Mary would never worry long, he knew. She was too mercurial, too easily diverted by trifles. What troubled Lincoln most was her impulsive inclination to meddle. She took a hand in decisions, was always writing indiscreet letters to newspaper editors, discussing national affairs too brashly; she interfered in decisions over post offices and appointments to military academies. When New York papers printed long items about her travels, her clothes, her bonnets and baggage, she was flattered and excited, unaware that her husband was unhappily reading into some of these accounts an amused note of criticism and contempt. She was as much a child as Tad, he told himself often, but unlike Tad she could not be controlled.
All through the evening she busied herself happily over her gifts, wrapping them in white paper, fetching bits of ribbon from her dozens of bandboxes for bows and decorations. Abraham Lincoln slipped off his elastic-sided shoes and stretched his bony feet to the fire. He dozed a little and had to be warned sharply by Mary when his gray wool socks began to smoke a little.
“I declare, Abraham, you’d burn yourself to a cinder if I didn’t look after you! You’ve even scorched your pantaloons. Yes, you have. I can see where the broadcloth is singed on that right leg. It’s like putting ribbons on a pig to try to dress you up decently. Sometimes I despair of ever making you into a real gentleman!”
Lincoln smacked absently at the hot fabric of his breeches. “In this town, Mary, gentlemen are as thick as fleas in a dog pound. Take credit for making me into a man but let the fashionable aspect go.”
“People can’t see how much you know,” she argued. “All they see is how you look. No wonder that New York paper called you a ‘pathetic, disheveled figure’ when you made that speech at Gettysburg. I suppose your cravat was crooked and your socks falling down.”
“They’ve called me worse things. Names don’t stick unless your hide is soft. I got toughened up back yonder.”
“I notice you act kind of flattered when they call you a railsplitter—and a yokel.”
“Well, I know I was a good railsplitter. If they called me a sorry railsplitter I’d resent it.” He was unperturbed. “What is a yokel? A fellow from the country. So I must be a yokel for I sprung from about as deep in the country as you can get air to breathe, so deep there wasn’t even a road there, just an old trace that meandered up the bed of the crick part of the way. America’s made of yokels. Our side, anyway. Your friends down South have got a few stylish gentlemen but a lot of them lost their sashes and their plumes up at Gettysburg and they got buried right alongside the yokels. Humiliating to them, I reckon.”
She had to laugh. “You’re hopeless, Abe Lincoln.”
“Well, I know you’d admire me a heap more if I could go around like Jim Buchanan. Long-tailed coat and white vest and my head cocked to one side like a tom turkey admiring all the gals. He brought plenty of elegance to this office but if he’d had a little yokel grit in his gizzard the country wouldn’t be in this mess, maybe. One thing I know, you wouldn’t want me sashaying around the gals like Buchanan. You’d spit fire if I commenced that. Go on and fuss at me, Mary; it don’t bother me and I can still lick salt off the top of your head.”