Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1894 — SAW MRS. CLEVELAND. [ARTICLE]

SAW MRS. CLEVELAND.

A Curiosity-Seeker’s Chase After the President's Wife. Women adopt all sorts of devices for getting a good look at Mrs. Cleveland. On fine days the mistress of the White House generally takes a ride in the family phaeton, accompanied by her babies and the nurses. In the afternoon, between 3 and 4, if the sun is shining, she goes out in the victoria, accompanied either by her husband or a friend. Women, young and old, have discovered this habit of Mrs, Cleveland’s, and are beginning to lie in wait for her to catch her as she comes out on the front portico to enter the carriage. There is no privacy for inmates of the White House, and so when Mrs. Cleveland goes riding she is obliged to walk through the public vestibule and across the publie portico. A day or two ago a bevy of school-girls joined the waiting group on the portico, and when Mrs. Cleveland came out she was obligeo to run the gauntlet. When she returned, an hour or two later, a funny thing happened. A well-dressed, good-looking, middleaged woman, evidently a stranger in the city, was passing the street gate when a carriage turned into the circular drive of the White House grounds. The quick-witted sightseer instantly surmised that the occupants were Mrs. Cleveland and her babies. She saw a chance to accomplish her long-felt desire of geijting a good look at the President’s wife, and she did not miss it. The race was a long one, and she knew she could not win it unless something happened to detain Mrs. Cleveland after she arrived under the porte cochere. Lifting her clothes in both hands she

started up the circular pathway along the drive at a breakneck speed. The passers-by and the spectators at the door applauded, and, perspiring and panting she reached the steps just in time, for Mrs. Cleveland had stopped to give an order to the coachman, and the energetic lady was enabled to plant herself where she could stare the President’s wife in the face for at least ten seconds, and could also see the babies as they were lifted from the carriage by the nurses and carried into the house. As Mrs. Cleveland disappeared in the vestibule, a gentleman standing by said, admiringly, to the female sprinter, “Well, you made it.” “Yes,” she said, mopping her face, “folks from my part of thfe country generally do.” But she forgot to say what part of the country she came from.—[Washington Star.