RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
The winter of 1906-7 was too busy to remember as anything except a sort of hazy nightmare lightened in spots by contemplation of the delightful possibilities contained in a rapidly growing Presidential "boom," but it came to an end, and early in the summer I gathered up my family and a few necessary belongings and went to Murray Bay. We were to leave some time in August for the Philippines and the trip around the world via the Trans-Siberian Railway, and I wanted very much to have my husband get away for a few weeks of absolute detachment from public affairs, tiding sure that it would be his last opportunity for rest and relaxation for many a day. But no man can be a candidate for President of the United States and indulge at the same time in even a short period of complete tranquillity.
Before Mr. Taft joined me he, in deference to the wishes of the men who were conducting his "boom," made another speech-making trip through the West on the method so aptly described as "whirlwind," and did not arrive in Murray Bay until the first week in July.
It just occurs to me that I have covered all these different periods of our lives without even mentioning Murray Bay, although a large part of the Taft family has been spending the summers there for twenty years or more. We went there before the place became in any sense "fashionable," when the only kind of hotel accommodation was in quaint old inns of the real French-Canadian type in which no English was spoken, but where service of such delightfully simple and satisfactory quality as can no longer be obtained was smilingly offered at rates which would now be considered absurdly low. After our first year in 1892 we always had a cottage,—and on going to Murray Bay we prepared to enjoy ourselves in the luxury of complete simplicity.
The cottage which we have occupied for a number of years is perched on a rocky headland overlooking the sixteen miles wide stretch of the St. Lawrence river and almost entirely
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