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Theodore Roosevelt’s

LETTERS TO HIS CHILDREN 

By Joseph Bucklin Bishop 

Fourth section of 6 ends on page 161 

ABERNETHY THE WOLF HUNTER 

Colorado Springs, Colorado, April 20, 1905.

DEAR TED:

I do wish you could have been along on this trip. It has been great
fun. In Oklahoma our party got all told seventeen coyotes with the
greyhounds. I was in at the death of eleven, the only ones started by
the dogs with which I happened to be. In one run the three Easterners
covered themselves with glory, as Dr. Lambert, Roly Fortescue and I were
the only ones who got through excepting Abernethy, the wolf hunter. It
happened because it was a nine-mile run and all the cowboys rode their
horses to a standstill in the first three or four miles, after which I
came bounding along, like Kermit in the paper chase, and got to the end
in time to see the really remarkable feat of Abernethy jumping on to the
wolf, thrusting his gloved hand into its mouth, and mastering it then
and there. He never used a knife or a rope in taking these wolves,
seizing them by sheer quickness and address and thrusting his hand into
the wolf's mouth in such a way that it lost all power to bite. You would
have loved Tom Burnett, the son of the big cattle man. He is a splendid
fellow, about thirty years old, and just the ideal of what a young
cattle man should be.

Up here we have opened well. We have two cracker jacks as guides--John
Goff, my old guide on the mountain lion hunt, and Jake Borah, who has
somewhat the Seth Bullock type of face. We have about thirty dogs,
including one absurd little terrier about half Jack's size, named Skip.
Skip trots all day long with the hounds, excepting when he can persuade
Mr. Stewart, or Dr. Lambert, or me to take him up for a ride, for which
he is always begging. He is most affectionate and intelligent, but when
there is a bear or lynx at bay he joins in the fight with all the fury
of a bull dog, though I do not think he is much more effective than
one of your Japanese mice would be. I should like to bring him home for
Archie or Quentin. He would go everywhere with them and would ride Betsy
or Algonquin.

On the third day out I got a fine big black bear, an old male who would
not tree, but made what they call in Mississippi a walking bay with the
dogs, fighting them off all the time. The chase lasted nearly two hours
and was ended by a hard scramble up a canyon side; and I made a pretty
good shot at him as he was walking off with the pack around him. He
killed one dog and crippled three that I think will recover, besides
scratching others. My 30-40 Springfield worked to perfection on the
bear.

I suppose you are now in the thick of your studies and will have but
little time to rest after the examinations. I shall be back about the
18th, and then we can take up our tennis again. Give my regards to Matt.

I am particularly pleased that Maurice turned out so well. He has always
been so pleasant to me that I had hoped he would turn out all right in
the end.

PRAIRIE GIRLS

Divide Creek, Colo., April 26, 1905.

DARLING ETHEL:

Of course you remember the story of the little prairie girl. I always
associate it with you. Well, again and again on this trip we would pass
through prairie villages--bleak and lonely--with all the people in from
miles about to see me. Among them were often dozens of young girls,
often pretty, and as far as I could see much more happy than the heroine
of the story. One of them shook hands with me, and then, after much
whispering, said: "We want to shake hands with the guard!" The "guard"
proved to be Roly, who was very swell in his uniform, and whom they
evidently thought much more attractive than the President, both in age
and looks.

There are plenty of ranchmen round here; they drive over to camp to see
me, usually bringing a cake, or some milk and eggs, and are very nice
and friendly. About twenty of the men came out with me, "to see the
President shoot a bear"; and fortunately I did so in the course of an
exhausting twelve hours' ride. I am very homesick for you all.

BEARS, BOBCATS AND SKIP

Glenwood Springs, Colorado, May 2, 1905.

BLESSED KERMIT:

I was delighted to get your letter. I am sorry you are having such a
hard time in mathematics, but hope a couple of weeks will set you all
right. We have had a very successful hunt. All told we have obtained ten
bear and three bobcats. Dr. Lambert has been a perfect trump. He is
in the pink of condition, while for the last week I have been a little
knocked out by the Cuban fever. Up to that time I was simply in splendid
shape. There is a very cunning little dog named Skip, belonging to John
Goff's pack, who has completely adopted me. I think I shall take him
home to Archie. He likes to ride on Dr. Lambert's horse, or mine, and
though he is not as big as Jack, takes eager part in the fight with
every bear and bobcat.

I am sure you will enjoy your trip to Deadwood with Seth Bullock, and as
soon as you return from Groton I shall write to him about it. I have now
become very homesick for Mother, and shall be glad when the 12th of May
comes and I am back in the White House.

HOME AGAIN WITH SKIP

White House, May 14, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Here I am back again, and mighty glad to be back. It was perfectly
delightful to see Mother and the children, but it made me very homesick
for you. Of course I was up to my ears in work as soon as I reached the
White House, but in two or three days we shall be through it and can
settle down into our old routine.

Yesterday afternoon we played tennis, Herbert Knox Smith and I beating
Matt and Murray. To-day I shall take cunning mother out for a ride.

Skip accompanied me to Washington. He is not as yet entirely at home in
the White House and rather clings to my companionship. I think he will
soon be fond of Archie, who loves him dearly. Mother is kind to Skip,
but she does not think he is an aristocrat as Jack is. He is a very
cunning little dog all the same.

Mother walked with me to church this morning and both the past evenings
we have been able to go out into the garden and sit on the stone benches
near the fountain. The country is too lovely for anything, everything
being a deep, rich, fresh green.

I had a great time in Chicago with the labor union men. They made what
I regarded as a rather insolent demand upon me, and I gave them some
perfectly straight talk about their duty and about the preservation of
law and order. The trouble seems to be increasing there, and I may have
to send Federal troops into the city--though I shall not do so unless it
is necessary.

SKIP IN THE WHITE HOUSE

White House, May 14, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

That was a good mark in Latin, and I am pleased with your steady
improvement in it.

Skip is housebroken, but he is like a real little Indian. He can stand
any amount of hard work if there is a bear or bobcat ahead, but now that
he is in the White House he thinks he would much rather do nothing but
sit about all day with his friends, and threatens to turn into a lapdog.
But when we get him to Oyster Bay I think we can make him go out riding
with us, and then I think he will be with Archie a great deal. He and
Jack are rather jealous of one another. He is very cunning and friendly.
I am immensely pleased with Mother's Virginia cottage and its name. I am
going down there for Sunday with her some time soon.

P. S.--Your marks have just come! By George, you have worked hard and I
am delighted. Three cheers!

OFFICERS OF TOGO'S FLEET

White House, June 6, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Next Friday I am going down with Mother to spend a couple of days at
Pine Knot, which Mother loves just as Ethel loves Fidelity. She and I
have had some lovely rides together, and if I do not go riding with her
I play tennis with Ted and some of his and my friends. Yesterday Ted and
one of his friends played seven sets of tennis against Mr. Cooley and me
and beat us four to three. In the evening Commander Takashita brought in
half a dozen Japanese naval officers who had been with Togo's fleet off
Port Arthur and had taken part in the fleet actions, the attacks
with the torpedo-boat flotilla, and so forth. I tell you they were a
formidable-looking set and evidently dead game fighters!

A PRESIDENT AS COOK

White House, June 11, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Mother and I have just come home from a lovely trip to "Pine Knot." It
is really a perfectly delightful little place; the nicest little place
of the kind you can imagine. Mother is a great deal more pleased with
it than any child with any toy I ever saw. She went down the day before,
Thursday, and I followed on Friday morning. Good Mr. Joe Wilmer met me
at the station and we rode on horseback to "Round Top," where we met
Mother and Mr. Willie Wilmer. We all had tea there and then drove to
"Plain Dealing," where we had dinner. Of course I loved both "Round Top"
and "Plain Dealing," and as for the two Mr. Wilmers, they are the most
generous, thoughtful, self-effacing friends that any one could wish to
see. After dinner we went over to "Pine Knot," put everything to order
and went to bed. Next day we spent all by ourselves at "Pine Knot." In
the morning I fried bacon and eggs, while Mother boiled the kettle for
tea and laid the table. Breakfast was most successful, and then Mother
washed the dishes and did most of the work, while I did odd jobs. Then
we walked about the place, which is fifteen acres in all, saw the lovely
spring, admired the pine trees and the oak trees, and then Mother lay
in the hammock while I cut away some trees to give us a better view from
the piazza. The piazza is the real feature of the house. It is broad and
runs along the whole length and the roof is high near the wall, for it
is a continuation of the roof of the house. It was lovely to sit there
in the rocking-chairs and hear all the birds by daytime and at night the
whippoorwills and owls and little forest folk.

Inside the house is just a bare wall with one big room below, which is
nice now, and will be still nicer when the chimneys are up and there
is a fireplace in each end. A rough flight of stairs leads above, where
there are two rooms, separated by a passageway. We did everything for
ourselves, but all the food we had was sent over to us by the dear
Wilmers, together with milk. We cooked it ourselves, so there was no one
around the house to bother us at all. As we found that cleaning dishes
took up an awful time we only took two meals a day, which was all we
wanted. On Saturday evening I fried two chickens for dinner, while
Mother boiled the tea, and we had cherries and wild strawberries, as
well as biscuits and cornbread. To my pleasure Mother greatly enjoyed
the fried chicken and admitted that what you children had said of the
way I fried chicken was all true. In the evening we sat out a long
time on the piazza, and then read indoors and then went to bed. Sunday
morning we did not get up until nine. Then I fried Mother some beefsteak
and some eggs in two frying-pans, and she liked them both very much. We
went to church at the dear little church where the Wilmers' father and
mother had been married, dined soon after two at "Plain Dealing," and
then were driven over to the station to go back to Washington. I rode
the big black stallion--Chief--and enjoyed it thoroughly. Altogether we
had a very nice holiday.

I was lucky to be able to get it, for during the past fortnight,
and indeed for a considerable time before, I have been carrying on
negotiations with both Russia and Japan, together with side negotiations
with Germany, France and England, to try to get the present war stopped.
With infinite labor and by the exercise of a good deal of tact and
judgment--if I do say it myself--I have finally gotten the Japanese and
Russians to agree to meet to discuss the terms of peace. Whether they
will be able to come to an agreement or not I can't say. But it is worth
while to have obtained the chance of peace, and the only possible way to
get this chance was to secure such an agreement of the two powers that
they would meet and discuss the terms direct. Of course Japan will want
to ask more than she ought to ask, and Russia to give less than she
ought to give. Perhaps both sides will prove impracticable. Perhaps one
will. But there is the chance that they will prove sensible, and make a
peace, which will really be for the interest of each as things are now.
At any rate the experiment was worth trying. I have kept the secret very
successfully, and my dealings with the Japanese in particular have been
known to no one, so that the result is in the nature of a surprise.

QUENTIN'S QUAINT SAYINGS

Oyster Bay, N. Y., Aug. 26, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Mr. Phil Stewart and Dr. Lambert spent a night here, Quentin greeting
the former with most cordial friendship, and in explanation stating that
he always liked to get acquainted with everybody. I take Hall to chop,
and he plays tennis with Phil and Oliver, and rides with Phil and
Quentin. The Plunger (a submarine) has come to the Bay and I am going
out in it this afternoon--or rather down on it. N. B.--I have just been
down, for 50 minutes; it was very interesting.

Last night I listened to Mother reading "The Lances of Linwood" to the
two little boys and then hearing them their prayers. Then I went into
Archie's room, where they both showed all their china animals; I read
them Laura E. Richards' poems, including "How does the President take
his tea?" They christened themselves Punkey Doodle and Jollapin, from
the chorus of this, and immediately afterwards I played with them on
Archie's bed. First I would toss Punkey Doodle (Quentin) on Jollapin
(Archie) and tickle Jollapin while Punkey Doodle squalled and wiggled on
top of him, and then reverse them and keep Punkey Doodle down by heaving
Jollapin on him, while they both kicked and struggled until my shirt
front looked very much the worse for wear. You doubtless remember
yourself how bad it was for me, when I was dressed for dinner, to play
with all you scamps when you were little.

The other day a reporter asked Quentin something about me; to which that
affable and canny young gentleman responded, "Yes, I see him sometimes;
but I know nothing of his family life."

ADVICE REGARDING NEWSPAPER ANNOYANCES

When Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., entered Harvard as a freshman he had to
pay the penalty of being a President's son. Newspaper reporters followed
all his movements, especially in athletics, and he was the victim of
many exaggerated and often purely fictitious accounts of his doings.
His father wrote him indignant and sympathetic letters, two of which are
reproduced here.

White House, October 2, 1905.

BLESSED OLD TED:

The thing to do is to go on just as you have evidently been doing,
attract as little attention as possible, do not make a fuss about the
newspaper men, camera creatures, and idiots generally, letting it be
seen that you do not like them and avoid them, but not letting them
betray you into any excessive irritation. I believe they will soon drop
you, and it is just an unpleasant thing that you will have to live down.
Ted, I have had an enormous number of unpleasant things that I have had
to live down in my life at different times and you have begun to have
them now. I saw that you were not out on the football field on Saturday
and was rather glad of it, as evidently those infernal idiots were
eagerly waiting for you, but whenever you do go you will have to make up
your mind that they will make it exceedingly unpleasant for you for once
or twice, and you will just have to bear it; for you can never in the
world afford to let them drive you away from anything you intend to do,
whether it is football or anything else, and by going about your own
business quietly and pleasantly, doing just what you would do if they
were not there, generally they will get tired of it, and the boys
themselves will see that it is not your fault, and will feel, if
anything, rather a sympathy for you. Meanwhile I want you to know that
we are all thinking of you and sympathizing with you the whole time; and
it is a great comfort to me to have such confidence in you and to know
that though these creatures can cause you a little trouble and make you
feel a little downcast, they can not drive you one way or the other, or
make you alter the course you have set out for yourself.

We were all of us, I am almost ashamed to say, rather blue at getting
back in the White House, simply because we missed Sagamore Hill so much.
But it is very beautiful and we feel very ungrateful at having even a
passing fit of blueness, and we are enjoying it to the full now. I have
just seen Archie dragging some fifty foot of hose pipe across the tennis
court to play in the sand-box. I have been playing tennis with Mr.
Pinchot, who beat me three sets to one, the only deuce-set being the one
I won.

This is just an occasion to show the stuff there is in you. Do not
let these newspaper creatures and kindred idiots drive you one hair's
breadth from the line you had marked out in football or anything else.
Avoid any fuss, if possible.

White House, October 11, 1905.

DEAR TED:

I was delighted to find from your last letters that you are evidently
having a pretty good time in spite of the newspaper and kodak creatures.
I guess that nuisance is now pretty well abated. Every now and then
they will do something horrid; but I think you can safely, from now on,
ignore them entirely.

I shall be interested to hear how you get on, first of all with your
studies, in which you seem to have started well, and next with football.
I expected that you would find it hard to compete with the other
candidates for the position of end, as they are mostly heavier than you;
especially since you went off in weight owing to the excitement of your
last weeks of holiday in the summer. Of course the fact that you are
comparatively light tells against you and gives you a good deal to
overcome; and undoubtedly it was from this standpoint not a good thing
that you were unable to lead a quieter life toward the end of your stay
at Oyster Bay.

So it is about the polo club. In my day we looked with suspicion upon
all freshman societies, and the men who tried to get them up or were
prominent in them rarely amounted to much in the class afterwards; and
it has happened that I have heard rather unfavorably of the polo club.
But it may be mere accident that I have thus heard unfavorably about it,
and in thirty years the attitude of the best fellows in college to
such a thing as a freshman club may have changed so absolutely that my
experience can be of no value. Exercise your own best judgment and form
some idea of what the really best fellows in the class think on the
subject. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the men who are merely
undeveloped are really the best fellows, no matter how pleasant and
agreeable they are or how popular. Popularity is a good thing, but it
is not something for which to sacrifice studies or athletics or good
standing in any way; and sometimes to seek it overmuch is to lose it. I
do not mean this as applying to you, but as applying to certain men who
still have a great vogue at first in the class, and of whom you will
naturally tend to think pretty well.

In all these things I can only advise you in a very general way. You are
on the ground. You know the men and the general college sentiment. You
have gone in with the serious purpose of doing decently and honorably;
of standing well in your studies; of showing that in athletics you mean
business up to the extent of your capacity, and of getting the respect
and liking of your classmates so far as they can be legitimately
obtained. As to the exact methods of carrying out these objects, I must
trust to you.

INCIDENTS OF A SOUTHERN TRIP

White House, Nov. 1, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

I had a great time in the South, and it was very nice indeed having Mr.
John McIlhenny and Mr. John Greenway with me. Of course I enjoyed most
the three days when Mother was there. But I was so well received and
had so many things to say which I was really glad to say, that the whole
trip was a success. When I left New Orleans on the little lighthouse
tender to go down to the gulf where the big war ship was awaiting me, we
had a collision. I was standing up at the time and the shock pitched me
forward so that I dove right through the window, taking the glass all
out except a jagged rim round the very edge. But I went through so
quickly that I received only some minute scratches on my face and hands
which, however, bled pretty freely. I was very glad to come up the coast
on the squadron of great armored cruisers.

In the gulf the weather was hot and calm, but soon after rounding
Florida and heading northward we ran into a gale. Admiral Brownson is a
regular little gamecock and he drove the vessels to their limit. It was
great fun to see the huge warcraft pounding steadily into the gale and
forging onward through the billows. Some of the waves were so high that
the water came clean over the flying bridge forward, and some of the
officers were thrown down and badly bruised. One of the other ships lost
a man overboard, and although we hunted for him an hour and a half we
could not get him, and had a boat smashed in the endeavor.

When I got back here I found sister, very interesting about her Eastern
trip. She has had a great time, and what is more, she has behaved mighty
well under rather trying circumstances. Ethel was a dear, as always, and
the two little boys were as cunning as possible. Sister had brought them
some very small Japanese fencing armor, which they had of course put on
with glee, and were clumsily fencing with wooden two-handed swords.
And they had also rigged up in the dark nursery a gruesome man with
a pumpkin head, which I was ushered in to see, and in addition to the
regular eyes, nose, and saw-tooth mouth, Archie had carved in the back
of the pumpkin the words "Pumpkin Giant," the candle inside illuminating
it beautifully. Mother was waiting for me at the Navy Yard, looking
too pretty for anything, when I arrived. She and I had a ride this
afternoon. Of course I am up to my ears in work.

The mornings are lovely now, crisp and fresh; after breakfast Mother and
I walk around the grounds accompanied by Skip, and also by Slipper, her
bell tinkling loudly. The gardens are pretty dishevelled now, but the
flowers that are left are still lovely; even yet some honeysuckle is
blooming on the porch.

POETS AND PRINCES

White House, November 6, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Just a line, for I really have nothing to say this week. I have caught
up with my work. One day we had a rather forlorn little poet and
his nice wife in at lunch. They made me feel quite badly by being
so grateful at my having mentioned him in what I fear was a very
patronizing and, indeed, almost supercilious way, as having written an
occasional good poem. I am much struck by Robinson's two poems which you
sent Mother. What a queer, mystical creature he is! I did not understand
one of them--that about the gardens--and I do not know that I like
either of them quite as much as some of those in "The Children of the
Night." But he certainly has got the real spirit of poetry in him.
Whether he can make it come out I am not quite sure.

Prince Louis of Battenberg has been here and I have been very much
pleased with him. He is a really good admiral, and in addition he is a
well-read and cultivated man and it was charming to talk with him. We
had him and his nephew, Prince Alexander, a midshipman, to lunch alone
with us, and we really enjoyed having them. At the State dinner he sat
between me and Bonaparte, and I could not help smiling to myself in
thinking that here was this British Admiral seated beside the American
Secretary of the Navy--the American Secretary of the Navy being the
grandnephew of Napoleon and the grandson of Jerome, King of Westphalia;
while the British Admiral was the grandson of a Hessian general who was
the subject of King Jerome and served under Napoleon, and then, by no
means creditably, deserted him in the middle of the Battle of Leipsic.

I am off to vote to-night.

NOVELS AND GAMES

White House, November 19, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

I sympathize with every word you say in your letter, about Nicholas
Nickleby, and about novels generally. Normally I only care for a novel
if the ending is good, and I quite agree with you that if the hero has
to die he ought to die worthily and nobly, so that our sorrow at the
tragedy shall be tempered with the joy and pride one always feels when
a man does his duty well and bravely. There is quite enough sorrow and
shame and suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for
meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. As Police Commissioner it was
my duty to deal with all kinds of squalid misery and hideous and
unspeakable infamy, and I should have been worse than a coward if I had
shrunk from doing what was necessary; but there would have been no use
whatever in my reading novels detailing all this misery and squalor and
crime, or at least in reading them as a steady thing. Now and then there
is a powerful but sad story which really is interesting and which really
does good; but normally the books which do good and the books which
healthy people find interesting are those which are not in the least
of the sugar-candy variety, but which, while portraying foulness and
suffering when they must be portrayed, yet have a joyous as well as a
noble side.

We have had a very mild and open fall. I have played tennis a good deal,
the French Ambassador being now quite a steady playmate, as he and
I play about alike; and I have ridden with Mother a great deal. Last
Monday when Mother had gone to New York I had Selous, the great African
hunter, to spend the day and night. He is a perfect old dear; just as
simple and natural as can be and very interesting. I took him, with Bob
Bacon, Gifford Pinchot, Ambassador Meyer and Jim Garfield, for a
good scramble and climb in the afternoon, and they all came to
dinner afterwards. Before we came down to dinner I got him to spend
three-quarters of an hour in telling delightfully exciting lion and
hyena stories to Ethel, Archie and Quentin. He told them most vividly
and so enthralled the little boys that the next evening I had to tell
them a large number myself.

To-day is Quentin's birthday and he loved his gifts, perhaps most of all
the weest, cunningest live pig you ever saw, presented him by Straus.
Phil Stewart and his wife and boy, Wolcott (who is Archie's age), spent
a couple of nights here. One afternoon we had hide-and-go-seek, bringing
down Mr. Garfield and the Garfield boys, and Archie turning up with the
entire football team, who took a day off for the special purpose. We had
obstacle races, hide-and-go-seek, blind-man's buff, and everything else;
and there were times when I felt that there was a perfect shoal of small
boys bursting in every direction up and down stairs, and through and
over every conceivable object.

Mother and I still walk around the grounds every day after breakfast.
The gardens, of course, are very, very dishevelled now, the snap-dragons
holding out better than any other flowers.

CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO HIS OLD NURSE

(To Mrs. Dora Watkins)

White House, December 19, 1905.

DEAR DOLLY:

I wish you a merry Christmas, and want you to buy whatever you think you
would like with the enclosed check for twenty dollars. It is now just
forty years since you stopped being my nurse, when I was a little boy of
seven, just one year younger than Quentin now is.

I wish you could see the children play here in the White House grounds.
For the last three days there has been snow, and Archie and Quentin and
their cousin, cunning little Sheffield Cowles, and their other cousin,
Mr. John Elliott's little girl, Helena, who is a perfect little dear,
have been having all kinds of romps in the snow--coasting, having
snowball fights, and doing everything--in the grounds back of the White
House. This coming Saturday afternoon I have agreed to have a great
play of hide-and-go-seek in the White House itself, not only with these
children but with their various small friends.

DICKENS AND THACKERAY

White House, February 3, 1906.

DEAR KERMIT:

I agree pretty well with your views of David Copperfield. Dora was very
cunning and attractive, but I am not sure that the husband would retain
enough respect for her to make life quite what it ought to be with her.
This is a harsh criticism and I have known plenty of women of the Dora
type whom I have felt were a good deal better than the men they married,
and I have seen them sometimes make very happy homes. I also feel as you
do that if a man had to struggle on and make his way it would be a great
deal better to have some one like Sophie. Do you recollect that dinner
at which David Copperfield and Traddles were, where they are described
as seated at the dinner, one "in the glare of the red velvet lady"
and the other "in the gloom of Hamlet's aunt"? I am so glad you like
Thackeray. "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes" and "Vanity Fair" I can read
over and over again.

Ted blew in to-day. I think he has been studying pretty well this term
and now he is through all his examinations but one. He hopes, and I do,
that you will pay what attention you can to athletics. Play hockey, for
instance, and try to get into shape for the mile run. I know it is too
short a distance for you, but if you will try for the hare and hounds
running and the mile, too, you may be able to try for the two miles when
you go to Harvard.

The weather was very mild early in the week. It has turned cold now; but
Mother and I had a good ride yesterday, and Ted and I a good ride this
afternoon, Ted on Grey Dawn. We have been having a perfect whirl of
dinner engagements; but thank heavens they will stop shortly after
Sister's wedding.

A TRIBUTE TO ARCHIE

White House, March 11, 1906.

DEAR KERMIT:

I agree pretty much to all your views both about Thackeray and Dickens,
although you care for some of Thackeray of which I am not personally
fond. Mother loves it all. Mother, by the way, has been reading "The
Legend of Montrose" to the little boys and they are absorbed in it.
She finds it hard to get anything that will appeal to both Archie and
Quentin, as they possess such different natures.

I am quite proud of what Archie did the day before yesterday. Some of
the bigger boys were throwing a baseball around outside of Mr. Sidwell's
school and it hit one of them square in the eye, breaking all the
blood-vessels and making an extremely dangerous hurt. The other boys
were all rattled and could do nothing, finally sneaking off when Mr.
Sidwell appeared. Archie stood by and himself promptly suggested that
the boy should go to Dr. Wilmer. Accordingly he scorched down to Dr.
Wilmer's and said there was an emergency case for one of Mr. Sidwell's
boys, who was hurt in the eye, and could he bring him. Dr. Wilmer, who
did not know Archie was there, sent out word to of course do so. So
Archie scorched back on his wheel, got the boy (I do not know why Mr.
Sidwell did not take him himself) and led him down to Dr. Wilmer's, who
attended to his eye and had to send him at once to a hospital, Archie
waiting until he heard the result and then coming home. Dr. Wilmer told
me about it and said if Archie had not acted with such promptness the
boy (who was four or five years older than Archie, by the way) would
have lost his sight.

What a heavenly place a sandbox is for two little boys! Archie and
Quentin play industriously in it during most of their spare moments when
out in the grounds. I often look out of the office windows when I have a
score of Senators and Congressmen with me and see them both hard at work
arranging caverns or mountains, with runways for their marbles.

Good-bye, blessed fellow. I shall think of you very often during the
coming week, and I am so very glad that Mother is to be with you at your
confirmation.

PILLOW FIGHTS WITH THE BOYS

White House, March 19, 1906.

DARLING KERMIT:

. . . . .

During the four days Mother was away I made a point of seeing the
children each evening for three-quarters of an hour or so. Archie and
Quentin are really great playmates. One night I came up-stairs and found
Quentin playing the pianola as hard as he could, while Archie would
suddenly start from the end of the hall where the pianola was, and,
accompanied by both the dogs, race as hard as he could the whole length
of the White House clean to the other end of the hall and then tear back
again. Another evening as I came up-stairs I found Archie and Quentin
having a great play, chuckling with laughter, Archie driving Quentin by
his suspenders, which were fixed to the end of a pair of woollen reins.
Then they would ambush me and we would have a vigorous pillow-fight, and
after five or ten minutes of this we would go into Mother's room, and
I would read them the book Mother had been reading them, "The Legend of
Montrose." We just got through it the very last evening. Both Skip and
Jack have welcomed Mother back with frantic joy, and this morning came
in and lay on her bed as soon as she had finished breakfast--for she did
not come down to either breakfast or lunch, as she is going to spend the
night at Baltimore with the Bonapartes.

I was so interested in your reading "Phineas Finn" that I ordered a copy
myself. I have also ordered DeQuincey's works, as I find we have not got
them at the White House.

. . . . .

SORROWS OF SKIP

White House, April 1, 1906.

DARLING ARCHIE:

Poor Skip is a very, very lonely little dog without his family. Each
morning he comes up to see me at breakfast time and during most of
breakfast (which I take in the hall just outside my room) Skip stands
with his little paws on my lap. Then when I get through and sit down in
the rocking-chair to read for fifteen or twenty minutes, Skip hops into
my lap and stays there, just bathing himself in the companionship of the
only one of his family he has left. The rest of the day he spends with
the ushers, as I am so frightfully busy that I am nowhere long enough
for Skip to have any real satisfaction in my companionship. Poor Jack
has never come home. We may never know what became of him.

"AN INTERESTING CIRCUS EXPERIENCE"

White House, April 1, 1906.

DARLING ETHEL:

I haven't heard a word from the two new horses, and I rather believe
that if there had been any marked improvement in either of them I should
have heard. I gather that one at least and probably both would be all
right for me if I were twenty years younger, and would probably be all
right for Ted now; but of course as things are at present I do not want
a horse with which I have an interesting circus experience whenever we
meet an automobile, or one which I cannot get to go in any particular
direction without devoting an hour or two to the job. So that it looks
as if old Rusty would be good enough for me for some time to come. I am
going out on him with Senator Lodge this afternoon, and he will be all
right and as fresh as paint, for he has been three days in the stable.
But to-day is just a glorious spring day--March having ended as it
began, with rain and snow--and I will have a good ride. I miss Mother
and you children very much, of course, but I believe you are having a
good time, and I am really glad you are to see Havana.

A BIG AND LONELY WHITE HOUSE

White House, April 1, 1906.

DARLING QUENTY-QUEE:

Slipper and the kittens are doing finely. I think the kittens will be
big enough for you to pet and have some satisfaction out of when you
get home, although they will be pretty young still. I miss you all
dreadfully, and the house feels big and lonely and full of echoes with
nobody but me in it; and I do not hear any small scamps running up and
down the hall just as hard as they can; or hear their voices while I am
dressing; or suddenly look out through the windows of the office at the
tennis ground and see them racing over it or playing in the sand-box. I
love you very much.

A NEW PUPPY AND A NEW HORSE

White House, April 12, 1906.

DEAR KERMIT:

. . . . .

Last night I played "tickley" in their room with the two little boys. As
we rolled and bounced over all three beds in the course of the play,
not to mention frantic chases under them, I think poor Mademoiselle
was rather appalled at the result when we had finished. Archie's
seven-weeks-old St. Bernard puppy has come and it is the dearest puppy
imaginable; a huge, soft thing, which Archie carries around in his arms
and which the whole family love.

Yesterday I took a first ride on the new horse, Roswell, Captain Lee
going along on Rusty as a kind of a nurse. Roswell is not yet four and
he is really a green colt and not quite the horse I want at present, as
I haven't time to fuss with him, and am afraid of letting the Sergeant
ride him, as he does not get on well with him, and there is nobody else
in our stable that can ride at all. He is a beautiful horse, a wonderful
jumper, and does not pull at all. He shies pretty badly, especially when
he meets an automobile; and when he leaves the stable or strikes a road
that he thinks will take him home and is not allowed to go down it, he
is apt to rear, which I do not like; but I am inclined to think that he
will get over these traits, and if I can arrange to have Lee handle him
a couple of months more, and if Ted and I can regularly ride him down at
Oyster Bay, I think that he will turn out all right.

Mother and I walk every morning through the grounds, which, of course,
are lovely. Not only are the song-sparrows and robins singing, but the
white-throated sparrows, who will, I suppose, soon leave us for the
North, are still in full song, and this morning they waked us up at
daybreak singing just outside the window.

A QUENTIN ANECDOTE

White House, April 22, 1906.

DEAR KERMIT:

Ted has been as good and cunning as possible. He has completely
recovered from the effects of having his eye operated upon, and though
the eye itself is a somewhat gruesome object, Ted is in the highest
spirits. He goes back to Harvard to-day.

. . . . .

As I write, Archie and Quentin are busily engaged in the sand-box and
I look out across the tennis-ground at them. If ever there was a
heaven-sent treasure to small boys, that sand-box is the treasure. It
was very cunning to see the delight various little children took in it
at the egg-rolling on Easter Monday. Thanks to our decision in keeping
out grown people and stopping everything at one o'clock, the egg-rolling
really was a children's festival, and was pretty and not objectionable
this year.

The apple trees are now coming into bloom, including that big arched
apple tree, under which Mother and I sit, by the fountain, on the stone
bench. It is the apple tree that Mother particularly likes. . .

Did Quentin write his poems after you had gone? I never can recollect
whether you have seen them or not. He is a funny small person if ever
there was one. The other day we were discussing a really dreadful
accident which had happened; a Georgetown young man having taken out
a young girl in a canoe on the river, the canoe upset and the girl was
drowned; whereupon the young man, when he got home, took what seemed to
us an exceedingly cold-blooded method of a special delivery letter
to notify her parents. We were expressing our horror at his sending a
special delivery letter, and Quentin solemnly chimed in with "Yes, he
wasted ten cents." There was a moment's eloquent silence, and then we
strove to explain to Quentin that what we were objecting to was not in
the least the young man's spendthrift attitude!

As I walk to and from the office now the terrace is fairly fragrant
with the scent of the many-colored hyacinths which Mother has put out in
boxes on the low stone walls.