corner. “No Rough Rider fought with a pitchfork. I’ll be the Spaniards.
The rest of you can attack from those stacks over there. Remember we
beat the Spaniards!”
There was a great deal of yelling “Bang! Bang!” and when the hay was
pretty well flattened and the children swarming over him Roosevelt
obligingly lay flat pretending to gasp and moan from a lethal wound. His
acting was so realistic that Ethel began to cry.
“I don’t like being Spaniards,” she wailed. “I don’t want to hurt
Father.”
He sat up, reaching for her. “I’m not hurt,” he comforted, “just
slightly out of breath. That hay is dusty. Now everybody help. We’ll
pile it up again.” He retrieved the pitchfork and set to work, flinging
forkfuls of hay in the air while the children gathered up as much as
they could hold.
They achieved a beautifully rounded stack that almost reached the
rafters and instantly Kermit and Ethel flung themselves at it, squealing
happily.
“Stop! You’ll tear it down,” yelled Ted, blinking as the last ray of sun
through the shingles glinted off his spectacles. “I want it all round
and pretty.”
“We’ll play Indians and this is the Bad Lands of Dakota,” said his
father. “Ted and Kermit will be Indians and the girls and Archie and I
will be the settlers hiding from them.”
“I want to be an Indian,” Archie protested. “I can yell loud.” He
emitted a piercing whoop to prove it.
“Indians don’t yell,” said Ted, scornfully. “They creep out of ambush
very stealthily.” He quoted triumphantly from the stories their father
had read to them. “They like to surprise their victims.”
“When they’re on horseback they yell,” Roosevelt said. “But you’ll be
prowling Indians. They know how to be still as mice. And twice as
deadly.” He twined a spray of hay through Archie’s hair for a feather.
Instantly Ted and Kermit had to have feathers too and tying knots in
their short hair to hold a dry wisp of hay erect was a slow business.
“I wish we had some war paint,” said Ted, studying his brothers with
grudging approval. “I could have used some of my water colors if I’d
known we were going to play Indians.”
“You’d get it on your shirt and Mame would scold,” Kermit reminded him.
“She scolds anyway,” remarked Ted. “Mame is a very scoldy person.”
“Your faces are dirty enough to pass for Indians,” stated their father.
“And remember that Mame is good and faithful and devoted to you
children. You must always be kind to Mame and respectful and never talk
back to her.”
“Ethel kicked her once,” Ted tattled.
“She swept up my paper doll hats. Anyway, I didn’t kick her hard and I
got punished for it.”
Theodore Roosevelt knew that his children, indulged as they were in many
ways, were sure that retribution for any misbehavior was certain and
swift, relentlessly applied after any wrongdoing. His was always the
correcting hand when he was at home, Edith always resigning that job to
her husband, and he comforted himself with the idea that when they were
bad they were still pretty good children. At least they were truthful,
only Kermit now and then letting his facile imagination run ahead of him
too fast but he was always sternly corrected for it, and as a rule his
brothers and sisters dealt scornfully with his fancies.
“Now, the settlers will hide, and the Indians have to find them, and any
redskin who is recognized gets shot,” Roosevelt outlined the rules.
“I wish I had a sunbonnet,” said Alice, as she made a little nest for
herself far down in the warm hay. “Settlers’ wives always wore
sunbonnets.”
“You’re wearing an imaginary sunbonnet,” said her father. “Tie it
tightly under your chin and I’ll get my imaginary gun ready. Keep quiet,
boys, and hide far down there behind the hay.”
He helped the girls to crouch deep in the dry stack, Alice disliking the
tickle of the hay on her neck and impatiently slapping at it while Ethel
burrowed happily as a mole.
“Holler when you’re ready,” called Ted from the opposite side of the
stack.
“Settlers never let Indians know where they are hiding,” objected their
father, who had dug himself deep into a pile; more excited and intrigued
by the game than the young ones.
The Indians finally advanced, stealth being somewhat diminished by
giggles from Archie and muttered orders to be quiet from Ted. Kermit
gave a war whoop as he sprang at his father but landed in a heap where
Roosevelt promptly dispatched him with an imaginary pistol and a very
realistic “Bang.” Farther around the pile there were screams and snarls
as Ted crept down on Ethel and grabbed her pig-tailed hair.
“You’re scalped!” he shouted. “You’re dead and scalped!”
Ethel promptly rolled on her back, walled up her eyes and made a
melancholy face so realistic that Ted began to whimper.
“Make her stop, Father! She’s scaring me!”
“The game is over,” announced Roosevelt, lifting Kermit to his feet.
Close by Alice and Archie had been tussling, Alice subduing the attack
by tickling the Indian till he squirmed and giggled. “Brush the hay off
your clothes. Now we’ll mend the stack again and see who can jump the
farthest.”
“Oh, that’s easy!” bragged Ethel, reviving from the dead. “I can. I
always do beat the boys.”
“You can’t beat me if Father will hold my glasses,” Ted objected.
“Stack hay and don’t argue. Archie, take off your jacket, you’ve got the
back of your shirt full of hay.”
“It’s inside mine too,” said Kermit. “It scratches.”
“If we had been real Indians we wouldn’t have on shirts, we’d just have
some stripes of war paint.” Ted began busily piling up the hay. “That
game wasn’t fair anyway because Archie giggled and Alice forgot to shoot
quick.”
“He fell on me.” She stood up. “Oh me! There’s Mame, scared to death to
climb the ladder. Father, don’t make us go in yet.”
Mame’s head, wrapped in a crocheted wool scarf, showed halfway up the
ladder. “Gentlemen to see the Colonel,” she announced, “Mrs. Roosevelt
says it’s important.”
“Don’t go, Father,” pleaded Ted. “Tell Mother to send them away.”
“I can’t do that, Ted, because from now on I’m the servant of the people
of New York. Ask them to wait by the fire, Mame, tell them I’ll be in
presently.” Roosevelt shook the hay from his shirt and jacket and
studied the disappointed faces of his children. All the faces were
definitely grimy but each one reflected woe.
“Go ahead,” Roosevelt directed when Mame had backed gingerly down the
ladder. “Oldest jump first. See how high you can land on the hay. We can
jump for ten minutes.” He took out his watch.
Fifteen minutes later he led his bedraggled, breathless crew back to the
house, entering through the rear door though usually he was most
unconcerned about his own appearance, especially when the children were
with him. But now, with his new responsibilities, he was beginning to be
aware that he owed a certain distinction of attire to these people who
had elected him to the most important office in the most important
state. Also he was thinking uneasily of Edith’s carefully disciplined
but inwardly disapproving attitude.
Mame met them in the hall, her own disapproval not masked at all. “I
declare, you always seem to bring them back looking like ragamuffins,
Colonel Roosevelt! Hurry up, all of you! Colonel, you’ve got a dirty
face yourself. Your guests are in the library. Mrs. Roosevelt had me
serve them some wine.”
As he hurried up the stairs Roosevelt was hoping that this waiting group
would not be church dignitaries or any others who would resent being
served wine. Edith was in their room changing for dinner after tending
Quentin all afternoon. She looked at him and shook her head.
“Well, at least you did come up to change.” She sounded relieved. “I
don’t know who they are. Mame let them in. After tending the baby all
afternoon I wasn’t presentable myself. The nurse will be back at nine
o’clock, thank goodness. I let her go home for Christmas. Hurry and
change. They’ve already been there half an hour, with a horse waiting
out there in the cold.”
Through the window they could see a handsome bay horse and smart
carriage waiting outside, the horse well blanketed and secured by an
iron weight.
“Looks really important,” said Theodore, as he washed the dust of the
loft off his face. “But they could have waited till Christmas was over
and given a man a chance for a day in peace with his family.”
“Tomorrow it will be worse,” she reminded him. “You’ll have to be
excused to sort your papers and I shall have to oversee the packing. We
have just four days to get to Albany and I’d hate you to miss your own
inauguration ceremony.”
“Is this jacket all right? After all, I’m supposed to be informal at
home.”
“It will do. Straighten your tie. You always seem to get the knot
slightly crooked.”
“So you will have some reason to notice me, my dear.”
He kissed her, grinning like a boy, and hurried down the stairs thinking
that his Edith was still the loveliest thing alive and the best thing
that had ever happened to one Theodore Roosevelt.
The three men rose as he entered the library and introduced themselves,
though he already knew their identity having had some dealings with them
when he was Police Commissioner of New York City. They were all members
of the Board of Authority, a department of the city government, and
immediately Roosevelt sensed that their mission was to gain some
advantage in advance from the governor-elect.
The idea angered him and he made an excuse to mend the fire, poking and
banging till he had worked off his momentary attack of spleen. Then he
was ready for their proposal which came promptly, voiced in turn by each
of the three. Roosevelt said nothing, sitting rubbing the back of his
neck as he often did absently when he was trying to keep a cool head, a
thing that with his impetuous nature and itch for action was not easy
for him to do.
Finally, when their bland recital of their purpose in coming
here—intruding on a father’s holiday at home—was all stated, the last
part in concert, he jumped to his feet, paced across the room and back
and braced himself facing them.
“Gentlemen, you have asked me to intervene in this matter which
primarily affects only the City of New York, and your office, authority
and functions in that city. Let me remind you in the first instance that
I am not yet governor of New York nor will I be for several days.
Secondly, I remind you that interference of this type is no function of
the governor, and that your appeal (if it is an appeal) should be lodged
with the proper authority to consider it. After that, gentlemen, I bid
you good day.”
The three men went out grumbling and Theodore stamped up the stairs
angrily, to where Edith sat by the fire, rocking Quentin, who had the
sniffles, to sleep.
“Low, unprincipled scoundrels,” he stormed, “coming out here on
Christmas Day to ask a favor of me knowing all the time it would be
utterly outside all order and sense for me even to consider it.”
“There will be a great deal of that in a state like New York,” Edith
reminded him. “You might as well make up your mind to accept it and be
able to combat it calmly. Your experience as Police Commissioner
certainly taught you that.” Edith was not too certain in her mind that
anything she said would do any good. Theodore’s first impulse was always
to fight any imposition or injustice toward himself or any other
innocent party, whether the war was waged against the oppressed Cubans
or against civic or national righteousness.
That he was usually effective only increased his crusader’s urge and his
wife had her own moments of trepidation about facing his career as
governor. She had a clear and analytic mind that was always able to face
truth even in its ugliest mien and she had a quiet dread of all those
stone walls of intrenched selfishness and evil against which Theodore
Roosevelt’s militant nature might hurl itself in vain. He had had so
many high periods of satisfaction and achievement these past years he
had become an idol to many but she knew that from the dawn of the
history of the world the lands of it had been paved with the scattered
dust of fallen idols.
She said then, “Mame is bathing the boys and Ethel, and they’ll go to
bed early. Then you and I and Alice will have a quiet supper downstairs.
The cook came in just a few minutes ago. Poor soul, she spent nearly the
whole of Christmas afternoon just going over to see her sister and carry
her a white fascinator she had crocheted. She was too conscientious
about her duty here to take time even for a Christmas visit.”
But Theodore was still not soothed or mollified. “Those fellows who came
here had the presumption to ask me to intervene in a civic matter that
concerns only their own interests in the City of New York.” He resumed
his angry self-justification, “I practically showed them the door. They
were important men and politically powerful and now I have undoubtedly
made three powerful and influential enemies.”
“You’ll make more, Theodore. You always have when you were in a position
of power just as every man does.”
“Those fellows infuriated me by implying that at this stage of my public
life I would risk being devious. All right, my dear, I won’t let them
spoil our Christmas, what’s left of it. You are an angel to listen so
understandingly to my tantrums. And before I forget it let me tell you
you are just as pretty and sweet and cute as you were when you were
sixteen years old.” He bent and kissed her.
“When I was sixteen I was an awful prig,” she said. “I remember. I
wasn’t much better when you married me.”
“You were perfect when you married me. I was the humblest, most grateful
man on earth that you were willing to risk a life with a rough, tactless
fellow like me. But it has all been pretty good, hasn’t it, Edie? Now,”
he promised, “it will be even better.”
Alice came in then looking a trifle wan. “Aren’t we going to have supper
soon? I’m starving. The boys and Ethel are eating already in the
nursery. I tried to beg a piece of cold turkey but Mame made me go out
and leave them alone. Mame,” she remarked, with a little flare of
self-importance, “ought to realize that I’m almost a young lady.”
“Mame will realize it when you act like a young lady,” said her father,
“and not like a spoiled child. Let’s go now. Mother has to put the baby
to bed, then she’ll be down.”
He took his daughter’s hand, though he sensed that irritated her, but
squeezed it gently with a comradely pressure and they ran down the last
few steps laughing as they entered the dining room, where a cold supper
was spread.
“We’re both out of breath,” he remarked. “We’ve got to run more. We’ll
start tomorrow. In Albany—”
“I don’t want to go,” she wailed abruptly. “I want to stay here.”
“We’d all like to stay here,” he said, “even if there are times when
this house is as hard to heat as it has been lately.”
“Davis tends the furnace better,” said Alice with the bluntness that was
beginning to be a characteristic of hers. It was like his own
forthrightness, he admitted. Fortunately as the years went on an
acquired tact and his innate kindness saved him from too many blunders,
and Edith’s influence helped tame his impetuous instinct to speak out
before he thoughtfully considered a subject.
Edith came in then and Roosevelt gallantly seated his wife and daughter,
making both gestures equally formal to Alice’s evident approval. Then he
picked up the carving knife but laid it down at an admonishing look from
Edith.
“Alice, will you say grace?” he asked politely.
When she had finished he surveyed the remains of what had been a huge
turkey.
“Our bird seems to have suffered from the ravages of a hungry tribe of
Roosevelts,” he turned it over. “I do find a little dark meat left and
some dressing. And oh yes, here is the intact remainder of the liver.
Alice, you may have that. It makes red blood and you’ll need it when you
tackle the beginnings of algebra and French. My dear,” he bowed across
the table, “how will you have your bones?”
“Anything edible,” said Edith. “I’m not at all particular.”
She sat at the foot of the table looking every inch the poised,
self-contained and gracious mistress of his house. He knew that she was
good for him, taming his occasional warlike impulses as perhaps no other
woman could have done. One quieting word from her was usually enough to
steady him and calm his rages as she had just done without in the least
appearing to do, upstairs.
Alice began her argument again. “Mother, why can’t I go to Albany with
the rest of the family?”
“Because your mother’s family want you to have every advantage, Alice.”
Edith spoke quietly, waving off an interruption from Theodore with a
flick of her hand, “You must be grateful for them and for the education
they are able to give you. A girl like you is born with an obligation to
make the most of herself and I am sure you will, as I hope my own
children will too.”
“That sounds like a lecture,” fretted Alice. “I’ll get enough lectures
from my aunts and grandmother. They are always lecturing me to be a lady
and I think ladies are stupid. I’d like to go to Dakota with Father and
be a cowgirl. I ride better then the boys do now.”
“Your aunt will probably see to it that you have riding lessons in New
York,” Edith said.
“I know about those. Side saddle and a derby hat and horses so slow and
stodgy they won’t gallop. I had some the last time I was there at
grandmother’s, with a silly groom leading the horse around by the
bridle.”
Edith sighed. She had devotedly tried to do her best for Theodore’s
daughter but Alice, like her father, had been born a rebel with an
individuality that would always resent any set pattern of behavior. At
least, Edith comforted herself, the responsibility was not hers alone
nor could she reproach herself if inherited traits were too strong.
Thank goodness there was no rampant individuality in her own small
daughter! Ethel was usually as placid as a Dutch housewife, though she
could not be imposed upon and always stood stubbornly for her own
rights.
Dinner was not quite over when two small figures appeared at the dining
room door. In their nightclothes Kermit and Ethel stood there, their
small feet blue with cold.
“Go back to bed quickly, you’ll catch your death of cold!” their mother
scolded, herding them back toward the stairway.
“I’ll come along,” said Theodore. “I’ll just go back and find the
chivalry book, as Ted calls it.”
“You spoil them,” protested his wife. “They were up before dawn this
morning.”
“Early yet,” he made excuse, “only a little after eight.”
“It’s almost nine,” she corrected. “Supper was late because Christmas
upset the household routine. Jump in bed, both of you. Kermit,
wait—we’ll have to wipe off the bottoms of your feet. You forgot your
slippers again.”
“They fall off. Anyway, they’re not so very dirty.”
“Too black for the sheets.” Mame came in then as Edith was tucking the
covers around Ethel.
“They slipped out when I was back in my room,” she explained. “Kermit is
always slipping out of his bed. He’d sleep under it half the time if I
didn’t watch him, makes me feel like tying him into it.”
“I can untie knots,” he said defiantly, “or I could chew the rope in
two.”
“Don’t be saucy,” his mother said, sponging the thin grimy toes. “Run
along, Mame, Colonel Roosevelt is coming up to read to them.”
“It’ll be battles or Injun fighting and get them all stirred up and
excited,” grumbled Mame as she went out.
Alice followed her father into the nursery. “I’m surely glad I have my
own room,” she said. “There’s just no peace or privacy in this nursery
any more.”
“It’s time you were in bed too, Alice,” said her stepmother. “You were
up before dawn this morning.”
“I want to hear the story,” Alice was plaintive. “I promise to go to bed
right after. After all I won’t be with Father very much longer.”
“Let her stay, I’ll hustle her to bed right after,” said Roosevelt.
Ted sat up, regarded the book his father was opening. “I vote for Sir
Lancelot,” he announced firmly.
“I vote for dragons,” said Kermit. “I like stories with dragons with
fire coming out their noses.”
“Are there any dragons in Dakota, Father?” Ethel wanted to know. “Where
you shot all the animals? Those up on the wall?”
“Of course not!” Alice was scornful. “Dragons are a fairy tale like
gnomes and giants.”
“Goliath wasn’t a fairy tale,” declared Ted. “He is in the Bible and the
Bible is the Word of God.”
“Goliath was a tall, strong man,” said his father. “We still see and
hear of very tall, strong men who in that day when most men were short
would have been called giants. I knew a cowhand in the West who was
seven feet tall without his boots. When he rode an average size cow pony
his feet almost touched the ground, he could step over a yearling calf
or a fence as easily as you can step over a threshold.”
“I can jump over a fence,” bragged Kermit, “if I can climb up a little
way.”
“Ponies can jump over without climbing,” said Ted, “but they have very
strong muscles in their back legs. They can kick hard too. Grant kicked
a pig once and made him roll over and squeal loud. He tried to eat my
straw hat once too.”
“You were crawling around under his front legs. He saw the hat and
thought it was good to eat,” Alice defended her pet pony.
“That was the summer Father found the big hollow tree and he let us down
inside it on a rope. You wouldn’t remember that, Ethel, you were just a
baby.”
“She was three. Father let her down too,” Alice recalled, “and she was
scared to death and screamed.”
“It was dark down there,” said their father. “We will now end all
reminiscing and read the book. But first, Alice, toss a little light
wood on that fire.”
“I like open fires better than radiators,” Alice said. “On radiators you
can’t toast marshmallows. And if you put your feet on one with rubbers
on they smell awful.”
The old tale of Sir Lancelot and the wicked Sir Modred, the wizard and
the dragon, held them enthralled for fifteen minutes. Theodore was a
slow and dramatic reader and though the book was a simplified version
for children it was not too simplified and he skipped none of the long
words, but enunciated each clearly, sometimes pausing to make the older
ones say what the word meant and speak it several times. Ted already had
a mature vocabulary for his age and the children had heard very little
baby talk from their parents, though an occasional visitor was apt to
gush and coo, to the boys’ thinly veiled disgust.
Archie was already asleep when the story was finished and Kermit’s eyes
were glazing though he fought to keep them open. When Alice followed her
father out she observed in a suave tone of superiority that reminded
Theodore vaguely of his own mother. “After all, Father, we have to
remember that they are only children. Archie is practically an infant
yet.”
“We’ll remember that, Alice, and be very charitable in our judgments,”
he answered with the same gravity. “Now you scamper before Mother scolds
both of us.”
Suddenly she flung her arms around him. “Oh, Father, I don’t want to go
back to New York. I hate it! Why can’t I go to Albany with you?”
“That has been all decided and explained to you. Your mother’s family
are very fond of you and do a great deal for you, and you must be
grateful. Not many young girls are so lucky.”
“There are so many rules,” she sighed. “Life is too bewildering and
mixed up for a young girl.”
“What a young girl needs at this stage of her growth is sleep.” He gave
her a fatherly smack. “Get along with you now, and be content for a few
years to leave the problems to older people who love you and want the
best for you.”
She was halfway down the stairs and she left him very reluctantly and
backed up the rest of the flight, calling “Good night, Father.”
When she was safely in her room he went back to the library fire where
Edith was sitting, on her knee a piece of embroidery stretched on a
hoop.
“All should now be silent.” He dropped gratefully into a deep chair.
“From the way my own eyelids feel I’ll be ready to join them in
unconsciousness very soon. This has been a long day.”
“And tomorrow will be another,” she said, “but this has been a good day.
For me at least. When none of the children are ailing with anything,”
spoke the mother, “I am content. I hope and pray we don’t have too many
visitors to usurp your time tomorrow, as no one else can sort and pack
most of your personal papers.”