THE BOY WHO COLLECTED ANIMALS

If you had been in New York in 1917 or 1918 you might have seen, walking quickly from a shop or a hotel to an automobile, a thick-set but active and muscular man, wearing a soft black hat and a cape overcoat.  Probably there would have been a group of people waiting on the sidewalk, as he came out, for this was Theodore Roosevelt, Ex-President of the United States, and there were more Americans who cared to know what he was doing, and to hear what he was saying, than cared about any other living man.

Although he was then a private citizen, holding no office, he was a leader of his country, which was engaged in the Great War.  Americans were being called upon,—­the younger men to risk their lives in battle, and the older people to suffer and support their losses.  Theodore Roosevelt had always said that it was a good citizen’s duty cheerfully to do one or the other of these things in the hour of danger.  They knew that he had done both; and so it was to him that men turned, as to a strong and brave man, whose words were simple and noble, and what was more important, whose actions squared with his words.

He had come back, not long before, from one of his hunting trips, and it was said that fever was still troubling him.  The people wish to know if this is true, and one of the men on the sidewalk, a reporter, probably, steps forward and asks him a question.

He stops for a moment, and turns toward the man.  Not much thought of sickness is left in the mind of any one there!  His face is clear, his cheeks ruddy,—­the face of a man who lives outdoors; and his eyes, light-blue in color, look straight at the questioner.  One of his eyes, it had been said, was dimmed or blinded by a blow while boxing, years before, when he was President.  But no one can see anything the matter with the eyes; they twinkle in a smile, and as his face puckers up, and his white teeth show for an instant under his light-brown moustache, the group of people all smile, too.

His face is so familiar to them,—­it is as if they were looking at somebody they knew as well as their own brothers.  The newspaper cartoonists had shown it to them for years.  No one else smiled like that; no one else spoke so vigorously.

“Never felt better in my life!” he answers, bending toward the man.

“But thank you for asking!” and there is a pleasant and friendly note in his voice, which perhaps surprises some of those who, though they had heard much of his emphatic speech, knew but little of his gentleness.  He waves his hand, steps into the automobile, and is gone.