Part 2

“You mean going off at half cock, lacking in sober judgment. I know that. No one knows it better than I. All my life I’ve battled against going at things headlong, the way I fought in Cuba, and struggled to put down graft and corruption when I was with the New York Police Commission.”

“I still hate thinking of that winter when times were so hard and we were so short of money. I still can’t bear to see a slice of bread wasted. Theodore, listen!” She rose suddenly. “It’s a wagon coming up the drive.”

They both hurried to the front door. A wagon drawn by two horses was slowly coming up the hill, lanterns hung upon it and sleigh bells jingling merrily from about the necks of the horses. It was filled with young people who were singing at the tops of their voices.

_God rest ye merry, gentlemen! let nothing you dismay, For Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was born on Christmas day._

“How sweet!” exclaimed Edith. “We ought to invite them in.”

The noise would rouse the children, she knew unhappily, as the youngsters went on into another carol. Theodore walked out to the wagon to deliver the invitation, while Edith racked her brain to think what she had in the house to offer a crowd of young fry, who would certainly have huge appetites. There might be cookies in the pantry or apples. The cook always kept a supply of cookies on hand as Theodore often put a few in his pockets when he went on his almost daily rambles over the countryside.

It was a relief to her when he returned to the porch saying that the carolers would not alight, as they had many other places to go and it was getting late. After a dozen more songs, coming sweetly clear on the frosty air, the singers launched into a popular song that had been sung when crowds greeted the hero of San Juan Hill.

_We’ll send you to the White House for the gallant deeds you’ve done._

Edith knew a sudden trepidation as the wagon jolted away, the voices still floating back on the still, cold air. She had heard whispers of the White House before from the politicians and public men who were constantly thronging the house, but never a word from Theodore. If he had any ambitions beyond the governorship he was keeping them from her and that was unlike her husband who was often too vocal and positive in his plans and opinions. Certainly he had always confided in his wife, even if at times she had secretly thought he was not too wise to be so frank about important and confidential matters.

What he may have been thinking she had no way of knowing, though as a rule his line of thought was seldom concealed from her. The presidency would be an honor of course, and if Theodore had a dream of sometime occupying that distinguished position she could say nothing to discourage or frustrate such an ambition, but her quiet soul shrank a little from being thrust into the responsibilities of such a life and always she thought of her children. The publicity and adulation to which they would be exposed in Albany would be bad enough.

Like their father they were all fiercely democratic—at least the boys were—but every honor that had come to their father had excited them, Alice especially. Alice loved importance and took every plaudit and cheer as partially her own.

Edith argued determinedly with herself that she was worrying about nothing, that no doubt after his term as governor was ended, Theodore would be content to return to Sagamore Hill to write and live the life of a country squire. But all the while she was tormented by her hidden awareness that quiet and peace were never made for Theodore Roosevelt.

They went back into the house and discovered three small figures crouched above, peering through the railings of the stairs.

“We couldn’t sleep, the singing kept us awake,” said Alice when Theodore began to scold.

“Scurry back to bed, all of you,” he ordered. “You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“Just some young people singing Christmas carols,” explained their mother. “When you are older perhaps you can go out caroling too on Christmas Eve. Kermit, come here, your night clothes aren’t properly buttoned.”

“Mame did it,” declared Kermit.

“He kept wriggling and diving under the bed,” Ted reported. “Mame couldn’t even hold him.”

“She tickles,” Kermit defended. “Will you tell us a story about the Wild West, Father?”

“Certainly not!” Edith was firm, detecting a faint sign of weakening on her husband’s face. “It’s far too late. Jump into bed quickly. Did Mame give you your tonic, Ted?”

“Yes.” He made a wry face. “I hate that gooey stuff.”

“You hate being sick, too, and the idea of not growing up as strong as the other boys,” their father reminded him.

“I hated that stuff I had to take to make my bones strong,” declared Kermit.

“You hated having to wear braces on your legs, too.” His father followed the boys into the nursery, gave each a friendly smack and tumbled them into bed. “But the braces made your legs strong enough so you can swim like the rest of us.”

“I still hate getting water in my ears,” stated Ted, pulling the covers up to his chin. “Will there be warmer bedrooms in that palace up in Albany, Father?”

“We’ll hope so—and it isn’t a palace. It’s officially called a mansion.”

“In storybooks governors always live in palaces. Does the president live in a palace in Washington?”

“No, just a big white house. You’ve seen it. You should remember.”

“I’ve seen so many places,” sighed Ted, “but I like this house best.”

“We all do. We’ll come back to it every summer,” promised Roosevelt.

The house was quiet at last but Edith Roosevelt, when they had completed the task of filling all the dangling stockings, lay awake a long time, her thoughts trying to search the future, what lay ahead for all those children. More of war and danger, more heart-racking anxiety for their mother? Perhaps it was best not to know, otherwise life would be one long torment of apprehension.

Morning showed a thin cover of snow on the ground, but before day came to reveal it plainly, there was pandemonium in the parents’ quiet bedroom as the children came rushing in lugging their stockings. Only small toys bulged in the stockings, but Alice proudly displayed a little gold bracelet and Archie, round-faced and beaming, bounced up and down on his father’s stomach excitedly cranking a small tin toy that made musical sounds as the handle turned.

“Get up, Father,” begged Ethel. “Get up and light the Christmas tree!”

“That room will be cold,” objected their mother. “Here, crawl under this blanket, all of you. Theodore, do poke up the fire.”

There were some embers left in the fireplace and he strode over, barefoot, in his night garb and jabbed and stirred at them, vigorously, piling on the wood till a roaring blaze was kindled. He liked fires to roar, horses to gallop, he had to put gusto into everything he did, his wife lay thinking.

“We’ll have breakfast first,” she said firmly. “No one will be downstairs this early, so all of you take your stockings and crawl back into your beds till Mame comes in. Then after breakfast we’ll light the Christmas trees in the gun room.”

“It’s cold in there too,” complained Ted, “cold as anything.”

“It’s cold everywhere. This is a winter’s day,” said Theodore. “Scamper now! No one is to stir out of bed again till Mame comes in.”

“She’s an awful sleepyhead,” complained Ethel. “She won’t stir for hours and hours.”

The gun room was not yet warm when at nine o’clock Theodore lighted the candles on the two Christmas trees, Mame standing by worriedly with a bucket of water and a dipper to head off any flickering blaze. She had wrapped each child in a heavy coat, but even that did not keep small fingers from cramping with cold as they fumbled with strings and wrappings, squealing happily over their treasures.

Ted gloated over a new sled while his mother wondered how it would be transported to Albany, for assuredly he would refuse to leave it behind. Ethel hugged a new doll and put it to bed repeatedly in its cradle her Aunt Bamie had sent, adjuring it to lie still now and Father would come and tell a story, maybe about cowboys.

At ten o’clock Roosevelt impulsively decided to go to church, and Alice and Ethel insisted on going with him. Wrapped in heavy coats they set out in the carriage, the girls with their chins buried in fur, their small noses pink with frost.

At the little Episcopal church Roosevelt got down and shook the door. It was locked fast. Presently a woman stuck her head out of the house next door.

“No services today,” she said. “The minister is sick with the grippe.” She came closer. “It’s Mister Roosevelt, isn’t it? Governor now, ain’t you? My man voted for you. He was at San Juan Hill.”

Instantly Theodore had his notebook out. “What was his name? I’ll remember him. I remember all my Rough Riders, they were a gallant lot of fellows.”

She told him the name. “He got wounded in a skirmish. But he got over it. Now he travels around selling housewares for some folks in Jersey City. He’s away down in Pennsylvania today. It was too far to come home for Christmas but it makes it a dreary time when the man’s away, the young ones miss him.”

As the carriage started up the hill Ethel announced, “I never got to put my five cents in the collection, Father.”

“You mean you’ve lost it already?”

“It’s in my mitten. Where Mother put it. Do I have to give it back to Mother?”

“No, you may keep it. When we get to Albany you can take a ride on the streetcar with it, but unless you can promote a little more cash you’ll have to walk back,” he teased.

“I’d have to take Mame with me,” she demurred, “and she always grumbles that her feet hurt.”

The good smell of dinner met them at the door as they entered, and some warmth from the glowing fires that had been piled high with logs. The furnaces too gave up a grudging wave of heat and, warming his hands at the wood fire, Theodore was glad they would not have to struggle with inadequate heating much longer. This house had been built for summer and was delightful at that season, catching the breezes from the Bay. The trouble was that the wind was just as enthusiastic in winter, and the curtains at the windows now waved gently as it frolicked around the high gables.

Ted was sitting on the stairs, capped and mittened, his new sled at his feet.

“I thought you’d never come, Father,” he fretted. “Mother says I can’t go out alone.”

“I don’t think he should go out at all,” declared Edith, “but I agreed to leave the decision to you.”

“There’s not enough snow, Ted,” his father told him. “It wouldn’t carry your sled. You’ll have to wait for a heavier snowfall. From the look of those clouds we should get it tonight.”

Ted stared ruefully out the window. “Why is God so stingy? In Albany there won’t be any place to use a sled. Mame said so.”

“There are parks in Albany, Ted,” Edith assured him, “and likely grounds around the capitol building and there is sure to be a hill there somewhere.”

“But it won’t be here! I want to slide here where we live.”

“I saw two flakes of snow falling,” comforted Alice. “I saw them on my muff.”

“Church must have been very short today,” Edith said. “You were only gone an hour.”

Theodore told her about the rector’s being housed with the grippe.

“I’m always afraid of that in winter,” she said. “That siege Ted had once weakened him so. That’s why I try to keep him from exposing himself.”

“Dinner is served,” was announced at the door.

“Let’s all march in,” Theodore suggested.

“But first we must all wash our hands,” said the mother. “Run along upstairs. Ted, leave your hat and coat up there. I’m not sure I want you outside today.”

“The outside air can’t hurt him,” demurred Roosevelt, when the troop had pelted off up the stairs.

“You aren’t sure of that. You can be too insistent about toughening up Ted, as the doctor reminded you. After all, you were a frail child yourself.”

“But my life in Dakota toughened me. Now I never have a pain and rarely a cold,” he insisted.

“You were grown then. Give your sons a chance to grow, Theodore.”

“I suppose you are right. You usually are. Anyway, this is going to be a dour day, although those clouds show a few signs of thinning and letting the sun shine through.” He studied the sky from the window.

They went in to dinner then and there was the usual argument about who should say grace. Ethel won and hurried through the little verse, conscious of impatient looks from her brothers, moving their eyes though their heads were bowed.

There was a bounteous spread on the table and for the first time in days there were no guests. Obviously everyone was respecting a family’s desire for privacy on this holiday and Edith was grateful.

The big turkey that old Davis, the gardener, had fattened in a little pen, feeding it corn and all the scraps from the kitchen, stood brown and beautiful at the head of the table and Theodore sharpened the carving knife on the steel with a ringing noise.

“Only two drumsticks,” he remarked, slicing away, “so somebody has to be content with the second joint.”

The expected shrill protests arose, Kermit insisting that he had never had a drumstick since he could remember.

“You can’t remember long then,” declared Ted, “for you had one at Thanksgiving.”

“We’ll settle this.” Roosevelt took an envelope from his pocket and tore it into strips, two longer than the others. “The long pieces get the drumsticks and no more said about it.” He folded them carefully in his hands with the ends visible and passed them around the table.

Ethel and Archie won and squealed with delight, while Alice remarked philosophically, “I’d rather have breast, anyway. Drumsticks are dry and tough.”

Before the dessert was served, the maid approached the head of the table.

“Three gentlemen to see Mr. Roosevelt,” she announced.

“Ask them in to the fire and invite them to sit down and wait,” said Theodore. “Are they elderly gentlemen?”

“No, sir. They’re young and sort of brown and tough looking.”

He jumped, upsetting his glass of water. “My boys!” he exclaimed, hurrying out while Kermit and Archie scurried after.

“Soldiers, Mother,” Kermit ran back to report, “and Father’s hugging them.”

“How do you know they’re soldiers?” demanded Ted.

“They saluted!” Kermit was triumphant. “Just like Father taught us.”

Oh, me! wailed Edith Roosevelt silently to herself, not even Christmas dinner alone! She rang the bell quickly.

“Set three more places,” she directed the girl who answered. “Mr. Roosevelt will have guests. But you are all to sit still,” she ordered the children.

“Don’t I stand up and bow like you told me?” asked Ted.

“No, you only bow a little when you are introduced.”

“You only stand up for ladies,” explained Alice.

Edith rose herself to greet the three young men who followed Theodore into the dining room. They were plainly dressed and obviously slightly embarrassed. Roosevelt introduced them by name or rather by nicknames.

“This is Lew, and Ike, and Cricket. They shared their shelter with me one rainy night in Cuba.”

“We hate to bust in this way, ma’am,” said Cricket, who was older than the other two. “We asked the Colonel to let us go and wait and come back.”

“Nonsense! You’ve come a long way and it’s cold outside,” the Colonel said. “Sit here, and here, and you, Ike, over there.” He introduced the children who forgot to eat in their excitement.

“Mighty pretty daughters you’ve got, Colonel. Smart-looking boys, too,” said Ike.

“Thank you,” Edith replied graciously, not looking at Alice, who had murmured thanks and straightened her shoulders, posing a little as she was inclined to do.

Roosevelt ordered the turkey brought back and began carving and filling the three extra plates put before him.

“These boys came up here all the way from South Carolina,” he explained to Edith, “and stopped to call on me.”

“We’re on our way to Pennsylvania. Got jobs in the mills there, ma’am, but when we got near this place we just had to see the Colonel, so we hired a rig and come out here. Never thought about its being Christmas.”

“You’re very welcome,” Edith assured them.

“Did you kill any Spaniards in Cuba?” asked Ted, while the visitors helped themselves gratefully to the food being served by the maid.

“Well, we shot at a lot of them, so we must have hit a few,” replied Cricket.

“Anyway, they were shooting at us from up in trees and under bushes, and there were too many trees and bushes for a man to take any chances.”

“Anyway, we licked ’em,” said Lew. “When a Spaniard runs he runs. And yells.”

“Have you got your guns?” Ethel asked.

“No, miss, we were discharged from service so we turned in our rifles.”

“Father has a lot of guns,” observed Kermit. “Ted can shoot, but I can’t.”

“You will be old enough before long,” said his father. “Ted shoots very well for an eleven-year-old.”

“I hit the bull’s eye twice,” Ted bragged, while Edith controlled the little jerk of panic she always felt when she thought of her eldest son with that gun. “Teach him early enough and he’ll know how to handle a weapon wisely,” had been Theodore’s argument when the new light rifle had been brought home.

Edith excused herself when the meal was over and went upstairs but the children refused to follow as she suggested. They followed the men instead, even Alice taking a chair in a corner, tucking her feet up under her, a habit Mame much deplored. Ted sprawled on his stomach on the floor at his father’s feet, chin on palms, while Archie crawled under Roosevelt’s chair and curled up there, half asleep.

The talk was fascinating to the children, even to Ethel, who had never showed any female dismay at violence; indeed she was a real little warrior herself, holding her own with two older brothers. All the Roosevelt children had been taught to stand for the right and fight for it if necessary, and there had been times when their mother secretly regretted this branch of her husband’s education, when Ted came home with a split lip and spectacles bent, or all of them engaged in battles in the nursery.

Alice had her own room now and was inclined to stay aloof when violence threatened, but earlier she had been one of the stoutest fighters.

Kermit leaned on his father’s shoulder drinking in the stories of Spanish ambushes and night attacks, of the renegade Cubans who begged food from the Rough Riders and then carried information to the Spanish headquarters.

“I shot one buzzard,” said Cricket. “He begged for some beans and I only had a spoonful and then he drew out a rusty old pistol. I got him before he could cock it.”

“Bang between the eyes?” questioned Kermit.

“Well, no. Elsewhere in the body,” replied Cricket delicately. “But the worst thing in Cuba wasn’t the Spaniards or being shot at, it was the goldurn mosquitoes—begging your pardon, Colonel.”

“They were so thick we had to cover up our heads with blankets to get any sleep.” Lew took up the story while Roosevelt smiled ruefully. “We couldn’t light a fire to smoke ’em out most of the times. That was what their sharpshooters were waiting for. Man show himself in the light and down he went!”

“The fever was bad too,” Roosevelt said. “It has already made very doubtful any hope of building a canal across Panama.”

“We had more sick with fever than we had wounded, even when we charged the Hill,” Ike recalled. “Well, we must be heading back, you fellows. It’s been fine seeing you again, Colonel, and we’re sure proud New York elected you governor.”

“We sure are,” agreed his lanky companions, rising to their feet.

“Our thanks for a good dinner, sir, and give our thanks to your good wife. We better push on, our man we hired to drive us is waiting and our train leaves at six o’clock and it’s a long way to the station.”

“I’m honored by your visit, boys,” Roosevelt followed them into the hall, the children trotting after.

When the Rough Riders had gone, Roosevelt picked up the sleeping Archie and carried him up the stairs, Ted climbing after, asking with every breath, “Can I go out now, Father? Is there enough snow for my sled?”

“There’s almost no more snow, Ted, but we’ll hope for some to fall overnight. Those fellows,” he said to Edith when he had put Archie on his bed and covered him well, “came out of their way to see me and I was very much honored by their visit. They hired that driver too and I don’t doubt they needed the money. Men who work in mills and have families have little money to spare. At least I know Cricket has a family. He showed me pictures of two boys when we were waiting for transportation in Tampa. He attached himself to me as a sort of unofficial aide. There was not much emphasis on rank in my command.”

“And what there was I’m sure you ignored,” said Edith indulgently. “It was undoubtedly a very democratic organization.”

“When you’re depending on a man to fire in time to save your life you have no use for protocol. That boy Lew, who had so little to say, twice saved my horse from being shot under me. Rank loses its importance when a lot of savage men are attacking you, and you see your men fall and know the next bullet may be for you. They were all gallant, all of them. I owe them more than I can ever repay.”

“Shall we go down now to the fires?” Edith asked. “By the way, Davis won’t be back today. I gave him Christmas afternoon off to be with his family. Some of his children have come home bringing their children with them. Can you attend to the furnaces?”

“I’d better put on some overalls. That’s a dirty job. Then I’m going to take the youngsters out awhile. We can have a romp in the barn. They get too restless in the house all day. I’ll keep Ted’s feet dry,” he promised.

“And don’t let them get overheated,” she warned. “That thermometer downstairs hasn’t risen above freezing all day. It seems awfully cold for so early in the winter. I hear Quentin now. I’ll take him down by the fire so Mame can get some rest.”

He shrugged into a rough army coat and cotton overalls and went below to poke and rattle vociferously at the two furnaces, shoveling out ashes, wondering whimsically what the important politicians of New York would think if they saw their governor-elect carrying a hod? Certainly they would respect him the more if they saw him in working garb at such a menial task, at least the working classes would and there were a lot more of them who had voted for him.

When the furnaces were filled and burning well he carried up several armloads of wood, panting a little from the steepness of the stairs. Edith sat beside the fire holding small Quentin, while Kermit crawled about her feet, pushing a toy cannon about and yelling “Bang!”

Edith looked him over, aghast. “Theodore, those are your church clothes!”

“I had overalls over them and a jacket, but I’m going up to change now to take the children out.”

Kermit jumped up and rushed after him, shouting, “Father’s going out to play. Father’s going out to play.”

Alice emerged from her room where she had been stowing away her Christmas presents, and in the nursery Ethel hastily put her doll to bed and flew out.

“May we climb trees, Father?” she asked.

“Not today. It’s too damp and cold. Today we’ll play in the barn.”

Archie woke up then and came trudging after his father. “Are you going to shave, Father? May we watch you shave?”

“No, I’m not going to shave. Find your coat and cap. Mame’s asleep and Mother’s busy with the baby. Ted! Where are you? This expedition is about to start. Overshoes for everybody. Bring yours in here, Archie, and I’ll buckle them for you.”