The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 65
This brings to my mind the little personal catechism I underwent upon that first visit to the White House. He had often in the early days questioned me concerning other, younger, men. Of these younger fellows he seemed not so much jealous as curious. But sometimes he pretended jealousy. He often said to me, "Nan, darling, I don't want you to be a hermit maid." And so I went occasionally to dinner or to the theatre with fellows nearer my own age. But I told Mr. Harding about them.
Now, upon this first visit in the White House I thought his interest in my social movements seemed almost pathetically curious. "Don't go off and marry any of the fellows you meet, dearie!" he pleaded with me there on the dilapidated couch in the ante-room. As he spoke he blushed faintly. "I love you so much. Nan—and I don't like to have you be with anybody else—that's the real truth!" he finished lamely. I could have screamed my delight at his concern. If he could only have realized that the liveliness exhibited there with him was for me only reaction to the stimulation I felt always when around him. Why, back in Chicago I felt weak, and ill. I hugged him and whispered soothing negations in his ear, denying emphatically that I should ever marry at all since I could not marry him. Free or not free, I told him, I preferred Warren Harding to all the other men in the world put together.
There would be opportunities for intimate companionship, he promised. I told him I was in no danger of being a hermit maid in that event. I was free to be with him just as in the old days. And I hoped he was going to be equally free. Yet somehow I inwardly lamented the personal restrictions I felt the presidency would impose. I think it took Warren Harding a few months to discover these restrictions.
After I returned to Chicago from my initial trip to Washington and the White House, I prepared to go to New York. Scott, Elizabeth and Elizabeth Ann were going down on a farm in Illinois, which is the home of Scott's people, and I left Chicago for New York about the same time. That was in August. Scott's mother and father adored the baby; she seemed to make everyone love her, and people outside of the family spoke about her "adorable smile," which is the smile of her father.
On July 30th, 1921, I took Elizabeth Ann and went away for two days. I wanted to be alone with her for a little space, away from everybody. We took a lake boat and went across to St. Joseph, Michigan. Going over it was a lot of fun for me to speak to strangers openly as "her mother," for Elizabeth Ann was too small to know things, and her affection for me was always the very natural affection of a daughter for her mother. We stopped at a hotel in St. Joseph, the name of which I have forgotten, and the next day some time I held Elizabeth Ann in my arms while one of those "tin-type" photographers snapped our picture, which eventually found its way to Washington. She was so small that we could not do much except walk about a bit and take a long
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ride in a touring car which I hired by the hour. I remember Elizabeth Ann slept most of the rather uninteresting ride we took about the country, but we were at least together—mother and darling baby—and for two whole days!
When we crossed the gang-plank to board the steamer on our return, a gentleman asked if he might assist me with my bag. I carried the baby. I turned later to thank him and said, "Thank you very much, sir." Elizabeth Ann, with characteristic mimicry, looked up at him and echoed, her Harding smile very evident, "Ver' much, ver' much," which delighted the whole crowd.