When our relationship first began, I’m sure I was the most in love. But all through the summer, Tabor had begun to talk to me more and more seriously. Though he talked mostly about mining matters and about his political ambitions, he spoke finally about Augusta and me. It was an enormous experience, touching me to the soul, to watch the unfolding of the love and trust of the man I adored.
At first, I had been hardly more than a pretty toy of which he was very fond. He would lavish all sorts of costly presents on me—jewelry, clothes, and that rarest and most extravagant tribute in a mining camp at 10,000 feet altitude, flowers.
I remember one day he sent up a woman who used to peddle hand-made underwear across the mountains from camp to camp. She carried her samples and some of her wares in a large bag she packed on her back. Tabor sent her up to my suite one day. Then when she had everything in the way of exquisite lace and embroidered chemises laid out over the chairs and bed, he joined us and bought me over $350 worth of her goods!
But now things were different, I didn’t hear so many stories about his other women. I could feel his love for me growing with the appreciation he had for my character.
“You’re always so gay and laughing, Baby,” he would say, “and yet you’re so brave. Augusta is a damned brave woman, too, but she’s powerful disagreeable about it.”
He would sit glum and discouraged for a while, and then add:
“And I can’t imagine a woman who doesn’t like pretty things! I’ve tried to buy her all sorts of clothes and jewelry since we’ve had the money. But she just throws them back in my face and asks me if I’ve lost my mind.”
You can hear it said and you can read it in books that I broke up Governor Tabor’s home, and that he broke up mine. But that is far from the truth. Both of our marriages had failed before we ever met.
Augusta Tabor had no capacity for anything but strenuous work and very plain living. When they moved into their palatial new home, she wouldn’t live upstairs in the master’s bedroom but moved down in the servants’ quarters off the kitchen. She said they were plenty good enough for her—and how could she cook all that way away from the stove? She also insisted on keeping a cow tethered on the front lawn and milking it, herself. Tabor was very humiliated by these actions. As lieutenant-governor of the state, he was very anxious to live in a style befitting his station. Also, he hoped to be senator.
But Augusta Tabor laughed at his ideas in a very mean way. Tabor had a really sweet disposition. He would come to me often to tell me of some upsetting incident, with a dreadfully hurt look in his eye. Another trait of Tabor’s that irritated Augusta tremendously was his generosity. Anybody could touch Tabor for sizable loans with no trouble at all. He was delighted to help people less fortunate than he.