toward the hill with the cedars, where the soil is warm and full of white pebbles, and it is nice to lie in the grass when strawberries are ripe.

Roses were blooming still, and heliotrope and sweet alyssum, in Mrs. Roosevelt's garden, and down at the foot of the long lawn a wild vine crept caressingly over the stone that marks the resting-place of the children's pets. "Faithful Friends" is hewn in its rough face, with the names of Susie," Jessie," and "Boz." How many rabbits, rats, and guineapigs keep them company in their ghostly revels I shall not say. No one knows unless it be Kermit, who has his own ways and insists upon decent but secret burial as among the inalienable rights of defunct pets. It was his discovery, one day in the White House, that a rabbit belonging to Archie lay unburied in the garden a whole day after its demise, which brought about a court-martial in the nursery. Ted, the oldest brother, was Judge-Advocate-General, and his judgment was worthy of a Solomon.

"It was Archie's rabbit," he said gravely, when all the evidence was in, " and it is Archie's funeral. Let him have it in peace."

Poor "Susie "-ill named, for "she was a

he-came nearer to provoking irreverence in me, by making me laugh in church, than anything that has happened since I was a boy. I had come out on a Sunday, and finding the President's carriage at the church, went in to join in the worship while waiting for him.

Susie" lay in the vestibule, and at sight of me manifested his approval by pounding the floor with his club tail until the sound of it reverberated through the building like rolling thunder. The door opened, and a pale young man came out to locate the source of the disturbance. Discovering it in "Susie's” tail, he grabbed him by the hind legs and dragged him around so that the blows might fall on the soft door-mat. But "Susie," pleased with the extra attention paid him, hammered harder than ever, and in his delight stretched himself so far that his tail still struck the hollow floor. I was convulsed with laughter, but never a smile crossed the countenance of the proper young man. He studied " Susie "thoughtfully, made a mental diagram of his case, then took a fresh hold and dragged him around, this time to a safe harbor, where he might wag as he would without breaking the Sabbath peace. I am

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glad I sat five seats behind Mr. Roosevelt during the rest of the service, and that he knew nothing of "Susie's" doings; for if he had turned his head and given me as much as one look, I should have broken right out laughing and made a scandal.

When we drove back to the village that November day I caught him looking back once or twice toward the house in its bower of crimson shrubs, and I saw that his heart was there. You would not wonder if you knew it. I never go away from Sagamore Hill without a feeling that if I lived there I would never leave it, and that nothing would tempt me to exchange it for the White House, with all it stands for. But then I am ten years older than Theodore Roosevelt; though it isn't always the years that count. For I think if it came to a vote, the children would carry my proposition with a shout. Not that Sagamore Hill has anything to suggest a palace. Quite the contrary: it is a very modest home for the President of the United States. On a breezy hilltop overlooking field and forest and Sound, with the Connecticut shore on the northern horizon, its situation is altogether taking. The house is comfortable,

filled with reminders of the stirring life its owner has led in camp and on the hunting-trail, and with a broad piazza on the side that catches the cool winds of summer. But it is homelike rather than imposing. It is the people themselves who put the stamp upon it,—the life they live there together.

Truly, together. The President is boy with his boys there. He puts off the cares of state and takes a hand in their games; and if they lagged before, they do not lag then. It is he who sets Josiah, the badger, free, and bids all hands skip, and skip lively; for Josiah's one conscious aim, when out of his cage, appears to be to nip a leg,- any leg, even a Presidential leg, within reach,—and he makes for them all successively in his funny, preoccupied way. Josiah, then a very small baby badger, was heaved on board the Presidential train out in Kansas last year, by a little girl who shouted his name after the train, and was brought up on a nursing-bottle till he cut his teeth. Since then he has been quite able to shift for himself. At present he looks more like a small, flat mattress, with a leg under each corner, than anything else. That is the President's description of

him, and it is a very good one. I wish I could have shown you him one morning last summer when, having vainly chased the President and all the children, he laid siege to Archie in his hammock. Archie was barelegged and prudently stayed where he was, but the hammock hung within a few inches of the grass. Josiah promptly made out a strategic advantage there, and went for the lowest point of it with snapping jaws. Archie's efforts to shift continuously his center of gravity while watching his chance to grab the badger by its defenseless back, was one of the funniest performances I ever saw. Josiah lost in the end.

The President himself teaches his boys how to shoot; he swims with them in the cove and goes with them on long horseback rides, starting sometimes before sunrise. On fine days, as often as he can get away, luncheon is packed in the row-boat and he takes the whole family rowing to some distant point on the shore, which even the secret service men have not discovered, and there they spend the day, the President pulling the oars going and coming. Or else he takes Mrs. Roosevelt alone on a little jaunt, and these two, over whose honeymoon