CHAPTER VIII

SOME FOLKS FROM MAINE TURN A NEW HOUSE INTO A NEW HOME

THE

HE ranch-house was completed in the late spring. It was a spacious place for that region, and, in its plain fashion, comfortable and homelike. It was, above all, "fit for women folks," which was more than could be said of the shack with a dirt roof at Chimney Butte. Wilmot Dow was sent East in July "to fetch them out."

They came in early August, Will Dow with his newly wedded bride, escorting Bill Sewall's wife and three-year-old daughter. They were backwoodswomen, self-reliant, fearless, high-hearted, true mates to their stalwart men. Before Roosevelt knew what was happening they had turned the new house into a home.

And now for them all began a season of deep and quiet contentment that was to remain in the memories of all of them as a kind of idyl. It was a life of elemental toil, hardship, and danger, and of strong, elemental pleasures-rest after labor, food after hunger, warmth and shelter after bitter cold. In that life there was no room for distinctions of social posi

tion or wealth. They respected one another and cared for one another because and only because each knew that the others were brave and loyal and steadfast.

Life on the ranch proved a more joyous thing than ever, after the women had taken charge. They demanded certain necessities at once. They demanded chickens; they demanded at least one cow. No one had thought of a cow. So Roosevelt and Sewall and Dow between them roped one on the range and threw her, and sat on her, and milked her upside down, which was not altogether satisfactory, but was, for the time being, the best thing they could do. There was now a new charm in shooting game, with women at home to cook it. And Mrs. Sewall baked bread that was not at all like the bread Bill baked. Soon she was even baking cake, which was an unheard-of luxury in the Bad Lands. Then, after a while, the buffalo berries and wild plums began to disappear from the bushes round about and appear on the table as jam.

"However big you build the house, it won't be big enough for two women," pessimists had remarked. But their forebodings were not realized. At Elkhorn no cross word was heard. They were, taken alltogether, a very happy family. Roosevelt was "the boss," in the sense that, since he footed the bills, power of final decision was his; but only in that sense. He saddled his own horse; now and then he washed his own clothes; he fed the pigs; and once, on a rainy day, he blacked the Sunday boots of every man, woman, and child in the place. He was

not encouraged to repeat that performance. The folks from Maine made it quite clear that if the boots needed blacking at all, which was doubtful, they thought some one else ought to do the blackingnot at all because it seemed to them improper that Roosevelt should black anybody's boots, but because he did it so badly. The paste came off on everything it touched. The women "mothered" him, setting his belongings to rights at stated intervals, for he was not conspicuous for orderliness. He, in turn, treated the women with the friendliness and respect he showed to the women of his own family. And the little Sewall girl was never short of toys.

Elkhorn Ranch was a joyous place those days. Cowboys, hearing of it, came from a distance for a touch of home life and the luxury of hearing a woman's voice.

The summer days were for Roosevelt, as well as for his men, full of vigorous toil, beginning before the stars had fully faded out of the sky at dawn and ending in heavy slumber before the last of the sunset had been swallowed by the night. He was in the saddle much of the time, working among the cattle, salvaging steers mired in the numerous bogholes and quicksands, driving in calves overlooked in the spring branding, breaking ponies, hunting. Meanwhile he was writing a Life of Thomas Hart Benton for the "American Statesmen Series" and was preparing for the press a remarkably entertaining volume of hunting experiences called Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, which he had written the previous winter.