So far, most of their meetings had been in the Edwardses’ parlor, but not long after Christmas, the snow turned the rutted, homely streets into glistening white paths. Everyone on the Hill, as the Edwardses’ neighborhood was called, bundled up and went for sleigh rides. As such things were done best seated in pairs, the single young men of the city were of course invited on these outings, and Mr. Lincoln, perhaps through Mercy’s help, ended up being paired with Mary. The chill in the air allowed Mary to move a little closer to him without being forward, but that was the only progress they made, even though it would have been perfectly harmless for him to put his arm around her to keep her from falling out when the driver began to go a wee bit too fast.
“Good clean exercise,” he had said when he handed her out—almost as an afterthought, for it was apparent that he had grown up around women who were used to doing for themselves. “Wasn’t that fun, Miss Todd?”
Mary, who had spent the entire ride holding her muff in a way that invited him to slip his hand inside to join hers, had been hard-pressed not to scowl. “Delightful.”
Then the legislature adjourned and Springfield’s lawyers began riding the circuit, traveling from town to town to try cases in front of equally itinerate judges. “You must find that dreary, Mr. Lincoln,” Mary said one evening before her companion was to depart.
“Not at all, Miss Todd. I love it. We lawyers all travel about together—judges too—and go at each other like cats and dogs in court. Then when we’re done for the day, we lounge about and swap tales.”
“I suppose the married lawyers don’t take their wives.” Too late, Mary hoped that Mr. Lincoln did not think she was insinuating anything.
Mr. Lincoln, however, was too busy recalling the pleasures of the circuit to care. “No, Miss Todd, it’s not a place for ladies. The roads can be awful, the lodgings aren’t always the best, and, well, we men can be a little rough.”
“Perhaps you need some civilizing influences from the ladies.”
“I wouldn’t want to be the lady who tried.” He rose, just as Elizabeth made one of her rare glides into the room. It was a wee bit depressing, Mary reflected, to have a chaperone with so little to chaperone. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, miss.”
If this was a courtship, at least no one could call it a rushed one.
She could understand, however, why courtship might not be the first thing on Mr. Lincoln’s mind, for 1840 was an election year, with the Whig candidate, General William Henry Harrison, trying to unseat President Martin Van Buren. A Democrat had snidely remarked that Harrison, who was not in the spring of youth, would be content to sit in his log cabin with a pension and a barrel of hard cider. The jibe had backfired, for Harrison had seized upon it, dubbing himself the “log cabin and hard cider” candidate of the people, though his origins were far from humble.
Springfield was in the thick of the election. The Whigs poured into town for their state convention in June, filling the streets with men sporting coonskin caps and pushing barrels of hard cider, the contents of which they were all too ready to consume. Mary, overcoming her chagrin that Henry Clay had not won the Whig nomination the year before, did her part to welcome the visitors, waving her handkerchief as they processed into the city, adorned with banners that she had helped sew.
Mr. Lincoln, who himself was running for reelection to the Illinois House of Representatives, did his part in extolling Harrison’s virtues. Even as she sat enthralled by his speech, Mary had to admit it was all a bit absurd, because Harrison, the scion of a wealthy Virginia family, had certainly not been born in a log cabin, and while he might have spent some time in one when he moved west, it most likely was not a terribly uncomfortable one. But Mr. Lincoln made it all sound quite plausible.
Among the visitors the convention brought to Springfield was Judge David Todd, Mary’s uncle. Naturally, he called to see his nieces, and after a couple of hours taking tea (no hard cider for a change) said, “Why don’t you accompany me back to Missouri, Miss Todd, and stay a couple of months? Your cousin Ann would be delighted with your company.”
Mary readily agreed, for she loved travel, wearisome as it could be. Besides, her closest friend, Mercy, was back in Baltimore now, so the company of a young lady of her own age would be particularly pleasant and…well, perhaps her absence might be just what was needed to get Mr. Lincoln thinking more about her. So when Mr. Lincoln turned up a few days later and took his accustomed place, Mary said, “I will be taking to the circuit myself tomorrow, to Missouri, to visit Judge Todd and his family.”
“How long will you stay, Miss Todd?” He frowned slightly.
“I do not know. I am told they live in a charming city.” She smiled. “Perhaps I shall be tempted to change my residence permanently, sir.”
“But you will miss all the goings-on here,” Mr. Lincoln said almost reproachfully.
Mary gave an elegant shrug. “What will be will be.”
“Well…” He scooted slightly closer to her and leaned forward. “Mary?”
Instinctively, Mary tipped her head a little bit backward, preparing for his kiss. Would it be an awkward one? Sadly, unlike dancing, she had no basis for comparison when kissing was concerned.
“Would you like me to send you the Springfield newspapers?”
Mary tipped her head forward again. “That would be very kind of you, Mr. Lincoln.” She hoped she was not gritting her teeth.
* * *
Mr. Lincoln did send the papers as promised—the Springfield paper and the Old Soldier, the latter issued by the Harrison campaign. To her surprise, she also received the Democratic paper, the Hickory Club—certainly not something that Mr. Lincoln would have sent her. Her suspicions about its origins were confirmed a day or so later when Stephen Douglas sent her a letter. It was a pleasant, chatty letter, without an iota of romance in it, but it left her with the distinct impression that the writer would not be averse to such a development, if she encouraged it.
Did she wish to? Certainly Mr. Douglas was agreeable enough, and ambitious as well. Much to his credit, he did not stare at Mary as if she were a talking dog when she ventured to make a political observation. And whereas Mr. Lincoln often forgot the little politenesses to which ladies were accustomed, such as fetching lemonade at parties and bringing some candy or flowers when he visited, Mr. Douglas never did. Nothing led her to believe that she could not live happily enough with him. But…
His were not the only letters Mary received. A widower by the name of Edwin Webb, who had been another visitor to the Edwards house, wrote her a charming epistle, not so subtly advertising his merits as a husband, which were certainly considerable in the material way, although he left out the facts that he was some twenty years older than Mary and the father of two young children. Mary had not much enjoyed being a stepdaughter, and was even less inclined to assume the role of stepmother, so she sent a polite reply and hoped the matter ended there.