Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| President gave it. But it was something new to me then. I have heard of all sorts of things in a boy’s pocket,—fish-hooks and nails and bits of colored glass. But a live rat, never! |
| Kermit was along, last summer, when the President and Mrs. Roosevelt went down in the Sylph to Twin Island, to visit the summer home of my people in Henry Street. 1 He is n’t a bit awed by the Presidency. |
| “U-ugh!” he said, with a look of comic concern, as the President leaped into the launch, “something heavy went over then.” |
| That was the day the children of the East Side will remember to the last day of their lives. They absolutely deserted their dinner when word was brought that the Sylph had hove to outside the rocks, and with a wild rush made for the shore, where they stood and waved their flags and shouted their welcome. “Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!” And his foot had hardly touched the shore before there were from six to a dozen youngsters hanging to each hand, and plying him with questions as they danced up the jungle-path to the house, |