(To E. S. Martin)
Oyster Bay, Nov. 22, 1900.
Mrs. Roosevelt and I were more touched than I can well say at your
sending us your book with its characteristic insertion and above all
with the little extract from your boy's note about Ted. In what Form
is your boy? As you have laid yourself open, I shall tell you that Ted
sings in the choir and is captain of his dormitory football team. He
was awfully homesick at first, but now he has won his place in his own
little world and he is all right. In his last letter to his mother in
response to a question about his clothes he answered that they were
in good condition, excepting "that one pair of pants was split up the
middle and one jacket had lost a sleeve in a scuffle, and in another
pair of pants he had sat down in a jam pie at a cellar spread." We
have both missed him greatly in spite of the fact that we have five
remaining. Did I ever tell you about my second small boy's names for his
Guinea pigs? They included Bishop Doane; Dr. Johnson, my Dutch Reformed
pastor; Father G. Grady, the local priest with whom the children had
scraped a speaking acquaintance; Fighting Bob Evans, and Admiral Dewey.
Some of my Republican supporters in West Virginia have just sent me a
small bear which the children of their own accord christened Jonathan
Edwards, partly out of compliment to their mother's ancestor, and partly
because they thought they detected Calvinistic traits in the bear's
character.