A letter dated February 5, 1877, shows the Boston of those days in a very pleasant light. He begins: “Little Pussie: I have had a very pleasant time this week as, in fact, I have every week. It was cram week for ‘Conic Sections’ but, by using most of my days for study, I had two evenings, besides Saturday, free. On Wednesday evening, Harry Jackson gave a large sleighing party; this was great fun for there were forty girls and fellows and two matrons in two huge sleighs. We sang songs for a great part of the time for we soon left Boston and were dragged by our eight horses rapidly through a great many of the pretty little towns which form the suburbs of Boston. One of the girls looked quite like Edith only not nearly as pretty as her ladyship. We came home from our sleigh ride about nine and then danced until after twelve. I led the German with Harry Jackson’s cousin, Miss Andrews. After the party, Bob Bacon, Arthur Hooper, myself and some others, came out in a small sleigh to Cambridge, making night hideous with our songs. On Saturday I went with Minot Weld to an Assembly (a juvenile one I mean) at Brookline. This was a very swell affair, there being about sixty couples in the room. I enjoyed myself very much indeed.... I came home today in time for my Sunday-school class; I am beginning to get very much interested in my scholars, especially in one who is a very orderly and bright little fellow—two qualities which I have not usually found combined. Thank Father for his dear letter. Your loving brother, Ted.”
The above letter shows how normal a life the young man was leading, how simply and naturally he was responding to the friendly hospitality of his new Boston friends. Boston had welcomed him originally for the sake of his older sister, who, during two charming summer visits to Bar Harbor, Maine, had made many New England friends. The Sunday-school which he mentions, and to which he gave himself very faithfully, proved a big test of character, for it was a great temptation to go with the other fellows on Saturday afternoons to Chestnut Hill or Brookline or Milton, where open house was kept by the Lees, Saltonstalls, Whitneys, and other friends, and it was very hard either to refuse their invitation from the beginning or to leave the merry parties early Sunday morning and return to Cambridge to be at his post to teach the unruly little people of the slums of Cambridge. So deeply, however, had the first Theodore Roosevelt impressed his son with the necessity of giving himself and the attainments with which his superior advantages had endowed him to those less fortunate than he, that all through the first three years of his college life he only failed to appear at his Sunday-school class twice, and then he arranged to have his class taken by a friend. Truly, when he put his hand to the plough he never turned back.
On March 27 of his first year at college he writes again in his usual sweet way to his younger sister: “Little Pet Pussie: 95 per cent will help my average. I want to pet you again awfully! You cunning, pretty, little, foolish Puss. My easy chair would just hold myself and Pussie.” Again on April 15: “Little Pussie: Having given Motherling an account of my doings up to yesterday, I have reserved the more frivolous part for little pet Pussie. Yesterday, in the afternoon, Minot Weld drove me over to his house and at six o’clock we sallied forth in festive attire to a matinée ‘German’ at Dorchester which broke up before eleven o’clock. This was quite a swell affair, there being about 100 couples.... I spent last night with the Welds and walked back over here to Forest Hill with Minot in the afternoon, collecting a dozen snakes and salamanders on the way.” Still the natural historian, even although on pleasure bent; so snakes and salamanders hold their own in spite of “swell matinée Germans.” From Forest Hill that same Sunday he writes a more serious letter to his father: “Darling Father: I am spending my Easter vacation with the Minots, who, with their usual kindness, asked me to do so. I did not go home for I knew I should never be able to study there. I have been working pretty steadily, having finished during the last five days, the first book of Horace, the sixth book of Homer, and the ‘Apology of Socrates.’ In the afternoon, some of the boys usually come out to see me and we spend that time in the open air, and on Saturday evening I went to a party, but during the rest of the time I have been working pretty faithfully. I spent today, Sunday, with the Welds and went to their church where, although it was a Unitarian Church, I heard a really remarkably good sermon about ‘The Attributes of a Christian.’ I have enjoyed all your letters very much and my conscience reproaches me greatly for not writing you before, but as you may imagine, I have had to study pretty hard to make up for lost time, and a letter with me is very serious work. Your loving son, T. R. Jr.”
On June 3, as his class day approaches, and after a visit to Cambridge on the part of my father, who had given me and my sister and friends Edith Carow and Maud Elliott the treat of accompanying him, Theodore writes: “Sweet Pussie: I enjoyed your visit so much and so did all of my friends. I am so glad you like my room, and next year I hope to have it even prettier when you all come on again.” His first class day was not specially notable, but he finished his freshman year standing high in his class and having made a number of good friends, although at that period I do not think that he was in any marked degree a leader amongst the young men of the class. He was regarded more as an all-round good sport, a fellow of high ideals from which he never swerved, and one at whom his companions, who, except Harry Minot, had not very strong literary affiliations, were always more or less surprised because of the way in which their otherwise perfectly normal comrade sank into complete oblivion when the magic pages of a book were unrolled before him.
That summer, shortly after class day, he and Harry Minot took their expedition to the Adirondacks with the following results, namely: a catalogue written in the mountains of “The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, N. Y., by Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and H. D. Minot.” This catalogue was sent to me by Mr. John D. Sherman, Jr., of Mt. Vernon, N. Y. He tells me that it was originally published in 1877 and favorably mentioned soon after publication in the Nuttall Bulletin. Mr. Sherman thinks that the paper was “privately” published, and it was printed by Samuel E. Casino, of Salem, who, when a mere boy, started in the natural-history-book business. The catalogue shows such careful observation and such perseverance in the accumulation of data by the two young college boys that I think the first page worthy of reproduction as one of the early evidences of the careful study Theodore Roosevelt had given to the subject which always remained throughout his life one of the nearest to his heart.
[Facsimile:
THE SUMMER BIRDS
OF THE ADIRONDACKS IN FRANKLIN COUNTY, N. Y.
By THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Jr., and H. D. MINOT
The following catalogue (written in the mountains) is based upon observations made in August, 1874, August, 1875, and June 22d to July 9th, 1877, especially about the Saint Regis Lakes, Mr. Minot having been with me, only during the last week of June. Each of us has used his initials in making a statement which the other has not verified.
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.