Title: Christmas at Sagamore Hill with Theodore Roosevelt
Author: Miller, Helen Topping
Language: English
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THEODORE ROOSEVELT ***



                              Christmas at
                             Sagamore Hill


                        WITH THEODORE ROOSEVELT

                                   by
                          Helen Topping Miller


                        LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
                      NEW YORK · LONDON · TORONTO
                                  1960

                     LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.
                   119 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK 18

                     LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., Ltd.
                   6 & 7 CLIFFORD STREET, LONDON W 1

                        LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
                     20 CRANFIELD ROAD, TORONTO 16

                       CHRISTMAS AT SAGAMORE HILL

                            COPYRIGHT © 1960
                                   BY
                    J. A. HILL AND DONALD G. TOPPING
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK, OR ANY
                      PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM

         PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY
                    LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO

                             FIRST EDITION

            LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 60-53227

                Printed in the United States of America



                       Christmas at Sagamore Hill


    [Illustration: Decorative glyph]

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Father’s home!”

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 that seemed too slim to support his wiry body, and after
them four-year-old Archie, stumbling and falling flat on the cold floor.

“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.”

“What in the world is it, Father?” asked Alice, hurrying to prop the
door wide for him.

“Can’t you see?” demanded Kermit. “It’s fishes.” He scuttled behind his
father.

“Move all those things,” Roosevelt ordered, pointing to the hall table.
“Let me set this down.”

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.

“They dancing,” he exclaimed delightedly. “Father, fishes dancing!”

“Silly! Fishes can’t dance,” declared Kermit. “They’ve got no feet. Have
they got feet, Father?”

“No, they haven’t any feet. They’re just excited,” said his father,
hanging up his hat and overcoat.

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.

“We were putting the baby to bed. Oh, goldfish! But Theodore—”

“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?”

“They aren’t ours,” answered his father. “I got them for the school for
you to give the other children as a goodby gift. This house is freezing,
Edie, can’t that man do something about the fires?”

“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.”

“My room is like an icehouse,” said Alice. “My fingers got practically
stiff while I was dressing.”

“We’ll hope that the house in Albany is easier to heat,” said Mrs.
Roosevelt.

“I don’t want to move to Albany,” Ethel whimpered. “I don’t want to
leave my puppies and my pony.”

“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.”

“Is that like being president?” asked Ethel.

“Slightly less than being president,” Ted conceded, “but not much less.”

“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.”

“Bundle up well, Ted,” ordered his father. “Cold weather never hurt
anybody.”

“It hurts me.” Alice shivered. “I get goose bumps and I hate them and
the end of my nose turns red.”

“Get ready at once, Alice, and you too, Ted, if you’re going,” directed
their father.

“Mother had me excused from making my speech,” said Ted. “I still think
I was well enough to have made it.”

“I can say mine,” Kermit shouted, halfway up the stairs, “‘Higgledy
piggledy went to school—’”

“You’ll be scared when the time comes,” Ted jeered. “I bet you forget
half of it.”

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.

“Someday,” announced young Ted as he climbed out of the carriage, “that
old thing’s going to come crashing down.”

“Then the children won’t have to go to school,” said Ethel.

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.

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 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.

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

“You already have skates,” said his father. “Don’t be greedy.”

“But those skates were better,” insisted Ted. “They have those sharpened
edges and two straps.”

“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.”

“Anyway,” Kermit chimed in, “maybe in Albany there won’t be any ice.”

“I don’t want to go to Albany,” piped up little Archie. “I like here.”

“So do we,” said Ted, “but Father has to be governor of New York because
he beat the Spaniards in the war.”

“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.”

“But the Rough Riders were the bravest,” his son persisted.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

Edith, his wise, firm, gentle wife, was waiting at the door.

“Hurry off with your wraps,” she said. “Supper is ready and we have good
hot soup.”

“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?”

“Don’t make the children dissatisfied with their food, Theodore,” Edith
chided. “Ted, let me feel your cheeks. They look very flushed to me.”

“Frosty outside,” her husband reminded her.

“I don’t want any more pills or brown stuff out of a bottle,” whined
Ted, “and I don’t specially care for soup.”

“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 they shepherded the children into the dining room. “A very
foolish thing to do.”

“Now you set an example of hungrily eating your soup,” said Edith. “At
least there is a pudding later.”

“Does it have burning brandy on it?” inquired Kermit who had been
devouring pictures of the old-fashioned English Christmas lately.

“No burning brandy, just hard sauce, but I suspect the cook put a drop
or two of wine in it.”

“Well,” approved Alice, “that will be a little exciting.”

“You need to go to school, young lady,” commented her father.

“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.”

“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?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, “I wish you would dress up a little more and
wear all your medals.”

“Let’s all be just nice plain people,” suggested her stepmother.

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 about his feet or pushing a toy train and
shouting “choo choo choo!”

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.

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.

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.

“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.”

“At least,” said her husband, “may I be allowed to help them hang up
their stockings?”

“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.”

“Mother, do I have to? I hate that slimy stuff.”

“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.”

“You mean Father isn’t going to tell us even one story?” wailed Kermit,
stumbling up the stairs.

“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.”

The doorbell pealed then and over the upper railing they saw the maid
admitting some visitors.

“Three gentlemen to see Colonel Roosevelt,” she announced, hurrying
halfway up the flight. “They’re in the parlor.”

“Let them wait,” said Roosevelt impatiently. “Some delegation of office
seekers, no doubt, or somebody wanting a favor of the governor.”

“But you aren’t the governor yet,” Ethel argued. “You’re only Father.”

“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.”

“You do,” reminded Ted. “That time when we were all playing circus in
the barn you kept some men waiting a long time while you were trying to
teach Kermit’s pony to kneel.”

“Then Father was not governor of New York,” his mother told him. “Now he
has a responsibility to the people of this state.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

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.

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.

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.

He went to the fire now and found Edith sitting there with her usual
piece of sewing in her lap.

“It seems to be getting colder,” she remarked. “Those upstairs rooms are
really chilly. I do hope the governor’s house has an adequate heating
system; I dread the colds we get in winter and Ted’s chest is not really
strong.”

“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.”

“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.

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.

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.

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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“You have learned to control your emotions very well lately,” she said,
“though sometimes I have thought you a bit too impulsive.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

  _God rest ye merry, gentlemen! let nothing you dismay,
  For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas day._

“How sweet!” exclaimed Edith. “We ought to invite them in.”

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.

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.

  _We’ll send you to the White House for the gallant deeds you’ve done._

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

They went back into the house and discovered three small figures
crouched above, peering through the railings of the stairs.

“We couldn’t sleep, the singing kept us awake,” said Alice when Theodore
began to scold.

“Scurry back to bed, all of you,” he ordered. “You’ll catch your death
of cold.”

“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.”

“Mame did it,” declared Kermit.

“He kept wriggling and diving under the bed,” Ted reported. “Mame
couldn’t even hold him.”

“She tickles,” Kermit defended. “Will you tell us a story about the Wild
West, Father?”

“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?”

“Yes.” He made a wry face. “I hate that gooey stuff.”

“You hate being sick, too, and the idea of not growing up as strong as
the other boys,” their father reminded him.

“I hated that stuff I had to take to make my bones strong,” declared
Kermit.

“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.”

“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?”

“We’ll hope so—and it isn’t a palace. It’s officially called a mansion.”

“In storybooks governors always live in palaces. Does the president live
in a palace in Washington?”

“No, just a big white house. You’ve seen it. You should remember.”

“I’ve seen so many places,” sighed Ted, “but I like this house best.”

“We all do. We’ll come back to it every summer,” promised Roosevelt.

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.

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.

“Get up, Father,” begged Ethel. “Get up and light the Christmas tree!”

“That room will be cold,” objected their mother. “Here, crawl under this
blanket, all of you. Theodore, do poke up the fire.”

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.

“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.”

“It’s cold in there too,” complained Ted, “cold as anything.”

“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.”

“She’s an awful sleepyhead,” complained Ethel. “She won’t stir for hours
and hours.”

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.

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.

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.

At the little Episcopal church Roosevelt got down and shook the door. It
was locked fast. Presently a woman stuck her head out of the house next
door.

“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.”

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.”

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.”

As the carriage started up the hill Ethel announced, “I never got to put
my five cents in the collection, Father.”

“You mean you’ve lost it already?”

“It’s in my mitten. Where Mother put it. Do I have to give it back to
Mother?”

“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.

“I’d have to take Mame with me,” she demurred, “and she always grumbles
that her feet hurt.”

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 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.

Ted was sitting on the stairs, capped and mittened, his new sled at his
feet.

“I thought you’d never come, Father,” he fretted. “Mother says I can’t
go out alone.”

“I don’t think he should go out at all,” declared Edith, “but I agreed
to leave the decision to you.”

“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.”

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.”

“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.”

“But it won’t be here! I want to slide here where we live.”

“I saw two flakes of snow falling,” comforted Alice. “I saw them on my
muff.”

“Church must have been very short today,” Edith said. “You were only
gone an hour.”

Theodore told her about the rector’s being housed with the grippe.

“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.”

“Dinner is served,” was announced at the door.

“Let’s all march in,” Theodore suggested.

“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.”

“The outside air can’t hurt him,” demurred Roosevelt, when the troop had
pelted off up the stairs.

“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.”

“But my life in Dakota toughened me. Now I never have a pain and rarely
a cold,” he insisted.

“You were grown then. Give your sons a chance to grow, Theodore.”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

“Only two drumsticks,” he remarked, slicing away, “so somebody has to be
content with the second joint.”

The expected shrill protests arose, Kermit insisting that he had never
had a drumstick since he could remember.

“You can’t remember long then,” declared Ted, “for you had one at
Thanksgiving.”

“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.

Ethel and Archie won and squealed with delight, while Alice remarked
philosophically, “I’d rather have breast, anyway. Drumsticks are dry and
tough.”

Before the dessert was served, the maid approached the head of the
table.

“Three gentlemen to see Mr. Roosevelt,” she announced.

“Ask them in to the fire and invite them to sit down and wait,” said
Theodore. “Are they elderly gentlemen?”

“No, sir. They’re young and sort of brown and tough looking.”

He jumped, upsetting his glass of water. “My boys!” he exclaimed,
hurrying out while Kermit and Archie scurried after.

“Soldiers, Mother,” Kermit ran back to report, “and Father’s hugging
them.”

“How do you know they’re soldiers?” demanded Ted.

“They saluted!” Kermit was triumphant. “Just like Father taught us.”

Oh, me! wailed Edith Roosevelt silently to herself, not even Christmas
dinner alone! She rang the bell quickly.

“Set three more places,” she directed the girl who answered. “Mr.
Roosevelt will have guests. But you are all to sit still,” she ordered
the children.

“Don’t I stand up and bow like you told me?” asked Ted.

“No, you only bow a little when you are introduced.”

“You only stand up for ladies,” explained Alice.

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.

“This is Lew, and Ike, and Cricket. They shared their shelter with me
one rainy night in Cuba.”

“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.”

“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.

“Mighty pretty daughters you’ve got, Colonel. Smart-looking boys, too,”
said Ike.

“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.

Roosevelt ordered the turkey brought back and began carving and filling
the three extra plates put before him.

“These boys came up here all the way from South Carolina,” he explained
to Edith, “and stopped to call on me.”

“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.”

“You’re very welcome,” Edith assured them.

“Did you kill any Spaniards in Cuba?” asked Ted, while the visitors
helped themselves gratefully to the food being served by the maid.

“Well, we shot at a lot of them, so we must have hit a few,” replied
Cricket.

“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.”

“Anyway, we licked ’em,” said Lew. “When a Spaniard runs he runs. And
yells.”

“Have you got your guns?” Ethel asked.

“No, miss, we were discharged from service so we turned in our rifles.”

“Father has a lot of guns,” observed Kermit. “Ted can shoot, but I
can’t.”

“You will be old enough before long,” said his father. “Ted shoots very
well for an eleven-year-old.”

“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.

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.

The talk was fascinating to the children, even to Ethel, 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.

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.

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.

“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.”

“Bang between the eyes?” questioned Kermit.

“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.”

“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!”

“The fever was bad too,” Roosevelt said. “It has already made very
doubtful any hope of building a canal across Panama.”

“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.”

“We sure are,” agreed his lanky companions, rising to their feet.

“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.”

“I’m honored by your visit, boys,” Roosevelt followed them into the
hall, the children trotting after.

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?”

“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.”

“And what there was I’m sure you ignored,” said Edith indulgently. “It
was undoubtedly a very democratic organization.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.

“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.”

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.

When the furnaces were filled and burning well he carried 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!”

Edith looked him over, aghast. “Theodore, those are your church
clothes!”

“I had overalls over them and a jacket, but I’m going up to change now
to take the children out.”

Kermit jumped up and rushed after him, shouting, “Father’s going out to
play. Father’s going out to play.”

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.

“May we climb trees, Father?” she asked.

“Not today. It’s too damp and cold. Today we’ll play in the barn.”

Archie woke up then and came trudging after his father. “Are you going
to shave, Father? May we watch you shave?”

“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.”

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 trusting souls as he had now,
propping the heavy barn door open till the last straggler panted
through.

“I speak to play cowboy,” shouted Ted.

“You need outdoors for cowboys,” Alice objected, “and horses!”

“Can’t we have the pony out, Father?” Ted begged. “Grant hasn’t had any
exercise today.”

“No, I promised Mother we’d play inside. It’s fairly warm in here.
Who’ll be first up the ladder?”

“Me!” shrilled adventurous Ethel. “But we can’t climb with these
overshoes on. They’re too slippery.”

“Stack them all here neatly. And nobody is to turn and jump back down
that ladder,” their father ordered.

“She did one day,” declared Kermit, “she landed right on my stomach.”

“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.

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.”

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!”

There was a great deal of yelling “Bang! Bang!” and 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.

“I don’t like being Spaniards,” she wailed. “I don’t want to hurt
Father.”

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.

They achieved a beautifully rounded stack that almost reached the
rafters and instantly Kermit and Ethel flung themselves at it, squealing
happily.

“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.”

“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.”

“I want to be an Indian,” Archie protested. “I can yell loud.” He
emitted a piercing whoop to prove it.

“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.”

“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 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.

“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.”

“You’d get it on your shirt and Mame would scold,” Kermit reminded him.

“She scolds anyway,” remarked Ted. “Mame is a very scoldy person.”

“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.”

“Ethel kicked her once,” Ted tattled.

“She swept up my paper doll hats. Anyway, I didn’t kick her hard and I
got punished for it.”

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.

“Now, the settlers will hide, and the Indians have to find them, and any
redskin who is recognized gets shot,” Roosevelt outlined the rules.

“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.”

“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.”

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.

“Holler when you’re ready,” called Ted from the opposite side of the
stack.

“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.

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.

“You’re scalped!” he shouted. “You’re dead and scalped!”

Ethel promptly rolled on her back, walled up her eyes and made a
melancholy face so realistic that Ted began to whimper.

“Make her stop, Father! She’s scaring me!”

“The game is over,” announced Roosevelt, lifting Kermit 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.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” bragged Ethel, reviving from the dead. “I can. I
always do beat the boys.”

“You can’t beat me if Father will hold my glasses,” Ted objected.

“Stack hay and don’t argue. Archie, take off your jacket, you’ve got the
back of your shirt full of hay.”

“It’s inside mine too,” said Kermit. “It scratches.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.”

“Don’t go, Father,” pleaded Ted. “Tell Mother to send them away.”

“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.

“Go ahead,” Roosevelt directed when Mame had backed 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.

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.

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.”

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.

“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.”

Through the window they could see a handsome bay horse and smart
carriage waiting outside, the horse well blanketed and secured by an
iron weight.

“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.”

“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.”

“Is this jacket all right? After all, I’m supposed to be informal at
home.”

“It will do. Straighten your tie. You always seem to get the knot
slightly crooked.”

“So you will have some reason to notice me, my dear.”

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“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 waged against the oppressed Cubans
or against civic or national righteousness.

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.

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.”

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.”

“You’ll make more, Theodore. You always have when you were in a position
of power just as every man does.”

“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.

“When I was sixteen I was an awful prig,” she said. “I remember. I
wasn’t much better when you married me.”

“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.”

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.”

“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.”

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.

“We’re both out of breath,” he remarked. “We’ve got to run more. We’ll
start tomorrow. In Albany—”

“I don’t want to go,” she wailed abruptly. “I want to stay here.”

“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.”

“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.

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.

“Alice, will you say grace?” he asked politely.

When she had finished he surveyed the remains of what had been a huge
turkey.

“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?”

“Anything edible,” said Edith. “I’m not at all particular.”

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.

Alice began her argument again. “Mother, why can’t I go to Albany with
the rest of the family?”

“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.”

“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.”

“Your aunt will probably see to it that you have riding lessons in New
York,” Edith said.

“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.”

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.

Dinner was not quite over when two small figures appeared at the dining
room door. In their nightclothes Kermit and Ethel stood there, their
small feet blue with cold.

“Go back to bed quickly, you’ll catch your death of cold!” their mother
scolded, herding them back toward the stairway.

“I’ll come along,” said Theodore. “I’ll just go back and find the
chivalry book, as Ted calls it.”

“You spoil them,” protested his wife. “They were up before dawn this
morning.”

“Early yet,” he made excuse, “only a little after eight.”

“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.”

“They fall off. Anyway, they’re not so very dirty.”

“Too black for the sheets.” Mame came in then as Edith was tucking the
covers around Ethel.

“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.”

“I can untie knots,” he said defiantly, “or I could chew the rope in
two.”

“Don’t be saucy,” his mother said, sponging the thin grimy toes. “Run
along, Mame, Colonel Roosevelt is coming up to read to them.”

“It’ll be battles or Injun fighting and get them all stirred up and
excited,” grumbled Mame as she went out.

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.”

“It’s time you were in bed too, Alice,” said her stepmother. “You were
up before dawn this morning.”

“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.”

“Let her stay, I’ll hustle her to bed right after,” said Roosevelt.

Ted sat up, regarded the book his father was opening. “I vote for Sir
Lancelot,” he announced firmly.

“I vote for dragons,” said Kermit. “I like stories with dragons with
fire coming out their noses.”

“Are there any dragons in Dakota, Father?” Ethel wanted to know. “Where
you shot all the animals? Those up on the wall?”

“Of course not!” Alice was scornful. “Dragons are a fairy tale like
gnomes and giants.”

“Goliath wasn’t a fairy tale,” declared Ted. “He is in the Bible and the
Bible is the Word of God.”

“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.”

“I can jump over a fence,” bragged Kermit, “if I can climb up a little
way.”

“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.”

“You were crawling around under his front legs. He saw the hat and
thought it was good to eat,” Alice defended her pet pony.

“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.”

“She was three. Father let her down too,” Alice recalled, “and she was
scared to death and screamed.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.”

“We’ll remember that, Alice, and be very charitable in our judgments,”
he answered with the same gravity. “Now you scamper before Mother scolds
both of us.”

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?”

“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.”

“There are so many rules,” she sighed. “Life is too bewildering and
mixed up for a young girl.”

“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.”

She was halfway down the stairs and she left him very reluctantly and
backed up the rest of the flight, calling “Good night, Father.”

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.

“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.”

“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.”

“Undoubtedly the locusts will descend as they usually 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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“Come in! Come in out of the cold.” Theodore held the door wide, the raw
wind flaring the lamp. When they were 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You’re here to see me about your husband?” he asked.

“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.”

“He did not claim he shot in self-defense? A man has a right to defend
himself, in law, Mrs. Witten,” Roosevelt said.

“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.

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.

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.”

“I been tellin’ Ma that,” stated Clint, speaking for the first time in a
voice surprisingly masculine and deep coming 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.”

“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?”

“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.”

“That was what the fight was about,” put in Clint. “Deer they shot up in
them hills. Morgan wasn’t going to divide fair.”

“Was that the legal season to kill a deer?” Roosevelt asked. “I thought
they were protected by law.”

“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.”

“There was little he could do in the face of the evidence,” said
Roosevelt.

“He said that,” she admitted, “and he said he aimed to charge us a
hundred dollars when he didn’t do nothing.”

“Did he make you any promises?”

“No, sir, he wouldn’t do that. He just said he’d do his best but he
didn’t do nothin’,” insisted Clint.

“It’s hard to justify any man who shoots another in the 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.”

“That’s what the judge said,” Clint added.

“My men wasn’t never no hand to run away from trouble,” remarked Mrs.
Witten. “They always faced up to trouble mighty bold.”

“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.

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.

He sent the two Wittens away finally, promising to look into the case of
Ollie Witten further when he came into office:

“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.”

“He got life like Pa,” Clint said, “and they told us he was mighty
lucky.”

“He was lucky to escape the death penalty. How long has he been in
prison?”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

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.

“You look unhappy,” she said. “More office seekers? But I thought I
heard a woman’s voice.”

“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.”

“Mothers have too tender hearts always to have good 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.”

“I think I’ll walk outside a little. I don’t feel like sleeping yet. A
bit of exercise will steady my nerves.”

“I didn’t know you had that sort of nerves, Theodore.”

“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.”

“And you are a big man,” she consoled him. “And since San Juan Hill you
have been about the biggest man in the Union.”

“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.”

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 the slight feeling of frustration, count the
honors as recompense.

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.

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.

  _We’ll send you to the White House for the gallant deeds you’ve done._

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Very humbly Theodore Roosevelt went back to his bed.



                          Transcriber’s Notes


—Silently corrected a few typos.

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
  is public-domain in the country of publication.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
  _underscores_.





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