(To Mr. and Mrs. Emlen Roosevelt)
White House, Jan. 4, 1905.
I am really touched at the way in which your children as well as my own
treat me as a friend and playmate. It has its comic side. Thus, the last
day the boys were here they were all bent upon having me take them for a
scramble down Rock Creek. Of course, there was absolutely no reason why
they could not go alone, but they obviously felt that my presence was
needed to give zest to the entertainment. Accordingly, off I went, with
the two Russell boys, George, Jack, and Philip, and Ted, Kermit, and
Archie, with one of Archie's friends--a sturdy little boy who, as Archie
informed me, had played opposite to him in the position of centre rush
last fall. I do not think that one of them saw anything incongruous
in the President's getting as bedaubed with mud as they got, or in my
wiggling and clambering around jutting rocks, through cracks, and up
what were really small cliff faces, just like the rest of them; and
whenever any one of them beat me at any point, he felt and expressed
simple and whole-hearted delight, exactly as if it had been a triumph
over a rival of his own age.