A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After Part 18

And to the father's astonished ears came this request:

"Take me to Was.h.i.+ngton as soon as my heart is all right, introduce me to President Roosevelt, and let me shake hands with him."

"All right," said the father, after recovering from his surprise.

"I'll see whether I can fix it." And that morning a letter went to the President saying that he had been chosen as a Christmas present.

Naturally, any man would have felt pleased, no matter how high his station, and for Theodore Roosevelt, father of boys, the message had a special appeal.

The letter had no sooner reached Was.h.i.+ngton than back came an answer, addressed not to the father but to the boy! It read:

The White House, Was.h.i.+ngton.

November 13th, 1907.

DEAR CURTIS:

Your father has just written me, and I want him to bring you on and shake hands with me as soon as you are well enough to travel. Then I am going to give you, myself, a copy of the book containing my hunting trips since I have been President; unless you will wait until the new edition, which contains two more chapters, is out. If so, I will send it to you, as this new edition probably won't be ready when you come on here.

Give my warm regards to your father and mother.

Sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Here was joy serene! But the boy's heart had acted queerly for a few days, and so the father wrote, thanked the President, and said that as soon as the heart moderated a bit the letter would be given the boy.

It was a rare bit of consideration that now followed. No sooner had the father's letter reached the White House than an answer came back by first post--this time with a special-delivery stamp on it. It was Theodore Roosevelt, the father, who wrote this time; his mind and time filled with affairs of state, and yet full of tender thoughtfulness for a little boy:

DEAR MR. BOK:--

I have your letter of the 16th instant. I hope the little fellow will soon be all right. Instead of giving him my letter, give him a message from me based on the letter, if that will be better for him. Tell Mrs.

Bok how deeply Mrs. Roosevelt and I sympathize with her. We know just how she feels.

Sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

"That's pretty fine consideration," said the father. He got the letter during a business conference and he read it aloud to the group of business men. Some there were in that group who keenly differed with the President on national issues, but they were all fathers, and two of the st.u.r.diest turned and walked to the window as they said:

"Yes, that is fine!"

Then came the boy's pleasure when he was handed the letter; the next few days were spent inditing an answer to "my friend, the President."

At last the momentous epistle seemed satisfactory, and off to the busy presidential desk went the boyish note, full of thanks and a.s.surances that he would come just as soon as he could, and that Mr. Roosevelt must not get impatient!

The "soon as he could" time, however, did not come as quickly as all had hoped!--a little heart pumped for days full of oxygen and accelerated by hypodermic injections is slow to mend. But the President's framed letter, hanging on the spot on the wall first seen in the morning, was a daily consolation.

Then, in March, although four months after the promise--and it would not have been strange, in his busy life, for the President to have forgotten or at least overlooked it--on the very day that the book was published came a special "large-paper" copy of _The Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter_, and on the fly-leaf there greeted the boy, in the President's own hand:

To MASTER CURTIS BOK,

With the best wishes of his friend,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

March 11, 1908.

The boy's cup was now full, and so said his letter to the President.

And the President wrote back to the father: "I am really immensely amused and interested, and shall be mighty glad to see the little fellow."

In the spring, on a beautiful May day, came the great moment. The mother had to go along, the boy insisted, to see the great event, and so the trio found themselves shaking the hand of the President's secretary at the White House.

"Oh, the President is looking for you, all right," he said to the boy, and then the next moment the three were in a large room. Mr.

Roosevelt, with beaming face, was already striding across the room, and with a "Well, well, and so this is my friend Curtis!" the two stood looking into each other's faces, each fairly wreathed in smiles, and each industriously shaking the hand of the other.

"Yes, Mr. President, I'm mighty glad to see you!" said the boy.

"I am glad to see you, Curtis," returned Mr. Roosevelt.

Then there came a white rose from the presidential desk for the mother, but after that father and mother might as well have faded away. n.o.body existed save the President and the boy. The anteroom was full; in the Cabinet-room a delegation waited to be addressed. But affairs of state were at a complete standstill as, with boyish zeal, the President became oblivious to all but the boy before him.

"Now, Curtis, I've got some pictures here of bears that a friend of mine has just shot. Look at that whopper, fifteen hundred pounds--that's as much as a horse weighs, you know. Now, my friend shot him"--and it was a toss-up who was the more keenly interested, the real boy or the man-boy, as picture after picture came out and bear adventure crowded upon the heels of bear adventure.

"Gee, he's a corker, all right!" came from the boy at one point, and then, from the President: "That's right, he is a corker. Now you see his head here"--and then both were off again.

The private secretary came in at this point and whispered in the President's ear.

"I know, I know. I'll see him later. Say that I am very busy now."

And the face beamed with smiles.

"Now, Mr. President--" began the father.

"No, sir; no, sir; not at all. Affairs can wait. This is a long-standing engagement between Curtis and me, and that must come first. Isn't that so, Curtis?"

Of course the boy agreed.

Suddenly the boy looked around the room and said:

"Where's your gun, Mr. President? Got it here?"

"No," laughingly came from the President, "but I'll tell you"--and then the two heads were together again.

A moment for breath-taking came, and the boy said:

"Aren't you ever afraid of being shot?"