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THEODORE ROOSEVELT
1919

CHAPTER  18

 SAGAMORE   HILL

THE other day I motored out to Sagamore Hill; the visit was very different from earlier ones. The house was closed, the children had gone out into life, the wife who had so much to do with the character, happiness and success of her husband had gone to France to visit the grave of Quentin. As I came up the hill a feeling of insufferable sadness came over me. As I looked at the vacant house from which the strong man had gone and the stillness of the house, once the home of about the happiest and liveliest family in America, my eyes moistened. I felt that I should never see the face of my friend again, or enjoy his sweet companionship in that house and on that porch. But suddenly the spirit of Roosevelt came to me—that of courage and hope. And a light shown about me and I felt that the ground on which I stood was holy ground, because it had been sanctified by his footsteps. I did not feel so much like crying as I did like singing a psalm of thanksgiving that he had ever come into my life and that the world had been so blessed by him. I stopped at the old elm tree at the corner of the porch which the Colonel loved almost as a person, and through whose beauty and refreshment he so often communed with his Maker. He loved it so dearly, and was so afraid that the storms might hurt it, that he had the great lower branches fastened with iron stays. He called it his weeping elm.

I went around to the other side of the house and looked down into the thick woods where he went so often to chop. And I seemed to hear the strokes of his axe and the crash of the tall tree as it fell. I looked down into the field in which he worked at harvest time as vigorously as any of his farmhands and thought of how he used to toss the hay with his strong arms up to the man on the top of the wagon. I saw the cows in the pasture of which he was so fond. I breathed the perfume of the flowers that were so delicious to him, and listened to the song of the birds that knew him and gave him a continuous serenade. I went down to the stable and there met a very remarkable character, the Colonel's chauffeur, Charles Lee. I knew how much Colonel Roosevelt trusted and loved him and I said to him, "I know a good many things about Mr. Roosevelt, but you were with him so much that I thought you might tell me some things about him I had never heard."

He said to me, "You need not introduce yourself to me, for I have seen you and the Colonel 'together so often and I will gladly tell you something about him." " Come indoors,'' he said,'' and sit down and I will talk to you." I said to him, "This piece of board that comes out from the wall on the porch is about the right width and height for a writing table, and so if you will give me a chair I will sit down here and make notes on this writing tablet, which I desire to put into the book I am writing on the Colonel."

He went into the garage and came out with a chair in his hand and set it down by this improvised writing-desk, and as he did so said, "We will begin with the chair in which you are seated. That was the Colonel's favorite study chair. In it he did much of his reading and writing; I think it was the last chair in which he sat downstairs. He said a little while before his death, 'Lee, you have been with me a long time and a true friend; I am going to give you my chair that I love so well, to remember me by.' And that is the chair. It is precious to me. There is not money enough in the Oyster Bay bank to buy it." "Lee, how long were you with the Colonel?" I asked. "Seventeen years," he replied. Then I said, "You were a lucky man and a rich man to have been so close to so great and good a man for such a length of time."

He answered, "I certainly appreciate my opportunities and blessings in my relation to him. My employment with him began while he was in the White House. I was counted quite a driver of horses, and he selected me as his coachman, for they used horses more than cars at that time. I drove a carriage and two horses, except once a year when I drove four horses—on Inauguration Day." I said, "Do you mean to say that you drove him in his carriage on Inauguration Day?" "I certainly did," he replied, '' I had four fine .black horses and I was the proudest man in Washington as I drove the President that day." "Well, then," I said, "you know something about horses." "Let's go back into the stable here and look at some of the horses." He took me out and showed me a line of empty stalls, saying with a sad voice, '' The man that rode them is gone, and it made Mrs. Roosevelt so sad as she looked at the horses the Colonel loved so well that we sold them all.
"Mr. Roosevelt was devoted to his horses; he was a splendid rider—sat to the saddle perfectly—had easy control of his horse and enjoyed riding, as a sport and exercise, amazingly. It was his custom to go riding about every morning at ten o'clock and the madam rode with him. He never seemed so happy as when he was with Mrs. Roosevelt, and never happier than when they went out together on these morning rides which lasted usually a couple of hours. While at Washington, the President did a large amount of cross-country riding; in fact, he went regularly in the mornings. The landowners had given him the right of way to cross their fields and woods at will, and so he started out and jumped the fences and the little streams and galloped over every obstacle. He had three fine jumpers down there, their names were Blinestine, Rusty and Ordgy. Blinestine was one of the finest jumpers in America. He had as much fun in getting over the high fences as the rider did—and that was a good deal. All the horses loved their owner, but this greatest jumper loved the very ground he walked on, and would not let him get out of his sight if he could help it. The President would get off of Blinestine and the horse would follow him everywhere. He would not even stop to nip grass if he could have a chance to be with the Colonel."

"You said you sold all these horses and these stalls are empty?" I said. "How about this little pony in the stall?" "Oh," said he, "that is the pony the boys rode and loved. He seems like a member of the family. Mrs. Roosevelt will keep him as long as he lives in memory of the children and the good times he gave them. While all the boys rode him he belonged to Archie. There is this funny story about him. Archie was quite sick at the White House. His younger brother Quentin thought that a look at Algonquin, which was the name of the pony, would do him good. And so he got him on the dumbwaiter, hoisted him up to the story where Archie was, and walked the pony into the room. It is said that the visit of the pony did the sick boy as much good as a doctor or medicine. The pony is a perfect little beauty, covered with white spots. His long mane is as white as snow and soft as silk. He seemed to me to look sad, as thought he were half-acquainted with the tragedies that had befallen the boys since the days in which he had given them so much fun. It is said that after Quentin's death the Colonel was found in this stall one day with his arms around the pony's neck crying like a child at the sad, sweet memories.

"Where are those dogs that I used to read .about and the Colonel used to talk so much about?" I asked. "The Colonel had five of them," he replied, "and every day, when he went out on his walk or to his chopping, he would call at the door and they all would come rushing gladly to him. They got to fussing so much among themselves that the Colonel let them all go, but one black-and-tan terrier." "Is he around?" I asked. And he called, "Shady! Shady! Come here, Shady!" And the little fellow, looking every inch a thoroughbred, came close to my chair and treated me just as though he knew I were a friend of his master's.

The chauffeur said, "That little fellow followed the Colonel everywhere that he went. He never went to the woods, or for a walk, or for a bath that he did not go with him and stay with him till he returned. He was his bodyguard. It may be that he was afraid somebody would hurt him, and he would be there to defend him, but it is most likely that he just loved him as every creature did." "Let's look around the place a little," I suggested. And he pointed to the boxes on the trees and said, "The Colonel put them up as houses for the birds. You notice there a small one with a little hole in it for tiny birds. There is one there with the door for larger ones, and the one yonder you see is for birds that are still larger. You never saw a man in the world so fond of birds as he was. He fed them and talked with them and petted them just as though they were people."

As we walked around to the front of the house at the corner opposite the elm tree, there was a large box with glass windows which was a shelter for many birds especially in winter. Mr. Roosevelt came out every day to that house and fed the birds. They seemed so happy as they flew in out of the cold, and stood on perches where they could lean against the glass and warm themselves in the sun. I stopped on the porch and looked down the grassy slope of the woods that skirted it and saw some of the same birds that he knew. I heard them sing the songs that made him so happy, and I thought of what he said in his autobiography about them.

He had just returned from England where Sir Edward Grey, the noted naturalist, had taken him on a long journey to a deep forest, where they had counted over forty different species of birds and heard at least two-thirds of them sing. This is what he says "On the evening of the first day I sat in my rocking-chair on the broad veranda, looking across the sound toward the glory of the sunset. The thickly grassed hillside sloped down in front of me to a belt of forest from which rose the golden, leisurely chiming of the wood thrushes, chanting their vespers; through the still air came the warble of vireo and tanager; and after nightfall we heard the flight song of an ovenbird from the same belt of timber. Overhead an oriole sang in the weeping elm, now and then breaking his song to scold like an overgrown wren. Song-sparrows and catbirds sang in the shrubbery; one robin had built its nest over the front and one over the back door, and there was a chippy's nest in the wistaria vine by the stoop. During the next twenty-four hours I saw and heard, either right around the house or while walking down to bathe, through the woods, forty-two birds." And then he gave the names of them.

I saw some children around the place who belonged to the home of the faithful gardener, Mr. Gillespie. They were very fond of the Colonel and had reason to be. They used to follow him down into the woods when he cut the big trees down. One day they were where he was at work and he said to them, '' Children, gather up these chips and get some dry sticks and start a fire, then go get some potatoes and corn and roast them. That's the way my children did, and they had piles of fun." So they picked up the chips, started a fire, had their camp cooking, and enjoyed their meal. And when they had finished it, they said, "Mr. Roosevelt, we never had so much fun in our lives." At every Christmas time he called the Gillespie children to him and gave them a Christmas present, and he always asked their mother to find out what they wanted, and he got just exactly what they asked for. I was told this incident the day I was out at Sagamore Hill by one to whom the Colonel related it.

One Christmas, the gardener's daughter, Isabel, sis years old, sent in her request for a bowl of goldfish. The Colonel was afraid he would have difficulty in getting the fish out to Sagamore Hill in the winter time, and in time for Christmas, but he said that Isabel wanted it and she should have it if it was possible for him to get- it. So he went to the store, bought the fish, selected the globe in which they were to swim, drew out his money to pay for them and said, "Just send them out to Sagamore Hill."

The man gasped, "Why, Colonel, we can't. The water will freeze on the way out and kill them." The Colonel did not know what to do and said that in all of his perplexing problems that was one of the toughest to solve. But he made up his mind that that little girl wanted the goldfish, and that his specialty in life had been to overcome obstacles. And so he had the man put the fish in the bowl, packed it around with him as he did the rest of his shopping and under difficulties at every step he managed to get Isabel's goldfish out home for Christmas.

Colonel Roosevelt did not want to stay in the hospital this last Christmas, and so Lee took his car down and brought him home, and he said, '' Oh, my! How good it is to get home." And that very afternoon he sent for the four Gillespie children and gave .them each a present with some kind words of greeting and advice, and the very presents they had asked.

I saw some little troughs on the edge of the lawn in which water was put for the birds to drink. The Colonel made it a task of the Gillespie boy to fill these troughs with water each day. The little fellow did so, and on Sunday morning he saw a bright silver dime at the bottom of the water. He thought somebody had lost it and carried it to his mother. The next Sunday there was another dime in the trough. He wondered where it came from. And every Sunday he found his dime. It may be that a little bird carried it there, or more likely an angel brought the silver piece from heaven and put it in the pool for the boy. Yes. It was an angel that did it, that lover and guardian of American childhood.

The house was closed, but I knew what was inside of it, having felt the summer breezes that swept through it and having been cheered by the blazing logs in the fireplace in winter. I knew what wealth there was in the trophies, what numberless books adorned it, and what precious memories clustered about it. I thought of what the father of the house had said about children in his autobiography in these words: "Books are all very well in their way, and we have them at Sagamore Hill, but children are better than the books. There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor, or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison."

The story of the " 'spress" wagon came to mind, which is thus told in his autobiography: "In my rambles with the children, 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 members of the family."

As I stood under the weeping elm, I looked at the building, ample, comfortable, but not stately nor extravagant, and as I did so it seemed to turn into a castle of precious stones, reflecting their dazzling lustre and beauty. It was the love that founded it and lived in it that transformed it into the structure of unspeakable beauty. I thought of the young ranchman and statesman who thirty-three years before married Miss Edith Kermit Carow in St. George's church, London, and brought her to this house and founded this home. The love that established and maintained this home was responsible for fully one-half of Theodore Roosevelt's greatness. In eight cases out of ten a true wife is half of a man's success in any calling in life. I felt that it was this home life with wife and children at Sagamore Hill, as much as anything else, which appealed to the American heart and made him the idol of the homes of the world. This castle of Sagamore Hill sparkled as jewels from the love within it, and also reflected the splendors of an upper world. I am sure he counted Sagamore Hill as the place where heaven and earth came closest together, where they actually touched. This home was a heaven on earth to the master oi this house. It is a splendid compliment to the virtue and conscience of the nation that the home on Sagamore Hill should ever be cherished as a sacred shrine.

I looked up to the room where our dear friend died and the window out of which he flew away that cold winter morning, and I wondered whether Quentin did not come with his aeroplane for him to take him home.