Sally laughed. “It wasn’t all altruistic on my father’s part you understand, Mr. President. He had loaned Jay Gould the money to buy the railroad. He was merely looking out for his investment.”
“Oh!” President Cleveland said, clutching his heart with both hands, and laughing. “And here, I was certain your father’s support was because he thought me to be a brilliant politician and servant of the people.”
Sally and the president visited for a while longer, then she was invited to have lunch with Frances Cleveland, the president’s young wife. “Unfortunately I will not be able to attend, as I have a prior luncheon engagement with the caucus of Western Senators.”
“Well, if they are from the West, then by all means you should not break the appointment,” Sally suggested.
“But if it was a caucus of Eastern Senators?”
“Then I would fully expect you to join us,” Sally said, and the president laughed with her as he escorted her from the office.
“Colonel Lamont, would you please telephone my wife and tell her that she will have a guest for lunch,” President Cleveland asked of his private secretary.
“Mr. President, I have already done so,” Lamont replied. “Mrs. Cleveland is on her way here now.”
Grover Cleveland was twenty-seven years old when he met his future wife. She had just been born, the daughter of Oscar Folsom, a long time close friend of Cleveland’s. When her father died in a buggy accident in 1875 without having written a will, the court appointed Cleveland administrator of the estate. This brought Cleveland closer to Frances, who was eleven at the time.
She attended Central High School in Buffalo and went on to Wells College in Aurora, New York. Sometime while she was in college, Cleveland’s feelings for her took a romantic turn. He proposed in August 1885, soon after her graduation, and she accepted. Frances became the youngest first lady ever. Despite her age, her charm and natural intelligence made her a very successful hostess, a quality Sally was enjoying.
“Oh, Sally, have you seen Washington’s monument?” Frances asked during lunch.
“I saw it some time ago,” Sally said, “but it wasn’t completed then. It was sort of an ugly stob.”
“Oh you must see it now,” Frances said enthusiastically. “It is all finished, and it is beautiful. If you would like, we’ll drive out there after lunch.”
“I would love to,” Sally replied, her enthusiasm matching that of the first lady.
Even as Sally was touring Washington, D.C., with the first lady, Pearlie, the foreman of the ranch she and Smoke owned, was out on the range with three other cowboys, riding bog.
It was one of the less glamorous and more difficult jobs pertaining to getting ready for the roundup. While crowding around a small water hole, weaker animals were often knocked down by stronger ones, and they would get bogged down, unable to get up. Getting them out was called bogging.
It was easy to find them; the hapless creature would start bawling, not a normal call, but a high pitched, frightened, intense bawl.
“Pearlie!” one of the hands called. “Over here!”
Pearlie rode in the direction of the call, and saw a steer, belly deep in a pond that was mostly mud. One of the cowboys, a new hand, looped his rope around the steer’s neck.
“No!” Pearlie called. “Not the neck. Around his horns.”
It took the cowboy a moment of manipulating his rope until he managed to work it up onto the animal’s horns.
Pearlie dismounted, then got behind the steer and started pulling on the rope. The idea was to get the animal over on its back, then pull it backward—which was easier than trying to pull it out straight ahead, or sideways.
A couple of the other cowboys grabbed the rope with Pearlie and they pulled until the steer was free.
“You boys grab his tail and hold on until I get the rope off,” Pearlie said. “Then one of you run one way and the other run the other way, ’cause this critter is goin’ to turn around and charge. If you go in opposite directions, he might get confused and not chase either one of you.”
“You said he might get confused. What if he don’t get confused and he chases after me?” one of the cowboys said.
“In that case run like hell,” Pearlie said, and the others laughed.
Pearlie remounted, then rode around and took the rope off the steer’s horns.
“All right, let ’im go!” Pearlie shouted, and the two cowboys started running in opposite directions from each other. The steer took off after one of them, and Pearlie slapped his legs against the side of his horse, urging it into an immediate gallop. He closed on the running steer within a few seconds and forced the steer to turn aside, breaking up his charge.
The other cowboys were laughing hard as Toby, the cowboy who was being chased, stopped running and bent over, his hands on his knees, breathing hard from his exertion.
“Damn, Toby,” one said. “I sure didn’t know you could run that fast. Why, you should enter the race at the county fair this summer.”
Toby was still breathing hard. “Won’t do any good unless I’ve got a steer runnin’ after me,” he said, to the laughter of all.
“All right, you boys know what to do now, so keep it up, pull out all the cows you find bogged down. I’m going back to get cleaned up, then I’m going into town. Smoke wants me to pick up a few things.”
“If you want, Pearlie, I’ll go into town for you,” one of the cowboys said.
“Yeah, I’m sure you would,” Pearlie replied with a broad smile. “But like as not you would get drunk and forget
