Lieutenant-Governor William Francis Sheehan once told a story illustrative of the Colonel’s whole-hearted spirit of adventure. Repeating a conversation he had with Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Sheehan described the former President as standing before the mounted skin of a monster grizzly bear which he had shot at close range—so close that the odds at one instant seemed greatly in favor of the grizzly. After a description of the dramatic fight the Colonel suddenly turned to Sheehan and said:
“But, Governor, I shall never be satisfied until I have killed a grizzly bear with a knife!”
When one reads of Roosevelt in such surroundings one does not wonder that the Roosevelt home at Sagamore Hill at times resembled a veritable menagerie. At one time there were a lion, a hyena, a zebra, five bears, a wildcat, a coyote, two macaws, an eagle, a barn owl and several snakes and lizards. Kangaroo rats and flying squirrels slept in the pockets and blouses of the Roosevelt children, went to school with them and often were guests at dinner. While campaigning in Kansas in 1903 a little girl brought a baby badger, carried by her brother, to Roosevelt’s train, whence it was later transferred to the Sagamore Hill menagerie. There was a guinea-pig named Father O’Grady by the children, but this proved to be of the softer sex. One day two of the children rushed breathlessly into a room where the Roosevelts were entertaining mixed company. “Oh! oh!” they cried. “Father O’Grady has had some children!”
As a result of their closeness to nature Roosevelt’s sons became sportsmen and naturalists worthy of their father.
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., killed his first buck just before he was fourteen, and his first moose, a big bull with horns that spread fifty-six inches, just before he was seventeen. Both of these animals were killed in the wilderness, on hunting trips which tested to the utmost the boy’s endurance and skill.
IV
Champion of Women and Children
Many people misunderstood Roosevelt. Seeing the virile, fighting side of his nature, they came to look at him as representing strength without tenderness. On the contrary, no man was more tender to women, children and animals. He always impressed his close friend, Jacob Riis, as being as tender as a woman.
One day while Theodore Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he prevailed on Mr. Riis to go home with him. In those days the Roosevelt children were little. Instead of rushing upon Mr. Roosevelt when he entered the door, as was their custom later, they waited their father’s coming in the nursery.