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Theodore Roosevelt’s

LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN 

By Joseph Bucklin Bishop 

Third section of 6 ends on page 121 

TED'S SPRAINED ANKLE 

White House, Nov. 28, 1903.

DEAR TED:

If I were you I should certainly get the best ankle support possible.
You do not want to find next fall that Webb beats you for end because
your ankle gives out and his does not. If I were in your place, if it
were necessary, I should put the ankle in plaster for the next three
weeks, or for as long as the doctor thinks it needful, rather than run
any risk of this. At any rate, I would consult him and wear whatever he
thinks is the right thing.

. . . . .

I wonder if you are old enough yet to care for a good history of the
American Revolution. If so, I think I shall give you mine by Sir George
Trevelyan; although it is by an Englishman, I really think it on the
whole the best account I have read. If I give it to you you must be very
careful of it, because he sent it to me himself.

P. S.--The Bond parrot for mother has turned up; it is a most
meritorious parrot, very friendly, and quite a remarkable talker.

THE SUPREME CHRISTMAS JOY

(To his sister, Mrs. Douglas Robinson)

White House, Dec. 26, 1903.

. . . . .

We had a delightful Christmas yesterday--just such a Christmas thirty or
forty years ago we used to have under Father's and Mother's supervision
in 20th street and 57th street. At seven all the children came in to
open the big, bulgy stockings in our bed; Kermit's terrier, Allan, a
most friendly little dog, adding to the children's delight by occupying
the middle of the bed. From Alice to Quentin, each child was absorbed
in his or her stocking, and Edith certainly managed to get the most
wonderful stocking toys. Bob was in looking on, and Aunt Emily, of
course. Then, after breakfast, we all formed up and went into the
library, where bigger toys were on separate tables for the children.
I wonder whether there ever can come in life a thrill of greater
exaltation and rapture than that which comes to one between the ages of
say six and fourteen, when the library door is thrown open and you walk
in to see all the gifts, like a materialized fairy land, arrayed on your
special table?

A DAY WITH A JUGGLER

White House, Jan. 18, 1904.

DEAR KERMIT:

Thursday and Friday there was a great deal of snow on the ground, and
the weather was cold, so that Mother and I had two delightful rides up
Rock Creek. The horses were clipped and fresh, and we were able to let
them go along at a gallop, while the country was wonderfully beautiful.

To-day, after lunch, Mother took Ethel, Archie and Quentin, each with a
friend, to see some most wonderful juggling and sleight of hand tricks
by Kellar. I went along and was as much interested as any of the
children, though I had to come back to my work in the office before it
was half through. At one period Ethel gave up her ring for one of the
tricks. It was mixed up with the rings of five other little girls, and
then all six rings were apparently pounded up and put into a pistol and
shot into a collection of boxes, where five of them were subsequently
found, each tied around a rose. Ethel's, however, had disappeared, and
he made believe that it had vanished, but at the end of the next trick a
remarkable bottle, out of which many different liquids had been poured,
suddenly developed a delightful white guinea pig, squirming and kicking
and looking exactly like Admiral Dewey, with around its neck Ethel's
ring, tied by a pink ribbon. Then it was wrapped up in a paper, handed
to Ethel; and when Ethel opened it, behold, there was no guinea pig, but
a bunch of roses with a ring.

MERITS OF MILITARY AND CIVIL LIFE

White House, Jan. 21, 1904.

DEAR TED:

This will be a long business letter. I sent to you the examination
papers for West Point and Annapolis. I have thought a great deal over
the matter, and discussed it at great length with Mother. I feel on the
one hand that I ought to give you my best advice, and yet on the other
hand I do not wish to seem to constrain you against your wishes. If you
have definitely made up your mind that you have an overmastering desire
to be in the Navy or the Army, and that such a career is the one in
which you will take a really heart-felt interest--far more so than any
other--and that your greatest chance for happiness and usefulness
will lie in doing this one work to which you feel yourself especially
drawn--why, under such circumstances, I have but little to say. But I am
not satisfied that this is really your feeling. It seemed to me more as
if you did not feel drawn in any other direction, and wondered what you
were going to do in life or what kind of work you would turn your hand
to, and wondered if you could make a success or not; and that you are
therefore inclined to turn to the Navy or Army chiefly because you would
then have a definite and settled career in life, and could hope to go
on steadily without any great risk of failure. Now, if such is your
thought, I shall quote to you what Captain Mahan said of his son when
asked why he did not send him to West Point or Annapolis. "I have too
much confidence in him to make me feel that it is desirable for him to
enter either branch of the service."

I have great confidence in you. I believe you have the ability and,
above all, the energy, the perseverance, and the common sense, to
win out in civil life. That you will have some hard times and some
discouraging times I have no question; but this is merely another way of
saying that you will share the common lot. Though you will have to work
in different ways from those in which I worked, you will not have to
work any harder, nor to face periods of more discouragement. I trust in
your ability, and especially your character, and I am confident you will
win.

In the Army and the Navy the chance for a man to show great ability and
rise above his fellows does not occur on the average more than once in a
generation. When I was down at Santiago it was melancholy for me to see
how fossilized and lacking in ambition, and generally useless, were most
of the men of my age and over, who had served their lives in the Army.
The Navy for the last few years has been better, but for twenty years
after the Civil War there was less chance in the Navy than in the Army
to practise, and do, work of real consequence. I have actually known
lieutenants in both the Army and the Navy who were grandfathers--men
who had seen their children married before they themselves attained the
grade of captain. Of course the chance may come at any time when the
man of West Point or Annapolis who will have stayed in the Army or Navy
finds a great war on, and therefore has the opportunity to rise high.
Under such circumstances, I think that the man of such training who has
actually left the Army or the Navy has even more chance of rising than
the man who has remained in it. Moreover, often a man can do as I did in
the Spanish War, even though not a West Pointer.

This last point raises the question about you going to West Point
or Annapolis and leaving the Army or Navy after you have served the
regulation four years (I think that is the number) after graduation from
the academy. Under this plan you would have an excellent education and
a grounding in discipline and, in some ways, a testing of your capacity
greater than I think you can get in any ordinary college. On the other
hand, except for the profession of an engineer, you would have had
nothing like special training, and you would be so ordered about, and
arranged for, that you would have less independence of character than
you could gain from them. You would have had fewer temptations; but
you would have had less chance to develop the qualities which overcome
temptations and show that a man has individual initiative. Supposing you
entered at seventeen, with the intention of following this course. The
result would be that at twenty-five you would leave the Army or Navy
without having gone through any law school or any special technical
school of any kind, and would start your life work three or four years
later than your schoolfellows of to-day, who go to work immediately
after leaving college. Of course, under such circumstances, you might
study law, for instance, during the four years after graduation; but my
own feeling is that a man does good work chiefly when he is in something
which he intends to make his permanent work, and in which he is deeply
interested. Moreover, there will always be the chance that the number of
officers in the Army or Navy will be deficient, and that you would have
to stay in the service instead of getting out when you wished.

I want you to think over all these matters very seriously. It would be a
great misfortune for you to start into the Army or Navy as a career, and
find that you had mistaken your desires and had gone in without really
weighing the matter.

You ought not to enter unless you feel genuinely drawn to the life as a
life-work. If so, go in; but not otherwise.

Mr. Loeb told me to-day that at 17 he had tried for the army, but
failed. The competitor who beat him in is now a captain; Mr. Loeb has
passed him by, although meanwhile a war has been fought. Mr. Loeb says
he wished to enter the army because he did not know what to do, could
not foresee whether he would succeed or fail in life, and felt the army
would give him "a living and a career." Now if this is at bottom your
feeling I should advise you not to go in; I should say yes to some boys,
but not to you; I believe in you too much, and have too much confidence
in you.

ROOT AND TAFT

White House, Feb. 6, 1904.

DEAR TED:

I was glad to hear that you were to be confirmed.

Secretary Root left on Monday and Governor Taft took his place. I have
missed, and shall miss, Root dreadfully. He has been the ablest, most
generous and most disinterested friend and adviser that any President
could hope to have; and immediately after leaving he rendered me a great
service by a speech at the Union League Club, in which he said in most
effective fashion the very things I should have liked him to say; and
his words, moreover, carried weight as the words of no other man at this
time addressing such an audience could have done. Taft is a splendid
fellow and will be an aid and comfort in every way. But, as mother says,
he is too much like me to be able to give me as good advice as Mr. Root
was able to do because of the very differences of character between us.

If after fully thinking the matter over you remain firmly convinced that
you want to go into the army, well and good. I shall be rather sorry for
your decision, because I have great confidence in you and I believe that
in civil life you could probably win in the end a greater prize than
will be open to you if you go into the army--though, of course, a man
can do well in the army. I know perfectly well that you will have
hard times in civil life. Probably most young fellows when they have
graduated from college, or from their post-graduate course, if they take
any, feel pretty dismal for the first few years. In ordinary cases it
at first seems as if their efforts were not leading anywhere, as if
the pressure around the foot of the ladder was too great to permit
of getting up to the top. But I have faith in your energy, your
perseverance, your ability, and your power to force yourself to the
front when you have once found out and taken your line. However, you and
I and mother will talk the whole matter over when you come back here on
Easter.

SENATOR HANNA'S DEATH

White House, Feb. 19, 1904.

DEAR TED:

Poor Hanna's death was a tragedy. At the end he wrote me a note, the
last he ever wrote, which showed him at his best, and which I much
appreciate. His death was very sad for his family and close friends, for
he had many large and generous traits, and had made a great success in
life by his energy, perseverance and burly strength.

Buffalo Bill was at lunch the other day, together with John Willis,
my old hunter. Buffalo Bill has always been a great friend of mine. I
remember when I was running for Vice-President I struck a Kansas town
just when the Wild West show was there. He got upon the rear platform of
my car and made a brief speech on my behalf, ending with the statement
that "a cyclone from the West had come; no wonder the rats hunted their
cellars!"

. . . . .

As for you, I think the West Point education is, of course, good for any
man, but I still think that you have too much in you for me to be glad
to see you go into the Army, where in time of peace progress is so much
a matter of routine.

IRRITATING REMARK BY QUENTIN

White House, Feb. 27, 1904.

DEAR KERMIT:

Mother went off for three days to New York and Mame and Quentin took
instant advantage of her absence to fall sick. Quentin's sickness was
surely due to a riot in candy and ice-cream with chocolate sauce. He was
a very sad bunny next morning and spent a couple of days in bed. Ethel,
as always, was as good as gold both to him and to Archie, and largely
relieved me of my duties as vice-mother. I got up each morning in time
to breakfast with Ethel and Archie before they started for school, and I
read a certain amount to Quentin, but this was about all. I think Archie
escaped with a minimum of washing for the three days. One day I asked
him before Quentin how often he washed his face, whereupon Quentin
interpolated, "very seldom, I fear," which naturally produced from
Archie violent recriminations of a strongly personal type. Mother came
back yesterday, having thoroughly enjoyed Parsifal. All the horses
continue sick.

JAPANESE WRESTLING

White House, March 5, 1904.

DEAR KERMIT:

. . . . .

I am wrestling with two Japanese wrestlers three times a week. I am
not the age or the build one would think to be whirled lightly over an
opponent's head and batted down on a mattress without damage. But they
are so skilful that I have not been hurt at all. My throat is a little
sore, because once when one of them had a strangle hold I also got hold
of his windpipe and thought I could perhaps choke him off before he
could choke me. However, he got ahead.

White House, April 9, 1904.

DEAR TED:

I am very glad I have been doing this Japanese wrestling, but when I am
through with it this time I am not at all sure I shall ever try it again
while I am so busy with other work as I am now. Often by the time I get
to five o'clock in the afternoon I will be feeling like a stewed owl,
after an eight hours' grapple with Senators, Congressmen, etc.; then I
find the wrestling a trifle too vehement for mere rest. My right
ankle and my left wrist and one thumb and both great toes are swollen
sufficiently to more or less impair their usefulness, and I am well
mottled with bruises elsewhere. Still I have made good progress, and
since you left they have taught me three new throws that are perfect
corkers.

LOVE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE

White House, May 28, 1904.

DEAR TED:

. . . . .

I am having a reasonable amount of work and rather more than a
reasonable amount of worry. But, after all, life is lovely here. The
country is beautiful, and I do not think that any two people ever got
more enjoyment out of the White House than Mother and I. We love
the house itself, without and within, for its associations, for
its stillness and its simplicity. We love the garden. And we like
Washington. We almost always take our breakfast on the south portico
now, Mother looking very pretty and dainty in her summer dresses. Then
we stroll about the garden for fifteen or twenty minutes, looking at
the flowers and the fountain and admiring the trees. Then I work until
between four and five, usually having some official people to lunch--now
a couple of Senators, now a couple of Ambassadors, now a literary
man, now a capitalist or a labor leader, or a scientist, or a big-game
hunter. If Mother wants to ride, we then spend a couple of hours on
horseback. We had a lovely ride up on the Virginia shore since I came
back, and yesterday went up Rock Creek and swung back home by the roads
where the locust trees were most numerous--for they are now white with
blossoms. It is the last great burst of bloom which we shall see this
year except the laurels. But there are plenty of flowers in bloom or
just coming out, the honeysuckle most conspicuously. The south portico
is fragrant with that now. The jasmine will be out later. If we don't
ride, I walk or play tennis. But I am afraid Ted has gotten out of his
father's class in tennis!

PETER RABBIT'S FUNERAL

White House, May 28, 1904.

DEAR KERMIT:

It was great fun seeing you and Ted, and I enjoyed it to the full.

Ethel, Archie and Quentin have gone to Mount Vernon to-day with the
Garfield boys. Yesterday poor Peter Rabbit died and his funeral was held
with proper state. Archie, in his overalls, dragged the wagon with the
little black coffin in which poor Peter Rabbit lay. Mother walked behind
as chief mourner, she and Archie solemnly exchanging tributes to the
worth and good qualities of the departed. Then he was buried, with a
fuchsia over the little grave.

You remember Kenneth Grahame's account of how Harold went to the circus
and sang the great spheral song of the circus? Well, yesterday Mother
leaned out of her window and heard Archie, swinging under a magnolia
tree, singing away to himself, "I'm going to Sagamore, to Sagamore, to
Sagamore. I'm going to Sagamore, oh, to Sagamore!" It was his spheral
song of joy and thanksgiving.

The children's delight at going to Sagamore next week has completely
swallowed up all regret at leaving Mother and me. Quentin is very
cunning. He and Archie love to play the hose into the sandbox and then,
with their thigh rubber boots on, to get in and make fortifications. Now
and then they play it over each other. Ethel is playing tennis quite a
good deal.

I think Yagenka is going to come out all right, and Bleistein, too.

I have no hope for Wyoming or Renown. Fortunately, Rusty is serving us
well.

White House, June 12th, 1904.

BLESSED QUENTY-QUEE:

The little birds in the nest in the vines on the garden fence are nearly
grown up. Their mother still feeds them.

You see the mother bird with a worm in her beak, and the little birds
with their beaks wide open!

I was out walking the other day and passed the Zoo; there I fed with
grass some of the two-year-old elk; the bucks had their horns "in the
velvet." I fed them through the bars.

White House, June 12th, 1904.

BLESSED ARCHIE-KINS:

Give my love to Mademoiselle; I hope you and Quenty are _very_ good with
her--and don't play in the library!

I loved your letter, and think you were very good to write.

All kinds of live things are sent me from time to time. The other day an
eagle came; this morning an owl.

(I have drawn him holding a rat in one claw.)

We sent both to the Zoo.

The other day while walking with Mr. Pinchot and Mr. Garfield we climbed
into the Blagden deer park and almost walked over such a pretty wee
fawn, all spotted; it ran off like a little race horse.

It made great jumps and held its white tail straight in the air.

White House, June 21, 1904.

DEAR QUENTY-QUEE:

The other day when out riding what should I see in the road ahead of me
but a real B'rer Terrapin and B'rer Rabbit. They were sitting solemnly
beside one another and looked just as if they had come out of a book;
but as my horse walked along B'rer Rabbit went lippity lippity lippity
off into the bushes and B'rer Terrapin drew in his head and legs till I
passed.

CHARMS OF VALLEY FORGE

White House, June 21, 1904.

DEAREST ETHEL:

I think you are a little trump and I love your letter, and the way you
take care of the children and keep down the expenses and cook bread
and are just your own blessed busy cunning self. You would have enjoyed
being at Valley Forge with us on Sunday. It is a beautiful place, and,
of course, full of historic associations. The garden here is lovely. A
pair of warbling vireos have built in a linden and sing all the time.
The lindens, by the way, are in bloom, and Massachusetts Avenue is
fragrant with them. The magnolias are all in bloom, too, and the jasmine
on the porch.

WASHINGTON'S COMPANIONS AT VALLEY FORGE

White House, June 21, 1904.

DEAR TED:

Mother and I had a most lovely ride the other day, way up beyond Sligo
Creek to what is called North-west Branch, at Burnt Mills, where is a
beautiful gorge, deep and narrow, with great boulders and even cliffs.
Excepting Great Falls it is the most beautiful place around here. Mother
scrambled among the cliffs in her riding habit, very pretty and
most interesting. The roads were good and some of the scenery really
beautiful. We were gone four hours, half an hour being occupied with the
scrambling in the gorge.

Saturday we went to the wedding of Teddy Douglas and Helen. It was
a beautiful wedding in every way and I am very fond of both of them.
Sunday we spent at Attorney-General Knox's at Valley Forge, and most
unexpectedly I had to deliver a little address at the church in the
afternoon, as they are trying to build a memorial to Washington. Think
of the fact that in Washington's army that winter among the junior
officers were Alexander Hamilton, Monroe and Marshall--a future
President of the United States, the future Chief Justice who was to do
such wonderful work for our Government, and the man of most brilliant
mind--Hamilton--whom we have ever developed in this country.

ON THE EVE OF NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT

White House, June 21, 1904.

DEAR KERMIT:

We spent to-day at the Knoxes'. It is a beautiful farm--just such a
one as you could run. Phil Knox, as capable and efficient as he is
diminutive, amused Mother and me greatly by the silent way in which he
did in first-rate way his full share of all the work.

To-morrow the National Convention meets, and barring a cataclysm I shall
be nominated. There is a great deal of sullen grumbling, but it
has taken more the form of resentment against what they think is my
dictation as to details than against me personally. They don't dare
to oppose me for the nomination and I suppose it is hardly likely the
attempt will be made to stampede the Convention for any one. How the
election will turn out no man can tell. Of course I hope to be elected,
but I realize to the full how very lucky I have been, not only to be
President but to have been able to accomplish so much while President,
and whatever may be the outcome, I am not only content but very
sincerely thankful for all the good fortune I have had. From Panama down
I have been able to accomplish certain things which will be of lasting
importance in our history. Incidentally, I don't think that any family
has ever enjoyed the White House more than we have. I was thinking about
it just this morning when Mother and I took breakfast on the portico
and afterwards walked about the lovely grounds and looked at the stately
historic old house. It is a wonderful privilege to have been here and to
have been given the chance to do this work, and I should regard myself
as having a small and mean mind if in the event of defeat I felt soured
at not having had more instead of being thankful for having had so much.

PICTURE LETTER

White House, June 22, 1904.

DARLING ETHEL,

Here goes for the picture letter!

Ethel administers necessary discipline to Archie and Quentin.

Ethel gives sick Yagenka a bottle of medicine.

Father playing tennis with Mr. Cooley. (Father's shape and spectacles
are reproduced with photographic fidelity; also notice Mr. Cooley's
smile.)

Leo chases a squirrel which fortunately he can't catch.

A nice policeman feeding a squirrel with bread; I fed two with bread
this afternoon.

There! My invention has given out. Mother and Aunt Emily have been on a
picnic down the river with General Crozier; we have been sitting on the
portico in the moonlight. Sister is _very_ good.

Your loving father.

BILL THE LIZARD

White House, June 21, 1904.

BLESSED ARCHIKINS:

The other day when Mother and I were walking down the steps of the big
south porch we saw a movement among the honeysuckles and there was Bill
the lizard--your lizard that you brought home from Mount Vernon. We have
seen him several times since and he is evidently entirely at home
here. The White House seems big and empty without any of you children
puttering around it, and I think the ushers miss you very much. I play
tennis in the late afternoons unless I go to ride with Mother.

ON THE EVE OF ELECTION

White House, Oct. 15, 1904.

DARLING KERMIT:

The weather has been beautiful the last week--mild, and yet with the
true feeling of Fall in the air. When Mother and I have ridden up Rock
Creek through the country round about, it has been a perpetual delight
just to look at the foliage. I have never seen leaves turn more
beautifully. The Virginia creepers and some of the maple and gum trees
are scarlet and crimson. The oaks are deep red brown. The beeches,
birches and hickories are brilliant saffron. Just at this moment I am
dictating while on my way with Mother to the wedding of Senator Knox's
daughter, and the country is a blaze of color as we pass through it, so
that it is a joy to the eye to look upon it. I do not think I have ever
before seen the colorings of the woods so beautiful so far south as
this. Ted is hard at work with Matt. Hale, who is a very nice fellow
and has become quite one of the household, like good Mademoiselle. I am
really fond of her. She is so bright and amusing and now seems perfectly
happy, and is not only devoted to Archie and Quentin but is very wise
in the way she takes care of them. Quentin, under parental duress, rides
Algonquin every day. Archie has just bought himself a football suit, but
I have not noticed that he has played football as yet. He is spending
Saturday and Sunday out at Dr. Rixey's. Ted plays tennis with Matt. Hale
and me and Mr. Cooley. We tied Dan Moore. You could beat him. Yesterday
I took an afternoon off and we all went for a scramble and climb down
the other side of the Potomac from Chain Bridge home. It was great fun.
To-morrow (Sunday) we shall have lunch early and spend the afternoon in
a drive of the entire family, including Ethel, but not including Archie
and Quentin, out to Burnt Mills and back. When I say we all scrambled
along the Potomac, I of course only meant Matt. Hale and Ted and I.
Three or four active male friends took the walk with us.

In politics things at the moment seem to look quite right, but every
form of lie is being circulated by the Democrats, and they intend
undoubtedly to spring all kinds of sensational untruths at the very end
of the campaign. I have not any idea whether we will win or not. Before
election I shall send you my guess as to the way the different States
will vote, and then you can keep it and see how near to the truth I
come. But of course you will remember that it is a mere guess, and that
I may be utterly mistaken all along the line. In any event, even if I am
beaten you must remember that we have had three years of great enjoyment
out of the Presidency and that we are mighty lucky to have had them.

I generally have people in to lunch, but at dinner, thank fortune, we
are usually alone. Though I have callers in the evening, I generally
have an hour in which to sit with Mother and the others up in the
library, talking and reading and watching the bright wood fire. Ted and
Ethel, as well as Archie and Quentin, are generally in Mother's room
for twenty minutes or a half hour just before she dresses, according to
immemorial custom.

Last evening Mother and I and Ted and Ethel and Matt. Hale went to the
theatre to see "The Yankee Consul," which was quite funny.

BIG JIM WHITE

White House, Dec. 3, 1904.

BLESSED KERMIT:

The other day while Major Loeffler was marshalling the usual stream
of visitors from England, Germany, the Pacific slope, etc., of warm
admirers from remote country places, of bridal couples, etc., etc., a
huge man about six feet four, of middle age, but with every one of his
great sinews and muscles as fit as ever, came in and asked to see me
on the ground that he was a former friend. As the line passed he
was introduced to me as Mr. White. I greeted him in the usual rather
perfunctory manner, and the huge, rough-looking fellow shyly remarked,
"Mr. Roosevelt, maybe you don't recollect me. I worked on the roundup
with you twenty years ago next spring. My outfit joined yours at the
mouth of the Box Alder." I gazed at him, and at once said, "Why it is
big Jim." He was a great cow-puncher and is still riding the range in
northwestern Nebraska. When I knew him he was a tremendous fighting man,
but always liked me. Twice I had to interfere to prevent him from half
murdering cowboys from my own ranch. I had him at lunch, with a mixed
company of home and foreign notabilities.

Don't worry about the lessons, old boy. I know you are studying hard.
Don't get cast down. Sometimes in life, both at school and afterwards,
fortune will go against any one, but if he just keeps pegging away and
doesn't lose his courage things always take a turn for the better in the
end.

WINTER LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE

White House, Dec. 17, 1904.

BLESSED KERMIT:

For a week the weather has been cold--down to zero at night and rarely
above freezing in the shade at noon. In consequence the snow has lain
well, and as there has been a waxing moon I have had the most delightful
evening and night rides imaginable. I have been so busy that I have been
unable to get away until after dark, but I went in the fur jacket Uncle
Will presented to me as the fruit of his prize money in the Spanish War;
and the moonlight on the glittering snow made the rides lovelier than
they would have been in the daytime. Sometimes Mother and Ted went with
me, and the gallops were delightful. To-day it has snowed heavily again,
but the snow has been so soft that I did not like to go out, and
besides I have been worked up to the limit. There has been skating and
sleigh-riding all the week.

The new black "Jack" dog is becoming very much at home and very fond of
the family.

With Archie and Quentin I have finished "The Last of the Mohicans," and
have now begun "The Deerslayer." They are as cunning as ever, and this
reading to them in the evening gives me a chance to see them that I
would not otherwise have, although sometimes it is rather hard to get
time.

Mother looks very young and pretty. This afternoon she was most busy,
taking the little boys to the theatre and then going to hear Ethel sing.
Ted, very swell in his first tail coat, is going out to take supper at
Secretary Morton's, whose pretty daughter is coming out to-night.

In a very few days now we shall see you again.

PLAYMATE OF THE CHILDREN

(To Mr. and Mrs. Emlen Roosevelt)

White House, Jan. 4, 1905.

I am really touched at the way in which your children as well as my own
treat me as a friend and playmate. It has its comic side. Thus, the last
day the boys were here they were all bent upon having me take them for a
scramble down Rock Creek. Of course, there was absolutely no reason why
they could not go alone, but they obviously felt that my presence was
needed to give zest to the entertainment. Accordingly, off I went, with
the two Russell boys, George, Jack, and Philip, and Ted, Kermit, and
Archie, with one of Archie's friends--a sturdy little boy who, as Archie
informed me, had played opposite to him in the position of centre rush
last fall. I do not think that one of them saw anything incongruous
in the President's getting as bedaubed with mud as they got, or in my
wiggling and clambering around jutting rocks, through cracks, and up
what were really small cliff faces, just like the rest of them; and
whenever any one of them beat me at any point, he felt and expressed
simple and whole-hearted delight, exactly as if it had been a triumph
over a rival of his own age.

A JAPANESE BOY'S LETTER

(To Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow)

White House, Jan. 14, 1905.

DEAR STURGIS:

Last year, when I had Professor Yamashita teach me the "Jiudo"--as they
seem now to call Jiu Jitsu--the naval attache here, Commander Takashita,
used to come around here and bring a young lad, Kitgaki, who is now
entering Annapolis. I used to wrestle with them both. They were very
fond of Archie and were very good to him. This Christmas Kitgaki sent
from Annapolis a little present to Archie, who wrote to thank him, and
Kitgaki sent him a letter back that we like so much that I thought you
might enjoy it, as it shows so nice a trait in the Japanese character.
It runs as follows:

"My dearest boy:

"I received your nice letter. I thank you ever so much. I am very very
glad that you have receive my small present.

"I like you very very much. When I have been in Jiudo room with your
father and you, your father was talking to us about the picture of
the cavalry officer. In that time, I saw some expression on your face.
Another remembering of you is your bravery when you sleped down from a
tall chair. The two rememberings can't leave from my head.

"I returned here last Thursday and have plenty lesson, so my work is
hard, hard, hard, more than Jiudo.

"I hope your good health.

"I am,

"Sincerely yours,

"A. KITGAKI."

Isn't it a nice letter?

ON COUNTING DAYS AND WRESTLING

White House, Feb. 24, 1905.

DARLING KERMIT:

I puzzled a good deal over your marks. I am inclined to think that one
explanation is that you have thought so much of home as to prevent your
really putting your whole strength into your studies. It is most natural
that you should count the days before coming home, and write as you do
that it will only be 33 days, only 26 days, only 19 days, etc., but at
the same time it seems to me that perhaps this means that you do not
really put all your heart and all your head effort into your work; and
that if you are able to, it would be far better to think just as little
as possible about coming home and resolutely set yourself to putting
your best thought into your work. It is an illustration of the old adage
about putting your hand to the plow and then looking back. In after
life, of course, it is always possible that at some time you may have to
go away for a year or two from home to do some piece of work. If during
that whole time you only thought day after day of how soon you would get
home I think you would find it difficult to do your best work; and maybe
this feeling may be partly responsible for the trouble with the lessons
at school.

Wednesday, Washington's Birthday, I went to Philadelphia and made
a speech at the University of Pennsylvania, took lunch with the
Philadelphia City Troop and came home the same afternoon with less
fatigue than most of my trips cost me; for I was able to dodge the awful
evening banquet and the night on the train which taken together drive
me nearly melancholy mad. Since Sunday we have not been able to ride.
I still box with Grant, who has now become the champion middleweight
wrestler of the United States. Yesterday afternoon we had Professor
Yamashita up here to wrestle with Grant. It was very interesting, but of
course jiu jitsu and our wrestling are so far apart that it is difficult
to make any comparison between them. Wrestling is simply a sport with
rules almost as conventional as those of tennis, while jiu jitsu is
really meant for practice in killing or disabling our adversary. In
consequence, Grant did not know what to do except to put Yamashita on
his back, and Yamashita was perfectly content to be on his back. Inside
of a minute Yamashita had choked Grant, and inside of two minutes more
he got an elbow hold on him that would have enabled him to break his
arm; so that there is no question but that he could have put Grant out.
So far this made it evident that the jiu jitsu man could handle the
ordinary wrestler. But Grant, in the actual wrestling and throwing
was about as good as the Japanese, and he was so much stronger that he
evidently hurt and wore out the Japanese. With a little practice in the
art I am sure that one of our big wrestlers or boxers, simply because
of his greatly superior strength, would be able to kill any of those
Japanese, who though very good men for their inches and pounds are
altogether too small to hold their own against big, powerful, quick men
who are as well trained.

SPRING IN WASHINGTON

White House, March 20, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Poor John Hay has been pretty sick. He is going away to try to pick up
his health by a sea voyage and rest. I earnestly hope he succeeds, not
only because of my great personal fondness for him, but because from
the standpoint of the nation it would be very difficult to replace him.
Every Sunday on my way home from church I have been accustomed to stop
in and see him. The conversation with him was always delightful, and
during these Sunday morning talks we often decided important questions
of public policy.

I paid a scuttling visit to New York on Friday to give away Eleanor at
her marriage, and to make two speeches--one to the Friendly Sons of St.
Patrick and one to the Sons of the American Revolution.

Mother and I have been riding a good deal, and the country is now
lovely. Moreover, Ted and Matt and I have begun playing tennis.

The birds have come back. Not only song-sparrows and robins, but a
winter wren, purple finches and tufted titmice are singing in the
garden; and the other morning early Mother and I were waked up by the
loud singing of a cardinal bird in the magnolia tree just outside our
windows.

Yesterday afternoon Archie and Quentin each had a little boy to see
him. They climbed trees, sailed boats in the fountain, and dug in the
sand-box like woodcocks.

Poor Mr. Frank Travers died last night. I was very sorry. He has been a
good friend to me.

A HUNTING TRIP

Colorado Springs, Colorado, April 14, 1905.

BLESSED KERMIT:

I hope you had as successful a trip in Florida as I have had in Texas
and Oklahoma. The first six days were of the usual Presidential tour
type, but much more pleasant than ordinarily, because I did not have
to do quite as much speaking, and there was a certain irresponsibility
about it all, due I suppose in part to the fact that I am no longer a
candidate and am free from the everlasting suspicion and ill-natured
judgment which being a candidate entails. However, both in Kentucky, and
especially in Texas, I was received with a warmth and heartiness
that surprised me, while the Rough Riders' reunion at San Antonio was
delightful in every way.

Then came the five days wolf hunting in Oklahoma, and this was unalloyed
pleasure, except for my uneasiness about Auntie Bye and poor little
Sheffield. General Young, Dr. Lambert and Roly Fortescue were each in
his own way just the nicest companions imaginable, my Texas hosts were
too kind and friendly and open-hearted for anything. I want to have
the whole party up at Washington next winter. The party got seventeen
wolves, three coons, and any number of rattlesnakes. I was in at the
death of eleven wolves. The other six wolves were killed by members of
the party who were off with bunches of dogs in some place where I was
not. I never took part in a run which ended in the death of a wolf
without getting through the run in time to see the death. It was
tremendous galloping over cut banks, prairie dog towns, flats, creek
bottoms, everything. One run was nine miles long and I was the only man
in at the finish except the professional wolf hunter Abernethy, who is
a really wonderful fellow, catching the wolves alive by thrusting his
gloved hands down between their jaws so that they cannot bite. He caught
one wolf alive, tied up this wolf, and then held it on the saddle,
followed his dogs in a seven-mile run and helped kill another wolf. He
has a pretty wife and five cunning children of whom he is very proud,
and introduced them to me, and I liked him much. We were in the saddle
eight or nine hours every day, and I am rather glad to have thirty-six
hours' rest on the cars before starting on my Colorado bear hunt.