The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 22
Earlier that fall, on August 17, 1918, to be exact, Mr. Harding had an engagement in Plattsburg, New York, to address an audience. He wrote inviting me to come up there for the day, enclosing ample funds, and told me with his usual explicitness the exact train to take out of New York at night which would land me in Plattsburg in the morning. He stopped at a hotel which I recognized recently in a post card picture as the New Witherell. I arrived about 8.00 o'clock in the morning and went to the same hotel, registering, I believe, under the usual fictitious name of Christian.
I shall never forget how the sun was streaming in at the windows of that room in the hotel when Mr. Harding opened the door in his pajamas in answer to my rather timid knock. His face was all smiles as he closed the door and took me in his arms.
"Gee, Nan, I'm s' glad t' see you!" he exclaimed. I just loved the way he lapsed into the vernacular when we were alone together. My room was not far from his and I had deposited my bag before going to him. He asked all about these things—when I arrived, how I had registered, and where my room was located.
Then we planned our day. He was to speak that afternoon and gave me the direction and location of the training-ground where his address would be delivered, and explained that he would not be able to see me after the luncheon hour for the people in charge would take possession of him. But we could, he said with adorable enthusiasm, have the whole blessed morning together.
Oh, how happy that made me! There were really so few times when we could be together with a feeling of utter safety, and the sunshine, the occasion and the beauty of the place itself all pointed propitiously to a red letter day in our calendar of happiness.
I met him about half an hour later, by arrangement, in a grove near the hotel, and together we strolled toward the main street of Plattsburg and out into the country. But first Mr. Harding stopped at a corner store and bought some smokes. I was proud of the new dress I was wearing and thought Mr. Harding's smile betrayed approval as he joined me outside the store, cigarettes in hand, and surveyed me with beaming countenance.
I accused him affectionately of having made a reconnaissance of the outskirts of the village prior to my arrival, for certainly it seemed to me he could have chosen no lovelier spot than the sunny meadow where we spent the morning. It sloped gently down to a winding stream, and on one side there was a thick wood. The ground was soft and the grass high. It was sweet to hold his head on my lap and have him just lie there looking up at the blue sky.
We were both full of loving reminiscences and future plans, and Mr. Harding included in his musings certain things bearing upon his position as senator. I realize the paucity of political allusions in this manuscript, but the reader is to remember that while he was moving in the most active governmental circles at that stressful period in the history of our country, when I was with Mr. Harding alone our conversation was not principally political but warmly personal. However, when he chose to confide his problems and little worries to me it made me very proud and I took them very seriously. Right then he was up against a problem which was causing him considerable anxiety: the folks back home had scheduled him for a speech in December, I think he said, and he was supposed to call upon some fellow senator to accompany him to Marion and make an address also.
"La Follette would be fine," he mused with emphasis as he chewed thoughtfully on a stalk of timothy, "but he doesn't want to do it."
"Why?" I inquired.
"Oh, principally because he is small of stature compared with me and a bit sensitive on that score; I can understand that perfectly, although he is a convincing speaker and I think would make a sensation in Marion. . . ."
How well I could appreciate just how keen Mr. Harding was to give our home town one of the best speakers the United States Senate could boast! I suggested with some timidity Hiram Johnson, or Borah of Idaho, both of whom I judged from my morning perusals of the New York papers were picturesque enough certainly, and seemed to make the Senate sit up and take notice. He discussed various senators ruminatively and explained patiently why he could not ask this one or that one. When I interposed certain remarks or suggestions he would smile appreciatively; I suppose there was an element of naivete about my suggestions of which I was blissfully unaware. He was quite talkative that day, telling me something of the friendship which existed between him and Mrs. Harding and the Frelinghuysens. The circumstances of our companionship that day were highly conducive to deliberate and confidential meditation, though these things interested me far less than our intimate personal discussions.
"Do you like my dress, sweetheart?" I could not help asking.
"You bet!" he replied, with admiration, sitting up to examine it more closely.
"Guess how much I—you—paid for it?" I challenged.
"Oh, I couldn't guess, dearie. How much?"
"Thirty-five dollars!"
"Honestly, Nan?"
I nodded, with pride. That was, for war-time, quite inexpensive.
"Why, Nan," he said, "it looks a great deal more. And it is in very excellent taste—so are the shoes and hat."
"The hat and shoes are good ones," I informed him, "and I thought the dress such a bargain."
"Gee, yes, Nan—why, Florence pays"
But I was never interested to know how much Mrs. Harding paid for anything, even though I knew she must pay a great deal more for everything than I did. I was happier, I'm sure, than she ever was, and though I did not care to speak of her except to inquire casually of Mr. Harding how she was, it was from no dislike of her; for I merely felt sorry for her. For one to lose the affection of this man beside me was, to me, a loss so colossal that surely she could never find anything to take its place. I was so happy in his love.
Mr. Harding himself was never extravagant. I remember distinctly that on one occasion when I told him I had sent my "kid brother Doc" some money and confided to him that "It costs Doc $8 for a pair of shoes!" he turned to me and said, "Nan, do you know how much I pay for shoes?" I said, "No, how much?" and he answered, "I pay $5 and I have had this particular pair of shoes for two years. That is all any fellow should pay for shoes." And that was during war-time when things were high.
I have witnessed many instances illustrative of Warren Harding's thrift so far as he himself was concerned. He preached economy when he was President and he honestly practised economy and applied his preachments to his own daily life. Only where those dearer to him than his own life were concerned did he allow extravagance, and even then he used to chide me in a loving way for not putting away some money. It was for this reason that I began to buy steel stock, having put but $60 into it however when an urgent need of my mother caused me to draw out the money and send it to her.
I might give another incident of Mr. Harding's ideas of fair prices. We were dining at Churchill's. Our dinner was simple enough—chicken, I remember. It seems to me we did have one cocktail apiece before dinner. The bill was something over $15. Mr. Harding tipped the waiter $1.50. I watched his face as he counted out the money for the waiter. After the waiter had gone, he looked across at me and shrugged his shoulders. "You know, Nan, I am not penurious, but a bill like that is really ridiculous." Then quickly the look of impatience was gone and the incident closed.