Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography
and their deaths were household tragedies. One of them, a large yellow
animal of several good breeds and valuable rather because of psychical
than physical traits, was named "Susan" by his small owners, in
commemoration of another retainer, a white cow; the fact that the cow
and the dog were not of the same sex being treated with indifference.
Much the most individual of the dogs and the one with the strongest
character was Sailor Boy, a Chesapeake Bay dog. He had a masterful
temper and a strong sense of both dignity and duty. He would never let
the other dogs fight, and he himself never fought unless circumstances
imperatively demanded it; but he was a murderous animal when he did
fight. He was not only exceedingly fond of the water, as was to be
expected, but passionately devoted to gunpowder in every form, for
he loved firearms and fairly reveled in the Fourth of July
celebrations--the latter being rather hazardous occasions, as the
children strongly objected to any "safe and sane" element being injected
into them, and had the normal number of close shaves with rockets, Roman
candles, and firecrackers.
One of the stand-bys for enjoyment, especially in rainy weather, was the
old barn. This had been built nearly a century previously, and was as
delightful as only the pleasantest kind of old barn can be. It stood
at the meeting-spot of three fences. A favorite amusement used to be an
obstacle race when the barn was full of hay. The contestants were timed
and were started successively from outside the door. They rushed inside,
clambered over or burrowed through the hay, as suited them best, dropped
out of a place where a loose board had come off, got over, through, or
under the three fences, and raced back to the starting-point. When they
were little, their respective fathers were expected also to take part
in the obstacle race, and when with the advance of years the fathers
finally refused to be contestants, there was a general feeling of pained
regret among the children at such a decline in the sporting spirit.
Another famous place for handicap races was Cooper's Bluff, a gigantic
sand-bank rising from the edge of the bay, a mile from the house. If
the tide was high there was an added thrill, for some of the contestants
were sure to run into the water.
As soon as the little boys learned to swim they were allowed to go off
by themselves in rowboats and camp out for the night along the Sound.
Sometimes I would go along so as to take the smaller children. Once
a schooner was wrecked on a point half a dozen miles away. She
held together well for a season or two after having been cleared of
everything down to the timbers, and this gave us the chance to make
camping-out trips in which the girls could also be included, for we put
them to sleep in the wreck, while the boys slept on the shore; squaw
picnics, the children called them.
My children, when young, went to the public school near us, the little
Cove School, as it is called. For nearly thirty years we have given
the Christmas tree to the school. Before the gifts are distributed I am
expected to make an address, which is always mercifully short, my own
children having impressed upon me with frank sincerity the attitude of
other children to addresses of this kind on such occasions. There are of
course performances by the children themselves, while all of us parents
look admiringly on, each sympathizing with his or her particular
offspring in the somewhat wooden recital of "Darius Green and his Flying
Machine" or "The Mountain and the Squirrel had a Quarrel." But the tree
and the gifts make up for all shortcomings.
We had a sleigh for winter; but if, when there was much snow, the whole
family desired to go somewhere, we would put the body of the farm wagon
on runners and all bundle in together. We always liked snow at Christmas
time, and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve. One
of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve festival begins, "It's
Christmas eve on the river, it's Christmas eve on the bay." All good
natives of the village firmly believe that this hymn was written here,
and with direct reference to Oyster Bay; although if such were the case
the word "river" would have to be taken in a hyperbolic sense, as the
nearest approach to a river is the village pond. I used to share this
belief myself, until my faith was shaken by a Denver lady who wrote that
she had sung that hymn when a child in Michigan, and that at the present
time her little Denver babies also loved it, although in their case the
river was not represented by even a village pond.
When we were in Washington, the children usually went with their mother
to the Episcopal church, while I went to the Dutch Reformed. But if any
child misbehaved itself, it was sometimes sent next Sunday to church
with me, on the theory that my companionship would have a sedative
effect--which it did, as I and the child walked along with rather
constrained politeness, each eying the other with watchful readiness
for the unexpected. On one occasion, when the child's conduct fell just
short of warranting such extreme measures, his mother, as they were on
the point of entering church, concluded a homily by a quotation
which showed a certain haziness of memory concerning the marriage and
baptismal services: "No, little boy, if this conduct continues, I shall
think that you neither love, honor, nor obey me!" However, the culprit
was much impressed with a sense of shortcoming as to the obligations he
had undertaken; so the result was as satisfactory as if the quotation
had been from the right service.
As for the education of the children, there was of course much of it
that represented downright hard work and drudgery. There was also
much training that came as a by-product and was perhaps almost as
valuable--not as a substitute but as an addition. After their supper,
the children, when little, would come trotting up to their mother's
room to be read to, and it was always a surprise to me to notice the
extremely varied reading which interested them, from Howard Pyle's
"Robin Hood," Mary Alicia Owen's "Voodoo Tales," and Joel Chandler
Harris's "Aaron in the Wild Woods," to "Lycides" and "King John." If
their mother was absent, I would try to act as vice-mother--a poor
substitute, I fear--superintending the supper and reading aloud
afterwards. The children did not wish me to read the books they desired
their mother to read, and I usually took some such book as "Hereward the
Wake," or "Guy Mannering," or "The Last of the Mohicans" or else some
story about a man-eating tiger, or a man-eating lion, from one of the
hunting books in my library. These latter stories were always favorites,
and as the authors told them in the first person, my interested auditors
grew to know them by the name of the "I" stories, and regarded them as
adventures all of which happened to the same individual. When Selous,
the African hunter, visited us, I had to get him to tell to the younger
children two or three of the stories with which they were already
familiar from my reading; and as Selous is a most graphic narrator, and
always enters thoroughly into the feeling not only of himself but of
the opposing lion or buffalo, my own rendering of the incidents was cast
entirely into the shade.
Besides profiting by the more canonical books on education, we profited
by certain essays and articles of a less orthodox type. I wish to
express my warmest gratitude for such books--not of avowedly didactic
purpose--as Laura Richards's books, Josephine Dodge Daskam's "Madness of
Philip," Palmer Cox's "Queer People," the melodies of Father Goose and
Mother Wild Goose, Flandreau's "Mrs. White's," Myra Kelly's stories of
her little East Side pupils, and Michelson's "Madigans." It is well to
take duties, and life generally, seriously. It is also well to remember
that a sense of humor is a healthy anti-scorbutic to that portentous
seriousness which defeats its own purpose.
Occasionally bits of self-education proved of unexpected help to the
children in later years. Like other children, they were apt to take to
bed with them treasures which they particularly esteemed. One of the
boys, just before his sixteenth birthday, went moose hunting with the
family doctor, and close personal friend of the entire family, Alexander
Lambert. Once night overtook them before they camped, and they had to
lie down just where they were. Next morning Dr. Lambert rather enviously
congratulated the boy on the fact that stones and roots evidently
did not interfere with the soundness of his sleep; to which the boy
responded, "Well, Doctor, you see it isn't very long since I used to
take fourteen china animals to bed with me every night!"
As the children grew up, Sagamore Hill remained delightful for them.
There were picnics and riding parties, there were dances in the north
room--sometimes fancy dress dances--and open-air plays on the green
tennis court of one of the cousin's houses. The children are no longer
children now. Most of them are men and women, working out their own
fates in the big world; some in our own land, others across the great
oceans or where the Southern Cross blazes in the tropic nights. Some of
them have children of their own; some are working at one thing, some at
another; in cable ships, in business offices, in factories, in newspaper
offices, building steel bridges, bossing gravel trains and steam
shovels, or laying tracks and superintending freight traffic. They have
had their share of accidents and escapes; as I write, word comes from
a far-off land that one of them, whom Seth Bullock used to call "Kim"
because he was the friend of all mankind, while bossing a dangerous
but necessary steel structural job has had two ribs and two back teeth
broken, and is back at work. They have known and they will know joy and
sorrow, triumph and temporary defeat. But I believe they are all the
better off because of their happy and healthy childhood.
It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks,
and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home. No
father and mother can hope to escape sorrow and anxiety, and there are
dreadful moments when death comes very near those we love, even if for
the time being it passes by. But life is a great adventure, and the
worst of all fears is the fear of living. There are many forms of
success, many forms of triumph. But there is no other success that in
any shape or way approaches that which is open to most of the many, many
men and women who have the right ideals. These are the men and the women
who see that it is the intimate and homely things that count most. They
are the men and women who have the courage to strive for the happiness
which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, and only to
those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of
duty.
CHAPTER X
THE PRESIDENCY; MAKING AN OLD PARTY PROGRESSIVE
On September 6, 1901, President McKinley was shot by an Anarchist in the
city of Buffalo. I went to Buffalo at once. The President's condition
seemed to be improving, and after a day or two we were told that he
was practically out of danger. I then joined my family, who were in the
Adirondacks, near the foot of Mount Tahawus. A day or two afterwards
we took a long tramp through the forest, and in the afternoon I climbed
Mount Tahawus. After reaching the top I had descended a few hundred feet
to a shelf of land where there was a little lake, when I saw a guide
coming out of the woods on our trail from below. I felt at once that he
had bad news, and, sure enough, he handed me a telegram saying that the
President's condition was much worse and that I must come to Buffalo