Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v1.djvu/65

Rh he had lost his own companion giving him opportunity, with characteristic energy and directness of purpose he resolved to lay close siege to the affections of the widow and force an early capitulation. Accordingly, upon his arrival in Elizabethtown, he at once repaired to the home of the fair widow, who lived with her two girls and one boy. He must have arranged matters satisfactorily in one interview, for the next day he married the widow. As a wedding present he paid all her small debts, the amount being about twelve dollars. On the succeeding day the second-hand bride, the second-hand bridegroom, three children, and a comfortable load of furniture and bedding were en route to the new home, where the two neglected, motherless, and lonely children were doing the best they could, painfully to wear out the time till the father should return with the "surprise" that he had probably promised them.

Sallie Bush, who was thus predestined to be a second mother to the great President, came from one of the most numerous and most respectable families in that part of Kentucky. One of her nephews is Hon. W. P. D. Bush, a leading lawyer of Frankfort, Ky., who was the State reporter from 1866 to 1878. Another was Hon. S. W. Bush, one of the leading lawyers of Hardin County, and a third, Hon. Robert Bush, holding a similar rank at Hawesville. A niece was the wife of Hon. Martin H. Cofer of Elizabethtown, who was a Circuit Judge of that Circuit, and became Judge of the Court of Appeals in August, 1874, for the term of eight years, serving also as Chief Justice from 1879 till his death. This distinguished family were very devoted to