RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
growth of the ancient and dearly loved cherry trees of Japan.
One of the delights of living in the White House is in being able to entertain one's friends from a distance with a confidence that they are being given a real pleasure and an experience of an unusual kind. More often than not we had house guests, old friends from Cincinnati, from New Haven, from the Philippines, from here, there and everywhere; friends with whom we had been closely associated through the years and who felt whole-hearted satisfaction in my husband's attainment of the Presidency.
To be stared at is not pleasant because it keeps one self-conscious all the time, but one gets more or less used to it. And anyhow, I enjoyed a sort of freedom which Mr. Taft did not share in any way. While he would probably have been recognised instantly in any crowd anywhere, I found that in most places I could wander about unobserved like any inconspicuous citizen. It was a valued privilege.
My daughter Helen likes to tell about an experience she had one day in Philadelphia. She was a student at Bryn Mawr College and she went in to Philadelphia to do some shopping. Among other things she had to get herself some shoes. At the shoe store she was waited on by a girl who was anything but intelligently attentive. She had tried Helen's patience considerably by suggesting in a certain nagging way that her superior knowledge of what was "being worn" deserved respect, and that Helen didn't know what she wanted anyhow.
Helen selected some shoes and decided to have them charged to me, and she thought what a satisfaction it was going to be to reveal her identity to the patronising and offensive young person. The young person produced pad and pencil to make out the check.
"Please have them charged to Mrs. William Howard Taft," said Helen with what I am sure was her loftiest air.
"Address?"
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