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<body>
<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65809 ***</div>
<div id="cover" class="img">
<img id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Christmas at Sagamore Hill" width="676" height="1000" />
</div>
<div class="box">
<h1>Christmas at
<br />Sagamore Hill</h1>
<p class="center"><b>WITH THEODORE ROOSEVELT</b></p>
<p class="center"><span class="smaller">by</span>
<br />Helen Topping Miller</p>
<p class="tbcenter">LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
<br /><span class="smaller">NEW YORK · LONDON · TORONTO</span>
<br />1960</p>
</div>
<p class="center smaller">LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.
<br /><span class="small">119 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK 18</span></p>
<p class="center smaller">LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., <span class="sc">Ltd.</span>
<br /><span class="small">6 & 7 CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON W 1</span></p>
<p class="center smaller">LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
<br /><span class="small">20 CRANFIELD ROAD, TORONTO 16</span></p>
<p class="center smallest">CHRISTMAS AT SAGAMORE HILL</p>
<p class="center smallest">COPYRIGHT © 1960
<br />BY
<br />J. A. HILL AND DONALD G. TOPPING
<br />ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR ANY PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM</p>
<p class="center smallest">PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY
<br />LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO</p>
<p class="center smallest">FIRST EDITION</p>
<p class="center smallest">LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 60-53227</p>
<p class="center smaller">Printed in the United States of America</p>
<h1 title="">Christmas at Sagamore Hill</h1>
<div class="pb" id="Page_1">1</div>
<div class="img">
<img src="images/p1.jpg" id="ncfig1" alt="Decorative glyph" width="400" height="135" />
</div>
<p>The night was bitterly cold and a raw wind was blowing
off the Bay, sending dry leaves scudding and whipping
the naked boughs of the trees, when Theodore Roosevelt
alighted from his carriage at Sagamore Hill. He got out
backward very cautiously, easing his muscular bulk down
lightly on his feet although he was holding both arms
straight out before him. The burden they bore was precarious.</p>
<p>In his arms he balanced a great globe in which a dozen
goldfish were swimming dizzily. Already a thin film of ice
had formed on top of the water and fragments of it followed
the fish about in their hysterical dashings back and
forth.</p>
<p>He walked to the steps, setting his feet down firmly as
not long since he had tramped the rough vine- and fern-tangled
hills in Cuba. Only now, he thought gratefully,
nobody was shooting at him.</p>
<p>The door of the big rambling house opened as he
mounted the steps and warm light greeted him. So did a
chorus of assorted shrieks.</p>
<p>“Father’s home!”</p>
<p>Four children came rushing out into the night, staid
Alice trying to remember the dignity expected of a young
lady of fourteen, Theodore, frail and owlish, peering
through his spectacles, Kermit, slender and fair with legs
<span class="pb" id="Page_2">2</span>
that seemed too slim to support his wiry body, and after
them four-year-old Archie, stumbling and falling flat on
the cold floor.</p>
<p>“Pick him up!” directed Roosevelt. “You see I have my
hands full. And hold the door and let me in before I drop
this slippery thing.”</p>
<p>“What in the world is it, Father?” asked Alice, hurrying
to prop the door wide for him.</p>
<p>“Can’t you see?” demanded Kermit. “It’s fishes.” He
scuttled behind his father.</p>
<p>“Move all those things,” Roosevelt ordered, pointing to
the hall table. “Let me set this down.”</p>
<p>Alice hastily removed the card tray and candlesticks
from the table, setting them carefully on the floor. The fish
continued their giddy pirouette and small Archie pressed
his button of a nose against the cold glass.</p>
<p>“They dancing,” he exclaimed delightedly. “Father,
fishes dancing!”</p>
<p>“Silly! Fishes can’t dance,” declared Kermit. “They’ve
got no feet. Have they got feet, Father?”</p>
<p>“No, they haven’t any feet. They’re just excited,” said
his father, hanging up his hat and overcoat.</p>
<p>There was a scurry of feet on the stairs and seven-year-old
Ethel came flying down followed at a quieter pace by
her mother.</p>
<p>“We were putting the baby to bed. Oh, goldfish! But
Theodore—”</p>
<p>“They’re ours,” Kermit said. “I counted and there are
twelve of them. Which is the mother fish, Father, the one
who lays the eggs?”</p>
<p>“They aren’t ours,” answered his father. “I got them for
the school for you to give the other children as a goodby
<span class="pb" id="Page_3">3</span>
gift. This house is freezing, Edie, can’t that man do something
about the fires?”</p>
<p>“There’s one burning wherever there’s a fireplace, Theodore,
and they’ve been stoking both furnaces continually
all day. This house is just hard to heat on a windy
day.”</p>
<p>“My room is like an icehouse,” said Alice. “My fingers
got practically stiff while I was dressing.”</p>
<p>“We’ll hope that the house in Albany is easier to heat,”
said Mrs. Roosevelt.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to move to Albany,” Ethel whimpered.
“I don’t want to leave my puppies and my pony.”</p>
<p>“Silly!” scorned young Ted, who had stood a little aloof
from all the excitement over the goldfish, as he usually did
from things he considered childish. “You should be proud
to go to Albany, Father’s going to be governor of New
York.”</p>
<p>“Is that like being president?” asked Ethel.</p>
<p>“Slightly less than being president,” Ted conceded, “but
not much less.”</p>
<p>“Theodore, we’re due at the schoolhouse right now,”
his wife reminded him. “Children, get your hats and coats
and everyone must put on overshoes. We don’t want any
frosted fingers or toes for Christmas. Theodore, I don’t
really know if Ted should go or not. His chest is still frail
from that grippe.”</p>
<p>“Bundle up well, Ted,” ordered his father. “Cold
weather never hurt anybody.”</p>
<p>“It hurts me.” Alice shivered. “I get goose bumps and
I hate them and the end of my nose turns red.”</p>
<p>“Get ready at once, Alice, and you too, Ted, if you’re
going,” directed their father.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_4">4</div>
<p>“Mother had me excused from making my speech,”
said Ted. “I still think I was well enough to have made it.”</p>
<p>“I can say mine,” Kermit shouted, halfway up the
stairs, “‘Higgledy piggledy went to school—’”</p>
<p>“You’ll be scared when the time comes,” Ted jeered. “I
bet you forget half of it.”</p>
<p>In the big carriages packed with robes and hot bricks
they rode the short distance to the Cove Creek school.
The schoolhouse bell, creaking and jangling merrily, was
ringing loudly as they came near; they could hear the
wheels that turned it squeak and the ropes groan and slap
against the sides of the belfry.</p>
<p>“Someday,” announced young Ted as he climbed out of
the carriage, “that old thing’s going to come crashing down.”</p>
<p>“Then the children won’t have to go to school,” said
Ethel.</p>
<p>Theodore Roosevelt, governor-elect of the State of New
York, marched into the little schoolhouse carrying the
bowl of goldfish in his arms and followed in a train by his
family, to be greeted with loud clapping by the assembled
parents. With a bow he presented the fishbowl to the
teacher, sweeping off his gray campaign hat as he marched
back to a rear seat. Father shouldn’t sit in the back, thought
Alice, who was beginning to feel more like a princess every
day and felt cheated because they were not more prominently
seated. Father ought to be dressed up, too, wearing
his silk hat and his beautiful white vest and striped trousers,
not that old gray suit and knickers as though he were
merely anybody instead of the governor.</p>
<p>One by one the children gestured or stammered through
their “pieces,” most of which had a very military quality.
A young archfoe of Ted’s finished with a tribute to the
<span class="pb" id="Page_5">5</span>
governor-elect, “We’ll send you to the White House for
the gallant deeds you’ve done,” which was tumultuously
applauded by all the children and parents.</p>
<p>Then the governor-elect, who had hoped to escape by
silently sitting in the rear, was called upon to speak. As he
strode up to the stage, he was aware of a low whisper from
his daughter, “Father, don’t talk long! Think of the poor
children.”</p>
<p>Roosevelt did not speak of Christmas or the Holy Birth,
which had been said a dozen times already. In simple language,
talking directly to the young fry, he outlined his
philosophy of life, counseled them to decide that they were
going to have a good time as long as they lived, and that
without being quarrelsome they should stand up for their
rights, be honorable and fair to all people. The applause
when he had finished shook the building but as he sat down
he heard a loud mutter from his oldest son, “Father, we
thought you’d never stop talking.”</p>
<p>Now came the most exciting moment. From the gay
tree, decorated with wreaths of colored paper, with tinsel
and strings of popcorn, the presents were distributed.
Roosevelt was asked to step forward and as the gifts were
handed to him by the teacher he called out each child’s
name.</p>
<p>There were dolls and skates and sleds and sleighs, picture
books and toy guns and swords, each one carefully
selected by Edith over a period of weeks and each the gift
of Theodore Roosevelt. As he handed down the presents
into eager little hands he was no longer the governor-elect
and a military hero, he was merely Neighbor Roosevelt
giving a happy holiday to a group of small friends of his
own children.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_6">6</div>
<p>Edith had chosen all the gifts and Theodore had paid
for them with the last army paycheck he had received for
serving in Cuba. And no child hugging his present beamed
more brightly than did Theodore Roosevelt as he patted
every small head and spoke a pleasant word to the
recipient.</p>
<p>His own children were not forgotten and Edith had
wisely seen that the gifts were suitable even though there
would be a bounteous Christmas for the five young Roosevelts
later. If she had a few moments of trepidation as
to how all this accumulation of holiday largess would be
transported to Albany before the month was ended, she kept
her anxiety to herself. Certainly Kermit could not be separated
from the little mechanical ship he clutched so tightly
in his arms.</p>
<p>They drove back to Sagamore Hill in the bitter cold of
the early winter dark. The light snow that had fallen, just
enough to allow Theodore Roosevelt to experiment with
an old pair of skis, was now frozen hard and glittered in the
chilly light from the western sky. Out toward the horizon
the Bay lay flat and gray and restless, reflecting now and
then a glint of dying winter light.</p>
<p>The children were quiet, huddling under the blankets,
all but Ted who said wistfully, “I should have liked those
skates you gave to Pete Murray, Father.”</p>
<p>“You already have skates,” said his father. “Don’t be
greedy.”</p>
<p>“But those skates were better,” insisted Ted. “They have
those sharpened edges and two straps.”</p>
<p>“I still say you are being greedy, Ted. It’s an ugly trait.
Get rid of it. Pete Murray is not as fortunate as you. He
never gets many presents.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_7">7</div>
<p>“Anyway,” Kermit chimed in, “maybe in Albany there
won’t be any ice.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to go to Albany,” piped up little Archie.
“I like here.”</p>
<p>“So do we,” said Ted, “but Father has to be governor of
New York because he beat the Spaniards in the war.”</p>
<p>“Not alone, Ted,” corrected his father. “There were
quite a few stout fellows helping me. Thousands of them,
in fact, from generals and admirals down to plain soldiers
and sailors.”</p>
<p>“But the Rough Riders were the bravest,” his son persisted.</p>
<p>“We’ll hope history will affirm that rash assertion.” His
father was dry. “However, I thank you for your commendation.
All right, here we are. Pile out, you fellows.
Mother and the girls are just behind us in the other carriage.
Everybody carry his own loot. Supper will be ready, we’ll
hope, though I doubt if Archie can stay awake long enough
to eat it.”</p>
<p>The fires would be warm and pleasant after the chill
outside, but later icy drafts would creep out of the corners
making the family shiver. It was fortunate the young
Roosevelts were a hardy breed, all but Ted who was still
inclined to be frail and subject to sudden illnesses. Theodore
Roosevelt remembered his own sickly childhood and
hoped for the best for his sons. Certainly he himself was
tough enough now. There had been times in his youth
when he had been forced to go to the high, dry western
country to recover his health and strength. He still went
back occasionally in summer to look after his cattle interests
there into which he had sunk so much of his inheritance
from his father.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_8">8</div>
<p>The ranch had been a losing venture for several years and
there had been times when he and Edith had worried about
being able to provide for their large, expensive family, but
now the future seemed secure for at least a few years and
Theodore Roosevelt had never been one to let anxiety
harass him for long.</p>
<p>He paused to look up at Sagamore Hill on his way back
from the carriage house. The bulky building with its
wings and high roof line stood out clearly against the sky
of early night. The house had somehow the wrong colors,
as Alice was apt to observe a trifle acidly, remarking that
the mustard yellow of the shingles on the gables certainly
did not harmonize with the rose-pink brick.</p>
<p>Edith, his wise, firm, gentle wife, was waiting at the
door.</p>
<p>“Hurry off with your wraps,” she said. “Supper is ready
and we have good hot soup.”</p>
<p>“What, no wassail bowl?” bantered Theodore. “No
boar’s head with a wreath of holly and an apple in his
mouth? This is Christmas Eve, remember. Just plain old
soup?”</p>
<p>“Don’t make the children dissatisfied with their food,
Theodore,” Edith chided. “Ted, let me feel your cheeks.
They look very flushed to me.”</p>
<p>“Frosty outside,” her husband reminded her.</p>
<p>“I don’t want any more pills or brown stuff out of a
bottle,” whined Ted, “and I don’t specially care for soup.”</p>
<p>“Listen, son,” said his father. “You are always talking
about being a soldier and a soldier learns first of all to eat
what is put before him. I’m sure Mother has very excellent
soup and it will be warming and welcome on this chilly
night. I put wrong ideas in their heads,” he admitted, as
<span class="pb" id="Page_9">9</span>
they shepherded the children into the dining room. “A very
foolish thing to do.”</p>
<p>“Now you set an example of hungrily eating your soup,”
said Edith. “At least there is a pudding later.”</p>
<p>“Does it have burning brandy on it?” inquired Kermit
who had been devouring pictures of the old-fashioned English
Christmas lately.</p>
<p>“No burning brandy, just hard sauce, but I suspect the
cook put a drop or two of wine in it.”</p>
<p>“Well,” approved Alice, “that will be a little exciting.”</p>
<p>“You need to go to school, young lady,” commented her
father.</p>
<p>“A stuffy old place like that?” She sighed. “And Bamie’s
house is just as bad. Now I know how it will be: ‘Remember
your father is governor. Do him credit.’ Sometimes I
wish you were a plain man, Father, like other girls’ fathers.”</p>
<p>“You wish no such thing! You bask in all the publicity!
Anyway I am a plain man. You don’t see me wearing a top
hat, do you? Or putting on airs?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” she admitted, “I wish you would dress up
a little more and wear all your medals.”</p>
<p>“Let’s all be just nice plain people,” suggested her stepmother.</p>
<p>Albany, Edith decided, was not going to be an easy place
to hold the children to democratic standards. The governor’s
children might be expected not to turn somersaults
on the lawn of the executive mansion, or sail kites off the
roof. Here at Sagamore Hill the younger ones had had the
freedom of the place, nothing was closed to them. Even in
Roosevelt’s workshop under the roof, the door was always
open and she had seen her husband often writing or dictating
an important speech with Archie or Kermit crawling
<span class="pb" id="Page_10">10</span>
about his feet or pushing a toy train and shouting “choo
choo choo!”</p>
<p>Important visitors were often left cooling their heels in
the parlor while Roosevelt was out having a rough and
tumble in the hay with the children or down at the dock
teaching one of them how to dive. When he was with his
children he was as young as they were, and though this
made him more lovable it could be exasperating, too, and at
times embarrassing. Like the time a maid had misinterpreted
the mission of two delegations of visitors, leaving a group
of important men to cool their heels on the front porch
while she waited on some startled and bewildered clergy in
the parlor.</p>
<p>But if there were times when Edith Roosevelt yearned
for a little privacy, she kept the thought to herself. To be
ignored and eventually forgotten would be a living death
to a man like Theodore Roosevelt, with a nature so ebullient
and outgiving.</p>
<p>He had to express himself either vocally or by action just
as he had had to risk his life and health fighting with his
Rough Riders in Cuba. There had been a job to be done,
a wrong to be righted, and his fierce sense of justice and
obligation would not let him ignore it. Of course the excitement
had appealed to him, too, just as the thrill of riding
and roping cattle on the Dakota ranch had done, the place
where already he had sunk too much of the money left
him by his father. The only recreation or relaxation that he
knew was in doing something vigorous and different. There
was, Edith sighed to herself, nothing restful about him.</p>
<p>“Now,” she put in a maternal admonition, “there will be
no pillow fights tonight. Everyone must go quietly to sleep,
there will be enough excitement in the morning.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_11">11</div>
<p>“At least,” said her husband, “may I be allowed to help
them hang up their stockings?”</p>
<p>“If you’ll promise to come down immediately and not
mar the mantelpiece. And Ted must have some ointment
on his chest and a dose of cough medicine. I’ll come up
with you, Ted, and see that you are well rubbed. You don’t
want to spend Christmas in bed.”</p>
<p>“Mother, do I have to? I hate that slimy stuff.”</p>
<p>“You have to and you have to hold still and not squirm
and yell,” insisted his mother. “Come along now, all of
you. I want you all in bed and warmly covered before the
fires go out.”</p>
<p>“You mean Father isn’t going to tell us even one story?”
wailed Kermit, stumbling up the stairs.</p>
<p>“No stories tonight, Kermit.” His father gave him a gentle
slap on the rear as he followed him. “Orders from the queen.
We must all rest tonight for tomorrow is a big day.”</p>
<p>The doorbell pealed then and over the upper railing they
saw the maid admitting some visitors.</p>
<p>“Three gentlemen to see Colonel Roosevelt,” she announced,
hurrying halfway up the flight. “They’re in the
parlor.”</p>
<p>“Let them wait,” said Roosevelt impatiently. “Some delegation
of office seekers, no doubt, or somebody wanting a
favor of the governor.”</p>
<p>“But you aren’t the governor yet,” Ethel argued. “You’re
only Father.”</p>
<p>“My favorite appointment and nothing would please me
more than to work full time at it. Get along, boys, I can’t
keep those people waiting too long.”</p>
<p>“You do,” reminded Ted. “That time when we were all
playing circus in the barn you kept some men waiting a
<span class="pb" id="Page_12">12</span>
long time while you were trying to teach Kermit’s pony
to kneel.”</p>
<p>“Then Father was not governor of New York,” his
mother told him. “Now he has a responsibility to the people
of this state.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, my dear,” said her husband. “Kiss me good
night, all you youngsters. I’d better see what those people
want. After all, this is Christmas Eve and a cold night.
Likely they want to get home to their families.”</p>
<p>The three men waiting below had a mission they considered
important and praiseworthy. They wanted Colonel
Roosevelt when he took office as governor to do something
about getting better roads for the county.</p>
<p>“They’re a bog in winter and a fog of dust in summer.
They’re a hardship to the folks who live here and they discourage
summer people. Every time some people pay their
taxes they harangue us about the bad roads.”</p>
<p>“But, gentlemen,” Roosevelt protested, “the county roads
are the county’s affair, except for a few miles of state and
post roads. Your county officials are the people for you to
see about this matter.”</p>
<p>“The county officials, Colonel, are us three and there’s
nobody for us to appeal to. We’re the ones who are getting
all the knocks and got no answer unless we raise taxes, and
Lord, what a howl there would be about that! Trouble is,
people want a lot of things till it comes time to pay for
them and then they want somebody else to take on the
load.”</p>
<p>“That’s the trouble with the whole country,” said Roosevelt.
“In Albany there are probably people already waiting,
wanting something but wanting no part of the financial responsibility
of paying for it. The President and Congress
<span class="pb" id="Page_13">13</span>
are bombarded constantly with requests to give benefits to
certain areas and groups of people but all those things cost
money and the money has to come from the people, the
ordinary people like you and me, gentlemen.”</p>
<p>How many times, he wondered, as the delegation left
reluctantly, grumbling among themselves, would he hear
the same arguments in the next two years? All at once,
standing in his own doorway looking out at the dark
night sky which was already beginning to lower and spit
a few more flakes of snow, he felt a dread of the new
task that till this moment had stimulated and exhilarated
him.</p>
<p>The peace and quiet of Sagamore Hill suddenly was
doubly dear. The fields and hills over which he had roamed
with his children, the fringe of wood where he had chopped
down trees, exulting in every blow of the ax, at seeing white
chips fly wide. Here, he was thinking, he could have lived,
writing his books, watching over the growth and education
of his children, getting fatter with the years perhaps,
less able to swim and dive and wield an ax, or flash down
a snowy slope on new skis.</p>
<p>He knew, however, a life like that was not for him.
Action was essential to him, positive and vigorous, and he
could no more keep out of public affairs than he could
resign himself to sitting by a fireside all the rest of his days.
He could never sit still there. He was always jumping up
to discipline the blazing logs with firm jabs of the poker,
or hurl on more wood with a heave and a grunt.</p>
<p>He went to the fire now and found Edith sitting there
with her usual piece of sewing in her lap.</p>
<p>“It seems to be getting colder,” she remarked. “Those
upstairs rooms are really chilly. I do hope the governor’s
<span class="pb" id="Page_14">14</span>
house has an adequate heating system; I dread the colds we
get in winter and Ted’s chest is not really strong.”</p>
<p>“There we’ll have steam no doubt, and boilers to burn
coal. I’ve never been inside the place but once and that
was quite long ago. It’s a gloomy old pile but we have to
live in it.”</p>
<p>“It can’t be any harder to heat than this house,” said
Edith, trying not to let any of the odd feeling creep into her
voice, the slight reservation she had never voiced even to
herself but that had always been present deep in her mind—her
own feeling about Sagamore Hill.</p>
<p>After all, it had been built for another women, the girl
whom her husband had deeply loved, Alice Lee. And it had
been originally named Leeholm. That Alice Lee had died
before the first stone of the foundation had been laid could
not but remind Theodore now and then of what he had
lost, especially when he looked at Alice Lee’s daughter,
brisk, vigorous little Alice born with an assertive nature,
blunt and forthright, like his own.</p>
<p>All her married life Edith Carow Roosevelt had kept a
firm hand on her emotions, not letting any useless jealousy
creep in to raise a cloud between her and her husband. He
was hers and had been for many years and their children
were proof of the constancy of his love. He adored them
all, though now and then his was the firm hand that supplied
the occasionally needed discipline and punishment.
The children’s worship of their father was only too evident
in the way they followed him about, having scant enthusiasm
for any game in which he did not join.</p>
<p>They sat quietly together for an hour, then Theodore
asked, “Do you think it’s safe to get the Christmas presents
out now? It’s getting late.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_15">15</div>
<p>“Let’s wait a little longer. Ted never goes to sleep
promptly, and Ethel and Kermit were both very excited
when Mame put them to bed.”</p>
<p>“Good old Mame! I bought her a locket. Probably a
frivolous gift for Mame, but everyone needs something
foolish and gay to liven up life now and then.”</p>
<p>“She has been faithful for years. I couldn’t have raised
the children without Mame. She doesn’t get along too well
with the other servants at times, but they’re used to her
blunt way now and ignore her difficult days,” Edith
said.</p>
<p>“We all have difficult days,” he remarked. “I know there
have been times, when I was harassed and frustrated by
outside events, that I have been difficult to live with.”</p>
<p>“You have learned to control your emotions very well
lately,” she said, “though sometimes I have thought you a
bit too impulsive.”</p>
<p>“You mean going off at half cock, lacking in sober judgment.
I know that. No one knows it better than I. All my
life I’ve battled against going at things headlong, the way I
fought in Cuba, and struggled to put down graft and corruption
when I was with the New York Police Commission.”</p>
<p>“I still hate thinking of that winter when times were so
hard and we were so short of money. I still can’t bear to
see a slice of bread wasted. Theodore, listen!” She rose suddenly.
“It’s a wagon coming up the drive.”</p>
<p>They both hurried to the front door. A wagon drawn
by two horses was slowly coming up the hill, lanterns hung
upon it and sleigh bells jingling merrily from about the
necks of the horses. It was filled with young people who
were singing at the tops of their voices.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0"><i>God rest ye merry, gentlemen! let nothing you dismay,</i></p>
<p class="t0"><i>For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas day.</i></p>
</div>
<p>“How sweet!” exclaimed Edith. “We ought to invite
them in.”</p>
<p>The noise would rouse the children, she knew unhappily,
as the youngsters went on into another carol. Theodore
walked out to the wagon to deliver the invitation,
while Edith racked her brain to think what she had in the
house to offer a crowd of young fry, who would certainly
have huge appetites. There might be cookies in the pantry
or apples. The cook always kept a supply of cookies on
hand as Theodore often put a few in his pockets when he
went on his almost daily rambles over the countryside.</p>
<p>It was a relief to her when he returned to the porch saying
that the carolers would not alight, as they had many
other places to go and it was getting late. After a dozen
more songs, coming sweetly clear on the frosty air, the
singers launched into a popular song that had been sung
when crowds greeted the hero of San Juan Hill.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0"><i>We’ll send you to the White House for the gallant deeds you’ve done.</i></p>
</div>
<p>Edith knew a sudden trepidation as the wagon jolted
away, the voices still floating back on the still, cold air.
She had heard whispers of the White House before from
the politicians and public men who were constantly thronging
the house, but never a word from Theodore. If he had
any ambitions beyond the governorship he was keeping
<span class="pb" id="Page_17">17</span>
them from her and that was unlike her husband who was
often too vocal and positive in his plans and opinions. Certainly
he had always confided in his wife, even if at times
she had secretly thought he was not too wise to be so frank
about important and confidential matters.</p>
<p>What he may have been thinking she had no way of
knowing, though as a rule his line of thought was seldom
concealed from her. The presidency would be an honor
of course, and if Theodore had a dream of sometime occupying
that distinguished position she could say nothing to
discourage or frustrate such an ambition, but her quiet soul
shrank a little from being thrust into the responsibilities of
such a life and always she thought of her children. The
publicity and adulation to which they would be exposed in
Albany would be bad enough.</p>
<p>Like their father they were all fiercely democratic—at
least the boys were—but every honor that had come to
their father had excited them, Alice especially. Alice loved
importance and took every plaudit and cheer as partially
her own.</p>
<p>Edith argued determinedly with herself that she was
worrying about nothing, that no doubt after his term as
governor was ended, Theodore would be content to return
to Sagamore Hill to write and live the life of a country
squire. But all the while she was tormented by her hidden
awareness that quiet and peace were never made for Theodore
Roosevelt.</p>
<p>They went back into the house and discovered three
small figures crouched above, peering through the railings
of the stairs.</p>
<p>“We couldn’t sleep, the singing kept us awake,” said
Alice when Theodore began to scold.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div>
<p>“Scurry back to bed, all of you,” he ordered. “You’ll
catch your death of cold.”</p>
<p>“Just some young people singing Christmas carols,” explained
their mother. “When you are older perhaps you
can go out caroling too on Christmas Eve. Kermit, come
here, your night clothes aren’t properly buttoned.”</p>
<p>“Mame did it,” declared Kermit.</p>
<p>“He kept wriggling and diving under the bed,” Ted reported.
“Mame couldn’t even hold him.”</p>
<p>“She tickles,” Kermit defended. “Will you tell us a story
about the Wild West, Father?”</p>
<p>“Certainly not!” Edith was firm, detecting a faint sign
of weakening on her husband’s face. “It’s far too late.
Jump into bed quickly. Did Mame give you your tonic,
Ted?”</p>
<p>“Yes.” He made a wry face. “I hate that gooey stuff.”</p>
<p>“You hate being sick, too, and the idea of not growing
up as strong as the other boys,” their father reminded him.</p>
<p>“I hated that stuff I had to take to make my bones
strong,” declared Kermit.</p>
<p>“You hated having to wear braces on your legs, too.”
His father followed the boys into the nursery, gave each
a friendly smack and tumbled them into bed. “But the
braces made your legs strong enough so you can swim like
the rest of us.”</p>
<p>“I still hate getting water in my ears,” stated Ted, pulling
the covers up to his chin. “Will there be warmer bedrooms
in that palace up in Albany, Father?”</p>
<p>“We’ll hope so—and it isn’t a palace. It’s officially called
a mansion.”</p>
<p>“In storybooks governors always live in palaces. Does
the president live in a palace in Washington?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_19">19</div>
<p>“No, just a big white house. You’ve seen it. You should
remember.”</p>
<p>“I’ve seen so many places,” sighed Ted, “but I like this
house best.”</p>
<p>“We all do. We’ll come back to it every summer,” promised
Roosevelt.</p>
<p>The house was quiet at last but Edith Roosevelt, when
they had completed the task of filling all the dangling stockings,
lay awake a long time, her thoughts trying to search
the future, what lay ahead for all those children. More of
war and danger, more heart-racking anxiety for their
mother? Perhaps it was best not to know, otherwise life
would be one long torment of apprehension.</p>
<p>Morning showed a thin cover of snow on the ground,
but before day came to reveal it plainly, there was pandemonium
in the parents’ quiet bedroom as the children came
rushing in lugging their stockings. Only small toys bulged
in the stockings, but Alice proudly displayed a little gold
bracelet and Archie, round-faced and beaming, bounced up
and down on his father’s stomach excitedly cranking a small
tin toy that made musical sounds as the handle turned.</p>
<p>“Get up, Father,” begged Ethel. “Get up and light the
Christmas tree!”</p>
<p>“That room will be cold,” objected their mother. “Here,
crawl under this blanket, all of you. Theodore, do poke up
the fire.”</p>
<p>There were some embers left in the fireplace and he
strode over, barefoot, in his night garb and jabbed and
stirred at them, vigorously, piling on the wood till a roaring
blaze was kindled. He liked fires to roar, horses to gallop,
he had to put gusto into everything he did, his wife lay
thinking.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_20">20</div>
<p>“We’ll have breakfast first,” she said firmly. “No one will
be downstairs this early, so all of you take your stockings
and crawl back into your beds till Mame comes in. Then
after breakfast we’ll light the Christmas trees in the gun
room.”</p>
<p>“It’s cold in there too,” complained Ted, “cold as anything.”</p>
<p>“It’s cold everywhere. This is a winter’s day,” said Theodore.
“Scamper now! No one is to stir out of bed again till
Mame comes in.”</p>
<p>“She’s an awful sleepyhead,” complained Ethel. “She
won’t stir for hours and hours.”</p>
<p>The gun room was not yet warm when at nine o’clock
Theodore lighted the candles on the two Christmas trees,
Mame standing by worriedly with a bucket of water and a
dipper to head off any flickering blaze. She had wrapped
each child in a heavy coat, but even that did not keep small
fingers from cramping with cold as they fumbled with
strings and wrappings, squealing happily over their treasures.</p>
<p>Ted gloated over a new sled while his mother wondered
how it would be transported to Albany, for assuredly he
would refuse to leave it behind. Ethel hugged a new doll
and put it to bed repeatedly in its cradle her Aunt Bamie
had sent, adjuring it to lie still now and Father would come
and tell a story, maybe about cowboys.</p>
<p>At ten o’clock Roosevelt impulsively decided to go to
church, and Alice and Ethel insisted on going with him.
Wrapped in heavy coats they set out in the carriage, the
girls with their chins buried in fur, their small noses pink
with frost.</p>
<p>At the little Episcopal church Roosevelt got down and
<span class="pb" id="Page_21">21</span>
shook the door. It was locked fast. Presently a woman stuck
her head out of the house next door.</p>
<p>“No services today,” she said. “The minister is sick with
the grippe.” She came closer. “It’s Mister Roosevelt, isn’t
it? Governor now, ain’t you? My man voted for you. He
was at San Juan Hill.”</p>
<p>Instantly Theodore had his notebook out. “What was his
name? I’ll remember him. I remember all my Rough Riders,
they were a gallant lot of fellows.”</p>
<p>She told him the name. “He got wounded in a skirmish.
But he got over it. Now he travels around selling housewares
for some folks in Jersey City. He’s away down in
Pennsylvania today. It was too far to come home for
Christmas but it makes it a dreary time when the man’s
away, the young ones miss him.”</p>
<p>As the carriage started up the hill Ethel announced, “I
never got to put my five cents in the collection, Father.”</p>
<p>“You mean you’ve lost it already?”</p>
<p>“It’s in my mitten. Where Mother put it. Do I have to
give it back to Mother?”</p>
<p>“No, you may keep it. When we get to Albany you can
take a ride on the streetcar with it, but unless you can
promote a little more cash you’ll have to walk back,” he
teased.</p>
<p>“I’d have to take Mame with me,” she demurred, “and
she always grumbles that her feet hurt.”</p>
<p>The good smell of dinner met them at the door as they
entered, and some warmth from the glowing fires that had
been piled high with logs. The furnaces too gave up a
grudging wave of heat and, warming his hands at the wood
fire, Theodore was glad they would not have to struggle
with inadequate heating much longer. This house had been
<span class="pb" id="Page_22">22</span>
built for summer and was delightful at that season, catching
the breezes from the Bay. The trouble was that the wind
was just as enthusiastic in winter, and the curtains at the
windows now waved gently as it frolicked around the high
gables.</p>
<p>Ted was sitting on the stairs, capped and mittened, his
new sled at his feet.</p>
<p>“I thought you’d never come, Father,” he fretted.
“Mother says I can’t go out alone.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think he should go out at all,” declared Edith,
“but I agreed to leave the decision to you.”</p>
<p>“There’s not enough snow, Ted,” his father told him.
“It wouldn’t carry your sled. You’ll have to wait for a
heavier snowfall. From the look of those clouds we should
get it tonight.”</p>
<p>Ted stared ruefully out the window. “Why is God so
stingy? In Albany there won’t be any place to use a sled.
Mame said so.”</p>
<p>“There are parks in Albany, Ted,” Edith assured him,
“and likely grounds around the capitol building and there
is sure to be a hill there somewhere.”</p>
<p>“But it won’t be here! I want to slide here where we
live.”</p>
<p>“I saw two flakes of snow falling,” comforted Alice. “I
saw them on my muff.”</p>
<p>“Church must have been very short today,” Edith said.
“You were only gone an hour.”</p>
<p>Theodore told her about the rector’s being housed with
the grippe.</p>
<p>“I’m always afraid of that in winter,” she said. “That
siege Ted had once weakened him so. That’s why I try to
keep him from exposing himself.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div>
<p>“Dinner is served,” was announced at the door.</p>
<p>“Let’s all march in,” Theodore suggested.</p>
<p>“But first we must all wash our hands,” said the mother.
“Run along upstairs. Ted, leave your hat and coat up there.
I’m not sure I want you outside today.”</p>
<p>“The outside air can’t hurt him,” demurred Roosevelt,
when the troop had pelted off up the stairs.</p>
<p>“You aren’t sure of that. You can be too insistent about
toughening up Ted, as the doctor reminded you. After all,
you were a frail child yourself.”</p>
<p>“But my life in Dakota toughened me. Now I never have
a pain and rarely a cold,” he insisted.</p>
<p>“You were grown then. Give your sons a chance to grow,
Theodore.”</p>
<p>“I suppose you are right. You usually are. Anyway, this
is going to be a dour day, although those clouds show a
few signs of thinning and letting the sun shine through.”
He studied the sky from the window.</p>
<p>They went in to dinner then and there was the usual
argument about who should say grace. Ethel won and hurried
through the little verse, conscious of impatient looks
from her brothers, moving their eyes though their heads
were bowed.</p>
<p>There was a bounteous spread on the table and for the
first time in days there were no guests. Obviously everyone
was respecting a family’s desire for privacy on this
holiday and Edith was grateful.</p>
<p>The big turkey that old Davis, the gardener, had fattened
in a little pen, feeding it corn and all the scraps from
the kitchen, stood brown and beautiful at the head
of the table and Theodore sharpened the carving knife on
the steel with a ringing noise.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div>
<p>“Only two drumsticks,” he remarked, slicing away, “so
somebody has to be content with the second joint.”</p>
<p>The expected shrill protests arose, Kermit insisting that
he had never had a drumstick since he could remember.</p>
<p>“You can’t remember long then,” declared Ted, “for you
had one at Thanksgiving.”</p>
<p>“We’ll settle this.” Roosevelt took an envelope from his
pocket and tore it into strips, two longer than the others.
“The long pieces get the drumsticks and no more said
about it.” He folded them carefully in his hands with the
ends visible and passed them around the table.</p>
<p>Ethel and Archie won and squealed with delight, while
Alice remarked philosophically, “I’d rather have breast,
anyway. Drumsticks are dry and tough.”</p>
<p>Before the dessert was served, the maid approached the
head of the table.</p>
<p>“Three gentlemen to see Mr. Roosevelt,” she announced.</p>
<p>“Ask them in to the fire and invite them to sit down and
wait,” said Theodore. “Are they elderly gentlemen?”</p>
<p>“No, sir. They’re young and sort of brown and tough
looking.”</p>
<p>He jumped, upsetting his glass of water. “My boys!” he
exclaimed, hurrying out while Kermit and Archie scurried
after.</p>
<p>“Soldiers, Mother,” Kermit ran back to report, “and
Father’s hugging them.”</p>
<p>“How do you know they’re soldiers?” demanded Ted.</p>
<p>“They saluted!” Kermit was triumphant. “Just like
Father taught us.”</p>
<p>Oh, me! wailed Edith Roosevelt silently to herself, not
even Christmas dinner alone! She rang the bell quickly.</p>
<p>“Set three more places,” she directed the girl who answered.
<span class="pb" id="Page_25">25</span>
“Mr. Roosevelt will have guests. But you are all
to sit still,” she ordered the children.</p>
<p>“Don’t I stand up and bow like you told me?” asked
Ted.</p>
<p>“No, you only bow a little when you are introduced.”</p>
<p>“You only stand up for ladies,” explained Alice.</p>
<p>Edith rose herself to greet the three young men who
followed Theodore into the dining room. They were plainly
dressed and obviously slightly embarrassed. Roosevelt introduced
them by name or rather by nicknames.</p>
<p>“This is Lew, and Ike, and Cricket. They shared their
shelter with me one rainy night in Cuba.”</p>
<p>“We hate to bust in this way, ma’am,” said Cricket, who
was older than the other two. “We asked the Colonel to
let us go and wait and come back.”</p>
<p>“Nonsense! You’ve come a long way and it’s cold outside,”
the Colonel said. “Sit here, and here, and you, Ike,
over there.” He introduced the children who forgot to
eat in their excitement.</p>
<p>“Mighty pretty daughters you’ve got, Colonel. Smart-looking
boys, too,” said Ike.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Edith replied graciously, not looking at
Alice, who had murmured thanks and straightened her
shoulders, posing a little as she was inclined to do.</p>
<p>Roosevelt ordered the turkey brought back and began
carving and filling the three extra plates put before him.</p>
<p>“These boys came up here all the way from South Carolina,”
he explained to Edith, “and stopped to call on me.”</p>
<p>“We’re on our way to Pennsylvania. Got jobs in the
mills there, ma’am, but when we got near this place we just
had to see the Colonel, so we hired a rig and come out here.
Never thought about its being Christmas.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_26">26</div>
<p>“You’re very welcome,” Edith assured them.</p>
<p>“Did you kill any Spaniards in Cuba?” asked Ted, while
the visitors helped themselves gratefully to the food being
served by the maid.</p>
<p>“Well, we shot at a lot of them, so we must have hit a
few,” replied Cricket.</p>
<p>“Anyway, they were shooting at us from up in trees and
under bushes, and there were too many trees and bushes
for a man to take any chances.”</p>
<p>“Anyway, we licked ’em,” said Lew. “When a Spaniard
runs he runs. And yells.”</p>
<p>“Have you got your guns?” Ethel asked.</p>
<p>“No, miss, we were discharged from service so we turned
in our rifles.”</p>
<p>“Father has a lot of guns,” observed Kermit. “Ted can
shoot, but I can’t.”</p>
<p>“You will be old enough before long,” said his father.
“Ted shoots very well for an eleven-year-old.”</p>
<p>“I hit the bull’s eye twice,” Ted bragged, while Edith
controlled the little jerk of panic she always felt when she
thought of her eldest son with that gun. “Teach him early
enough and he’ll know how to handle a weapon wisely,”
had been Theodore’s argument when the new light rifle
had been brought home.</p>
<p>Edith excused herself when the meal was over and went
upstairs but the children refused to follow as she suggested.
They followed the men instead, even Alice taking a chair
in a corner, tucking her feet up under her, a habit Mame
much deplored. Ted sprawled on his stomach on the floor
at his father’s feet, chin on palms, while Archie crawled
under Roosevelt’s chair and curled up there, half asleep.</p>
<p>The talk was fascinating to the children, even to Ethel,
<span class="pb" id="Page_27">27</span>
who had never showed any female dismay at violence; indeed
she was a real little warrior herself, holding her own
with two older brothers. All the Roosevelt children had
been taught to stand for the right and fight for it if necessary,
and there had been times when their mother secretly
regretted this branch of her husband’s education, when
Ted came home with a split lip and spectacles bent, or all
of them engaged in battles in the nursery.</p>
<p>Alice had her own room now and was inclined to stay
aloof when violence threatened, but earlier she had been
one of the stoutest fighters.</p>
<p>Kermit leaned on his father’s shoulder drinking in the
stories of Spanish ambushes and night attacks, of the renegade
Cubans who begged food from the Rough Riders and
then carried information to the Spanish headquarters.</p>
<p>“I shot one buzzard,” said Cricket. “He begged for some
beans and I only had a spoonful and then he drew out a
rusty old pistol. I got him before he could cock it.”</p>
<p>“Bang between the eyes?” questioned Kermit.</p>
<p>“Well, no. Elsewhere in the body,” replied Cricket delicately.
“But the worst thing in Cuba wasn’t the Spaniards
or being shot at, it was the goldurn mosquitoes—begging
your pardon, Colonel.”</p>
<p>“They were so thick we had to cover up our heads with
blankets to get any sleep.” Lew took up the story while
Roosevelt smiled ruefully. “We couldn’t light a fire to
smoke ’em out most of the times. That was what their
sharpshooters were waiting for. Man show himself in the
light and down he went!”</p>
<p>“The fever was bad too,” Roosevelt said. “It has already
made very doubtful any hope of building a canal across
Panama.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_28">28</div>
<p>“We had more sick with fever than we had wounded,
even when we charged the Hill,” Ike recalled. “Well, we
must be heading back, you fellows. It’s been fine seeing
you again, Colonel, and we’re sure proud New York elected
you governor.”</p>
<p>“We sure are,” agreed his lanky companions, rising to
their feet.</p>
<p>“Our thanks for a good dinner, sir, and give our thanks
to your good wife. We better push on, our man we hired
to drive us is waiting and our train leaves at six o’clock and
it’s a long way to the station.”</p>
<p>“I’m honored by your visit, boys,” Roosevelt followed
them into the hall, the children trotting after.</p>
<p>When the Rough Riders had gone, Roosevelt picked up
the sleeping Archie and carried him up the stairs, Ted
climbing after, asking with every breath, “Can I go out
now, Father? Is there enough snow for my sled?”</p>
<p>“There’s almost no more snow, Ted, but we’ll hope for
some to fall overnight. Those fellows,” he said to Edith
when he had put Archie on his bed and covered him well,
“came out of their way to see me and I was very much
honored by their visit. They hired that driver too and I
don’t doubt they needed the money. Men who work in
mills and have families have little money to spare. At least
I know Cricket has a family. He showed me pictures of
two boys when we were waiting for transportation in
Tampa. He attached himself to me as a sort of unofficial
aide. There was not much emphasis on rank in my command.”</p>
<p>“And what there was I’m sure you ignored,” said Edith
indulgently. “It was undoubtedly a very democratic organization.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_29">29</div>
<p>“When you’re depending on a man to fire in time to
save your life you have no use for protocol. That boy Lew,
who had so little to say, twice saved my horse from being
shot under me. Rank loses its importance when a lot of
savage men are attacking you, and you see your men fall
and know the next bullet may be for you. They were all
gallant, all of them. I owe them more than I can ever
repay.”</p>
<p>“Shall we go down now to the fires?” Edith asked. “By
the way, Davis won’t be back today. I gave him Christmas
afternoon off to be with his family. Some of his children
have come home bringing their children with them. Can
you attend to the furnaces?”</p>
<p>“I’d better put on some overalls. That’s a dirty job. Then
I’m going to take the youngsters out awhile. We can have
a romp in the barn. They get too restless in the house all
day. I’ll keep Ted’s feet dry,” he promised.</p>
<p>“And don’t let them get overheated,” she warned. “That
thermometer downstairs hasn’t risen above freezing all day.
It seems awfully cold for so early in the winter. I hear
Quentin now. I’ll take him down by the fire so Mame can
get some rest.”</p>
<p>He shrugged into a rough army coat and cotton overalls
and went below to poke and rattle vociferously at the two
furnaces, shoveling out ashes, wondering whimsically what
the important politicians of New York would think if they
saw their governor-elect carrying a hod? Certainly they
would respect him the more if they saw him in working
garb at such a menial task, at least the working classes
would and there were a lot more of them who had voted
for him.</p>
<p>When the furnaces were filled and burning well he carried
<span class="pb" id="Page_30">30</span>
up several armloads of wood, panting a little from the
steepness of the stairs. Edith sat beside the fire holding
small Quentin, while Kermit crawled about her feet, pushing
a toy cannon about and yelling “Bang!”</p>
<p>Edith looked him over, aghast. “Theodore, those are
your church clothes!”</p>
<p>“I had overalls over them and a jacket, but I’m going up
to change now to take the children out.”</p>
<p>Kermit jumped up and rushed after him, shouting,
“Father’s going out to play. Father’s going out to play.”</p>
<p>Alice emerged from her room where she had been stowing
away her Christmas presents, and in the nursery Ethel
hastily put her doll to bed and flew out.</p>
<p>“May we climb trees, Father?” she asked.</p>
<p>“Not today. It’s too damp and cold. Today we’ll play
in the barn.”</p>
<p>Archie woke up then and came trudging after his father.
“Are you going to shave, Father? May we watch you
shave?”</p>
<p>“No, I’m not going to shave. Find your coat and cap.
Mame’s asleep and Mother’s busy with the baby. Ted!
Where are you? This expedition is about to start. Overshoes
for everybody. Bring yours in here, Archie, and I’ll
buckle them for you.”</p>
<p>It was Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite march, over the
yard and out through the fences to the old barn that he
had sentimentally left standing when he built Sagamore
Hill because, he told himself, it had such a nice big haymow.
When he had pushed forward with his men at San
Juan Hill, struggling through thorny brush where poisonous
snakes lurked, slipping and sliding over the matted vegetation,
he had had the same feeling of leading a troop of
<span class="pb" id="Page_31">31</span>
trusting souls as he had now, propping the heavy barn door
open till the last straggler panted through.</p>
<p>“I speak to play cowboy,” shouted Ted.</p>
<p>“You need outdoors for cowboys,” Alice objected, “and
horses!”</p>
<p>“Can’t we have the pony out, Father?” Ted begged.
“Grant hasn’t had any exercise today.”</p>
<p>“No, I promised Mother we’d play inside. It’s fairly warm
in here. Who’ll be first up the ladder?”</p>
<p>“Me!” shrilled adventurous Ethel. “But we can’t climb
with these overshoes on. They’re too slippery.”</p>
<p>“Stack them all here neatly. And nobody is to turn and
jump back down that ladder,” their father ordered.</p>
<p>“She did one day,” declared Kermit, “she landed right
on my stomach.”</p>
<p>“You had your stomach in the way of my feet.” Ethel
flashed quickly up the ladder. The others came after, Theodore
taking the rear to help Archie, who had to be lifted
up the last steps. The mow above was high and lighted by
a dusty window. The roof had chinks here and there between
the aged shingles, letting in pale beams of light that
showed the ragged mounds of hay with a pitchfork sticking
up out of one stack.</p>
<p>Ted promptly seized this and began waving it, shouting,
“I’m a Rough Rider. I choose Father with me. The rest of
you can be Spaniards.”</p>
<p>Theodore recovered the menacing weapon firmly and
stood it in a far corner. “No Rough Rider fought with a
pitchfork. I’ll be the Spaniards. The rest of you can attack
from those stacks over there. Remember we beat the Spaniards!”</p>
<p>There was a great deal of yelling “Bang! Bang!” and
<span class="pb" id="Page_32">32</span>
when the hay was pretty well flattened and the children
swarming over him Roosevelt obligingly lay flat pretending
to gasp and moan from a lethal wound. His acting was
so realistic that Ethel began to cry.</p>
<p>“I don’t like being Spaniards,” she wailed. “I don’t want
to hurt Father.”</p>
<p>He sat up, reaching for her. “I’m not hurt,” he comforted,
“just slightly out of breath. That hay is dusty. Now
everybody help. We’ll pile it up again.” He retrieved the
pitchfork and set to work, flinging forkfuls of hay in the
air while the children gathered up as much as they could
hold.</p>
<p>They achieved a beautifully rounded stack that almost
reached the rafters and instantly Kermit and Ethel flung
themselves at it, squealing happily.</p>
<p>“Stop! You’ll tear it down,” yelled Ted, blinking as the
last ray of sun through the shingles glinted off his spectacles.
“I want it all round and pretty.”</p>
<p>“We’ll play Indians and this is the Bad Lands of Dakota,”
said his father. “Ted and Kermit will be Indians and the
girls and Archie and I will be the settlers hiding from
them.”</p>
<p>“I want to be an Indian,” Archie protested. “I can yell
loud.” He emitted a piercing whoop to prove it.</p>
<p>“Indians don’t yell,” said Ted, scornfully. “They creep
out of ambush very stealthily.” He quoted triumphantly
from the stories their father had read to them. “They like
to surprise their victims.”</p>
<p>“When they’re on horseback they yell,” Roosevelt said.
“But you’ll be prowling Indians. They know how to be
still as mice. And twice as deadly.” He twined a spray of
hay through Archie’s hair for a feather. Instantly Ted and
<span class="pb" id="Page_33">33</span>
Kermit had to have feathers too and tying knots in their
short hair to hold a dry wisp of hay erect was a slow business.</p>
<p>“I wish we had some war paint,” said Ted, studying his
brothers with grudging approval. “I could have used some
of my water colors if I’d known we were going to play
Indians.”</p>
<p>“You’d get it on your shirt and Mame would scold,”
Kermit reminded him.</p>
<p>“She scolds anyway,” remarked Ted. “Mame is a very
scoldy person.”</p>
<p>“Your faces are dirty enough to pass for Indians,” stated
their father. “And remember that Mame is good and faithful
and devoted to you children. You must always be kind
to Mame and respectful and never talk back to her.”</p>
<p>“Ethel kicked her once,” Ted tattled.</p>
<p>“She swept up my paper doll hats. Anyway, I didn’t
kick her hard and I got punished for it.”</p>
<p>Theodore Roosevelt knew that his children, indulged
as they were in many ways, were sure that retribution for
any misbehavior was certain and swift, relentlessly applied
after any wrongdoing. His was always the correcting hand
when he was at home, Edith always resigning that job to
her husband, and he comforted himself with the idea that
when they were bad they were still pretty good children.
At least they were truthful, only Kermit now and then letting
his facile imagination run ahead of him too fast but he
was always sternly corrected for it, and as a rule his brothers
and sisters dealt scornfully with his fancies.</p>
<p>“Now, the settlers will hide, and the Indians have to find
them, and any redskin who is recognized gets shot,” Roosevelt
outlined the rules.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_34">34</div>
<p>“I wish I had a sunbonnet,” said Alice, as she made a
little nest for herself far down in the warm hay. “Settlers’
wives always wore sunbonnets.”</p>
<p>“You’re wearing an imaginary sunbonnet,” said her
father. “Tie it tightly under your chin and I’ll get my
imaginary gun ready. Keep quiet, boys, and hide far down
there behind the hay.”</p>
<p>He helped the girls to crouch deep in the dry stack,
Alice disliking the tickle of the hay on her neck and impatiently
slapping at it while Ethel burrowed happily as a
mole.</p>
<p>“Holler when you’re ready,” called Ted from the opposite
side of the stack.</p>
<p>“Settlers never let Indians know where they are hiding,”
objected their father, who had dug himself deep into a pile;
more excited and intrigued by the game than the young
ones.</p>
<p>The Indians finally advanced, stealth being somewhat
diminished by giggles from Archie and muttered orders to
be quiet from Ted. Kermit gave a war whoop as he sprang
at his father but landed in a heap where Roosevelt promptly
dispatched him with an imaginary pistol and a very realistic
“Bang.” Farther around the pile there were screams and
snarls as Ted crept down on Ethel and grabbed her pig-tailed
hair.</p>
<p>“You’re scalped!” he shouted. “You’re dead and scalped!”</p>
<p>Ethel promptly rolled on her back, walled up her eyes
and made a melancholy face so realistic that Ted began to
whimper.</p>
<p>“Make her stop, Father! She’s scaring me!”</p>
<p>“The game is over,” announced Roosevelt, lifting Kermit
<span class="pb" id="Page_35">35</span>
to his feet. Close by Alice and Archie had been tussling,
Alice subduing the attack by tickling the Indian till he
squirmed and giggled. “Brush the hay off your clothes.
Now we’ll mend the stack again and see who can jump the
farthest.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s easy!” bragged Ethel, reviving from the
dead. “I can. I always do beat the boys.”</p>
<p>“You can’t beat me if Father will hold my glasses,” Ted
objected.</p>
<p>“Stack hay and don’t argue. Archie, take off your jacket,
you’ve got the back of your shirt full of hay.”</p>
<p>“It’s inside mine too,” said Kermit. “It scratches.”</p>
<p>“If we had been real Indians we wouldn’t have on shirts,
we’d just have some stripes of war paint.” Ted began busily
piling up the hay. “That game wasn’t fair anyway because
Archie giggled and Alice forgot to shoot quick.”</p>
<p>“He fell on me.” She stood up. “Oh me! There’s Mame,
scared to death to climb the ladder. Father, don’t make us
go in yet.”</p>
<p>Mame’s head, wrapped in a crocheted wool scarf, showed
halfway up the ladder. “Gentlemen to see the Colonel,”
she announced, “Mrs. Roosevelt says it’s important.”</p>
<p>“Don’t go, Father,” pleaded Ted. “Tell Mother to send
them away.”</p>
<p>“I can’t do that, Ted, because from now on I’m the servant
of the people of New York. Ask them to wait by the
fire, Mame, tell them I’ll be in presently.” Roosevelt shook
the hay from his shirt and jacket and studied the disappointed
faces of his children. All the faces were definitely
grimy but each one reflected woe.</p>
<p>“Go ahead,” Roosevelt directed when Mame had backed
<span class="pb" id="Page_36">36</span>
gingerly down the ladder. “Oldest jump first. See how high
you can land on the hay. We can jump for ten minutes.”
He took out his watch.</p>
<p>Fifteen minutes later he led his bedraggled, breathless
crew back to the house, entering through the rear door
though usually he was most unconcerned about his own
appearance, especially when the children were with him.
But now, with his new responsibilities, he was beginning
to be aware that he owed a certain distinction of attire to
these people who had elected him to the most important
office in the most important state. Also he was thinking
uneasily of Edith’s carefully disciplined but inwardly disapproving
attitude.</p>
<p>Mame met them in the hall, her own disapproval not
masked at all. “I declare, you always seem to bring them
back looking like ragamuffins, Colonel Roosevelt! Hurry
up, all of you! Colonel, you’ve got a dirty face yourself.
Your guests are in the library. Mrs. Roosevelt had me serve
them some wine.”</p>
<p>As he hurried up the stairs Roosevelt was hoping that
this waiting group would not be church dignitaries or any
others who would resent being served wine. Edith was in
their room changing for dinner after tending Quentin all
afternoon. She looked at him and shook her head.</p>
<p>“Well, at least you did come up to change.” She sounded
relieved. “I don’t know who they are. Mame let them in.
After tending the baby all afternoon I wasn’t presentable
myself. The nurse will be back at nine o’clock, thank goodness.
I let her go home for Christmas. Hurry and change.
They’ve already been there half an hour, with a horse waiting
out there in the cold.”</p>
<p>Through the window they could see a handsome bay
<span class="pb" id="Page_37">37</span>
horse and smart carriage waiting outside, the horse well
blanketed and secured by an iron weight.</p>
<p>“Looks really important,” said Theodore, as he washed
the dust of the loft off his face. “But they could have waited
till Christmas was over and given a man a chance for a day
in peace with his family.”</p>
<p>“Tomorrow it will be worse,” she reminded him. “You’ll
have to be excused to sort your papers and I shall have to
oversee the packing. We have just four days to get to
Albany and I’d hate you to miss your own inauguration
ceremony.”</p>
<p>“Is this jacket all right? After all, I’m supposed to be informal
at home.”</p>
<p>“It will do. Straighten your tie. You always seem to get
the knot slightly crooked.”</p>
<p>“So you will have some reason to notice me, my dear.”</p>
<p>He kissed her, grinning like a boy, and hurried down the
stairs thinking that his Edith was still the loveliest thing
alive and the best thing that had ever happened to one
Theodore Roosevelt.</p>
<p>The three men rose as he entered the library and introduced
themselves, though he already knew their identity
having had some dealings with them when he was Police
Commissioner of New York City. They were all members
of the Board of Authority, a department of the city government,
and immediately Roosevelt sensed that their mission
was to gain some advantage in advance from the governor-elect.</p>
<p>The idea angered him and he made an excuse to mend
the fire, poking and banging till he had worked off his momentary
attack of spleen. Then he was ready for their
proposal which came promptly, voiced in turn by each of
<span class="pb" id="Page_38">38</span>
the three. Roosevelt said nothing, sitting rubbing the back
of his neck as he often did absently when he was trying to
keep a cool head, a thing that with his impetuous nature
and itch for action was not easy for him to do.</p>
<p>Finally, when their bland recital of their purpose in coming
here—intruding on a father’s holiday at home—was all
stated, the last part in concert, he jumped to his feet, paced
across the room and back and braced himself facing them.</p>
<p>“Gentlemen, you have asked me to intervene in this matter
which primarily affects only the City of New York, and
your office, authority and functions in that city. Let me remind
you in the first instance that I am not yet governor
of New York nor will I be for several days. Secondly, I
remind you that interference of this type is no function of
the governor, and that your appeal (if it is an appeal)
should be lodged with the proper authority to consider it.
After that, gentlemen, I bid you good day.”</p>
<p>The three men went out grumbling and Theodore
stamped up the stairs angrily, to where Edith sat by the
fire, rocking Quentin, who had the sniffles, to sleep.</p>
<p>“Low, unprincipled scoundrels,” he stormed, “coming
out here on Christmas Day to ask a favor of me knowing
all the time it would be utterly outside all order and sense
for me even to consider it.”</p>
<p>“There will be a great deal of that in a state like New
York,” Edith reminded him. “You might as well make up
your mind to accept it and be able to combat it calmly.
Your experience as Police Commissioner certainly taught
you that.” Edith was not too certain in her mind that anything
she said would do any good. Theodore’s first impulse
was always to fight any imposition or injustice toward himself
or any other innocent party, whether the war was
<span class="pb" id="Page_39">39</span>
waged against the oppressed Cubans or against civic or
national righteousness.</p>
<p>That he was usually effective only increased his crusader’s
urge and his wife had her own moments of trepidation
about facing his career as governor. She had a clear and
analytic mind that was always able to face truth even in its
ugliest mien and she had a quiet dread of all those stone
walls of intrenched selfishness and evil against which Theodore
Roosevelt’s militant nature might hurl itself in vain.
He had had so many high periods of satisfaction and
achievement these past years he had become an idol to
many but she knew that from the dawn of the history of
the world the lands of it had been paved with the scattered
dust of fallen idols.</p>
<p>She said then, “Mame is bathing the boys and Ethel, and
they’ll go to bed early. Then you and I and Alice will have
a quiet supper downstairs. The cook came in just a few
minutes ago. Poor soul, she spent nearly the whole of
Christmas afternoon just going over to see her sister and
carry her a white fascinator she had crocheted. She was too
conscientious about her duty here to take time even for a
Christmas visit.”</p>
<p>But Theodore was still not soothed or mollified. “Those
fellows who came here had the presumption to ask me to
intervene in a civic matter that concerns only their own
interests in the City of New York.” He resumed his angry
self-justification, “I practically showed them the door.
They were important men and politically powerful and
now I have undoubtedly made three powerful and influential
enemies.”</p>
<p>“You’ll make more, Theodore. You always have when
you were in a position of power just as every man does.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_40">40</div>
<p>“Those fellows infuriated me by implying that at this
stage of my public life I would risk being devious. All right,
my dear, I won’t let them spoil our Christmas, what’s left
of it. You are an angel to listen so understandingly to my
tantrums. And before I forget it let me tell you you are
just as pretty and sweet and cute as you were when you
were sixteen years old.” He bent and kissed her.</p>
<p>“When I was sixteen I was an awful prig,” she said. “I remember.
I wasn’t much better when you married me.”</p>
<p>“You were perfect when you married me. I was the humblest,
most grateful man on earth that you were willing to
risk a life with a rough, tactless fellow like me. But it has
all been pretty good, hasn’t it, Edie? Now,” he promised,
“it will be even better.”</p>
<p>Alice came in then looking a trifle wan. “Aren’t we going
to have supper soon? I’m starving. The boys and Ethel
are eating already in the nursery. I tried to beg a piece of
cold turkey but Mame made me go out and leave them
alone. Mame,” she remarked, with a little flare of self-importance,
“ought to realize that I’m almost a young lady.”</p>
<p>“Mame will realize it when you act like a young lady,”
said her father, “and not like a spoiled child. Let’s go now.
Mother has to put the baby to bed, then she’ll be
down.”</p>
<p>He took his daughter’s hand, though he sensed that irritated
her, but squeezed it gently with a comradely pressure
and they ran down the last few steps laughing as they entered
the dining room, where a cold supper was spread.</p>
<p>“We’re both out of breath,” he remarked. “We’ve got
to run more. We’ll start tomorrow. In Albany—”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to go,” she wailed abruptly. “I want to
stay here.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_41">41</div>
<p>“We’d all like to stay here,” he said, “even if there are
times when this house is as hard to heat as it has been
lately.”</p>
<p>“Davis tends the furnace better,” said Alice with the
bluntness that was beginning to be a characteristic of hers.
It was like his own forthrightness, he admitted. Fortunately
as the years went on an acquired tact and his innate kindness
saved him from too many blunders, and Edith’s influence
helped tame his impetuous instinct to speak out before he
thoughtfully considered a subject.</p>
<p>Edith came in then and Roosevelt gallantly seated his
wife and daughter, making both gestures equally formal to
Alice’s evident approval. Then he picked up the carving
knife but laid it down at an admonishing look from Edith.</p>
<p>“Alice, will you say grace?” he asked politely.</p>
<p>When she had finished he surveyed the remains of what
had been a huge turkey.</p>
<p>“Our bird seems to have suffered from the ravages of a
hungry tribe of Roosevelts,” he turned it over. “I do find
a little dark meat left and some dressing. And oh yes, here
is the intact remainder of the liver. Alice, you may have
that. It makes red blood and you’ll need it when you tackle
the beginnings of algebra and French. My dear,” he bowed
across the table, “how will you have your bones?”</p>
<p>“Anything edible,” said Edith. “I’m not at all particular.”</p>
<p>She sat at the foot of the table looking every inch the
poised, self-contained and gracious mistress of his house.
He knew that she was good for him, taming his occasional
warlike impulses as perhaps no other woman could have
done. One quieting word from her was usually enough to
steady him and calm his rages as she had just done without
in the least appearing to do, upstairs.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_42">42</div>
<p>Alice began her argument again. “Mother, why can’t I
go to Albany with the rest of the family?”</p>
<p>“Because your mother’s family want you to have every
advantage, Alice.” Edith spoke quietly, waving off an interruption
from Theodore with a flick of her hand, “You
must be grateful for them and for the education they are
able to give you. A girl like you is born with an obligation
to make the most of herself and I am sure you will, as I
hope my own children will too.”</p>
<p>“That sounds like a lecture,” fretted Alice. “I’ll get
enough lectures from my aunts and grandmother. They
are always lecturing me to be a lady and I think ladies are
stupid. I’d like to go to Dakota with Father and be a cowgirl.
I ride better then the boys do now.”</p>
<p>“Your aunt will probably see to it that you have riding
lessons in New York,” Edith said.</p>
<p>“I know about those. Side saddle and a derby hat and
horses so slow and stodgy they won’t gallop. I had some
the last time I was there at grandmother’s, with a silly groom
leading the horse around by the bridle.”</p>
<p>Edith sighed. She had devotedly tried to do her best for
Theodore’s daughter but Alice, like her father, had been
born a rebel with an individuality that would always resent
any set pattern of behavior. At least, Edith comforted herself,
the responsibility was not hers alone nor could she
reproach herself if inherited traits were too strong. Thank
goodness there was no rampant individuality in her own
small daughter! Ethel was usually as placid as a Dutch
housewife, though she could not be imposed upon and always
stood stubbornly for her own rights.</p>
<p>Dinner was not quite over when two small figures appeared
at the dining room door. In their nightclothes Kermit
<span class="pb" id="Page_43">43</span>
and Ethel stood there, their small feet blue with cold.</p>
<p>“Go back to bed quickly, you’ll catch your death of
cold!” their mother scolded, herding them back toward
the stairway.</p>
<p>“I’ll come along,” said Theodore. “I’ll just go back and
find the chivalry book, as Ted calls it.”</p>
<p>“You spoil them,” protested his wife. “They were up
before dawn this morning.”</p>
<p>“Early yet,” he made excuse, “only a little after eight.”</p>
<p>“It’s almost nine,” she corrected. “Supper was late because
Christmas upset the household routine. Jump in bed,
both of you. Kermit, wait—we’ll have to wipe off the bottoms
of your feet. You forgot your slippers again.”</p>
<p>“They fall off. Anyway, they’re not so very dirty.”</p>
<p>“Too black for the sheets.” Mame came in then as Edith
was tucking the covers around Ethel.</p>
<p>“They slipped out when I was back in my room,” she
explained. “Kermit is always slipping out of his bed. He’d
sleep under it half the time if I didn’t watch him, makes me
feel like tying him into it.”</p>
<p>“I can untie knots,” he said defiantly, “or I could chew
the rope in two.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be saucy,” his mother said, sponging the thin
grimy toes. “Run along, Mame, Colonel Roosevelt is coming
up to read to them.”</p>
<p>“It’ll be battles or Injun fighting and get them all stirred
up and excited,” grumbled Mame as she went out.</p>
<p>Alice followed her father into the nursery. “I’m surely
glad I have my own room,” she said. “There’s just no peace
or privacy in this nursery any more.”</p>
<p>“It’s time you were in bed too, Alice,” said her stepmother.
“You were up before dawn this morning.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_44">44</div>
<p>“I want to hear the story,” Alice was plaintive. “I promise
to go to bed right after. After all I won’t be with
Father very much longer.”</p>
<p>“Let her stay, I’ll hustle her to bed right after,” said
Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Ted sat up, regarded the book his father was opening.
“I vote for Sir Lancelot,” he announced firmly.</p>
<p>“I vote for dragons,” said Kermit. “I like stories with
dragons with fire coming out their noses.”</p>
<p>“Are there any dragons in Dakota, Father?” Ethel wanted
to know. “Where you shot all the animals? Those up on
the wall?”</p>
<p>“Of course not!” Alice was scornful. “Dragons are a
fairy tale like gnomes and giants.”</p>
<p>“Goliath wasn’t a fairy tale,” declared Ted. “He is in
the Bible and the Bible is the Word of God.”</p>
<p>“Goliath was a tall, strong man,” said his father. “We
still see and hear of very tall, strong men who in that day
when most men were short would have been called giants.
I knew a cowhand in the West who was seven feet tall
without his boots. When he rode an average size cow pony
his feet almost touched the ground, he could step over a
yearling calf or a fence as easily as you can step over a
threshold.”</p>
<p>“I can jump over a fence,” bragged Kermit, “if I can
climb up a little way.”</p>
<p>“Ponies can jump over without climbing,” said Ted, “but
they have very strong muscles in their back legs. They can
kick hard too. Grant kicked a pig once and made him roll
over and squeal loud. He tried to eat my straw hat once
too.”</p>
<p>“You were crawling around under his front legs. He saw
<span class="pb" id="Page_45">45</span>
the hat and thought it was good to eat,” Alice defended
her pet pony.</p>
<p>“That was the summer Father found the big hollow tree
and he let us down inside it on a rope. You wouldn’t remember
that, Ethel, you were just a baby.”</p>
<p>“She was three. Father let her down too,” Alice recalled,
“and she was scared to death and screamed.”</p>
<p>“It was dark down there,” said their father. “We will
now end all reminiscing and read the book. But first, Alice,
toss a little light wood on that fire.”</p>
<p>“I like open fires better than radiators,” Alice said. “On
radiators you can’t toast marshmallows. And if you put
your feet on one with rubbers on they smell awful.”</p>
<p>The old tale of Sir Lancelot and the wicked Sir Modred,
the wizard and the dragon, held them enthralled for fifteen
minutes. Theodore was a slow and dramatic reader and
though the book was a simplified version for children it was
not too simplified and he skipped none of the long words,
but enunciated each clearly, sometimes pausing to make the
older ones say what the word meant and speak it several
times. Ted already had a mature vocabulary for his age
and the children had heard very little baby talk from their
parents, though an occasional visitor was apt to gush and
coo, to the boys’ thinly veiled disgust.</p>
<p>Archie was already asleep when the story was finished
and Kermit’s eyes were glazing though he fought to keep
them open. When Alice followed her father out she observed
in a suave tone of superiority that reminded Theodore
vaguely of his own mother. “After all, Father, we
have to remember that they are only children. Archie is
practically an infant yet.”</p>
<p>“We’ll remember that, Alice, and be very charitable in
<span class="pb" id="Page_46">46</span>
our judgments,” he answered with the same gravity. “Now
you scamper before Mother scolds both of us.”</p>
<p>Suddenly she flung her arms around him. “Oh, Father,
I don’t want to go back to New York. I hate it! Why can’t
I go to Albany with you?”</p>
<p>“That has been all decided and explained to you. Your
mother’s family are very fond of you and do a great deal
for you, and you must be grateful. Not many young girls
are so lucky.”</p>
<p>“There are so many rules,” she sighed. “Life is too bewildering
and mixed up for a young girl.”</p>
<p>“What a young girl needs at this stage of her growth is
sleep.” He gave her a fatherly smack. “Get along with you
now, and be content for a few years to leave the problems
to older people who love you and want the best for you.”</p>
<p>She was halfway down the stairs and she left him very
reluctantly and backed up the rest of the flight, calling
“Good night, Father.”</p>
<p>When she was safely in her room he went back to the
library fire where Edith was sitting, on her knee a piece
of embroidery stretched on a hoop.</p>
<p>“All should now be silent.” He dropped gratefully into
a deep chair. “From the way my own eyelids feel I’ll be
ready to join them in unconsciousness very soon. This has
been a long day.”</p>
<p>“And tomorrow will be another,” she said, “but this has
been a good day. For me at least. When none of the children
are ailing with anything,” spoke the mother, “I am
content. I hope and pray we don’t have too many visitors
to usurp your time tomorrow, as no one else can sort and
pack most of your personal papers.”</p>
<p>“Undoubtedly the locusts will descend as they usually
<span class="pb" id="Page_47">47</span>
do on a new man in office. Favors, always favors, and if
they can get in a word before the other fellow they have
the urge to speak it. And only one answer I can give them
now, no matter how righteous their plea. When that is no
longer timely I’ll have to depend on the grace of God to
give me wisdom but fortunately there will be other people
between me and so much importunity.” He got to his feet
looking aghast. “Don’t tell me that’s somebody else! I hear
a horse and wheels.”</p>
<p>“It may be Davis. Sometimes he borrows a horse to go
to his preaching service. You assured him it was all right.”
She folded her work and stood too, listening. “No, they are
stopping outside, whoever it may be. I’ll go up now, Theodore.
No one wants to see me at this time of night.”</p>
<p>The wheels outside were silent and though it was too
dark and lowering to see anything, Theodore heard two
persons mounting the front steps, moving very lightly. He
went to the front door carrying a lamp with him, and held
it high to study the faces of his visitors. One was a gaunt,
middle-aged woman in a thin coat, her head tied up in a
wool scarf, the other a lank boy about fifteen who clawed
off his hat and ducked his head in embarrassment.</p>
<p>“Evening, sir,” said the woman, bobbing stiffly. Her
ungloved hands were blue with cold, and her lips were blue
and bitten. “I’m Dorsie Witten come from away up in
Oneida. I’ve come a long way to see you, sir. Part of the
ways by train and the rest with this hired rig. I sold two
good cows to fetch the money to come to see you when
you got elected governor and I hope you’ll listen patient
to a heart-broke mother’s story.”</p>
<p>“Come in! Come in out of the cold.” Theodore held the
door wide, the raw wind flaring the lamp. When they were
<span class="pb" id="Page_48">48</span>
inside he said, “Any woman who has come so far deserves
to be heard though I can’t promise I can do anything for
you. I’m not even governor of New York yet, you know.”</p>
<p>“Well, you will be, sir. Clint here said I should wait till
you come to Albany that wasn’t so fur for us to travel, but
I said there’d be so many bigwigs crowding in to see you
then I’d never even get let in much less get a chance to
talk to you.”</p>
<p>“I hope no one will be turned away who really needs to
see me, madam, but the governor of a big state like New
York is a mighty busy man as you can understand,” he
said. “Please sit down here by the fire and tell me your
business and make it brief if you don’t mind, for with five
children and the Christmas holiday I’ve had a long day.”</p>
<p>“Is this Christmas?” she looked bewildered. “You know
since Ollie got in trouble I’ve been so worried and upset I
don’t know Sunday from Monday. You see, Governor,
Ollie—Oliver he was named for his grandfather—is my oldest
boy and my dependence. I tried to raise both of my boys
good and honorable and Ollie wasn’t bad, Governor, he
wasn’t a bad boy, he was just quick-tempered like his daddy.
Eph, my husband, was fire and tow, he had a terrible temper
and was easy to get mad, that’s how come Eph to get
into trouble.”</p>
<p>“You’re here to see me about your husband?” he asked.</p>
<p>“No, sir, can’t nothing be done for Eph. I been to the
other governor a’ready. He’s in Sing Sing for the rest of
his life. He got mad years ago and cut a man terrible so he
died and they sent him up the river for it but it’s Ollie that’s
worrying me. Ollie’s only nineteen years old. Ollie killed a
man, Governor, and I ain’t defending him but it was in a
fair fight. Ollie shot to save his own life.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">49</div>
<p>“He did not claim he shot in self-defense? A man has a
right to defend himself, in law, Mrs. Witten,” Roosevelt
said.</p>
<p>“Well, they brought out in the trial that the other feller
was shot in the back and didn’t have a gun with him. But
he was heading for where it stood, Governor, Ollie said
so and I believe him. Ollie was just smart and shot quick,
knowing the other feller was a crack shot and would get
him from a long ways off. Now they’re sending Ollie up
where his father is, and I got nobody to depend on but
Clint, and he ain’t just right in his head, and I got three
little ones, all girls. Clint forgets everything. Come in from
the field and wander off to town and leave the mules out
there hitched to the plow all night if the children and I
didn’t go out and fetch ’em in. I’ve finished many a field
myself, leaving my children playing in a furrow.” She
twisted her thin hands together, casting reproachful glances
at Clint, whose stolid face showed no emotion whatever.</p>
<p>Roosevelt looked with some compassion at the woman’s
ravaged face and thin body. How many such would he see
in the next two years, harassed, frightened women, all desperately
pleading mercy for violent-tempered husbands or
sons? For an instant the prospect appalled him and briefly
he dreaded the heavy responsibility of a great human population.</p>
<p>Then sober judgment came, steadying his nerves, and he
spoke in a calm, fatherly voice. “Mrs. Witten, I know
nothing of the facts in this case of your son. A man who
shoots another in the back condemns himself from the first
in the minds of all sober men.”</p>
<p>“I been tellin’ Ma that,” stated Clint, speaking for the
first time in a voice surprisingly masculine and deep coming
<span class="pb" id="Page_50">50</span>
from such an undersized, emaciated body. “All the way
down here I told her it was a waste of money comin’ way
down here just to see you. Them was good cows we sold
to pay for it too.”</p>
<p>“You know I’m not yet governor of New York,” Roosevelt
reminded her. “I have no legal right to do anything
about any case, especially one that has been already settled
in the courts and the defendant convicted. What possible
defense could your son have for shooting an unarmed man
in the back? Didn’t he testify in his own defense?”</p>
<p>“He swore he thought that feller—Morgan Tuttle was
his name—was going after his gun and Ollie knowed Morgan
was a dead shot. He could have killed Ollie from a
hundred yards off and Ollie knowed it. They was huntin’
together up in the mountains.”</p>
<p>“That was what the fight was about,” put in Clint. “Deer
they shot up in them hills. Morgan wasn’t going to divide
fair.”</p>
<p>“Was that the legal season to kill a deer?” Roosevelt
asked. “I thought they were protected by law.”</p>
<p>“No, it wasn’t, but it come out in the trial anyway because
Morgan’s wife blabbed to the law,” Clint supplied.
“We ain’t paid Ollie’s lawyer yet but he didn’t do nothin’
nohow.”</p>
<p>“There was little he could do in the face of the evidence,”
said Roosevelt.</p>
<p>“He said that,” she admitted, “and he said he aimed to
charge us a hundred dollars when he didn’t do nothing.”</p>
<p>“Did he make you any promises?”</p>
<p>“No, sir, he wouldn’t do that. He just said he’d do his
best but he didn’t do nothin’,” insisted Clint.</p>
<p>“It’s hard to justify any man who shoots another in the
<span class="pb" id="Page_51">51</span>
back, even if he has a weapon handy,” argued Roosevelt.
“After all Ollie could have run. He didn’t have to stand
still and let the other man shoot at him.”</p>
<p>“That’s what the judge said,” Clint added.</p>
<p>“My men wasn’t never no hand to run away from trouble,”
remarked Mrs. Witten. “They always faced up to
trouble mighty bold.”</p>
<p>“It’s not being bold to shoot a man in the back,” commented
the hero of San Juan Hill, letting a little twinge of
guilty memory come over him briefly. How many men of
the Spanish troops had he shot in the back in Cuba? But
that was war. The enemy had had the same chance to get him
from the rear and he had known it. As Ollie had had the
chance to run, so had the soldiers of Spain the chance to
surrender but no man liked the thought of killing a human
being and soldiers had to be hardened before they could do
it, except in desperation to save their own lives. Only the
toughest ones had no qualms, and it was ironic that usually
they made the best infantry troops.</p>
<p>He had had a few timorous and squeamish fellows in his
Rough Riders but when the fighting got hot they forgot
their scruples and came through gallantly.</p>
<p>He sent the two Wittens away finally, promising to look
into the case of Ollie Witten further when he came into
office:</p>
<p>“I assume you want an official pardon for your son?
There is nothing else that can be done when a man is already
serving his sentence except a parole. And with Ollie’s record
of violence I doubt that could be attained. A pardon
on a hardship plea would be your only hope.”</p>
<p>“He got life like Pa,” Clint said, “and they told us he
was mighty lucky.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_52">52</div>
<p>“He was lucky to escape the death penalty. How long
has he been in prison?”</p>
<p>“Since October it was,” said the mother. “We a’ready
been to the governor—him that was governor before you
got elected, sir, but he said he couldn’t do nothin’. So I told
Clint we’d wait till a new governor got elected and soon
as the corn was in we got somebody to tend the place and
we come here.”</p>
<p>“I fear you had a long, expensive and fruitless trip,” said
Roosevelt dubiously, escorting them to the door. “Do you
plan to go home tonight?”</p>
<p>“Train leaves at midnight and it’s a fur piece from here,”
Clint answered. “Come on, Ma, we got to hurry. I told you
he wasn’t going to do nothin’, that we was just wastin’ time
and money. And a cow home fixing to come fresh any
day.”</p>
<p>Theodore Roosevelt went back up the stairs feeling
heavy and depressed. Edith looked up from the bed as he
came into the room with a lighted candle.</p>
<p>“You look unhappy,” she said. “More office seekers? But
I thought I heard a woman’s voice.”</p>
<p>“You did. A poor woman whose husband is in Sing Sing
and her son has just been sent there, both for murder. The
son killed another man, shot him in the back, but she
thought I could do something about it, because she has
other children and needs him on the farm. She had a boy
with her about fifteen years old, she said he was not right
in the head but he seemed shrewd enough, talked as intelligently
as his mother and had a clearer idea of the
difficulties of doing anything in a case like this than she
did.”</p>
<p>“Mothers have too tender hearts always to have good
<span class="pb" id="Page_53">53</span>
sober judgment,” said Edith quietly. “They have a way of
letting their emotions obscure their common sense, especially
where their children are concerned. Aren’t you coming
to bed? You have a hard day tomorrow with Heaven
knows how many interruptions to frustrate you in getting
things done.”</p>
<p>“I think I’ll walk outside a little. I don’t feel like sleeping
yet. A bit of exercise will steady my nerves.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know you had that sort of nerves, Theodore.”</p>
<p>“Now and then they take possession of me. Do you
know, Edie,” he sat on the edge of the bed, “there are times
when I shrink a little from this job I have set myself? After
all New York is a big state, the most important state in
the Union.”</p>
<p>“And you are a big man,” she consoled him. “And since
San Juan Hill you have been about the biggest man in the
Union.”</p>
<p>“Hero worship. Public hysteria. It can die as quickly as
it flames and it leaves some mighty cold and bitter ashes.
There are vast numbers of forgotten heroes in this country,
men who rode the crest of a popular wave and deluded
themselves into thinking it would last forever. You can be
an old story overnight, and forgotten in a month if another
object of exciting interest appears. And there’s nothing so
forlorn and pitiable as an out-of-date and out-of-fashion
hero. Well, I’ll try the open air for a little. Usually it helps
my thinking to use my legs and from now on through the
rest of the winter I’ll have little time or opportunity to
do it.”</p>
<p>He went downstairs and let himself quietly out the front
door, first remembering his wife’s admonition to put on a
heavy jacket. Buttoning an old army coat up to his chin, he
<span class="pb" id="Page_54">54</span>
pulled on a battered old campaign hat, rain- and sun-stained
and faded, with the insigne of the Rough Riders still pinned
upon it, but now slightly tarnished.</p>
<p>A thin spit of snow was still drifting and the air was
damp with the feel of the sea in it, but not bitterly freezing.
He strode down the hill from the house and took a path
that led through the wooded land where he had so often
worked off his surplus energies by chopping down trees
and carefully cutting them into firewood. There was a pile
of cordwood on the edge of the timber and he stopped
there and hefted a log, lifting it off the top of the pile, balancing
it on his shoulder as woodsmen learn to do.</p>
<p>The rough bark, held close to his face, smelled sharply
of acid, so he knew it was a branch from the wild cherry
tree that had rotted at the heart. It had been hard and tough
to cut, requiring all his muscles to shape it for sawing into
logs for the fireplaces, but he had exulted in the job of conquering
this old tree just as he had gloried in every strenuous
task he had ever set himself.</p>
<p>He laid the log back on the stack, sending down a shower
of dry bark, wondering when he would be free to chop
wood again or wander these hills followed by his adoring
children, or swim in the Bay or teach Quentin to dive off
the diving board. He had instructed all the youngsters there,
tossing them into deep water relentlessly, ready to fish them
out if they foundered, but confident that they would conquer
their fears and learn to paddle about, being his own
children.</p>
<p>At any rate, he told himself, he was a lucky man, and if
there were times when public life irked him a little, bringing
a faint regret that outside affairs kept him from the
quiet life he loved, he had to balance all the rewards against
<span class="pb" id="Page_55">55</span>
the slight feeling of frustration, count the honors as recompense.</p>
<p>Destiny had somehow set his feet upon a road and he felt
at times a deep secret apprehension of where the road
might lead. So far he had found himself adequate to any
task that confronted him, and standing still in the quiet
night air he felt the muscles of his spirit tense and a glow
pervade his body.</p>
<p>He was not blind or deaf to certain portents in the air
and, though he never spoke of them or let his mind dwell
upon them, they still lingered, buried deep in his consciousness.
There was always the echo of casual words spoken, of
gay songs being sung.</p>
<div class="verse">
<p class="t0"><i>We’ll send you to the White House for the gallant deeds you’ve done.</i></p>
</div>
<p>All doggerel, all wishful thinking, he told himself, yet the
idea lingered, and now he let it float uppermost in his mind
till there came over him a sense of exhilaration, a promise
of yet greater things ahead. Impatiently he put the thought
down, but it kept creeping up again till his nerves tightened
and he itched to do something tangible, attack something
conquerable. On an impulse he strode back to the
house and in a tool room found his ax, by the light of a
single match.</p>
<p>Back at the log pile he laid a huge branch across two
others and hacked away at it with the ax in the faint snow
light, planting vigorous strokes and telling blows, though it
was difficult to aim a tool in the thin light from the winter
sky and more chips flew through the air than bespoke an
expert woodsman.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_56">56</div>
<p>When the branch was all reduced to proper lengths for
burning he piled the sticks carefully, wiping the sticky sap
from his hands on the sleeves of the old jacket. Then, shouldering
the ax, he tramped back to the house, feeling suddenly
relaxed and weary in nerve and bone. The sky, he
noted, was slowly clearing and now and then a pale wisp of
a moon shone fleetingly against the scud of the wind-driven
clouds. Over the water a pale whiteness lighted the
clouds as the moonlight increased.</p>
<p>Theodore Roosevelt was no mystic or fatuous dreamer,
indeed the factual and actual had always been paramount
in his mind. He had never had the weakness of nursing
hopeful visions trying to bring them to reality. Instead he
had always gone out to fight for what he believed in and let
dreamers have their dreams.</p>
<p>But why now was that faint glow in the eastern sky
slowly taking on the semblance of a great white dome towering
against the horizon? In only one place in the land was
reared a majestic dome like that.</p>
<p>Very humbly Theodore Roosevelt went back to his bed.</p>
<h2 id="trnotes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<ul>
<li>Silently corrected a few typos.</li>
<li>Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.</li>
<li>In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.</li>
</ul>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65809 ***</div>
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