Somewhere in the World

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

May—October 1860

 

Spring and summer passed swiftly in Lovell. It seemed as if townspeople held their breath in anticipation of the presidential election and the unrest in the southern states. A sense of unease and unreality fell over all activities. No one was certain how the future would unfold, but one thing seemed certain—change was approaching.

To everyone’s astonishment, in May 1860, Abraham Lincoln managed to wrest the Republican nomination from the coterie of frontrunners. All of New England was abuzz with the news of Lincoln reaching the nomination on a subsequent ballot, after Seward failed to clinch the nomination on the first. Who was this backwoods lawyer with nothing to recommend him but one unremarkable term in the House of Representatives, and two unsuccessful runs at the United States Senate? On May 19, 1860, a reporter for the New York Herald sneered, “The conduct of the republican party in this nomination is a remarkable indication of small intellect, growing smaller. They pass over…statesmen and able men, and take up a fourth rate lecturer, who cannot speak good grammar.”

Nevertheless, Lincoln was put forward as the nation’s Republican candidate, and those in the nation could do little but wait uneasily for the great election in the fall of that year to decide the nation’s fate. If rumblings to the South were any indication, the coming storm would be swift and irreversible.

At the Hale residence, life continued as usual. Mr. Hale taught his scholars and those few men who chose to take lessons with him, Mr. Thornton being the oldest. Margaret continued her work at the day school, splitting her time between there and the Higgins’ residence, where she spent much time with Bessy and Mary. Nicholas would appear betimes to share political news, but spent much of his time at his newspaper, given the great goings-on as autumn approached.

Her concern for the Higgins family was heightened in June when Bessy, never the strongest of young women, contracted scarlet fever. The disease struck a number of families in Lovell, poor and rich alike, and for a time schools were closed and attendance at church was sparse as young and elderly alike feared contracting the disease. Margaret had suffered through the fever as a young child, and thus was able to offer assistance in the sick room where Mary was not allowed over fear of her contracting the disease. She had often helped tend to the ill in her father’s parish in Williamsburg, and was well acquainted with the sick room and use of homeopathic and other remedies.

Over the protests of her mother and Dixon, and with the tacit consent of her father, she spent a fortnight at the Higgins’ residence, returning home late at night accompanied by Nicholas who insisted on seeing her to her door. For several crucial days, she slept on a cot in Bessy’s room, ready to rise up should her patient be restless or fretful.