28 BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 



best to "hit the hne hard." We are not told that he shone as a student 

 or graduated amid acclamations, but during his years within college 

 walls he added much to the strength of his physical and mental fibre. 



The anecdotes extant of his college career are evidence of this. 

 He lived the life strong, took active part in all that was going on, and 

 became quickly a favorite with his class. They laughed at his odd 

 ways and at his enthusiasm, voted him "more or less crazy," but 

 respected him for his scholarship and found themselves falling into 

 his ways. 



There was an instance of this when he began the child-like 

 exercise of skipping the rope, claiming that it was excellent for 

 strengthening the leg muscles. Soon his classmates, convinced by his 

 arguments, were following in his track, and rope-skipping became a 

 pastime of the class. In the gymnasium they wore red stockings with 

 their exercise suits. Roosevelt donned a pair of patriotic red-and- 

 white striped ones, and did not know at first at what his fellows were 

 laughing. When he was told he laughed, too, but kept them on. 



There were none of the college games in which he did not take 

 part. He did not shine in any of them, but they gave him strength 

 and vigor, which was what he was after, rather than victory. He 

 played polo, he wrestled and ran with his fellows, he drove a two- 

 wheeled gig — badly enough, but he enjoyed it. His first bout with 

 the boxing gloves was with the champion of the class, a man twice 

 his size and weight, with whom he instinctively matched himself. The 

 pummeling that followed he took with good will, and though his 

 glasses fell ofif, leaving him half blind, he grimly refused to cry quarter, 

 and pressed tlie fight home with all the vim of a berserker. Never since 

 has he learned how to cry quarter or to acknowledge in any fight that 

 he has been whipped. 



There is one story told of him worth repeating, though it may be 

 a college fable. In one of his boxing bouts his antagonist took a mean 

 advantage, and struck him, drawing blood, while Roosevelt was still 

 adjusting his glove. "Foul!" cried the bystanders, but Roosevelt 

 merely smiled grimly. 



"I guess you have made a mistake. That is not our way here," 

 he said, offering his hand to the fellow as a sign to begin hostilities. 



