Chapter XVII: War 323 (4)

“My arsenic was confiscated and my mice thrown (with the tongs) out of the window. In cases like this I would approach a refractory female, mouse in hand, corner her, and bang the mouse very near her face until she was thoroughly convinced of the wickedness of her actions. Here is a view of such a scene.

I am getting along very well with German and studying really hard. Your loving T. R., Secretary and Librarian of Roosevelt Museum. (Shall I soon hail you as a brother, I mean sister member of the Museum?)”

Evidently the carnivorous animal with horns was a stepping-stone to membership in the exclusive Roosevelt Museum!

The Dresden memories include many happy excursions, happy in spite of the fact that they were sometimes taken because of poor “Teedie’s” severe attacks of asthma. On June 29th he writes his father: “I have a conglomerate of good news and bad news to report to you; the former far outweighs the latter, however. I am at present suffering from a slight attack of asthma. However, it is only a small attack and except for the fact that I cannot speak without blowing like an abridged hippopotamus, it does not inconvenience me very much. We are now studying hard and everything is systematized. Excuse my writing, the asthma has made my hand tremble awfully.” The asthma of which he makes so light became unbearable, and the next letter, on June 30 from the Bastei in Saxon Switzerland, says: “You will doubtless be surprised at the heading of this letter, but as the asthma did not get any better, I concluded to come out here. Elliott and Corinne and Fräulein Anna and Fräulein Emma came with me for the excursion. We started in the train and then got out at a place some distance below these rocks where we children took horses and came up here, the two ladies following on foot. The scenery on the way and all about here was exceedingly bold and beautiful. All the mountains, if they deserve the name of mountains, have scarcely any gradual decline. They descend abruptly and precipitously to the plain. In fact, the sides of the mountains in most parts are bare while the tops are covered with pine forests with here and there jagged conical peaks rising from the foliage. There are no long ranges, simply a number of sharp high hills rising from a green fertile plain through which the river Elbe wanders. You can judge from this that the scenery is really magnificent. I have been walking in the forests collecting butterflies. I could not but be struck with the difference between the animal life of these forests and the palm groves of Egypt, (auld lang syne now). Although this is in one of the wildest parts of Saxony and South Germany, yet I do not think the proportion is as much as one here for twenty there or around Jericho, and the difference in proportion of species is even greater,--still the woods are by no means totally devoid of inhabitants. Most of these I had become acquainted with in Syria, and a few in Egypt. The only birds I had not seen before were a jay and a bullfinch.”

The above letter shows how true the boy was to his marked tastes and his close observation of nature and natural history!

After his return from the Bastei my brother’s asthma was somewhat less troublesome, and, to show the vital quality which could never be downed, I quote a letter from “Ellie” to his aunt: “Suddenly an idea has got hold of Teedie that we did not know enough German for the time that we have been here, so he has asked Miss Anna to give him larger lessons and of course I could not be left behind so we are working harder than ever in our lives.” How unusual the evidence of leadership is in this young boy of not yet fifteen, who already inspires his pleasure-loving little brother to work “harder than ever before in our lives.” Many memories crowd back upon me as I think of those days in the kind German family. The two sons, Herr Oswald and Herr Ulrich, would occasionally return from Leipsig where they were students, and always brought with them an aroma of duels and thrilling excitement. Ulrich, in college, went by the nickname of “Der Rothe Herzog,” The Red Duke, the appellation being applied to him on account of his scarlet hair, his equally rubicund face, and a red gash down the left side of his face from the sword of an antagonist. Oswald had a very extraordinary expression due to the fact that the tip end of his nose had been nearly severed from his face in one of these same, apparently, every-day affairs, and the physician who had restored the injured feature to its proper environment had made the mistake of sewing it a little on the bias, which gave this kind and gentle young man a very sinister expression. In spite of their practice in the art of duelling and a general ferocity of appearance, they were sentimental to the last extent, and many a time when I have been asked by Herr Oswald and Herr Ulrich to read aloud to them from the dear old books “Gold Elsie” or “Old Mam’selle’s Secret,” they would fall upon the sofa beside me and dissolve in tears over any melancholy or romantic situation. Their sensibilities and sentimentalities were perfectly incomprehensible to the somewhat matter-of-fact and distinctly courageous trio of young Americans, and while we could not understand the spirit which made them willing, quite casually, to cut off each other’s noses, we could even less understand their lachrymose response to sentimental tales and their genuine terror should a thunder-storm occur. “Ellie” describes in another letter how all the family, in the middle of the night, because of a sudden thunder-storm, crawled in between their mattresses and woke the irrelevant and uninterested small Americans from their slumbers to incite them to the same attitude of mind and body. His description of “Teedie” under these circumstances is very amusing, for he says: “Teedie woke up only for one minute, turned over and said, ‘Oh--it’s raining and my hedgehog will be all spoiled.’” He was speaking of a hedgehog that he had skinned the day before and hung out of his window, but even his hedgehog did not keep him awake and, much to the surprise of the frightened Minckwitz family, he fell back into a heavy sleep.

In spite of the sentimentalities, in spite of the racial differences of attitude about many things, the American children owe much to the literary atmosphere that surrounded the family life of their kind German friends. In those days in Dresden the most beautiful representations of Shakespeare were given in German, and, as the hour for the theatre to begin was six o’clock in the evening, and the plays were finished by nine o’clock, many were the evenings when we enjoyed “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Taming of the Shrew,” and many more of Shakespeare’s wonderful fanciful creations, given as they were with unusual sympathy and ability by the actors of the German Theatre.

Perhaps because of our literary studies and our ever-growing interest in our own efforts in the famous Dresden Literary American Club, we decided that the volume which became so precious to us should, after all, have no commercial value, and in July I write to my aunt the news which I evidently feel will be a serious blow to her--that we have decided that we cannot sell the poems and stories gathered into that immortal volume!

About the middle of the summer there was an epidemic of smallpox in Dresden and my mother hurriedly took us to the Engadine, and there, at Samaden, we lived somewhat the life of our beloved Madison and Hudson River days. Our cousin John Elliott accompanied us, and the three boys and their ardent little follower, myself, spent endless happy hours in climbing the surrounding mountains, only occasionally recalled by the lenient “Fräulein Anna” to what were already almost forgotten Teutonic studies. Later we returned to Dresden, and in spite of the longing in our patriotic young hearts to be once more in the land of the Stars and Stripes, I remember that we all parted with keen regret from the kind family who had made their little American visitors so much at home.

A couple of letters from Theodore, dated September 21 and October 5, bring to a close the experiences in Dresden, and show in a special way the boy’s humor and the original inclination to the quaint drawings which have become familiar to the American people through the book, lately published, called “Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children.” On September 21, 1873, he writes to his older sister: “My dear darling Bamie,--I wrote a letter on the receipt of yours, but Corinne lost it and so I write this. Health; good. Lessons; good. Play hours; bad. Appetite; good. Accounts; good. Clothes; greasy. Shoes; holey. Hair; more ‘a-la-Mop’ than ever. Nails; dirty, in consequence of having an ink bottle upset over them. Library; beautiful. Museum; so so. Club; splendid. Our journey home from Samaden was beautiful, except for the fact that we lost our keys but even this incident was not without its pleasing side. I reasoned philosophically on the subject; I said: ‘Well, everything is for the best. For example, if I cannot use my tooth brush tonight, at least, I cannot forget it to-morrow morning. Ditto with comb and night shirt.’ In these efforts of high art, I have taken particular care to imitate truthfully the Chignons, bustles, grease-spots, bristles, and especially my own mop of hair. The other day I much horrified the female portion of the Minckwitz Tribe by bringing home a dead bat. I strongly suspect that they thought I intended to use it as some sorcerer’s charm to injure a foe’s constitution, mind and appetite. As I have no more news to write, I will close with some illustrations on the Darwinian theory. Your brother--Teedie.”

The last letter, on October 5, was to his mother, and reads in part as follows: “Corinne has been sick but is now well, at least, she does not have the same striking resemblance to a half-starved raccoon as she did in the severe stages of the disease.” After a humorous description of a German conversation between several members of his aunt’s family, he proceeds to “further illustrations of the Darwinian theory” and closes his letter by signing himself “Your affectionate son, Cranibus Giraffinus.”

Shortly before leaving Dresden I had my twelfth birthday and the Minckwitz clan made every effort to make it a gay festival, but perhaps the gift which I loved best was a letter received that very morning from my beloved father; and in closing this brief account of those days spent in Germany, because of his wise decision to broaden our young horizons by new thoughts and new studies, I wish once more, as I have done several times in these pages, to quote from his words to the little girl in whom he was trying to instil his own beautiful attitude toward life: “Remember that almost every one will be kind to you and will love you if you are only willing to receive their love and are unselfish yourself. Unselfishness, you know, is the virtue that I put above all others, and while it increases so much the enjoyment of those about you, it adds infinitely more to your own pleasure. Your future, in fact, depends very much upon the cultivation of unselfishness, and I know that my darling little girl wishes to practise this quality, but I do wish to impress upon you its importance. As each year passes by, we ought to look back to see what we have accomplished, and also look forward to the future to make up for any deficiencies showing thus a determination to do better, not wasting time in vain regrets.” In many ways these words of my father, written when we were so young and so malleable, and impressed upon us by his ever-encouraging example, became one of the great factors in making my brother into the type of man who will always be remembered for that unselfishness instilled into him by his father, and for the determination to do better each day of his life without vain regret for what was already beyond recall.

OYSTER BAY--THE HAPPY LAND OF WOODS AND WATERS

After our return to America the winter of 1874 was passed at our new home at 6 West 57th Street. My brother was still considered too delicate to send to a boarding-school, and various tutors were engaged for his education, in which my brother Elliott and I shared. Friendships of various kinds were begun and augmented, especially the friendship with the little girl Edith Carow, our babyhood friend, and another little girl, Frances Theodora Smith, now Mrs. James Russell Parsons, to whose friendship and comprehension my brother always turned with affectionate appreciation. Inspired by the Dresden Literary American Club, the female members of our little coterie formed a circle known by the name of P. O. R. E., to which the “boys” were admitted on rare occasions. The P. O. R. E. had also literary ambitions, and they proved a fit sequel to the eruditionary D. L. A. C., which originated in the German family! Mr. J. Coleman Drayton, Mr. Charles B. Alexander, and my father were the only honorary members of the P. O. R. E.

The summer of 1874 proved to be the forerunner of the happiest summers of our lives, as my father decided to join the colony which had been started by his family at Oyster Bay, Long Island, and we rented a country place which, much to the amusement of our friends, we named “Tranquillity.” Anything less tranquil than that happy home at Oyster Bay could hardly be imagined. Endless young cousins and friends of both sexes and of every kind of varied interest always filled the simple rooms and shared the delightful and unconventional life which we led in that enchanted spot. Again I cannot say too much of the way in which our parents allowed us liberty without license. During those years--when Theodore was fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen--every special delight seems connected with Oyster Bay. We took long rides on horseback through the lanes then so seemingly remote, so far from the thought of the broad highways which now are traversed by thousands of motors, but were then the scenes of picnics and every imaginable spree. Our parents encouraged all mental and physical activity and having, as I say, a large circle of young cousins settled around us, we were never at a loss for companionship. One of our greatest delights was to take the small rowboats with which we were provided and row away for long days of happy leisure to what then seemed a somewhat distant spot on the other side of the bay, called Yellow Banks, where we would have our picnic lunch and climb Cooper’s Bluff, and read aloud or indulge in poetry contests and games which afforded us infinite amusement. One of our favorite games was called Crambo. We each wrote a question and each wrote a word, then all the words were put into one hat and all the questions into another, and after each child had drawn a question and a word, he or she was obliged to answer the question and bring in the word in a verse. Amongst my papers I find some of the old poetic efforts of those happy summer days. One is dated Plum Point, Oyster Bay, 1875. I remember the day as if it were yesterday; Theodore, who loved to row in the hottest sun, over the roughest water, in the smallest boat, had chosen his friend Edith as a companion; my cousin West Roosevelt, the “Jimmie” of earlier childhood, whose love of science and natural history was one of the joys that Theodore found in his companionship, took as his companion my friend Fannie Smith, now Mrs. Parsons, and my brother Elliott and I made up the happy six. Lying on the soft sand of the Point after a jolly luncheon, we played our favorite game, and Theodore drew the question: “Why does West enjoy such a dirty picnic?” The word which he drew was “golosh,” and written on the other side of the paper in his own boyish handwriting is his attempt to assimilate the query and the word!

“Because it is his nature to,
He finds _his_ idyl in the dirt,
And if you do not sympathize
But find _yours_ in some saucy flirt,
Why that is your affair you know,
It’s like the choosing a (?) golosh,
_You_ doat upon a pretty face,
_He_ takes to carrots and hogwash.”

Perhaps this sample of early verse may have led him later into _other_ paths than poetry!

We did not always indulge in anything as light and humorous as the above example of poetic fervor. I have in my possession all kinds of competitive essays--on William Wordsworth, Washington Irving, and Plutarch’s “Lives,” written by various members of the happy group of young people at Oyster Bay; but when not indulging in these literary efforts “Teedie” was always studying his beloved natural history. At that time in his life he became more and more determined to take up this study as an actual career. My father had many serious talks with him on the subject. He impressed the boy with the feeling that, if he should thus decide upon a career which of necessity could not be lucrative, it would mean the sacrifice of many of the pleasures of which our parents’ environment had enabled us to partake. My father, however, also told the earnest young naturalist that he would provide a small income for him, enabling him to live simply, should he decide to give himself up to scientific research work as the object of his life. During all those summers at Oyster Bay and the winters in New York City, before going to college, “Teedie” worked along the line of his chief interest with a very definite determination to devote himself permanently to that type of study. Our parents realized fully the unusual quality of their son, they recognized the strength and power of his character, the focussed and reasoning superiority of his mentality, but I do not think they fully realized the extraordinary quality of leadership which, hitherto somewhat hampered by his ill health, was later to prove so great a factor, not only in the circle of his immediate family and friends but in the broader field of the whole country. He was growing stronger day by day; already he had learned from those fine lumbermen, “Will Dow” and “Bill Sewall,” who were his guides on long hunting trips in the Maine woods, how to endure hardship and how to use his rifle as an adept and his paddle as an expert.

His body, answering to the insistence of his character, was growing stronger day by day, and was soon to be an instrument of iron to use in the future years.

Mr. Arthur Cutler was engaged by my parents to be at Oyster Bay during these summers to superintend the studies of the two boys, and with his able assistance my brother was well prepared for Harvard College, which he entered in September, 1876. It seems almost incredible that the puny, delicate child, so suffering even three years before, could have started his college life the peer, from a physical standpoint, of any of his classmates. A light-weight boxer, a swift runner, and in every way fitted to take his place, physically as well as mentally, in the arena of college life, he entered Harvard College.

In looking back over our early childhood there stands out clearly before me, as the most important asset of the atmosphere of our home, the joy of life, combined with an earnest effort for spiritual and intellectual benefit. As I write I can hear my father’s voice calling us to early “Morning Prayers” which it was his invariable custom to read just before breakfast. Even this religious service was entered into with the same joyous zest which my father had the power of putting into every act of his life, and he had imbued us with the feeling that it was a privilege rather than a duty to be present, and that also the place of honor while we listened to the reading of the Bible was the seat on the sofa between him and the end of the sofa. When we were little children in the nursery, as he called to us to come to prayers, there would be a universal shout of “I speak for you and the cubby-hole too,” the “cubby-hole” being this much-desired seat; and as my brother grew to man’s estate these happy and yet serious memories were so much a part of him that when the boy of eighteen left Oyster Bay that September afternoon in 1876, to take up the new life which the entrance into college always means for a young man, he took with him as the heritage of his boyhood not only keen joy in the panorama of life which now unrolled before him but the sense of duty to be performed, of opportunity to be seized, of high resolve to be squared with practical and effective action, all of which had been part of the teaching of his father, the first Theodore Roosevelt.

IV

COLLEGE CHUMS AND NEW-FOUND LEADERSHIP

During the winter and summer of 1876, preceding that September when Theodore Roosevelt left his home for Harvard College, he had entered more fully into the social life of the boys and girls of his immediate acquaintance. As a very young boy, there was something of the recluse about him, although in his actual family (and that family included a number of cousins) he was always the ringleader. His delicate health and his almost abnormal literary and scientific tastes had isolated him somewhat from the hurly-burly of ordinary school life, and even ordinary vacation life; but during the winter of 1876 he had enjoyed to the full a dancing-class which my mother had organized the winter before, and that dancing-class sowed the seeds of many friendships. The Livingston, Clarkson, Potter, and Rutherfurd boys, and amongst the girls my friends Edith Carow, Grace Potter, Fannie Smith, Annie Murray, and myself, formed the nucleus in this dancing-class, and the informal “Germans” (as they were called in those days) and all the merriment connected with happy skating-parties and spring picnics in Central Park cemented relationships which lasted faithfully through later days. My brother Elliott, more naturally a _social_ leader, influenced the young naturalist to greater interest in his _humankind_, and when the spring merged into happy summer at Oyster Bay, Theodore was already showing a keener pleasure in intercourse with young people of his own age.

In a letter to “Edith” early in the summer, I write of an expedition which he took across the bay to visit another girl friend. He started at five o’clock in the morning and reached the other shore at eight o’clock. Thinking it too early to pay a call, he lay down on a large rock and went to sleep, waking up to find his boat had drifted far away. When he put on his spectacles he could see the boat at a distance, but, of course, did not wish to swim with his clothes on, and decided to remove them temporarily. Having secured the boat, he forgot that it might be wise to put on his clothes before sleeping again under the dock. To his perfect horror, waking suddenly about an hour later, the boat, clothes, and all had vanished. At the same moment he heard the footsteps of his fair inamorata on the wooden planks of the dock above his head. She had walked down with a friend to greet the admirer whom she expected at about nine o’clock. His description of his feelings as he lay shivering, though not from cold, while above him they calmly discussed his probable arrival and the fact that they thought they would wait there to greet him, can probably be imagined. The girls, after a period of long waiting, walked away into the woods, and the self-conscious young man proceeded to swim down a hidden creek where he thought the tide had taken his recalcitrant boat, and where, sure enough, he found it. The sequel to this little story throws much light on masculine human nature, for he conceived an aversion to the lady who so unconsciously had put him in this foolish position, and rowed defiantly back to Oyster Bay without paying the proposed visit!

During that summer my father, who always gave his children such delightful surprises, drilled us himself in a little play called “To Oblige Benson,” in which Theodore took the part of an irascible and absent-minded farmer, and our beloved cousin John Elliott the part of an impassioned lover, while my friend Fannie Smith and I were the heroines of the adventures. My father’s efforts to make Theodore into a farmer and John into a lover were commendable though not eminently successful, but all that he did for us in those ways gave to his children a certain ease in writing and speaking which were to be of great value in later years. Fannie Smith, to show how Theodore still dominated the little circle from the standpoint of intellect, writes that same July: “I have no power to write sensibly today. If I were writing to Theodore I would have to say something of this kind, ‘I have enjoyed Plutarch’s last essay on the philosophy of Diogenes excessively.’” In his early college days, however, he seems temporarily to put the “philosophy of Diogenes” aside, and to become a very normal, simple, pleasure-loving youth, who, however, always retained his earnest moral purpose and his realization that education was a tool for future experience, and, therefore, not to be neglected.

He writes on November 26, 1876: “I now belong to another whist club, composed of Harry Minot, Dick Saltonstall and a few others. They are very quiet fellows but also very pleasant. Harry Minot was speaking to me the other day about our making a collecting trip in the White Mountains together next summer. I think it would be good fun.” The result of that collecting trip will be shown a little later in this chapter. On December 14 he writes again: “Darling Pussie [his pet name for me]: I ought to have written you long ago but I am now having examinations all the time, and am so occupied in studying for them that I have very little time for myself, and you know how long it takes me to write a letter. My only excitement lately has been the dancing class which is very pleasant. I may as well describe a few of my chief friends.” He then gives an account of his specially intimate companions, and speaks as follows of one whose name has become prominent in the annals of his country’s history as able financier, secretary of state, and colonel in the American Expeditionary Force--Robert Bacon: “Bob Bacon is the handsomest man in the class and is as pleasant as he is handsome. He is only sixteen, but is very large.” He continues to say that he would love to bring home a few of his friends at Christmas time, and concludes: “I should like a party very much if it is _perfectly_ convenient.” The party proved a delightful Christmas experience, and the New York girls and Boston boys fraternized to their hearts’ content. On his return to Cambridge after these Christmas holidays he writes one of his amusing, characteristic little notes, interspersed with quaint drawings. “Darling Pussie: I delivered your two notes safely and had a very pleasant journey on in the cars. To drown my grief at parting from you all, I took refuge, not in the flowing bowl, but in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and _Harper’s Magazine_--not to mention squab sandwiches. A journey in the cars always renders me sufficiently degraded to enjoy even the love stories in the latter magazine. I think that if I was forced to travel across the continent, towards the end of my journey, I should read dime novels with avidity. Good-bye darling. Your loving Tedo.”

The signature was followed by accurate representations of _Harper’s Magazine_, _Atlantic Monthly_, and the squab sandwich, which he labels “my three consolations”!

A letter dated February 5, 1877, shows the Boston of those days in a very pleasant light. He begins: “Little Pussie: I have had a very pleasant time this week as, in fact, I have every week. It was cram week for ‘Conic Sections’ but, by using most of my days for study, I had two evenings, besides Saturday, free. On Wednesday evening, Harry Jackson gave a large sleighing party; this was great fun for there were forty girls and fellows and two matrons in two huge sleighs. We sang songs for a great part of the time for we soon left Boston and were dragged by our eight horses rapidly through a great many of the pretty little towns which form the suburbs of Boston. One of the girls looked quite like Edith only not nearly as pretty as her ladyship. We came home from our sleigh ride about nine and then danced until after twelve. I led the German with Harry Jackson’s cousin, Miss Andrews. After the party, Bob Bacon, Arthur Hooper, myself and some others, came out in a small sleigh to Cambridge, making night hideous with our songs. On Saturday I went with Minot Weld to an Assembly (a juvenile one I mean) at Brookline. This was a very swell affair, there being about sixty couples in the room. I enjoyed myself very much indeed.... I came home today in time for my Sunday-school class; I am beginning to get very much interested in my scholars, especially in one who is a very orderly and bright little fellow--two qualities which I have not usually found combined. Thank Father for his dear letter. Your loving brother, Ted.”

The above letter shows how normal a life the young man was leading, how simply and naturally he was responding to the friendly hospitality of his new Boston friends. Boston had welcomed him originally for the sake of his older sister, who, during two charming summer visits to Bar Harbor, Maine, had made many New England friends. The Sunday-school which he mentions, and to which he gave himself very faithfully, proved a big test of character, for it was a great temptation to go with the other fellows on Saturday afternoons to Chestnut Hill or Brookline or Milton, where open house was kept by the Lees, Saltonstalls, Whitneys, and other friends, and it was very hard either to refuse their invitation from the beginning or to leave the merry parties early Sunday morning and return to Cambridge to be at his post to teach the unruly little people of the slums of Cambridge. So deeply, however, had the first Theodore Roosevelt impressed his son with the necessity of giving himself and the attainments with which his superior advantages had endowed him to those less fortunate than he, that all through the first three years of his college life he only failed to appear at his Sunday-school class twice, and then he arranged to have his class taken by a friend. Truly, when _he_ put his hand to the plough he never turned back.

On March 27 of his first year at college he writes again in his usual sweet way to his younger sister: “Little Pet Pussie: 95 per cent _will_ help my average. I want to pet you again awfully! You cunning, pretty, little, foolish Puss. My easy chair would just hold myself and Pussie.” Again on April 15: “Little Pussie: Having given Motherling an account of my doings up to yesterday, I have reserved the more frivolous part for little pet Pussie. Yesterday, in the afternoon, Minot Weld drove me over to his house and at six o’clock we sallied forth in festive attire to a matinée ‘German’ at Dorchester which broke up before eleven o’clock. This was quite a swell affair, there being about 100 couples.... I spent last night with the Welds and walked back over here to Forest Hill with Minot in the afternoon, collecting a dozen snakes and salamanders on the way.” Still the natural historian, even although on pleasure bent; so snakes and salamanders hold their own in spite of “swell matinée Germans.” From Forest Hill that same Sunday he writes a more serious letter to his father: “Darling Father: I am spending my Easter vacation with the Minots, who, with their usual kindness, asked me to do so. I did not go home for I knew I should never be able to study there. I have been working pretty steadily, having finished during the last five days, the first book of Horace, the sixth book of Homer, and the ‘Apology of Socrates.’ In the afternoon, some of the boys usually come out to see me and we spend that time in the open air, and on Saturday evening I went to a party, but during the rest of the time I have been working pretty faithfully. I spent today, Sunday, with the Welds and went to their church where, although it was a Unitarian Church, I heard a really remarkably good sermon about ‘The Attributes of a Christian.’ I have enjoyed all your letters very much and my conscience reproaches me greatly for not writing you before, but as you may imagine, I have had to study pretty hard to make up for lost time, and a letter with me is very serious work. Your loving son, T. R. Jr.”

On June 3, as his class day approaches, and after a visit to Cambridge on the part of my father, who had given me and my sister and friends Edith Carow and Maud Elliott the treat of accompanying him, Theodore writes: “Sweet Pussie: I enjoyed your visit so much and so did all of my friends. I am so glad you like my room, and next year I hope to have it even prettier when you all come on again.” His first class day was not specially notable, but he finished his freshman year standing high in his class and having made a number of good friends, although at that period I do not think that he was in any marked degree a leader amongst the young men of the class. He was regarded more as an all-round good sport, a fellow of high ideals from which he never swerved, and one at whom his companions, who, except Harry Minot, had not very strong literary affiliations, were always more or less surprised because of the way in which their otherwise perfectly normal comrade sank into complete oblivion when the magic pages of a book were unrolled before him.

That summer, shortly after class day, he and Harry Minot took their expedition to the Adirondacks with the following results, namely: a catalogue written in the mountains of “The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, N. Y., by Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and H. D. Minot.” This catalogue was sent to me by Mr. John D. Sherman, Jr., of Mt. Vernon, N. Y. He tells me that it was originally published in 1877 and favorably mentioned soon after publication in the _Nuttall Bulletin_. Mr. Sherman thinks that the paper was “privately” published, and it was printed by Samuel E. Casino, of Salem, who, when a mere boy, started in the natural-history-book business. The catalogue shows such careful observation and such perseverance in the accumulation of data by the two young college boys that I think the first page worthy of reproduction as one of the early evidences of the careful study Theodore Roosevelt had given to the subject which always remained throughout his life one of the nearest to his heart.

[Facsimile: THE SUMMER BIRDS

OF THE ADIRONDACKS IN FRANKLIN COUNTY, N. Y.

BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JR., AND H. D. MINOT

The following catalogue (written in the mountains) is based upon observations made in August, 1874, August, 1875, and June 22d to July 9th, 1877, especially about the Saint Regis Lakes, Mr. Minot having been with me, only during the last week of June. Each of us has used his initials in making a statement which the other has not verified.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Jr.

The general features of the Adirondacks, in those parts which we have examined, are the many lakes, the absence of _mountain_-brooks, the luxuriant forest-growth (the taller deciduous trees often reaching the height of a hundred feet, and the White Pines even that of a hundred and thirty), the sandy soil, the cool, invigorating air, and both a decided wildness and levelness of country as compared with the diversity of the White Mountain region.

The _avifauna_ is not so rich as that of the latter country, because wanting in certain “Alleghanian” birds found there, and also in species belonging especially to the Eastern or North-eastern Canadian fauna. Nests, moreover, seem to be more commonly inaccessible, and rarely built beside roads or wood-paths, as they often are in the White Mountains. M.

=1. Robin.= _Turdus migratorius_ (Linnæus). Moderately common.
Sometimes found in the woods.

=2. Hermit Thrush.= _Turdus Pallasi_ (Cabanis). Common. Sings until
the middle of August (R.).

=3. Swainson’s Thrush.= _Turdus Swainsoni_ (Cabanis). The commonest
thrush.

=4. Cat-bird.= _Mimus Carolinensis_ (Linnæus). Observed beyond the
mountains to the northward, near Malone.

=5. Blue Bird.= _Sialia sialis_ (Linnæus). Common near Malone.

=6. Golden-crowned “Wren.”= _Regulus satrapa_ (Lichten.). Quite
common; often heard singing in June.

=7. Chickadee.= _Parus atricapillus_ (Linnæus). Rather scarce in
June. Abundant in August (R.).

=8. Hudsonian Chickadee.= _Parus Hudsonicus_ (Forster). Found in
small flocks at Bay Pond in the early part of August (R.).

=9. Red-bellied Nuthatch.= _Sitta Canadensis_ (Linnæus). Common.
The White-bellied Nuthatch has not been observed here by us.

=10. Brown Creeper.= _Certhia familiaris_ (Linnæus). Common.

=11. Winter Wren.= _Troglodytes hyemalis_ (Vieillot). Moderately
common.

FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE “CATALOGUE OF SUMMER BIRDS,” MADE IN 1877 BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JR., AND H. D. MINOT]

His love of poetry in those days became a very living thing, and the summer following his first college year was one in which the young people of Oyster Bay turned with glad interest to the riches not only of nature but of literature as well. I find among my papers, painstakingly copied in red ink in my brother’s handwriting, Swinburne’s poem “The Forsaken Garden.” He had sent it to me, copying it from memory when on a trip to the Maine woods. Later, on his return, we would row by moonlight to “Cooper’s Bluff” (near which spot he was eventually to build his beloved home, Sagamore Hill), and there, having climbed the sandy bulwark, we would sit on the top of the ledge looking out on the shimmering waters of the Sound, and he would recite with a lilting swing in the tone of his voice which matched the rhythm of the words:

“In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
By the sea down’s edge, twixt windward and lee,
Walled round by rocks like an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brush-wood and thorn encloses
The steep-scarred slope of the blossomless bed,
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses--
Now lie dead.”

He always loved the rhythm of Swinburne, just as he loved later the wonderful ringing lines of Kipling, which he taught to his children and constantly repeated to himself.

In the summer of 1877 the two brothers, Elliott and Theodore, decided to row from Oyster Bay in their small boats to Whitestone, near Flushing, where my aunt Mrs. Gracie was living in an old farmhouse. Elliott was really the sailor of the family, an expert sailor, too, and loved to manage his 20-footer, with able hand, in the stormiest weather, but Theodore craved the actual effort of the arms and back, the actual sense of meeting the wave close to and not from the more sheltered angle of a sailboat; and so the two young brothers who were perfectly devoted to each other started on the more adventurous trip together. They were caught in one of the sudden storms of the Long Island Sound, and their frail boats were very nearly swamped, but the luck which later became with Theodore Roosevelt almost proverbial, was with them, and the two exhausted and bedraggled, wave-beaten boys arrived sorely in need of the care of the devoted aunt who, as much as in the days when she taught their A B C’s to the children of the nursery of 20th Street, was still their guardian angel.

In September, 1877, Theodore returns as a sophomore to Cambridge and writes in October again: “Sweet Pussie: Thank you ever so much, darling, for the three, cunning, little books which I am going to call my ‘Pussie Books.’ They were just what I wanted. In answer to your question, I may say that it does not seem to make the slightest difference to Brooks and Hooper that they have been dropped, although Brooks is universally called ‘Freshie.’ My respect for the qualities of my classmates has much increased lately, by the way, as they now no longer seem to think it necessary to confine their conversation exclusively to athletic subjects. I was especially struck by this the other night, when, after a couple of hours spent in boxing and wrestling with Arthur Hooper and Ralph Ellis, it was proposed to finish the evening by reading aloud from Tennyson and we became so interested in ‘In Memoriam’ that it was past one o’clock when we separated.” (Evidently the lover of books was beginning to be a leader in making his associates share his love of the poets.)

In November he writes again: “I sat up last night until twelve, reading ‘Poems & Poets’; some of the boys came down to my room and we had a literary coffee party. They became finally interested in Edgar Poe--probably because they could not understand him.” My brother always had a great admiration for Edgar Allan Poe, and would chant “The Raven” and “Ulalume” in a strange, rather weird, monotonous tone. He especially delighted in the reference to “the Dank Tarn of Auber” and the following lines:

“I knew not the month was October,
I knew not the day of the year,--”

Poe’s rhythm and curious, suggestive, melancholy quality of perfection affected strongly his imagination, and he placed him high in rank amongst the poets of his time.

One can picture the young men, strong and vigorous, wrestling and boxing together in Theodore Roosevelt’s room, and then putting aside their athletic contests, making their coffee with gay nonchalance, and settling down to a night of poetry, led in the paths of literature by the blue-eyed young “Berserker,” as my mother used to call Theodore in those college days.

During the summer of 1877 my father accompanied my sister Anna to Bar Harbor on one of her annual excursions to that picturesque part of the Maine coast, where they visited Mr. George Minot and his sisters. He writes to my mother in his usual vein of delightful interest in people, books, and nature, and seems more vigorous than ever, for he describes wonderful walks over the mountains and speaks of having achieved a reputation as a mountain-climber. How little any of the family who adored him realized that from a strain engendered by that climbing the seed of serious trouble had been sown in that splendid mechanism, and that in a few short months the vigorous and still young man of forty-six was to lay down that useful life which had been given so ardently and unselfishly for the good of his city and the joy and benefit of his family.

At this time, however, when Theodore went back to college as a sophomore, there was no apprehension about my father’s health, and the first term of the college year was passed in his usual happy activities.

Shortly after the New Year my father’s condition became serious, due to intestinal trouble, and the following weeks were passed in anxious nursing, the distress of which was greatly accentuated by the frightful suffering of the patient, who, however, in spite of constant agony, bore the sudden shattering of his wonderful health with magnificent courage. My brother Theodore could not realize, as did my brother Elliott, who was at home, the serious condition of our father, for it was deemed best that he should not return from college, where difficult examinations required all his application and energy. Elliott gave unstintedly a devotion which was so tender that it was more like that of a woman, and his young strength was poured out to help his father’s condition. The best physicians searched in vain for remedy for the hidden trouble, but in spite of all their efforts the first Theodore Roosevelt died, February 9, 1878, and the gay young college sophomore was recalled to a house of mourning. In spite of the sorrow, in spite of a sense of irreparable loss, there was something infinitely inspiring in the days preceding and following my father’s death. When New York City knew that its benefactor lay in extreme illness, it seemed as if the whole city came to the door of his home to ask news of him. How well I remember the day before his death, when the papers had announced that there was but little hope of his recovery. The crowd of individuals who filled 57th Street in their effort to hear the physicians’ bulletin concerning his condition was huge and varied. Newsboys from the West Side Lodging House, little Italian girls from his Sunday-school class, sat for hours on the stone steps of 6 West 57th Street, our second home, waiting with anxious intensity for news of the man who meant more to them than any other human being had ever meant before; and those more fortunate ones who had known him in another way drove unceasingly up in their carriages to the door and looked with sympathetic interest at the children of the slums who shared with them such a sense of bitter bereavement and loss in the premature death of one so closely connected with all sides of his beloved native city.

Meanwhile, the family of the first Theodore Roosevelt seemed hardly able to face the blank that life meant when he left them, but they also felt that the man who had preached always that “one must live for the living” would have wished “his own” to follow out his ideal of life, and so each one of us took up, as bravely as we could, our special duties and felt that our close family tie must be made stronger rather than weaker by the loss that we had sustained.

On March 3, 1878, my brother writes from Cambridge:

My own darling, sweet, little treasure of a Pussie: Oh! I have
so longed for you at times during the last few days. Darling one,
you can hardly know what an inestimable blessing to a fellow it is
to have such a home as I have. Even now that our dear father has
been taken away, it is such a great pleasure to look forward to a
visit home; and indeed, he has only ‘gone before,’ and oh! what
living and loving memories he has left behind him. I can _feel_ his
presence sometimes when I am sitting alone in the evening; I have
not felt nearly as sad as I expected to feel, although, of course,
there are every now and then very bitter moments. I am going to
bring home some of his sweet letters to show you. I shall always
keep them, if merely as talismans against evil. Kiss little mother
for me, and my love to Aunt Susie and Uncle Hill. [My mother and
I were staying in Philadelphia with my aunt Mrs. West.] Tell the
latter, Uncle Hill, I am looking forward to spending a month of
nude happiness with him next summer among the wilds of Oyster Bay.

YOUR LOVING TEDDY.

When my brother speaks of keeping my father’s letters to him as “talismans against evil,” he not only expressed the feeling of desire to keep near him always the actual letters written by my father, but far more the spirit with which these letters are permeated. Years afterward, when the college boy of 1878 was entering upon his duties as President of the United States, he told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken on the question. The day that he moved into the White House happened to be September 22, the day of my father’s birth, and dining with him that night in the White House for the first time, we all mentioned this fact and felt that it was a good omen for the future, and my brother said that every time he dated a letter that day he felt with a glow of tender memory the realization that it was his father’s birthday, and that his father’s blessing seemed specially to follow him on that first day when he made his home in the beautiful old white mansion which stands in the heart of America for all that America means to her sons and daughters.

Several other equally loving letters in that March of 1878 proved how the constant thoughts of the young sophomore turned to the family at home, and also his own sense of loss in his father’s death, but I think the many interests and normal surroundings brought their healing power to the boy of nineteen, and at the end of that year of his college life he had become a well-rounded character. His mind, intelligently focussed upon many intellectual subjects, had broadened in scope, and physically he was no longer the delicate, dreamy boy of earlier days. The period of his college life, although not one of as unusual interest as perhaps other periods in his life, was of inestimable value in the forming of his character. Had Theodore Roosevelt continued to be abnormally developed along the scientific and intellectual side of his nature, he would never have become the “All-American” which he was destined to be. It was necessary for him to fall into more commonplace grooves; it was necessary for him to meet the young men of his age on common ground, to get the “give-and-take” of a life very different from the more or less individual life which, owing to his ill health and intellectual aspirations, he had hitherto led, and already, by the end of the second year of college, he was beginning to take a place in the circle of his friends which showed in an embryonic way the leadership which later was to be so strongly evidenced.