An Unlikely Friendship

by Ann Rinaldi

  I STAYED FOUR YEARS at Madame Charlotte's. I never went home weekends and every day I could see, from my classroom window, Nelson draw the carriage up front to fetch Liz home from school.

  True to Mercy Levering's predictions, I seldom saw Liz in school. She was in a different course of study than I was. I studied French. I read Shakespeare, Sterne, Pope, and Burns. I read and recited poetry.

  I always had the lead in our French plays, and when Pa and Betsy and Ann came to see me and pronounced that I was like another person, it was because I was.

  I no longer mourned the role assigned to me by Pa, being an orphan. I found pursuits to replace the needs that hole left in my life.

  I learned dances, all I would need for my future life, whatever it might be. Evenings Monsieur Mentelle would play his fiddle and his wife would instruct us in cotillions, hornpipes, and all sorts of dances.

  The first year I was at the head of my class. Every year following I got the highest marks.

  I did talk to Liz during the school year. She told me that Mammy Sally's flowers on the front fence brought a lot of callers.

  When I graduated, with the highest honors, Pa gave me money for a whole new wardrobe. And he gave me a trip to Springfield, Illinois, to see my sisters.

  EARLY ON A MAY morning I boarded the train for Frankfort, with my cousin John Todd Stuart helping me. He'd come all the way from Springfield to escort me back there. His lawyer business, he said, he'd left in the hands of his new partner, name of Abraham Lincoln.

  "Don't expect too much from us," John Todd said to me as the stagecoach approached Springfield. "We're now the state capital, yes, but we're still a frontier village compared to Lexington, Mary. Don't be disappointed."

  I was filled with excitement. "Why should I be disappointed?"

  "You're such a belle. You're used to concerts and lectures and dances. You're used to shopping in all those beautiful stores you have in Lexington. I'm afraid we have just a handful of dry-goods stores and mail comes only once a week. About eight hundred and fifty people live here. And our streets turn to mud with the first rain."

  "Believe me, John, I couldn't be happier than I am right now," I told him.

  Then he pointed it out, up ahead on a hill, my sister and brother-in-law's house, a two-story brick affair with a veranda all around it. On the front steps stood my brother-in-law, Ninian Edwards, ready to greet us.

  Elizabeth had had a child just one month before. She was still resting. Well, I can be of help, I thought, as I climbed down out of the stagecoach. They won't be sorry they invited me here.

  MY SISTER'S NORTH PARLOR was forty feet long, big enough for all the meetings, teas, and balls they held in it. Since Springfield had become the state capital, it had had an influx of lawyers, and no meeting or gathering took place that didn't happen here. The room was simple yet elegant, with rosewood and mahogany furniture, ornately carved tables, and silver bowls and coffee set inherited from Ninian's father. The Edwardses employed four free negroes at the going wage.

  Just as I removed my bonnet and found my way into Elizabeth's arms I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, Ninian lighting a tapered candle in the front window.

  No other candles in the room were yet lighted. Ninian smiled at me. "It's a custom we have here, Mary," he said. "We light a candle in the front window to signal the young men of Springfield that there is an eligible young woman at home."

  "How many young men?" I asked fearfully.

  "Oh, a number of homeless lawyers," my sister Frances said, coming into the room and hugging me. "They've done it to me. Don't worry, Mary. You can abide it. For instance, cousin John's partner, Abraham Lincoln. He calls himself humble Abraham. You'll find him easy to talk to, Mary."

  What Happened after Mary Todd Met Abraham Lincoln

  MARY TODD met Abraham Lincoln in 1839 in Springfield, Illinois, on her second visit to her sister's. They had a tumultuous courtship with several partings and comings together. Lincoln was shy and awkward, given to moods and depression. But he was a lawyer, a self-educated man who came from pioneer stock and had arrived in Springfield in 1837.

  He was completely unschooled in the art of "parlor talk," which included talking to women. Born into a poor farming family, he had only one year of formal schooling. He had worked on a flatboat, as a store clerk, and as a postmaster. He read constantly and could speak fluently by the time he got to Springfield, but he had to borrow money for a suit to attend the legislature.

  Yet Mary Todd saw something in this earnest, ambitious, and melancholy man. Of course by the time she met him he had already been elected as town trustee, chosen as a presidential elector at the first state Whig (Republican) convention, and was one of the managers of a cotillion ball at the American House.

  After their chaotic courtship, during which Abraham Lincoln almost had a nervous breakdown, they were married in the house of Mary's sister and brother-in-law, the Edwardses.

  It was November 1842. Mary wore her sister Elizabeth's white satin wedding dress, which had been Mama's, and a pearl necklace. There were two bridesmaids. An Episcopalian minister married them.

  ABRAHAM CALLED HER "Molly" and Mary called him "Mr. Lincoln." They took up residence in the Globe Tavern, a hotel/boardinghouse on Adams Street in Springfield. Room and board cost them $4 a week.

  Lincoln was away a lot, riding court circuit (going from county to county to different courts, to try cases). Mary, in time, became pregnant with their first child, who was born on August 1, 1843. They named him Robert Todd after Mary's father.

  Her father was so happy that he paid them a visit and gave them $25 in gold and also gave Lincoln a law case that would earn him $50. This money enabled them to start looking for a home.

  They found one at Eighth and Jackson streets and settled in. Mary had the help of a black woman named Epsy Smith, who worked for her sister and brother-in-law.

  Their second son, Edward, was born in March 1846. In the meantime Mary went on, firmly believing that her husband would surely bring her fame and power.

  It was when Lincoln was riding circuit and away from home for weeks at a time that Mary consoled herself with shopping, just as her father used to console her with gifts when things got bad at home.

  After working for years for the Whig party, in the fall of 1846 Lincoln was elected to Congress. They moved to Washington, D.C., where they lived in a boardinghouse. But first they paid a visit to Mary's family in Lexington, Kentucky. Here Lincoln saw slavery firsthand, being that Mary's father's house was right up the street from the slave market.

  "I bite my lip and keep quiet," he said. He was anti-slavery.

  Lincoln spent two years in Congress. Mary and their two sons returned to Springfield before the two years were up, unable to bear life in a boardinghouse, and Lincoln returned in 1849 when his term was up.

  In late July, Mary's father died of cholera; six months later Grandma Parker passed away. In December Eddie fell ill. The Lincolns watched their son suffer with a wracking cough and fevers for nearly two months. Eddie died on February 1, 1850. The Lincolns were devastated. Mary couldn't stop crying, could not eat, and wrote a poem about him that was published in the Springfield Journal.

  But soon she was expecting another child and this, at least, helped her to stop crying. William (called Willie) was born on December 21, 1850.

  Two years later they had Thomas, named after Lincoln's father (called Tad, short for Tadpole).

  Lincoln once again was practicing law in Springfield with the firm of Lincoln and Herndon. Most of his cases were for the railroads, which were advancing and expanding all over the land. Mary spent her time cooking and caring for the children, shopping and sewing and "educating" her husband in such things as wearing a jacket when answering the doorbell and which silverware to use at a dinner party. She kept his spirits buoyed and was a constant supporter in his career, besides being an excellent mother. Both were indulgent parents. Always interested in politics, Mary was soon collaboratin
g with and advising her husband, and there were many people who said Lincoln told them his wife expected him to be president.

  Zachary Taylor, a Whig, was in the White House. Lincoln wanted to be rewarded for all the work he'd done for the party. He wanted the post of commissioner of the Land Office. So he went back to Washington to further his cause, and Mary started a letter-writing campaign in his favor to get President Zachary Taylor's attention.

  Lincoln didn't get the post but was offered the governorship of Oregon Territory. He declined. They didn't want to live so far away from everything. So for six years his political career came to a standstill. Mary, busy with the children, still continued to bolster his spirits and still spoke of his being president someday.

  Lincoln made some speeches (after reading them first to Mary), and in 1858 he entered into a series of debates (seven in seven prairie towns) with Senator Stephen Douglas, Mary's old beau, taking a moderate antislavery position.

  Sometimes he spoke as a candidate for the state senate himself, sometimes he spoke for others, but the slavery question was coming to a head and Lincoln knew he had to take a firm position on it. In the late 1850s Lincoln took his stand on slavery, saying in one of his speeches that it was a monstrous injustice.

  While still in Springfield, the Lincolns' financial worth escalated. His fame, garnered from his speechmaking, and his influence were expanding. Mary had another floor built onto the house. In the winter of 1857 she threw a party for five hundred people, but only three hundred came because of the bad weather. She was, without knowing it, preparing herself to be First Lady.

  But as always, when depressed, she shopped. On one occasion she spent $196.55 for clothing and one of her dresses cost the same as two months' pay for an ordinary Springfield family.

  Lincoln continued speechmaking and came to stand for helping the oppressed. He addressed a large audience at New York's Cooper Institute, then traveled to New England where he gave eleven more speeches.

  In 1860 he ran for president. War was looming. People predicted terrible results if he won.

  In the blink of an eye, when her husband was elected, Mary's life in a fishbowl began. She was finally wife of the president of the United States, something she had wanted since she was a very young girl.

  WITH ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD Willie and eight-year-old Tad (Robert had gone off to Harvard), the Lincolns went to Washington. The boys, often called "the Lincoln brats," had the run of the White House.

  The Civil War (or War Between the States, as the Southerners called it) broke out in April of 1861. But despite it, Mary continued with her gaiety and parties, which she became known for in the White House. Some of Washington's elite matrons were rude to her—the wife of the pioneer president, the First Lady from the backwoods of Illinois. Others attended her levees (receptions) but talked behind her back.

  Those who hated her husband called him "that ape" or "a Black Republican."

  As always, when depressed, Mary shopped. She bought a fancy carriage, a 190-piece porcelain dinner set, wallpaper from Paris, silverware, and many other items that overshot the allowance she was permitted to run the White House. To the White House she added furnaces, gaslight, and running water.

  She shopped at New York importers, and in Philadelphia. And soon she was criticized for her self-indulgence in Northern newspapers by those who hated her husband.

  She interviewed dressmakers to make her lavish gowns. But all those she hired she was displeased with. Fashion was of prime importance to her. On one particular occasion she wanted a "bright rose-colored moiré antique gown," and determined to find just the right dressmaker, she set out to interview three or four more.

  Early one morning at the beginning stages of the presidency, a light-skinned black woman walked up to the front entrance of the White House. She wanted the position of dressmaker to the First Lady but didn't think she had a chance of getting it.

  Already successful in her trade, and the favorite of Washington's elite, she was a free black woman who had purchased her own freedom.

  The interview lasted only a few minutes, and in that time Mary Lincoln hired the free black woman.

  Her name was Elizabeth Keckley.

  Lizzy

  Lizzy—Child of Aggy—Feb. 1818. Recipe for Muster Day gingerbread. As follows:

  AND SO I WAS BORN and my birth registered in the mistress's household diary. I was listed right above the recipe for Muster Day gingerbread. And right below the new shipment of household supplies. "Two bristol boards, a bottle of varnish, a varnish brush, and writing paper."

  I was born into the household of Mary and Armistead Burwell of Dinwiddie County, Virginia, on Sappony Creek, south of Petersburg, Virginia's third largest town, where men made money in tobacco factories, mills, and stores.

  My birth did not go unnoticed on the large plantation. With every birth of a slave child the master is that much richer. And I suppose that with my mother I would have sold for at least $1,300. Master always said that Aggy, my mother, was worth her salt. It was his favorite expression.

  Master was my father, though that was not noted anywhere. For all intents and purposes, my father was a slave from a neighboring plantation, name of George Pleasant Hobbs. I never thought of anyone but Daddy George as my father, though he was allowed to visit us only two times a year, on Easter and on Christmas.

  My face is fair and I am light of skin. Somewhere along the years Armistead Burwell got my mama alone, 'bout when his wife was carrying her tenth child, and so I got my fair skin and blue eyes.

  Master Burwell inherited Mama and fifteen other slaves when he was only in his teens. She became a nurse for his wife and later their ten children, and so, worked in the big house, and I worked with her.

  My mama never spoke to me about how she felt about Master. Or if she had any feelings at all. She did tell me how she grieved because I was a girl. How she regretted not taking the tansy, rue, roots and seed of the cotton plant, the pennyroyal, the cedar berries, and the camphor that could cause an abortion.

  She regretted it because a girl child is destined for all sorts of mistreatment at the hands of her master. As it was, any child could be sold away from its mother if they weren't Burwell slaves.

  Burwells have never yet sold their slaves off. The slaves on our plantation go back to early colonial days when Master's great-grandfather brought them in tenfold from the docks of New Orleans. Right off the ships from the west coast of Africa, from northern Senegambia. And even the more inland region of the Niger Delta.

  Mama says my ancestors were hunters, fishermen, merchants, artisans, and farmers. All the slaves on this plantation have stories and history to tell.

  Mama says that is all fine and dandy. And I should be proud. But I also have to make my own history. Which I have already set out to do.

  IF I WERE TO BE SOLD at age four, the price I would bring, after being weighed on the scale, would be about $ 300. A little shady girl like myself isn't worth much. And then only if I sold along with my mother, whose price would be about $1,100 because she is such a good nurse and seamstress.

  I already knew that at age four. I heard Massa talk about it, though I knew he would never sell off me and Mama. Only planters of no account sell off their own daughters, although some have been known to do it.

  But no matter how much I am worth, here is how I lived and why.

  Me and Mama lived in a cabin in the quarters, where all the slaves lived on this elegant plantation. We each had a bed, and the mattress was made of corn shucks, which was stuffed afresh about once a year. We had a fireplace with pots hanging in it, ready for cooking, but we never used it. We always ate in the kitchen of the big house because Mama was nurse to the Burwell children. And there were ten of them. And she was the one and only seamstress in the whole house.

  At four I already knew how to ply a needle. Mama had taught me. I was stitching calico for a patchwork quilt. Mama allowed me to use long straight stitches because they were easier. By the time I wa
s six, I was learning to put together a man's shirt. But I get ahead of myself.

  I thought it magic what Mama could do with that needle and wished for the day I would be a seamstress for some grand lady.

  But my regular work was not so special. I followed Missus Burwell around. I fetched for her. I stood by her side and fanned away the flies. I did her errands and even went on calls with her, dressed in my finest gingham.

  We ate good. We had boiled greens and meat and fish, hoecakes made of cornmeal and cooked on a fire rake. Real butter and molasses. We had pot likker.

  The negroes in the quarters got bacon and meal on Saturdays. All week they ate corn and ashcakes, with a little meat on the side. At Christmas they got fruit.

  But they were allowed to fish in the creek, something they did at night while fires burned on the edge of the water, in what made the prettiest sight you ever did see. They were allowed to hunt. With dogs, not with guns. When Massa took a fancy to hunt, he would take his two oldest sons with him and some chosen slaves. They went out after possum, coon, and fox. And they took Massa's best hunting dogs to tree the animals.

  My grandma was named Sarry. She was Mama's mama and she was the cook, which is part why we got such good victuals in the kitchen. She was also the mistress of the herbs that got given to the slaves when they were sickly. She fed all the little negroes in a trough in the backyard. Nothing fancy, but good rib-sticking food. They ate with oyster shells out of that trough, the oyster shells the only thing that kept them from acting like little piggies.

  I ate at the kitchen table with a proper dish and spoon.

  The negroes in the quarters get up at four to the blowing of a conch shell by the head overseer, Big Red. They went to the fields when it was still dark and came home after sundown. Or as they say, "From can't see to can't see." Lunch was brought to them in the fields.