“I did watch him carefully,” said “Bill” Sewall. “He took a lot of
watching,” he added. “Yes, a lot of watching. He’d never quit. I
remember the time we set out from my place up at Island Falls to climb
Mount Katahdin. That’s the tallest mountain we have in Maine. We
were crossing Wissacataquoik Creek. The current is very swift there.
Somehow Theodore lost one of his shoes. Away it went downstream. All
he had with him to take the place of shoes was a pair of thin-skinned
moccasins. The stones and crags on the way up cut his feet into
tatters. But he kept on, with never a murmur of complaint. That’s a
little thing, perhaps; but he was that way in all things--always.”
Later, when Roosevelt had lost his first wife and also his mother,
it was to Sewall, the backwoodsman who, in long walks in the Maine
forests, had given him his first lessons in the value of unvarnished
democracy, that he turned for solace, and it was this Maine guide who
went West with him and helped to lead him out of the daze that followed
these bereavements.
Roosevelt’s interest in boxing developed when he was fourteen, and rose
out of the primitive need of being able to protect himself against boys
who sought to impose on him. At that time he ventured forth by himself
on a trip to Moosehead Lake and on the stage-coach that bore him there
he met two mischievous boys of his own age who proceeded to make life
miserable for him. Made desperate by their persecutions, he decided to
lick them, but found that either one singly was more than a match for
him.
Bitterly determined that he should not be again humiliated in this way,
he resolved to learn how to defend himself, and, with his father’s
approval, started to learn boxing.
Mr. Roosevelt himself relates how, under the training of John Long,
an ex-prize-fighter, whose rooms were ornamented with vivid pictures
of ring champions and battles, he first put on the gloves. For a long
period he was knocked around the ring with no other fighting quality in
evidence but the ability to take punishment. But then, when his boxing
master arranged a series of matches, he was entered in a lightweight
contest and entrusted to the care of his guardian angel.
Luckily his opponents chanced to be two youths whose ambitions greatly
exceeded their science and muscular development, and, to the surprise
of all concerned, he emerged the possessor of the prize cup for his
class--a pewter mug that, though it would have been dear at fifty
cents, was nevertheless a rich compensation for the knockdowns and
bruises he had endured during his training.