A Man for the Ages Part 54

To one who loved beauty and respected women as he did the grace and refinement of this young lady had a singular appeal coupled as it was with the urge of his strong, masculine nature. It was a revelation. He was like a young poet going out into the open and seeing for the first time the mysterious beauty of the mountains or "the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring." He began to seek and study refinement of thought, of manner, of dress, of expression. He knew that he needed Mary but had the feeling that she was not for him.

A woman who lived near the Edwards's house had a small, hairy, poodle dog. One day as Abe and Mary were walking along the street, they met this woman who asked if they had seen her dog.

"I wouldn't wonder if some one down the street had got him tied to the end of a pole and is using him to swab off his windows," said Abe Lincoln with a good-natured laugh. "I'll try to find him for you."

Mary enjoyed fun and this and like sallies of the young legislator added a certain zest to their friends.h.i.+p. Women are like children in their love of humor.

The diminutive Douglas saw in Miss Todd an a.s.set of much value and his attentions began to be a.s.siduous. Mary was indifferent to his lofty manner and sonorous vocalism. Abe Lincoln liked her better for that.

She encouraged the visits of the latter and invited his confidence. The fact filled him with a great joy. They went about together. In the Edwards parlor he modestly told her of his work and his life plan.

She differed with him on certain subjects which were unfortunately fundamental. He did not love her as he had loved Ann. But her personality pleased and fascinated the young legislator. One evening under the spell of it he asked her to be his wife. She consented. Then he began to think it over.

It was like Lincoln in his relations with women to get the cart before the horse so to speak. The points upon which they disagreed came up for consideration. She could not think as he did on the subject of slavery and the kindred one of State Rights. His manners were not like hers. He was thirty-one years old that summer. It was rather late in life to undertake any great change in his manners. They grew naturally out of one's history and character. He could be kind and gentle in his way. But, mainly, his manners would have to be like the rugged limbs of the oak.

The grace and elegance of the water-willow and the white birch were not for him. It saddened him to conclude that he would have to be for a long time just what he was--crude, awkward, unlearned in the graces and amenities of cultivated people. He rightly judged that his crudeness would be a constant source of irritation to the proud Mary. As their acquaintance progressed the truth of his conviction grew more apparent.

This, however, did not so much concern him as her lack of sympathy with some of his deepest motives. He decided that, after all, he did not love her and that to marry her would be committing a great Wrong.

Some of the unhappiest days of his life followed. His conscience gave him no rest. He knew not what to do. He told a friend that if his misery were equally distributed to the whole human race each would have a troublesome burden. He was wont to take long walks into the country with "Mr. Nimble"

those days often carrying the boy on his shoulders. It is likely that the little lad was a great comfort to him. He wrote a letter to Miss Todd in which he reviewed the history of his thinking on the subject of their marriage and frankly but tenderly stated his conviction that it would imperil her happiness to marry him. Before sending it he submitted the letter to his friend Speed.

The latter read it over and looked very grave.

"What do you think of it?" Lincoln asked.

"I would never send a letter like that to a lady," Speed answered. "If you feel as you say go and tell her so, but don't put it in a letter."

Lincoln went to see her that evening and returned to his friend in a more cheerful mood.

"Did you tell her?" Speed asked.

"Yes, I told her."

"What happened?"

"She burst out crying and I threw my arms around her and kissed her and that settled it. We are going to be married."

What an ill.u.s.tration of the humanity and chivalry of Honest Abe was in the proceeding!

"I'm sure you'll get along all right together," said Speed. "Your spirit is jealous of any one likely to get in its way. But she won't. She'll fall in line and do what she can to help you."

Now a little before this time Henry Brimstead and other creditors of Davis had gone to Chicago in the matter of the satisfaction of their judgment against him. Henry had driven a wagon across the prairies and, returning, had brought Bim and her mother to his home and then to Springfield. It was while they were there that Harry had come down to Chicago out of the woods in a condition of health which had alarmed his physician. The latter had put him on a steamboat and sent him east. He was bound for the mountain country in northern New York.

Bim and her mother returned to Chicago on the stage, the former to take a place in the store as the representative of Samson's interest.

Harry was three years in the wilderness trying to regain his health.

Success came to him in the last year of his banishment.

Toward the end of it he received a letter from Mr. Lincoln. It was written soon after that curious climax in the courting of Mary Todd. In this letter he said:

"I am serving my last term in the Legislature. I learn that you are in better health and I hope that you will have the strength and inclination to return soon and be a candidate for my seat in the house. Samson will not do it, being so busy with large affairs. You are young. You have won distinction in the service of your country. You have studied the problems of the county and the state. Samson and Baker and Logan and Browning agree with me that you are the man for the place.

"As for myself I am going to be married in a year or so. I shall have to give all my time to the practice of the law. I am now in partners.h.i.+p with Stephen T. Logan and am slowly clearing my conscience of debt. I have done what I could for the state and for Sangamon County. It hasn't been much. I want you to take up the burden, if you can, until I get free of my debts at least. By and by I may jump into the ring again."

Harry was glad to obey the summons. Soon after the arrival of Mr.

Lincoln's letter his doctor gave the young man what he called "an honorable discharge." The magic of youth and its courage and of good air had wrought a change of which the able doctor had had little hope in the beginning.

In his travels through the great forest Harry had met David Parish and Stephen Van Renssalaer at whose homes on the sh.o.r.e of the St. Lawrence he had spent many a happy, summer day. Three years had pa.s.sed since that fateful morning on the prairie. Through the winters he had lived in a comfortable hunter's camp on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Placid. Summers he had wandered with a guide and canoe through the lakes and rivers of the wilderness hunting and fis.h.i.+ng and reading the law books which he had borrowed from Judge Fine of Ogdensburg. Each summer he worked down the Oswegatchie to that point for a visit with his new friends. The history of every week had been written to Bim and her letters had reached him at the points where he was wont to rest in his travels. The lovers had not lost their ardor. Theirs was the love "that hopes and endures and is patient."

On a day in June, 1841, he boarded a steamboat at Ogdensburg on his way to Chicago. He arrived in the evening and found Samson at the home of Bim and her mother--a capacious and well-furnished house on Dearborn Street.

Bim was then a little over twenty-five years old. A letter from John Wentworth says that she was "an exquisite bit of womanhood learned in the fine arts of speech and dress and manner." He spoke also of her humor and originality and of her gift for business "which amounted to absolute genius."

The store had doubled in size under her management and with the help of the capital of Samson and Sarah Traylor. Its wholesale and retail business was larger than any north of St. Louis. The epidemic had seized her toward the last of her nursing and left the marks of its scourge upon her. It had marred her beauty but Samson writes, "the girl was still very handsome. She was well filled out and stood as straight as an arrow and was always dressed as neat as a pin. I fear she was a little extravagant about that. She carried her head like a sleek, well-fed Morgan colt.

She was kind of scared to meet Harry for fear of what he'd think of those little marks on her face but I told her not to worry."

"You are the smartest and loveliest looking creature that I ever saw in my life," said Harry after he had held her in his arms a moment.

"But see what has happened to me--look at my face," she answered.

"It is more beautiful than ever," he said. "Those marks have doubled my love for you. They are medals of honor better than this one that I wear."

"Then I think that I'll take you off and marry you before you have a chance to fight another duel or find another war to go to," said Bim.

"There is the mustache that I used to long for and which wouldn't come,"

she added with a smile.

"Is there anything else that I seem to need?" Harry asked. "I could grow whiskers now."

"Don't," she answered. "The great need of the West is shears and razors and a law to compel their use. There can be little romance in the midst of so much hair."

"I shall be careful not to offend you," Harry laughed. "I want to marry you as soon as possible. I've been looking forward to that since I was sixteen."

"I don't hear of anything but love and marriage," said Samson. "We've been ra.s.sling down at our house to keep Josiah from running off and getting married. He's engaged already."

"Engaged! To whom?" Harry asked.

"To Annabel Brimstead. She's a little older than he is. She laughed at him and promised to marry him as soon as he was nominated for President by all his friends. She would now vote for him herself. He has become a good athlete and the best scholar in school. He has every boy and girl in the village working for him evenings and Sat.u.r.days."

"What are they doing?" Harry asked.

"Making those newfangled things they call lucifers. You can build a fire in a second with 'em. They cut splinters out of soft wood, dip their ends in brimstone--which Joe learned how to make--and put them in a hot oven until the brimstone is baked. Then a scratch will bring a flame. Joe puts them up in bundles and sells them to the merchants and calls them lucifer matches. He has invented a machine that will cut and dip a thousand splinters an hour. I tell you Annabel is in danger."

He took a lucifer out of his pocket and scratched it on the bottom of his boot. The party looked with wonder at its flame which quickly consumed the slender thread of pine in his fingers.

"I have always thought that Joe would make a whale of a man," said Harry.

"We all seem to be threatened with immediate and overwhelming happiness,"

Bim exclaimed.