Quentin really seems to be getting on pretty well with his baseball. In each of the last two games he made a base hit and a run. I have just had to give him and three of his associates a dressing down—one of the three being Charlie Taft. Yesterday afternoon was rainy, and four of them played five hours inside the White House. They were very boisterous and were all the time on the verge of mischief, and finally they made spit-balls and deliberately put them on the portraits. I did not discover it until after dinner, and then pulled Quentin out of bed and had him take them all off the portraits, and this morning required him to bring in the three other culprits before me. I explained to them that they had acted like boors; that it would have been a disgrace to have behaved so in any gentleman's house; that Quentin could have no friend to see him, and the other three could not come inside the White House, until I felt that a sufficient time had elapsed to serve as punishment. They were four very sheepish small boys when I got through with them.
JOHN BURROUGHS AND THE FLYING SQUIRRELS
White House, May 10, 1908.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
Mother and I had great fun at Pine Knot. Mr. Burroughs, whom I call Oom John, was with us and we greatly enjoyed having him. But one night he fell into great disgrace! The flying squirrels that were there last Christmas had raised a brood, having built a large nest inside of the room in which you used to sleep and in which John Burroughs slept. Of course they held high carnival at night-time. Mother and I do not mind them at all, and indeed rather like to hear them scrambling about, and then as a sequel to a sudden frantic fight between two of them, hearing or seeing one little fellow come plump down to the floor and scuttle off again to the wall. But one night they waked up John Burroughs and he spent a misguided hour hunting for the nest, and when he found it took it down and caught two of the young squirrels and put them in a basket. The next day under Mother's direction I took them out, getting my fingers somewhat bitten in the process, and loosed them in our room, where we had previously put back the nest. I do not think John Burroughs profited by his misconduct, because the squirrels were more active than ever that night both in his room and ours, the disturbance in their family affairs having evidently made them restless!
BEAUTY OF WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS
White House, May 17, 1908.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
Quentin is really doing pretty well with his baseball, and he is perfectly absorbed in it. He now occasionally makes a base hit if the opposing pitcher is very bad; and his nine wins more than one-half of its games.
The grounds are too lovely for anything, and spring is here, or rather early summer, in full force. Mother's flower-gardens are now as beautiful as possible, and the iron railings of the fences south of them are covered with clematis and roses in bloom. The trees are in full foliage and the grass brilliant green, and my friends, the warblers, are trooping to the north in full force.
QUENTIN AND A BEEHIVE
White House, May 30, 1908.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
Quentin has met with many adventures this week; in spite of the fact that he has had a bad cough which has tended to interrupt the variety of his career. He has become greatly interested in bees, and the other day started down to get a beehive from somewhere, being accompanied by a mongrel looking small boy as to whose name I inquired. When repeated by Quentin it was obviously an Italian name. I asked who he was and Quentin responded: "Oh, his father keeps a fruit-stand." However, they got their bees all right and Quentin took the hive up to a school exhibit. There some of the bees got out and were left behind ("Poor homeless miserables," as Quentin remarked of them), and yesterday they at intervals added great zest to life in the classroom. The hive now reposes in the garden and Scamp surveys it for hours at a time with absorbed interest. After a while he will get to investigating it, and then he will find out more than he expects to.
This afternoon Quentin was not allowed to play ball because of his cough, so he was keeping the score when a foul tip caught him in the eye. It was quite a bad blow, but Quentin was very plucky about it and declined to go in until the game was finished, an hour or so later. By that time his eye had completely shut up and he now has a most magnificent bandage around his head over that eye, and feels much like a baseball hero. I came in after dinner to take a look at him and to my immense amusement found that he was lying flat on his back in bed saying his prayers, while Mademoiselle was kneeling down. It took me a moment or two to grasp the fact that good Mademoiselle wished to impress on him that it was not right to say his prayers unless he knelt down, and as that in this case he could not kneel down she would do it in his place!
QUENTIN AND TURNER
(To Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, Cincinnati, Ohio)
Oyster Bay, June 29, 1908.
. . . . .
Quentin is really too funny for anything. He got his legs fearfully sunburned the other day, and they blistered, became inflamed, and ever-faithful Mother had to hold a clinic on him. Eyeing his blistered and scarlet legs, he remarked, "They look like a Turner sunset, don't they?" And then, after a pause, "I won't be caught again this way! quoth the raven, 'Nevermore!'" I was not surprised at his quoting Poe, but I would like to know where the ten-year-old scamp picked up any knowledge of Turner's sunsets.
QUENTIN AND THE PIG
White House, October 17, 1908.
DEAREST KERMIT: . . . . .
Quentin performed a characteristic feat yesterday. He heard that Schmidt, the animal man, wanted a small pig, and decided that he would turn an honest penny by supplying the want. So out in the neighborhood of his school he called on an elderly darkey who, he had seen, possessed little pigs; bought one; popped it into a bag; astutely dodged the school—having a well-founded distrust of how the boys would feel toward his passage with the pig—and took the car for home. By that time the pig had freed itself from the bag, and, as he explained, he journeyed in with a "small squealish pig" under his arm; but as the conductor was a friend of his he was not put off. He bought it for a dollar and sold it to Schmidt for a dollar and a quarter, and feels as if he had found a permanent line of business. Schmidt then festooned it in red ribbons and sent it to parade the streets. I gather that Quentin led it around for part of the parade, but he was somewhat vague on this point, evidently being a little uncertain as to our approval of the move.
A PRESIDENTIAL FALL
White House, Nov. 8, 1908.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
Quentin is getting along very well; he plays centre on his football eleven, and in a match for juniors in tennis he got into the semi-finals. What is more important, he seems to be doing very well with his studies, and to get on well with the boys, and is evidently beginning to like the school. He has shown himself very manly. Kermit is home now, and is a perfect dear.
The other day while taking a scramble walk over Rock Creek, when I came to that smooth-face of rock which we get round by holding on to the little bit of knob that we call the Button, the top of this button came off between my thumb and forefinger. I hadn't supposed that I was putting much weight on it, but evidently I was, for I promptly lost my balance, and finding I was falling, I sprang out into the creek. There were big rocks in it, and the water was rather shallow, but I landed all right and didn't hurt myself the least bit in the world.
MORE ABOUT QUENTIN
White House, Nov. 22, 1908.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
I handed your note and the two dollar bill to Quentin, and he was perfectly delighted. It came in very handy, because poor Quentin has been in bed with his leg in a plaster cast, and the two dollars I think went to make up a fund with which he purchased a fascinating little steam-engine, which has been a great source of amusement to him. He is out to-day visiting some friends, although his leg is still in a cast. He has a great turn for mechanics.
White House, Nov. 27, 1908.
BLESSED ARCHIE:
It is fine to hear from you and to know you are having a good time. Quentin, I am happy to say, is now thoroughly devoted to his school. He feels that he is a real Episcopal High School boy, and takes the keenest interest in everything. Yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, he had various friends here. His leg was out of plaster and there was nothing he did not do. He roller-skated; he practised football; he had engineering work and electrical work; he went all around the city; he romped all over the White House; he went to the slaughter-house and got a pig for Thanksgiving dinner.
Ethel is perfectly devoted to Ace, who adores her. The other day he was lost for a little while; he had gone off on a side street and unfortunately saw a cat in a stable and rushed in and killed it, and they had him tied up there when one of our men found him.
In a way I know that Mother misses Scamp, but in another way she does not, for now all the squirrels are very tame and cunning and are hopping about the lawn and down on the paths all the time, so that we see them whenever we walk, and they are not in the least afraid of us.
White House, Dec. 3, 1908.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
I have a very strong presentiment that Santa Claus will not forget that watch! Quentin went out shooting with Dr. Rixey on Monday and killed three rabbits, which I think was pretty good. He came back very dirty and very triumphant, and Mother, feeling just as triumphant, brought him promptly over with his gun and his three rabbits to see me in the office. On most days now he rides out to school, usually on Achilles. Very shortly he will begin to spend his nights at the school, however. He has become sincerely attached to the school, and at the moment thinks he would rather stay there than go to Groton; but this is a thought he will get over—with Mother's active assistance. He has all kinds of friends, including some who are on a hockey team with him here in the city. The hockey team apparently plays hockey now and then, but only very occasionally, and spends most of the time disciplining its own members.
TRIBUTE TO KERMIT
In 1909, after retiring from the Presidency, Colonel Roosevelt went on a hunting trip in Africa, writing as usual to his children while away.
On the 'Nzor River, Nov. 13, 1909.
DARLING ETHEL:
Here we are, by a real tropical river, with game all around, and no human being within several days' journey. At night the hyenas come round the camp, uttering their queer howls; and once or twice we have heard lions; but unfortunately have never seen them. Kermit killed a leopard yesterday. He has really done so very well! It is rare for a boy with his refined tastes and his genuine appreciation of literature—and of so much else—to be also an exceptionally bold and hardy sportsman. He is still altogether too reckless; but by my hen-with-one-chicken attitude, I think I shall get him out of Africa uninjured; and his keenness, cool nerve, horsemanship, hardihood, endurance, and good eyesight make him a really good wilderness hunter. We have become genuinely attached to Cunninghame and Tarleton, and all three naturalists, especially Heller; and also to our funny black attendants. The porters always amuse us; at this moment about thirty of them are bringing in the wood for the camp fires, which burn all night; and they are all chanting in chorus, the chant being nothing but the words "Wood—plenty of wood to burn!"
A Merry Christmas to you! And to Archie and Quentin. How I wish I were to be with you all, no matter how cold it might be at Sagamore; but I suppose we shall be sweltering under mosquito nets in Uganda.
LONGING FOR HOME
Campalla, Dec. 23, 1909.
BLESSEDEST ETHELY-BYE:
Here we are, the most wise Bavian—particularly nice—and the Elderly Parent, on the last stage of their journey. I am enjoying it all, but I think Kermit regards me as a little soft, because I am so eagerly looking forward to the end, when I shall see darling, pretty Mother, my own sweetheart, and the very nicest of all nice daughters—you blessed girlie. Do you remember when you explained, with some asperity, that of course you wished Ted were at home, because you didn't have anybody as a really intimate companion, whereas Mother had "old Father"? It is a great comfort to have a daughter to whom I can write about all kinds of intimate things!
This is a most interesting place. We crossed the great Nyanza Lake, in a comfortable steamer, in 24 hours, seeing a lovely sunset across the vast expanse of waters; and the moonlight later was as lovely. Here it is as hot as one would expect directly on the Equator, and the brilliant green landscape is fairly painted with even more brilliant flowers, on trees, bush, and vines; while the strange, semi-civilized people are most interesting. The queer little king's Prime Minister, an exceedingly competent, gorgeously dressed, black man, reminds Kermit of a rather civilized Umslopagaar—if that is the way you spell Rider Haggard's Zulu hero.
In this little native town we are driven round in rickshaws, each with four men pushing and pulling, who utter a queer, clanging note of exclamation in chorus, every few seconds, hour after hour.
THE LAST HUNT
Gondokoro, Feb. 27, 1910.
DEAREST ARCHIE:
Here, much to my pleasure, I find your letter written after the snow-storm at Sagamore. No snow here! On two or three days the thermometer at noon has stood at 115 degrees in the shade. All three naturalists and Mr. Cunninghame, the guide, have been sick, and so Kermit and I made our last hunt alone, going for eight days into the Lado. We were very successful, getting among other things three giant eland, which are great prizes. We worked hard; Kermit of course worked hardest, for he is really a first-class walker and runner; I had to go slowly, but I kept at it all day and every day. Kermit has really become not only an excellent hunter but also a responsible and trustworthy man, fit to lead; he managed the whole caravan and after hunting all day he would sit up half the night taking care of the skins. He is also the nicest possible companion. We are both very much attached to our gun-bearers and tent boys, and will be sorry to part with them.
QUENTIN GROWN-UP
New York, Dec. 23, 1911.
DEAR ARCHIE:
Quentin turned up last night. He is half an inch taller than I am, and is in great shape. He is much less fat than he was, and seems to be turning out right in every way. I was amused to have him sit down and play the piano pretty well. We miss you dreadfully now that Christmas has come. The family went into revolt about my slouch hat, which Quentin christened "Old Mizzoura," and so I have had to buy another with a less pronounced crown and brim. We all drank your good health at dinner.