"
Startled, and altogether forgetful, I asked in what way.
"Why," she answered, "at last the South is coming to its own."
Still out of rapport with her thought I said something about the
obliteration of sectionalism and the arrival of political freedom and
general prosperity. She would none of this.
[Illustration: Henry Watterson (Photograph taken in Florida)]
"I mean," she abruptly interposed, "that the son of Martha Bullock has come
to his own and he will rescue us from the mudsills of the North."
She spoke as if our former discussions had been but yesterday. Then I gave
her the right of way, interjecting a query now and then to give emphasis to
her theme, while she unfolded the plan which seemed to her so simple and
easy; God's own will; the national destiny, first a third term, and then
life tenure a la Louis Napoleone for Theodore Roosevelt, the son of Martha
Bullock, the nephew of our great admiral, who was to redress all the wrongs
of the South and bring the Yankees to their just deserts at last.
"If," I ended my sketch, "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, why not
out of the brain of this crazed old woman of the South?"
Early in the following April I came from my winter home in Florida to the
national capital, and the next day was called by the President to the White
House.
"The first thing I want to ask," said he, "is whether that old woman was a
real person or a figment of your imagination?"
"She was a figment of my imagination," I answered, "but you put her out of
business with a single punch.
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