the other day?" 
 
 Betsey tried hard to conceal her delight at the turn of 
 Mary's thoughts. "He thinks Abe has a lot of ability, and 
 that he'll go as far as — well, as far as uncontrollable circum- 
 stances will allow him. He says there's no limit to Abe's 
 capacity to learn, or to his determination, if he's interested. 
 He says Abe wasn't cut out to work with his hands." 
 
 "Was any white man?" asked Mary wonderingly, and 
 then Betsey was exasperated again, as much by Mary's very 
 sincerity as by her lack of knowledge of the hard world. 
 Betsey sighed. For her little sister was about the most diffi- 
 cult person she'd ever known. But it was quite evident that 
 
 49 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Mary was interested in Abe, only she didn't want to show it. 
 Perhaps things would work out right after all! 
 
 Betsey went out into the yard to catch a chicken, and 
 thought grimly, as she grasped the flopping bird with one 
 hand and a hatchet with the other, 'Td like to see my 
 'educated' sister do this!" 
 
 Abe knew right well Sam Hill's store was no place for 
 the post-office. It was small, and there really wasn't room 
 for two businesses. Moreover, it wasn't his, and his particular 
 friends happened not to be friends of Sam's, so that they 
 didn't linger and visit as they had used to do when he had 
 his own store. And Abe didn't hanker to go chasing around 
 for company; he liked to lie on a store counter, or out under 
 a tree, reading a book, and wait for folks to come along. 
 There was no hope of that here, but he had to have the post- 
 office somewhere. Well, he didn't have to spend much time 
 here unless he was a mind to. There wasn't enough mail 
 coming in to require any amount of clerical work. 
 
 The thought of work brought him back again to his never- 
 ceasing problem of sustenance. He really ought to go out to 
 Bowling Green's today and lay up some cord wood. He 
 hadn't promised today particularly, but the Judge had hinted 
 last week that the good days of the autumn were numbered, 
 for the prairie winter set in early. 
 
 Still, he didn't want to lay wood today. He wanted to 
 dream 
 
 It was three days since he had trudged carelessly, uncon- 
 cernedly out to Bennett Abell's, with no thought in his head 
 except a visit with his friends and maybe a free meal. He'd 
 
 50 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 loitered on the long walk out from the village, thinking 
 dull, prosaic thoughts — wondering, as a matter of fact, if 
 Sarah Armstrong could do anything with his one good shirt 
 that had started splitting up the back — and if Jack Kelso 
 was back yet from his last fishing trip, and whether John 
 Clary had got his corn in before the frost. Dull, bread-and- 
 butter thoughts, not even gingerbread thoughts. And then 
 he had walked into Betsey's house, and had seen — a queen! 
 
 That was it. Mary Owens was like a queen, not a princess. 
 For she was too tall, and she was handsome rather than 
 pretty. She wasn't young. But there was something regal 
 about her that was more attractive than fluttering youth. 
 She was a woman, and desirable as a woman. There was no 
 coy pretense about her, though, no flirtatious dramatics. In 
 her speech, she was straightforward and honest, and she 
 didn't bother with small talk. 
 
 Yet, she was entirely feminine. It was there in every move- 
 ment, every gesture, a sort of consciousness, not of social 
 class, but of being precious. 
 
 He reckoned that was what went with being a lady — that 
 being sure of herself. He'd never known a lady before. 
 
 He wondered if he were afraid of her. "I don't think so," 
 he argued with himself. "She's just different. Women must 
 be pretty much alike, underneath the fancy trappings." But 
 he wasn't sure. Not sure enough to go calling again at the 
 Abell's without an extra pretext. What excuse could he find ? 
 There wouldn't be another mail from the south for almost 
 a week. He could say he'd come to help Bennett with the 
 farm work, but he didn't want to work in the field and come 
 
 51 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF WLWOS 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 in to dinner at the same table with Miss Owens, all soiled 
 and sweating. 
 
 There wasn't any local talk of sufficient importance to 
 justify a trip to the country. Now, if there'd been a robbery, 
 or an accident, or even if some neighbor to Bennett had lost 
 a cow, he could walk out with the news. 
 
 He sighed. He'd just have to wait until chance offered him 
 a reason. He couldn't bear the thought of appearing pre- 
 sumptuous. He couldn't risk her contempt. 
 
 He guessed he might as well go out to Judge Green's and 
 work off his agitation. At least, Nancy might be making 
 gingerbread. "I reckon I like gingerbread better 'n anybody," 
 he thought wistfully. "And I get less of it." 
 
 52 
 
gfafitei Tfate 
 
 M, 
 
 ARY WROTE LONG LETTERS TO HER FATHER. SHE TOLD 
 
 him of the Greens, and the Nances whom he had known 
 so well and whose departure from Kentucky had grieved 
 him so, and of the beauty of the country. The wildness must 
 be, she told him, much like that he found in Kentucky when 
 he had migrated from Virginia, although the vegetation 
 was not quite so lush and the flora was a bit different. There 
 were no locust trees, but there was an abundance of elms 
 and maples, turned to flame now after the frost. It was colder 
 here than at home, but the cold seemed drier, and didn't 
 penetrate to the bone. 
 
 She told him about Betsey's children, how healthy and 
 handsome they were, that little Mary seemed to be the 
 brightest of the lot, but that she missed the children at home. 
 Of Betsey, she didn't know what to write. For, in spite of 
 her incessant child-bearing — Mary was quite sure there was 
 another on the way, though her sister hadn't told her— and 
 in spite of her endless physical work, harder than any darky 
 could be persuaded to do at home, Betsey seemed happy and 
 contented. Mary couldn't tell the Squire that. For he would 
 
 53 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 be shocked and concerned if he knew the real circumstances 
 of Betsey's living, and he'd want to do something to help, 
 and the Abells were so stiff-necked proud they'd never let 
 him help. Anyhow, Bennett and Betsey were better off than 
 most around here. They had what they wanted — or, per- 
 haps, they wanted what they had. 
 
 She knew quite well that was because they had each other, 
 and the children. And she wondered, the ink drying on her 
 pen, whether love and children could make her content in 
 this primitive country, without the things she had taken for 
 granted all her life. She believed that they would. She could 
 adjust, if a man loved her, and if she loved him 
 
 She turned back to her letter. There was a young man 
 here, she wrote the Squire, in whom Betsey and Cousin 
 Mentor were very much interested. He had had to educate 
 himself, but Cousin Mentor had helped and directed him 
 and believed that he had ability. His people came from 
 Hardin County, but had moved to Indiana when Abraham 
 was quite young. Did Papa remember any Lincolns wh 
 lived in Kentucky twenty years ago? 
 
 That was all she wanted to say; all she dared to say. For 
 while Mr. Lincoln interested and puzzled her, she had no 
 idea whether he liked her or not, or whether she could like 
 him. But she admired ambition, especially ambition for 
 education, and so did the Squire. Though after the letter 
 had gone, she wondered why she had mentioned Lincoln 
 at all. He was only an acquaintance of her sister's, whom 
 Betsey was fond of and sorry for, who had called once since 
 Mary came, and then because he had mail for the family. 
 It wouldn't be surprising if Mary never saw him again 
 
 54 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 More than a little bewildered, Mary allowed herself to be 
 drawn into the square dance. When Betsey had told her 
 they were coming to a dancing party at Clary's Grove, she 
 had agreed quite eagerly, thinking of the gracious, almost 
 stately parties at home, the good music, the dignified dance 
 patterns, the chivalrous attention that Nathe Owens' 
 daughter always received. Mary liked parties. She liked 
 dressing up and going out. She liked dancing. 
 
 But nothing in her experience had prepared her for this 
 party — the boisterous abandonment of fun-starved people 
 who shouted out the changes with the caller, and stamped 
 the accents of the tune until you wondered if the house 
 wouldn't surely fall from sheer vibration like the walls of 
 Jericho. When the call came to "Swing yore podner," the 
 women were lifted clear of the floor, squeezed breathless, 
 and then set down with a thump that left them reeling. 
 They seemed to like it. Nearly all the men had been drink- 
 ing — and still were, if you could make any guess as to the 
 reason for their frequent trips out the back door — and it 
 wasn't the genteel, mint-fragrant sipping that Mary saw at 
 home, intended for social graciousness, but the kind that 
 aimed, honestly, to get drunk. 
 
 As the evening wore on, Bill Watkins, the lone fiddler, 
 and far from sober, sawed his bow faster and faster, chal- 
 lenging the dancers to keep up with the music, until the 
 whirling took on all the hysteria of a negro revival meeting. 
 
 Some man whom she didn't know (it was a rule of polite- 
 ness that a lady guest at a party should dance with every 
 man who asked her) had just set Mary down after a par- 
 ticularly giddy whirl, and, breathless and confused, she 
 
 55 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 looked around for a vacant chair, wondering by what grace 
 she had landed right side up. She found a seat, and tried to 
 restore her curls, which had tumbled out of all decorum, 
 her eyes searching for Betsey and Bennett. What kind of a 
 baby could Betsey expect to have if she jumped around like 
 a kangaroo ? Illinois was too far from Green County, too far 
 by a thousand traditions of speech, and manners, and ideas! 
 
 Seeking her sister, Mary saw Abe Lincoln, over by the 
 outer door. He stood there, hat in hand, as though he had 
 just come in, and his diffidence and sobriety, even more than 
 his height, set him apart from all the others in the room. 
 He was looking for some one, too, and when he spied Mary, 
 he pushed his way through the crowd to her side. 
 
 "You look kind of tuckered, Miss Owens," he greeted her. 
 "Seems as if the light fantastic around here isn't so light as 
 it is fantastic. Mind if I sit a spell with you while you catch 
 your breath?" 
 
 Mary smiled ruefully at his frankness [does any woman 
 want to be told that she looks "tuckered"?], but she wel- 
 comed the respite from physical exertion. 
 
 "You haven't been back to see us," she accused him, with 
 just enough lightness in her tone to make him wonder 
 whether she was serious or not. "Have you been so busy?" 
 
 Abe looked at her sharply, but her glance was serene, 
 with no trace of coquetry. 
 
 "Well," he fumbled, "I thought you and your sister would 
 have so much going on you wouldn't want to take time to 
 listen to me yarn. And I had a job of work to do for Judge 
 Green." — Did she know any men who worked for a living ? 
 Well, Bennett did, even though he didn't "hire out."— 
 
 56 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "Would — " he seemed struggling with himself to get the 
 words out, " — would you be free some afternoon, to — to 
 walk through the woods?" He couldn't offer her any other 
 entertainment, but then, fortunately, there wasn't any enter- 
 tainment to buy in New Salem. Folks had to take their 
 pleasure in one another's company. 
 
 "I'd be very happy to," she dimpled, and was sorry for, 
 and still amused by, his instant confusion. He rose abruptly. 
 "Thank you, ma'am. I'll be out right soon. I have to see if 
 I can find Hugh Armstrong now — " and he was gone before 
 he had finished his excuses. 
 
 Mary smiled secretly. He was coming to see her, and per- 
 haps she would find out what dreams lurked in those strange 
 grey eyes, and what he saw when he looked straight through 
 you at something beyond 
 
 57 
 
@6afit&i 7e*t 
 
 3 
 
 UT IN SPITE OF HIS PROMISE, — AND HE MUST HAVE GONE 
 
 out to Clary's Grove that night to see her, — Abe Lincoln did 
 not call on Mary immediately. Once, he came out with the 
 mail when the women were spending the day with Mentor 
 Graham, but he left no message for Mary. And once she and 
 Betsey encountered him in the village, when they went in 
 to shop. He lifted his battered hat gallantly, and inquired 
 after their health and the children, but that was all. He 
 made no mention of a social call, or any excuses, and both 
 Mary and Betsey were bewildered. 
 
 Betsey saw all her careful plans going awry, and Mary 
 was piqued by his apparent lack of interest. She wasn't used 
 to being treated indifferently. And to be almost snubbed by 
 a man of so little worldly worth as Abe Lincoln was a little 
 more than she could accept. It was after that fruitless meet- 
 ing that she began to talk of going home. 
 
 And it wasn't only the lack of romance for her in New 
 Salem that hastened her decision, or even the news from her 
 father that Ellen was going to follow her sister and get mar- 
 ried at the end of the month to that nice Williams boy whose 
 voice had barely changed. She couldn't get home in time 
 
 58 
 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 for the wedding anyway, though she realized that, with 
 both of the girls gone, she'd be needed at home to help her 
 stepmother manage the house. 
 
 More than these, it was the wildness of the country, the 
 difference of the people. The party at Clary's Grove had 
 brought that difference home to her more forcibly than any 
 other incident of her visit. It was true, as Betsey had said, 
 that all the settlers here were from the South, with no more 
 than one or two exceptions. But not from Mary's kind of 
 South. Or if they were, the hardships of the frontier had 
 robbed them of all graciousness and ease, and left them as 
 elemental as animals. If she had found romance here, she 
 would have been mad to think that she could take root in 
 this alien soil. It wasn't a matter of wealth, or lack of it. 
 Bennett and Betsey were well off, as far as property worth 
 was concerned. It was just that the things Mary had been 
 brought up to consider the necessities of living were unavail- 
 able here — they couldn't be transported overland, no matter 
 how much money one had. 
 
 Her father's home seemed now like a haven, the epitome 
 of all that was civilized and desirable. Breakfast in bed; a 
 bed shared with no one else, where the room was her own 
 and her thoughts were her own. 
 
 A leisurely, ordered day; planning the household activi- 
 ties with Miss Mary Ann; calling on the sick; reading and 
 talking with her father. The hushed voices and deference 
 of the darkies. That was the kind of life to which she had 
 been trained and for which she was suited. Though her 
 occupations at home might be futile compared to building 
 a western empire, they were hers through long habit, and 
 
 59 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 they were pleasant. 
 Anyhow, Abe Lincoln hadn't come back. 
 
 "I tried to persuade her to stay longer," Betsey told Abe a 
 week after Mary had gone, "but she thought she'd be needed 
 at home, with the second sister getting married. And Papa 
 wanted her back. He's getting old," apologetically, "and he 
 sets a store by her. But she said she'd come back for another 
 visit, as soon as she could." 
 
 Betsey didn't tell him that if Mary had wanted to stay, 
 she would have, and that a little more attention from him 
 might have persuaded her. What good would it do to tell 
 him now ? For apparently he and Mary just hadn't hit it off, 
 and there was nothing to be done about it. 
 
 She did inquire, however, because she wanted to know, 
 "Where have you been the last couple of weeks? We've 
 hardly seen hide or hair of you." 
 
 "Well, Betsey," he said, stirring the coffee she poured for 
 him, "I've been scurryin' around robbin' Peter to pay Paul. 
 I finally got something paid off on those two notes to Rad- 
 ford. That's the trouble with doin' business on paper: you 
 buy a business and give a note, then you sell to another 
 fellow who gives you a note, then the other fellow skedad- 
 dles and you're saddled with your own note. And the busi- 
 ness is gone, and you're paying for a dead horse." He sighed, 
 stared into his now empty coffee cup as though to read his 
 fortune there, and then brightened. "What I really come out 
 to tell you, though, is that John Calhoun is goin' to make 
 me his deputy surveyor. I don't know straight up about 
 surveying, but Mentor Graham thinks I can learn. He's goin' 
 
 60 
 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 to school mc at it. And if I can learn, it may be a way out of 
 my troubles. It's nice work, after you get the know-how." 
 
 "Oh, it certainly is!" glowed Betsey with quick sympathy 
 and admiration. "A surveyor is almost a scientist, almost an 
 engineer! Why, George Washington was a surveyor!" 
 
 "He was a lot of other things besides that," commented 
 Abe dryly, "but I'm mighty pleased at the chance. I thought 
 for a long time whether I should take it or not. Calhoun's 
 the worst Jackson man in the county, and I can't hold with 
 that. But they told me the job wasn't bribery, and I wouldn't 
 have to support Calhoun's politics if I took it. Somehow, bad 
 as I need a real paying job, I couldn't sell my politics. I may 
 be squeamish and foolish, but that seems more important 
 than bed and board." 
 
 "You're absolutely right, Abe!" applauded Betsey. "You 
 see, things are working out for you! With all the land spec- 
 ulation going on, there'll be plenty of surveying to do! I 
 wish," she added thoughtfully, "that Mary had been here 
 to hear about it. Of course, I'll write and tell her, but — " 
 
 "I sort of hoped she would be," he replied. "I thought she 
 might be glad to hear." 
 
 Betsey studied him intently as he spoke. Then, "She said 
 she'd come back," she told him, though goodness knew 
 when it would be. Just the same, if he were interested, there 
 might be some possibility of persuading Mary — 
 
 "You know, Betsey," Abe replied, and the words seemed 
 to form themselves for him, with no volition of his own, 
 "when she comes again, I'm going to catch, tie, and marry 
 that girl!" 
 
 Then, surprised by his own boast, he blushed furiously, 
 and fled out the door without even a goodbye. 
 
 61 
 
(fyafiten, Steven 
 
 Spring, 1836 
 
 V>/ne spring day in the year 1836, abe Lincoln walked 
 out to the Abell farm, turning idly in his hands a letter he 
 was taking to Betsey. 
 
 The postmark was Greensburg, Kentucky, so the letter 
 must be from one of her family. He wondered if Mary had 
 written it. 
 
 Mary Owens. He could hardly remember what she looked 
 like, though he did recall that he'd been mighty taken with 
 her that fall nearly three years ago when she had visited 
 her sister for a brief month. But the memory was so colored 
 with the unhappiness and confusion that had possessed him 
 then that no clear impression of her returned to him now. 
 She was blurred for him into a vision of beauty and a long- 
 ing for all the things he had never had. A woman, any 
 woman, was only a part of that longing, and a gnawing 
 hunger that he could neither dissemble nor satisfy. 
 
 Still, it seemed as he looked back now, that his fortunes 
 had begun to look up after he had met handsome Mary 
 Owens. Perhaps she had brought him luck, or maybe — it 
 was a shocking thought — maybe she had helped him to 
 
 62 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 recognize his ability, and so had unconsciously influenced 
 his slow planning. 
 
 For she had told him, and he recalled now better than he 
 could remember her face, the soft, drawling inflection and 
 the earnestness of her voice when she told him, "It is quite 
 possible to study by one's self. It is a little harder than it 
 would be if you were younger and going to school, that's all." 
 
 Well, he couldn't say how much he'd learned, but he'd 
 certainly studied that fall and winter. Green as June corn, 
 he'd lit into John Calhoun's surveying books, and he and 
 Mentor Graham had argued away many a night over the 
 knotty, technical problems, wrestling with them as though 
 they were opponents who had to be thrown. They were 
 heavier and trickier than Jack Armstrong — it took more 
 persistence to lick them. 
 
 The schoolmaster had taken Abe into his own home to 
 board, so that they could use every spare moment for study — 
 and also, Abe suspected, to keep the would-be surveyor from 
 wasting time talking to everybody who came along in the 
 village. They worked so hard at those stubborn books that 
 when his friends did see Abe, they thought he'd gone into 
 a decline. But he hadn't and finally he mastered the stuff 
 so that in January he got his first assignment as deputy sur- 
 veyor. 
 
 There'd been more glory than money in the surveying, 
 though. Men didn't always have hard cash to pay for such 
 jobs — they were still buying land on paper and on their 
 faces — and oftener than not he'd had to take his pay in goods. 
 The first surveying had been paid for with a buckskin, and 
 Hannah Armstrong had taken it and foxed his pants so that 
 
 63 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 the underbrush would not scratch his legs through the thin 
 cloth. That was mighty fine, but a man can't eat buckskin 
 pants. 
 
 So that even with the surveying and the commissions he 
 made as postmaster, he'd still had to depend on menial 
 chores for his actual sustenance. Of course, if he wasn't so 
 all-fired good-natured, he'd have made a little more in com- 
 missions on the mail. But shucks, a man had to do a favpr 
 for a friend once in a while, and franking an occasional 
 letter wasn't much of a concession. 
 
 Yes, that winter of '33 and '34 had been hard, with his 
 debts snarling up worse and worse until he could hardly 
 tell which was which. Every time he got any hard money, 
 there were ten places for it, all equally important, and his 
 financial manipulations boiled down to sleight of hand 
 tricks that amazed even himself. 
 
 Then in the spring, with the encouragement of Bowling 
 Green and everybody else in town to justify his own eager- 
 ness, he'd run again for the Legislature. 
 
 That campaign had been different from his first. There 
 was more party consciousness throughout the county, and 
 the fact that there was no presidential election centered 
 folks' interest on the local contest. 
 
 By that time, too, Abe had learned the importance of 
 campaigning, and he had stumped the whole countryside, 
 talking with the farmers, lending a hand with their work, 
 praising the women's cooking (he was generally invited to 
 stop for a meal), and kissing the babies. The babies weren't 
 hard to kiss. Not even the first spring flowers smelled as 
 sweet as a clean baby. — Will I ever hold one of my own in 
 
 64 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 my arms, he thought now, and know that it is a part of me, 
 of my own thought, of my love for a woman? Women. 
 Paradoxical, devious, tantalizing, living their whole lives in 
 some secret world of their own, their bright talk never giv- 
 ing a man an inkling of their real thoughts, so that a man 
 couldn't tell where he stood with them. Would any woman 
 ever love Abe Lincoln? 
 
 Well, he'd won that campaign. Nobody now could accuse 
 him of wasting time, frittering away precious days in story- 
 telling around New Salem. Those seemingly lazy days had 
 not been thrown away, for it had been his friends who 
 elected him — Whigs and Democrats alike — though he had 
 declared himself firmly as a Whig, with no ifs and ands 
 about it. His constituency had voted him in because they 
 liked Abe Lincoln, and because they believed in him person- 
 ally. It was a mighty trust, and he felt keenly his obligation 
 to the folks who had opened this door to him. 
 
 Not that I made such a showing that first session, he 
 reflected now. But Vandalia had been a very different kind 
 of place from New Salem. In his own village, he was at 
 ease, he could be natural and unaffected, and know that his 
 friends were his, without strain or attempt to make an im- 
 pression. He was among strangers at the capital, men from 
 every part of the state, older, most of them, both in age and 
 political experience, polished men who were adept in the 
 ways of society and maneuver. 
 
 All Abe could do during that session was listen and try 
 to learn. Listening was fascinating and stimulating to the 
 log-cabin boy: the acts to incorporate banks, turnpikes, 
 bridges, insurance companies, towns, railroads, and female 
 
 65 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 academies. He realized that, taken separately, none of these 
 issues was of any grave importance. But the debate from the 
 floor, the impact of clashing ideas, the interplay of person- 
 alities which attended each controversy, were like strong 
 drink to one who had never tasted liquor, and he watched 
 the proceedings patiently, cataloging every phrase, storing 
 every gesture in the back of his mind against the day when 
 he could consider himself prepared to take his place on the 
 floor of the House and make his own personality known 
 and felt. 
 
 He'd been appointed to one quiet, unspectacular commit- 
 tee, and had served on some select committees. He was 
 biding his time, waiting, listening. 
 
 At the special session called by Governor Duncan in De- 
 cember of 35 he'd made a little more noise. He'd supported 
 actively the measures in favor of the state bank; he'd worked 
 for the passage of acts looking to the construction of the 
 Illinois and Michigan canal, a project in which he was 
 mightily interested since his own bright Sangamon had 
 proved unnavigable; and he'd spoken up for the proposal 
 that Congress allow Illinois to enter not more than five 
 hundred thousand acres of government land on credit in 
 making internal improvements. He was still careful, almost 
 over-deliberate in all his public statements. But in that spe- 
 cial session, he had begun to be known and to make friends. 
 
 In the meantime, following John Stuart's urging, he'd 
 started studying law seriously. He'd known John in the 
 Black Hawk war, and their friendship had lasted. John, also 
 at Vandalia, as Whig leader in the House, had argued that 
 knowledge of the law would help Abe in politics and would 
 
 66 
 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 give him a means of livelihood if politics failed him. So 
 Blackstone had filled Abe's evenings at Vandalia and the 
 dry spells between sessions which he spent in New Salem. 
 After the tension and excitement of the Legislature, New 
 Salem seemed to have shrunk and grown shabby, and he 
 missed the quick minds, the sharp mental competition that 
 had kept him alert and keen in the capital city. Besides, now 
 that he felt he had found his direction, he hadn't the inclina- 
 tion to loaf and yarn that he'd had before. So he dug at the 
 law, straining toward the time when he could hang out a 
 shingle — he, Abe Lincoln, backwoods boy from Hardin 
 County, who only five years ago had chopped wood for a 
 living. Abraham Lincoln, attorney-at-law. He had a goal at 
 last, a definite place to work toward. 
 
 In the meantime, he'd been re-appointed deputy surveyor 
 under Thomas Neale, who had succeeded Calhoun. He had 
 a lot of irons in the fire now, and life seemed to be trying to 
 compensate him for his early hardship. 
 
 Yes, a lot of water had tumbled over Jim Rutledge's dam 
 since Mary Owens had been here. He wondered what the 
 years had given Mary. Had she married? Was she happy? 
 Had she grown old? Somehow, he hoped that time had 
 stood still for her, that life had not touched her or changed 
 her since she had visited Illinois. That she was just the same. 
 
 He hurried his stride along toward the Abells, so that he 
 might find out. 
 
 67 
 
(fyafite* *7W&e 
 
 of, 
 
 NYHOW, BETSEY HADN T CHANGED. SHE WAS OLDER, 
 
 ampler of figure — her constant childbearing was exacting 
 its price — and she had acquired, with her husband's increas- 
 ing prosperity, a dignity that was charming, and faintly 
 reminiscent of her younger and handsomer sister. But the 
 welcome was there, the joy at sight of him that Abe Lincoln 
 had always known, and that had endeared Betsey and Ben- 
 nett Abell to him almost beyond any other friends he had. 
 
 "Abe, it sure is nice to see you!" Betsey greeted him at the 
 door. "Your friends are all so happy over your success," she 
 ran on, "but we do long, now and then, for old times when 
 you came and went almost every day — without the whole 
 state of Illinois on your shoulders!" 
 
 "It's little enough I've done for the state of Illinois, so far," 
 he answered seriously as he followed her into the house. 
 "But I hope to do more. It's a heavy responsibility repre- 
 senting my own district, without taking on the rest of the 
 
 state." 
 
 She must hear all about his adventures and small successes 
 at Vandalia, and he told and retold her, and the little splash 
 he'd made at the state capital became a great, shining water- 
 
 68 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 fall as seen through her eyes and from the isolation of New 
 Salem. "I'm beginning to learn my way around," he went 
 on, not wanting to brag, but warmed beyond modesty by 
 her enthusiasm. "Next session I hope to get on some good 
 committees and make myself heard." 
 
 "Oh, you will, Abe, you will!" she glowed. "Even those 
 smooth, aged-in-wood old-time politicians are bound to no- 
 tice you, and recognize your ability!" 
 
 "I reckon you got the comparison right, Betsey," he re- 
 turned dryly. "Next to the born-and-bred politicians I'm as 
 raw as new corn squeezing." But he smiled. Betsey's faith 
 didn't hurt him any. 
 
 "Maybe they need new corn-squeezin's to wake them up," 
 she retorted. "Abe, did you bring us any mail?" 
 
 "There, I'd clean forgot it! It's a good thing you remem- 
 bered. Or is it ? If I'd taken your letter back to town, I'd have 
 an excuse to come again tomorrow!" 
 
 "Do you need an excuse? Wait while I read it." 
 
 He waited, not having intended anything else, and she 
 skimmed eagerly through the minutiae of domestic and 
 county news, but paused over the last paragraph of the let- 
 ter, reading it twice. 
 
 "Abe, Mary wants me to come home for a visit," she said 
 slowly, as though thinking while she spoke, "she says Papa 
 will pay the way. I haven't been back to Kentucky since we 
 came away — nigh onto fifteen years." 
 
 "That would be a mighty nice trip for you," he offered 
 sympathetically. "How is Miss Mary these days ?" It might 
 be idle curiosity, but he wanted very much to hear of Mary. 
 He wanted to talk about her, to hear little, intimate stories 
 
 69 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 of her. He wanted to clarify that blurred memory of her 
 that he couldn't hardly recognize. 
 
 "Oh, she's still letting Papa wind her around his finger!" 
 replied Betsey with exasperation. "She mustn't go here, and 
 she oughtn't to do that, and no man in the whole state of 
 Kentucky is good enough for his prize duckling! He never 
 cared what the rest of us did — it was always Mary, Mary, 
 Mary! I wonder my stepmother doesn't throw her right out 
 of the house! Mary cares a great deal for Papa, but why 
 shouldn't she? She hasn't anything else to care about!" She 
 stopped her tirade abruptly, a calculating look stealing into 
 her eyes. Mary and Abe hadn't taken to each other much 
 when Mary was here. But now Abe was succeeding; and he 
 was climbing up, no longer the good-natured indigent he 
 had been then. Perhaps with a little out-and-out planning — 
 
 "Abe," she plunged, "you liked her when she was here, 
 didn't you?" 
 
 "Of course. Who could help liking her?" 
 
 "Do you remember what you said after she left ? You told 
 me — 
 
 "Seems to me I bragged that if she ever came back, I was 
 going to marry her ! It was a pretty big boast. But she didn't 
 come back." 
 
 "Well, did you mean it?" she persisted. "Were you seri- 
 ous? If I went home to visit and brought her back, would 
 you be — interested ?" 
 
 Abe smiled. "She might have something to say about that 
 herself." 
 
 "Oh Abe, don't be so exasperating! If I bring her back 
 
 70 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 with me, will you pay her some attention, and — and pro- 
 pose to her ?" 
 
 He put on an air of great solemnity, not knowing whether 
 to take her seriously or not. "I am honest, ma'am. My boasts 
 are not given lightly." 
 
 Betsey laughed excitedly. "Then I'll go, Abe!" she prom- 
 ised. "I'll go, and bring you a bride!" 
 
 Walking back toward town, Abe reflected leisurely on 
 Betsey's strange proposal. It might not be a bad idea. Not a 
 bad idea at all 
 
 71 
 
(ZAafiten 'yfcnteeH 
 
 A 
 
 T WAS AUTUMN 1836 BEFORE BETSEY FINALLY GOT OFF FOR 
 
 her visit to Kentucky. 
 
 There had been the spring and summer farm work and 
 the fall canning, and then she'd had to shop and sew in 
 preparation for the journey. She wasn't going to have the 
 family or the neighbors at home think that she and her hus- 
 band weren't prosperous, and so she'd had to make a whole 
 new wardrobe for herself. She couldn't do much about her 
 personal looks any more, but her clothes were another mat- 
 ter. 
 
 During her crowded summer of planting, gardening, har- 
 vesting, and sewing, she had found little opportunity to talk 
 with Abe. He was as busy as she, stumping up and down 
 the county in his campaign for re-election. 
 
 He was in Springfield one day, in Salisbury another, and 
 then she heard by the grapevine that he had made speeches 
 in Mechanicsburg and all the towns about New Salem. There 
 were barbecues and rallies at the farms nearby, for the farm- 
 ers' votes were important. Abe was working in earnest, and 
 leaving nothing to chance. From all reports he was doing it 
 well, for every story of him that came back to Betsy con- 
 
 72 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 firmed her opinion formed years ago, that he would go far. 
 He was becoming known for something besides his droll 
 humor and his bad appearance. Older men, long experienced 
 in politics, were listening to what he had to say about local 
 and national affairs, and were finding his logic and his argu- 
 ments sound. 
 
 He was still modest and straightforward, and honest. His 
 new honors weren't going to his head, even though he was, 
 as it were, drinking the first liquor of success on an empty 
 stomach. 
 
 Betsy liked his announcement in the Sangamo Journal in 
 June, in which he published his views: 
 
 ". ... I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage 
 who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding 
 females). 
 
 "If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon 
 my constituents, as well those that oppose me as those that 
 support me " 
 
 Only a few lines, but they came from a thinking man, a 
 big man. Abe Lincoln was no two-bit politician. He was 
 looking ahead to larger than local issues. He announced him- 
 self in favor of internal improvements on an empiric scale — 
 canals and roads and railroads to open up the whole West, to 
 build a mighty empire that could hold its own with the East 
 and the South. But he couldn't keep his own dry humor out 
 of his proclamation. He ended his letter to the editor of the 
 paper with, "If alive on the first Monday in November, I 
 shall vote for Hugh L. White for President." Well, that was 
 like Abe Lincoln — so unassuming he wouldn't even claim 
 to be alive in November! 
 
 73 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Womanlike, Betsey considered Abe her own special dis- 
 covery, and she became more determined than ever to make 
 a match between him and her sister: two lonely people, one 
 a beautiful, gently bred woman, and the other a man with a 
 purchase on genius; each possessed of qualities which could 
 complement the other's and make for their personal ful- 
 filment. 
 
 "I don't want to arrange their lives," she argued honestly 
 with herself. "I only want to help them both to see what they 
 could find in each other." 
 
 She saw him once during the long summer, at a rally in 
 New Salem, in July. 
 
 The crowd was enormous, and Abe was in the center of it, 
 the heart of all the activity, the focus of all the attention and 
 enthusiasm. Surely, in all the history of the village, no man 
 had ever had so many friends ! 
 
 Betsey had no opportunity to speak to him, but he caught 
 sight of her in the milling crowd, and waved, and his smile 
 was a recollection and a promise, and she was content. 
 
 On the long stagecoach journey — so different from her 
 trek fifteen years ago when she had come northwest with 
 Bennett — Betsey found herself remembering things she 
 hadn't thought of in years. The way her father sat at table 
 with his head turned half away from the food as though he 
 were listening for Indian attacks (a habit grown out of actual 
 danger when he himself was young and such an attack a 
 very real possibility). The tree that she and Mary had planted 
 on her sixteenth birthday — how tall would it be now? The 
 
 74 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 special teacakes concocted by some kind of witchcraft by a 
 colored mammy now long dead. The smell of the locust 
 trees in bloom. 
 
 And hers and Mary's long imaginings, after they had 
 gone to bed at night, and were supposed to be asleep, about 
 the kind of men they were going to marry. Betsey had 
 thought then, in her early 'teens, that she'd like to marry a 
 soldier, someone who went off to the wars and killed a lot 
 of Indians, and came home periodically, unscathed, and cov- 
 ered with glory. But Mary wanted a prince, no less, or at the 
 very lowest, a judge of the Circuit Court. The man who won 
 Mary would have to beckon her from some high place, would 
 have to ofler her something bigger and better than her father 
 had at home. Those were the secrets they whispered to each 
 other, under cover of the dark that took away all embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 Betsey hadn't had to compromise too much with her girlish 
 dream, she reflected as she watched the Indiana prairie jog by. 
 A pioneer was a soldier of fortune, and right now Bennett 
 was killing potato bugs rather than Indians, but he was 
 moved by the same will to conquest as the man with the gun. 
 And while there was less excitement in farming than in 
 soldiering, there was a better satisfaction — a peace that came 
 from producing living things instead of destroying them. 
 
 But Mary's dream? Betsey wondered how thin and ema- 
 ciated her hope had become, and whether it was still alive 
 at all, or had died for want of nourishment. 
 
 Mary was a strange person. During that brief visit three 
 years ago, Betsey had hardly become acquainted with her. 
 
 75 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Mary was everything that her father had brought her up to 
 be. But, thought Betsey with some irritation and no impulse 
 to pun, there was too much surface. Or rather, the surface 
 was too impregnable. Betsey hadn't been able to see beyond 
 it — it was like an impenetrable shell. She felt that she didn't 
 really know Mary at all. 
 
 Well, this time she'd do better. This time she'd find some 
 way to break the stranglehold Squire Owens had upon his 
 daughter's thinking and affections. She didn't know just how 
 she'd do it, but Abe Lincoln had always said that in wrestling 
 the best maneuvers were the simplest — it was a matter of 
 catching your opponent off-guard. But who was the real 
 opponent here: Mary Owens or her father? 
 
 Then, as the horses' hooves pounded off the slow miles, 
 Betsey thought, irrelevantly it seemed, about the magnolia 
 tree that had shaded the window of hers and Mary's bedroom 
 at home, and the heavy scent of the flowers wafting into the 
 room on quiet spring nights. 
 
 Wistfully, she wondered if she were getting old 
 
 76 
 
@6aftt&i 'pacvttem 
 
 3i* 
 
 ES OLD, THOUGHT BETSEY, ALONE FOR A MOMENT IN 
 
 Mary's room in the Big House after the excitement of greet- 
 ings was over. "Papa's old, and for some reason, he's depend- 
 ent on Mary. With a wife he's been married to for over 
 twenty years, he still leans on Mary. It doesn't make sense, 
 but there it is. Perhaps I shouldn't take her away from him." 
 Then, curious, she looked about Mary's retreat, that she 
 was to share during her visit. And her ire rose again. For the 
 room was as impersonal and virginal as though it had been 
 lifted physically from that convent school her sister had at- 
 tended, and fitted into the house. Prim and severe and lady- 
 like, as stiff and uninviting as a cloister. Everything in its 
 proper place, in spinsterish order. "I'd like to put a pair of 
 men's carpet slippers under that bed and see if they'd liven 
 the room up," Betsey thought, a little grimly. Then her heart 
 twisted a little, for she spied, over on the window seat, Mary's 
 last little-girl doll, propped against a baby pillow that must 
 have belonged to one of the younger children. The doll was 
 pantaletted and petticoated, and as correct and stiff as Mary 
 herself. But the fact that Mary had kept the doll so carefully 
 
 77 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 bore mute testimony to the fact of her thwarted maternal 
 yearnings, and Betsey brushed aside all sympathy for her 
 father in his old age. "He hasn't any right to keep her here, 
 and ruin her life," she resolved. "I've just got to get her 
 away!" 
 
 Ten-year-old Sarah, the "baby" of the Nathe Owens sec- 
 ond family, whom Betsey had never seen until this visit, 
 edged shyly into the room just then, and Betsey, in a rush 
 of homesickness for her own children, took the solemn little 
 girl into her arms, thanking God that her life was so much 
 better than Mary's. 
 
 "Why, we're doing right well, Papa," Betsey explained 
 later to her father, as she and Nathe, Miss Mary Ann and 
 Mary sat about the early fire after dinner. The two little 
 girls had gone to bed, and John had wandered ofr to visit 
 with one of the neighbor boys. Betsey reflected silently that 
 her own John, only a year younger than her half-brother, 
 was a sight more self-reliant than this boy. Why, her John 
 and Samuel were their father's right-hand men on the farm. 
 It was all Bennett could do to keep up with them in the field. 
 They were talking already about staking out some claims of 
 their own. But Nathe Owens' John had prattled all through 
 dinner about a new litter of coach dogs that some friend's 
 bitch had dropped, and he wanted Papa to buy two for him. 
 Betsey sighed over the pretty dresses that Margarite and 
 Sarah were wearing — daintier, for every day, than her girls 
 could wear on Sunday! Well, she reminded herself, there's 
 more to living than dressing up fancy. My girls will know 
 how to work and carry their end when they marry! 
 
 78 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "We've got all the land under cultivation now," she went 
 on, "though it was a hard pull until the boys got big enough 
 to help. We re getting ahead, and the Sangamon is a won- 
 derful country. People with any get-up just can't help doing 
 well there ! Why, we have one friend," she carefully avoided 
 Mary's eyes, "who came to Illinois only six years ago, with 
 no trade and no money, and only what learning he'd been 
 able to get by himself, and he's been postmaster now for 
 three years, and he learned surveying all on his own — though 
 Cousin Mentor helped him — and he was appointed deputy 
 surveyor and now he's just been re-elected to his second term 
 in the state legislature!" She paused for breath. "His name's 
 Lincoln, Papa. He came from somewhere around here. Do 
 you recollect the family?" 
 
 Nathe Owens searched his memory. "The name sounds 
 familiar. It seems to me there were some Lincolns — or Lin- 
 kerns — over toward Knob Creek. They didn't amount to 
 much, though. Fellow was so ignorant — must have been this 
 chap's father — that he got his land titles all tangled up until 
 even Richard Rudd, my friend over at Bardstown, couldn't 
 straighten them out. They moved on. Weren't the kind to 
 settle and stay." 
 
 He dismissed the whole family without another thought. 
 Betsey was satisfied, for she had seen Mary perk up at the 
 mention of Abe's name, and she knew that she had planted 
 the first seeds of her intrigue. That was enough for tonight. 
 
 "How's my friend Zachariah Nance?" demanded her 
 father. "And Thomas? Now there was a promising lad." 
 
 79 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 The hills were too close. You couldn't see beyond half a 
 mile for the round, low-brooding knobs. And the vegetation 
 was too heavy, the trees crowding in upon her. 
 
 The land seemed overcultivated, like a garden geometri- 
 cally planned. "I've grown away from it completely," Betsey 
 told herself wonderingly. There was nothing left of her feel- 
 ing for home except blood-ties of affection for her family. 
 She had been wholly transplanted to Illinois. 
 
 The house was too old, and her father was too old. The 
 darkies had grown stooped and slow in her father's service. 
 
 And yet, everything was the same, just as it had been 
 when she lived here. Prayers before breakfast, with the mas- 
 ter at the head of the table, and everyone in the house having 
 to be there at the first word of the grace, as though they were 
 still children. Betsey was used to getting up early in the 
 morning, but she'd gotten out of the habit of obeisance. 
 
 She gossiped with the cook in the kitchen (a new one 
 since she had lived at home), and helped Mary and Miss 
 Mary Ann entertain the minister when he came to call. 
 What girl friends were left in the neighborhood dropped 
 around in the afternoon, rigged up in white gloves and 
 bright-colored merinos and hats with plumes, as though 
 they were going to the races. I wish they could see how we 
 go calling on the spur of the moment to borrow a pound of 
 sugar or a quilt pattern, in anything we happen to have on, 
 and carrying the least ones along with us! But the mint 
 juleps before dinner were nice. It was good to be waited on, 
 to live leisurely for a while — just for a little while. Betsey 
 had outgrown her capacity for gracious living, she thought. 
 
 80 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 She must get back to her own world, her own place. Her 
 man and her children. She'd left the two least ones, who 
 had come since Mary's visit to Illinois, with Jack Arm- 
 strong's wife. She'd hated to do it, but she couldn't have 
 made the long trip with young ones, and now they were 
 calling her back. It was good to see her people again, but 
 this wasn't home. She must accomplish her purpose and go. 
 
 Strangely enough — for overanxious as she was to persuade 
 Mary to return with her, she was almost sure she'd say the 
 wrong thing — she hit on just the right remark to pique her 
 sister's interest. 
 
 "Abe Lincoln was asking about you the last time I saw 
 him," she said casually one day when she and Mary were 
 in the garden cutting late flowers for the dinner table. "He 
 asked me why I didn't bring you back with me. Did I ever 
 tell you that right after you left he vowed that if you ever 
 came again he'd marry you?" 
 
 Mary stopped her flower cutting and stood very still for 
 a moment. "Did he really say that?" 
 
 "Of course he did! I wouldn't story you! He said it the 
 week after you left. He came out to see you, and you weren't 
 there. He said, 'If that young woman ever returns from Ken- 
 tucky I'm going to catch, tie, and marry her!' " 
 
 Something of Mary's fine spirit came back, and she tossed 
 her head defiantly. "Perhaps I'm not so easily caught as that, 
 Betsey! Perhaps that over-confident young' man needs show- 
 ing!" 
 
 Betsey breathed a very silent sigh of relief. Mary would 
 go back with her to Illinois. 
 
 81 
 
C&afiten "?($€€* 
 
 (J 
 
 OLKS WHO WERE THERE SAID, YEARS LATER, THAT THEY 
 
 had never in their lives seen anything as striking as Mary 
 Owens when she got off the stagecoach at New Salem with 
 her sister. 
 
 This was the presidential election day, Van Buren against 
 White, the Whig for whom Abe Lincoln had promised in 
 writing to vote for "if he lived," and the village was packed 
 with people from the whole country round. If she had 
 planned a triumphal entry into New Salem, Mary couldn't 
 have done better. 
 
 Those who knew her from her first visit, and those who 
 didn't, stared open-mouthed, and stopped talking politics. 
 She wasn't exactly beautiful, for she was above ordinary 
 height, inclined to be matronly beyond her years; but her 
 blue eyes were lovely, and she wore the finest trimmings the 
 little town had ever witnessed, and carried herself like 
 royalty. 
 
 Squire Owens' wealth had never been a secret in New 
 Salem, though Betsey didn't brag about it, and the Abells 
 had apparently always lived on their own. While they were 
 substantial, they didn't put on any great show of prosperity. 
 
 82 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Mary Owens was different. Every garment she wore, every 
 movement she made, offered proof incontrovertible of her 
 gentle background, of the luxury in which she had been 
 reared. 
 
 The married men about town bemoaned their fetters when 
 they saw her, and those who were happily single began to 
 think about matrimony. 
 
 But before any of the local swains could change their 
 shirts to go courting her, Abe Lincoln was there, and he 
 acted right serious 
 
 He had promised Betsey, and he didn't aim to lose any 
 time. Still, preparing for his first meeting with Mary, Abe 
 was troubled. Had he been a little hasty in his bargain, 
 promising to take a bride almost "sight unseen" ? For almost 
 all he knew of Mary was what Betsey had told him. He 
 hadn't gotten acquainted with her during her short visit 
 three years ago. He'd been interested in her, but hardly 
 seriously, because at that time he was in no position to be 
 serious about any woman. 
 
 Well, he'd given his word, and he must keep it. He was 
 thankful, as he walked out to the Abell farm, that his clothes 
 weren't as shabby and ill-fitting as those he'd worn the last 
 time she saw him, and he knew, too, that he was quite a 
 different person from the confused, groping backwoodsman 
 he'd been then. He was a member of the Legislature now, 
 tried and found worth returning to represent his people. 
 Older and wiser men listened to him now, and sometimes 
 even agreed with him. He had the self-assurance of a small 
 
 83 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 but growing success, and a brightly burning belief in his 
 future. Now, he had something to offer Mary. 
 
 But — women. Would any man ever completely under- 
 stand them ? Would Mary be pleased with what he had been 
 making of himself, or would she compare him, to his dis- 
 advantage, with the country gentlemen at home who knew 
 which horse to bet on and how to hold a whiskey glass? 
 Well, he reflected, fancy gentlemen there might be in Green 
 County, but she hadn't married one yet! 
 
 However, searching his memory of her, he decided that 
 she would be kind, and interested, and glad of his moderate 
 success, whether she wanted to marry him or not. 
 
 As he neared the farm, he forgot his self -consciousness in 
 his eagerness to see her again. She was the fairy princess 
 from the great castle, and he was going to court and marry 
 her 
 
 She was older, he thought, and heavier, but she still pos- 
 sessed the charm that had fascinated him before, that self- 
 assurance that was consciousness of worth, of value in herself 
 and everything that had made her what she was. It was the 
 quality of bluegrass and clover bloom and leisure, with an 
 indefinable something that must be just woman-ness. 
 
 She greeted Abe cordially, as though she were genuinely 
 glad of his coming. 
 
 "Mr. Lincoln! How nice to see you again!" She gave him 
 her hand, and the touch of it was like satin. 
 
 He stammered something, and knew that he was being 
 clumsy again, but she went on speaking as though she hadn't 
 noticed. 
 
 84 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "You are to be highly congratulated for your re-election 
 to the Legislature. Your constituents must have been pleased 
 with your record." Somehow, her language didn't seem 
 pedantic, for she spoke so easily, so softly. 
 
 'Tm mighty pleased with my re-election, Miss Mary," he 
 replied gravely, "a re-election is almost more important than 
 a first election, for as you say, it means the people are satis- 
 fied. I tried to represent them honestly." 
 
 She smiled, but the conversation lagged a little. Abe won- 
 dered where Betsey was. Certainly, she shouldn't have de- 
 serted him during his first call. She'd promised to help him 
 with this affair! "How did you leave your father and the 
 family?" he asked at last, remembering her devotion to the 
 Squire. 
 
 She plunged eagerly into a recital of trivia from the plan- 
 tation — things he could neither understand nor find interest 
 in, and his doubts returned. Wasn't she being overcordial? 
 Just a little too eager to impress him? Could Betsey have told 
 her of their "understanding" ? 
 
 For the first time, he began to realize the seriousness of 
 that bargain. A promise, lightly given, that could affect all 
 the rest of his life. Nevertheless, a promise was a promise. 
 Strange as the pledge was, he'd keep it, come hell, tornado, 
 or the Democrats. But he wished Betsey would come in and 
 take charge 
 
 Abe Lincoln danced attendance on Betsey Abell's guest 
 so assiduously that the whole town was amazed, amused, 
 and highly interested. 
 
 They'd never seen him chase a woman before, and specu- 
 
 85 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 lation ran wild as to the seriousness of his intentions and 
 his chances of success. 
 
 From all anybody knew, he'd never taken a marrying 
 interest in any woman. Of course, some said he'd carried on 
 bad when Jim Rutledge's girl died, but Abe was so soft- 
 hearted he mourned when any little thing died — a bird, or 
 a kitten, or a girl. And who in the village didn't feel down- 
 right terrible when little Ann, with her auburn curls and 
 her gentle ways, had wasted away — over a lover who never 
 came back? Moreover, Abe Lincoln wasn't one to take 
 squatter's rights on another man's property, even if the 
 owner wasn't looking after his claim. Abe had never courted 
 the innkeeper's daughter, but he sure as hell was courting 
 Miss Owens. 
 
 He was out there at the Abell farm early and late, day 
 after day, until folks gave up looking for him anywhere else. 
 If anybody sought him to mail a letter or draw a deed, some 
 wit at the Tavern or at Sam Hill's was sure to say, "Walk 
 out north of town about a mile'n a half to Bennett Abell's. 
 You'll likely find him there." 
 
 Some pledged bets for, and some against, the local Lo- 
 thario. "She's a fine lady, and mighty proud. She wouldn't 
 be willing to settle in this wild country." "She's use' to high 
 life in Kaintucky. Abe caint step lively enough for her." 
 
 The majority of the townsfolk, however, was pulling for 
 Abe to win. He was idolized by men, women, and children, 
 and he was good enough for a king's daughter, if that was 
 what he wanted. And the woman who couldn't see his worth 
 just wasn't good enough for him. That was the way the 
 people of New Salem looked at Abe Lincoln. 
 
 86 
 
(^^ttct Sixteen 
 
 of, 
 
 BE WAS BITTERLY DISAPPOINTED OVER THE OUTCOME OF 
 
 the election which gave the presidency to Martin Van Buren. 
 
 He discussed it with Mary at length, knowing that she 
 could hardly have grown up in Kentucky without becoming 
 both informed on and interested in politics. Moreover, he 
 had found her an able conversationalist, her mind trained 
 far beyond that of the average woman. He could talk to her 
 about the things that interested a man. 
 
 "White's candidacy, along with Harrison's and Judge 
 McLean's and Daniel Webster's, were all part of a plot," he 
 explained to her, "to break up the vote so much that the 
 election would have to be thrown into the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. I reckon your father told you all about it. He 
 must have known. Everybody knew. But it didn't work. 
 Jackson had built up too good a patronage system. I suppose 
 you know I voted for White," he added. "I didn't make any 
 bones about it, before my own election." 
 
 "Papa did too," she replied, "though I saw by the Lo'ville 
 paper that Kentucky went for Harrison. That's rather sur- 
 prising, for Kentuckians don't usually trust anyone who 
 lives no'th of the Ohio River, you know." 
 
 87 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "No, I didn't know. I was just a shaver when I left Ken- 
 tucky." 
 
 Mary explained to him: "It's much more natural that a 
 Kentuckian should vote for a Tennessee man, as Papa did, 
 than for one from Ohio — or the East. Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee were settled by Virginians like Papa, or folks from 
 the Carolinas. Papa says that Ohio and Indiana are just out- 
 growths of New England Puritanism and industrialism. I 
 hear there's talk of a resolution in the Senate to investigate 
 the voting." 
 
 "It won't do any good," replied Abe gloomily, "even if 
 the vote was close. Jackson's handed out his plums so smart 
 that he's built up a dynasty he thinks will last forever. He 
 chose Van Buren — the people didn't. He wants to run the 
 country as long as he lives — and from his grave after that. 
 And it's a funny thing, but the people seem to want him to 
 do it. They're afeared of Middle's Bank.' Seems like they 
 don't even want stable currency. They want Ohio money in 
 Ohio and Illinois money in Illinois — and buckskin pelts all 
 points west of the Mississippi. They think the Bank is some 
 kind of 'control' that will rob them of their right to run 
 after other men's wives." 
 
 "There was a great deal of talk at home about the Bank," 
 Mary remarked thoughtfully, "but I didn't follow much of 
 it. Women will never understand national finance — not even 
 if they get the franchise some day. Because they think in 
 small, intimate terms: the cost of a spool of thread, or a side 
 of pork, or a yard of calico." 
 
 What a strange creature she was! Lincoln thought admir- 
 ingly. One minute she was all intellect, discussing politics 
 
 88 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 like a man, and the next, she was utterly and deliciously 
 feminine, talking of the little things that make up a woman's 
 life! He told himself he was confoundedly well pleased 
 with the bargain he'd struck with Betsey. He couldn't have 
 picked a better candidate for companionship if he'd done 
 the choosing himself. 
 
 Mary was wonderfully easy to talk to. Abe found himself 
 telling her about his first home on Little Nolin, and the 
 Indiana years, and his mother. 
 
 "I don't recollect much about my mother," he sighed, 
 "except she always seemed tired. Folks said I took after her 
 in looks. Sarah Bush, my father's second wife, took my side 
 against Pap when he thought I was wastin' my time readin' 
 books. Sarah was mighty good to us." 
 
 Mary liked his kind reference to his stepmother. That 
 experience, at least, was one that she shared with him. 
 
 "Us?" she inquired. 
 
 "My sister Sarah," he explained. "She was a few years 
 older'n me. She died, back in Indianny." 
 
 A closed look came into his face, and Mary thought it 
 was from sorrow, and did not press him for details. 
 
 Abe couldn't tell her more, for he was remembering how 
 Sarah had died of childbed fever, and that thought brought 
 back to him a horror and fear of marriage itself, and the 
 responsibility of a man for the things that marriage could 
 do to a woman. He knew, reasonably, that it was poverty 
 and lack of medical care that had killed his sister, but the 
 revulsion remained with him, for Sarah might have survived 
 
 89 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 the hardship if childbirth hadn't been added to her diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 He changed the subject abruptly, and told Mary about 
 little Katy Robey. "I reckon I thought I was in love with her. 
 I was about fourteen. But she was a nice girl. She's probably 
 married now, with a half a dozen young'uns." 
 
 He told her also of an incident which would have been 
 screamingly funny, if it weren't so touching. 
 
 Abe had been riding over the prairie, he said, rather "fixed 
 up," when he came upon a hog mired down in the mud. 
 There wasn't a human being in sight, just him and that hog, 
 out in the wilderness. Not thinking much about the animal, 
 he had ridden on, but when he got well past something had 
 made him look back at her. 
 
 "And would you believe it, Miss Mary," he recounted 
 with a wry smile, "that hawg was lookin' at me with her 
 heart in her eyes, just as if she was thinkin', There goes my 
 last hope.' So I'll be daggoned if I didn't go back, and get 
 off my horse and down into the mud, and pull her out. I 
 couldn't finish my errand, because I was splattered from 
 one end to the other. But I felt better than if I'd left her 
 there to die." 
 
 That story stirred something close to tears in her heart, 
 this compassion of a man who had never known comfort 
 himself, for a dumb animal mired down in the mud 
 
 The weather was unusually mild that autumn, and Abe 
 and Mary went for long walks in the flaming woods. There 
 was little else they could do if they wanted to be alone. 
 
 They wandered aimlessly, talking or silent, as the mood 
 
 90 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 urged, sometimes stopping to watch the wild birds and ani- 
 mals getting ready for winter, preparing for the long rest 
 before mating again in the spring. 
 
 It was such a walk and such a day that impelled Abe to 
 plunge into his proposal. 
 
 He'd just come back from Springfield, where a group of 
 Sangamon County citizens had gathered to talk over the 
 need for internal improvements within the county. Abe had 
 gone because he wanted to know just what the people 
 wanted, before he should return to Vandalia. He'd come 
 back full of enthusiasm and that feeling of power and con- 
 fidence that contact with politics and politicians always gave 
 him. Now was the time to propose to Mary, while he was 
 feeling good, and sure of himself. 
 
 When they came upon a fallen log in the woods, Abe 
 asked Mary to stop and sit a spell. 
 
 "There's something I've been aiming to ask you about, 
 Miss Mary," he stumbled, "and I don't know any pretty 
 words or nice phrases, so I reckon I'll just have to spit it out. 
 I haven't got much to offer any woman yet, but I may have 
 some day. I think I'll have. In the meantime, my wife might 
 have to live in a house nowhere near as good as Betsey's, 
 and work like no white woman ought to work, and have 
 faith in me even when she couldn't see over the next hill. 
 Do you think you could stand that?" 
 
 Mary sat very still, looking down at her hands. So this 
 was it! This was it, Abe Lincoln's proposal. She had known 
 it was coming. She had known, and wondered. Wondered 
 what her answer would be. 
 
 She knew quite well what he meant by the hardships that 
 
 91 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 might attend marriage to him, at least for a few years. For 
 Betsey had told her how meager his earnings were, in spite 
 of his growing reputation. She understood, too, that political 
 success was a precarious thing, and that a politician might 
 lose, overnight, what it had taken him years to gain. She 
 believed, on the other hand, that worldly success would come 
 to him more quickly if he had the right kind of woman to 
 help him. A woman who knew social procedure, a woman 
 who could smooth off — or compensate for — his own rough 
 corners. But would marriage to Abe Lincoln bring her, 
 Mary Owens, any personal fulfilment ? That would depend 
 on Abe, himself. 
 
 She looked up into his face at last, and her wide eyes 
 were very blue. 
 
 "I could stand any kind of hardship, Abe, if I loved and 
 were loved. But if my suitor were at all doubtful of his feel- 
 ings for me, I would rather spend my life as a spinster in 
 my father's house." 
 
 Surely, if he loved her, he would say so now! And if he 
 said he loved her, she could forget all his faults, forget the 
 luxury of her home, and follow him, her man, as Betsey 
 had followed Bennett, over half a world, through hardships 
 that were not hard at all because they were together. 
 
 She looked for a long time into his grey eyes, and when 
 he said nothing, she turned her face away, staring out into 
 the darkening woods. 
 
 The curve of her neck was so soft. Her curls were so 
 pretty! When she had looked at him just now, her eyes so 
 wide, her red lips half parted, had she expected him to kiss 
 her? God knew, he wanted to. But could a man kiss a nice 
 
 92 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 girl before she gave him her answer? Abe didn't know. 
 No one had ever told him. 
 
 I'll do it anyhow, he thought. I'll take her in my arms 
 and kiss her, and sweep her off her feet. She'll have to love 
 me then! 
 
 He stretched out a hand toward her, but the very thought 
 of touching her as a lover confused him so, set his blood to 
 pounding so violently, that he was afraid. He knew quite 
 well what desire could do to him. There was no telling what 
 those hands of his might do — those calloused, work-worn 
 hands. Were they fit to caress any woman? Oh God, he 
 wished he knew what she wanted, what she really expected 
 of him! 
 
 He drew back, trembling, and only his strangled breath 
 could tell his emotion. 
 
 "Mary—" 
 
 "Yes, Abe?" Her voice was very quiet, but she wouldn't 
 look at him. Why couldn't she help him a little? 
 
 "Mary," he forced steadiness into his voice, "if you risk 
 your future and your happiness with me, I'll do everything 
 in my power to keep you from regretting it. You know that, 
 don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, I know it." Indeed, she did know. The sincerity of 
 his intentions could never be doubted. However, Mary 
 Owens, lonely, no longer young, wanted, love more than 
 she wanted predictions of conduct. She wanted love as she 
 wanted air to breathe. And unless he loved her enough to 
 say so, what could marriage with him mean? 
 
 "Abe," she told him at last, "I can't give you an answer 
 
 93 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 now. I appreciate your offer deeply, but I'll have to think 
 about it. You'll allow me a little time, won't you?" 
 
 She was very gentle, very sweet, wholly reasonable. But 
 with her pleading for time, all his confusion returned, and 
 his terrible self-doubt. 
 
 She was quite right, no woman should plunge into a life 
 partnership without due deliberation. But the moment was 
 gone. He was bewildered, embarrassed. 
 
 "All right, Mary," he said quietly, "take all the time you 
 want. But my word is good. You'll find that out. Now, it's 
 time we were getting home." 
 
 He helped her up from the log, and they walked back to 
 the Abell farm as though they'd been talking all afternoon 
 about taxes. 
 
 94 
 
ffiafite* Seventeen 
 
 £ 
 
 HE GROUP ABOUT SAM HILL S STORE HAD RUN OUT OF TALK. 
 
 Peter Cartwright, sprawled as usual on the steps, had fin- 
 ished a long and derogatory tirade against drinking in gen- 
 eral and Sam Hill in particular, and since most of the others 
 owed Sam money and didn't have much against him any- 
 how, the talk bogged down to speculation about the weather. 
 
 Dr. Allen had just scurried up the street with his black 
 bag, throwing an angry glance back over his shoulder that 
 seemed to corroborate all of Peter's remarks, and made the 
 whole bunch feel as though they'd had guilt forced upon 
 them through no act of their own. 
 
 The election was over, the fall work done, and there was 
 no excitement, nothing to look forward to but the long, 
 hard prairie winter. 
 
 "Seems like we should'a had a revival meetin' this fall," 
 mused Jack Kelso, for once lured back to the world of men, 
 mostly because it was too cold to go fishing. 
 
 "Lot you'd do at a revival meeting besides get drunk," 
 accused Peter. "You can do that without no revival meeting." 
 
 "I know, but it's good to have a reason. Revivals, and elec- 
 
 95 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 tions, and birthin's, and funerals. My God, do you see what 
 I see?" 
 
 They all followed his glance across the street. Along the 
 road that led in from Rutledge's Tavern loped Abe Lincoln, 
 looking in the distance quite as usual — more like a crane 
 than a man — but as he came nearer, they saw the reason for 
 Jack's amazement. 
 
 "Two galluses he's wearin'." The remark was uttered in 
 awe, in perfect bewilderment. "Both pant legs are hanghV 
 alike." 
 
 "And a stovepipe hat like a drunken Senator!" 
 
 Abe was close enough now so that they could see the 
 results of blacking and elbow grease on his boots. 
 
 "That I should live to see the day!" exclaimed Jack, still 
 wondering if the sight wasn't an alcoholic apparition of his 
 own. It couldn't be Abe, his old fishing pal, his good com- 
 panion who had found more delight with him in the sonnets 
 of Shakespeare than in concerns of raiment or even food. 
 "It's a travesty!" reverting to the book words that he used 
 in his thoughts, but seldom in his speech. 
 
 "Travesty, nothin'! It's a downright crime! And it's all 
 the doin' of that fancy sister-in-law of Bennett Abell's!" 
 
 Sam Hill, having been married to Parthena Nance, the 
 Owens girls' best friend, felt that he was almost one of 
 Abell's family, and started to defend Abe's courtship, but 
 just then Lincoln came alongside the store, and the conver- 
 sation stopped. 
 
 Abe didn't stop. He tilted the tall hat at a more rakish 
 angle, and asked, "Anything in the post office I should take 
 
 96 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 care of, Sam?" Learning that there wasn't, he pranced on 
 up the street. 
 
 "On the way to Bennett's again, and he ain't dressed for 
 farmin'!" observed Peter disconsolately. 
 
 "I kind of hate to see him get roped and tied," reflected 
 Jack, convinced now that Abe was real and not a product of 
 delirium tremens. "I've got nothin' against matrimony," — 
 he shouldn't have, thought Sam sourly, with the wife he's 
 got! — "but somehow, if Abe was to marry, it would seem 
 like hitchin' an eagle to a hand-plow. No matter who the 
 woman was." 
 
 There was no answer to that, for there was no argument 
 possible. It was certain, just as certain as the fact that, for 
 the time being at least, they had lost their comrade — to a 
 woman. Their pride was hurt. And what was more, they 
 missed him. 
 
 Abe was in high spirits today. Maybe it was the broad- 
 cloth shirt he was wearing. Maybe it was the thin, winey 
 November air. Maybe it was the prospect of return to Van- 
 dalia. It might have been Mary 
 
 He had rationalized his first hurt at her hesitancy (it had 
 hurt his pride more than anything else), and had even con- 
 vinced himself that he could understand her unwillingness 
 to plunge into marriage with a man who had little to offer 
 her but dreams. For if marriage was a desperate affair for a 
 man, it must be equally cataclysmic for a woman. She was 
 a gentle person, and she had a right to be cautious. How- 
 ever, humble though he felt in most things, he hadn't the 
 slightest doubt of her final answer. Given plenty of time, 
 
 97 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 plenty of room, there was only one decision she could make, 
 for Abe believed in his dream, and he believed that Mary 
 understood that dream and gave it credence, too. 
 
 Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, sometime soon, she 
 would say yes, she would come into his arms today 
 
 Perhaps today 
 
 He found Betsey alone when he reached the farm. Mary, 
 she said, had gone calling by her own self, this time to see 
 Nancy Green, Bowling's wife, who, being "home folks," 
 wasn't to be neglected. Betsey had stayed behind, preoccu- 
 pied with morning sickness again. 
 
 "Why don't you go over and fetch her back?" suggested 
 Betsey shamelessly. "You're certainly not fixed up to go 
 tramping around the farm with Bennett." 
 
 "Well, I really wasn't aimin' to clean the cow barn," he 
 admitted, displaying his shining boots with pride. "You sure 
 Miss Mary won't be put out if I tag her over there?" 
 
 "You'll never convince her of your interest if you sit 
 around waiting for her!" Betsey retorted with spirit. Men 
 were such blockheads! She wondered if she ought to write 
 a speech for him to recite to Mary. He was downright bril- 
 liant when he talked politics, but she had a suspicion that 
 if he had proposed to Mary at all, he'd said all the wrong 
 things, and left the right words unsaid. She was burning 
 with curiosity to know how the courtship was really coming, 
 and yet it was a pretty personal thing. She didn't want to 
 upset a delicate balance by prying. Just the same, it might 
 be a long time before she had a chance to talk to him alone 
 
 98 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 again. She'd have to chance it. After all, they were in this 
 business together. 
 
 Nevertheless, she stammered when she asked him, "Abe, — 
 how is it going? Have you — " 
 
 Abe stammered too. "She wants time, Betsey. She said she 
 wanted to be sure. I want her to be, too." Then, embarrassed 
 at having given that much confidence, even to Betsey, who 
 was his co-conspirator, he edged toward the door. "I reckon 
 I better get along toward Bowling's, before some dandy 
 beats me there." 
 
 And he was out of the yard, striding down the road, for 
 all the world as though he'd just inherited a house and lot. 
 
 Time, indeed! thought Betsey angrily after he had gone. 
 Mary had to have time! Well, Mary didn't have any time to 
 spend, making up her mind! She was twenty-eight years 
 old, and — with a flash of disloyalty for which she was in- 
 stantly sorry — twenty-five pounds over-weight, and if there 
 were any better or even other suitors hanging around her 
 doorstep, Betsey had neither seen nor heard anything about 
 them! Here, Mary had a chance for the lifelong devotion 
 of a man with so much ambition and ability that he might 
 even be governor some day, and she had to have time to 
 think about it! Mary was simply insane, or else so conceited 
 that she thought getting a husband, at her age, was simply 
 a matter of making up her own mind. 
 
 Something would simply have to be done to hurry the 
 courtship along. But Betsey couldn't think, at the moment, 
 what it could be. For talking to Mary would do no good at 
 all. Betsey would only be reminded, if she tried to plead 
 
 99 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Abe's case for him, that Mary was capable of doing her own 
 thinking and of making her own decisions. No, there was 
 nothing Betsey could do to urge on the climax. She would 
 just have to let it run its course, and hope for the right out- 
 come. 
 
 Moreover, at this particular moment, the baby was crying, 
 the bread dough overrunning the pan, and Betsey's world 
 was reeling with the familiar nausea which, somehow, 
 didn't lessen with repetition. 
 
 As he had hoped, Mary welcomed Abe warmly when he 
 arrived at Bowling Green's. One might almost hazard a 
 guess that she had expected him. But that didn't dampen 
 his spirits. Abe was riding a high wave of confidence these 
 days, and nothing could break the wave. 
 
 "You came just in time to walk back with me to the farm," 
 she greeted him brightly. "And I'm so glad, because I don't 
 like tramping across the fields alone." Then, as if she felt 
 she had been too eager, she added to Bowling's wife, "Nancy, 
 why don't you come with us? Betsey wasn't feeling well 
 enough to come over, and I'm sure she'd be glad to see you!" 
 
 Nancy Green hesitated. There was work to do, she didn't 
 want to leave her baby alone, and she rightly guessed that 
 Abe wanted his lady to himself. But Abe good-naturedly 
 added his pleas to Mary's insistence, and Nancy let herself 
 be persuaded. "I'll just have to take the baby, though," she 
 told them. "He's too fussy to leave here." 
 
 They all started out over the stubbled field, Abe trying 
 hard to match his long stride to the women's gait, relating 
 all the town news as he went. 
 
 100 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 "I've been working on a petition to the county commis- 
 sioners asking for a county road from Middletown to the 
 county line," he told them. 
 
 That didn't mean much to Mary except that the towns- 
 people of New Salem thought enough of Abe's ability to 
 ask him to draw the petition, but Nancy was immediately 
 interested. "Where will the road go? Will it run anywhere 
 near here? Do you think we'll get it?" 
 
 Abe tried to answer one question at a time. "Well, it's 
 thought the best place to start it would be near Musick's 
 bridge, and then to Meadow's Mill at Sugar Grove, and then 
 on to the county line. It would be a mighty fine thing. But 
 whether we get it or not is another matter. This isn't the 
 only section that wants and needs roads." 
 
 "I believe we need 'em worse than anybody," sighed 
 Nancy. 
 
 "That's what every constituency thinks," replied Abe drily. 
 
 They had come by now to a brook running lazily through 
 the pasture, which had to be crossed on stepping stones. The 
 water was low, and there was no danger in crossing, but the 
 stones were irregularly placed, some close together and some 
 far apart, and they were difficult to negotiate. Mary lagged 
 behind Abe and Nancy, thinking that of course he would 
 help Nancy because of the baby she was carrying. But Abe, 
 his thoughts anywhere but on the women, leaped nimbly 
 across without even looking back to see whether the girls 
 were coming. 
 
 Mary was incensed. "Nancy, give me the baby!" she de- 
 manded. "You've carried him long enough!" 
 
 101 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "I'm used to carrying him," Nancy refused. She sensed 
 Mary was trying to call Abe to his manners, and she didn't 
 want him embarrassed. Moreover, she was sympathetic to 
 this match, and if it should develop as she hoped, Mary 
 would soon enough have the burdens of child care. Anyhow, 
 what did a small discourtesy like that matter! 
 
 When they came to a hill about three-quarters of a mile 
 farther on, the heavy baby became increasingly burdensome. 
 Nancy wished she'd left him at home, or that she'd stayed 
 at home herself. During the ascent, Abe suddenly became 
 solicitous of Mary. Nancy didn't mind Abe's thoughtlessness, 
 but halfway up the hill, she had to stop to rest, and to shift 
 the baby from one arm to the other. Abe waited politely for 
 Nancy to get her breath, but he kept on with his clumsy 
 attempts to help Mary. 
 
 It was more than Mary could stand. She waited until they 
 reached the top of the hill — hoping all the way up that Abe 
 would come to his senses and give Nancy a lift — and then 
 she burst out. After all, knowing enough to help a woman 
 with a heavy child wasn't a matter of drawing-room expe- 
 rience, it was just common sense! 
 
 "Abe," she told him, "didn't it even occur to you to carry 
 that baby up the hill for Nancy?" 
 
 "Why — well, I guess it didn't," he floundered. "I reckon 
 I was thinking of something else." 
 
 "You must have been!" stormed Mary. "And what could 
 be so important to think of that could make you so incon- 
 siderate ?" 
 
 Her anger was so new to him, so startling, that Abe was 
 bewildered and confused. For one thing, he had been think- 
 
 102 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 ing of Mary. Anyhow, this wasn't Green County, Kentucky. 
 Nancy had gone on ahead, so he could speak out. 
 
 "Mary, Nancy is a pioneer woman, who doesn't expect 
 her husband's friends to tote her children for her. She prob- 
 ably never gave it a thought. This isn't the old plantation 
 here in Illinois. It's pioneer country, where a man is taken 
 for his worth and not for his manners! And I never pre- 
 tended to you to be a polished gentleman!" The last, with a 
 little bitterness that he could not conceal. 
 
 Mary, amazed that he should even try to defend his action, 
 tried to explain. "There are different kinds of manners, 
 Abe," she said. "Some are entirely a matter of social pro- 
 cedure, like how to seat guests at a dinner for the governor. 
 But good sense and common consideration for others, par- 
 ticularly for women, are just a matter of elementary decency. 
 I don't believe that kind of thoughtfulness should be limited 
 to locality!" 
 
 Abe, lashed by her scorn, apologized, and told her humbly 
 that he was just absent-minded, he hadn't thought, and that 
 he'd try to remember. 
 
 The day was spoiled. The keen edge of his enjoyment, 
 even his self-confidence, was blunted, and though he stopped 
 for a while at the Abell place, he and Mary parted with irri- 
 tation still between them, neither one very happy. 
 
 103 
 
@6afiten Sty&tem 
 
 & 
 
 T WAS A VERY INSIGNIFICANT INCIDENT, LINCOLN TOLD HIM- 
 
 self, but he could not dismiss it from his memory. Mary's 
 scorn rankled and hurt, like a thorn so deeply embedded in 
 his flesh that it could not be removed. 
 
 It was all very well to argue that she was unfair in expect- 
 ing him to know the niceties of behavior to which she had 
 been brought up, that he had never had an opportunity to 
 learn the ways of gentlemen. The truth still remained that 
 Mary had been right, and that the procedure in question had 
 been a matter of common consideration and not of training. 
 Any man, even a "Linkern," should have known that. 
 
 On the other hand, Mary was not engaged to him, she had 
 refused to give him a definite answer, and so what right had 
 she to criticize, what claim had she upon him that allowed 
 her to sit in judgment on his acts? 
 
 Try as he would to quiet his conscience, however, he still 
 felt his defection, and his feelings pendulummed between 
 longing to see her again — to try to explain, to ask her for- 
 giveness — and embarrassment that became angry resentment. 
 
 He kept up his mental debate for a couple of days, and 
 
 104 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 then circumstance stepped in with an opportunity for him 
 to go to Havana on a surveying job. 
 
 He welcomed the definiteness of the work and the chance 
 to get away from his problem for a while. A spell out in the 
 open might clear his head and straighten out his thoughts. 
 
 And a little time without his attention might be good for 
 his high-handed lady friend 
 
 When Betsey insisted and insisted, Mary finally told her 
 why Abe had gone off surveying without even calling to say 
 goodbye. The girls didn't even know of his departure until 
 Bennett came back from a trip to the village and mentioned 
 having heard it. 
 
 "It was humiliating," Mary told her sister after she had 
 recounted the incident. "I don't know how anyone, even a — 
 a backwoodsman — could be so ignorant! And when I took 
 him to task about it, he made it worse! He said that pioneer 
 women didn't expect courtesy, and that Nancy was used to 
 toting her babies! What kind of a husband could he pos- 
 sibly make?" 
 
 Betsey was in the unfortunate position of being able to 
 see both sides of the problem. And she knew men a great 
 deal better than her sister. 
 
 "Of course you're right, Mary," she soothed, "but you 
 shouldn't have snapped at him. It hurt his jpride. You can't 
 drive any man, Mary. But you can lead most of them. And 
 believe me — I know Abe — and he's very conscious of his 
 deficiencies and anxious to make up for them." 
 
 "Then why did he say that in pioneer country, common 
 
 105 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 decency is neither expected nor welcomed?" demanded 
 Mary. 
 
 "Well, he's right when he says it isn't expected," returned 
 Betsey. "There isn't time to be mannerly when you're trying 
 to squeeze a living out of a stump field. But did you ever 
 know a man who understood women? Even Papa?" 
 
 Mary remembered the affectionate but exacting obeisance 
 that Nathe Owens demanded of his women, and secretly 
 reckoned Betsey was right. Nathe Owens gave a great deal 
 in return for that obeisance, but her honesty told her that 
 he had a great deal to give. It makes a man feel like God to 
 be generous, particularly when he has so much largess that 
 he can give without inconvenience to himself. 
 
 Her mental debating made her feel no better. She still felt 
 that her attitude, if not her procedure, was right — so right 
 that it was wrong! She was confused, and she didn't like 
 feeling wrong when she knew she was right. Betsey had 
 made her feel that the social blunder was hers in not under- 
 standing Abe better. She knew, too, that she had hurt him, 
 deliberately, and that Abe Lincoln, gentleman or not as she 
 had been taught to construe the term, would never know- 
 ingly hurt any living thing 
 
 It was young Sam Abell who saw Abe first, when the sur- 
 veyor finally returned to the village from his trip. 
 
 The first place Abe went was to Sam Hill's, to look after 
 the mail that had accumulated in his absence, and there was 
 the Abell boy buying sugar and coffee for his mother, and 
 looking longingly at the whiskey mugs of the older men. 
 When would he be old enough to take a friendly drink, like 
 
 106 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 the grownups did ? speculated young Sam. Ma had told him 
 that when she was years younger than he, she had had egg- 
 nogs at home on Christmas day, but she didn't seem to think 
 that was whiskey. Well, she couldn't keep him from a chew 
 of tobacco now and then, and he could spit like a man. He 
 could hit Sam Hill's goboon at ten feet. 
 
 He'd just made a ringer, and was edging closer to the 
 group of men about the barrel to listen to their big talk, 
 when Abe strolled in, muddy, needing a shave, needing 
 sleep. Sam forgot all about trying to act grown up, and 
 rushed over to greet his friend. 
 
 "Abe, you were gone a long time! What were you doin'?" 
 
 "Markin' off a piece of land over Havana way," replied 
 Abe, talking to the boy as though he were his own height 
 and age. "It took a mite longer'n I reckoned on." 
 
 "Abe, take me with you next time! Let me go along, will 
 you? I could — well, I could carry things for you! Take me 
 with you!" Sam sensed adventure in Abe's surveying trips 
 which was no less attractive because it was entirely imagined. 
 "I could learn to be a surveyor, too! George Washin'ton 
 wasn't much older 'n me when he learned!" 
 
 "I guess he wasn't," agreed Abe soberly, knowing better 
 than to laugh at a boy in his teens, and then, judging he'd 
 waited long enough so that he wouldn't seem over-eager, 
 "How's your folks?" 
 
 "Oh, they're all right. Ma's ailin' again. Same old thing 
 ever' day on the farm— milk the cows, take 'em out to pas- 
 ture, clean the barn, haul water, haul wood, mend fences. 
 I wisht I was a surveyor an' a represen'ative maybe goin' to 
 be governor!" 
 
 107 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 "How's Miss Mary?" persisted Abe, ignoring the boy's 
 effusion. 
 
 "Oh, she's busy gaddin' around the country," replied Sam. 
 "Or talkin' to Ma about how things used to be when they 
 were both home in Kaintuck' an' had darkies to wait on 'em 
 hand an' foot. I never saw a darky. What're they like?" 
 
 "Very like you and me," replied Abe, "except that their 
 skins are dark. And sometimes I think they're happier. They 
 have a great capacity for happiness, Sam. They have to have, 
 for they live only in the present. They have nothing to look 
 forward to." 
 
 Sam wasn't quite up to sociological considerations. He was 
 still thinking about surveying. "Would it take me long to 
 learn? To be a surveyor? Would it?" 
 
 Abe smiled down at the boy from his great height. "It 
 took me a long time, but perhaps you'd learn faster. Are you 
 going home now?" 
 
 "Well, pretty soon, if Sam ever gets his face out of the 
 whiskey bar'l long enough to wrap me up some sugar an' 
 coffee." 
 
 "Then tell your aunt that I'll be out to see her as soon as 
 I get fixed up, will you ?" 
 
 Abe went then to look over the mail, and young Sam 
 gazed after him sorrowfully. Women! Thinkin' about wo- 
 men! Abe Lincoln, the greatest man in the world prit-near, 
 runnin' hisse'f in circles tryin' to please a woman, even if 
 she was Sam's own kin! Well, Sam would never rig himse'f 
 up like a senator an' go traipsin' all over the county after a 
 female! There was men's work to do in the world, like 
 
 108 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Indian shooting and surveying and getting to be represen'a- 
 tive and maybe governor! 
 
 Sam spat at the goboon again, missed, and strolled dis- 
 consolately outside. Everything was wrong since Aunt Mary 
 came this time. The boys had to sleep three-four in a bed, 
 and they had to wet their hair down for dinner till it looked 
 like they'd put bear's grease on it, and they had to wait on 
 her like she was the Queen of England. And now Abe Lin- 
 coln was making a fool of himself over her! "I'd like to 
 find me a island and live there, where there ain't any women 
 a-tall," he brooded. Then he remembered that Ma was bak- 
 ing today, and wondered how soon his groceries would be 
 ready so that he could start back 
 
 Inside the store, Abe tackled the mail with a light heart. 
 Everything was going to be all right, after all. He'd been 
 wrong that day coming home from the Bowling Green's, 
 and he'd tell Mary so, and everything would be fine! 
 
 109 
 
06*fO&i Tlmetcm 
 
 Of, 
 
 ELL, HE SAID HE S COMIN , AN I TOLD YOU, AND THAT S 
 
 all I care," Sam told his aunt. He grabbed another doughnut 
 from the big wooden bowl on the table, and made for the 
 barn, where life was predictable. 
 
 Betsey didn't like the thin, tight line around Mary's mouth, 
 so she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the 
 table to gather her forces. 
 
 "You don't have to go to Cousin Mentor's today, Mary," 
 she opened up. 
 
 "I'm afraid I do," Mary replied. "They're expecting me, 
 and we've made other plans for the rest of the week. I'm 
 going." 
 
 "Mary!" protested Betsey, knowing it would do no good, 
 for when Mary got into one of these hard-to-handle moods, 
 there was no persuading her, "if you go away after he's sent 
 you word he's coming, it will be just the last straw! Abe 
 Lincoln isn't a man you can play cat and mouse with!" 
 
 Mary's mouth only got stubborner. "He left without send- 
 ing any word," she reminded her sister, "and he stayed away 
 until he got right good and ready to come back. But he 
 thinks that all he has to do is send out a command, and I'll 
 
 110 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 upset all my plans and wait for him! Who does he think 
 he is — the president?" 
 
 "Oh Mary!" Betsey floundered helplessly. "It doesn't mat- 
 ter what he thinks as long as he likes you, does it?" 
 
 "It matters to me what I think. I've made my plans to go 
 to the Grahams today, and I'm going. Your Mr. Lincoln 
 evidently doesn't understand the importance of keeping one's 
 social engagements. There's a very great deal that he doesn't 
 understand. And," it was a last-minute inspiration — "if he's 
 so anxious to see me, he can come along over. The Grahams 
 are his friends, too." 
 
 That ought to be a real test, she gloated inwardly. If he 
 really wanted to heal their quarrel, let him put himself out 
 a little, instead of expecting her to dance to whatever tune 
 he chose to play! "When he comes, Betsey, tell him where 
 I am. Tell him that the Grahams are expecting me, that I 
 have to keep my word, but that if he likes, he may come 
 and fetch me home." 
 
 Betsey didn't like it at all, but there was nothing she could 
 do. There was no holding Mary, no convincing her that Abe 
 wasn't giving her "commands" but was taking it for granted 
 that she'd be glad enough to see him to push other plans 
 aside for him after he'd been away for so many days. You 
 couldn't tell Mary anything. She would do as she pleased, 
 in spite of hell and high water. 
 
 "But I can't tell him she deliberately went away when she 
 knew he was coming," Betsey told herself when Mary had 
 gone. "He just wouldn't understand. If this thing is ever to 
 be straightened out, somebody has got to use some sense. 
 And it's perfectly clear that neither Abe nor Mary will!" 
 
 ill 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 She was getting tired of trying to run a love affair that was 
 like a run-away colt and wouldn't take to harness. Well, 
 she'd try once more to patch it up and give them another 
 chance. 
 
 Abe came in with little Oliver dangling from one hand, 
 and the boy was talking two-forty. 
 
 "I heard Sam tell her you were coming, but she went off 
 anyhow," Oliver was saying. "She acted like she was kinda 
 mad. But you can visit with us. You can tell me about Black 
 Hawk an' the 'Talisman' — " Abe's adventures ran all together 
 in the little boy's mind, as though they'd happened simul- 
 taneously. And he was delighted at the prospect of having 
 Abe "visit with us," and pay some attention to him instead 
 of talking to Aunt Mary all the time. 
 
 But Abe brushed him aside, and confronted Betsey. "She 
 knew I was coming," he accused her, as though it were 
 Betsey's fault. "Oliver heard Sam tell her so." 
 
 "She'd told the Grahams she was coming," Betsey blun- 
 dered. "They were expecting her, and she felt she had to 
 keep her word. Why don't you go on over and bring her 
 back?" 
 
 "No." He had been gone over two weeks, and he'd asked 
 her to wait here for his call today. She'd seen the Grahams 
 constantly, ever since her arrival. They weren't so important, 
 even if they were kin! The way folks ran back and forth 
 visiting each other here, it wasn't like a "social engagement" 
 that demanded keeping. Even Mary's exaggerated social 
 sense didn't require that. No, she had gone because she 
 wanted to go, because she was still angry at him, and wanted 
 to hurt him. 
 
 112 
 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "I'll go along back to town," he told Betsey against her 
 urging that he wait for Mary, or at least visit with the family 
 for a while. "I don't feel much for visiting." 
 
 On the long walk back to the village, even the early moon, 
 peeking around the bluff, seemed to be laughing at him. 
 Sneering. He was tired, and hurt, and bewildered. 
 
 What was wrong? he asked himself again. Was he so 
 clumsy, so personally objectionable, that his devotion meant 
 nothing to Mary? Couldn't she understand that he would 
 do anything he could, try anything, to please her, to make 
 her happy? Was the whole trouble only that he wasn't a 
 gentleman according to her definition of the word? But 
 surely she was an intelligent person; she could see beyond 
 surface veneer — or lack of it — to the real worth underneath! 
 She could — if she wanted to. If — oh, if he could only under- 
 stand women! What were they, what did they think, what 
 did they want of a man and of life! Why wasn't a man's 
 love, himself, enough? 
 
 Or was it all a game to them? A game for power, for 
 advantage, a man's pawn against a woman's queen? 
 
 No, not with Mary. She was too honest. And yet, what 
 other explanation would there be, unless it was just femi- 
 nine perversity, which Mary, being a woman, could not 
 entirely escape? 
 
 Back at the Tavern at last, Abe threw himself dejectedly 
 across the bed (he never could lie straight in a bed, they 
 were all too short), physically and emotionally exhausted, 
 not knowing what to do next, nor even what he wanted to do. 
 
 Trying to figure it all out long after he should have been 
 
 113 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 sleeping, he could still only question himself: "Why are 
 women such a profound wonder to me?" 
 
 Mary wasn't very happy that night, either. 
 
 As she walked home alone from the Mentor Grahams, 
 she wondered why in the world she had treated Lincoln so. 
 She hadn't wanted to be rude, had not intended to humiliate 
 him. She wasn't in the habit of coquetry, let alone cruelty. 
 For she knew quite well that Abe's crudeness was only a 
 matter of training— or rather, lack of it— and had nothing 
 whatever to do with his innate kindness or his mental ability. 
 And that lack of training was not his fault, and couldn't be 
 charged against him personally. 
 
 She tried to tell herself, in self-defense, that since he was 
 capable of learning other things, he was also able to learn 
 the rudiments of good breeding — if he were willing. That 
 there was no hope for her of happiness with him unless he 
 should learn. 
 
 But intuition told her that she might have goaded him 
 too far this time. And she didn't want to end his courtship — 
 yet. The trouble was, she couldn't make up her mind. There 
 was so much to recommend him as a husband — brains, 
 ambition, an amazing faculty for making friends, and an 
 almost unlimited capacity for hard work, if he were inter- 
 ested. There was also something pathetically endearing about 
 his clumsiness with women — his awkwardness in all the 
 little tricks of compliments and attention. Nor was his hon- 
 esty to be overlooked. Not only honesty in charging a fair 
 price and paying a debt and giving an employer once-and-a- 
 half the value of his wage. Honesty in words. Abe Lincoln 
 
 114 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 would never say a thing he did not mean, that he would not 
 stand by. He would never tell a woman he loved her unless 
 he did. The greater difficulty was in trying to decide whether 
 he loved her when he wouldn't tell! 
 
 So that all her mental arguing came back to one fact: that 
 she wasn't ready to say yes, and she wasn't ready to say no 
 to him. She needed more time, some particular incident, 
 some definite speech or act of his, a real admission of love, 
 to tip the scales and make her decision for her. 
 
 She certainly didn't want this quarrel to last. But how 
 she'd get out of it and save her face, she had no idea. 
 
 She, too, was physically and mentally exhausted by the 
 time she got home, and even the bed she shared with the 
 two Abell girls was welcome that night. 
 
 115 
 
(tyafiten, *?we*tty 
 
 3i> 
 
 AS ABE EVER COURTED A GIRL BEFORE?" MARY ASKED HER 
 
 sister next morning. She was curious, for she wanted to 
 settle in her own mind, once and for all, the recurring ques- 
 tion as to the reason for his crudeness. If it was lack of experi- 
 ence rather than want of consideration, perhaps there was 
 hope for him. A man couldn't be held guilty for lack of 
 opportunity to learn 
 
 "Why, I hardly know," replied Betsey, wringing out the 
 last of the baby diapers (which Mary had never offered to 
 help her with), and calling out the door for one of the girls 
 to come and hang them up to dry. She wiped her hands on 
 her apron then, and sat down to knit while they talked. It 
 was the fourth pair of mittens she'd made this fall, but she 
 still had three pairs to go before the bad weather set in, to 
 say nothing of her preparations for the new baby. The hand- 
 downs from one to another had worn out with constant 
 use, and unless she got busy, the new child would live as 
 naked as it arrived! 
 
 "I suppose he's had girl friends," she went on, "in spite 
 of his looks, women have always liked Abe. I don't know 
 
 116 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 that he's ever been serious about anyone. Unless," she added 
 thoughtfully, "it was Ann." 
 
 "Who was Ann?" 
 
 "Oh, I thought you knew. Ann Rutledge. Jim's daughter. 
 She died last year. Abe carried on pretty bad, but then every- 
 body in the village took it hard. She was a lovely girl. Very 
 sweet, and unassuming, and not at all spoiled by working 
 in the Tavern. But she was engaged, for years, to John Mc- 
 Neil. He went east to get his family, and stayed for three 
 years, and she stopped hearing from him. Folks said she 
 just pined away. Then, soon after she died, he came back, 
 but it was too late. The story is just like an English novel," 
 she added as an afterthought. "But about Abe, he's so honest, 
 and so decent, I don't believe he'd even think of seriously 
 courting a girl who was engaged to another man. He just 
 liked her, and felt bad when she died." 
 
 Mary had not heard of the account of the romance. One 
 fact had filled her mind. "She worked in — in a tavern?" 
 she asked, incredulous. 
 
 "She helped her father," returned Betsey with some asper- 
 ity. "Jim Rutledge's place isn't a saloon, it's an inn. They 
 had regular boarders there, very few travelers. Why, Abe 
 lived there when you visited here before." 
 
 "Was Abe in love with her?" persisted Mary. 
 
 "I told you. Nobody ever knew. He might have been, if 
 she'd been free. But she was promised to John McNeil. Mc- 
 Namar, his name really was. He changed it when he came 
 out here." 
 
 Mary was mollified. Even if Abe had been in love with 
 the tavernkeeper's daughter, the girl had been only an ordi- 
 
 117 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 nary, pioneer child, who helped with the menial work about 
 the place and had probably been totally uneducated. So, she 
 concluded, Abe's blundering was due entirely to his lack of 
 experience. Never having known a lady before, he just didn't 
 know how to act. That made some difference. 
 
 "Betsey," she ventured hesitantly, but swallowing her pride 
 at last, "we quarreled pretty badly before he went away. I 
 reckon I fussed at him too much. And then last night .... 
 would you be willing to ask him to come out, I mean, ask 
 him specially, yourself?" 
 
 Betsey didn't think much of that idea. Mary had been 
 wrong, she had been more inconsiderate than she'd ever 
 accused Abe of being, and it was up to her to ask him to 
 come back. But, after more argument, Betsey finally agreed, 
 just because she saw no hope of patching up the stubborn 
 romance in any other way. Somebody in this crazy business 
 had to use some sense. 
 
 It was almost time for Abe Lincoln to return to Vandalia. 
 He was keenly interested in this session of the legislature. 
 For now he knew the ropes; he had served his apprentice- 
 ship. He was through listening, and ready to speak up when 
 it came his turn. 
 
 At last, some action was going to be taken toward the 
 establishment of a permanent state capital. With the new 
 influx of settlers from the East into the northern part of the 
 state, Vandalia was no longer the center of population. At 
 the same time, the roads and transportation were not im- 
 proving in proportion to the demands made upon them, 
 and it became increasingly difficult for members to get to 
 
 118 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 and from Vandalia. The booming state of Illinois needed a 
 new capital, one which would be easily accessible to all of 
 its legislators, one nearer to the center of the state. Proposals 
 for the moving of the capital were to come before the legis- 
 lature this session. 
 
 Abe wanted the permanent capital to be located at Spring- 
 field, in his own county. And he was ready to move heaven 
 and earth and a couple of committees to do it. The benefit 
 to Springfield and to the county would be immeasurable. 
 New residents, new money, new ideas would create a boom 
 in Springfield which nothing else short of a gold mine could 
 produce, to say nothing of the standing the town would 
 gain throughout the state. 
 
 Abe saw, too, his opportunity for personal success in the 
 battle for the new location. If he could put that over, he was 
 made with his own constituency, and moreover, the whole 
 legislative body would recognize him as a serious protago- 
 nist. 
 
 He had it all figured out, too. Every constituency in the 
 state was after appropriations for internal improvements. 
 Every county wanted a road, a bridge, a drainage canal, or 
 something that could be financed by state money. But San- 
 gamon County wanted the state capital. The Sangamon 
 delegation — eight tall men besides himself, so nearly of a 
 size that they were already being called the "Long Nine" — 
 looked to him as their leader and would vote with him as 
 one man. A little trading here, a little support there from 
 the Long Nine, and the other counties would get their roads 
 — and Springfield would become the capital. It would be as 
 easy as that. With a little luck thrown in. 
 
 119 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 He was ready for it, eager for it, and already his mind 
 had arrived in Vandalia and had gone to work. The last few 
 days in New Salem, he felt disembodied, as one in a night- 
 mare who looks across the room and sees himself sitting 
 over there in the corner, both observer and observed. It was 
 uncanny. Here he was in New Salem, but he wasn't here 
 at all. He was a man in a dream, an automaton, making 
 motions. 
 
 There was that matter of unfinished business to attend to 
 before he left. That unsettled question with Mary. He had 
 work to do in Vandalia, and he didn't want any emotional 
 uncertainties nagging at his mind, distracting his attention. 
 He wanted the thing settled, one way or the other. The 
 woman would simply have to make up her mind. 
 
 Why am I so perverse when I'm with him ? Mary thought 
 desperately as she listened with half an ear to Abe's predic- 
 tions of the coming battles in the legislature. When he's 
 away, I weigh his good qualities against his bad ones, and 
 I have sense enough to recognize that his faults are super- 
 ficial, and that his mind and his character more than make 
 up for them. Then when I see him, he rubs me all the wrong 
 way! I get my arguments piled up in neat stacks, and decide 
 reasonably that he'd make a fine husband in spite of every- 
 thing, and then he comes to see me, and I'm no more certain 
 than I was the last time he was here! Why can't I decide? 
 It isn't fair to him not to! 
 
 She was really pleased with the interest he took in his 
 work. When he talked of the political world and his grow- 
 ing place in it, his ugly face lit up until there was a kind of 
 
 120 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 beauty in it — it became alive and eager, and the rough lines 
 softened. His speech was improving too, she thought. He 
 was beginning to get the feel of an audience. A kind of 
 dramatic quality colored his simplest statements. Yes, he 
 was surely growing, his personality taking on bolder, surer 
 outlines. 
 
 But still she couldn't answer his inevitable question. 
 
 When he had finished describing to her a midget-sized 
 lawyer from Jacksonville, named Douglas, whom he reck- 
 oned "the least man I've ever seen" but one with a good deal 
 of fireworks in his nature, Mary knew he was about talked 
 out, and she guessed what was coming next. And she was 
 no nearer an answer than she'd ever been. She was also very 
 unhappy about it. 
 
 So when he stopped for breath and said, "Now, Mary, 
 about us," she tried to be gentle, as kind as she knew how 
 to be. 
 
 All she could say, surely, was, "Abe, why don't you just 
 forget that you've formally proposed to me, and go to 
 Vandalia and your work, free? I'm just not certain — yet. 
 Marriage is such a definite, finished, desperate affair, and 
 it's so terribly important to a woman, that I can't go into 
 it without being sure. I admire you so very much, Abe, and 
 I'm frightfully fond of you. You've no idea how I'll miss 
 you. But I'm afraid I haven't fallen in love with you." 
 
 "What is 'falling in love,' Mary?" he asked. "How would 
 you ever know?" 
 
 "All I know," she replied, "is that if a girl is in love, she 
 doesn't question. She knows. So, as long as I have any doubt 
 at all, well, I'm just not in love." 
 
 121 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 The divine fire, the great ecstasy, the thing the poets 
 rhymed about? If that was what she wanted, would she — 
 could she — ever find it in him? he questioned himself bit- 
 terly. And if that was love, if the poetic flame was a human 
 experience and not the creation of imaginative rhymers, it 
 had surely never happened to him. Whether it ever would, 
 he doubted. For man's frame can house only one mighty 
 conflagration, and his was ambition. He knew that now. 
 He had offered this woman what he had to give, and more 
 no man could tender. Yet, he must care, in his own way, 
 for he wasn't willing to give up. It was more than just a 
 matter of a bargain with her sister. He wanted to marry 
 this girl, if only he could be sure of pleasing her and mak- 
 ing her happy. 
 
 "Mary," he urged, "I must have some definite understand- 
 ing with you, soon. Perhaps you'll be able to think more 
 clearly about it after I've gone. Will you write me so that I 
 may have your letters soon after I reach Vandalia?" 
 
 His face and his voice were so pleading, and the few days' 
 respite he offered so attractive, that Mary had to promise. 
 He might be right. When he had gone, perhaps she could 
 straighten out her thoughts. She knew quite well that she 
 owed him her answer, if only for courtesy's sake. And may- 
 be — maybe something would happen to help her decide, to | 
 sway her judgment one way or the other. 
 
 "Yes, Abe, I'll write you," she promised. "Soon. You can 
 depend on that." 
 
 He seemed happier, calmer, when he said goodnight and 
 started back over the familiar way to the village. Yet there 
 
 122 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 was something pathetic about the long, patient stride of the 
 man. She had treated him abominably, and she knew it. 
 
 "Oh Lord," she thought, "help me to decide! Help me 
 to make up my mind soon!" 
 
 But her thoughts were in greater confusion than ever, 
 and she hadn't much hope. 
 
 123 
 
(Z&afiten, twenty One 
 
 </, 
 
 T WAS LIKE THE OPENING MOVEMENTS OF A CHECKER GAME, 
 
 thought Abe the first day of the December session. Routine 
 motions filled the day; the election of a speaker, a door- 
 keeper, unimportant details taking up important time, while 
 each coterie measured the strength of its opponents and 
 figured out its own plan of action. 
 
 Familiar to Abe now were the rippling undercurrents of 
 excitement, the pull of urgency against the need for caution 
 and wariness, the necessity of estimating to the last fraction 
 of an ounce the weight of one's adversaries. The need for 
 perfect timing, for patience. Play both ends against the mid- 
 dle: one delegation's greed or downright necessity against 
 another's civic pride; and then if you're lucky, if you play it 
 without depending on luck and the luck comes along to 
 help just a little bit, you'll get what you want. You'll get the 
 capital moved to Springfield. We need roads and bridges 
 and canals, and God knows what we don't need in Sangamon 
 County, but we need the capital more than anything. If we 
 get the capital, the other things will come. 
 
 It would be a slow game, and a long one, and nothing 
 
 124 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 could be done at all until after the Governor's address, which 
 was scheduled for Friday. 
 
 In the interim, Abe had time to think about Mary Owens. 
 
 She had promised to write to him, but day followed day 
 without word from her. Between his impatience for a letter, 
 the inactivity in the House, and general fatigue, Abe fell 
 into one of those brooding black spells of melancholy, when 
 life itself seemed too difficult to sustain. 
 
 He had hoped that, back here in Vandalia, in his own 
 world (it was a long way back to New Salem, not only in 
 miles, but in the distance that he had traveled since first 
 leaving the village!) he would be able to see his strange love 
 affair in better proportion, with some kind of perspective. 
 Perhaps he wouldn't even want to marry Mary then! 
 
 Searching his motives now, he suspected that his court- 
 ship had been impelled more by pride than by interest. 
 Granted that Mary had been a congenial mental companion 
 (when she wasn't fussing at him), and that he could do 
 much worse than marry her, the gist of it was that the wo- 
 man's vacillation attacked his self-esteem until she became 
 a challenge, a "double-dare" that he could not ignore, and 
 it was necessary to his ego to get a "yes" out of her, whether 
 he actually wanted it or not. Somehow, he had to convince 
 her that Abe Lincoln would be a good catch, even for Squire 
 Owens' daughter. 
 
 As time frittered away and there was no letter from her — 
 she had said, "You can depend on it!" — he decided that he 
 must again take the initiative, and at least remind her of 
 his existence. 
 
 Already the politician who must weigh every statement 
 
 125 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 to which he signed his name, Abe labored slowly over the 
 letter, and then, after several bad starts, hit on what he 
 thought was just the right mixture of personalities and gen- 
 eral information. By now, the governor had made his open- 
 ing speech, Taylor had delivered his petition for a new 
 county, there'd been an Internal Improvement Convention. 
 Things were lining up, and he had something to tell her. 
 She had always been interested in politics. In fact, they'd 
 had their best talks when he was telling her about the doings 
 in the House. 
 
 But he told her, too, that he had been unwell, for it was 
 true, and he had always found her sympathetic. ". . . . that, 
 with other things I can not account f or . . . ." she might, 
 if she liked, attribute her silence as one of the things! "have 
 conspired and have gotten my spirits so low, that I feel I 
 
 would rather be any place in the world than here Write 
 
 back as soon as you get this, and if possible, say something 
 that will please me, for really I have not been pleased since 
 I left you." That ought to do it! That ought to prove his 
 feeling for her (even though he wasn't sure of it himself!) 
 without laying his pride too wide open to hurt. At the very 
 worst, the letter would remind her of him, perhaps goad 
 her to answer. 
 
 Reading it over after he had finished it — it was a mighty 
 long letter — Abe found that he had said nothing he really 
 wanted to write, and what he had said he'd done badly. He 
 was too tired to start over. Surely, she would understand. 
 If she didn't, it was still the best he could do. He posted the 
 letter, and tried to compose himself to wait. 
 
 12* 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Bennett Abell came home from the village so much dis- 
 turbed that he didn't even ask Mary for news of Abe's doings 
 in the letter he had brought her. He had news of his own. 
 
 "The town seems to be fallin' apart," he told the women, 
 "nobody's interested in the church, or the clubs, or the doin's 
 any more, and all you hear is talk of better land somewhere 
 yonder. Ever since the 'Utility' grounded, they've been 
 gittin' an itchin' foot, one after another. And Taylor, settin' 
 up over in Petersburg. Even the drunkards are leavin'." 
 
 Betsey crumbled her cornbread, thoughtfully. "The village 
 didn't lose anything when it lost Doc Regnier and Jack 
 Kelso." Discouragement had set in when the boat "Utility" 
 floundered, and the settlement had to admit at last that the 
 river wasn't navigable. The settlers, she and Bennett among 
 them, had dreamed great dreams of the development of the 
 region, and the hopes had been pinned to the false promise 
 of the Sangamon. No town can grow, and become great, if 
 it can't move goods in and out. 
 
 But that wasn't all of it, Betsey reflected. It was more as if 
 the motive force of the town had gone, the one personality 
 that gave it excuse for living. It had served its purpose, and 
 now the village had no reason to struggle on. 
 
 "It isn't the river alone, Bennett," she told him. "It just 
 seems as if Abe held the town together. He sort of kept folks 
 going, and kept them interested, and — and contented. If 
 he'd settled here, they wouldn't have got that itch in their 
 feet." 
 
 Bennett thought it was just like a woman to find senti- 
 mental rather than practical reasons for the town's disinte- 
 gration. New Salem was dying. There was no future here, 
 
 127 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 not even for a farmer. Not for a man who, albeit he was 
 approaching middle age, had not many years ago dreamed 
 of building an empire in the West. Bennett doubted if he'd 
 find what he wanted as close by as Petersburg, Jacksonville, 
 or Beardstown. 
 
 "They say Missouri's a right fertile country," he offered, 
 and a far-away look crept into his eyes, the look that Betsey 
 had seen fifteen years ago, when he was courting her, and 
 talking of Illinois. To move, to pull up their roots and trek 
 over the country again, to a new wilderness, forsaking all 
 they had built here, to start over, no longer young, with 
 half of their working years behind them 
 
 "I wonder if he'll ever come back to stay?" she mused 
 aloud, even while she knew the answer. 
 
 "Who?" asked Bennett, his thoughts in Missouri. "Your 
 brother Sam ?" Sam Owens had gone out to Missouri several 
 years ago, and though he didn't write often, the family 
 judged he was doing well. 
 
 "Why Abe, of course. He could put new life into New 
 Salem. He could save it." 
 
 "He couldn't open up the river," replied Bennett dog- 
 gedly. A town had to have transportation. It had to get its 
 goods out, and necessities in. Petersburg might live and it 
 might not, but Chicago was booming because it crouched 
 on the shore of Lake Michigan. 
 
 Missouri, on the other side of the Mississippi, with 
 access to the Gulf and the sea, should be a better place than 
 any for a man with empiric ideas. There was no false promise 
 in the Mississippi. It rushed on turbulently to the Gulf, and 
 commerce flowed with it, surely and without mishap, to the 
 
 128 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 rich market of New Orleans. Abe Lincoln couldn't save it. 
 Nothing could save it. 
 
 "No, Betsey," he told her, "Abe won't be back to stay. He 
 never had his feet stuck to the ground." 
 
 In her heart, Betsey knew that he was right. Abe had no 
 feel for the land, no longing for possession or property, no 
 inclination for business. His place was in the world of men 
 and ideas, not with the plows and the mill wheels. Already 
 he had begun, he had shown what he could do, and all she 
 could sincerely feel for him was happiness in his growing 
 success, and an aching nostalgia for the old days of comrade- 
 ship when, easy and even a little lazy, not yet dogged by any 
 definite ambition, he had sat at her board and told her the 
 light news of the day. Those times were gone, as their youth 
 was gone, and he had his eyes set on some far place that none 
 of them could see. He'd reach that place — but she snapped 
 back abruptly to the present problem of her unmanageable 
 sister. Would Mary Owens have horse sense enough to be 
 at his side when he got there ? 
 
 Mary had paid little attention to the talk at dinner. She 
 had been re-reading in her mind that strange letter from Abe. 
 
 For a man who had so urgently pressed his demand for 
 marriage before he left, it certainly wasn't what you could 
 call a love letter! 
 
 Grant that he still didn't know where he stood with her, 
 and that she had failed to keep her solemn promise of writ- 
 ing to him — and that only because she hadn't known what 
 to say-— still, a two-page letter filled with nothing but political 
 
 129 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 talk and complaints of his health wouldn't help her much 
 to make up her mind. 
 
 She was dismayed, as she had been since the beginning of 
 his courtship, by his lack of warmth, the absence of any 
 indication that he cared for her. He had said everything 
 except what she wanted him to say. He had written of his 
 health, which of course would concern any woman who was 
 interested in him, of his growing importance as a Repre- 
 sentative, and the promise of success in his activities. He 
 hadn't told her that he loved her. That was the only thing 
 that she wanted to know. 
 
 Well, in all decency, she'd have to answer his letter. She'd 
 answer him in kind. He'd get back the same sort of inane 
 letter he had written. How else could she write? 
 
 When she came to write him, she told him of the unrest 
 in New Salem, of Bennett's yearning for Missouri, the small 
 talk of their neighbors, and expressed her sincere concern 
 for his health. Why were they trying to hold sessions of the 
 Legislature in the unfinished, unheated building which Van- 
 dalia was pushing up too rapidly in the hope of retaining 
 the capital there? It was a wonder they didn't all die from 
 exposure! 
 
 That was the best she could do. She still needed time — time 
 or some deciding circumstance — to enable her to give him a 
 definite answer. Moreover, she thought in some pique, in his 
 own letter he hadn't asked for an answer to his oft-repeated 
 question. Let him stew a while longer 
 
 130 
 
@6afit&i twenty *7W 
 
 3 
 
 Y THE TIME MARY S REPLY REACHED ABE, THE LEGISLATURE 
 
 was getting into full swing, and he could indulge in only 
 momentary disappointment and anger at the commonplace 
 and indefinite quality of her letter. 
 
 Douglas — he whom Abe had described to Mary as "the 
 least man IVe even seen" — had brought in from the Com- 
 mittee on Petitions a bill for the formation of a new county 
 out of a portion of Sangamon. The proposed county seemed 
 to Abe ridiculously small in area to constitute a political 
 entity, so he jumped into the fracas, glad of action at last. 
 Getting himself onto a select committee with Wilson of his 
 own county and Richardson of Schuyler, he decided at last 
 to throw his weight for acceptance of a compromise bill, 
 even though acceptance could hardly be expected. But the 
 debate was good. He was getting into things again, making 
 himself heard, not letting them forget him. He was building 
 up to the big fight for the relocation of the capital, and every 
 small triumph helped. 
 
 The creation of the new county was a major issue. For if 
 the representation of Sangamon County was cut, they might 
 not pass the Seat-of-Government Bill. When, just before 
 
 131 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Christmas, proposals for the system of internal improvements 
 were brought up, the plots and counter-plots thickened, and 
 the real drama began to develop. 
 
 Abe was really interested in the improvements, and when 
 a petition came up to change the state road which ran by 
 John McNeil's farm, out in the Sand Ridge neighborhood 
 northwest of New Salem, it seemed like he owed it to John 
 to let him know, and advise his friend that if he didn't want 
 the road changed, he'd better stir himself to protest. 
 
 All the time, though, Abe was chafing against the delay, 
 the waiting, the leading up to the big fight. The death and 
 funeral of Resolve Graham, from Gallatin, with the resultant 
 recess and inaction following right after the Christmas holi- 
 day, were more minor irritations. 
 
 He had little time to think about Mary Owens. When he 
 did think of her, she was only a nagging bit of unfinished 
 business, that teased his pride — a problem that must be taken 
 care of when his important work was completed. He had no 
 need right now for letters that would "please" him. He was 
 almighty well pleased with himself. 
 
 Slowly, like the slowed-down motions in a dream, the 
 internal improvement bill — that legislation which was to 
 saddle the state with an eight-million-dollar debt in spite of 
 nation-wide indications of panic — was shaping up. They 
 propped up the wobbling State Bank with two million dol- 
 lars' worth of stock, and congratulated themselves on their 
 foresightedness, Abe Lincoln along with the rest. What 
 better way was there to use the taxpayers' money than in 
 stabilizing their own Bank? Prosperity was here to stay. 
 
 132 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 It was hey-day in the Legislature, and Abe Lincoln was 
 having the time of his life. 
 
 After the tension of the day, there was nothing much to 
 do except gather around at one another's living quarters and 
 look over the day's spoils and plan the next maneuver. 
 
 Abe found that these fellows — Senators and Representa- 
 tives — some of them substantial businessmen, some estab- 
 lished lawyers, some seasoned politicians, were just about the 
 same kind of folks as those he'd left behind in New Salem. 
 
 He dug out some of his old stories, and his colleagues 
 laughed just as hard, sitting about a fancy hotel lobby, as 
 Henry Onstot and Denton Offutt had, straddling upturned 
 whiskey kegs back in the old store. 
 
 Good black cigars — though he never smoked them; some- 
 times liquor fumes — though he never drank; and good talk 
 and good fellowship. Men who thought in terms of two mil- 
 lion dollars for the Bank instead of two bushels of corn. Men 
 who were concerned with the election of a state senator 
 rather than a local justice of the peace. But they were the 
 same kind of people he had known so well in New Salem. 
 They wanted the same things out of life — success and secu- 
 rity, and a little fun as they went along. They liked the same 
 kind of jokes. 
 
 Abe told them about the Sangamon River boat with the 
 five-foot boiler and the seven-foot whistle, and the horse he'd 
 ridden in the Indian War that had once belonged to an 
 undertaker who had sold it because it couldn't get the corpse 
 to the cemetery in time for the resurrection; he told them 
 
 133 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 how his father had grubbed hazelnut bushes back in Indiana 
 so that the farm wouldn't know it was for sale. 
 
 But it was pretty Eliza Browning, wife of Orville Brown- 
 ing from Quincy, who stimulated him to his brightest sallies. 
 
 Browning, being a member of the Senate, was not involvec 
 in the Sangamon delegation's intrigues in the House, but h< 
 was sympathetic to their desire to make Springfield the capi- 
 tal of the state, and he promised Abe full support for th( 
 project when the question came to the upper house. 
 
 Browning liked Abe Lincoln. He liked him so much that 
 he introduced the Whig leader of the lower house to his wife. 
 
 Abe's confidence was running so high that he was not 
 embarrassed when he met the Senator's lovely wife. In fact, 
 he was so much at ease that she discovered quite readily what 
 her husband had seen in the sprouting politician who, in 
 spite of his obvious growing pains, had almost reached his 
 height and needed only to fill out a little to become a real 
 power in the state. 
 
 Eliza Browning's charm and quick sympathy drew him 
 out without his realizing it. 
 
 "I understand, Mr. Lincoln," she told him, "that you are 
 from Kentucky, too." 
 
 "Yes ma'am," he replied seriously, "but not your part of 
 Kentucky." 
 
 He was so unassuming and genuine that they became 
 friends at once. 
 
 This was a new kind of woman, different from any Abe 
 had ever known. As comfortable as Betsey Abell, but as 
 polished as though she'd spent her whole life in the courts of 
 Europe. Friendly and sympathetic and understanding, with- 
 
 134 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 out the critical attitude which had made his friendship with 
 Mary so difficult. 
 
 She knew politics, too. She listened by the hour to her 
 husband's and Abe's accounts of the by-play of wits in the 
 Legislature, and she laughed with them or became serious or 
 angry with them, as the case warranted. 
 
 Mary Owens was not a woman like this, he reflected. Com- 
 pared with Mrs. Browning, she was provincial and limited in 
 her outlook, in spite of her education. And she had none of 
 Eliza Browning's tolerance or warmth in friendship. 
 
 Moreover, Orville Browning's wife was safely married, 
 and there was no question of his friendship for her being 
 misunderstood 
 
 Through a mass of detail that you couldn't stir with a 
 stick, the Legislature plodded on until at last, early in Feb- 
 ruary, the first move toward the relocation of the capital 
 was made, in an attempt to repeal the Act of 1833 designed 
 to locate permanently the seat of the state government. 
 
 That Act had to be disposed of first, and Abe led the 
 move for its repeal. He could show his hand now, for the 
 drama was in the last act. No need for diplomacy any 
 longer — the excitement was on. 
 
 That excitement lasted a long time. Day after day annoy- 
 ing by-plays were introduced, with the Fayette County ( Van- 
 dalia) contingent trying to table the bill every time their 
 position got shaky. First they tried to put it over to Decem- 
 ber, 1839; failing that, they attempted to set it aside and or- 
 ganize a board of seven commissioners to ascertain the exact 
 geographical center of the state. Defeated again, another 
 
 135 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 bunch of partisans tried to table the bill until July fourth. 
 That was on a Saturday, and Abe pushed through a motion 
 to table the bill only until Monday, and also wore down a 
 countermove to submit the whole thing to the people. 
 
 It wasn't until the following Friday that, by a circumlocu- 
 tionary process worthy of a bird dog stalking its prey, he was 
 able to force the bill to issue, and he pounded through an 
 amendment providing that the General Assembly reserve 
 the right to repeal the new Act at any later date it pleased. 
 That was putting sugar on the pill which was apparently 
 so distasteful to everyone but the members of the Sangamon 
 delegation. 
 
 On Saturday, February 25, the Senate reported (thank 
 heaven for Orville Browning!) its approval of the bill pro- 
 viding for a permanent location of the capital, and Abe knew 
 it was all over but the shouting. All over, that was, except the 
 actual selection of the site, and Abe knew that, if his friends 
 kept their commitments as he had kept his through all the 
 crazy balancing and counter-balancing, Springfield would 
 win. 
 
 Can you take a man's word when spoils are at stake? 
 Would some of his pledges, gained through friendship and 
 mutual benefit, be bought off at the last minute ? He couldn't 
 tell. A man can only plug up every leak he can see, and pray 
 that there aren't any he can't see, or that his worst adversary 
 will break a leg the night before the final voting. 
 
 All of Monday the House fooled around with petty dis- 
 cussion and parliamentary motions, while the tension grew 
 and half the members began to wonder if they'd get home 
 by spring. Monday the twenty-seventh was the day the House 
 
 136 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 had set for adjournment. Everyone was restive, tired of dis- 
 cussion, tired of chasing one another around Robin Hood's 
 barn. 
 
 By Tuesday even the diehards were ready to vote. And 
 Springfield won on the fourth ballot. 
 
 The struggle, the excitement, the fun, were over. And 
 Abe Lincoln's name was made in the Legislature. He'd done 
 it— he'd killed the bear. Now he could go back to New Salem 
 with real spoils! 
 
 137 
 
(tyafiten *?w&tfy Vfaee 
 
 o. 
 
 N THE WAY BACK TO NEW SALEM, ABE BEGAN TO THINK OF 
 
 Mary again. 
 
 It seemed to him she should be right well pleased with 
 what he would be able to tell her. Not only with his bagging 
 the capital for Springfield, but with that last piece of diplo- 
 macy which he had saved until after the final vote on the 
 capital. 
 
 That was his formal protest, along with Dan Stone, against 
 the anti-abolitionist resolutions of January. While the capital 
 bill was pending, he and his colleague from Sangamon 
 hadn't dared protest against those resolutions, for fear of 
 antagonizing members whose support they needed for their 
 pet project. But now they could come out from behind their 
 bush and say what they thought. 
 
 The Illinois resolutions, following the pattern of those of 
 Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Connecticut, and New York, 
 Abe felt, were wrong. Illinois' formal stand on the question 
 that was inflaming the country — with William Lloyd Gar- 
 rison down east pouring coal-oil on the fire every time it 
 began to die down — was purely legal. The Illinois House 
 had declared that Congress has the right to deal with slavery 
 
 138 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 in the District of Columbia and nowhere else, and let it go 
 at that, and went blithely on to pass a resolution to encourage 
 the killing of wolves, as though both considerations fell 
 within the same category. 
 
 Well, thought Abe, and Dan Stone agreed with him, the 
 legal issue was only a small part of it. The trouble was that 
 the eastern abolitionists were, by their misunderstanding 
 and their violence, stirring up antagonism and panic in the 
 South until already they had undone the good that had been 
 accomplished over years toward the gradual betterment of 
 the slaves. 
 
 Slavery he hated. Human bondage in any form, for black 
 or white, had no place in a Christian nation. But the way of 
 Garrison and his followers was stirring up dissension that 
 might easily get out of hand and do more harm than good. 
 The way toward any improvement, political, economic, or 
 social, was through understanding and education, not 
 through hatred and violence. 
 
 So the protest, his and Stone's, spread on the House 
 Journal their belief that slavery is bad, but that the "pro- 
 mulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase 
 than abate the evils of slavery." 
 
 Mary should be pleased with that. He had never discussed 
 slavery with her much, but he knew how she felt about it. 
 She had grown up with slaves, and her father's attitude was 
 one of benevolent paternalism. Mary would hate the aboli- 
 tionists. And she would commend Abe's insight, and his 
 open declaration. 
 
 She would be pleased with a lot of things he'd done. 
 Returning to New Salem as the acknowledged Whig leader 
 
 139 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 in the House, with a record of real accomplishment behind 
 him and a new assurance in his thought and in his speech, 
 he was not the floundering blunderbuss who had humbly 
 urged his suit last November. He was a seasoned politician, 
 with a few laurels in his crown, and Eliza Browning's friend- 
 ship had made him feel that personally he was at least not 
 a monstrosity. 
 
 And he had been admitted to the Illinois Bar just before 
 the close of the Legislative Session — in fact, the day after 
 his victory on the capital location bill. Not only that, but 
 Major John T. Stuart, whom he had known in the Indian 
 War, the same Stuart who had first advised him to read law, 
 had asked him to come to Springfield as a partner in his 
 own law office. 
 
 There was no future for a lawyer in New Salem. Abe was 
 beginning to have his doubts of anyone's future there from 
 what he had heard. But Springfield, with the new capital 
 in sight, and partnership with a man of Stuart's caliber, was 
 an open door to so much opportunity that even he couldn't 
 gauge it. 
 
 Abe had something to offer Mary now. And with his con- 
 fidence and pride restored by the winter in Vandalia, he was 
 sure that this time her answer would be yes. Surely, she 
 could find no reason for hedging any longer. 
 
 As he made the long journey back to the village his dream< 
 were rosy, glowing with promise of success and happiness, 
 bright with hope. 
 
 And yet, the dreams were edged with nostalgia. For this 
 return to New Salem was only a visit, a brief re-acquaintance 
 with a part of his life that was done, that he had had to cast 
 
 140 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 off like an outgrown coat, even while he remembered its 
 warm comfort. The lazy, carefree days were gone. The loaf- 
 ing days, when he had been nagged by indecision, but when 
 there was still time to decide. The long, sunny hours, sitting 
 on the river bank with Jack Kelso, while Jack fished or 
 only talked; and there was the beauty of the water, and the 
 beauty of the words Jack knew, the poetry that sang like 
 the sparkling river. The good talk; the yarning in the stores, 
 the taverns, the mill, when men came in to pass the time of 
 day and sit in judgment on cabbages and kings. They gen- 
 erally ended up listening to the stories he'd picked up here 
 and yonder, or asking his advice and opinion on the current 
 political issues. Oh, he'd been a big toad-frog in a little 
 puddle in New Salem, back in that time before ambition 
 began to ride him, when every day had been sufEcient, and 
 he hadn't known where his next meal was to come from. 
 
 But the meals had always come, sometimes scanty, some- 
 times prodigal, and his ambition had crystallized. He could 
 no longer deny it. 
 
 New Salem was a part of his life to which he could return 
 now only for respite, for he had found his road, and the 
 signposts all pointed away. But he loved every tree, every 
 ditch and gulley, every turn and caprice of the bright San- 
 gamon, every house and cabin, man, woman, child, and 
 dog in the village. Saying goodbye to New Salem was saying 
 goodbye to part of himself, a person that he had been and 
 could be no longer. 
 
 Well, for a day or two he could come back. Get into that 
 old self, and wander over the hillside, loaf along the stream, 
 and talk mighty talk in the stores and in the taverns. 
 
 141 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Spring was creeping over the March fields, and there 
 might be snowflowers hidden in the woods, that he could 
 search for with Mary Owens 
 
 Abe's fame had reached New Salem ahead of him, and 
 his old cronies — what few there were left — had gathered in 
 the village for his arrival. Sam Hill and Henry Onstot, and 
 a few of the Clary's Grove boys greeted him at Hill's store. 
 
 The little store that had once been crowded with boister- 
 ous farmers and tradesmen seemed larger than it had before, 
 and the corner where Abe had kept the paraphernalia of the 
 post office was curiously empty. Hill's stock was depleted, 
 too, reduced to the barest essentials — coffee and salt and 
 tobacco, and of course, whiskey. That would be wanted as 
 long as there was one man left in town. 
 
 The bright spring sun betrayed mercilessly the growing 
 shabbiness of the whole town, an abandoned building here, 
 a broken fence there, doors flapping on broken hinges. 
 
 "It's going, Abe," Onstot told him. "There's nothing can 
 save the town. It was the river. The river let us down. Even 
 an act of legislature couldn't save it. It would take an act of 
 God." 
 
 "To make the river run uphill?" asked Abe drily, but the 
 disintegration of his village saddened him. Somehow, al- 
 though he had known it couldn't be, he had hoped that he 
 would find New Salem the same, a part of his youth stand- 
 ing still, not changing, to be there whenever he could return. 
 "I reckon you're right, Henry," he added. "It was the river 
 done us wrong." 
 
 "That fool river," put in Hill, "isn't worth a tinker's dam 
 
 142 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 except to look at! Even Jack Kelso got sick of fishin' in the 
 thing, and moved on!" 
 
 "I know. Where did he go?" Abe felt a sharp longing for 
 his old friend. If only Jack were here, things would be 
 almost the same. 
 
 "Just wandered off without savin' boo to anybody. Some 
 say he struck out for Missouri. We'll all be goin' soon. Can't 
 sit up with a corpse forever. There's no life here any more." 
 
 "I guess not." Nothing here. Nothing but his youth, his 
 long, lazy dreams. His youth that was gone, replaced by 
 maturity. Dead youth, dead dreams, dead town. And you 
 couldn't sit up with a corpse forever. 
 
 But now his friends wanted to know about the Legisla- 
 ture, about the "Seat of Government Bill." 
 
 "How did you put it over, Abe? How in tarnation did 
 you buck all those moneyed men and city slickers?" They 
 knew Abe could do anything he set out to do in politics, but 
 they wanted a play-by-play account, a detailing of the battle, 
 an understanding of the machinery of political maneuver- 
 ing. Their own dreams fading, they wanted to bask in Abe's 
 glory, to feel that they had a stake in his success because he 
 was one of them. 
 
 So he told them all about it, the little bills he had sup- 
 ported to gain votes for his own, the men he had cultivated 
 to help his project, and the men who couldn't be cultivated 
 and had to be fought. He colored it all up with his dry 
 humor, and made it live for them as it had for him, so that 
 they could share the drama with him. He didn't forget, 
 either, to tell them how the Sangamon delegation, the Long 
 
 143 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Nine, had pulled together like one man, inseparable, a bloc 
 that couldn't be beaten. 
 
 Then he told them, after his bill was passed, he and Stone 
 had gone on the record in their protest against the anti- 
 abolitionist resolutions. "We couldn't do a thing till after the 
 bill was passed," he explained. "We didn't dare to. There 
 are too many conflicting sympathies in Illinois, and we 
 couldn't risk getting somebody mad at us who might other- 
 wise vote for Springfield. But we got ourselves heard, just 
 before the Legislature adjourned. It's a bad thing for the 
 country, this bitterness over slavery. It's almost as bad as the 
 slavery, for hatred makes men lose their sense of proportion. 
 A thing as bad as slavery takes tolerance and understanding 
 to cure it, not violence." 
 
 They agreed with him, but they saw that Abe's interests 
 were outgrowing them, leaping beyond local considerations 
 to national issues, to economic and moral problems which 
 so far had never touched New Salem. They forced him back 
 to their own urgent concern, just to get onto solid ground 
 again. 
 
 "It's a mighty fine thing, getting the capital at Springfield. 
 It'll help the county. But it won't save New Salem." 
 
 He assented. Prosperity for Springfield wouldn't help 
 New Salem. New Salem was a bubble that had burst, and 
 you couldn't pick up the vapor in your hands and make a 
 bubble out of it again. 
 
 "What you goin' to do now?" Hill asked him. 
 
 Abe knew what Sam meant. He didn't mean right now, 
 this minute. He meant in the near future. For everybody 
 knew that a man couldn't just live ofr of grass between ses- 
 
 144 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 sions of the Legislature — or live very long on what he made 
 as a Representative. But Abe begged the issue, for somehow, 
 he didn't want to tell his friends right now that he was going 
 to follow — or anticipate — prosperity in Springfield. 
 
 "Why, I think 111 mosey out to see Bennett and Betsey," 
 he replied. "I can never stay long in New Salem without I 
 land up out there." 
 
 That allowed no argument, but after he had loped down 
 the road, Henry speculated, "Wonder if she'll say yes this 
 time? He's sure got something to offer her now." 
 
 "She'll never marry him," replied Sam Hill. "My wife is 
 her best friend — grew up together — and Parthena knows 
 her pretty well. Mary Owens will never hitch up to the likes 
 of him, politics or no politics. He's not her kind." 
 
 "She might like the governor's mansion. And Abe won't 
 be poor forever." 
 
 "No, he won't be poor all his life. He'll make money, and 
 he'll get to a high position. But she wants something Abe 
 can never get." 
 
 They watched his ungainly figure that now had a sort of 
 ugly dignity about it, until he was out of sight down the 
 road, and then they went back into the store. The March 
 wind was raw, in spite of the bright spring sunshine. 
 
 Out at the Abells', Abe's friends had literally killed the 
 fatted calf for his return. 
 
 He was greeted like a long-lost relative, or a conquering 
 hero, or both. 
 
 And here, at least, everything was the same. The farm 
 was well cared for, and looked prosperous. He went with 
 
 145 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Bennett about the place, inspecting the livestock, praising 
 the improvements. Perhaps the unrest of the village hadn't 
 got this far, in spite of what Mary had written him. Maybe 
 Bennett would find some other market for his goods, be 
 able to take it over to Petersburg or Beardstown, and so 
 stay on. Bennett wasn't a boom-town follower, he was a 
 farmer. If only this place, these friends, remain the same, 
 Abe thought, I'll have a place to come back to, a little spot 
 where I can relax from strain, and be myself. Maybe Bennett 
 will stay 
 
 Back in the house, both Betsey and Mary made a great 
 fuss over him, and he lined the children up in mock solem- 
 nity so that he could count their noses and learn if there 
 were any new ones since he'd left. 
 
 Then the Abells too must hear of all his shenanigans in 
 the Legislature, and he went through the whole story again, 
 and told them about his protest against the anti-abolitionist 
 resolutions, watching Mary for her reaction as he talked, 
 eager for her approval. 
 
 But she made no comment, and so he went on to explain 
 his decision to settle in Springfield, and to add his name to 
 John Stuart's shingle. 
 
 Mary's face lit up then. "Why, Abe, that's wonderful!" 
 she exclaimed. "Mr. Stuart is a fine lawyer, and starting your 
 practice with him will be splendid experience and training!" 
 
 Her words, "experience and training," told him that she 
 knew he wouldn't stop with a small law practice in Spring- 
 field, but would go on and on. 
 
 He wanted to see her alone now, to paint even more glow- 
 
 146 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 ingly for her his chances of success, and to have from her 
 at last her promise to share it with him. 
 
 Betsey seemed to have the same idea, for she shooed her 
 reluctant husband out of the house, and found something 
 to do herself in another room. 
 
 Abe and Mary were alone, at last, and she looked happier 
 than he'd seen her in a long time. She repeated, "It's per- 
 fectly wonderful, your going to Springfield to practice law!" 
 
 That seemed more important to her than his success in 
 the Legislature, but he guessed it was natural in a woman. 
 Politics can shift and change, and the man who is in the 
 limelight today can be totally eclipsed tomorrow, but a good 
 law practice is something you can tie to. 
 
 "I'm pleased about it," he admitted. "You know it was 
 John Stuart advised me to read law in the first place, 'way 
 back there when we were chasing Black Hawk." 
 
 "Yes, you told me." She seemed to be waiting, and he 
 reckoned it was time now to remind her that his offer of 
 marriage was still good. 
 
 "Have you decided, Mary, whether you want to take a 
 chance with me?" he asked. 
 
 Looking at him so full of enthusiasm and bright pros- 
 pects, she felt the nagging doubt in her heart almost stilled. 
 He would succeed. Mary knew that now. He would go far, 
 almost as far as Betsey was always predicting he would. 
 His wife would go with him. If only he'd say that he loved 
 her, that she could contribute something personally to his 
 success— or even that he needed her. If he'd say or do any- 
 thing besides just sit there and practically reiterate that he 
 
 147 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 was an honorable man and would stick by his word! If she 
 only really knew that he wanted to marry her! 
 
 "Abe," she said, talking rapidly to get it over, "you're just 
 about to start practicing law. Go down to Springfield and 
 get on your feet, get established, and then — " she didn't fin- 
 ish because she couldn't. She wasn't ready, even yet, to 
 say yes. 
 
 But he took her enthusiasm for yes. "I'll do that, Mary," 
 he promised. "I'll do it. And you'll write to me?" 
 
 "Of course. Let me know how it goes, all about every- 
 thing. Even your cases!" 
 
 He made a comical face. "Perhaps you're over-optimistic 
 when you anticipate my cases," he said, and the tension was 
 relieved by his humor. 
 
 However, saying goodbye to her, he was mightily encour- 
 aged. She had practically promised to marry him. And her 
 delay had avoided for him the necessity of telling her that 
 he had hardly a dollar to his name 
 
 148 
 
(fyafiten *J«we*tty *?owt 
 
 M 
 
 UD WAS ANKLE DEEP IN THE STREETS OF SPRINGFIELD 
 
 when Abe rode into town on a borrowed horse. It was the 
 15th of April, and the spring rains had not spared the city 
 of his future fortune. The horse was tired from its journey, 
 and so was Abe. The only difference was that Abe had to 
 worry about bed and board, and the horse didn't. 
 
 He was acquainted with Springfield, from his many visits, 
 and the smartest thing to do about the problem of living 
 quarters, he argued, would be to buy himself a bed and bed- 
 clothes, and then find an unfurnished room. That would be 
 cheaper, in the long run, than furnished lodgings. But what 
 would he use for money? He hadn't a thing in the world 
 but his prospects, and when he tried to translate them into 
 concrete, worldly things, they appeared no more substantial 
 than the bright bubbles of daydreams. At least, they wouldn't 
 buy much. 
 
 Well, he'd have to run some credit, some way. This wasn't 
 New Salem, where he could always make out, but the least 
 he could do was try. 
 
 He hunted up a cabinetmaker and arranged to have a 
 bed made to fit his unusual length. If he had to buy a bed, 
 
 149 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 by jing, he was going to have one that he wouldn't have to 
 sleep in doubled up as if he had the cramps! 
 
 Now for bedclothes— well, maybe his luck would hold. 
 He wandered into the store run by that new young Ken- 
 tuckian, Speed, toting his saddlebags with him. 
 
 "What would be your price," he asked the handsome 
 young proprietor, "for bedclothes for a single bed— sheets, 
 pillowcase, blankets and coverlid?" 
 
 Joshua Speed added quickly in his head. "Seventeen dol- 
 lars, more or less." 
 
 Abe sighed. "It is cheap enough," he said, "but I can't pay 
 it. If you will credit me till Christmas, I'll pay then— if I do 
 well. If I don't, I may never be able to pay you." 
 
 Speed looked into the gloomy face of the tall stranger, 
 and seemed satisfied with what he saw there. 
 
 "I have a large room with a double bed which you are 
 welcome to share with me," he offered thoughtfully. 
 
 "Where is your room?" 
 
 "Upstairs," Speed replied, pointing to a winding stair that 
 led up from the store. 
 
 Without a word, Abe picked up his saddlebags, carried 
 them upstairs, and then raced joyfully down, taking three 
 steps at a time. 
 
 "Well, Speed, I'm moved!" he rejoiced. 
 
 The world was suddenly bright again 
 
 There was so much to do. He had to report to Stuart right 
 away. The law office which he was to share was above the 
 room in which the Circuit Court met, when in session, and, 
 splendid lawyer though John Stuart was, his workshop was 
 
 150 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 a pretty poor makeshift. Small, badly kept, containing noth- 
 ing but bare essentials in the way of furnishings, it looked 
 anything but prosperous. Stuart didn't have many books, 
 either. He practiced law mostly from his head. 
 
 The first thing Stuart did after greeting his new partner 
 was show him the announcement that had appeared in a 
 local paper that very day, following formal notice of the 
 dissolution of the partnership of John Stuart and Henry E. 
 Dummer: 
 
 "John T. Stuart and A. Lincoln 
 
 Attorneys and Counsellors at Law, 
 
 will practice, conjointly, in the Courts 
 
 of this Judicial Circuit. 
 
 Office No. 4, Hoffman's Row, upstairs. 
 
 Springfield, April 12, 1837." 
 
 It was a mighty fine announcement. Abe reckoned it made 
 him a full-fledged lawyer, at last. 
 
 William Butler, clerk of the Circuit Court and a friend 
 of Stuart's, took Abe home with him that night to supper, 
 and in a burst of friendliness, suggested that he continue to 
 board there. 
 
 Abe's immediate difficulties were solved, almost as easily 
 as they'd been taken care of back in New Salem. All he had 
 to do now was sit back and wait for clients 
 
 Springfield was as far removed from Vandalia as the old 
 state capital was from New Salem. 
 
 There were as many as fifteen hundred people here, and 
 the town had got over its growing pains, and was becoming 
 a flourishing city. Round and about the Court House Square, 
 
 151 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 in the center of town, clustered nineteen drygoods stores, 
 one wholesale and six retail groceries, four drugstores, and, 
 wonder and joy, a bookstore. There were four hotels, and 
 Abe speculated with satisfaction that there would be ample 
 accommodation for the members of the Legislature when 
 they were finally moved to Springfield. The town boasted 
 eighteen doctors — one for less than every hundred of popu- 
 lation — and almost as many lawyers. Springfield was well 
 bulwarked for any kind of human trouble, physical or legal. 
 
 But Abe wondered idly if the six churches, each with a 
 resident minister, kept the folks any holier than the average 
 run of human beings, and he reckoned there'd be just as 
 much litigation here per capita as in hamlets less girded 
 against the devil. 
 
 Yes, the new capital was different from New Salem, to 
 which he had come, six years ago, penniless and ignorant 
 of all occupations except those involving physical toil. He 
 was still penniless, but thank God or Abe Lincoln or his 
 friends — or all of them — he wasn't as ignorant as he'd been 
 then! He had learned surveying and the law, and the ways 
 of politics and men in high places. He had learned that his 
 wits were a match for other men's experience; that he, with 
 nothing behind him except log-cabin privation and the les- 
 sons learned by hardship, was an adversary for the best of 
 them. 
 
 Wandering about the streets of Springfield, partly to kill 
 time and partly because he wanted to know this town and 
 its people as he had known New Salem, he was daily more 
 deeply impressed by its wealth and splendor. 
 
 There was hardly a log house in the whole city. The homes 
 
 152 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 were frame structures, or built of brick, and they spoke of a 
 solidarity that he had never known. Someday, someday — 
 but what of now ? What of the near future, even if he reck- 
 oned it in terms of two or three years ? 
 
 Mary Owens had told him to get himself established, and 
 then renew his offer. But getting "established" in a way that 
 would satisfy the Squire's daughter — how long would it 
 take? She was "society" in Green County, Kentucky. She 
 lived in a great house, and wore fine clothes, and had never 
 taken a back seat for anybody. She had told him, repeatedly, 
 that she could stand poverty if she knew that she was loved — 
 but what did she know of poverty ? And what did she know 
 about love? How could she tell whether affection would 
 make up for lack of the things she was used to, for want 
 of even necessities? 
 
 She didn't know what she was talking about. Any more 
 than he knew when he spoke of marriage. 
 
 Again, in his loneliness in the new town, he was con- 
 fronted by the actualities of marriage, and again, he was 
 afraid. 
 
 Could he, in any decency, assume responsibility for an- 
 other's happiness? He, who had never found the key to it 
 for himself ? He had had high moments, times of exaltation 
 and soul-satisfaction when he had finished a hard job, won 
 a difficult battle in the House, or helped a friend. But day-to- 
 day contentment, free of doubts and fear and unfilled hunger 
 for something better, he had never known. He wondered 
 whether he would ever know it. 
 
 For he realized now that he would always be driven, 
 driven by an ambition that was not capable of satiation, or 
 
 153 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 even of peace. Could he lash any woman to the unbending 
 mast of that ambition? 
 
 Mary had seemed to understand that drive, but she didn't 
 know, any more than she knew hardship, what would be 
 the practical effect of his ambition upon any woman who 
 shared his life with him. She didn't know anything about 
 the black moods that so often possessed him and his need 
 for human comfort at those times, or the inability of any 
 human being to break through the dark fog and comfort 
 him. 
 
 Anyhow, he thought now, a little testily, as he walked the 
 streets of Springfield in the evening and saw the young 
 married couples flourishing about in carriages, the like of 
 which he couldn't buy with a whole year's earnings, any- 
 how, hadn't Mary been a little too compliant, a little too 
 eager the last time he saw her? 
 
 She hadn't given him a definite answer, but she'd seemed 
 almost anxious — after keeping him dangling all these 
 months! He'd be the first to admit that his prospects were 
 better than they had been last fall, but his immediate situa- 
 tion, as far as marriage was concerned, was worse. For living 
 costs in Springfield were ten times what they were in New 
 Salem, and twice what it took to live in Vandalia. And wasn't 
 he, himself, subsisting without expense at all, rooming with 
 Joshua Speed — ah, there was a lad for you — educated, charm- 
 ing, quick to friendship! And boarding, for nothing, with 
 the Butler family! If Mary should come to him now, he'd 
 be hog-tied to know how to feed her! 
 
 As day followed day with no callers at the office except 
 friends who dropped in to speculate about the new capital 
 
 154 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 building — what it would look like, how much it would cost, 
 where the money was coming from and when — or the price 
 of hogs, Abe became more and more skeptical as to the defi- 
 nite time when he would be "established." That time seemed 
 to recede, like a mirage, the closer he got to it, until it was 
 always out of reach. 
 
 Of course, he'd given Mary his word. He'd made her an 
 honorable proposition. He couldn't go back on that and 
 keep on living with himself. 
 
 But if something should happen to make her decide defi- 
 nitely that she didn't want to marry him — if she should give 
 him an irrevocable "No," and end the uncertainty and also 
 the obligation 
 
 Actually, he argued with himself, she'd be much better off 
 if she decided against him. He'd never be able to give her 
 any kind of comfort, and he might as well admit it. There 
 was no sense in fooling himself or her. He'd painted pretty 
 dreams for her, bright stories of his "prospects." But he 
 hadn't said much about his present. He hadn't told her he 
 was living on charity. 
 
 If he should write her now just how things were with 
 him, she'd have no difficulty at all in deciding what she 
 wanted. 
 
 His letter must be very carefully worded, though. She 
 mustn't be allowed to suspect that she was being persuaded 
 against him, that he was reluctant to keep his word. No, he 
 must only tell her the truth and let her judge for herself. 
 The real picture should be persuasion enough! 
 
 He was so very circumspect that it took three starts to 
 satisfy him, but when he had finished writing he was almost 
 
 155 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 pleased with himself. He wrote how lonely he had been. 
 "I have been spoken to by but one woman since I've been 
 here, and should not have been by her, if she could have 
 avoided it." — That had been an amusing and embarrassing 
 experience, in Speed's store one day, when he had been so 
 absorbed in an argument with Joshua that he had turned 
 quickly away from the counter, and all but collided with a 
 pretty young customer. He had murmured a quick and con- 
 fused apology, and she had answered politely. She was little 
 and pert, and beautifully dressed, and his curiosity had been 
 roused enough to ask Speed after she had left who she was. 
 His friend told him she was a sister-in-law of the town's self- 
 appointed aristocrat, Ninian Edwards, who was here from 
 Lexington to visit Edward's wife, her sister Elizabeth. Abe 
 had thought no more about her until this day, but, he remem- 
 bered ruefully, he wasn't storying Mary any. The girl 
 wouldn't have spoken to him if she hadn't had to! 
 
 Of course, Mrs. Butler spoke to him, but that was different. 
 He still wasn't lying 
 
 He wrote Mary of the gay social life in Springfield, which 
 she could not join if she were to come here to live, and he 
 reminded her that while she might be willing to entertain 
 poverty, she didn't really know what it was, or what she'd 
 be getting into. She'd better think it over maturely before 
 she decided. Of course, he was willing to abide by her studied 
 decision, but — emboldened now by his own eloquence — he'd 
 advise her, for her own good, not to tackle it. 
 
 He ended the letter on a wistful note that he hoped would 
 rouse her sympathy, and also convince her of his sincerity. 
 "You must write me a good long letter after you get this 
 
 156 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 it would be a good deal of company to me in this 'busy wil- 
 derness.' " And, "Tell your sister I don't want to hear any 
 more about selling out and moving. That gives me the hypo 
 whenever I think of it." 
 
 He read the letter over before he mailed it. Yes, it was 
 sincere. Every word of it was true. Moreover, it was fair. 
 No woman could ask more of a man. And perhaps, at least, 
 it would bring him a definite answer 
 
 157 
 
@&afit&i twenty *?we 
 
 a 
 
 NE SENTENCE IN ABE S LETTER PIQUED MARY MORE THAN 
 
 all the rest of the gloomy epistle. It was his admonition to 
 write him a "good long letter," because, he had added 
 thoughtlessly, "you have nothing else to do." 
 
 Well, she had plenty else to do. There was Betsey's enor- 
 mous family and the housework to help with, there were her 
 old friends whom she had known before they had moved 
 here from Kentucky, life-long friends, and all the new ones 
 she had made during her long stay in Illinois. There were 
 letters from home, and answers to be written back to her 
 family. She had a great deal to do besides jump to Abe Lin- 
 coln's bidding, as though his slightest whim should be a 
 command to her! 
 
 Moreover, he'd waited long enough to write to her when 
 he, admittedly, had nothing else to do! If he were in love 
 with her at all, he certainly took a strange way of showing 
 it! She seemed to be much more on his mind than on his 
 heart — as though she were a legal problem which must be 
 weighed judiciously, considering all the technicalities! 
 
 Yet, she knew that he was subject to moods and to melan- 
 choly. She recalled that other peculiar letter, that she had 
 
 158 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 had from him in December, when he had asked for "some- 
 thing to amuse" him. He had told her something of those 
 spells of emotional depression which took hold of him at 
 times without warning, but she hadn't much believed him. 
 She'd thought he was only playing on her sympathy. But 
 maybe they were real. Perhaps he did need amusing. 
 
 Just the same, she hardly knew what to write back. If, as 
 it seemed on the face of the letter, he was trying to back out 
 of his bargain — well, no man would ever get the chance to 
 jilt Mary Owens! 
 
 But if his letter was prompted only by "the hypo," if he 
 were really lonely and disappointed at the slowness of his 
 fortunes 
 
 She decided she had better give him the benefit of doubt. 
 Write him an easy, friendly letter, that would commit 
 neither of them, leave each a way out if necessary. 
 
 So she wrote him she was sorry he found Springfield such 
 a dull place after all these weeks, and so devoid of attractive 
 women. She wondered if he were not making mountains 
 out of molehills, conjuring up conditions which did not 
 exist. Perhaps the country air might do him some good. 
 He ought to come back to New Salem for a visit while things 
 were so slow in Springfield. Then she added the only real 
 news, unpleasant as it was, that Bennett was still trying to 
 sell his farm, and that he vowed and declared he was moving 
 to Missouri as soon as he could find someone to take the 
 place off his hands. 
 
 That was the best she could do, without either damaging 
 her pride or taking advantage of what might be, in him, only 
 
 159 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 a mood. But, as she posted the letter, she wondered whether 
 she'd ever understand him any better than he did her. They 
 seemed to be at cross-purposes all the time, with never any 
 of that meeting of the minds which they had both found so 
 stimulating in their early friendship. She also wondered, 
 tiredly, what was to come of it. Anything, anything at all? 
 
 160 
 
ffiafiten, twenty Six 
 
 of, 
 
 LL THE WAY BACK TO NEW SALEM ON HORSEBACK, ABE 
 
 pondered his next move. Mary's reply to his careful letter 
 surprised him, and left him entirely befuddled. He had 
 thought he was using the same strategy which had been so 
 successful in the Legislature — playing both ends against the 
 middle — but perhaps those tactics wouldn't work with a 
 woman. Had he been too subtle, or not subtle enough ? Had 
 he protested sincerity when any woman with a mind could 
 figure out that he was just trying to get out of his bargain ? 
 Or had he convinced her so well of his sincerity that she 
 thought all he wanted was reassurance that she could stand 
 poverty with him? 
 
 He was so bewildered that he decided the only thing to 
 do was to take her advice and visit New Salem again. This 
 time, this time — he swore the strongest oath that anyone 
 had ever heard him utter — by jing, he was going to have an 
 answer, one way or the other! 
 
 But he was afraid of the answer, too. He was mortally 
 scared that, convinced at last that he wouldn't wait any 
 longer, she'd up and say yes. 
 
 161 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Well, he was here, and he was in for it, win, lose or draw. 
 
 However, he lingered awhile in the village, just to put off 
 the showdown, and to talk over again, with whomever 
 might be around, the increasing disintegration of the town. 
 The breakup was slow, as though the village, knowing it 
 was doomed, stubbornly hung on to life through sheer force 
 of will. It was having an agonizing death, painful to watch, 
 and yet he couldn't force himself to look away until it was 
 over, until he was sure that no remedy would help. 
 
 There was hardly anyone around to talk to, however. 
 He found only the growing dilapidation of cabins where 
 people used to live; the old cooper shop caving in; Doc 
 Reginer's combined home-and-omce boarded up so long 
 that the boards were falling off; grass grown wild as hay 
 for want of a sickle. 
 
 He rode on through town and out toward the Abells', 
 wondering what he'd say to Mary. 
 
 The farm was still in good repair, the flower garden 
 thriving. 
 
 And Betsey was flourishing like the green bay tree, and 
 pregnant as usual! 
 
 "Betsey," he greeted her, "you're a fine sight for my tired 
 old eyes ! And I vow that in all Springfield there's no woman 
 can cook like you!" 
 
 Betsey laughed. "How many women's cooking have you 
 eaten in Springfield?" she demanded. She wanted to know, 
 to find out whether his procrastination with Mary was due 
 to a rival or his own poor sense — or Mary's contrariness. 
 
 "Only William Butler's wife," he admitted, and then, 
 spying Mary among the confusion of children, he decided 
 
 162 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 he'd better forget the levity, and get down to business. It 
 was a warm day, and they all sat down out in the yard. 
 Betsey, as usual whenever Abe arrived, sent one of the 
 youngsters to bring Bennett in from the field. 
 
 "Springfield's a mighty fancy town," Abe told the girls 
 while they waited for Bennett. "Folks step high and lively 
 there. And there's a passel of lawyers even for a town that 
 size." 
 
 Betsey wanted to be told about the stores, and the fine 
 carriages, and the women's clothes. And the schools. Mary 
 listened, considering; wondering how much of his talk was 
 deliberate; trying to see his intention through the smoke 
 screen of light talk. 
 
 "The stores are fine," Abe told Betsey, "with all make of 
 brought-on goods. Kid gloves for the ladies, and dried fruits, 
 and victuals we couldn't get in New Salem. And fancy prices 
 on them," he added, stealing a glance at Mary to see how 
 she was taking his recital. "When the Legislature gets moved, 
 prices will likely go up, too, because of the increased de- 
 mand. Living quarters will be almost impossible to get." 
 
 He switched then to Joshua Speed, his hospitality, his 
 charm, what a fine friend he was. The girls readily accepted 
 Abe's valuation, for wasn't Speed from Kentucky? He was 
 home folks, and was bound to be a splendid person. 
 
 "Why don't you bring him out some time, for us to meet ?" 
 demanded Betsey. But Mary thought it would be better for 
 her and Betsey to visit Springfield to meet Abe's friend, and 
 see the sights. 
 
 "Springfield must be as exciting as — as Bardstown!" ex- 
 
 163 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 claimed Mary. "And when the Legislature moves, there'll be 
 receptions, and parties, and good talk!" 
 
 That wasn't at all the kind of reaction Abe had planned 
 and hoped for when he told the girls about the bright life in 
 the city. 
 
 "We haven't had a real case yet," he put in hastily, "though 
 Stuart's a good lawyer. He's known all around the country." 
 
 Mary started to remind him that since court wasn't in 
 session, he could hardly expect much legal work. But she 
 caught herself just in time, her suspicion hardening into 
 realization. His detailing of his position was deliberate, and 
 regardless of the reason (she'd have to have time to think 
 that out) she could think of no counter at all. 
 
 "You're just in time for the outing tomorrow," she told 
 him. "There's a crowd of us going to ride over to Uncle 
 Billy Greene's farm, on horseback. It will be an all-day affair 
 and we'll pack a lunch. Can you stop over for that?" 
 
 Abe reckoned he could, tired of the battle of wits. It would 
 be something to do, and a respite from talk. It would give 
 him a breathing spell, and time to plan what to do and say < 
 next. 
 
 Mary knew quite well how attractive she was in her riding ; 
 habit. The skirt was of brown alpaca, with a bright-colored 
 jacket, and it had been made by a tailor at home who knew 
 how to fashion such things. She pinned her hat on at an 
 angle, and was aware that she sat a side-saddle well. Bennett 
 had loaned her one of his best horses, and the saddle was 
 good leather, with a red carpet seat. The bridle jingled with 
 
 164 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 German silver, and Mary Owens made a handsome figure 
 indeed. 
 
 She was so very handsome that her escort appeared more 
 grotesque than ever. He'd had to wear his long-tailed lawyer 
 coat, having no other with him, and his stovepipe hat. His 
 stirrups, designed for a man of ordinary height, brought his 
 knees alarmingly close to his chin, and he looked more like 
 a scarecrow than anything human, when the two started out 
 toward the village to join their party. 
 
 They were both determined to forget — or put off — their 
 differences for the day and to have a good time. 
 
 Mary wanted to show Abe and the others what a good 
 horsewoman she was, and as the party left New Salem, she 
 urged her horse to a brisk gallop, so that she and Abe soon 
 left the rest far behind. 
 
 The air was good, the horses in fine fettle, and Mary's 
 spirits rose as they raced along, first one ahead, then the 
 other. Abe reached the ford of the stream first, and looking 
 ahead, Mary saw that some of the others had also got there 
 by taking a cross-cut. The earlier arrivals were crossing the 
 stream by the time Mary approached, and she noticed with 
 satisfaction that the men were helping their ladies across with 
 a deference and solicitation that she would not have expected 
 of them. They were nice young men, in spite of their pioneer 
 upbringing. Perhaps it wouldn't be bad to live the rest of her 
 life among these people, after all. 
 
 Then she saw, amazedly, Abe Lincoln splashing through 
 the water across the ford, without even a backward glance 
 at her. He was having a great time trying to keep his long 
 
 165 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 legs out of the water, and to guide the horse with one hand 
 while he clung to his tall hat with the other. 
 
 He worked his horse across onto the far bank, and shouted 
 back to the others, highly pleased with himself. Apparently, 
 he hadn't given one thought to his companion. 
 
 Mary was furious. It wasn't as though she couldn't get 
 across the stream by herself, although it was known to be 
 treacherous. His flagrant discourtesy humiliated her, and 
 when he calmly sat astride his horse and watched her nego- 
 tiate the stream, as though she were another man, she was so 
 angry that she forgot her own manners, too. 
 
 "You're a nice fellow!" she stormed when she had got 
 safely across. "I suppose you didn't care whether my neck 
 was broken or not!" 
 
 Abe was taken sharply aback, and was hardly less humil- 
 iated by her outburst before their friends than she was by his 
 neglect. "Why, I thought you were plenty smart to take care 
 of yourself," he stammered, and then added, "You're an 
 excellent horsewoman, Mary. You did mighty well." 
 
 "That isn't the point at all!" she flared. "The point is, you 
 embarrassed me in front of everybody! As though — as j 
 though you didn't care what happened to me!" 
 
 She was immediately sorry, for she knew that he hadn't 
 come on this trip just to offend her. His oversight was — an 
 oversight. He simply didn't know any better. But that knowl- 
 edge was no consolation, either. The day, the ride, were 
 spoiled for her, and no amount of rationalization could undo 
 the damage. 
 
 The trip was spoiled for Abe, too. For, whether he wanted 
 to marry her or not, he had no desire to hurt her. And the 
 
 166 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 incident only deepened his sense of inadequacy with women, 
 and strengthened his doubt that he could ever make any 
 woman happy. He seemed to have a genius for doing the 
 wrong thing as far as women were concerned. Mary would 
 surely be better oft without him. 
 
 But after that, he couldn't press her for an answer. He 
 didn't want her to decide when she was angry. He wanted 
 her to be sure, after calm deliberation, that she didn't want 
 to marry him. 
 
 So he returned to Springfield to wait for a law case, with 
 his romance unchanged and dangling like a frayed rope 
 hanging from a rafter, waiting for one or the other to hang 
 himself with it. 
 
 167 
 
(ZAafiten, Seventy Seven 
 
 3, 
 
 ACK IN SPRINGFIELD, LIFE WASN T QUITE AS DULL AS IT 
 
 had been before Abe's disastrous visit to New Salem. 
 
 While he and Stuart were finding the law business as dry 
 as the parched Illinois prairie, banks were beginning to fail 
 throughout the whole west, and the repercussions were 
 reaching the boom town. There was talk of a special meet- 
 ing of the Legislature at Vandalia to suspend specie pay-, 
 ments by the Springfield State Bank, and on the fifth of 
 June, Governor Duncan issued a proclamation convening 
 the lawmakers on July 10. 
 
 Abe was too disturbed over this development to think 
 about marriage. If the rumbling panic became real, what 
 would happen to the internal improvements voted last win- 
 ter ? If the Springfield Bank closed, how could they build a 
 new state house and move the capital ? If these two projects 
 failed, what would become of the ambitious and impractical 
 Representative who had fought so hard for them ? 
 
 He knew that in the coming special session he would have 
 to defend his stand and fight for his pet projects. The stakes 
 were high, for he stood to lose not only the accomplishment 
 of the improvements and the removal of the seat of govern- 
 
 168 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 ment, but his own leadership of the Whig Party in the 
 House. 
 
 Fortunately, some diversion was offered in a local squabble 
 over a land title, which was to remain a political side issue 
 for a year to come. 
 
 In the spring, a Mary Anderson and her son Richard had 
 come to Springfield to get possession of and sell ten acres of 
 land which had belonged to their deceased husband and 
 father, Joseph Anderson. When they arrived, they had found 
 the place in the possession of James Adams, a lawyer, who 
 claimed that Anderson had deeded the property to him 
 before his death. 
 
 Mrs. Anderson asked Lawyer Lincoln to help her. The ten 
 acres weren't worth much, but when Abe looked over the 
 records, he thought he smelled a dead rat. For one thing, 
 the deeds on the recorder's books didn't agree with the orig- 
 inals which the recorder got for him from Adams. And 
 among the original deeds, Abe and Benjamin Talbott, the 
 recorder, found an assignment of a judgment from Anderson 
 to Adams which was dated before the date of entry of the 
 judgment, and which, moreover, was all in Adams' hand- 
 writing, and signed by Anderson only with his mark. 
 
 Abe was convinced that the assignment was a forgery, and 
 Adams based his whole claim to the property on the strength 
 of that document. So Abe persuaded Stephen Logan to join 
 him and Stuart in a suit against Adams, and the three, with 
 their tongues in their cheeks, vowed the land was worth 
 two thousand dollars. 
 
 That was on June 22, and Adams promptly filed some- 
 
 169 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 thing that he claimed was the original assignment, to which 
 Anderson's name was signed in full. 
 
 The whole thing outraged Abe's sense of justice. He was 
 sure that Adams had got hold of the widow's mite of land by 
 fraud, and he aimed to straighten it out. 
 
 But there was a political angle to the case which delighted 
 Abe, and gave him just the kind of opportunity he needed 
 for sharpening up his wits against the coming special session 
 of the Legislature. For Adams was running on the Demo- 
 cratic ticket for the office of probate judge, against Dr. A. G. 
 Henry, the Whig candidate. 
 
 The Democrats were too strong for the comfort of the 
 Whigs, and moreover, Adams was personally popular. He 
 was one of the oldest settlers in Springfield, a frontier lawyer, 
 and he had a host of friends. 
 
 Abe discovered, in rooting around for evidence in the An- 
 derson matter, that there was some question in the town 
 where he lived as to how Adams had obtained the property. 
 It had belonged to a man named Sampson, and Adams' title 
 rested on a document about which there was still some doubt. 
 
 That was meat for Abe, and he promptly sent in to the 
 Sangamo Journal a letter signed "Sampson's Ghost," de- 
 manding that Adams just tell the people how he got the 
 land that he was living on. It was a side issue which would 
 accomplish just as much as if Adams were accused in the 
 paper of getting the Anderson property by fraud — and 
 would deflect suspicion from Abe Lincoln as the writer of 
 the letter, for it was on the Anderson deal that Abe was of 
 record. 
 
 170 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "Sampson's Ghost" got Adams' dander up — he must have 
 a guilty conscience there too, thought Abe — and the show 
 was on. Adams replied in the Democratic paper, and the 
 see-sawing kept up all summer. (In spite of all this, Adams 
 won his election, but the fracas eased the tension during the 
 hot, inactive months.) 
 
 Daniel Webster's visit to Springfield was a more momen- 
 tous event which deflected Abe's thoughts away from his 
 frustrated love affair. Captain Merryman and a mounted 
 company rode out miles from town on the Jacksonville road 
 to meet the great orator, and Whigs gathered from all over 
 the county to hear him. A barbecue was held in a grove near 
 Springfield — there wasn't a building in town big enough to 
 hold the crowd! — and Webster talked for over an hour. 
 "Never will I support a Treasury Bank!" thundered the great 
 New Englander. "To that experiment is due the present 
 distress of the country! .... Stand by the Constitution!" 
 
 Abe listened, marveling, and knew that he was hearing a 
 man of larger caliber than he had ever heard before. And his 
 dreams grew taller, listening 
 
 Along in July, the Long Nine themselves were toasted 
 in a banquet at the Rural Hotel, along with Archibald Wil- 
 liams and Orville Browning and McClernand, in a celebra- 
 tion for several members of the Legislature who were pass- 
 ing through town. And if Browning didn't get up, before the 
 seventy guests, and declare that the passage of the Internal 
 Improvements and Seat of Government Bills were entirely 
 the work of the Sangamon Delegation! They drank toasts to 
 everybody and everything in Illinois, and at last Abe himself 
 
 171 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 got up enough gumption to rise and offer a toast: "To all our 
 friends — they are too numerous to be now named individ- 
 ually, while there is no one of them who is not too dear to be 
 forgotten or neglected!" 
 
 Abe was riding high, and the summer wasn't wasted, 
 after all. 
 
 172 
 
06afiten *?€tmtfy £if6t 
 
 </, 
 
 T WASNT UNTIL THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST THAT ABE GOT 
 
 around to reconsideration of Mary Owens. By that time, it 
 took quite a mental leap to get back into the state of mind 
 in which he'd left his lagging affair. 
 
 He had come out of his morbid fears of the whole situa- 
 tion, however, and all he wanted now was a definite answer. 
 He didn't care whether he married the woman or not. If he 
 should, he could contemplate matrimony without unholy 
 fright or great elation. If he shouldn't marry her, he wouldn't 
 be much cast down. All he wanted was to find out whether 
 he was going to or not. 
 
 So he rode out to New Salem again, confident that at last 
 he could command the situation. He was the Whig leader in 
 the House, and he'd stand for no more evasions! 
 
 This visit offered him more than a showdown with Mary. 
 He was still trailing clouds of the glory of that Long Nine 
 banquet, and he wanted to tell Bennett about it. And he was 
 anxious to learn his friend's plans, though he had given up 
 hoping that Bennett would not go away. There was no 
 reason for anyone to linger on at New Salem. 
 
 173 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Abe found the Abells in the midst of a birthday celebra- 
 tion. Betsey was thirty-three years old that 16th day of 
 August, 1837. And she was just up and around after her last 
 baby, another boy. So there were two reasons for celebration. 
 
 "We re runnin' out of names for the young'uns, Abe," 
 Betsey greeted him, "This one we just called William, for no 
 reason except it's a good name." 
 
 "It's a fine name," responded Abe, looking around for 
 Mary, determined to get his business with her finished, and 
 then enjoy himself afterwards. 
 
 But Bennett cornered him immediately. 
 
 "What they goin' to do about the road between here and 
 Petersburg?" he demanded. 
 
 Abe had to tell him that the proposed road was not to go 
 from New Salem to Petersburg, but from Beardstown to 
 Petersburg, nowhere near New Salem, but that the bill was 
 being held over for a third reading, and hadn't been voted on. 
 
 "If that road was to go from New Salem — " speculated 
 Bennett. But it would take more than a road to save New 
 Salem, and they both knew it. Bennett's next remark ad- 
 mitted that knowledge. 
 
 "Betsey's brother out in Missouri says there's nothin' like 
 the rich bottom land along the big river. He's been there 
 nigh onto ten years, and he wouldn't have stayed if it hadn't 
 been good. Land is cheap out there, too, and you can buy a 
 farm sight unseen, without havin' two-thirds of it turn out to 
 be a hill. And the Mississipp' is deep enough to float a battle- 
 ship." 
 
 That old rankling resentment against the Sangamon that 
 had never fulfilled its promise! Abe nodded in sympathy, 
 
 174 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 only half-listening, trying to keep his eye on Mary, who 
 seemed to be uncommonly busy all of a sudden, in and out 
 of the house, trying to help Betsey, fussing over the children. 
 "And now with the boys nigh grown, I could handle a good- 
 sized farm " It appeared Bennett was set to talk all day. 
 
 Mary was looking wonderfully attractive in a summery 
 flowered challis dress, with her curls all beautifully in place, 
 and her face flushed with the excitement of Betsey's birth- 
 day celebration. 
 
 Watching her, and unable to get a word in edgewise with 
 her, Abe began to hope against what he considered his 
 better judgment, that she'd decide to marry him after all! 
 Anyhow, she was in a fine good humor today, and if Ben- 
 nett ever got through talking Missouri 
 
 But when Bennett got through talking Missouri, with 
 Abe nodding confirmation to he didn't know what wild 
 speculation, the nearest neighbors came in with a "surprise" 
 cake for the party, and the rest of the afternoon was spent 
 eating, toasting Betsey, and picking the bones of New Salem. 
 These folks were his own, they had helped to make him 
 what he was, and Abe couldn't break away from them when 
 they were so eager to hear stories of his success, not even to 
 propose again to Mary Owens. 
 
 Moreover, as the afternoon wore on, he became aware 
 that she was deliberately avoiding him. She was cordial, and 
 as interested in his exploits as ever, but she kept the room 
 between them, and was careful to stay close to the other 
 women, so that he couldn't approach her. Betsey caught his 
 eye now and then, and tried to flash him encouragement, 
 for her intuition told her that this visit of Abe's had not 
 
 175 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 been prompted by mere social yearnings. But there was noth- 
 ing Betsey could do about the situation, either. She couldn't 
 send her other guests home, and even if she had, she couldn't 
 control her sister. 
 
 So, as the shadows began to grow tall, and still he hadn't 
 been able to get a word alone with Mary, Abe decided he 
 would have to start the twenty-mile horseback ride back to 
 Springfield, and count this visit lost, too. 
 
 An unusual fatigue settled on him as he turned the horse 
 toward New Salem. For he could not deny the look in 
 Bennett Abell's eyes when he told his friend goodbye. Abe 
 had seen that look in the faces of too many pioneers not to 
 know what it meant — that soon Bennett would be off again, 
 in search of the wonderstone, and that there would be few, 
 if any, more gatherings in comradeship at the Abell farm 
 north of New Salem. That part of Abe's life would soon 
 be gone, forever 
 
 And, watching his progress into the dusk, Mary Owens 
 was saddened too. For she knew what her answer to him 
 must be. She had known for quite a while now. 
 
 176 
 
{tyafitvi Ttveafy Tfate 
 
 J* E 
 
 ERHAPS IT WAS ONLY HIS UNHAPPINESS OVER BENNETT S 
 
 possible removal from New Salem, perhaps it was the uncer- 
 tainty of his own financial condition, maybe it was reaction 
 from the strain of the long summer and the problems that 
 he knew he would have to tackle in the next session of the 
 Legislature. But Abe knew, as he journeyed slowly back to- 
 ward Springfield, that his patience with Mary Owens was 
 exhausted. He had waited long enough. He had been fair 
 enough. He'd given her every consideration possible. She'd 
 asked for time, and he'd given her time. Time enough to 
 win a war or plot a revolution. Time enough to fall into 
 love or out of love. What was love, anyhow ? Surely, it was 
 more than the admiration he felt for Mary when she was 
 in her good moods. Surely, it was more than the excitement 
 that had shaken him that day last fall in the woods. He'd 
 known that excitement before, and hadn't connected it men- 
 tally with any idea of marriage. He wasn't even sure that 
 that wonder and amazement should be expected in marriage. 
 Were desire and respect reconcilable with a woman like 
 Mary? 
 
 177 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 He didn't know. One thing he did know. And that was 
 that the wonder and the desire had been lost in that uncer- 
 tain moment in the woods, and he'd never recaptured them 
 again with Mary. What to blame for that — his clumsiness, 
 her reluctance, or only circumstances — he didn't know. 
 Maybe they'd talked too much. If they'd ever had a chance 
 for love together, they'd talked it away, killed it with too 
 many words, too much thinking, weighing of pros and cons, 
 like judges sitting in chancery. 
 
 However, mulling over the whole thing as he jogged 
 along in the moonlight, trying to think it out, he came back 
 again to the same intolerable situation: he had asked Mary 
 Owens to marry him, and she wouldn't give him an answer. 
 
 He wanted to continue to be fair with her, but now, after 
 all these months, he was certainly entitled to ordinary cour- 
 tesy from her, and it was her duty to make the thing definite 
 and clear cut, and final. 
 
 By the time he reached Springfield, the old familiar mel- 
 ancholy possessed him so completely that he knew he would 
 have no peace until he did something to force the situation. 
 His visit had failed. The only course left to him was to write 
 to her and demand an answer. 
 
 It was late, and Speed was in bed when he arrived, but 
 Abe lit a candle, and, sitting with his back toward the bed 
 to shield his friend against the light, he tackled the job as 
 painstakingly as though he were pleading in court. In fact, 
 reading it over as he wrote, he feared the letter would appear 
 just about as inspired as a court pleading. But the time had 
 gone beyond need or possibility of pretty phrases. This letter 
 was simply a statement of facts. 
 
 178 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 As a statement of facts, there was little he could say that 
 could be pleasing to her. So he told her, "Perhaps any other 
 man would know enough without further information; but 
 I consider it my peculiar right to plead ignorance, and your 
 bounden duty to allow the plea." 
 
 Then, because he must be fair, he urged her, "If you feel 
 yourself in any degree bound to me, I am now willing to 
 release you, provided you wish it; while, on the other hand, 
 I am willing, and even anxious, to bind you faster, if I can 
 be convinced that it will .... add to your happiness." And, 
 after some hesitation, he added, for emphasis, "I think I can 
 not be misunderstood; to make myself understood is the 
 only object of this letter." 
 
 But he wanted to be kind. So he suggested that if she 
 should not answer his letter at all, he would take that as her 
 dismissal of him. At least, he could make a refusal easy for 
 her. He even hoped that, since refusal by silence would be 
 the easiest way out for her, she would take that way. 
 
 Now, at last, the die was cast. He knew that this time, 
 Mary could not evade. He had forced the issue, and she'd 
 have to do something about it. 
 
 He tumbled into bed beside Joshua, exhausted, but calm, 
 almost at peace. In that security, he slept. 
 
 179 
 
g/tafot&i 76intef 
 
 Jt. 
 
 ARY TOOK ABE S LETTER OUT TO THE BACK YARD TO READ, 
 
 and sat down under a tree with it. Betsey was entirely too 
 curious. She had sensed climax in the air the other day when 
 Abe was here, and she hadn't stopped talking since, trying 
 to convince Mary that she should marry Abe at once, or at 
 least promise, because he had reached such a point in his 
 career that if Mary didn't grab him now, he might get away 
 forever! 
 
 Mary knew that just as well as Betsey did, and she didn't 
 need any advice. She could make her own decisions. In fact, 
 she had already made this one. 
 
 Looking back now over their acquaintanceship, Mary 
 wondered that she had ever been in any doubt. Perhaps she 
 had been impressed by Betsey's praise of the man and her 
 glowing predictions of his success. Mary did not doubt for a 
 moment that he would know the success that Betsey hoped 
 for him. She had seen in him, herself, the power and the 
 drive, and the ability to climb any height that he might 
 choose, to reach his goal. Nothing could stop him. 
 
 She had thought, for a little while, that perhaps the right 
 woman could help him get there a little faster than he could 
 
 180 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 climb alone. A woman of education, and background, and 
 social experience. 
 
 She still believed it. But what would his wife have in 
 return ? 
 
 She would share his success. Whatever glory might come 
 to him, his wife would be at his side, knowing that she had 
 had her part in his accomplishment. 
 
 She would be at his side, but he would never be at her side. 
 
 Abe Lincoln's wife would never know a lover, or a hus- 
 band, or even a companion. She would know his ambition. 
 She would eat it, sleep with it, live it, and her life would be 
 bent to its shape. She would taste his success, or his heart- 
 ache, his struggle, his doubt, his fear. He would never know 
 hers, because he would never be able to understand it. 
 
 Mary Owens didn't want fame, or glory, or acclaim, or 
 even modest political limelight. She wanted happiness. 
 
 She didn't want money, or the things money could buy, 
 of themselves. Never having known poverty, she could still 
 chance it with a man who could give her what she needed 
 more than comfort — love, tenderness, and consideration. 
 She had comfort. It was love she was hungry for. 
 
 Because she was a woman, she knew that the ingredients 
 of happiness are the little things, the minutiae of inconse- 
 quential that make up the day and the bulk of human liv- 
 ing. Would broken shoes matter if a man told her he loved 
 her ? Would dry bread be hard to eat if a kiss went with it ? 
 Well, maybe it would be, but it would be easier with a kiss 
 than without. 
 
 Abe Lincoln would never be able to make any woman 
 happy, because he had no purchase upon happiness himself. 
 
 181 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Almost no capacity for it. Elation, yes. The great excitement 
 that comes from struggle, and accomplishment, the knowl- 
 edge of a hard battle won. But that wasn't happiness. That 
 wasn't the warp and woof of contentment. 
 
 His lack, she was convinced now, was more than want of 
 training, of social experience. It was a fundamental, inborn 
 want of sensitivity to the nuances of living. What a musician 
 would call an ear for music. What an artist would term an 
 eye for color. What a woman would call .... 
 
 It wasn't the fact that he had never been taught to carry 
 a woman's burdens up a hill or to help her across a stream. 
 It was the fact that he had no capacity for learning that kind 
 of consideration. Innate kindness and goodness he possessed 
 in plenty, but without the ability to translate them into 
 action or words. 
 
 Against his very real ability, Mary weighed his shortcom- 
 ings, and knew her answer to the letter before she opened 
 the envelope. She was only wondering how she could write 
 him without hurting him too deeply, without telling him 
 just why she couldn't marry him. 
 
 As she read his laboriously phrased evasions, she discov-; 
 ered another quality in his strangely mixed personality that 
 would keep any woman from being happy with him — 
 vacillation. In his personal life, he would never know quite 
 what he wanted, and he'd look before and after, weighing 
 the ifs against the might-be's, always wondering, never sure. 
 Mary Owens wanted a husband who, though he might never 
 be great, would be sure, and who would be a staff for her 
 to lean on in her moments of weakness. 
 
 182 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Then, reading the letter again, she smiled ruefully at the 
 ironical kindness of it. In his last epistle — for this would be 
 the last — he had shown her more consideration than at any 
 time in their acquaintance. For he had absolved her of any 
 need to answer. He wrote that if she did not write him at 
 all, he would understand. 
 
 As she tucked the letter away, she felt only relief that this 
 strange romance was over. Now she was free of any obli- 
 gation to Abe Lincoln, free of her own indecision. Now — 
 why, now, she could go home! 
 
 183 
 
(fyafit&i *76te£ty Oac 
 
 <%> 
 
 S DAY FOLLOWED LONG AUGUST DAY AFTER ABE HAD 
 
 returned to Springfield, with no letter from Mary, he knew 
 at last that there would be none, that she had taken seri- 
 ously his admonition that she need not answer unless she 
 cared to go on with him. 
 
 He wished now that he had demanded a reply, that he 
 had not let her off so easily, for the interval of time which 
 he had to allow before he could be sure of her unworded 
 refusal was as difficult to get through as all the other pro- 
 crastination had been. 
 
 The waiting was even harder because activity in Spring- 
 field seemed to have come to an absolute halt. With the 
 exception of Adams' reply, in the Illinois Republican, to the 
 handbill Abe had circulated about and against him, time 
 itself stood still for two weeks, and there was nothing to do 
 but talk to Speed in the store, or wander about the streets 
 of the town, and dream of the new capital, monument to 
 Illinois of his handiwork — and wonder where the money 
 was to come from to build it. 
 
 And to search his own heart and try to discover how he 
 really felt about Mary Owens. 
 
 184 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 It wasn't Mary he regretted. He had hoped for her refusal, 
 and, as her silence lengthened, he reckoned he had it. 
 
 No, it was his doubt of himself that tormented him in the 
 long August days and breathless nights, when his general 
 inactivity forced him to worry at the thing, trying to figure 
 it out. 
 
 For he knew that if he had cared enough for Mary, if he 
 had even wanted her enough, he would never have been 
 torn by doubt. He would never have considered the handi- 
 caps of marriage; he would have disregarded them as blithely 
 as any other young man in love, and would have thought 
 only of the joy that she could give him, she, and no other 
 woman on earth. And he would have battered down her 
 resistance, would have convinced her irrevocably that her 
 only happiness was in his hands. 
 
 He had wanted to love her. There had been several inter- 
 ludes when he had thought that he did. She had everything 
 that even an ambitious man could want in a wife — beauty, 
 brains, education, knowledge of the ways of society that 
 could be learned only through gracious living. She had 
 poise, charm, and she was essentially kind. 
 
 Why, then, hadn't he loved her enough? Enough to still 
 his doubt and hers? Enough to lose himself in the happi- 
 ness within his reach? 
 
 As he mulled it over and over during the hot, sleepless 
 nights when even "Sampson's Ghost" was too lethargic to 
 distract him from his brooding, a greater doubt and fear 
 crept into his heart to stay, and he could not eradicate it. 
 A fear that he would never be satisfied with the thing at 
 hand, the prize within his reach — whether it be a woman 
 
 185 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 or a law case or a political office; that always, he would be 
 straining on, to the next hill, the next valley, the farther 
 mountain, lashed and driven by a mistress whom he would 
 never conquer — ambition. Ambition was the only emotion 
 he had ever known intimately, the only urge that could 
 possess all of him; the only passion that could consume him. 
 
 He could look ahead now, where before he had seen as 
 in a mirror, darkly, and his way was clear. He knew where 
 he was going now. It was a straight road that stretched 
 ahead of him, but a narrow one, with room for only one 
 to walk. He would go alone. Though he knew that he would 
 have friends and many moments of happiness; though he 
 might and probably would marry some day (some woman 
 would get him sure, some woman who wanted him more 
 than Mary Owens had); still, he would go alone, a man 
 turned into himself, guided only by his own peculiar beacon, 
 known by no man, owned by no woman 
 
 Speed, lying beside him in the double bed, slept lightly, 
 peacefully. Not a stirring of air came in through the window 
 ofT the breathless prairie, but Abe Lincoln felt a chill ripple 
 through him, and the aspen tree outside shivered a hushed 
 sigh, though there was no wind blowing 
 
 186 
 
Spring, 1866 
 
 s 
 
 PRING IN MISSOURI WAS LIKE IT HAD BEEN IN KENTUCKY, 
 
 early and gentle and lazy, drifting over the land like a dream, 
 with a sweetness as poignant as youth, stirring memories 
 that had long been blanketed under the winter snow. 
 
 But it wasn't only the May breeze, heavy with lilac fra- 
 grance, that turned Mary Owens Vineyard's thoughts back 
 over the years, back to New Salem and a different Spring. 
 
 There was that letter of William Herndon's that must be 
 answered. 
 
 It didn't seem decent to pry into a woman's personal affairs 
 as this man was trying to do, or into the private life of a man 
 like Abraham Lincoln. But, Abe's one-time law partner 
 wrote her, he had been trying, in the year since the Presi- 
 dent's death, to gather together all available material about 
 his old friend for a personalized biography. He'd been talk- 
 ing with and writing to everyone who had ever known Abe, 
 and someone who remembered New Salem had recalled 
 Mary Owens, and the days when he'd courted her. 
 
 This book that Herndon was planning was one, he urged, 
 that should be written, for there had been so much mis- 
 
 187 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 understanding, so much recrimination and idolization of 
 the man whom both Herndon and Mary had known so well. 
 
 Mr. Herndon wanted to write a true account of Abe Lin- 
 coln, to draw a picture of the great man, as a man. And there 
 was no one in the country better able to write truthfully of 
 that enigmatic character than William Herndon, who had 
 worked with him, practiced law with him, lived with him. 
 
 Abe Lincoln had gone farther than even she or Betsey had 
 been able to predict. They had both recognized the power 
 in him, the selflessness that had made him at once the hum- 
 blest and most conceited man they had ever known, the 
 compassion which was almost superhuman in its proportions. 
 
 Only Mary had seen the predictable results of that quality, 
 and even she had not been able to put it precisely into words 
 — she had sensed it only: the quality that made him belong 
 so much to the people, to all humanity, that he could not 
 be compassed, could not belong to any one person — not even 
 to himself. 
 
 But neither Mary nor her sister had been surprised when 
 he was elected President, to steer the country through the 
 most cruel and senseless war in history. 
 
 What had surprised Mary was his marriage to the daughter 
 of one of the proudest families in Kentucky. She guessed, 
 shrewdly, that Mary Todd had married him, had wanted 
 him so much, that by the sheer force of her will she had con- 
 quered his vacillation. Mary Todd had seen in him the same 
 capacity for greatness that Mary Owens had recognized. But 
 Mary Todd had seen nothing else. She had been blind to 
 the other facets of his character, to those woeful lacks that 
 
 188 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 would preclude any possibility of happiness for the woman 
 who married him. Mary Vineyard didn't need the rumors 
 of his widow's insanity to know that the First Lady had 
 never known happiness with Abe. It wasn't only his horrible 
 murder that had contributed to that mental derangement. 
 It was the piling up, year after year, into that awful climax, 
 of disappointment and loneliness and hurt. 
 
 For Mary Vineyard knew that Mary Lincoln, in her happi- 
 ness, in her pain, in her most intimate moments with her 
 husband, had always been alone. 
 
 Mary Owens had been happy. Quietly, normally, glow- 
 ingly happy. 
 
 She'd gone back home in the spring of 38, reconciled to 
 a life of spinsterhood in her father's household, convinced 
 that the only children she'd ever hold in her arms would be 
 the babies of her sisters and brothers, sure that she would 
 never know any personal joy, except the comfort of service 
 to others. 
 
 And then, three years later, when she was no longer 
 young, she'd married Jesse Vineyard and moved to Missouri. 
 And she had found fulfilment in the deep, glowing fires 
 of mature love, all the better because she'd waited so long. 
 She was past thirty when she married. 
 
 Even so, she had been blessed five times with motherhood, 
 and each year had enriched the soil to which she had trans- 
 planted herself, and she had known a peace and content- 
 ment, in obscurity, which Mary Lincoln, the First Lady of 
 the Land, had never tasted. 
 
 189 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 She wasn't sorry. She had never been sorry that she hadn't 
 hitched her wagon to that dazzling, careening star which 
 had beckoned Abe Lincoln on and on, and up and up, until 
 he had died at an assassin's hand because he was loved so 
 much and hated so much. 
 
 She could have had him. She could have gone with him, 
 and stood beside him on the high mountain, close to that 
 blazing star. She had chosen, instead, with her eyes open, 
 oblivion, contentment, and a woman's kind of happiness. 
 
 But she couldn't write William Herndon that. It was too 
 personal. Anyhow, no man would ever understand. Partic- 
 ularly a man who had been Abe Lincoln's close and dear 
 friend. 
 
 All Mr. Herndon wanted was facts, the events of hei 
 friendship with Lincoln, the details that could be set down 
 in history for the prying eyes of posterity. 
 
 A formal, courteous letter, telling Lincoln's biographer 
 what must be told, all that needed to be told, of her acquaint- 
 ance with Abe back in New Salem, was all that was required. 
 
 She would answer his questions — some of them — but sh< 
 would preserve her thoughts, her memories, her dignity 
 a woman. Give him only what history had a right to relate. 
 
 She found her paper and pen and sat down to compose the 
 letter. It would be difficult to write, not an easy thing to do, 
 even for a woman of her poise and command. 
 
 She stared at the blank page for a while, trying to formu- 
 late her phrases mentally. Then, with a smile half-mischie- 
 vous, half -proud, that revealed the consciousness of quality 
 that had always been a part of Nathaniel Owens' daughter, 
 she started writing. 
 
 190 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 "Really, you catechize me in true lawyer style; but I feel 
 you will have the goodness to excuse me if I decline answer- 
 ing all your questions .... being well assured that few 
 women would have ceded as much as I have under all the 
 circumstances " 
 
 191 
 
rffrfiettdlx 
 
MARY OWENS 
 
M 
 
 /tfrfiettcUx 
 
 by 
 R. Gerald McMurtry 
 
 „ Y INTEREST IN MARY OWENS GOES BACK TO SEVERAL YEARS 
 
 ago, when I tramped through Green County, Kentucky, as 
 rodman in a surveying party which was marking the first 
 important highway to be constructed in that part of the state. 
 While mapping the road, taking cross-sections, making topo- 
 graphical readings, and plotting drainage areas, I chanced 
 to walk over a considerable portion of Nathaniel Owens' 
 plantation on Little Brush Creek. The Georgian mansion 
 where Mary was born still stood, in a fair state of repair. 
 
 Having then only a vague knowledge of the Lincoln- 
 Owens love affair, I became interested in the history of this 
 pioneer family and the lineage of the obscure woman who 
 for a few months held Lincoln's heart and hand at her 
 disposal. 
 
 After becoming acquainted with all the available facts 
 and local legends concerning the proud planter and his tal- 
 ented daughter, I made a cursory survey of Lincoln's many 
 courtships and read several volumes on the women he loved, 
 only to discover eventually that many writers of the old 
 school of biography sincerely believed that the sixteenth 
 
 195 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 president was a man distracted over his unrequited love for 
 Ann Rutledge. After considerable investigation, particularly 
 of the later studies and discoveries, I reached the conclusion 
 that the accounts of his romance with the New Salem lass, 
 which portray a picturesque and romantic idyll, are un- 
 fortunately, more suppositional than factual. 
 
 Because of the romantic bent of human minds, we have 
 devoted many columns of print to the pathetic story of Lin- 
 coln's love for Ann Rutledge, of which we know almost 
 nothing, and seldom give more than passing mention to his 
 affair with Mary Owens, of which there is an abundance of 
 evidence. All because a rural maiden in pastoral New Salem 
 — and a tragic love affair — arouse more sympathy than the 
 almost over-educated Mary Owens or the aristocratic and 
 spirited Mary Todd. 
 
 Within the last few years I decided to take up again the 
 study of the interesting woman who could have had Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, and turned him down, to pry into her early 
 childhood in Kentucky, to discover how she obtained her 
 education, to find all the facts of her romance with Lincoln, 
 and then to learn something of her married life in Missouri. 
 
 In the compiling of this data I have had no ulterior motive 
 in attempting to deflate the Ann Rutledge tradition, to min- 
 imize Mary Todd's influence on Lincoln, or to elevate Mary 
 Owens out of her proper position. Yet too long have senti- 
 mentalists relegated Mary Owens to oblivion. Too often 
 have they referred to her as merely "fashionable, educated, 
 and born of wealth," with little or no comment on her cul- 
 tural background, her character, her gay spirit, and her 
 pleasing personality. Only brief mention has been made of 
 
 196 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 her family, relatives, friends, and her high position in the 
 society of her own Kentucky community. Some historians 
 have contemptuously referred to her as a country girl who 
 was attractive to Lincoln, mostly because she caught him on 
 the rebound after Ann Rutledge's death. 
 
 A complete account of the Lincoln-Owens romance, with 
 all the significant letters and documents pertaining to the 
 affair, along with biographical data on Mary Owens, has 
 not yet been collected in book form. However, the task of 
 correlating the voluminous amount of fact and tradition 
 regarding the courtship has not been an easy one, for while 
 there has been ample documentary material to work with — 
 such as plot, setting, and characterization — these facts in 
 many cases have been unrelated and disconnected. Only the 
 novelist using "poetic license" can weave the known events 
 of the romance into a connected sequence of happenings, 
 while the biographical data should be treated as an appendix. 
 The real value of this study is that both the casual reader 
 and the exacting student can more fully analyze and under- 
 stand Lincoln during that important period of his life when 
 he was groping about, trying to find himself. We hope that 
 this study will also give a new portrait of a woman who had 
 all the qualities of a Todd, who saw in him just as much as 
 Mary Todd saw, but who voluntarily declined the road to 
 honor and glory because he was "deficient in those little 
 links which make up the chain of a woman's happiness." 
 
 The literature has not entirely overlooked the Lincoln- 
 Owens romance. She has been referred to as "The Third 
 Woman in Lincoln's Life" by Ida M. Tarbell in The Delin- 
 
 197 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 eator, February, 1934, while William E. Barton has devoted 
 several paragraphs to Miss Owens in his magazine article, 
 "Two Women Lincoln Loved," Ladies Home Journal, Octo- 
 ber, 1927. The affair received considerable treatment by Carl 
 Sandburg in his inimitable style under the title "The Un- 
 fathomed Lincoln," Pictorial Review, beginning with the 
 October, 1925, issue and ending with the March, 1926, num- 
 ber. Dr. Barton, in the Dearborn Independent for November 
 13, 1926, in an article "Verses That Lincoln Wrote," made 
 an interesting comment concerning the courtship: "He [Lin- 
 coln] had no facility of expression in matters of love. His love 
 letters to Mary Owens are a sad example of a courtship 
 wholly ineffective because utterly done in prose." Bulletin 
 No. 25 of the Abraham Lincoln Association, December, 1931, 
 devotes seven pages to a phase of the story, while one of the 
 most interesting studies is an essay entitled "Abraham Lin- 
 coln In His Relations To Women," by Julien Gordon, Cos- 
 mopolitan, December, 1894. This latter article, however, does 
 not deal with any particular Lincoln courtship, but gives a 
 more general treatment to the whole scope of Lincoln's love 
 life. 
 
 A very satisfactory newspaper account of the romance was 
 written by A. B. McDonald, revealing Lincoln as a hesitant 
 suitor, which appeared in The Kansas City Star, December 
 30, 1928. In addition to articles appearing in periodicals and 
 newspapers, brief sketches of the courtship have been re- 
 corded by scores of biographers and pamphleteers. Their 
 story in most cases is essentially the same, a notable exception 
 being the readable account by Barton in his popular book, 
 The Women Lincoln Loved (Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1927, 
 
 198 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 pps. 187-209). Also worthy of mention is the twelve-page 
 pamphlet Abraham Lincoln and Mary Owens, which was 
 published in 1922 by H. E. Barker. Jacob Louis Hasbrouck 
 of the Bloomington Pantagraph, has facetiously referred to 
 the courtship in a section of his pamphlet Lincoln in Some of 
 His Unheroic Hours, 1938, with the statement that "He [Lin- 
 coln] did not take her [Mary Owens] to the movies, nor for 
 
 automobile rides Mary Owens was a big fat girl — and 
 
 perhaps that explains why, unlike Ann Rutledge, she has 
 never had any streamlined trains named for her." In the same 
 humorous vein, the Chicago Tribune of December 12, 1941, 
 sums up Lincoln's love affairs under the heading, "If This 
 Be Treason, Make the Most of It," with the comment that, 
 "No doubt his 'courting/ in most cases, consisted of occa- 
 sional remarks such as, 'Howdy, Sis, how's your paw?'" 
 
 Some writers have considered the Lincoln-Owens court- 
 ship as a very serious and sacred affair. Henry James made 
 the following comment upon hearing of the discovery and 
 publication of some of Lincoln's letters to Mary Owens: 
 "Somebody has been digging into Lincoln's correspondence 
 so as to tell the tale of the great man's love affairs. I think 
 such meddling is more than disrespectful, and that it is inso- 
 lent and useless. If a man is entitled to any privacy whatever 
 it certainly relates to matters so personal as his letters to a 
 woman with whom he is in love. Even after he is dead, no 
 alien hand has any decent right to be pawing over such 
 missives." 
 
 As to the importance of the courtship and this Kentucky 
 girl's influence on the life of the sixteenth president, Dr. 
 Louis A. Warren, Director of the Lincoln National Life 
 
 199 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Foundation, Fort Wayne, Indiana, recorded in a letter dated 
 August 13, 1940, the following opinion: "I am very sure that 
 Mary Owens played a greater part in Lincoln's life than 
 Ann Rudedge." 
 
 In my compiling of this historical material, credit must be 
 given to William H. Herndon for the discovery of the essen- 
 tial facts pertaining to the Lincoln-Owens courtship, which 
 he described as "an affair of the heart which culminated in a 
 sequel as amusing as the one with Ann Rutledge was sad." 
 Herndon was able to do an excellent job of original research 
 on the affair, and he related that he "experienced much diffi- 
 culty in obtaining the particulars of this courtship." The 
 Herndon-Weik story of the romance appeared in Vol. I, 
 under chapter VII, pps. 143-61, of their work, Herndoris 
 Lincoln, The True Story of a Great Life, (Belford Clarke and 
 Company, 1889). However, Ward H. Lamon in his book, 
 The Life of Abraham Lincoln, (James R. Osgood and Com- 
 pany, 1872, under chapter IX, pps. 172-193), was the first to 
 publish the results of Herndon's researches on this subject, 
 which were supplemented with additional documentary ma- 
 terial. 
 
 Herndon, himself a native (born 1818) of Green County, 
 Kentucky, while compiling data for a Lincoln biography, 
 heard of the courtship and immediately started an historical 
 investigation. He knew the Owens family by reputation, and 
 accordingly he wrote to Mary Owens Vineyard (she had 
 married Jesse Vineyard March 27, 1841) for a confirmation 
 of the rumors of her courtship with Lincoln. At first she 
 refused to answer his letters, but he was persistent, and after 
 repeated solicitations, he persuaded her to reveal the facts 
 
 200 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 and to lend him Lincoln's letters for a short while until he 
 could make copies of them. She pledged Herndon to secrecy, 
 hoping that her name as well as her place of residence might 
 not be revealed. Her first letter, written from Weston, Mis- 
 souri, reads as follows: 
 
 May 1, 1866 
 Mr. W. H. Herndon, 
 
 Dear Sir, — Af ter quite a struggle with my feelings, I have at last 
 decided to send you the letters in my possession written by Mr. Lin- 
 coln, believing, as I do, that you are a gentleman of honor, and will 
 faithfully abide by all you have said. 
 
 My associations with your lamented friend were in Menard County, 
 whilst visiting a sister, who then resided near Petersburg. I have 
 learned that my maiden name is now in your possession; and you 
 have ere this, no doubt, been informed that I am a native Kentuckian. 
 
 As regards Miss Rutledge, I cannot tell you any thing, she having 
 died previous to my acquaintance with Mr. Lincoln; and I do not 
 now recollect of ever hearing him mention her name. Please return 
 the letters at your earliest convenience. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 Mary S. 
 
 However, much to Herndon's disappointment, Lincoln's 
 letters to Mary Owens did not reveal enough details of the 
 courtship. Inquiring historian that he was, he next prepared 
 a questionnaire for Mrs. Vineyard to answer about the entire 
 romance from beginning to end. To Mary this was rather a 
 delicate matter, and she was not pleased with Herndon's 
 pointed questions. Accordingly, in a few days Lincoln's 
 Boswell received the following letter: 
 
 201 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Weston, Missouri 
 May 22, 1866 
 Mr. W. H. Herndon, 
 
 My dear Sir, — Really you catechise me in true lawyer style; but 
 I feel you will have the goodness to excuse me if I decline answering 
 all your questions in detail, being well assured that few women 
 would have ceded as much as I have under all the circumstances. 
 
 You say you have heard why our acquaintance terminated as it did. 
 I, too, have heard the same bit of gossip; but I never used the remark 
 which Madam Rumor says I did to Mr. Lincoln. I think I did on one 
 occasion say to my sister, who was very anxious for us to be married, 
 that I thought Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links which 
 make up the chain of woman's happiness, — at least, it was so in my 
 case. Not that I believed it proceeded from a lack of goodness of 
 heart; but his training had been different from mine; hence there 
 was not that congeniality which would otherwise have existed. 
 
 From his own showing, you perceive that his heart and hand were 
 at my disposal; and I suppose that my feelings were not sufficiently 
 enlisted to have the matter consummated. About the beginning of 
 the year 183 8 I left Illinois, at which time our acquaintance and 
 correspondence ceased without ever again being renewed. 
 
 My father, who resided in Green County, Kentucky, was a gentle- 
 man of considerable means; and I am persuaded that few persons 
 placed a higher estimate on education than he did. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 Mary S. 
 
 Mary's second letter to Herndon gave him one important 
 sentence about which he later wrote to Jesse W. Weik. He 
 said : "There is one sentence in her second letter to me dated 
 the 22nd. May, 1866, which I shall copy — and underscore — 
 have italicised: it is this — 'I think I did on one occasion say 
 to my sister who was very anxious for us to be married, that 
 / thought Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little lin\s 
 which ma\e up the chain of woman s happiness! " Herndon 
 
 202 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 continued: "I wish that the latter part of this sentence would 
 be kept in mind — constantly in the mind of the reader, for 
 out of this nature of Lincoln grows — springs a sad tale." 
 
 Herndon, after receiving two letters from Mrs. Vineyard, 
 decided another might be forthcoming if he should write 
 her, using diplomacy and tact. He had heard a rumor about 
 a quarrel between Miss Owens and Lincoln because of his 
 failure to assist Mrs. Green in carrying her child up a hill. 
 Using this as an excuse to write her, Herndon was again 
 successful. In due time he received another letter from Mrs. 
 Vineyard: 
 
 Weston, Missouri, 
 July 22, 1866 
 Mr. W. H. Herndon 
 
 Dear Sir, — I do not think that you are pertinacious in asking the 
 question relative to old Mrs. Bowlin Greene, because I wish to set 
 you right on that question. Your information, no doubt, came 
 through my cousin, Mr. Gaines Greene, who visited us last winter. 
 Whilst here, he was laughing at me about Mr. Lincoln, and among 
 other things spoke about the circumstances in connection with Mrs. 
 Greene and child. My impression is now that I tacitly admitted it, 
 for it was a season of trouble with me, and I gave but little heed to 
 the matter. We never had any hard feelings toward each other that 
 I know of. On no occasion did I say to Mr. Lincoln that I did not 
 believe he would make a kind husband, because he did not tender his 
 services to Mrs. Greene in helping her carry her babe. As I said to you 
 in a former letter, I thought him lacking in smaller attentions. One 
 circumstance presents itself just now to my mind's eye. There was a 
 company of us going to Uncle Billy Greene's. Mr. Lincoln was riding 
 with me; and we had a very bad branch to cross. The other gentlemen 
 were very officious in seeing that their partners got over safely. We 
 were behind, he riding in, never looking back to see how I got along. 
 When I rode up beside him, I remarked, "You are a nice fellow! I 
 suppose you did not care whether my neck was broken or not." He 
 
 203 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 laughingly replied (I suppose by way of compliment) that he knew 
 I was plenty smart to take care of myself. 
 
 In many things he was sensitive, almost to a fault. He told me of 
 an incident: that he was crossing a prairie one day, and saw before 
 him "a hog mired down," to use his own language. He was rather 
 "fixed up;" and he resolved that he would pass on without looking 
 towards the shoat. After he had gone by, he said the feeling was 
 irresistible; and he had to look back, and the poor thing seemed to 
 say wistfully, "There, now, my last hope is gone;" that he deliber- 
 ately got down, and relieved it from its difficulty. 
 
 In many things we were congenial spirits. In politics we saw eye 
 to eye, though since then we differed as widely as the South is from 
 the North. But methinks I hear you say, "Save me from a political 
 woman!" So say I. 
 
 The last message I ever received from him was about a year after 
 we parted in Illinois. Mrs. Able visited Kentucky; and he said to her 
 in Springfield, "Tell your sister that I think she was a great fool, 
 because she did not stay here, and marry me." Characteristic of the 
 man. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 Mary S. 
 
 Herndon's efforts at historical research had proved highly 
 successful. He had copies of the three letters which Lincoln 
 had written to Mary Owens, as well as three from Mrs. Vine- 
 yard to himself. Accordingly, with this data, in addition to 
 other historical facts discovered elsewhere, he wrote a fifteen- 
 page article in the form of a rough draft entitled, "Lincoln's 
 Courtship With Miss Owens." This draft was sent to Jesse 
 W. Weik to assist him in writing chapter VII of the Herndon- 
 Weik biography. A photostat of the original manuscript is 
 to be found in the files of the University of Illinois Library, 
 a typewritten copy of which was furnished for this study by 
 Miss Helen Mclntyre. The Herndon article is of such great 
 
 204 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 importance that the major portion of it has been incorporated 
 in this Appendix. 
 
 Herndon's description of Mary Owens is quite interesting. 
 He said that "Lincoln was evidently impressed with this 
 maiden's looks. Probably it was the grace of her movements 
 and the rather [ ?] brilliancy of her mind that charmed Lin- 
 coln. She was graceful, dignified, and rather a handsome 
 woman. Mr. Lincoln never was spoken to by such a polished 
 lady before. She had fine conversational powers. She was a 
 portly woman and weighing about 170 pounds — had large 
 blue eyes — was tall and well proportioned — was good- 
 natured, and made all persons feel easy in her presence — 
 was witty. However, she was free from that kind of wit that 
 burns — bites and wilts. This lady was not beautiful by any 
 means — was handsome because — and alone because she was 
 a woman of commanding presence." 
 
 The Herndon biography, Vol. I, page 144, contains the 
 following additional description of Mary Owens: "According 
 to a description furnished me by herself she had 'fair skin, 
 deep blue eyes, and dark curling hair; height five feet, five 
 inches; weight about a hundred and fifty pounds.' She was 
 good-looking in girlhood; by many esteemed handsome, but 
 became fleshier as she grew older. One man [L. M. Greene] 
 
 was impressed with her beauty years afterwards 
 
 he wrote me: 'She was tall, portly, had large blue eyes and 
 the finest trimmings I ever saw. She was jovial, social, loved 
 wit and humor, had a liberal English education, and was con- 
 sidered wealthy. None of the poets or romance writers have 
 ever given us a picture of a heroine so beautiful as a good 
 description of Miss Owens in 1836 would be.' " 
 
 20? 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Herndon continued his dissertation, informing Weik that 
 Miss Owens made two trips to Illinois. He related that "Miss 
 Owens, the sister of Mrs. Able (Abell) came out to Illinois 
 and as a matter of course stayed with Mrs. Able. This woman 
 then was in her 28th year, but she did not visit long in Illi- 
 nois; she went back to Kentucky, and Mrs. Able, her sister, 
 soon paid her a visit in Kentucky in return. Mrs. Able soon 
 returned to Illinois, bringing the same sister back with her. 
 Lincoln resided in New Salem from '31 to '37, and it was 
 during Miss Owens' first visit to Illinois that Lincoln first 
 saw her." Evidently Herndon was confused about the dates 
 of the visits, for he made the following statement: "This first 
 visit of Miss Owens to Illinois may have been earlier than '34 
 (4 marked over an original 6) it may be as early as 9 33. ,y 
 Continuing the account he wrote: "Miss Owens returned to 
 Illinois in 36-Octr. Mr. Lincoln was early impressed by this 
 woman — was [a] very susceptible man. She returned to Ken- 
 tucky in '38; and she was now in her 29th year and Lincoln 
 in his 28th year." 
 
 To keep the record straight, it is well to state here that in 
 1833, eleven years after the marriage of her sister Betsey, 
 Mary visited the Abells. The route she traveled to New Salem 
 is unknown. Perhaps she went by way of a stagecoach over a 
 turnpike from Bardstown, Kentucky, to Vincennes, Indiana, 
 and from there over crude wagon trails to Sangamon County. 
 After a four weeks' visit she returned to her home on Little 
 Brush Creek. Mary's second visit to New Salem was made in 
 the fall of 1836. She arrived there on November 7, the day 
 Lincoln cast his vote for Senator Hugh L. White of Ten- 
 
 206 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 nessee, the Whig candidate for president. This visit was 
 terminated after an eighteen months period. 
 
 When Mary returned to Kentucky after her first trip, 
 Herndon relates, "Mr. Lincoln declared that he would catch, 
 tie, and marry this lady as soon as she returned from Ken- 
 tucky; she did return to Illinois, but did Mr. Lincoln catch, 
 tie, and marry her ? Miss Owens was informed by her friends 
 of Mr. Lincoln's intentions, and when she left Kentucky on 
 her second trip she was determined to try his metal in his 
 chase to catch, tie, and marry her." 
 
 In discussing the correspondence between Miss Owens and 
 Lincoln, Herndon gave Weik the following information: 
 "Mr. Lincoln moved to Springfield in the fall of 36 or in 
 the spring of '37, leaving Miss Owens at Mrs. Abie's. Lincoln 
 and the lady commenced corresponding — one from Vandalia, 
 having gone to there as [a] member of the legislature, and 
 the other from New Salem — at least it is said so, though no 
 letters can be found of hers." As Herndon related to Weik, 
 no letters of Mary Owens addressed to Abraham Lincoln 
 have ever been discovered. 
 
 In discussing Lincoln's letters to Miss Owens, Herndon 
 was at his best in trying to read the writer's mind, thoughts, 
 and actions. The following letter, which bears the earliest 
 date of the three received by Mary Owens was the object of 
 Herndon's first study. 
 
 Vandalia, Dec. 13, 1836 
 Mary 
 
 I have been sick ever since my arrival here, or I should have written 
 sooner. It is but little difference, however, as I have very little even 
 yet to write. And more, the longer I can avoid the mortification of 
 
 207 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 looking in the Post Office for your letter and not finding it, the better. 
 You see I am mad about the old letter yet. I dont like very well to 
 risk you again. I'll try you once more any how. 
 
 The new State House is not yet finished, and consequently the 
 legislature is doing little or nothing. The Governor delivered an in- 
 flamitory political Message, and it is expected there will be some 
 sparring between the parties about it as soon as the two Houses get 
 to business. Taylor delivered up his petitions for the New County to 
 one of our members this morning. I am told he despairs of its success 
 on account of all the members from Morgan County opposing it. 
 There are names enough on the petition, I think, to justify the mem- 
 bers from our county in going for it; but if the members from Mor- 
 gan oppose it, which they say they will, the chance will be bad. 
 
 Our chance to take the seat of Government to Springfield is better 
 than I expected. An Internal Improvement Convention was held here 
 since we met, which recommended a loan of several millions of dollars 
 on the faith of the State to construct Rail Roads. Some of the legis- 
 lature are for it and some against it; which has the majority I can not 
 tell. There is great strife and struggling for the office of U. S. Senator 
 here at this time. It is probable we shall ease their pains in a few days. 
 The opposition men have no candidate of their own, and consequently 
 they smile as complacently at the angry snarls of the contending Van 
 Buren candidates and their respective friends, as the Christian does at 
 Satan's rage. You recollect I mentioned in the outset of this letter 
 that I had been unwell. That is the fact, though I believe I am about 
 well now; but that, with other things I can not account for, have 
 conspired and have gotten my spirits so low, that I feel I would rather 
 be any place in the world than here. I really can not endure the 
 thought of staying here ten weeks. Write back as soon as you get this^ 
 and if possible, say something that will please me, for really I have not 
 been pleased since I left you. This letter is so dry and stupid that I 
 am ashamed to send it, but with my present feelings I can not do any 
 better. 
 
 Give my best respects to Mr. and Mrs. Abell and family. 
 
 Your friend 
 
 Lincoln 
 Miss Mary S. Owens 
 
 208 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Herndon analyzed the situation as follows: "Mr. Lincoln's 
 first letter to Miss Owens is dated the 13th Dec. 1836; it was 
 written from Vandalia, then the seat of government — the 
 capital city of Illinois. Mr. Lincoln was a member of the legis- 
 lature at that time and it does appear that law making was 
 not all of his life. Part of it was given to Miss Owens. The 
 letter — shows that Lincoln was in love — deeply in love, so 
 much so that he felt nettled, because she had not written to 
 him, as she had promised to do; he asks the lady to 'write 
 back — as soon as you get this and, if possible, say something 
 that will please me.' " 
 
 The next letter which Herndon analyzed for Weik bore a 
 Springfield postmark: 
 
 Springfield, May 7, 1837 
 Friend Mary, 
 
 I have commenced two letters to send you before this, both of 
 which displeased me before I got half done, and so I tore them up. 
 The first I thought wasn't serious enough, and the second was on the 
 other extreme. I shall send this, turn out as it may — 
 
 This thing of living in Springfield is rather a dull business after 
 all, at least it is so to me. I am quite as lonesome here as [I] ever 
 was anywhere in my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman 
 since I've been here, and should not have been by her, if she could 
 have avoided it. I've never been to church yet, nor probably shall 
 not be soon. I stay away because I am conscious I should not know 
 how to behave myself — 
 
 I am often thinking about what we said of your coming to live at 
 Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied. There is a great 
 deal of flourishing about in carriages here; which it would be your 
 doom to see without sharing in it. You would have to be poor with- 
 out the means of hiding your poverty. Do you believe you could bear 
 that patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should 
 any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her 
 
 209 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 happy and contented; and there, is nothing I can imagine, that would 
 make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort. I know I should be 
 much happier with you than the way I am, provided I saw no signs 
 of discontent in you. What you have said to me may have been in 
 jest, or I may have misunderstood it. If so, then let it be forgotten; 
 if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously before you 
 decide. For my part I have already decided. What I have said I will 
 most positively abide by, provided you wish it. My opinion is, that you 
 had better not do it. You have not been accustomed to hardship, and 
 it may be more severe than you now immagine. 
 
 I know you are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and 
 if you deliberate maturely upon this, before you decide, then I am 
 willing to abide your decision. 
 
 You must write me a good long letter after you get this. You have 
 nothing else to do, and though it might not seem interesting to you, 
 after you have written it, it would be a good deal of company to me 
 in this "busy wilderness." Tell your sister I dont want to hear any 
 more about selling out and moving. That gives me the hypo when- 
 ever I think of it. 
 
 Yours &c — 
 Lincoln 
 
 This missive was accompanied by the following comment: 
 "The second letter of Mr. Lincoln to Miss Owens is dated 
 May the 7th, '37; it is a curious letter and is worthy of study 
 and is addressed to the lady from Springfield, the legislature 
 having adjourned. I have always thought that this letter was 
 an honest letter." 
 
 In discussing the third letter, Herndon reiterated to Weik 
 his belief that Lincoln was honest, and he suggested a con- 
 siderate judgment of the hesitant suitor. 
 
 Springfield Aug. 16th 1837 
 Friend Mary. 
 
 You will, no doubt, think it rather strange, that I should write you 
 a letter on the same day on which we parted; and I can only account 
 
 210 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 for it by supposing, that seeing you lately makes me think of you 
 more than usual, while at our late meeting we had but few expres- 
 sions of thoughts. You must know that I cannot see you, or think 
 of you, with entire indifference; and yet it may be, that you, are 
 mistaken in regard to what my real feelings towards you are. If I 
 knew you were not, I should not trouble you with this letter. Perhaps 
 any other man would know enough without further information; 
 but I consider it my peculiar right to plead ignorance, and your 
 bounden duty to allow the plea. I want in all cases to do right; and 
 most particularly so, in all cases with women. I want, at this partic- 
 ular time, more than any thing else, to do right with you, and if I 
 knew it would be doing right, as I rather suspect it would, to let you 
 alone, I would do it. And for the purpose of making the matter as 
 plain as possible, I now say, that you can now drop the subject, dismiss 
 your thoughts (if you ever had any) from me forever, and leave this 
 letter unanswered, without calling forth one accusing murmer from 
 me. And I will even go further, and say, that if it will add any thing 
 to your comfort, or peace of mind, to do so, it is my sincere wish that 
 you should. Do not understand by this, that I wish to cut your 
 acquaintance. I mean no such thing. What I do wish is, that our 
 further acquaintance shall depend upon yourself. If such further 
 acquaintance would contribute nothing to your happiness, I am sure 
 it would not to mine. If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, 
 I am now willing to release: you, provided you wish it; while, on the 
 other hand, I am willing, and even anxious to bind you faster, if I 
 can be convinced that it will, in any considerable degree, add to your 
 happiness. This, indeed, is the whole question with me. Nothing 
 would make me more miserable than to believe you miserable — 
 nothing more happy, than to know you were so. 
 
 In what I have now said, I think I can not be misunderstood; and 
 to make myself understood, is the only object of this letter. 
 
 If it suits you best to not answer this farewell — a long life and 
 a merry one attend you. But if you conclude to write back, speak 
 as plainly as I do. There can be neither harm nor danger, in saying, 
 to me, any thing you think, just in the manner you think it. 
 
 My respects to your sister. 
 
 Your friend 
 Lincoln 
 
 211 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Herndon's analysis was as follows: "The third letter of Mr. 
 Lincoln to Miss Owens is dated the 16th Aug. '37; it appears 
 that Mr. Lincoln had gone down to New Salem to see her, 
 and had returned to Springfield from which place the letter 
 was written. Read these two letters carefully and consider 
 that they were written by an honest man, but possibly one 
 disposed to kick. A man that did not know Lincoln, thor- 
 oughly and well, would conclude at once that Lincoln 
 wanted to back down, but I would ask the reader not to be 
 too hasty in his conclusions." 
 
 In 1887 Jesse W. Weik, of Greencastle, Indiana, delved 
 further into the question of the Lincoln-Owens courtship. 
 He wrote Benjamin R. Vineyard, attorney-at-law in St. 
 Joseph, Missouri, for information about his mother's romance 
 with Lincoln, and at the same time he requested a photo- 
 graph of Mary Owens to be used in the forthcoming biog- 
 raphy. Mr. Vineyard very graciously furnished Weik with an 
 account of the romance. (A photostat of the original docu- 
 ment is to be found in the University of Illinois library. It 
 was first published in its entirety in Emanuel Hertz' work, 
 The Hidden Lincoln, Viking Press, p. 371-73.) Benjamin 
 Vineyard accompanied his letter to Jesse Weik (March 14, 
 1887) with the following account: 
 
 Mary S. Owens, daughter of Nathaniel Owens, was born in Green 
 County, Kentucky, on the 29th day of September, 1808. She was 
 married to Jesse Vineyard on the 27th day of March, 1841. Of this 
 union there were born five children, of whom only two survive. 
 Jesse Vineyard died December 27th, 1862, and Mary, his widow, on 
 July 4th, 1877. 
 
 212 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Mary received a good education, her father being a leading and 
 wealthy citizen of his time and locality. A part of her schooling was 
 obtained in a Catholic convent, though in religous faith she was a 
 Baptist, and in after years united with that denomination, and con- 
 tinued a member thereof until the time of her death. She was good 
 looking when a girl, by many esteemed handsome, but growing 
 fleshier as she grew older. She was polished in her manners, pleasing 
 in her address and attractive in society. She had a little dash of 
 coquetry in her intercourse with that class of young men, who arro- 
 gated to themselves claims of superiority. But she never yielded to 
 this disposition to an extent that would willingly lend encouragement 
 to an honest suitor, sincerely desirous of securing her hand, where 
 she felt she could not in the end yield to a proposal of marriage if 
 he should make the offer. She was a good conversationalist and a 
 splendid reader — but very few persons being found to equal her in 
 this accomplishment. She was light-hearted and cheery in her dispo- 
 sition. She was kind and considerate for those, with whom she was 
 thrown in contact. 
 
 She first became acquainted with Mr. Lincoln while visiting a 
 sister of hers who had married Bennett Able, and who was an early 
 settler of the Country about New Salem. Young Lincoln was a fre- 
 quent visitor at the house of Able and a warm friend of the family, 
 and during the first visit of Mary Owens, which did not continue a 
 great while, he learned to admire her very much. Later she made 
 a second visit to her sister, Mrs. Able, returning with her from Ken- 
 tucky. Lincoln had boasted, so it has been said, that he would marry 
 Miss Owens if she came a second time to Illinois, a report of which 
 had come to her hearing. She left her Kentucky home with a prede- 
 termination to show him, if she met him, that she was not to be 
 caught simply by the asking. On this second visit Lincoln paid her 
 more marked attention than ever before, and his affections became 
 more and more enlisted in her behalf. During the early part of their 
 acquaintance, following the natural bent of her temperament, she 
 was pleasing and entertaining to him. Later on he discovered himself 
 seriously interested in the blue-eyed Kentuckian, whom he had really 
 under-estimated in his preconceived opinions of her. In the meantime, 
 Mary, too, had discovered the sterling qualities of the young man, 
 
 213 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 who was paying her such devoted attention. But while she admired, 
 she did not love him. He was ungainly and angular in his physical 
 make-up, and to her seemed deficient in the nicer and more delicate 
 attentions, which she felt to be due from the man whom she had 
 pictured as an ideal husband. He had given her to understand that 
 she had greatly charmed him. But he was not himself certain that he 
 could make her the husband he thought she would be most happy 
 with. Later on, by word and in letter he told her so. His honesty of 
 purpose showed itself in all his efforts to win her hand. He told her 
 of his poverty, and while advising her that life with him meant to 
 her, who had been reared in comfort and plenty, great privation and 
 sacrifice, yet he wished to secure her as a wife. But she felt that she did 
 not entertain for him the same f eeling that he professed for her, and 
 that she ought to entertain before accepting him, and so declined his 
 offer. Judging alone from some of his letters it has been supposed by 
 some that she, remembering the rumor she had heard of his determi- 
 nation to marry her, and not being fully certain of the sincerity of 
 his purposes, may have purposely left him, in the earlier stages of his 
 courtship somewhat in uncertainty. But later on, when, by his 
 manner and his repeated announcement to her that his hand and 
 heart were at her disposal, he demonstrated the honesty and sincerity 
 of his purposes, she declined his offer kindly but with no uncertain 
 meaning. In speaking of him in after years she always referred to him 
 as a man with a heart full of human kindness and a head full of 
 common sense. 
 
 Weik was so pleased with the son's characterization of his 
 mother in regard to her "coquetry" that he interpolated 
 verbatim, without quotation marks, a portion of Vineyard's 
 manuscript into the Herndon-Weik biography. 
 
 In regard to the account of the romance, as well as the 
 photograph, Vineyard wrote Weik the following letter, a 
 photostat of which is now in the collection of the Depart- 
 ment of Lincolniana at Lincoln Memorial University, Har- 
 rogate, Tennessee: 
 
 214 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 St. Joseph, Mo., March 14, 1887 
 Mr. Jesse W. Weik, 
 
 Green Castle, Ind. 
 Dear Sir, — I have just returned from my sisters near Weston and 
 gotten from her to send you the ambrotype of my mother taken 
 many years before the photograph a copy of which I sent you. The 
 photograph was taken when she was about sixty-five — the ambrotype 
 was taken perhaps twenty-five or thirty years earlier. I had forgotten 
 that this old picture existed, until seeing my sister it was brought to 
 my recollection. We do not know the date when the ambrotype was 
 taken but we think it was probably taken when she was about the 
 age of thirty-five. I run the risk of sending you this ambrotype of 
 my mother by this day's express. Please let me know as soon as you 
 get it, and return it to me as soon as through using it. By taking in 
 a reprint — the face and bust only for the benefit of your readers I 
 am sure that it will be much more satisfactory than the photograph 
 I sent you before. 
 
 I see the fashion was for the ladies to wear caps those days, and by 
 suggesting the reprint of the face and bust only, I do not mean that 
 you should exclude the cap if you think it should appear as is prob- 
 ably the case. 
 
 I send you also inclosed the original letter of Mr. Lincoln to my 
 mother dated August 16th, 1837, which I got from my sister. Please 
 take the best of care of it, and return it to me by mail just as soon 
 as you can get through using it. You see I am trusting you (a 
 stranger) considerably. I trust my confidence will not be misplaced. 
 
 I have written (also inclosed) a short account of my mother and 
 Mr. Lincoln's courtship of her. I do not wish it published over my 
 signature, but send it to you as my idea of what is probably true, 
 that it may serve you as the basis of what you may wish to write 
 on the subject. 
 
 Please acknowledge receipt of this, as soon as it reaches you. 
 
 I received your last with contents as stated. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 B. R. Vineyard 
 
 In January and February, 1887, B. R. Vineyard wrote again 
 
 215 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 to Jesse Weik concerning his mother and Lincoln's offer of 
 marriage. Nancy G. Vineyard, a half-sister of Mary Owens, 
 also wrote Weik from Victoria, Texas, on February 4, 1887, 
 relating facts concerning the courtship of her sister and 
 Lincoln. References to these letters appear in an index to the 
 Weik manuscripts, but after an exhaustive search they have 
 not been discovered. 
 
 Lincoln collectors will be interested in learning that all 
 three of Lincoln's letters to Mary Owens are extant. They 
 were carefully preserved by Mrs. Vineyard during her life- 
 time in the drawer of an old bureau in a farmhouse near 
 Weston, Missouri. When she died the letters were lost for a 
 while, as they had been removed from their hiding-place. 
 Mrs. Charles L. Barbee, of Kansas City, Missouri, an adopted 
 daughter of Mrs. Kate Cunningham, discovered them stuffed 
 in the rafters of the old home place. She realized their value 
 and importance and carefully preserved them. Mrs. Cunning- 
 ham, a daughter of Mary Owens, inherited the three letters. 
 She distributed them among certain members of the family, 
 with the request that they be handed down from generation 
 to generation. 
 
 The Lincoln letter dated December 13, 1836, is today in the 
 possession of a great-grandson, James G. Vineyard, 1128 
 Dierks Building, Kansas City, Missouri. The one dated May 
 7, 1837, is the property of Mrs. George H. Vineyard, 819 Felix 
 Street, St. Joseph, Missouri, the widow of a grandson. The 
 August 16, 1837, letter is said to be in the possession of Miss 
 Lena Parrott, of Augusta, Maine. Her grandmother was a 
 half-sister of Mary Owens. Members of the family have re- 
 ceived fabulous offers for the letters (one account states they 
 
 216 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 were offered $30,000 for the three items), but the letters are 
 not for sale. However, photostats of the originals may be had 
 from the larger Lincoln libraries. 
 
 In the year 1869, Herndon turned over to Ward H. Lamon 
 copies of his Lincoln letters and documents for publication in 
 Lamon's biography, The Life of Abraham Lincoln (James R. 
 Osgood and Company, Boston, 1872). In this great mass of 
 data Lamon found considerable information on the court- 
 ship of Lincoln and Mary Owens, but not being satisfied as 
 to its completeness, he made an investigation for additional 
 material and was amply rewarded for his trouble. Lamon, 
 with an eye and ear for new facts concerning Lincoln, remem- 
 bered hearing some time during the Lincoln administration 
 that Mrs. Orville H. Browning, wife of the Illinois senator, 
 had received from Lincoln an interesting letter dated April 1, 
 1838, about a romance, and upon inquiry he was not only 
 allowed to see the original letter, but to make a copy. Putting 
 two and two together, he found this letter was a sequel to the 
 Lincoln-Owens romance, written in the same month that 
 Miss Owens made her final departure from Illinois. Knowing 
 that this letter would be a bombshell in historical circles, he 
 gave a long explanation as to why he had determined that it 
 should be published. He wrote, on pages 180-81 of his biog- 
 raphy: 
 
 For many reasons the publication of this letter is an extremely- 
 painful duty. If it could be withheld, and the act decently recon- 
 ciled to the conscience of a biographer professing to be honest and 
 candid, it should never see the light in these pages. Its grotesque 
 humor, its coarse exaggerations in describing the person of a lady 
 whom the writer was willing to marry, its imputation of toothless 
 
 217 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 and weather-beaten old age to a woman really young and handsome, 
 its utter lack of that delicacy of tone and sentiment which one natu- 
 rally expects a gentleman to adopt when he thinks proper to discuss 
 the merits of his late mistress, — all these, and its defective orthog- 
 raphy, it would certainly be more agreeable to suppress than to pub- 
 lish. But, if we begin by omitting or mutilating a document which 
 sheds so broad a light upon one part of his life and one phase of his 
 character, why may we not do the like as fast and as often as the 
 temptations arise? and where shall the process cease? A biography 
 worth writing at all is worth writing fully and honestly; and the 
 writer who suppresses or mangles the truth is no better than he who 
 bears false witness in any other capacity. 
 
 Accordingly, Lamon published Lincoln's letter to Mrs. 
 Browning: 
 
 Springfield, April 1, 183 8 
 Dear Madam: 
 
 Without appologising for being egotistical, I shall make the his- 
 tory of so much of my own life, as has elapsed since I saw you, the 
 subject of this letter — And by the way I now discover, that, in order 
 to give a full and inteligible account of the things I have done and 
 suffered since I saw you, I shall necessarily have to relate some that 
 happened before — 
 
 It was, then, in the autumn of 1836, that a married lady of my 
 acquaintance, and who was a great friend of mine, being about to 
 pay a visit to her father and other relatives residing in Kentucky, 
 proposed to me, that on her return she would bring a sister of hers 
 with her, upon condition that I would engage to become her brother- 
 in-law with all convenient dispach — I, of course, accepted the 
 proposal; for you know I could not have done otherwise, had I 
 really been averse to it; but privately between you and me, I was 
 most confoundedly well pleased with the project — I had seen the said 
 sister some three years before, thought her inteligent and agreeable, 
 and saw no good objection to plodding life through hand in hand 
 with her — Time passed on, the lady took her journey and in due time 
 returned, sister in company sure enough — This stomached me a little; 
 
 218 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 for it appeared to me, that her coming so readily showed that she was 
 a trifle too willing; but on reflection it occurred to me, that she 
 might have been prevailed on by her married sister to come, with- 
 out any thing concerning me ever having been mentioned to her; 
 and so I concluded that if no other objection presented itself, I would 
 consent to wave this — All this occurred upon my hearing of her 
 arrival in the neighborhood; for, be it remembered, I had not yet 
 seen her, except about three years previous, as before mentioned — 
 
 In a few days we had an interview, and although I had seen her 
 before, she did not look as my imagination had pictured her — I knew 
 she was over-size, but she now appeared a fair match for Falstaff; 
 I knew she was called an "old maid," and I felt no doubt of the 
 truth of at least half of the appelation; but now, when I beheld her, 
 I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother; and this, not 
 from withered features, for her skin was too full of fat, to permit 
 its contracting in to wrinkles; but from her want of teeth, weather- 
 beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of notion that ran in 
 my head that nothing could have commenced at the size of infancy, 
 and reached her present bulk in less than thirty-five or forty years; 
 and, in short, I was not all pleased with her — But what could I do? 
 I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse; 
 and I made a point of honor and conscience in all things, to stick to 
 my word, especially if others had been induced to act on it, which in 
 this case I doubted not they had, for I was now fairly convinced, 
 that no other man on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion 
 that they were bent on holding me to my bargain — Well, thought I, 
 I have said it, and, be consequences what they may, it shall not be my 
 fault if I fail to do it — At once I determined to consider her my wife; 
 and this done, all my powers of discovery were put to the rack, in 
 search of perfections in her, which might be fairly set-off, against 
 her defects — I tried to imagine she was handsome, which, but for 
 her unfortunate corpulency, was actually true — Exclusive of this, 
 no woman that I have seen, has a finer face — I also tried to convince 
 myself, that the mind was much more to be valued than the person; 
 and in this, she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with 
 whom I had been acquainted — 
 
 Shortly after this, without attempting to come to any positive 
 understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, where and when you 
 
 219 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 first saw me — During my stay there, I had letters from her, which 
 did not change my opinion of either her intellect or intention; but 
 on the contrary, confirmed it in both — 
 
 All this while, although I was fixed "firm as the surge repelling 
 rock" in my resolution, I found I was continually repenting the rash- 
 ness, which had led me to make it — Through life I have been in no 
 bondage, either real or imaginary from the thraldom of which I so 
 much desired to be free — 
 
 After my return home, I saw nothing to change my opinion of her 
 in any particular — She was the same and so was I — I now spent my 
 time between planning how I might get along through life after my 
 contemplated change of circumstances should have taken place; and 
 how I might procrastinate the evil day for a time, which I really 
 dreaded as much — perhaps more, than an irishman does the halter — 
 
 After all my suffering upon this deeply interesting subject, here I 
 am, wholly, unexpectedly, completely out of the "scrape"; and I now 
 want to know, if you can guess how I got out of it — Out clear in 
 every sense of the term; no violation of word, honor, or conscience — 
 I don't believe you can guess, and so I may as well tell you at once — 
 As the lawyers say, it was done in the manner following towit — Af ter 
 I had delayed the matter as long as I thought I could in honor do, 
 which by the way had brought me round into the last fall, I con- 
 cluded I might as well bring it to a consumation without further 
 delay; and so I mustered my resolution, and made the proposal to her 
 direct; but, shocking to relate, she answered, No— At first I supposed 
 she did it through an affectation of modesty, which I thought but ill 
 became her, under the peculiar circumstances of her case; but on my 
 renewal of the charge, I found she repeled it with greater firmness 
 than before — I tried it again and again, but with the same success, or 
 rather with the same want of success — I finally was forced to give it 
 up, at which I very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost 
 beyond endurance — I was mortified, it seemed to me, in a hundred 
 different ways — My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection, 
 that I had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and at 
 the same time never doubting that I understood them perfectly; and 
 also, that she whom I had taught myself to believe no body else 
 would have, had actually rejected me with all my fancied greatness; 
 and to cap the whole, I then, for the first time, began to suspect that 
 I was really a little in love with her — But let it all go — I'll try and 
 
 220 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 outlive it — Others have been made fools of by the girls; but this can 
 never be with truth said of me — I most emphatically, in this instance, 
 made a fool of myself — I have now come to the conclusion never 
 again to think of marrying, and for this reason; I can never be satis- 
 fied with anyone who would be block-head enough to have me — 
 
 When you receive this, write me a long yarn about something to 
 amuse me — Give my respects to Mr. Browning— 
 
 Your sincere friend 
 A. Lincoln 
 Mrs. O. H. Browning — 
 
 True to Lamon's expectations, adverse comments were 
 bantered about over his indiscretions. Two interesting letters, 
 now the property of the Chicago Historical Society, reveal 
 caustic criticisms and lengthy explanations of the April Fool's 
 Day missive. 
 
 In a letter from Chicago dated November 22, 1872, and 
 written by Isaac N. Arnold to O. H. Browning, one reads the 
 following remarks: 
 
 Most of his [Lamon's] book, it seems to me is filled up with triv- 
 ial and insignificant matters which only prurient curiosity would 
 care for and without any apprecation of the noblest traits of his 
 character. I have just been reading a letter to Mrs. Browning (pages 
 181—182) which he says it was an "extremely painful duty to pub- 
 lish." If the letter is genuine I cannot conceive the motives which 
 made it his duty to publish it. If you feel at liberty to tell me, I 
 should be very glad to know the history of this letter. 
 
 Accordingly O. H. Browning, on November 25, 1872, 
 wrote Isaac N. Arnold from Quincy, Illinois. In regard to the 
 letter he made the following statement: 
 
 The letter published in the biography, purporting to have been 
 written to Mrs. Browning, is genuine. In the winter of 1836-7 we 
 
 221 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 were all at Vandalia, then the seat of government of the state. I was 
 a member of the Senate and Mr. Lincoln of the House of Representa- 
 tives. He and I had been previously acquainted, but he then first 
 made the acquaintance of Mrs. Browning. We all boarded at the 
 same house. He was very fond of Mrs. Browning's society, and spent 
 many of his evenings and much of his leisure time, at our rooms. 
 We were all there together again in the winter of 1837—8, the same 
 relations subsisting between us as during the preceding winter. After 
 our return home, in the spring of 183 8 the letter in question was 
 received. We were very much amused with it, but Mrs. Browning 
 and myself supposed it to be a fiction; a creation of his brain; one of 
 his funny stories, without any foundation of fact to sustain it. It 
 was laid away, among other letters, and forgotten. In 1861 I was 
 overhauling a correspondence which had been accumulating for years 
 and destroying many hundreds of letters which I regarded as no 
 longer of any value. This with other letters of Mr. Lincoln's was 
 then exhumed, and saved from the common fate, only because it 
 was amusing and written a long time ago, in the very characteristic 
 style of the then President. 
 
 We permitted a few of our friends, both here and at Washington, 
 to see it, merely as a matter of curiosity and amusement; we still 
 laboring under the impression that it was pure romance. 
 
 I think it was in 1862 that a gentleman who was collecting mate- 
 rials for a biography of Mr. Lincoln, having heard of this letter, called 
 on Mrs. Browning in the city and requested a copy. She declined to 
 give it. The first time she was at the President's, only a few days after, 
 she informed him of the request that had been made and asked him 
 what he had to say in regard to it. She then first learned from him 
 that the narrative of the letter was not fiction but a true account of 
 an incident in actual life. He added that others of the actors than 
 himself were still living; that it might be painful to them to see the 
 letter in print; and that on their account he desired it should be with- 
 held for the present; but that hereafter, when those most interested 
 should have passed away, she might exercise her own discretion. 
 After the death of Mr. Lincoln one of his most intimate friends, 
 Col. Lamon, who was on confidential relations with the President 
 through the entire period of his administration, was permitted at his 
 earnest request, to take a copy; but upon the distinct understanding 
 
 222 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 that it should never be used in connection with Mrs. Browning's 
 name. I do not see how Mr. Lincoln can justly be censured for writ- 
 ing the letter. It was written in the confidence of friendship, with 
 no purpose, or expectation, that it would ever become public. No 
 names were mentioned, nor was it likely that any other name than 
 his own would ever be known in connection with it. His only object 
 seemed to be to amuse a friend at his own expense. 
 
 No injury was done to anyone by the mere writing of the letter, 
 nor would there have been in its publication, unaccompanied by the 
 explanation given by his biographer; and for these Mr. Lincoln ought 
 not to be held responsible. 
 
 Neither Mrs. Browning nor myself ever knew from him who the 
 lady referred to in the letter was. Of course neither of us ever asked 
 him, nor did he ever inform us. If the feelings of others have been 
 injured, I think it is chargeable upon the biographer, and not upon 
 Mr. Lincoln. 
 
 The Arnold-Browning correspondence in its complete 
 form may be found in the Barker pamphlet, Abraham Lin- 
 coln and Mary Owen, privately printed. The late Mr. Harry 
 Barker, of Los Angeles, who had formerly lived at Spring- 
 field, Illinois, at one time purchased the Lincoln-Browning 
 letter, along with the letters of Arnold and Browning. In a 
 letter dated August 2, 1940, he stated that they had been 
 acquired from a Mrs. Price, a niece of the Brownings, who 
 had inherited them. He sold them for $535.00 to Major Lam- 
 bert, and of that amount, $500.00 was for the Lincoln letter. 
 The letter written by Lincoln to Mrs. Browning is on letter- 
 size paper, covering both sides of two sheets, and one side of 
 a third. At the sale of Lambert's collection in 1914, the letter 
 was bid in for $1250.00 by George D. Smith, and was passed 
 on by him to the Henry E. Huntington Library. Morris H. 
 Briggs, in his article, "Lincoln Autograph Material," in the 
 
 223 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 February 16, 1929, issue of Publisher's Weekly, stated that the 
 Lincoln-Browning letter sold for $1,250.00, but in 1929 would 
 sell for over $17,000.00. 
 
 When Lamon and subsequent biographers of Lincoln pub- 
 lished the Lincoln-Browning letter they failed to decipher it 
 correctly. In the second paragraph Lincoln wrote: "This 
 
 stomached me a little " The word "stomached" was 
 
 misread by Lamon and printed in his book "astonished." 
 While the letter was in the possession of Mr. Barker he noted 
 the mistake, and both Carl Sandburg and William E. Barton 
 accepted the correction. 
 
 When Nicolay and Hay published their serial in the Cen- 
 tury Magazine entitled: "Abraham Lincoln: A History," 
 they discussed the Lincoln-Owens courtship, and of course 
 mentioned the Lincoln-Browning letter. Their explanation of 
 it was the same as that advanced by Browning. The third 
 instalment, which was published in January, 1887, led to an 
 interesting, if not critical, correspondence between Milton 
 Hay, of Springfield, and his nephew, John Hay, the author- 
 statesman. Among other things, Milton wrote: 
 
 I confess the Browning letter — the circumstance that it was writ- 
 ten at all by Mr. Lincoln and to a woman — that this woman, a pro- 
 fessed friend, should have carefully preserved it and have given it out 
 to a publisher (another dear friend) for publication and by him pub- 
 lished to the world, are enigmas to me and probably will remain so, 
 as I doubt very much whether your explanation, explains 
 
 This letter in its entirety has been published in Bulletin 
 No. 25 of The Abraham Lincoln Association (December 
 1931, p. 6-9). 
 
 224 
 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 Herndon's reactions to the Lincoln-Browning letter are 
 contained in his unpublished article entitled, "Lincoln's 
 Courtship with Miss Owens." He made the following com- 
 ments: "Miss Owens rejected Mr. Lincoln's hand, and re- 
 turned to Kentucky in '38. Mr. Lincoln was elected to the 
 legislature in '38. From Vandalia Mr. Lincoln wrote a letter 
 to Mrs. O. H. Browning — the wife of Hon. O. H. Browning 
 another member of the legislature, dated April 1st, '38. In 
 this letter Lincoln described Miss Owens most graphically 
 from then [?] standpoint: it is a curious letter and one that 
 deserves to be read and studied with care in connection with 
 the above letters of Mr. Lincoln to Miss Owens. One question 
 the very first question that comes up and demands solution 
 in the mind of the reader is this — was Mr. Lincoln in love 
 with Miss Owens ? The second question is this, did Mr. Lin- 
 coln speak truly when he wrote his letters to her or did he 
 wish to back down, drive the woman off through fear of his 
 want of a real attachment, as appears in his letters. 
 
 "Miss Owens rejected Mr. Lincoln's hand because she 
 saw in him a deficiency of those little links which make up 
 the chain of woman's happiness — at least it was so in her case. 
 Shrewd woman — intuitive [ ?] woman — wise woman." 
 
 The above paragraph is crossed out in the manuscript. 
 Along the left margin of the page is a note so heavily 
 crossed out as to be in part almost indecipherable. So far as it 
 can be deciphered, it reads: "I have seen [ ?] the [ ?] [ ?] that 
 a historian [ ?] applied to Mr. Lincoln and he said it was too 
 true [?]." 
 
 Herndon digressed a little in regard to the true feeling of 
 Lincoln for Miss Owens by stating: "Miss Owens herself— 
 
 225 
 
Lincoln's other maky 
 
 her bright and highly esteemed son B. R. Vineyard of Mis- 
 souri — an excellent lawyer and a gentleman — Mrs. Bennett 
 Able and all the relatives of the family, do acknowledge that 
 the letters written by Lincoln to Miss Owens was sincerely — 
 truthfully — honestly written and so acted on them. All per- 
 sons who knew Mr. Lincoln, when living and now when 
 dead believe, that the letters expressed his honest feelings and 
 his deepest convictions [?] and that they were written sin- 
 cerely — truthfully and honestly and I do [ ?] believe what all 
 others believe who knew Lincoln well. Mr. Lincoln was a 
 very conscientious man — a man of fine feelings — an honest 
 man — a man of the very highest human integrity. Lincoln 
 was all this and more than this, but the letter must be ex- 
 plained: It will not do to say — it's not so. It will take some 
 argument to explain it and I shall proceed to explain it in 
 my way." 
 
 Like Milton Hay of Springfield, Herndon did not approve 
 of the way in which Nicolay and Hay in the January, 1887, 
 number of the Century attempted to explain the Lincoln- 
 Browning letter. In making his explanation Herndon wrote: 
 "Messrs. Nicolay & Hay say in the Jany. number of the Cen- 
 tury for 1887 at pages 379-80 this — among other things, about 
 Lincoln, Miss Owens, Mrs. Browning and the letter which 
 Lincoln wrote to Mrs. Browning — This letter (the one dated 
 the April the 1st 1838 and written by Mr. Lincoln from Van- 
 dalia to Mrs. O. H. Browning— When Mrs. Browning having 
 been asked to furnish it to a biographer — she was warned 
 against doing so by the President himself, who said there was 
 too much truth in it for print.' Some historian or biographer 
 doubtless applied to her for a copy of the letter for publica- 
 
 226 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 tion, and it is true that Mrs. Browning refused to give a copy 
 of the letter until she wrote to Mr. Lincoln or otherwise 
 ascertained his wish and gave his consent to its publication 
 and it was at this request that Mr. Lincoln as suppose (d) 
 refused his consent to the publication of the letter. This letter 
 was a private letter addressed to a lady. Now there are some 
 serious questions to answer. First — did Mr. (L.) say what 
 is told by Nicolay & Hay; and secondly if so what were 
 the conditions of Lincoln and what were his motives. In the 
 first place I do not believe that Lincoln ever said what he is 
 made to say in the Century and I never shall believe it till I 
 see some gentleman of undoubted veracity, who will, on his 
 honor say that what Mr. Lincoln is supposed to have said 
 was said in fact. Lincoln was a gentleman of great sincerity — 
 brimfull of truth — a man of the greatest integrity — a man 
 who would be sacrificed before he would play [?] the false 
 to a woman's deep and profoundest love. This man's heart 
 was too good and his general [?] nature too noble to play 
 hypocrite with a woman's love. What — this great noble man 
 play with a woman's love and deepest and warmest affections 
 that he might watch and weigh her sufferings ! Never." 
 
 Continuing his discussion Herndon said: "Supposing how- 
 ever, that such a conscientious — honest and truthful man 
 were to come and say to me 'I heard Mr. Lincoln say what I 
 make him say' I might believe it. I should have to weigh Lin- 
 coln — the asserted fact and the gentleman's honor, but sup- 
 pose I believed the man — then what ? I would know that the 
 letter was written in '38 and I would suppose that what Lin- 
 coln said — or is made to say happened or took place while 
 
 227 
 
 
Lincoln's other mary 
 
 Lincoln was President and in '61 or after that time. From the 
 date of the letter in 38 to '61 there would have passed some 
 23 years — 23 years of Mr. Lincoln's most busy — most active — 
 most ambitious — most anxious and most harassing, if not 
 most miserable life. I should suppose that he had forgotten 
 the whole contents of the letter — their full import and in- 
 tent [ ?]. This is I honestly believe due to Mr. Lincoln; and if 
 I were driven from this position I should say that Lincoln 
 got into one of those overwhelming and irresistible states of 
 humor — fun — one of those jolly humorous states, tinged with 
 sadness, he being lonesome and had nothing to say but be 
 humorous, that he wrote the unfortunate letter, in the inspira-, 
 tion of the moment and if I were driven from this position I 
 should say and say it by way of confession and avoidance as I 
 have said, it may be a hundred times, that Mr. Lincoln had 
 not a quick perception of the propriety of things; nor did Mr. 
 Lincoln have a good judgment of quick passing things. 
 Mr. Lincoln to have profound judgments must have his time 
 to think and if he had not time to think his judgments were 
 poor indeed, and from this position I never can be driven." 
 
 Ending his explanation of the Lincoln-Browning letter, to 
 Weik, Herndon wrote: "Miss Owens rejected Lincoln's 
 hand, because she saw in him and only that, to his discredit 
 as lover and husband the full deficiency of those little attri- 
 butes and links which go to make up the full chain of 
 woman's happiness — at least this deficiency in Lincoln was 
 seen by her fully — quickly and accurately. Shrewd woman- 
 intuitive woman — sharp wise woman!" 
 
 Students and readers who have probed into Lincoln's life, 
 deeds and character, and have studied his addresses, speeches, 
 
 228 
 
LINCOLN S OTHER MARY 
 
 and letters, have come to the conclusion that Lincoln violated 
 no code of honor, that he was guilty of no improprieties, and 
 that he wrote the letter to Mrs. Browning on April Fool's Day 
 in the spirit of levity. He meant no offense, he mentioned no 
 names, he never intended the letter for the eyes of the public. 
 Why should we not then accept the letter as a contribution to 
 the wit and humor of Abraham Lincoln? 
 
 229 
 
(continued from front flap) 
 
 a sensitive and understanding picture of the two 
 characters in the drama: Lincoln, lonely and un- 
 happy, ill at ease in the presence of this poised 
 and charming woman, and unable to put into 
 words the love he felt; Mary utterly feminine, 
 but willing to face any hardship if she could be 
 sure that she was loved and needed, and want- 
 ing only a word or gesture to crumble her 
 resistance. 
 
 The story is charmingly told in the vernacu- 
 lar of the period and is based on authentic rec- 
 ords. Much of Lincoln is here: the Lincoln of 
 New Salem and early Springfield days, the 
 Lincoln of complete integrity and many friends, 
 with his astute and developing political sense, 
 his driving ambition, his alternate moods of ela- 
 tion and black despondency — harassed by lack 
 of money — desiring a woman's love and com- 
 panionship, yet doubting his capacity for bring- 
 ing happiness to any woman. 
 
 LINCOLN'S OTHER MARY is the first 
 complete account of the little known Mary 
 Owens story and does much to dispel the Ann 
 Rutledge myth and the romantic aura surround- 
 ing Lincoln's earlier life. An appendix contains 
 records and documents bearing on the story. 
 
 ZIFF^jgXDAVIS 
 
 PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO • NEW YORK 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
LINCOLN'S OTHER MARY 
 
 With the publication of LINCOLN'S OTHER MARY 
 a pronounced gap in the Lincoln story has been ade- 
 quately filled, for Mary Owens has been the most neg- 
 lected of all those who played an important part in 
 Lincoln's life. The narrative form in which this eighteen- 
 month romance is presented was decided upon as the 
 best means of bringing the story to popular attention. 
 The story of LINCOLN'S OTHER MARY is based on 
 notes compiled over four years of research by Gerald 
 McMurtry, which were then placed in the capable hands 
 of Olive Carruthers for the narrative treatment. 
 
 R. GERALD McMURTRY is recognized as one of 
 America's foremost authorities on Lincoln and Lincolni- 
 ana. He was born in Elizabethtown, Hardin County, 
 Kentucky, and was reared in the Lincoln country of 
 Kentucky. His early home was located on land in 
 Elizabethtown where Lincoln's stepmother, Sarah Bush 
 Johnston, resided in 1819 when she married Thomas 
 Lincoln. After his graduation from Centre College, in 
 Danville, Kentucky, he became librarian for the Lincoln 
 National Life Foundation and in 1937 was made Direc- 
 tor of the Department of Lincolniana of Lincoln Mem- 
 orial University, Harrogate, Tennessee, which position 
 he now holds. He has been instrumental in building 
 one of the finest Lincoln collections in America at the 
 University. In addition to books and pamphlets he has 
 written many articles for historical journals and periodi- 
 cals and is an editor of the Lincoln Herald, a quarterly 
 magazine devoted to Lincolniana. 
 
 OLIVE CARRUTHERS is a native of Brodhead, Wis- 
 consin. She is a graduate of Beloit College and is well 
 versed in the attittides, customs and vernacular of Ken- 
 tuckians through her marital background, her residence 
 in Bardstown, Kentucky, and her deep interest in Lin- 
 colniana. She is well known in Chicago literary circles 
 as a book reviewer and editor. Miss Carruthers has 
 brought to the story more than a delightful style; she 
 has contributed a woman's understanding of the situa- 
 tion which helps greatly to explain the seeming perver- 
 sity and indecision of Mary Owens, who could have been 
 Lincoln's wife.