Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGHIAM COUNTY

paused at the little new jewelry store. (It stood where the house
at 112 East Main street now stands, occupied until recently by
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Kilbourne). So they stopped at the little
pioneer jewelry store where the sight of plain gold rings set Sarah
off saying:
"Have you heard that Sarah Bush and Will Hinman are going
to be married soon? I am going to stand up with Miss Bush
and Secretary of State George W. Peck is to attend Will. There
is to be big doings at the Benton House. Will Hinman is going
to run the Benton House for Mr. Bush." Edward Randolph
Merrified, Mexican War hero, took a conversational plunge.
"'Member the night I met you?" began Edward, not exactly
knowing where he was going conversationally, but feeling he must
be on the way.
"No; when was it?" evaded Sarah, knowing full well when it
was.
"Don't you remember how after I took Jacob Sumner's horse
back to Utica I came back here by way of Detroit and the new
railroad that runs to Jackson? From there I came here by stage.
The night I arrived I was awful homesick and I wished I had not
come.
"I was moping around that night, and Rep. Thomas-your
father-I didn't know it then-came along and he said, 'Say,
young feller, come in here and meet some of the girls and shake a
foot.' He would not take 'no' for an answer. I went with him
inside the door and stopped there-and then-and then-I saw
you * * *"
"Yes, I was there with my sister, Eugenia, and her beau," admitted Sarah by way of helping on the story, just a trifle. Perhaps
she thought it well for Edward to get into conversational high
gear while they were yet in comparative solitude.
"Your father asked me if there was any girl there I would
especially like to meet, I looked again, and I told him that girl
right over there-and it was you." Here Edward Randolph
Merrifield must have paused to take a long breath.
"How your father laughed. "Come right over; that is my girl,"
he said.
Maybe this was not quite the way of it; but there is some such
picture of the long ago; the time when halting conversations and