Edwin’s own position will shift about over the years. Sometimes, like Asia, he will insist that his father’s one and only marriage was to his mother. Sometimes, like Rosalie, he will acknowledge Adelaide’s prior claim, though dismissing her as an adventuress, thirty-two years his father’s elder （she was, in fact, four years older）。 Asia saw her once, he will say. I never did.
This is a good reminder that no one in the world is a reliable source for their own story.
Lincoln and the Merry-Begotten
During the ride he spoke, for the first time in my hearing, of his mother, dwelling on her characteristics, and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he inherited from her. He said, among other things, that she was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter; and he argued that from this last source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him from the other members and descendants of the Hanks family. His theory in discussing the matter of hereditary traits had been, that, for certain reasons, illegitimate children are oftentimes sturdier and brighter than those born in lawful wedlock . . .
—J. L. Scripps, interview with Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln’s mother had died of milk sickness back when he was nine years old and his sister, Sarah, eleven. The family had then been living in southern Indiana. Up to this point, the hardships of Lincoln’s life were, for the times, quite ordinary—occasional beatings, hunger, a remote and unappeasable father, endless toil, and all the perils of the wilderness. His mother’s love had made his life tolerable. And then she was gone and he, at nine years old, helping make her coffin.
Fourteen months after her death, Thomas Lincoln left his children to travel to Kentucky to fetch home a new wife. He was absent so long, Abe and Sarah decided he must have died. A neighbor described them as all but nude, their clothing rotting away. They were lice-ridden, starving.
When the new stepmother arrived, she was shocked by what she found. The children were immediately cleaned, clothed, and fed. In a matter of weeks, the cabin had windows, a floor, tables, and chairs. She was good at making things better.
Prior to her arrival, his father had forbidden Abe’s reading as a waste of his time. His stepmother encouraged his studies. “Abe was the best boy I Ever Saw or Ever Expect to see,” she will write someday when the gifts she saw early are widely recognized.
Whatever native talents he has, Lincoln attributes entirely to his first mother’s bloodline. That he was allowed to make something of them is the work of his second mother. He credits his father with none of it.
* * *
vii
Adelaide Booth begins to follow all of them, though mostly Mother, around Baltimore, shouting that Mother is a whore and the children bastard-born. She’ll appear at the market where Mother tries to sell her produce. She’ll appear outside the classroom just as the boys are leaving.
“I’ll fall on your backs like a bomb,” Adelaide cries out, trailing them through the streets, weaving through carriages and pedestrians, her contorted face obscured by her bonnet, her voice loud and spit-filled. The Bully Boys scatter when she appears, reconvene in her absence. They remain Johnny’s staunch supporters, but their fists and fisticuffs are useless against this woman. The nagging sense that he must be grateful to the Bully Boys for their continued friendship is a feeling new to Johnny and very disagreeable.
The more she shouts, the more room she is given on the sidewalks and streets. She moves through Baltimore in a private space created by her own fury. She follows Edwin and Johnny right into the schoolyard. “You brats. You ill-begotten vipers. You aren’t clean enough to step on. I wouldn’t sully my shoes.” The other children stare and Edwin’s not sure if they’re staring at her or at him. He feels the heat coming into his face. “We should come a different way,” Johnny says quietly, and after that they change their route daily. Mother hires a large black man to walk Asia back and forth from school.
Only Father is left unmolested. Mrs. Booth is not so angry that she’ll jeopardize his earnings.
Sometimes she’s accompanied by Father’s real son—a man only a few years older than June, and named for Grandfather. Rosalie tells the others that Richard Booth has actually been traveling with Father for more than a year. How Father can have imagined he would pull this off without Richard ever getting wind of the family in Baltimore remains one of the mysteries that is Father. He was, perhaps, emboldened by twenty-five years of successfully keeping his bigamy a secret from almost everyone.
Edwin rarely looks at Richard straight on for fear Richard will look back, but he knows him as a tall, pale, fragile man, nothing like June, opposite to Father in every way. Can this really be Father’s son? Edwin doubts it.
Richard never speaks, but his presence at his mother’s side suggests his enmity. A half-brother Edwin never knew he had is his mortal enemy. It’s Shakespearean, really.
viii
Most of the time, Edwin manages to ignore the situation. He has other things to think about. He’s been offered a theater!
Only not exactly. Mrs. Robson, the mother of Johnny’s friend Stuart, manages a local hotel, and she’s told Stuart that if he and his little friends clean out the cellar, they can use it as a playhouse. Stuart has even managed to purchase a real set from the Kilmiste Garden resort, a painted backdrop—the plain room of a simple cottage, a fireplace, rough-hewn shelves with bowls and mugs.
Johnny and his friends are full of plans. They’ll charge a penny apiece for the neighborhood children, two pennies for interested adults, and pay an organ grinder out of the proceeds. Their first play will be Richard III, with all the women’s parts removed and the swordplay emphasized. Johnny is terribly excited about the whole thing. He expects to star. He makes the mistake of boasting about this to Edwin . . .
. . . who sees instantly that he needs to take over. Johnny can’t play Richard III. He’s eight years old! Edwin and his friend John Sleeper offer to join the troupe. The offer comes with a contract specifying their share of the purse. As an adult George Stout will remember these thirteen-year-olds as intimidatingly professional. Also fantastically condescending. The older boys steal the set. Johnny and his friends steal it back. It changes hands so many times, it falls to pieces before it can be used.
The older boys don’t join the troupe so much as they take possession of it. Edwin will, of course, be Richard. Sleeper will be Buckingham. Johnny can be Richmond, a very important part, they assure him. The hero.
All of these boys will go on to have careers in the theater. While other children are playing mumblety-peg, ringtaw, and the game of graces in their spare time, those in the Booth orbit have long been putting on plays. To date, these have taken place in the backyard of 62 Exeter. But this new venture is a magnitude greater. The cellar is enormous and free from the vagaries of Baltimore weather.
Edwin just needs costumes. And a horse. There is plenty of room in the cellar for a horse.
He’s happily mulling these things over when Rosalie calls for him to come down to the kitchen. He can tell from her tone that he missed her first call. Rosalie is always so quiet. Really, you have to be expecting her voice in order to hear it.