CHAPTER VII.
BACK AT SAGAMORE HILL.
The trip of ex-President Roosevelt from Mercy Hospital, Chicago, to his home at Oyster Bay, beginning the morning of October 21 over the Pennsylvania road is described here by one of the correspondents who traveled with him. Under date of October 21, he wrote at Pittsburg, Pa.:
"On a mellow autumn day whose warmth seemed to breathe a tender sympathy, Col. Roosevelt traveled from Chicago today on his way to Oyster Bay on the most extraordinary trip ever undertaken by a candidate for the presidency.
"Unable because of sheer weakness to show himself on the platform of his private car, the stricken Bull Moose leader, with blinds drawn in his stateroom, listened with throbbing heart to the soft murmuring of eager throngs as they clustered at the stations along the way. As the train rolled into Pittsburg tonight the colonel, shaken up by the jostling of the train, meekly confessed to Dr. Alexander Lambert, his New York physician, who with Dr. Scurry Terrell, are making the trip with him, that he was 'tired out.'
"'I'm going to put in a sound night of sleep,' he sighed, 'I'll be all right again in the morning.'
"The bullet nestling in the colonel's chest and the splintered rib gave him more discomfort than the wounded leader had counted on. As the train jolted at times the ex-President experienced piercing pain. But he bore it without a whimper.
"When night came the physicians agreed that although the tumbling of the train had caused the colonel more worry than he would admit, he would suffer no ill effects.
"The ex-President's leisurely jaunt through Ohio, for he is running upon a twenty-four hour train, was in truth an occasion of tragic quiet. The waiting throngs which half anticipated that they would see the plucky third party fighter walk out onto platform of his car, stood in a respectful attitude as they learned that the colonel was unable to see them.