s needs and recognition
assured, cared nothing at all for what he regarded as the costly glories
of the little great men who rattled round in places often much too big
for them.

Immediately succeeding Mr. Polk, and such a youth in appearance, he
attracted instant attention. His father, my grandfather, allowed him a
larger income than was good for him--seeing that the per diem then paid
Congressmen was altogether insufficient--and during the earlier days of
his sojourn in the national capital he cut a wide swath; his principal
yokemate in the pleasures and dissipations of those times being Franklin
Pierce, at first a representative and then a senator from New Hampshire.
Fortunately for both of them, they were whisked out of Washington by
their families in 1843; my father into the diplomatic service and Mr.
Pierce to the seclusion of his New England home. They kept in close
touch, however, the one with the other, and ten years later, in 1853,
were back again upon the scene of their rather conspicuous frivolity,
Pierce as President of the United States, my father, who had preceded
him a year or two, as editor of the Washington Union, the organ of the
Administration.

When I was a boy the national capital was still rife with stories of
their escapades. One that I recall had it that on a certain occasion
returning from an excursion late at night my father missed his footing
and fell into the canal that then divided the city, and that Pierce,
after many fruitless efforts, unable to assist him to dry land,
exclaimed, "Well, Harvey, I can't get you out, but I'll get in with
you," suiting the action to the word. And there they were found and
rescued by a party of passers, very well pleased with themselves.

My father's absence in South America extended over two years. My
mother's health, maybe her aversion to a long overseas journey, kept
her at home, and very soon he tired of life abroad without her and came
back. A committee of citizens went on a steamer down the river to meet
him, the wife and child along, of course, and the story was told that,
seated on the paternal knee curiously observant of every detail, the
brat suddenly exclaimed, "Ah ha, pa! Now you've got on your store
clothes. But when ma gets you up at Beech Grove you'll have to lay off
your broadcloth and put on your jeans, like I do."

Being an only child and often an invalid, I was a pet in the family and
many tales were told of my infantile precocity. On o