WITH ROOSEVELT AT PINE KNOT 



During my visit there we named over seventy- 

 five species of birds and fowl, he knowing all of 

 them but two, and I knowing all but two. He 

 taught me Bewick's wren and the prairie warbler, 

 and I taught him the swamp sparrow and one of 

 the rarer warblers; I think it was the pine warbler. 

 If he had found the Lincoln sparrow again, he 

 would have been one ahead of me. 



I remember talking politics a little with him 

 while we were waiting for the birds, and, knowing 

 that he was expecting Taft to be his successor, I 

 expressed my doubts as to Taft's being able to fill 

 his shoes. 



"Oh, yes, he can," he said confidently; "you 

 don't know him as well as I do." 



"Of course not," I admitted; "but my feeling is 

 that, though Taft is an able and amiable man, he 

 is not a born leader." 



(I am glad to say that Mr. Taft's recent course 

 in support of the proposed League of Nations has 

 quite brought me around to Roosevelt's estimate 

 of him.) 



Pine Knot is a secluded place in the woods. One 

 evening as we sat in the lamplight, he reading Lord 

 Cromer on Egypt, and I a book on the man- 

 eating lions of Tsavo, and Mrs. Roosevelt sit- 

 ting near with her needlework, suddenly Roosevelt's 

 hand came down on the table with such a bang 

 that it made us both jump, and Mrs. Roosevelt 



105 



