The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 39
About a week before my confinement my mother wrote me, demanding to know the reason for my continued stay into October at Asbury. I had previously written her that I intended to go to Chicago, but that was when I thought I might go there to have the baby. She said her alarm about why I was remaining so long had been to her such a nightmare that, had she the necessary funds, I would have long since seen her in Asbury Park. Poor mother! What worry I must have caused her!
Inwardly terrified at the possibility of her coming on, but realizing that I would not dare indicate such terror to her, I wrote immediately, expressing my regret at not being able to supply the funds she would need for fare, and saying that "Mrs. Christian" had elected to remain longer in Asbury and I could not of course desert her when she had been so lovely to me all summer. That seemed to satisfy my mother.
Then I wrote my sister Elizabeth that I did not think it at all necessary for her to come on, entailing an unnecessary expense, and gave her as nearly as possible the date of my confinement. This I did also with Mr. Harding, so they both knew exactly where I would be and when I expected to be confined.
Mr. Harding wrote immediately and asked me to please write him a love-letter before I would be in such position (in bed) that I couldn't write him for some time. I remember well the tone of that letter from him. I knew he was homesick to see me, and it reacted to make me more impatient for the day to come which would give me our baby so that I could begin to plan to see him again. I went over to Dr. Ackerman and asked him when he thought I would have the baby. My hands were somewhat swollen, I complained, and I was getting uncomfortable generally. He assured me I was in excellent shape and that I would soon have my baby. Somewhat mollified, but still irritable, I walked down to the post office. I found another letter from my sweetheart and devoured it as I walked back home. I think that was Saturday, perhaps Friday.
On Sunday afternoon, a gorgeously brilliant autumn day, I went over to the woods to my three-cornered seat, which was a board nailed to three trees. I sat there for a couple of hours and wrote to my darling. I remember I wanted to cry my eyes out that afternoon, I was so homesick to see him, and very likely this longing was written vividly into the letter which I mailed at the post office late that afternoon. Incidentally, I used to take his letters to various towns all along the shore just to avoid sending too many from one post office. As though they would have noticed to whom the letters were addressed! But it was just another of those precautions which were responsible for the absolute safeguarding of our secret from the world.
On Monday I walked most of the day, anxiously. Tuesday evening I found a letter from Mr. Harding, telling me he had never in his life received from me a love-letter equal to the one I had written Sunday out of the depths of my longing for him. He cautioned me to "take it easy," and stressed, as he had all summer in his letters, the necessity for complete recuperation after the baby's birth. "It will mean your health, Nan, so be deliberate in getting up afterward. I cannot emphasize this point enough." Elizabeth wrote me the same thing, telling me I wouldn't be at all the same afterward, my strength would be gone, and I must rest all I could. I smiled to myself; they didn't realize how strong I felt, nor how well I was! Probably many women who were weak would have to wait through long periods of recuperation, but I was sure I would be strong enough to travel soon after my baby came.
I spent a great deal of time conjecturing about the baby's looks. Mrs. Tonnesen and her brother Billy took a great interest in the coming event, though I stayed away from the house and away from everybody as much as possible, talking with them only when necessity commanded. On Monday or Tuesday Helen Evans, the nurse Dr. Ackerman had recommended, came to call upon me. She told me all the different things I would need to have for a home confinement, and I was surprised, for I had thought all I needed was clothes for the baby! I liked Miss Evans. She was Scotch, and had something of a burr, though she said she had been quite a while in this country. I decided we would get on splendidly.