The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 45
The day arrived when Mrs. Howe and my darling baby girl would reach Chicago. It was difficult for my sister Elizabeth to go to the station with me, for she had a regular position as leader of an orchestra in a local theatre and she had to observe on-the-dot hours. But she went with me. We arrived fifteen minutes or so before the train came in, and I was so weak from the trip downtown and the excitement of seeing my baby again that I lay in Elizabeth's arms in the waiting-room until Mrs. Howe came. She was a rather heavy-set woman, with grey hair and spectacles—mother-looking—and I can just see her as she came into the waiting-room, carrying my precious baby in her arms.
We had arranged for Mrs. Howe to go over to the Plaza Hotel on the North Side, so we bundled her into a taxi and I promised to get in touch with her the following day. Then Elizabeth, the baby and I took a taxi for Mrs. Woodlock's on the South Side. I can't remember that I had made a previous visit to Mrs. Woodlock's, having let Elizabeth make all the arrangements and trusting implicitly to her judgment in the matter. In the taxi, Elizabeth held the baby and exclaimed over her prettiness. She had grown even in those brief weeks of my separation from her, and I thought there never could be a baby to equal her in sweetness. As soon as the taxi began to move she fell asleep. Elizabeth and I studied her little face and Elizabeth, too, marked the Harding resemblance.
Mrs. Belle Woodlock's apartment was half a block from 61st Street, I think on Prairie Avenue, and Elizabeth lived at the corner of 61st Street and Woodlawn Avenue. So it was but a short street car ride for me. Mrs. Woodlock's apartment was quite comfortable, like her good self. She was a fat, husky Irish girl, and quite pretty. She had a daughter about six, Ruth, and an old Aunt Emma who lived with her. I don't know whether Belle Woodlock's husband was dead or whether she had been divorced; I never asked her. But the atmosphere was not at all bad, I thought, and there was enough youth about the house to make it pleasant. I remember how grateful I was to see a little girl of six there.
Of course the excitement had been great and I know Mrs. Woodlock wondered why I broke down and sobbed as I knelt over my tiny treasure. We did not stay long, but went away, I back home to bed and Elizabeth to her theatre, leaving the baby in charge of her new nurse.
Mrs. Woodlock was a person not to be downed, I soon learned. In her position as nurse, she had acquired a hardness of a sort, but withal I found her extremely sentimental and sympathetic. She took an immediate fancy to Elizabeth Ann, as did her little daughter Ruth and her old Aunt Emma. Aunt Emma was a partial cripple, and she proved to be a great comfort to me because I knew she kept watch over our baby at times when Mrs. Woodlock's attention was demanded elsewhere.
Mrs. Woodlock moved twice during the year and two months that the baby was with her. She soon moved over on 48th Street. That place, too, was accessible from Elizabeth's, even though it was a longer trip for me to take. But my strength certainly seemed to be gone permanently. I ate normal meals, but I was just unable to do the things I formerly did. Mr. Harding urged me in every letter to rest, rest, rest, but it was growingly impossible. My mind was sick, and nothing would cure it except an arrangement whereby I could have my baby with me.
Mr. Harding was very generous, sending me as a rule $100 or $150 at a time, and of course I kept Mrs. Woodlock paid right up to the minute. I have in my possession a little red book in which I have jotted down at different times how I spent the cash Mr. Harding sent me in his letters. He used to send very old bills so they would not be noticeable to one handling the letter, and has sent me as much as $300 and $400 in one letter with nothing but a two-cent stamp to carry it. For instance, about this time I made the following notation:
| "Last $150: | |
| ""Last $52.00 | carriage for Elizabeth Ann |
| ""Last $60.00 | three weeks' board Elizabeth Ann |
| ""Last $16.00 | shoes for Nan |
| ""Last $05.50 | bonnet for E. Ann |
| ""Last $05.50 | robe for E. Ann |
| ""Last $02.60 | another robe and bow |
| ""Last $05.00 | dress cleaned and fixed |
| ""Last $146.60 | total" |