Letters to His Children Part 11

White House, May 14, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

That was a good mark in Latin, and I am pleased with your steady improvement in it.

Skip is housebroken, but he is like a real little Indian. He can stand any amount of hard work if there is a bear or bobcat ahead, but now that he is in the White House he thinks he would much rather do nothing but sit about all day with his friends, and threatens to turn into a lapdog.

But when we get him to Oyster Bay I think we can make him go out riding with us, and then I think he will be with Archie a great deal. He and Jack are rather jealous of one another. He is very cunning and friendly.

I am immensely pleased with Mother's Virginia cottage and its name. I am going down there for Sunday with her some time soon.

P. S.--Your marks have just come! By George, you have worked hard and I am delighted. Three cheers!

OFFICERS OF TOGO'S FLEET

White House, June 6, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Next Friday I am going down with Mother to spend a couple of days at Pine Knot, which Mother loves just as Ethel loves Fidelity. She and I have had some lovely rides together, and if I do not go riding with her I play tennis with Ted and some of his and my friends. Yesterday Ted and one of his friends played seven sets of tennis against Mr. Cooley and me and beat us four to three. In the evening Commander Takas.h.i.+ta brought in half a dozen j.a.panese naval officers who had been with Togo's fleet off Port Arthur and had taken part in the fleet actions, the attacks with the torpedo-boat flotilla, and so forth. I tell you they were a formidable-looking set and evidently dead game fighters!

A PRESIDENT AS COOK

White House, June 11, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Mother and I have just come home from a lovely trip to "Pine Knot." It is really a perfectly delightful little place; the nicest little place of the kind you can imagine. Mother is a great deal more pleased with it than any child with any toy I ever saw. She went down the day before, Thursday, and I followed on Friday morning. Good Mr. Joe Wilmer met me at the station and we rode on horseback to "Round Top," where we met Mother and Mr. Willie Wilmer. We all had tea there and then drove to "Plain Dealing," where we had dinner. Of course I loved both "Round Top"

and "Plain Dealing," and as for the two Mr. Wilmers, they are the most generous, thoughtful, self-effacing friends that any one could wish to see. After dinner we went over to "Pine Knot," put everything to order and went to bed. Next day we spent all by ourselves at "Pine Knot." In the morning I fried bacon and eggs, while Mother boiled the kettle for tea and laid the table. Breakfast was most successful, and then Mother washed the dishes and did most of the work, while I did odd jobs. Then we walked about the place, which is fifteen acres in all, saw the lovely spring, admired the pine trees and the oak trees, and then Mother lay in the hammock while I cut away some trees to give us a better view from the piazza. The piazza is the real feature of the house. It is broad and runs along the whole length and the roof is high near the wall, for it is a continuation of the roof of the house. It was lovely to sit there in the rocking-chairs and hear all the birds by daytime and at night the whippoorwills and owls and little forest folk.

Inside the house is just a bare wall with one big room below, which is nice now, and will be still nicer when the chimneys are up and there is a fireplace in each end. A rough flight of stairs leads above, where there are two rooms, separated by a pa.s.sageway. We did everything for ourselves, but all the food we had was sent over to us by the dear Wilmers, together with milk. We cooked it ourselves, so there was no one around the house to bother us at all. As we found that cleaning dishes took up an awful time we only took two meals a day, which was all we wanted. On Sat.u.r.day evening I fried two chickens for dinner, while Mother boiled the tea, and we had cherries and wild strawberries, as well as biscuits and cornbread. To my pleasure Mother greatly enjoyed the fried chicken and admitted that what you children had said of the way I fried chicken was all true. In the evening we sat out a long time on the piazza, and then read indoors and then went to bed. Sunday morning we did not get up until nine. Then I fried Mother some beefsteak and some eggs in two frying-pans, and she liked them both very much. We went to church at the dear little church where the Wilmers' father and mother had been married, dined soon after two at "Plain Dealing," and then were driven over to the station to go back to Was.h.i.+ngton. I rode the big black stallion--Chief--and enjoyed it thoroughly. Altogether we had a very nice holiday.

I was lucky to be able to get it, for during the past fortnight, and indeed for a considerable time before, I have been carrying on negotiations with both Russia and j.a.pan, together with side negotiations with Germany, France and England, to try to get the present war stopped.

With infinite labor and by the exercise of a good deal of tact and judgment--if I do say it myself--I have finally gotten the j.a.panese and Russians to agree to meet to discuss the terms of peace. Whether they will be able to come to an agreement or not I can't say. But it is worth while to have obtained the chance of peace, and the only possible way to get this chance was to secure such an agreement of the two powers that they would meet and discuss the terms direct. Of course j.a.pan will want to ask more than she ought to ask, and Russia to give less than she ought to give. Perhaps both sides will prove impracticable. Perhaps one will. But there is the chance that they will prove sensible, and make a peace, which will really be for the interest of each as things are now.

At any rate the experiment was worth trying. I have kept the secret very successfully, and my dealings with the j.a.panese in particular have been known to no one, so that the result is in the nature of a surprise.

QUENTIN'S QUAINT SAYINGS

Oyster Bay, N. Y., Aug. 26, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT:

Mr. Phil Stewart and Dr. Lambert spent a night here, Quentin greeting the former with most cordial friends.h.i.+p, and in explanation stating that he always liked to get acquainted with everybody. I take Hall to chop, and he plays tennis with Phil and Oliver, and rides with Phil and Quentin. The Plunger (a submarine) has come to the Bay and I am going out in it this afternoon--or rather down on it. N. B.--I have just been down, for 50 minutes; it was very interesting.

Last night I listened to Mother reading "The Lances of Linwood" to the two little boys and then hearing them their prayers. Then I went into Archie's room, where they both showed all their china animals; I read them Laura E. Richards' poems, including "How does the President take his tea?" They christened themselves Punkey Doodle and Jollapin, from the chorus of this, and immediately afterwards I played with them on Archie's bed. First I would toss Punkey Doodle (Quentin) on Jollapin (Archie) and tickle Jollapin while Punkey Doodle squalled and wiggled on top of him, and then reverse them and keep Punkey Doodle down by heaving Jollapin on him, while they both kicked and struggled until my s.h.i.+rt front looked very much the worse for wear. You doubtless remember yourself how bad it was for me, when I was dressed for dinner, to play with all you scamps when you were little.

The other day a reporter asked Quentin something about me; to which that affable and canny young gentleman responded, "Yes, I see him sometimes; but I know nothing of his family life."

ADVICE REGARDING NEWSPAPER ANNOYANCES

When Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., entered Harvard as a freshman he had to pay the penalty of being a President's son. Newspaper reporters followed all his movements, especially in athletics, and he was the victim of many exaggerated and often purely fict.i.tious accounts of his doings.

His father wrote him indignant and sympathetic letters, two of which are reproduced here.

White House, October 2, 1905.

BLESSED OLD TED:

The thing to do is to go on just as you have evidently been doing, attract as little attention as possible, do not make a fuss about the newspaper men, camera creatures, and idiots generally, letting it be seen that you do not like them and avoid them, but not letting them betray you into any excessive irritation. I believe they will soon drop you, and it is just an unpleasant thing that you will have to live down.

Ted, I have had an enormous number of unpleasant things that I have had to live down in my life at different times and you have begun to have them now. I saw that you were not out on the football field on Sat.u.r.day and was rather glad of it, as evidently those infernal idiots were eagerly waiting for you, but whenever you do go you will have to make up your mind that they will make it exceedingly unpleasant for you for once or twice, and you will just have to bear it; for you can never in the world afford to let them drive you away from anything you intend to do, whether it is football or anything else, and by going about your own business quietly and pleasantly, doing just what you would do if they were not there, generally they will get tired of it, and the boys themselves will see that it is not your fault, and will feel, if anything, rather a sympathy for you. Meanwhile I want you to know that we are all thinking of you and sympathizing with you the whole time; and it is a great comfort to me to have such confidence in you and to know that though these creatures can cause you a little trouble and make you feel a little downcast, they can not drive you one way or the other, or make you alter the course you have set out for yourself.

We were all of us, I am almost ashamed to say, rather blue at getting back in the White House, simply because we missed Sagamore Hill so much.

But it is very beautiful and we feel very ungrateful at having even a pa.s.sing fit of blueness, and we are enjoying it to the full now. I have just seen Archie dragging some fifty foot of hose pipe across the tennis court to play in the sand-box. I have been playing tennis with Mr.

Pinchot, who beat me three sets to one, the only deuce-set being the one I won.

This is just an occasion to show the stuff there is in you. Do not let these newspaper creatures and kindred idiots drive you one hair's breadth from the line you had marked out in football or anything else.

Avoid any fuss, if possible.

White House, October 11, 1905.

DEAR TED:

I was delighted to find from your last letters that you are evidently having a pretty good time in spite of the newspaper and kodak creatures.

I guess that nuisance is now pretty well abated. Every now and then they will do something horrid; but I think you can safely, from now on, ignore them entirely.

I shall be interested to hear how you get on, first of all with your studies, in which you seem to have started well, and next with football.

I expected that you would find it hard to compete with the other candidates for the position of end, as they are mostly heavier than you; especially since you went off in weight owing to the excitement of your last weeks of holiday in the summer. Of course the fact that you are comparatively light tells against you and gives you a good deal to overcome; and undoubtedly it was from this standpoint not a good thing that you were unable to lead a quieter life toward the end of your stay at Oyster Bay.

So it is about the polo club. In my day we looked with suspicion upon all freshman societies, and the men who tried to get them up or were prominent in them rarely amounted to much in the cla.s.s afterwards; and it has happened that I have heard rather unfavorably of the polo club.

But it may be mere accident that I have thus heard unfavorably about it, and in thirty years the att.i.tude of the best fellows in college to such a thing as a freshman club may have changed so absolutely that my experience can be of no value. Exercise your own best judgment and form some idea of what the really best fellows in the cla.s.s think on the subject. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the men who are merely undeveloped are really the best fellows, no matter how pleasant and agreeable they are or how popular. Popularity is a good thing, but it is not something for which to sacrifice studies or athletics or good standing in any way; and sometimes to seek it overmuch is to lose it. I do not mean this as applying to you, but as applying to certain men who still have a great vogue at first in the cla.s.s, and of whom you will naturally tend to think pretty well.

In all these things I can only advise you in a very general way. You are on the ground. You know the men and the general college sentiment. You have gone in with the serious purpose of doing decently and honorably; of standing well in your studies; of showing that in athletics you mean business up to the extent of your capacity, and of getting the respect and liking of your cla.s.smates so far as they can be legitimately obtained. As to the exact methods of carrying out these objects, I must trust to you.

INCIDENTS OF A SOUTHERN TRIP

White House, Nov. 1, 1905.

DEAR KERMIT: