so badly that he would never again be heard of.

"Do as you please, gentlemen," said the governor. "I am here to do my duty, and I intend to do it." And he called an extra session of the legislature for that purpose. It is said that much money was used by some corporations to defeat Governor Roosevelt's will, but in the end a modified form of the bill was passed. Since that time other bills along similar lines have become laws; so that the great corporations have to pay millions of dollars which in the past they had escaped paying. Such measures are of immense benefit to the ordinary citizen, and for his share in this work Theodore Roosevelt deserves great credit.

It was while governor of New York that Mr. Roosevelt gave to the public his book entitled "The Rough Riders." It contains a history of that organization from his personal point of view, and makes the most fascinating kind of reading from beginning to end. It was well received, and added not a little to the laurels of the writer as an author.

Although much of his time was spent at

Albany as Executive, Theodore Roosevelt had not given up the old homestead at Oyster Bay on Long Island, and thither he went for rest and recreation, taking his entire family, which, as has been said, consisted of his wife and six children, with him.

The old Roosevelt homestead is on a hill about three miles distant from the village. The road to the house winds upward through a wilderness of trees and brushwood. At the top of the hill, where the house stands, is a cleared space, free to the strong breezes of Long Island Sound. It is on the north shore, about twenty-five miles from City Hall, New York.

The house is a large, three-story affair, with crossed gables, and a large semicircular veranda at one end. Inside there is a wide hall, and all the rooms are of good size, with broad windows and inviting open fireplaces. One room is fitted up as Mr. Roosevelt's "den," with many bookcases filled with books, and with rare prints of Washington, Lincoln, and other celebrities on the walls, and with not a few trophies of the hunt added. In this room Mr. Roosevelt has done much of his work as an author.

It is said that Abraham Lincoln not only chopped wood for a living, but that he rather enjoyed the outdoor exercise. Be that as it may, it remains a fact that Mr. Roosevelt frequently goes forth into the woods on his estate to fell a tree, or split one up, just for the exercise thus afforded. This he did while he was governor of New York, and once astonished some newspaper men who had come to see him on business by the dexterity with which he cut a large tree trunk in two. He even invited his visitors to "take a hack at it" themselves, but they respectfully declined.

He still kept up his athletic exercise, and one of his favorite amusements was to go on long horseback rides, either alone, or with some relative or friend. At other times he would go deep into the woods with his young sons, showing them how to bring down the nuts from the trees, or how to use their guns on any small game that chanced to show itself. His family life was then, as it has always been, a happy one; but of this let us speak later.