These events occurred before there were telephones or telegraphs and the news of the Lardner boy’s birth had to be flashed to the world by runners. Sparing no expense, the parents hired Paavo Nurmi to notify distant relatives and engaged Charlie Paddock for the sprints. In less than two weeks the Niles post office began to be flooded with letters of all kinds, most of them being circulars from strangers advocating the installation of an oil heater. “They pay for themselves in what you save on coal,” was the general gist. But there were also more personal letters of which I will take the liberty of printing one from Clarence Mackay:
Don’t write. Telegraph! Flowers telegraphed to all parts of the world.
And one from a travel service company:
I understand that your little boy is contemplating a trip to Egypt and I am writing to ask if you will not help me to secure his booking and plan an independent trip for him, if that is what he wants. I supply you with steamship tickets, issue travelers’ checks, letters of credit and baggage insurance, etc.
And one from a hotel training school in Washington, saying:
There is a nationwide demand for trained men and women in hotels, clubs, restaurants, cafeterias.
Also came a request from Edward Bok for the baby’s autograph and a letter from Ray Long, asking for first chance at any short stories the newcomer might write. Excitement ran high and even to this day the first week in March is set aside in Niles as “Have a Baby Week.”
As a result of careful living and a strict adherence to the doctor’s orders, the child was able to take his first meal at table early in June. Both the haute and demimonde of Niles were asked in and when the dishes had been cleared away, a bath tub was set in the middle of the room and little Ring, au naturel, was bathed in pure alcohol, the guests afterwards dipping pipes into the tub and blowing soap bubbles. This was in the days before they had horses and boats and when you wanted to go from one town to another, you had to take a train.
II
The Boy Grew Older
This autobiography started out to follow the style of Edward Bok and Henry (Peaches) Adams and refer to the hero in the third person, but the idea has been abandoned because in my case it would be confusing on account of two of my interminable brothers also being named Ring (inspiring a Niles wag, Charles Quimby, to call our family the Three Ring Circus) and if I were to write that Ring did this or Ring said that, the reader would not know whether I meant myself or one of the other boys unless in each instance I gave the full designation, a practice that would eat up too much space. For my oldest brother was christened Ring Once For Ice Water; another one, Ring Twice For Towels, and I, Ring Three Times For Good Luck. So from now on the author will be spoken of as I, provided it ain’t too hard to locate that unaccustomed key on my typewriter.
As all we boys began being born one after another it became necessary to take drastical action in regards to the intramural traffic problem. For example there was so many mouths to feed that only a third of same could be accommodated in the dining room at one time and the confusion and congestion was something fierce when those that had had their meal was trying to get out and those that was still hungry trying to get in.
A new door was cut into the wall to be used for eat-bound traffic only and my sisters took a course in barking and served as traffic cops, but the situation would of soon gotten intolerable only for nine of the boys suddenly deciding to leave home. Five went to Leavenworth, two to Atlanta and two to San Quentin. The roving spirit proved contagious and soon a tenth, Gregory, entered Yale and won his Y as coxcomb on the varsity crew. Still another, Polycarp, obtained employment as a Chicago caddy. A Chicago caddy is a boy who carries your ordnance bag, retrieves sliced or hooked bullets and replaces divots in bystanders.
None of we children was ever allowed to talk at table, but as soon as a meal was over we were encouraged to talk as much as we liked and in that way I got quite a reputation as an after dinner speaker. This was in my third year, 1888, when Taylor and Presser were running for President and Vice President against Polk and Beans. The Taylors lived right across the street from us, but it was a different family. The Taylor who was elected President was Zachary Taylor, while the Taylor near us was H. N. Taylor, the feed man. No relation to the other Taylor.
H. N. Taylor had a daughter, Livid Taylor, who suffered from contusions by a prior marriage. Livid was my first sweetheart, which she will learn for the first time if she reads this. I was too young (only three) to know the exact wording of a formal declaration and so kept my love a secret, but many is the night I cried myself to sleep in regards to Livid Taylor and her contusions.
In March, 1891, a few days before my sixth birthday, the postman brought an invitation, for our whole family, to attend the Inaugural Ball. In those days the event was held not in Washington, but in Seattle, to make it more exclusive, as it was figured that very few congressmen and foreign diplomats would have the money to go way out there, or the inclination either, the
