The second step was like the
first, except that it led to the White House. He was taken to see
President Taylor. Outside, in a paddock in front, "Old Whitey,"
the President's charger, was grazing, as they entered; and
inside, the President was receiving callers as simply as if he
were in the paddock too. The President was friendly, and the boy
felt no sense of strangeness that he could ever recall. In fact,
what strangeness should he feel? The families were intimate; so
intimate that their friendliness outlived generations, civil war,
and all sorts of rupture. President Taylor owed his election to
Martin Van Buren and the Free Soil Party. To him, the Adamses
might still be of use. As for the White House, all the boy's
family had lived there, and, barring the eight years of Andrew
Jackson's reign, had been more or less at home there ever since
it was built. The boy half thought he owned it, and took for
granted that he should some day live in it. He felt no sensation
whatever before Presidents. A President was a matter of course in
every respectable family; he had two in his own; three, if he
counted old Nathaniel Gorham, who, was the oldest and first in
distinction. Revolutionary patriots, or perhaps a Colonial
Governor, might be worth talking about, but any one could be
President, and some very shady characters were likely to be.
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