The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-02-11


her"
Marry her? I'd be delighted" said Lincoln.
Mrs. Able went away and a month later
she was in Springfield again and she had her
sister with her.
Lincoln went to CALL When he saw Mary
Owens he gasped The girl had grown enor-
mously She had become outrageously fat
We'll, I've brought her back for you to marry
according to promise" said Mrs Able.
She was Joking but Lincoln wasn't sure wheth-
it jest or whether she serious
and cloakng her feelings in the light
ner in which she spoke. He called regularly upon
Miss Owens and paid to her all the attention he
thought engaged man should. 1t not
pleasant, however, for she was enormous in size
To make the situation still more absurd, he
very tall and very thin. The contrast between
the two enough to make any person SMILE
no matter how gloomy he might be.
Lincoln worried greatly the situation. He
felt that he was in honor bound to marry the
lady, but he dreaded the taking of such step.
But while Lincoln had due regard for tho
sanctty of his promise, implied otherwise, he
tried hard to make Miss Owens understand that
he was not desirable partner for life. He wrote
to her some of the queerest love letters that per-
haps any man penned. He told her over and
over again what a miserable life she would have
with him. In one of them he said:
II afraid you would not be satisfied. There
is great deal of fourishing about in carriages
to without sharing. You would have to be
poor without the means of hiding your poverty.
Do you believe you could bear that PATIENTLY"
Another time he wrote to her:
Il know | should be much happier with you
than the way am, provided | saw no signs of
discomfort in you. What you have said to me
may have been in the way of jest, or may have
misunderstood it. If so, then let it be forgotten;
IL otherwise, l wish you would think seriously
before you decide. What I have said | would
most positively abide by, provided you wish 1t.
My opinion is that you had better not do it. You
have not been accustomed to hardship and Il
may be serious than you imagine.
know you capable Of thinking concretely on
any subject and II you deliberate maturely upon
this before you decide, then / am willing to abide
your decision
Lovers Tears and Quarrels.
Evidently Miss Owens had some spirit. She
sent reply to one of his letters that stunned
him. She rejected him incontnently, and she
piqued his pride in doing IT, for she told him that
he was deficient in those links which make up
the chain of woman's happiness"
You would not think of Lincoln as a dancing
man, yet he did at times indulge in that pastime.
There some records extant in proof of this.
They take the form of cotillion notices printed
at the time he thirty years old and little
before his meeting with Mary Todd
Like Mary Owens, Mary Todd was Ken
tuckian, and, like Mary Owens, she had sister
~O~~~~~~~~~O~~~S~~~~~~~~~
LINcoLNS TRUE kiNDlINEss.
Mrs. Amanda Kuhn died some months ago in
Philadelphia at the age of eghty-four. During
the Civil war her husband was wounded and she
went to the hospital at Washington with her only
baby to nurse him. He recovered. but she stayed
to nurse others There Lincoln her and
deeply impressed with the woman's devotion to
the needs of the injured. Her baby attracted him.
and realizing that the child was a burden and
anxiety to the loyal nurse, he arranged for its
care in the White House while the mother was
busy in the hospital. That was like him. 1t is
merely another story of the many that mark
Lincoln as the biggest man the modern world has
known