the boiler rooms. As she stood there the President came down the path to his office, intent on starting his daily work.
"Perhaps she epitomized for the President the great crowd of children which shortly were to shout and run and laugh through the grounds. President Harding bent down and kissed the little maid twice, and asked her about the fine time she was going to have."
But such an experience for his own little girl never seemed possible. It might have, but for Fear, that monster that hounded us continually, and finally made him I loved the victim of its vicious poisoning. Fear of exposure! Fear of the Republican Party! Fear of the Democratic Party! Fear of society's condemnation! Fear of our respective families! Fear of a national scandal! Yes, fear it was that stayed the hand of Warren Harding, and fear it was that prevented the realization of the holy dream I had visualized as sweetheart and mother. I used to think that if only I could see her go on his lap, and hear him talk to her in the kindly, sweet voice I used to hear him use when he talked with children everywhere, I would be the proudest and most completely happy woman in God's world. It made my throat ache so terribly just to think of the apparent hopelessness of my hopes. It made the whole attempt at secrecy so unworthwhile, so really wrong, so unnecessary! And, above all, so futile in the face of its unfair demands upon us.
Upon completion of the poem, "The Child's Eyes," before I had submitted it for publication, I sent Daisy Harding a copy, but I included no letter and made no comment. Under date of July 16th, 1926, I received a letter from her which in tone differed from some of her recent communications. It was more like the real Daisy Harding I know and love.
She wrote that as she finished reading my poem she both thought and said aloud, "beautiful!" "Perhaps it is in the full of poetry your talent lies. Real poetry must come through true
