Theodore Roosevelt | Page 7

prayed the Lord to bless the Union Cause; knowing her Southern preferences he took this humorous sort of vengeance on her. She, too, had humor and was much amused, but she warned him that if he repeated such impropriety at that solemn moment, she should tell his father.
Theodore and the other children had a great fondness for pets, and their aunt, Mrs. Robert, possessed several of unusual kinds--pheasants and peacocks which strutted about the back yard and a monkey which lived on the back piazza. They were afraid of him, although they doubtless watched his antics with a fearful joy. From the accounts which survive, life in the nursery of the young Roosevelts must have been a perpetual play-time, but through it all ran the invisible formative influence of their parents, who had the art of shaping the minds and characters of the little people without seeming to teach.
Almost from infancy Theodore suffered from asthma, which made him physically puny, and often prevented him from lying down when he went to bed. But his spirit did not droop. His mental activity never wearied and he poured out endless stories to the delight of his brother and sisters. "My earliest impressions of my brother Theodore," writes his sister, Mrs. Robinson, "are of a rather small, patient, suffering little child, who, in spite of his suffering, was the acknowledged head of the nursery .... These stories," she adds, "almost always related to strange and marvelous animal adventures, in which the animals were personalities quite as vivid as Kipling gave to the world a generation later in his 'Jungle Books.'"
Owing to his delicate health Theodore did not attend school, except for a little while, when he went to Professor MacMullen's Academy on Twentieth Street. He was taught at home and he probably got more from his reading than from his teachers. By the time he was ten, the passion for omnivorous reading which frequently distinguishes boys who are physically handicapped, began in him. He devoured Our Young Folks, that excellent periodical on which many of the boys and girls who were his contemporaries fed. He loved tales of travel and adventure; he loved Cooper's stories, and especially books on natural history.
In summer the children spent the long days out of doors at some country place, and there, in addition to the pleasure of being continuously with nature, they had the sports and games adapted to their age. Theodore was already making collections of stones and other specimens after the haphazard fashion of boys. The young naturalist sometimes met with unexpected difficulties. Once, for instance, he found a litter of young white mice, which he put in the ice-chest for safety. His mother came upon them, and, in the interest Of good housekeeping, she threw them away. When Theodore discovered it he flew into a tantrum and protested that what hurt him most was "the loss to Science! the loss to Science!" On another occasion Science suffered a loss of unknown extent owing to his obligation to manners. He and his cousin had filled their pockets and whatever bags they had with specimens. Then they came upon two toads, of a strange and new variety. Having no more room left, each boy put one of them on top of his head and clapped down his hat. All went well till they met Mrs. Hamilton Fish, a great lady to whom they had to take off their hats. Down jumped the toads and hopped away, and Science was never able to add the Bufo Rooseveltianus to its list of Hudson Valley reptiles.
In 1869 Mr. Roosevelt took his family to Europe for a year. The children did not care to go, and from the start Theodore was homesick and little interested. Of course, picture galleries meant nothing to a boy of ten, with a naturalist's appetite, and he could not know enough about history to be impressed by historic places and monuments. He kept a diary from which Mr. Hagedorn* prints many amusing entries, some of which I quote:
* H. Hagedorn: The Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt. Harper & Bros. 1918.
Munich, October. "In the night I had a nightmare dreaming that the devil was carrying me away and had collorer morbos (a sickness that is not very dangerous) but Mama patted me with her delicate fingers."
Little Conie also kept a diary: the next entry is from it:
Paris. "I am so glad Mama has let me stay in the butiful hotel parlor while the poor boys have been dragged off to the orful picture galary."
Now Theodore again:
Paris, November 26. "I stayed in the house all day, varying the day with brushing my hair, washing my hands and thinking in fact haveing a verry dull time."
"Nov. 27. I Did the same thing as yesterday."
Chamounix. "I found several specimens