“I have four brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway, and if you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin.”
Grace’s suggestion amused me...and I might glean those two votes! So, I let my beard grow, and Billy de Fleurville trimmed it for my inaugural. In Westfield, at the depot, my train was on a siding. While it was there I asked the crowd:
“Is Grace Bedell here?”
She came running to the train, and I was able to hug and kiss her.
The White House
Sunday
They were good days in Springfield, our children growing, bursting with energy, up to antics day in and day out. They helped and hindered boisterously, helped pitch-fork the cow’s stall, water the horse, carry in the wood for the stove; they hindered by being unreliable, off somewhere when needed.
I liked pulling the little ones in their red wagon, up and down our street, the kids yelping or fussing happily. It would be pleasant to be in Springfield, but not the same, with Robert away at school. But, I would stretch my legs onto a footstool and lie back on the old horsehair sofa.
No, a thousand slaves are throwing up fortifications in Richmond, in Charleston, in Atlanta....fortifications to enslave more enslavement.