In 1842 Abraham Lincoln married Miss Mary Todd, a Kentucky lady, at
Springfield, where he took a house for the wedded life. Previously,
while qualifying for the bar, he had dwelt for study over a
furniture-store.
On account of his attending the traveling court, which compelled a
horse, since he could not afford the gig associated with the chief
lawyers' degree of respectability, he was frequently and for long
spells away from home. In one of these absences his wife deemed it fit
for his coming dignity of pleader to have a second story and roof of a
fashionable type set upon the old foundations. Under a fresh coat of
paint, too, this renovation perplexed the home-comer when he drew up
his horse before it. At the sound of the horse's steps he knew that
some one was flying to the parlor window, but, affecting amazement, he
challenged a passer-by:
"Neighbor, I feel like a stranger here. Can you tell me where Abraham
Lincoln lives? He used to live here!"
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