Chapter XI: Part 11

So he had come to me! He had come in this way that I might be the first to know he was leaving this earth! He himself, tired unto death, lay hidden beneath the folds of the crimson-striped flag he had so loved, revealing to me only the symbol of his going, the beautiful cradle of his last restful sleep! Perhaps he had been too tired, too tired to bend over me, too tired even to murmur before he went away, “I love you, dearie!” But I knew. I understood. He meant to waft me sweet kisses in his sleep. Yet later he would come back, come back to hold me close, and I would feel his presence, even as we were wont to waken to sweet consciousness in each other’s arms, realizing with keen morning wakefulness the bliss of reciprocal touch ... yes, now he must sleep.... How beautiful the roses! They hung in tangled masses over the edge of the coffin, mingling their blood-red with the crimson and white stripes ... how gentle the Hand that steadied the coffin ... a Hand that sensed his weariness and guarded well his slumber ... going upward, heavenward, away from me--away from _me_! Oh, God! No, not away.... I stared, wide-eyed, fearfully fascinated, _knowing_, yet not daring to move, feeling instinctively the futility of lifting human hands in an effort to stay the coffin in its slow flight heavenward.... Even as one transfixed I lay, moving only pitifully frightened eyes to watch the coffin fade slowly out of sight, protectingly enveloped in the white, white clouds...!

With a shock I came back to conscious thinking and sprang from my bed to switch on the light. God! what a horrible nightmare it had been, I thought as I lay in bed now reviewing it and mechanically repeating the Lord’s Prayer ... the Psalms ... over and over.... “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters”.... Oh, God, how glad I was that it had been only a dream! I thought as I fell asleep.

_100_

When, on the following morning, August 3rd, I arose, pale-faced, to rush down to the Dijon station for my paper, I wept for joy to read the headlines. He was much, much better! There, I thought, that _proved_ that dreams “go by opposites” as I had often heard people say, for I had _dreamed_ that he was dead, yet he _lived_! How good was God to keep him safe for me! In spite of dreams and heavy heart I had found him alive and getting better each minute. Tears of gladness streamed down my face.

This was Friday. I remembered there was to be a dance that night for the foreign students. I would attend that! I would buy a new dress of brightest color and I would be gay indeed! I would evidence my gratitude by banishing from this moment all apprehensive thoughts. I would possess myself of a new spirit, a spirit of happiness born of gratitude for my beloved’s recovery. He was _all right now_. He was so strong, how foolish for me to imagine ... how we would talk about all this after I was back in America and made my first visit to the White House! And I would tell him of all my fears and he would smile and hug me and say adorably, “You _do_ love me, don’t you, dearie?” Oh, _how_ I loved him!

I smiled at passers-by as I skipped along to buy “something new.” The lady in the dress shop was eager to please me. “_Je desire une robe, madame, avec beaucoup le coleur jolie!_” I informed her gaily in my best French. I selected one with cerise predominating. I had a large evening hat which would do finely, and I would wear my black satin slippers and sheerest black stockings.

Next I must have my hair washed and cut. I was wearing it straight that summer. I went into what appeared to be a well-conducted beauty parlor. “_Je desire ma cheval coupé et laveé!_” I informed the attendant, a man, at the desk. He looked puzzled. I repeated my statement, taking off my hat and running my hands through my hair. I had noticed that the several ladies who were being either curled or combed had turned to look at me in undisguised amusement, but then people were always amused at my French. So I repeated the statement the second time more loudly, generously enabling the amused ladies and attendants to have another smile at my expense. _They_ didn’t know how happy I was. What did I care if I provoked their laughter. Everybody should laugh. Everybody should be gay. The President of the United States was fast recovering. He was sick, but he was getting well! My sweetheart! My darling!

“_Certainment_,” I said, smiling, “_cheval--laveé--coupé!_” He burst into unrestrained laughter. The attendants burst into unrestrained laughter. The ladies who were getting curled or combed burst into unrestrained laughter. And I laughed, too, though I knew not what had so greatly amused them.

“_Cheval--cheveaux_----,” explained the attendant between spasms. “Oh, I know!” I said in English, then I laughed with them. Mistakes we traveling Americans had made in plenty, but never, I am sure, had anyone topped this one, and never, I am sure, will that attendant forget that he one day received the strange request from an American woman to “_have her horse washed and cut_!”

Smelling much too strongly of cologne, which my attendant had insisted was the proper thing to sprinkle on one’s hair after a shampoo, I flew home to show Helen Anderson my new dress. She came into my bedroom. “Mr. Harding is _much_ better,” I told her with a smile. “Didn’t I tell you,” she answered, “that was probably all paper talk?” I nodded, glad to acquiesce. We talked about the dance that night and both planned to go. “I have a few more things to do downtown,” I said, “and will run and do them now--or, rather, immediately after luncheon,” I decided, seeing by my watch that it was almost time to go to Mme. Daillant’s.

_101_

By one-thirty that afternoon I had finished my purchasings, having found at the last minute some gaily colored handkerchiefs which I felt I would buy right then for gifts when I returned to America. My money was low. I had wired Captain Neilsen once for $200, which he had sent almost immediately to me by cable, having cabled him in Paris of my anticipated need. This fund was fast diminishing. I would have to cable him for more. I was glad I felt free to do so, because it was impossible for me to cable Mr. Harding or for him to cable money to me. On my way home I stopped at the _patisserie_ for some ice cream. These afternoons in southern France were very warm. Some of the girls who were in our Armstrong Tour were there and I sat down with them. We talked about the party that night and our school work.

“Oh, by the way,” one of the girls remarked casually, “did you know that President Harding was dead?” Like a knell, afar off, I heard a clock strike two.

I never saw that girl afterwards, so I do not know what she and the others thought of my conduct. I felt momentarily that I should faint. “Where did you read that?” I demanded. (To myself I was saying, “God! These varying reports will kill me! _Why_ do they print such things!”) “On the bulletin board in the Square,” she answered.

I gave the waitress some change, picked up my parcels with trembling hands and rushed out into the street. I made immediately for the bulletin board. It was several blocks away. I was suddenly so tired I thought I could not possibly walk so far. The sun was very warm. My heart pounded and my cheeks felt strangely hot. And I kept trying to wet my dry lips with an equally dry tongue. Aloud I was saying to myself as I ran along, “Oh, that could not be, that could not be; of course it is a mistake; oh, God, that just _could_ not be!”

Two university boys tried to stop me as I ran, calling after me something about the dance as I shook my head and ran on. I did not stop until I reached the bulletin board. I was tense and faint when I got there and was clutching my little packages in hands that shook. The glare of the sun was in my face as I stared up at the bulletin board and tried to decipher in French much too difficult for me the news about President Harding. A good many people stood about, also reading. I turned to ask one of them, but remembered that they could only tell me in French what the bulletin board said, and I could as well make it out myself. I steeled myself and laboriously translated the bulletin. The word _mort_ I knew, of course, meant death. Oh, God! Yes, that was it. I translated words meaning eighteen hours. Yes, that was it. He had been gone now for eighteen hours! Eighteen hours dead! “_How_ does it read, really?” I asked in a strained voice of a man beside me. But he only shook his head. “_Je ne comprends pas_,” he said.

Oh, it is difficult for me to bring this picture back to my mind! I can remember it as plainly as though it were yesterday, and all the horrible sensations of the shocks I experienced come over me anew. The world seemed without bottom. Things suddenly lost their meaning. The world, people, life itself, were like a horrible nightmare. I felt, like the coffin, as though I were balanced in mid-air. I could not ground either myself or my thoughts.

_102_

I turned away from the bulletin board and walked blindly up the street. The fact that I was conscious of the direction in which I was going seemed to me an assurance that I had not yet lost my mind. But it would go. Yes, I was sure of that. I could not, after I had _realized_ that my beloved had gone away from me, live on. But indeed even to this day it has seemed to me that I have not fully _realized the reality_ of Mr. Harding’s passing. He had been to me not mortal but immortal; he just could not die.

Strangely enough, I did not cry. I could not cry. My head thumped mercilessly and it seemed to me I was conscious of passers-by looking at me, but I could not see wherein I was misbehaving. I was sane. I was maddeningly sane. I knew that in my hands I still carried the little colored handkerchiefs, and that I was on the main street. And I wondered why I had not thrown the handkerchiefs away. All the way up through the long street that is the main thoroughfare of Dijon I walked. What was there to do? Where was I to go? What did it matter? How strange that this should happen to me and I could not feel it within my heart to cry!

I remember a street car coming alongside of me in that narrow street. It seemed to bring me back partially. It was a long walk home, and I was very, very tired. Yes, I was so tired I might faint. And people might then find out, if I fainted and lost my mind and talked, that I was President Harding’s sweetheart. I could not afford to faint. I would take the car back home and I would be safe, once I was with Helen Anderson.

God, what torture to sit in that car! There were five or six blocks to ride, and they seemed interminable. The man called my stop--it was _Place Octobre 30th_--queer name for a street. October 30th! It was the 22nd of October that Elizabeth Ann was born--the 22nd of October just four years ago that fall. Elizabeth Ann! Our daughter. _His_ daughter, and he had never seen her! And he was gone! Oh, no, no! It must be a mistake! I was asleep again and it was a horrible dream. If he were dead I would be crying. I pinched myself very hard and felt the hurt keenly. I could not remember ever having felt such queer pressure around my heart or such heaviness in my head. I reached our garden gate and mechanically let myself in with the great key I carried.

I entered my room. On the bed lay the cerise dress. Was it possible that I could actually have enthused over a mere dress? Was it I who had entered this room less than three hours before in high spirits? Good God, how meaningless everything seemed! How blank! I tried to ponder the meaning of _death_ as it now affected me. But my mind was in a daze. I could not pin my thoughts to contemplative consideration of anything save the sickening emptiness and gnawing pangs I was conscious of within. The effects of the bulletin-board statement were very real; but the full significance of the statement itself I could not grasp. The possibility that I should eventually awaken to the full import of my sweetheart’s passing seemed remote, for _to me_ he continued to live. Only the world-void and the dullness of an inactive mentality seemed real then.

Helen must have heard me turn the key in the garden door, for she now called downstairs to me. I answered her. I even went to the foot of the stairs and called up to her in a voice that seemed strangely detached from me, “He is dead, Helen!”

She came downstairs to my room. I was sure that something would snap within my brain and I would be wholly without power of reason. So I must tell her. In incoherent fashion, and in a strange, hollow voice, I related to Helen Anderson how Mr. Harding was my sweetheart. As I listlessly revealed to her fragments of my strange story, Miss Anderson’s face grew flushed from shock. I wondered vaguely at her changing expressions. I was puzzled that she should utter an exclamation when I told her that the Elizabeth Ann I talked so much about was President Harding’s child--and mine!

I remember distinctly, even in my state of mental lassitude, that I was secretly amazed at her first question. “Well, how did you ever _do_ it, Nan?” “How did I ever _do_ it?” I repeated. “Why, yes, how could you ‘get away with’ having a child?” It was inconceivable to me, who had loved Mr. Harding for so long, how anyone could primarily feature the obstacles in mentally digesting my story, for love such as ours could encounter no insuperable obstacles to the full expression of its divine nature. But Helen Anderson had never married, and she was a conventional woman.

I stumbled through explanations, and as I reminisced aloud about Elizabeth Ann I found myself quivering anew from head to foot and the hot tears in my eyes. I was now really crying! It eased me. It was not so difficult after that to go on. The tenseness of my body gave place to violent paroxysms of shaking, but the relaxation I felt from talking with someone was great relief to me. Helen directed me to get to bed immediately. I _was_ very tired, I thought, as I crept into bed. Helen stayed with me through the evening, reading to me, comforting me, until I told her I felt perhaps I could sleep. But I was too shaken to be alone, and that night, when I decided I could not stand it one moment longer, I crept upstairs and into Helen’s bed, where I lay shivering in the dark, crouched close to my friend, like a hunted creature.

_103_

My interest in France, in Europe, in the whole world was over now. All I wanted was to get back to America and to Elizabeth Ann. I wondered if Mr. Harding’s funeral would be held before I reached home. I did hope everything was safe so far as our love-story was concerned, for my sweetheart’s sake. Miss Anderson calmed my fears on this score when I spoke to her about it. She said of _course_ nothing would “get out” about a President who had just passed on. But I was afraid, anyway, and I was anxious to get back to take care for him that nothing was said. Of course if anything _were_ said about him, I would lie for him. I could always say Elizabeth Ann belonged to someone else. And he was protected--unless he had left some of my letters or some of my pictures in his desk. But probably his private secretary, George Christian, would obey him and burn those things in his private drawer without looking at them. I feared for Elizabeth Ann. If they _did_ find it out, what might they not do with her! Kidnap _her_ and worry _me_ to my very death? Oh, yes, I must get back immediately.

I did not have sufficient funds to go on any boat outside of the one our Armstrong party was scheduled to return on. And only the day before I had spent about $40 on the cerise dress and other foolish things. I told my Italian friend that my sister “was very ill” and he came to my rescue with a loan of 1,500 francs ($90). Helen Anderson had offered to cable her sister for extra funds, but I did not wish to await the return of her sister’s cable. The $90 would suffice to secure for me a change of cabin in another boat on the French Line, in addition to the amount I was allowed on my regular return passage. The boat, the _France_, would sail the 11th of August. Yes, they would have buried him by the time I reached America, I was sure. My thoughts never ceased. They ran on and on, and sometimes I felt that likely it was the ability to think that had kept me from _losing_ the ability to think.

Miss Anderson, saddened over Mr. Harding’s death, and having had enough of Dijon anyway, left with me, as did a young man who had been with us a good deal on the tour. He accompanied me, in fact, to Havre, at Helen Anderson’s expense, and put me on my boat. I had secured a double cabin all to myself because the clerk saw that I looked ill. And never was I so glad to leave any place in my life. I saw the shores of France recede and turned my face toward America.

_104_

The feeling of unreality which I had been experiencing in connection with Mr. Harding’s death continued, and it seemed to me those days on the ocean enroute home that I possessed two distinct entities: the one, myself, who suffered constantly, underneath her comparative calm, and another who seemed always to be looking on. This second self watched me, I might say watched over me, observing that I did necessary things in a normal manner--that I dressed, breakfasted, talked, read, dined, and even slept. This second self seemed also to approve of my companionships on board, especially with a Swiss Frenchman who sat at my table and who seemed to appreciate that I had been through some kind of ordeal. He thought it strange that I didn’t care to dance, but walked with me and sat with me on the deck and gave me interesting books to read.

The passengers, at my table and elsewhere, very naturally talked about Mr. Harding’s death. I had grown used to hearing him discussed anywhere I might go, and this fact may have helped to make it possible for me to listen to their talk until I could quietly excuse myself or otherwise slip away unobserved.

My funds were almost exhausted. I had cabled Captain Neilsen to have money awaiting me in New York, having received a radio from him that he was soon to leave for an indefinite period. And he had wired me back, “Call for funds at American Express Office.” I had scarcely enough money left to tip the stewards.

Each day there was a pool won by the passenger who guessed the final numeral in the mileage made by the steamer at the end of a certain hour. My Swiss friend, seeming fond of sports of that kind, always bet on some number. I did not know that one who bets must also deposit $6 of the $60 which went to make up the pool and, when he said to me one day, “Put your name down against a number,” I chose 5. Unknown to me he had put $6 into the pool for me. The following day I was informed I had guessed the lucky number. It was long afterward, even here in New York, that I discovered he had made the necessary deposit for me. He seemed at the time I won to be much more pleased than I, saying he “loved to see girls win things.” Inasmuch as I had about $5 left you may be sure the $60 lucky cash came in handy!

Mr. Harding’s generosity had made of me a far more extravagant girl than might have been the case had he not made me feel that I needn’t be so saving. I remember one time when I went to the White House, he said to me, “Nan, darling, do you know how much I have sent you since such-and-such a date?” He added, “Not that I am complaining, dearie; I want you to have everything you want within reason, so long as there is no comment.”

Another time, when he was hugging me so tightly, sitting there on the dilapidated leather couch in the ante-room, I said, “Oh, sweetheart, you are tearing my blouse!” He did not loose his hold of me; simply answered in a voice I knew was smiling, as he sought my lips, “Well, if I tear it, I’ll buy you another one!”

This reminds me of an incident in our first sweetheart days of 1917. It was early fall. We were taxi driving, and were crossing the viaduct at 125th Street and Riverside Drive. I knew I would need a winter coat; in fact, at the Carter’s the winter before I had had no winter coat; I had worn the heavy suit the friends in Chicago had bought me and a rather heavy raincoat over it, and very often Miss Carter’s fur piece and muff. I now needed a winter coat badly.

“Sweetheart,” I said, “if I can save $20 toward a new winter coat, will you give me $10?” How can I forget how he looked at me! Or his answer, “Say, you darling, if you save _$10_ I’ll give you _$20_!” And, as a matter of fact, he sent me $50, out of which I bought a coat for $38.

_105_

It was Saturday, August the 18th, 1923, when we sailed into the New York harbor. I had little trouble with my baggage, the only thing of any consequence which I had bought being a big doll for Elizabeth Ann for which I had paid $11 in Geneva. I had early christened the doll “Ninon,” and Elizabeth Ann treasured it.

I went to the McAlpin Hotel. Along the street I observed with aching heart the many signs of a nation’s mourning, and when I went to the window of my room in the hotel the last touch was added; outside hung a huge American flag, at half-mast. The cumulative reaction was too much, and with a sense of mingled anguish in bereavement and relief for my return I flung myself down upon the bed and wept.

I had lived only to get back to Elizabeth Ann, and I could scarcely wait to hold my baby in my arms. My first impulse was to leave immediately for the West. However, I did not know the lay of the land out there, and did not want to take any false steps which would indicate the state of my feelings and lead to exposure of Mr. Harding in any way. It was an absurd thought for me to entertain, to think that after we had been able thus far to keep our love a secret it should come out at this time of all times. But I was so nervous that I suspected everybody of knowing that there was a story, and was as circumspect in my behavior as if I personally had the responsibility of the nation in my keeping.

I immediately wrote to my sister Elizabeth in Chicago to be very careful, and I bought up all the newspapers previous to and following the President’s illness. My purpose in buying them was two-fold. First, I wanted to satisfy myself that there had crept out no breath of scandal during his late days in Canada before he started for San Francisco; and, secondly, I wanted these clippings for my Harding book which I was keeping for Elizabeth Ann.

Having pored over the papers in my room at the McAlpin, and finding no evidence that Mr. Harding had been subjected to worry on account of our secret love, and still awaiting a letter from Elizabeth, I turned my attention to the finance question. I went to the American Express Office and found $200 which Captain Neilsen had deposited for me, awaiting my demand. Captain Neilsen was mighty nice, I thought, to do this for me, and just as soon as I had received the money I was sure Mr. Harding had left for me, I would repay him. I wondered how Mr. Harding had arranged it. Bless him! It hurt me unspeakably to ponder this question. I was absolutely certain, however, that we had been taken care of, our precious baby and myself, and I put the how of it out of my mind.

I felt I should buy a dress for myself which would be in conformity with my mood. My winter coat, the squirrel coat Mr. Harding had made it possible for me to have, was in storage, and so I decided to buy one of lighter weight, a black one, for early fall wear. I spent one afternoon, therefore, choosing a black dress, black coat, black hat and black gloves.

_106_

Finally word came from my sister Elizabeth. She wrote that my brother-in-law, Scott Willits, had planned to study with Professor Otakar Sevcik, who was to teach in New York that winter, and it was too late for them to alter their plans. They were, therefore, coming East as arranged, and would stop at my mother’s, in Athens, Ohio, where I could meet them. Scott had been studying with Professor Sevcik for some time, having been with him in Europe a year, a season in Ithaca, and a season in Chicago.

So I went immediately to Athens, Ohio, to await their coming. Mother surely sensed the grief I had experienced, and set me to work cleaning house for her and getting meals and otherwise trying to occupy my mind. She was teaching in the Training School of the Ohio University, was busy every minute of the day, and it was a relief for her to come home to prepared meals, she said.

In early September I went to Marion. I had become unbearably nervous waiting for Elizabeth to bring my baby, and anyway I felt if I could see and talk to Daisy Harding it would make me feel a shade better. I telephoned Miss Harding immediately upon my arrival. She still lived with her father on East Center Street. It was from this house that the funeral of President Harding had been conducted. Daisy Harding was surprised to hear my voice and invited me to come out immediately. The last time I had seen her was when she had visited her cousin, Mrs. John Wesener, in Chicago, in the fall of 1922, and I had taken my grandfather there to call upon Dr. Harding.

Everything seemed very quiet as I stepped from the trolley in front of Dr. Harding’s and walked across the street to the house. New railings had replaced the old ones which had to be removed from the porch in order to take the President’s casket in and out of the door, and when I observed them the full significance of this struck me like a blow.

Miss Harding came to the door in answer to my ring. She had on an all white serge suit and I thought she was truly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. The pallor of her lovely face was heightened by the deep lights of her eyes and her black hair was combed back from her forehead. How much she looked like _him_! The same understanding seriousness in her eyes, the same facial contour, and much the same sad smile.

We sat in the living-room, the same room in which I had, in July of 1922, seen and talked with Mrs. Warren Harding. Daisy Harding told me many details about the passing of her brother. As she talked I thought I should scream with each word. A portrait in colors of President Harding, a “smiling picture,” hung in that room above the bookcase and beneath it stood a bouquet of flowers. Just as Mr. Harding used to have flowers on his White House desk beside the miniature of his mother, I thought.

The house seemed very quiet. The East Center Street trolley cars rumbled past at regular intervals, the same street cars I suppose that used to pass our house when the “Brittons” lived farther out on the same street. Everything was the same; but everything to me was tragically different.

“That’s the way it is all day long, Nan,” said Miss Harding, calling my attention to a car which drove slowly by while the occupants were gazing curiously at the house wherein we sat. “Thousands and thousands passed his coffin, and everybody remarked the expression upon his face--he looked so peaceful and happy.” God, how awful to listen as she told it! I sobbed with Miss Harding as she went on. “He loved life so, you know, Nan,” she said. Oh, how well I knew! I told her about the strange dream I had had in Dijon, and how I afterwards had counted up the difference in time between France and the United States and had found that the hour of my dream had been the hour of Mr. Harding’s passing. She thought this startlingly coincidental.

I longed to go over and put my arms around her, to tell her that her brother _had_ known _some_ joy during the last years of his life, and that I would have given my own life to have had him know more of such joy. But I sat still and silent in my chair.

Even the grief I felt could not overshadow a certain strange comfort I experienced in being there, ’mid the old familiar surroundings, where his body had last lain in perfect rest. And the spirit that had always been Warren Harding seemed to linger near us as we talked.

Miss Harding’s fiance, Mr. Ralph Lewis, came for her. They were going to dine at an inn in a nearby country town--Waldo, she said. (I knew the very place, for I had dined there with the Mousers and Gorhams not long before--the last visit I made to Marion.) They invited me to go with them; they were driving, of course. But I told them I preferred to remain there at the house and would try to rest a bit while they were gone.

It seemed like the culmination of a fairy tale that Ralph Lewis should be engaged to Daisy Harding. He had loved her all his life, I knew. When I was a child he had owned a grocery-store, and we children often went there for “sour pickles.” I can see him now, in his big white apron, stooping over the pickle barrel and hauling up several pickles with the dipper, dripping with the good-smelling vinegar. He used to let us “pick ’em out,” I remember. After a good many years he gave up the grocery business and went in for real estate, and I knew well his reputed success.

Miss Harding told me to go out into the kitchen and help myself to anything I found for luncheon; it was then about eleven-thirty in the morning. Then they left, and I was entirely alone in the house. Miss Harding had told me that her father and his wife had gone away for a rest and visit following the funeral. So I was there alone in the house where my beloved had lain in utter peace, in his father’s home, while mourning thousands brought their tributes of affectionate regard.

I was nervously exhausted, and went upstairs, thinking I would lie down for a while. Miss Harding had told me sometime before that when her brother had been elected President his wife had sent some of her furniture back to Marion from their Wyoming Avenue home in Washington, and the room where I went to rest was fitted with Mr. and Mrs. Harding’s bedroom suite. Their framed portraits hung above their respective beds. I lay down and looked long at the likeness of my beloved. My second self was watching me, and seemed to say, “Go right ahead, Nan, and have a good cry. It will make you feel stronger.” I think I did feel a bit stronger.

I bathed my eyes, put on a dressing-gown Miss Harding had laid out for me, and went down to the kitchen. I prepared a cup of something hot for myself and forced myself to eat some of the fresh things from the ice-box. Then I washed up my dishes and went back into the living-room.

I roamed in and out, visioning the coffin in the front room with my darling lying so peacefully there. I stooped and caressed the carpet above which the coffin had rested, and closed my eyes as I stood above an imaginary casket and looked down at my darling asleep. He had known this house! He had once lived here, as I remembered hearing his sister say, and therefore every inch of the old home was dear to him.

I longed to hold some of his clothes. He used to have an agreeable man-smell all his own, and there was a time when I thought I knew all his suits. I remembered he sometimes had come over to New York looking not as well pressed as usual, seeming to joy in the comfort of old clothes. On one occasion I told him I wished he were a milkman or a postman or _some_body who was not at all important. He had smiled then and looked down at his clothes, and I had hastened to assure him that he was quite all right, that he looked good to _me_, and that I didn’t care _what_ he had on. And another time, in Washington, we were walking together down Pennsylvania Avenue, and he looked absolutely stunning. And in the admiring glances of passers-by was also recognition. “I never used to notice the conspicuity of men in public office as I have since coming to Washington,” he said to me. And then another time he was chewing gum and asked me if I wanted some, and I took it because I was afraid I would hurt his feelings if I did not. And we walked along together, my arm through his, and were so happy! “We’re just a couple of small-towners together, aren’t we, Nan?” he said contentedly as he looked down at me with fond eyes. And I nodded happily and said to him, “May I kiss you, darling, all night long?” And to this and other loving queries I made he answered gaily, “You can do any damned thing you want to do to me, dearie. _I’m yours!_”

I left Miss Harding and her home with a sense of having actually communed with my beloved. I did not allow myself to go up to the cemetery. In fact, though I have been in Marion since, I have never once been near where the coffin rests. For they could never bury the _spirit_ of Warren Gamaliel Harding.

_107_

I returned to Athens, Ohio. Here Elizabeth, Scott and Elizabeth Ann joined me some days later and soon we were all enroute back East to New York, my younger sister Janet going with us.

I cannot tell anyone how sweet it was to be near my precious baby girl once more. If I had idolized her before, I worshipped her now, for my love was tinged with the spiritual. Elizabeth Ann and I slept together at my mother’s for the few days we remained there before leaving for the East, and I fairly devoured her with my hungry eyes. I could see her father in her every glance. Even in the semi-darkness of our bedroom, where the light from the hall made it possible for me to contemplate her features, I saw constantly the face of him whom I would never again see upon this earth. I felt toward her as Mr. Harding used to write that he felt toward me. “I worship you, dearest, and I reverence you,” he would say to me, and I remember how that reverence was written all over his face when I, just a month before Elizabeth Ann was born, went to see him in Washington. And now I felt more than ever before that same worshipful reverence for my child, and I poured the love I felt for both my child and her father upon her. For now I had only the memory of him to adore.

_108_

When we reached New York (September, 1923) I suggested that we go to 72nd Street where I had been living when my sister came with the baby to New York to see her husband off for Europe. The matter of finances had to be faced. I had scarcely any money left, and Scott and Elizabeth almost as little. But there was enough to last until we secured positions. My sister Janet, six years my junior, was going to secure a secretarial position also. The four of them--Scott, Elizabeth, Janet and Elizabeth Ann--had an apartment downstairs and I secured my old room on the top floor.

It was Elizabeth’s early suggestion that I go immediately to Daisy Harding and reveal the truth to her. I had received no word from anyone about funds having been provided by Mr. Harding and I could not understand this. He had always been so generous, and it was upon the very last visit to him in the White House that he had declared again his full intention to care for both Elizabeth Ann and me all the rest of our lives. So I concluded that whoever had been entrusted with money for the baby and me would probably wait until a suitable time had elapsed before making this bequest known to me. My sister and her husband were skeptical, but then I could condone their attitude because I knew that no one had ever known Mr. Harding as I had known him, and no one could ever convince me that he would neglect his sweetheart and his child. Had he not, long before we had dreamed of Elizabeth Ann’s coming, been tempted upon two or more occasions to reveal to one or more of his friends his relations with me, when he had been seized with acute indigestion and had thought he was going to pass on? _Then_ there was no reason, as I had told him at the time he repeated these things to me, for him to settle any money upon me. He had not harmed me, but blessed me with his love, and I could see no reason why he should even think of arranging for my comfort. But after Elizabeth Ann was born I was far more dependent. My situation was increasingly complicated. And now for me to think that Warren Harding had not made ample provision for his child, and her mother as well, would be for me to impute cowardice and injustice to one whom I knew always bravely met life-issues. No, this was a feeling I could not in my most desperate need ever share, for I knew well the man I loved and I knew his love for me.

Captain Neilsen came around to see us after we had become comparatively settled. Helen Anderson also came and brought on one occasion some lovely preserves. But for the most part I neither looked up my old friends nor cared to have them look me up. The captain was different. He was kindly, he was understanding, and he was not fastidious in any sense of the word. Therefore he came several times to call upon me there in my sister’s New York apartment before he sailed for Germany in October. I explained to him that a sudden financial embarrassment had arisen with me as well as with my sister’s family, and that I would be unable to then pay him the $450 I owed him. He waved away even the idea of repayment, though I emphasized the fact that I was sure very soon I would have the funds for him. I told these facts to my sister and her husband and they thought he was a wonderfully fine man. “You’ll go a long way before you ever find a man as kind-hearted as Captain Neilsen,” they told me. And I agreed that he was indeed all that.

In spite of our almost destitute circumstances we were, at least, together, and Elizabeth Ann slept with me nearly every night. But it broke my heart to look at the little darling and realize what everything meant.

At that time secretarial positions were scarce, and it was very difficult for Janet and me to get located, especially when I declined to work for less than $35 a week. Janet finally accepted a position for a lesser salary, but it took me several weeks to find a place.

_109_

About the first of December, Scott and Elizabeth decided they ought to return to Chicago, where Scott was better known and could get immediate work. For various reasons it seemed best for me to move away from that rooming-house after my family left, so I took a room at the Endicott Hotel, Columbus Avenue and 81st Street. My room there was on the first sleeping floor and had no daylight, just windows into a court which was less than ten feet wide, but the bed was comfortable, and, anyway, I could not afford to pay more than $12 from the salary of $35 which the position I had finally secured paid me.

I put on my bravest front when I bade my baby girl goodbye again, and faced the contemplation of hardships hitherto unknown to me. I felt so pitifully alone, and swallowed hard the great lump that rose in my throat as I tried to smile and blow farewell kisses to her who was my very life.

On the occasion of one of my visits to the White House I had, with the nervous apprehension born of mental unsettlement, spoken to Mr. Harding about the future.

“Why, just think, honey, I am twenty-four years old now!”, indicating that the years were piling up alarmingly and I could as yet see no possible way for me to have our baby with me.

“Well, dearie,” he had answered me with the gentleness that always aroused my most worshipful love, “if you are twenty-four years old you should be grown up, you know!”

And then he had told me how when _he_ was about that age _he_ went through a nervous breakdown, but here he was now, in the White House, and President of the United States! He was sure _I_ would weather through. And this gentle banter brought a smile back to my face. Therefore now, as then, I must remember how much I had at stake in my precious baby’s future and bear up for her sake.

One of my biggest difficulties was to live on $35 a week. It was very hard to suffer denials but I set about with grim determination to adapt myself. I continued to shun my friends to a very great extent. Captain Neilsen returned from another sea trip and came to the hotel to see me. My meagre salary oftentimes would not allow me to have even as much food as I could have eaten, especially toward the end of the week before pay day, and, pridefully concealing my poverty, I accepted Captain Neilsen’s invitations to dine with inward thankfulness for his persistent attentiveness.

There was another friend who called upon me frequently, whom I had known since 1917, but he was a man with whom I felt I must keep up appearances far more than with the captain, so I did not encourage him to call. I needed many things and I felt less conscious of the lack of these things when I was with the captain. Though the captain always seemed to have a great deal of money with him, and though he spoke carelessly of moneys he controlled, running into many thousands of dollars, still he dressed with a carelessness that often distressed me and brought my frank criticism.

_110_

In October or November I read with loving interest of the fund which was being gathered together throughout the country to go toward the erection of a memorial to the 29th President of the United States. My secretarial position was not a very exacting one, and I had ample leisure in which to do any outside work I might care to undertake, so it occurred to me that there might be typing in connection with the clerical work the memorial project would entail, and that I might help in this way to raise the fund, inasmuch as I could not myself give any actual money towards it.

Mrs. Warren G. Harding herself seemed, from the newspaper reports, to be actively engaged in the matter, and so I decided to write direct to her and make known my desire. First, however, I wrote to Judge Elbert H. Gary, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the United States Steel Corporation, to whom Mr. Harding had taken me in 1917 when I was given a secretarial position in the Corporation, and who now was prominent in the activities connected with the Harding Memorial Fund. I recalled to his mind that Mr. Harding had once introduced me to him and that he in turn had kindly made it possible for me to obtain a position in his organization, and I told him that it was my desire to be of service to those who had undertaken the initial steps in creating the Harding Memorial Fund. I waited for several days and received no reply to that letter.

Then I directed a note to Mrs. Harding. About a week or so afterwards I received a note from her secretary, Miss Harlan, expressing, for Mrs. Harding, appreciation for my proffered assistance, but regretting that there was really no way in which I could be of service. After several lesser attempts I had to give it up.

I wrote to Miss Daisy Harding and told her what I had hoped to do, and I have her letter in which she said if I had not heard from Mrs. Harding personally it was merely because she was so terribly busy. She told me how generously her brother’s home town had given toward the Fund, and expressed the opinion that he was indeed a greatly beloved President.

It hurt me more than I can tell not to have been able to help in this movement. I did so love to work for Mr. Harding or in an atmosphere that breathed of him. But it seemed to me as the days went by and I received no word of his having left any message for me, that I was more and more alone, that I was shut out and away from the very things that would have given me such comfort. For it did hurt me cruelly to receive no word that I had been in his thoughts before he went away. If only he had left a note! He might not have been able to entrust material aid to anybody in the last days, to be given over to me for our child, but I was under the impression that Major Brooks, his valet, had been with him during his last illness, and I was sure he would have given him a note to mail to me if it had been humanly possible for him to do so.

My longing for Elizabeth Ann and my yearning for the joy and comfort I experienced from being with her and loving her was sometimes more than I could bear, and I often went home after work to my gloomy bedroom in the Endicott in a state of depression which brought vividly to my mind some lines in a poem by John Keats:

“... and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a musèd rhyme....”

_111_

The first part of December Captain Neilsen sought my advice in a matter of investment which would involve several thousands of dollars and which would take him to Texas for the culmination of the transaction. Christopher Hannivig, a wealthy Norwegian, and he, were to purchase jointly from the U. S. Government some ships, which were to be utilized for shipping oil. After consideration of the details it seemed to me it was a wise investment and I so advised my friend. He then asked me a question which I had grown used to hearing periodically and which I had always answered negatively--would I marry him? Would I accompany him to Texas as his wife and make of the trip a honeymoon?

I told him no, and I further said very bluntly that when I did marry, there were certain reasons why I must require from my prospective husband in advance of my marriage a check for $25,000 or $30,000. To my surprise, Captain Neilsen smiled and answered easily, “Oh, is that all? Well, shall I bring you my certified check for that amount tomorrow?” And than I felt ashamed because I could not then explain to him that I wanted it for a fund for my baby, inasmuch as her own father’s bequest had not yet come to light and I feared to marry unless that marriage provided amply for my child. So I shook my head.

The captain left shortly after that, returning around Christmas time. In the meantime I sought my friend, Helen Anderson. She agreed with me that it seemed to be the sensible thing to consider marrying the captain and in that way be able to take my baby. The fact that he dressed carelessly should certainly not deter me from doing the thing that would give me my baby. He was, Miss Anderson and I agreed, a “diamond in the rough,” and I would simply have to become his personal polisher. He seemed genuinely in love with me, and would sit all evening just talking to me, never attempting to get “fresh” as many another man might have done after a friendship of such long standing. I was thoroughly appreciative of these traits. I told Helen Anderson that in return for his generosity in making it possible for me to take my child, I would prove to him my gratitude in endeavoring to make him at least reasonably happy. And I was very sure I could make him over in appearance.

Upon the captain’s return from the South, I determined to tell him about Elizabeth Ann. I thought I would try him out, and see what the effect of my story would be, for, if he refused to allow me to take Elizabeth Ann, I would not, of course, marry him. But I could not marry him anyway unless I had been frank and honest about things. I had deliberately postponed the telling until we should be together New Year’s Eve, because I wanted to carry this new step in my life over into another year, not wishing to identify the year 1923, in which I had lost my beloved, with a marriage to another man. It was a foolish little fancy I will admit, but quite characteristic of me. Therefore I had postponed my confessionary revelations until the dawn of a new year.