sufficient not only to wipe out the entire bonded indebtedness of the
State ($7,000,000), but to leave ten or twelve millions clear in the
State treasury.

* * * * *

At Roswell, Georgia, a sleepy little hamlet in the hills, not many miles
from Atlanta, stands Bulloch Hall, where Martha ("Mittie") Bulloch,
later Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt, mother of the President, was born.
Roswell was originally settled, long ago, by people from Savannah,
Darien, and other towns of the flat, hot country near the coast, who
drove there in their carriages and remained during the summer. After a
time, however, three prosperous families--the Bullochs, Dunwoodys, and
Barrington Kings--made their permanent homes at Roswell.

Bulloch Hall is one of those old white southern colonial houses the
whole front of which consists of a great pillared portico, in the Greek
style, giving a look of dignity and hospitality. Almost all such houses
are, as they should be, surrounded by fine old trees; those at Bulloch
Hall are especially fine: tall cedars, ancient white oaks, giant osage
oranges, and a pair of holly trees, one at either side of the walk near
the front door.

Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and Mittie Bulloch met here when they were
respectively seventeen and fifteen years of age. A half sister of Miss
Mittie had married a relative of the Roosevelts and gone from Roswell to
live in Philadelphia, and it was while visiting at her home that young
Roosevelt, hearing a great deal of the South, conceived a desire to go
there. This resulted in his first visit to Bulloch Hall, and his
meeting with Mittie Bulloch. On his return to the North he was sent