Mr. Harding saw that I looked greatly worn and he fell in very readily with my plan to go to the Adirondacks for six or eight weeks, in the hope that the elevation and air might bring back the lost roses to my cheeks. My sister had assured me that she would herself visit the baby periodically and every day phone Mrs. Woodlock and keep in close touch with her. Mrs. Woodlock’s efficient care of the baby was my chief inducement to leave for the mountains. I explained all of these things to Mr. Harding, and he agreed that it was imperative that I get on my feet as soon as possible. I assured him that I would not try to write to Mrs. Woodlock or have her write to me while in the mountains, for, of course, except for my visits to the Woodlock home where I was known as “Mrs. Christian,” I had resumed my maiden name and could not divulge this name to her. I remember how discreet Mrs. Woodlock was, for she did not even ask why nor where when I went away. She merely promised to take good care of my darling baby.
Mr. Harding made suggestions as to a suitable place to go, and talked to me a little about Paul Smith’s. But I told him I had already consulted with the Foster Bureau and had decided upon the Eagle Bay Hotel at Eagle Bay, on the Fulton Chain of Lakes. One reaches there by going to Utica and changing for the northern train. It is on the western side of the Adirondacks. I could obtain board and room there, I told him, for something like $25 a week. He seemed to think this a fine plan all around. He instructed me not to write to him while there except as he advised me, because his own movements were uncertain. And, as usual, when he kissed me he asked me to tell him I was happy. I walked over to the “L” with him and watched the tall, handsome figure of my sweetheart until he disappeared inside the station. Then he came out to the railing of the elevated platform and waved to me below. That was the last unguarded tryst we ever had, for after that he was always surrounded by secret service men, and we were not together again until after he had been elected President. Even as President-elect he had ceased to be his own boss.
When “the stage” went to Marion during the famous Harding “front porch” campaign in 1920
49
During my stay in the Adirondacks I wrote many letters to Mr. Harding, saving them, of course, until such time as I should see him to deliver them in person. He wrote me, but more guardedly than ever before. During my stay there I also received a couple of letters from his sister Daisy, one of which I have and which asks me all about Eagle Bay, requesting the information on account of her desire to leave Marion, where, she said, she was under fire photographically and socially, and was growing weary of it all. Although I sent Miss Harding pictures of the hotel and instructions as to how one reaches there, she did not decide to join me. Which, from the standpoint of the following incident, was a good thing.
About the third or fourth week of my stay in the mountains, Mr. Harding sent the first communication which ever came from him to me by personal messenger.
I had been out walking in the late afternoon, and when I came into the somewhat deserted lobby of the Eagle Bay Hotel the manager at the desk called to me that a gentleman in the lounging room wished to see me. Of course, having been warned by Mr. Harding of shadowers and reporters, I became frightened, and it was with some misgivings that I approached the man who now came toward me with the query, “Is this Miss Britton?” I said it was, and in turn asked him who he was and why he wished to see me.
He immediately delivered into my hands a rather bulky envelope which was obviously more than a mere letter, and asked that I follow the instructions which he told me I would find inside. I retired to my room to do so. Mr. Harding had not dropped me a note apprising me of this proceeding. In the package he had enclosed $800 in bills and a short, hurried note, which he asked me to please return with one from me, telling him the money had been received and indicating the amount. This I did, not sending him, however, any of the love-letters I had written and been saving up to this time, but merely doing exactly as he requested. Then I joined the gentleman below.
The messenger was a man of slight build, with ruddy complexion and pleasing manner. Inasmuch as it was impossible for him to leave Eagle Bay before that evening (there being no train out), we took a walk down the road, and afterward returned to sit awhile down by the lake, on one of the porches of the casino. I had gone about very little with the young crowd up there, preferring for many reasons to be by myself the greater part of the time and to retire early, and I knew that this messenger had come direct from the one man I would rather be with than all the others put together. Therefore I felt friendly toward him.