But even in my temporary retirement, as soon as I was strong enough to do anything at all, I always took a very lively interest in everything that was going on in the house, and from my apartments on the second floor directed arrangements for social activities almost as if I had been well.
I didn’t even have the privilege of presiding at all my first year garden parties, though this was a form of hospitality in which I was especially interested and which, I believe, I was able to make a notable feature of our administration. Garden parties are very popular in the Far East and I think, perhaps, I acquired my very strong liking for them out there, together with a few sumptuous notions as to what a garden party should be like.
The Emperor and Empress of Japan give two each year; one in the spring under the cherry blossoms to celebrate the Cherry Blossom season, and one in the autumn in the midst of chrysanthemums and brilliant autumn foliage. These are the events of the year in Tokyo, marking the opening and the close of the social season, and society sometimes prepares for them weeks ahead, never knowing when the Imperial invitations will be issued. The time depends entirely on the blossoming of the cherry trees or the chrysanthemums in the Imperial Gardens. When the blooms are at their best the invitations are sent out, sometimes not more than two days in advance, and society, in its loveliest garments, drops everything else and goes. It would be very nice, of course, to have always some such special reason for giving a garden party, but it is only in the “Flowery Kingdom” that the seasons are marked by flowers.
Nothing could be finer than the south garden of the White House. With its wide lawns, its great fountain, its shading trees, and the two long terraces looking down upon it all, it is ideally fitted for entertaining out of doors. And I must mention one other thing about it which appealed to me especially, and that is the wholesomeness of its clean American earth. This is lacking in the tropics. There one may not sit or lie on the ground, breathing health as we do here; the tropic soil is not wholesome. Not that one sits or lies on the ground at garden parties, but the very feel of the earth underfoot is delightfully different.
I determined to give my first garden party at the White House as soon as spring was sufficiently far advanced to make it possible. I issued invitations, 750 of them, for Friday, the 7th of May, planning at the same time three others to complete the season, one each Friday during the month.
In order to put possible bad weather off its guard, I made the invitations simply for an “At Home from 5 to 7 o’clock,” because all my life the elements have been unfriendly to me. Whenever I plan an outdoor fête I begin to consult the weather man with the hopeful faith of a Catherine de Medici appealing to her astrologer, but for all my humble spirit I very frequently get a downpour, or else a long drawn out and nerve-trying threat. Quite often the lowering clouds have passed and my prayers for sunshine have been rewarded, but quite often, too, I have had to move indoors with an outdoor throng for whom no indoor diversions had been arranged.
By way of preparation for my first garden party I had a large refreshment tent put up in the northwest corner of the garden where it would be handy to the kitchen and serving rooms, while under the trees here and there I had tables spread at which a corps of waiters were to serve tea during the reception. The Marine Band I stationed behind the iron railing just under the Green Room. For any kind of outdoor entertainment at the White House the band had always been placed in the middle of the lawn between the south portico and the fountain, but I thought, and correctly, that the house wall would serve as a sounding board and make the music audible throughout the grounds. I arranged to receive under one of the large trees in a beautiful vista looking south.
No sooner were my plans completed, however, than the weather man predicted rain. It was coming, sure. Of course, I knew it would, but I had had too much experience to think of coming in out of the rain before it began to come down. I always sustain my hopeful attitude until the deluge descends.
About half past three it began to rain in torrents and I saw all of my festive-looking preparations reduced to sopping wrecks before there was even time to rush them indoors. By five o’clock, when it was time for the people to begin to arrive, it had stopped raining, but the lawns were soaked and the trees were dripping dismally, so I directed the band to move into the upper corridor, as usual for afternoon affairs, had the refreshment tables spread in the state Dining Room and took my by that time accustomed position to receive the long line of guests in the East Room.
A week later I had better luck. I sent out the same kind of invitations, made the same kind of preparations, slightly elaborated, and was rewarded with a perfect mid-May day.
The guests arrived at the East Entrance, came down the Long Corridor, out through one of the special guest dressing-rooms, and down the long slope of the lawn
