which flashed like a mountain brook through all his later
intercourse and made it delightful, seems to have begun with his
infancy. He used to say his prayers at his mother's knee, and one
evening when he was out of sorts with her, he prayed the Lord to
bless the Union Cause; knowing her Southern preferences he took
this humorous sort of vengeance on her. She, too, had humor and
was much amused, but she warned him that if he repeated such
impropriety at that solemn moment, she should tell his father.

Theodore and the other children had a great fondness for pets,
and their aunt, Mrs. Robert, possessed several of unusual
kinds--pheasants and peacocks which strutted about the back yard
and a monkey which lived on the back piazza. They were afraid of
him, although they doubtless watched his antics with a fearful
joy. From the accounts which survive, life in the nursery of the
young Roosevelts must have been a perpetual play-time, but
through it all ran the invisible formative influence of their
parents, who had the art of shaping the minds and characters of
the little people without seeming to teach.

Almost from infancy Theodore suffered from asthma, which made him
physically puny, and often prevented him from lying down when he
went to bed. But his spirit did not droop. His mental activity
never wearied and he poured out endless stories to the delight of
his brother and sisters. "My earliest impressions of my brother
Theodore," writes his sister, Mrs. Robinson, "are of a rather
small, patient, suffering little child, who, in spite of his
suffering, was the acknowledged head of the nursery .... These
stories," she adds, "almost always related to strange and
marvelous animal adventures, in which the animals were