by an outsider as the heart-promptings of his friend "the Lieutenant" who would obviously have written his own love messages and not sent them second-hand!
No sooner was I upon my feet than I was nervous and anxious to get to Chicago to my sister Elizabeth. The superb strength which had been mine before the baby came had completely left me. My appetite was forced, my cheeks were pale, and constant letters from my mother as to when I was coming West worried me terribly.
Several mornings after the baby was born Dr. Ackerman came to see me. He sat on a straight chair at the foot of the bed and took out a notebook. I was amazed at myself for becoming frightened, but somehow my nerves were shattered and things troubled me which amounted to nothing at all. He informed me that he needed certain data for registering the child's birth. I didn't know exactly what that might mean to Mr. Harding, and so I inquired if it was necessary to register a child's birth always. "Unless you want to pay a fine of $100," he replied in his business-like voice. He said he merely wished to know my maiden name, my husband's, and our ages, my husband's business, etc. I thought quickly about whether I ought to tell him at least the partial truth—that I was not married! I didn't know whether or not it was a criminal offense to say you were married when you were not. I longed to shout the whole truth to the world, that my baby was Warren Harding's baby, that we were not married in the eyes of the world, but truly married in the sight of God, and that I was proud, proud, proud to be her mother!
Within, I was growing hysterical in those brief moments, but controlled my voice as I told him that my age was twenty-three, my husband's thirty-two, his business was an officership as Lieutenant in the U. S. Army, and that my name before I was married
