Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
children were little, we were for several winters in Washington, and
each Sunday afternoon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which
was then very real country indeed. I would drag one of the children's
wagons; and when the very smallest pairs of feet grew tired of trudging
bravely after us, or of racing on rapturous side trips after flowers and
other treasures, the owners would clamber into the wagon. One of these
wagons, by the way, a gorgeous red one, had "Express" painted on it in
gilt letters, and was known to the younger children as the "'spress"
wagon. They evidently associated the color with the term. Once while we
were at Sagamore something happened to the cherished "'spress" wagon to
the distress of the children, and especially of the child who owned it.
Their mother and I were just starting for a drive in the buggy, and we
promised the bereaved owner that we would visit a store we knew in East
Norwich, a village a few miles away, and bring back another "'spress"
wagon. When we reached the store, we found to our dismay that the wagon
which we had seen had been sold. We could not bear to return without
the promised gift, for we knew that the brains of small persons are much
puzzled when their elders seem to break promises. Fortunately, we saw in
the store a delightful little bright-red chair and bright-red table,
and these we brought home and handed solemnly over to the expectant
recipient, explaining that as there unfortunately was not a "'spress"
wagon we had brought him back a "'spress" chair and "'spress" table.
It worked beautifully! The "'spress" chair and table were received with
such rapture that we had to get duplicates for the other small member
of the family who was the particular crony of the proprietor of the new
treasures.
When their mother and I returned from a row, we would often see the
children waiting for us, running like sand-spiders along the beach. They
always liked to swim in company with a grown-up of buoyant temperament
and inventive mind, and the float offered limitless opportunities
for enjoyment while bathing. All dutiful parents know the game of
"stage-coach"; each child is given a name, such as the whip, the nigh
leader, the off wheeler, the old lady passenger, and, under penalty of
paying a forfeit, must get up and turn round when the grown-up, who is
improvising a thrilling story, mentions that particular object; and when
the word "stage-coach" is mentioned, everybody has to get up and turn
round. Well, we used to play stage-coach on the float while in swimming,
and instead of tamely getting up and turning round, the child whose
turn it was had to plunge overboard. When I mentioned "stage-coach," the
water fairly foamed with vigorously kicking little legs; and then there
was always a moment of interest while I counted, so as to be sure
that the number of heads that came up corresponded with the number of
children who had gone down.
No man or woman will ever forget the time when some child lies sick of a
disease that threatens its life. Moreover, much less serious sickness is
unpleasant enough at the time. Looking back, however, there are elements
of comedy in certain of the less serious cases. I well remember one such
instance which occurred when we were living in Washington, in a small
house, with barely enough room for everybody when all the chinks were
filled. Measles descended on the household. In the effort to keep the
children that were well and those that were sick apart, their mother and
I had to camp out in improvised fashion. When the eldest small boy was
getting well, and had recovered his spirits, I slept on a sofa beside
his bed--the sofa being so short that my feet projected over anyhow. One
afternoon the small boy was given a toy organ by a sympathetic friend.
Next morning early I was waked to find the small boy very vivacious
and requesting a story. Having drowsily told the story, I said, "Now,
father's told you a story, so you amuse yourself and let father go to
sleep"; to which the small boy responded most virtuously, "Yes, father
will go to sleep and I'll play the organ," which he did, at a distance
of two feet from my head. Later his sister, who had just come down with
the measles, was put into the same room. The small boy was convalescing,
and was engaged in playing on the floor with some tin ships, together
with two or three pasteboard monitors and rams of my own manufacture. He
was giving a vivid rendering of Farragut at Mobile Bay, from memories
of how I had told the story. My pasteboard rams and monitors were
fascinating--if a naval architect may be allowed to praise his own
work--and as property they were equally divided between the little girl
and the small boy. The little girl looked on with alert suspicion from
the bed, for she was not yet convalescent enough to be allowed down on
the floor. The small boy was busily reciting the phases of the fight,
which now approached its climax, and the little girl evidently suspected
that her monitor was destined to play the part of victim.
Little boy. "And then they steamed bang into the monitor."
Little girl. "Brother, don't you sink my monitor!"
Little boy (without heeding, and hurrying toward the climax). "And the
torpedo went at the monitor!"
Little girl. "My monitor is not to sink!"
Little boy, dramatically: "And bang the monitor sank!"
Little girl. "It didn't do any such thing. My monitor always goes to bed
at seven, and it's now quarter past. My monitor was in bed and couldn't
sink!"
When I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Leonard Wood and I used
often to combine forces and take both families of children out to walk,
and occasionally some of their playmates. Leonard Wood's son, I found,
attributed the paternity of all of those not of his own family to me.
Once we were taking the children across Rock Creek on a fallen tree.
I was standing on the middle of the log trying to prevent any of the
children from falling off, and while making a clutch at one peculiarly
active and heedless child I fell off myself. As I emerged from the water
I heard the little Wood boy calling frantically to the General: "Oh! oh!
The father of all the children fell into the creek!"--which made me feel
like an uncommonly moist patriarch. Of course the children took much
interest in the trophies I occasionally brought back from my hunts. When
I started for my regiment, in '98, the stress of leaving home, which
was naturally not pleasant, was somewhat lightened by the next to
the youngest boy, whose ideas of what was about to happen were hazy,
clasping me round the legs with a beaming smile and saying, "And is my
father going to the war? And will he bring me back a bear?" When, some
five months later, I returned, of course in my uniform, this little boy
was much puzzled as to my identity, although he greeted me affably
with "Good afternoon, Colonel." Half an hour later somebody asked him,
"Where's father?" to which he responded, "I don't know; but the Colonel
is taking a bath."
Of course the children anthropomorphized--if that is the proper
term--their friends of the animal world. Among these friends at one
period was the baker's horse, and on a very rainy day I heard the little
girl, who was looking out of the window, say, with a melancholy shake of
her head, "Oh! there's poor Kraft's horse, all soppin' wet!"
While I was in the White House the youngest boy became an _habitue_ of
a small and rather noisome animal shop, and the good-natured owner would
occasionally let him take pets home to play with. On one occasion I was
holding a conversation with one of the leaders in Congress, Uncle
Pete Hepburn, about the Railroad Rate Bill. The children were strictly
trained not to interrupt business, but on this particular occasion the
little boy's feelings overcame him. He had been loaned a king-snake,
which, as all nature-lovers know, is not only a useful but a beautiful
snake, very friendly to human beings; and he came rushing home to show
the treasure. He was holding it inside his coat, and it contrived to
wiggle partly down the sleeve. Uncle Pete Hepburn naturally did not
understand the full import of what the little boy was saying to me as
he endeavored to wriggle out of his jacket, and kindly started to help
him--and then jumped back with alacrity as the small boy and the snake
both popped out of the jacket.
There could be no healthier and pleasanter place in which to bring up
children than in that nook of old-time America around Sagamore Hill.
Certainly I never knew small people to have a better time or a better
training for their work in after life than the three families of cousins
at Sagamore Hill. It was real country, and--speaking from the somewhat
detached point of view of the masculine parent--I should say there was
just the proper mixture of freedom and control in the management of the
children. They were never allowed to be disobedient or to shirk lessons
or work; and they were encouraged to have all the fun possible. They
often went barefoot, especially during the many hours passed in various
enthralling pursuits along and in the waters of the bay. They swam,
they tramped, they boated, they coasted and skated in winter, they were
intimate friends with the cows, chickens, pigs, and other live stock.
They had in succession two ponies, General Grant and, when the General's
legs became such that he lay down too often and too unexpectedly in
the road, a calico pony named Algonquin, who is still living a life of
honorable leisure in the stable and in the pasture--where he has to be
picketed, because otherwise he chases the cows. Sedate pony Grant used
to draw the cart in which the children went driving when they were very
small, the driver being their old nurse Mame, who had held their mother
in her arms when she was born, and who was knit to them by a tie as
close as any tie of blood. I doubt whether I ever saw Mame really
offended with them except once when, out of pure but misunderstood
affection, they named a pig after her. They loved pony Grant. Once I
saw the then little boy of three hugging pony Grant's fore legs. As
he leaned over, his broad straw hat tilted on end, and pony Grant
meditatively munched the brim; whereupon the small boy looked up with
a wail of anguish, evidently thinking the pony had decided to treat him
like a radish.
The children had pets of their own, too, of course. Among them guinea
pigs were the stand-bys--their highly unemotional nature fits them
for companionship with adoring but over-enthusiastic young masters and
mistresses. Then there were flying squirrels, and kangaroo rats, gentle
and trustful, and a badger whose temper was short but whose nature was
fundamentally friendly. The badger's name was Josiah; the particular
little boy whose property he was used to carry him about, clasped firmly
around what would have been his waist if he had had any. Inasmuch as
when on the ground the badger would play energetic games of tag with
the little boy and nip his bare legs, I suggested that it would be
uncommonly disagreeable if he took advantage of being held in the little
boy's arms to bite his face; but this suggestion was repelled with
scorn as an unworthy assault on the character of Josiah. "He bites legs
sometimes, but he never bites faces," said the little boy. We also had
a young black bear whom the children christened Jonathan Edwards, partly
out of compliment to their mother, who was descended from that great
Puritan divine, and partly because the bear possessed a temper in
which gloom and strength were combined in what the children regarded as
Calvinistic proportions. As for the dogs, of course there were many,
and during their lives they were intimate and valued family friends,