Another time the writer had heard Mrs. Grant lament her inability to use the eight sewing machines which had been sent from different sources to the White House; what to do with all the patchwork quilts wrought by humble hands.
“I do not feel it is right to give them away, but where can they be stored? Only last week Mr. Grant had a leather picture sent all the way from Oregon. Senator Williams presented it in person. There is no place for it on the walls. I am sure I never saw a leather picture before. To keep it from being harmed I have had to put it under the bed.”
A very warm friendship existed between Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Wilson, the wife of the Senator of that name from Massachusetts. Mrs. Wilson was one of the noblest and most angelic of characters. A soldier who had been one of the staff officers of General Banks had excited her deepest sympathy. He had been dangerously wounded in five different battles and his case was on record in the surgeon-general’s office as a marvel that under the circumstances the man could exist. Mrs. Wilson took his case in hand for advancement in some direction and reported the case to Mrs. Grant.
“There is nothing I would not do to help the soldier,” said the President’s wife, “if it lay within my power, if my word or my efforts would effect it, but I made a resolution that no circumstance should arise which would induce me to ask Mr. Grant for an office. Isn’t Mr. Wilson one of the pillars of the Senate? Mr. Grant is worried all day. There must be one place where he can have quiet.”
This last incident the writer relates as written down from the lips of the late Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Wilson said at the time: “Mrs. Grant is right, and I mean to let Henry alone after this.”
When the only daughter (Miss Nellie) attended school like other young girls of a dozen years of age, the afternoon came and her lesson was unlearned. The carriage came to the door for the incipient young lady, but the teacher dismissed it with the request that it should return at the end of a half hour. The half hour came and glided away with the lesson still unlearned. The carriage came again and was dismissed. At the end of the second half hour the lesson was committed, and Miss Nellie was permitted to go. The next day at the usual hour the young lady arrived, accompanied by her mother. The teacher began to fear she had lost her most cherished pupil, but Mrs. Grant came to thank her for performing her duty.
“Teach her,” said Mrs. Grant, “that she is only plain, simple Nellie Grant, subject to the same rules which govern all the scholars. This course will have my sincere approbation.”
Through the wife of Rev. J. P. Newman, the pastor of the church which the General and Mrs. Grant loved so well, the writer learned of the unostentatious charity, the benevolent deeds which this pure-minded woman has kept from the world. Mrs. Newman said: “This material should be used after Mrs. Grant has gone, when loving friends can speak of these truths without wounding her delicacy.” But how can a paper be made up for publication of Mrs. Grant’s life in the White House and leave out the key to one of the most perfect and lovely of womanly characters. From the historic days of Martha Washington no woman called to this highest social position has wielded the sceptre with more dignity, good sense and grace. Amidst the clashings of the female cabinet, which in every sense of the word has as much significance as its counterpart, as the result is often the loss of an official head, Mrs. Grant was as serene as Victoria on her throne—not sustained by birth and traditionary precedent, but upheld by the noble qualities which makes the American woman in her highest perfection the peer and often the superior of every reigning queen on the earth’s surface.
Olivia.