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The Duck with Moxie. Jackie took pains to study and analyze each member of the Kennedy family. Once, in Palm Beach, she was 15 minutes late to lunch with her father-in-law. "That can be fatal with Joe when he's in one of his Emperor Augustus moods," says Investment Banker Charles Spalding, who was present. "So when she came in, he started to give her the needle, but she gave it right back. Old Joe has a lot of old-fashioned slang phrases, so Jackie told him: 'You ought to write a series of grandfather stories for children, like "The Duck with Moxie," and "The Donkey Who Couldn't Fight His Way Out of a Telephone Booth." '
When she said this, the old man was silent for a minute. Then he broke into a roar of laughter." The clan was enchanted with Jackie's thoughtful Christmas gifts—beautifully bound books, her own bright, primitive paintings (executed in a manner that suggests a liaison between Raoul Dufy and Grandma Moses)—and soon stood in awe of her because she had the stamina to stand up for her own tastes. "They seem proud if I read more books, and of the things I do differently. The very things you think would alienate them bring you closer to them."
Marriage brought Jackie's motherly instincts surging to the surface. She is dedicated to her children, spends much of her days playing with and reading to Caroline. She is especially vigilant for the first signs of the brattishness that sometimes afflicts children. If Caroline shows the symptoms, "someone—her father or me, or the nurse, will draw the line. To check her in time is the biggest favor we can do her." Observes Ethel Kennedy, wife of Robert Kennedy and the mother of seven: "I've revised the way I'm going to bring up my own children."
Toward her husband Jackie is equally protective. "When somebody cuts Jack, she is unforgiving," says Ethel. "She has an elephant's memory." When Kennedy's political activities began to mount, Jackie worried "because he never would eat lunch, and kept getting thinner." One day her butler turned up in Jack's office with a hamper, expertly laid out a gleaming white cloth on his desk, then served a savory hot lunch in a baby's hot plate, "the kind you eat to the bottom and find a bunny rabbit." Impressed, Jack began to invite friends in for lunch, and the daily hamper load grew to six portions served on Sevres china.
"Just a Pretty Girl." Jackie's biggest hurdle was her husband's profession. Completely apolitical and shrinking instinctively from the hail-fellow habits of politicians, she has had a hard time adapting. But politics are Jack Kennedy's lifeblood and the White House his promised land—so Jackie has done her best. Nowadays she says gamely, "Politics is in my blood; I know that even if he changed I would miss politics. It's the most exciting life I know. This 18th century I'm supposed to like—it's a history of courtiers seeking favors. I'm fascinated by seeing it again today." But, encountering an old friend on the Hyannisport golf links last summer, she had an unguarded moment: "Oh God, why didn't you tell me you were here? When I think of all those awful politicians!"