Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography — Ch 09-Outdoors and Indoors, pt 3

Books are all very well in their way, and we love them at Sagamore Hill; but children are better than books.

Sagamore Hill is one of three neighboring houses in which small cousins spent very happy years of childhood.

In the three houses there were at one time sixteen of these small cousins, all told, and once we ranged them in order of size and took their photograph.

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.

It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching.

And as for a life deliberately devoted to pleasure as an end--why, the greatest happiness is the happiness that comes as a by-product of striving to do what must be done, even though sorrow is met in the doing.

There is a bit of homely philosophy, quoted by Squire Bill Widener, of Widener's Valley, Virginia, which sums up one's duty in life: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are."

The country is the place for children, and if not the country, a city small enough so that one can get out into the country.

When our own children were little, we were for several winters in Washington, and each Sunday afternoon the whole family spent in Rock Creek Park, which was then very real country indeed.

I would drag one of the children's wagons; and when the very smallest pairs of feet grew tired of trudging bravely after us, or of racing on rapturous side trips after flowers and other treasures, the owners would clamber into the wagon.

One of these wagons, by the way, a gorgeous red one, had "Express" painted on it in gilt letters, and was known to the younger children as the "'spress" wagon.

They evidently associated the color with the term.

Once while we were at Sagamore something happened to the cherished "'spress" wagon to the distress of the children, and especially of the child who owned it.

Their mother and I were just starting for a drive in the buggy, and we promised the bereaved owner that we would visit a store we knew in East Norwich, a village a few miles away, and bring back another "'spress" wagon.

When we reached the store, we found to our dismay that the wagon which we had seen had been sold.

We could not bear to return without the promised gift, for we knew that the brains of small persons are much puzzled when their elders seem to break promises.

Fortunately, we saw in the store a delightful little bright-red chair and bright-red table, and these we brought home and handed solemnly over to the expectant recipient, explaining that as there unfortunately was not a "'spress" wagon we had brought him back a "'spress" chair and "'spress" table.

It worked beautifully!

The "'spress" chair and table were received with such rapture that we had to get duplicates for the other small member of the family who was the particular crony of the proprietor of the new treasures.

When their mother and I returned from a row, we would often see the children waiting for us, running like sand-spiders along the beach.

They always liked to swim in company with a grown-up of buoyant temperament and inventive mind, and the float offered limitless opportunities for enjoyment while bathing.

All dutiful parents know the game of "stage-coach"; each child is given a name, such as the whip, the nigh leader, the off wheeler, the old lady passenger, and, under penalty of paying a forfeit, must get up and turn round when the grown-up, who is improvising a thrilling story, mentions that particular object; and when the word "stage-coach" is mentioned, everybody has to get up and turn round.

Well, we used to play stage-coach on the float while in swimming, and instead of tamely getting up and turning round, the child whose turn it was had to plunge overboard.

When I mentioned "stage-coach," the water fairly foamed with vigorously kicking little legs; and then there was always a moment of interest while I counted, so as to be sure that the number of heads that came up corresponded with the number of children who had gone down.

No man or woman will ever forget the time when some child lies sick of a disease that threatens its life.

Moreover, much less serious sickness is unpleasant enough at the time.

Looking back, however, there are elements of comedy in certain of the less serious cases.

I well remember one such instance which occurred when we were living in Washington, in a small house, with barely enough room for everybody when all the chinks were filled.

Measles descended on the household.

In the effort to keep the children that were well and those that were sick apart, their mother and I had to camp out in improvised fashion.

When the eldest small boy was getting well, and had recovered his spirits, I slept on a sofa beside his bed--the sofa being so short that my feet projected over anyhow.

One afternoon the small boy was given a toy organ by a sympathetic friend.

Next morning early I was waked to find the small boy very vivacious and requesting a story.

Having drowsily told the story, I said, "Now, father's told you a story, so you amuse yourself and let father go to sleep"; to which the small boy responded most virtuously, "Yes, father will go to sleep and I'll play the organ," which he did, at a distance of two feet from my head.

Later his sister, who had just come down with the measles, was put into the same room.

The small boy was convalescing, and was engaged in playing on the floor with some tin ships, together with two or three pasteboard monitors and rams of my own manufacture.

He was giving a vivid rendering of Farragut at Mobile Bay, from memories of how I had told the story.

My pasteboard rams and monitors were fascinating--if a naval architect may be allowed to praise his own work--and as property they were equally divided between the little girl and the small boy.

The little girl looked on with alert suspicion from the bed, for she was not yet convalescent enough to be allowed down on the floor.

The small boy was busily reciting the phases of the fight, which now approached its climax, and the little girl evidently suspected that her monitor was destined to play the part of victim.

Little boy.

"And then they steamed bang into the monitor."

Little girl.

"Brother, don't you sink my monitor!"

Little boy (without heeding, and hurrying toward the climax).

"And the torpedo went at the monitor!"

Little girl.

"My monitor is not to sink!"

Little boy, dramatically: "And bang the monitor sank!"

Little girl.

"It didn't do any such thing.

My monitor always goes to bed at seven, and it's now quarter past.

My monitor was in bed and couldn't sink!"

When I was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Leonard Wood and I used often to combine forces and take both families of children out to walk, and occasionally some of their playmates.

Leonard Wood's son, I found, attributed the paternity of all of those not of his own family to me.

Once we were taking the children across Rock Creek on a fallen tree.

I was standing on the middle of the log trying to prevent any of the children from falling off, and while making a clutch at one peculiarly active and heedless child I fell off myself.

As I emerged from the water I heard the little Wood boy calling frantically to the General: "Oh!

oh!

The father of all the children fell into the creek!"

--which made me feel like an uncommonly moist patriarch.

Of course the children took much interest in the trophies I occasionally brought back from my hunts.

When I started for my regiment, in '98, the stress of leaving home, which was naturally not pleasant, was somewhat lightened by the next to the youngest boy, whose ideas of what was about to happen were hazy, clasping me round the legs with a beaming smile and saying, "And is my father going to the war?

And will he bring me back a bear?"

When, some five months later, I returned, of course in my uniform, this little boy was much puzzled as to my identity, although he greeted me affably with "Good afternoon, Colonel."

Half an hour later somebody asked him, "Where's father?"

to which he responded, "I don't know; but the Colonel is taking a bath."

Of course the children anthropomorphized--if that is the proper term--their friends of the animal world.

Among these friends at one period was the baker's horse, and on a very rainy day I heard the little girl, who was looking out of the window, say, with a melancholy shake of her head, "Oh!

there's poor Kraft's horse, all soppin' wet!"

While I was in the White House the youngest boy became an _habitue_ of a small and rather noisome animal shop, and the good-natured owner would occasionally let him take pets home to play with.

On one occasion I was holding a conversation with one of the leaders in Congress, Uncle Pete Hepburn, about the Railroad Rate Bill.

The children were strictly trained not to interrupt business, but on this particular occasion the little boy's feelings overcame him.

He had been loaned a king-snake, which, as all nature-lovers know, is not only a useful but a beautiful snake, very friendly to human beings; and he came rushing home to show the treasure.

He was holding it inside his coat, and it contrived to wiggle partly down the sleeve.

Uncle Pete Hepburn naturally did not understand the full import of what the little boy was saying to me as he endeavored to wriggle out of his jacket, and kindly started to help him--and then jumped back with alacrity as the small boy and the snake both popped out of the jacket.

There could be no healthier and pleasanter place in which to bring up children than in that nook of old-time America around Sagamore Hill.

Certainly I never knew small people to have a better time or a better training for their work in after life than the three families of cousins at Sagamore Hill.

It was real country, and--speaking from the somewhat detached point of view of the masculine parent--I should say there was just the proper mixture of freedom and control in the management of the children.

They were never allowed to be disobedient or to shirk lessons or work; and they were encouraged to have all the fun possible.

They often went barefoot, especially during the many hours passed in various enthralling pursuits along and in the waters of the bay.

They swam, they tramped, they boated, they coasted and skated in winter, they were intimate friends with the cows, chickens, pigs, and other live stock.

They had in succession two ponies, General Grant and, when the General's legs became such that he lay down too often and too unexpectedly in the road, a calico pony named Algonquin, who is still living a life of honorable leisure in the stable and in the pasture--where he has to be picketed, because otherwise he chases the cows.

Sedate pony Grant used to draw the cart in which the children went driving when they were very small, the driver being their old nurse Mame, who had held their mother in her arms when she was born, and who was knit to them by a tie as close as any tie of blood.

I doubt whether I ever saw Mame really offended with them except once when, out of pure but misunderstood affection, they named a pig after her.

They loved pony Grant.

Once I saw the then little boy of three hugging pony Grant's fore legs.

As he leaned over, his broad straw hat tilted on end, and pony Grant meditatively munched the brim; whereupon the small boy looked up with a wail of anguish, evidently thinking the pony had decided to treat him like a radish.

The children had pets of their own, too, of course.

Among them guinea pigs were the stand-bys--their highly unemotional nature fits them for companionship with adoring but over-enthusiastic young masters and mistresses.

Then there were flying squirrels, and kangaroo rats, gentle and trustful, and a badger whose temper was short but whose nature was fundamentally friendly.

The badger's name was Josiah; the particular little boy whose property he was used to carry him about, clasped firmly around what would have been his waist if he had had any.

Inasmuch as when on the ground the badger would play energetic games of tag with the little boy and nip his bare legs, I suggested that it would be uncommonly disagreeable if he took advantage of being held in the little boy's arms to bite his face; but this suggestion was repelled with scorn as an unworthy assault on the character of Josiah.

"He bites legs sometimes, but he never bites faces," said the little boy.

We also had a young black bear whom the children christened Jonathan Edwards, partly out of compliment to their mother, who was descended from that great Puritan divine, and partly because the bear possessed a temper in which gloom and strength were combined in what the children regarded as Calvinistic proportions.

As for the dogs, of course there were many, and during their lives they were intimate and valued family friends, and their deaths were household tragedies.

One of them, a large yellow animal of several good breeds and valuable rather because of psychical than physical traits, was named "Susan" by his small owners, in commemoration of another retainer, a white cow; the fact that the cow and the dog were not of the same sex being treated with indifference.

Much the most individual of the dogs and the one with the strongest character was Sailor Boy, a Chesapeake Bay dog.

He had a masterful temper and a strong sense of both dignity and duty.

He would never let the other dogs fight, and he himself never fought unless circumstances imperatively demanded it; but he was a murderous animal when he did fight.

He was not only exceedingly fond of the water, as was to be expected, but passionately devoted to gunpowder in every form, for he loved firearms and fairly reveled in the Fourth of July celebrations--the latter being rather hazardous occasions, as the children strongly objected to any "safe and sane" element being injected into them, and had the normal number of close shaves with rockets, Roman candles, and firecrackers.

One of the stand-bys for enjoyment, especially in rainy weather, was the old barn.

This had been built nearly a century previously, and was as delightful as only the pleasantest kind of old barn can be.

It stood at the meeting-spot of three fences.

A favorite amusement used to be an obstacle race when the barn was full of hay.

The contestants were timed and were started successively from outside the door.

They rushed inside, clambered over or burrowed through the hay, as suited them best, dropped out of a place where a loose board had come off, got over, through, or under the three fences, and raced back to the starting-point.

When they were little, their respective fathers were expected also to take part in the obstacle race, and when with the advance of years the fathers finally refused to be contestants, there was a general feeling of pained regret among the children at such a decline in the sporting spirit.

Another famous place for handicap races was Cooper's Bluff, a gigantic sand-bank rising from the edge of the bay, a mile from the house.

If the tide was high there was an added thrill, for some of the contestants were sure to run into the water.

As soon as the little boys learned to swim they were allowed to go off by themselves in rowboats and camp out for the night along the Sound.

Sometimes I would go along so as to take the smaller children.

Once a schooner was wrecked on a point half a dozen miles away.

She held together well for a season or two after having been cleared of everything down to the timbers, and this gave us the chance to make camping-out trips in which the girls could also be included, for we put them to sleep in the wreck, while the boys slept on the shore; squaw picnics, the children called them.

My children, when young, went to the public school near us, the little Cove School, as it is called.

For nearly thirty years we have given the Christmas tree to the school.

Before the gifts are distributed I am expected to make an address, which is always mercifully short, my own children having impressed upon me with frank sincerity the attitude of other children to addresses of this kind on such occasions.

There are of course performances by the children themselves, while all of us parents look admiringly on, each sympathizing with his or her particular offspring in the somewhat wooden recital of "Darius Green and his Flying Machine" or "The Mountain and the Squirrel had a Quarrel."

But the tree and the gifts make up for all shortcomings.

We had a sleigh for winter; but if, when there was much snow, the whole family desired to go somewhere, we would put the body of the farm wagon on runners and all bundle in together.

We always liked snow at Christmas time, and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve.

One of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve festival begins, "It's Christmas eve on the river, it's Christmas eve on the bay."

All good natives of the village firmly believe that this hymn was written here, and with direct reference to Oyster Bay; although if such were the case the word "river" would have to be taken in a hyperbolic sense, as the nearest approach to a river is the village pond.

I used to share this belief myself, until my faith was shaken by a Denver lady who wrote that she had sung that hymn when a child in Michigan, and that at the present time her little Denver babies also loved it, although in their case the river was not represented by even a village pond.

When we were in Washington, the children usually went with their mother to the Episcopal church, while I went to the Dutch Reformed.

But if any child misbehaved itself, it was sometimes sent next Sunday to church with me, on the theory that my companionship would have a sedative effect--which it did, as I and the child walked along with rather constrained politeness, each eying the other with watchful readiness for the unexpected.

On one occasion, when the child's conduct fell just short of warranting such extreme measures, his mother, as they were on the point of entering church, concluded a homily by a quotation which showed a certain haziness of memory concerning the marriage and baptismal services: "No, little boy, if this conduct continues, I shall think that you neither love, honor, nor obey me!"

However, the culprit was much impressed with a sense of shortcoming as to the obligations he had undertaken; so the result was as satisfactory as if the quotation had been from the right service.

As for the education of the children, there was of course much of it that represented downright hard work and drudgery.

There was also much training that came as a by-product and was perhaps almost as valuable--not as a substitute but as an addition.

After their supper, the children, when little, would come trotting up to their mother's room to be read to, and it was always a surprise to me to notice the extremely varied reading which interested them, from Howard Pyle's "Robin Hood," Mary Alicia Owen's "Voodoo Tales," and Joel Chandler Harris's "Aaron in the Wild Woods," to "Lycides" and "King John."

If their mother was absent, I would try to act as vice-mother--a poor substitute, I fear--superintending the supper and reading aloud afterwards.

The children did not wish me to read the books they desired their mother to read, and I usually took some such book as "Hereward the Wake," or "Guy Mannering," or "The Last of the Mohicans" or else some story about a man-eating tiger, or a man-eating lion, from one of the hunting books in my library.

These latter stories were always favorites, and as the authors told them in the first person, my interested auditors grew to know them by the name of the "I" stories, and regarded them as adventures all of which happened to the same individual.

When Selous, the African hunter, visited us, I had to get him to tell to the younger children two or three of the stories with which they were already familiar from my reading; and as Selous is a most graphic narrator, and always enters thoroughly into the feeling not only of himself but of the opposing lion or buffalo, my own rendering of the incidents was cast entirely into the shade.

Besides profiting by the more canonical books on education, we profited by certain essays and articles of a less orthodox type.

I wish to express my warmest gratitude for such books--not of avowedly didactic purpose--as Laura Richards's books, Josephine Dodge Daskam's "Madness of Philip," Palmer Cox's "Queer People," the melodies of Father Goose and Mother Wild Goose, Flandreau's "Mrs. White's," Myra Kelly's stories of her little East Side pupils, and Michelson's "Madigans."

It is well to take duties, and life generally, seriously.

It is also well to remember that a sense of humor is a healthy anti-scorbutic to that portentous seriousness which defeats its own purpose.

Occasionally bits of self-education proved of unexpected help to the children in later years.

Like other children, they were apt to take to bed with them treasures which they particularly esteemed.

One of the boys, just before his sixteenth birthday, went moose hunting with the family doctor, and close personal friend of the entire family, Alexander Lambert.

Once night overtook them before they camped, and they had to lie down just where they were.

Next morning Dr. Lambert rather enviously congratulated the boy on the fact that stones and roots evidently did not interfere with the soundness of his sleep; to which the boy responded, "Well, Doctor, you see it isn't very long since I used to take fourteen china animals to bed with me every night!"

As the children grew up, Sagamore Hill remained delightful for them.

There were picnics and riding parties, there were dances in the north room--sometimes fancy dress dances--and open-air plays on the green tennis court of one of the cousin's houses.

The children are no longer children now.

Most of them are men and women, working out their own fates in the big world; some in our own land, others across the great oceans or where the Southern Cross blazes in the tropic nights.

Some of them have children of their own; some are working at one thing, some at another; in cable ships, in business offices, in factories, in newspaper offices, building steel bridges, bossing gravel trains and steam shovels, or laying tracks and superintending freight traffic.

They have had their share of accidents and escapes; as I write, word comes from a far-off land that one of them, whom Seth Bullock used to call "Kim" because he was the friend of all mankind, while bossing a dangerous but necessary steel structural job has had two ribs and two back teeth broken, and is back at work.

They have known and they will know joy and sorrow, triumph and temporary defeat.

But I believe they are all the better off because of their happy and healthy childhood.

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all prizes are those connected with the home.

No father and mother can hope to escape sorrow and anxiety, and there are dreadful moments when death comes very near those we love, even if for the time being it passes by.

But life is a great adventure, and the worst of all fears is the fear of living.

There are many forms of success, many forms of triumph.

But there is no other success that in any shape or way approaches that which is open to most of the many, many men and women who have the right ideals.

These are the men and the women who see that it is the intimate and homely things that count most.

They are the men and women who have the courage to strive for the happiness which comes only with labor and effort and self-sacrifice, and only to those whose joy in life springs in part from power of work and sense of duty.

CHAPTER X