The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 82

by Nanna Popham Britton

82

During the interim between this and my next visit, which must have been in late August or early September, Tim Slade came to Chicago to deliver a package from Mr. Harding which contained money and a letter to me. Tim Slade came several times to Chicago, and I always met him at the Congress Hotel. He was frank to express to me his feeling toward Mrs. Harding, which amounted to much more than mere dislike, and on one occasion revealed his resentment toward her which had been aroused by the occasion of one of his visits to me. He said Mrs. Harding, knowing he was going to make a trip to Chicago, but not of course knowing why, had said to him, "Tim, where are you going?" His resentment because of her curiosity prompted a reply which Tim said simply enraged her, and she demanded to know why he was going to Chicago. He said he told her it was to meet some member of his family who was to be in Chicago on the day he planned to see me. It was Tim Slade himself who recently reminded me that Mr. Harding had one time sent another man to Chicago because he, Tim, could not go, and I recalled then that I did meet someone other than Tim, at our usual meeting-place, the Congress Hotel. I did not, you see, go to Washington every time Mr. Harding would have liked to have me come. There were times when he could not have me, and I went only when he wrote that it would be all right. Mr. Harding's letters expressed more and more his fear about our situation, and more and more cautioned me to be guarded both in speech and action. And my perturbation and dissatisfaction grew apace with his concern.

It seems to me it was the fall of 1922 when Miss Daisy Harding came again to Chicago to visit her cousin, Mrs. John Wesener. She had visited there in 1921, but at that time I was in New York. This time her father, Dr. Harding, was there (with his wife by his third marriage) and it so happened that my Grandfather Williams was visiting at my sister Elizabeth's at the same time.

Dr. Harding, Daisy's father, and my grandfather were both Civil War veterans and therefore old friends. So I took my grandfather to call upon his friend, Dr. Harding. Grandfather Williams was usually careless about his appearance, and I knew Dr. Harding had been kept carefully groomed ever since his son's election to the presidency, so I tactfully suggested to Grandfather that he have his shoes shined, and upon that occasion I myself brushed his coat and prepared him otherwise for his call upon his old friend, the President's father. My grandfather's pride was his uniform, and this he wore then, though I am sorry to say it was sadly in need of cleaning and pressing, albeit he reserved this dress for his G. A. R. encampments and other state occasions.

I remember I had not seen Dr. Harding except briefly since his son had been made President, and it occurred to me he looked far different from the man I used to see back in Marion driving around with his "horse and buggy." Then his shoes were as dusty as my grandfather's, and I have been in his home when it was futile for his daughter Daisy to urge him not to pin his coat together with a safety-pin. He just would do it.

The two dear old fellows had a lovely confab over the Civil War, while I, off in Miss Harding's bedroom, visited with her. I have often recalled that visit, for to me Daisy Harding was not quite the same Daisy Harding I had known in high school. But perhaps this was only natural. The world's spotlight had fallen upon her, and she talked about how she had to avoid the reporters who, as she said, literally camped about wherever she went. I could readily appreciate this, but I could not understand the change in her otherwise; and when one is sister to the President one naturally takes for granted that one's friends know that one is subjected to reporters and even false news items.

Dr. Harding with his horse and buggy on East Centre Street, Marion, Ohio, in front of the Star office One reason why Miss Harding had come to Chicago was to purchase some new clothes and these she showed me upon that visit with her. They were lovely, but she needed nothing

The President and his father,
Dr. George T. Harding
Dr. Harding with his rose and buggy on East Centre Street, Marion, Ohio, in front of the Star office

elaborate, in my estimation, to accentuate the natural loveliness which was hers.

I could not help deploring the change in her which was not a becoming change. I remember when I was a child, in Grace Cunningham's eighth grade class, I was given a poem by her to recite upon Lincoln's birthday. It was known as Lincoln's favorite poem, and begins, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!" The changed Daisy Harding brought this poem to my mind. I thought of the visits with her brother Warren in the White House—the President of the United States—yet to me he had not been changed a whit by this great honor; rather had he been made nobler and more humble. And it grieved me to see this instance of woman-change in Daisy Harding. But I loved her none the less.

I remember a passing remark which Miss Harding made to me upon the occasion of that visit. We were talking about my sister Elizabeth and Miss Harding remarked her surprise that Elizabeth and Scott with their music careers ahead of them (Scott a violinist and Elizabeth a pianist) should have taken a baby. It occurred to me then, as it has occurred to me dozens of times since in the distress of my own dilemma, that a more admirable thing they could not have done, even though the baby were taken from an orphan's home, even though they had taken a child as a means of preventing their too deep engrossment in themselves and their "careers." However, perhaps I am prejudiced in favor of taking care of the babies in this world.